ETA on Advanced Class change?

Wow has 3 classes now that can swap to all 3 roles depending on spec. Paladins are not the OP class last I checked but that often fluctuates. I've never heard of a paladin seriously filling a healing role while tanking in a raid (ever)... but there's almost always been cases where tanks can pop off some healing and some dps can off-tank/off-heal and healers can do some damage. In this game my guardian or shadow gets off a lot of self-heal totals when tanking in pvp (shows up on wz boards). It is not even remotely game changing or relevant.

Sounds like fun, wish I could have joined in. Still I was there as soon as they opened the doors to the general public

Sounds unduly complicated, and really doesn't address the issue of end game flexibility. It may have been suited to a subscription only model where you want players to create more alts and thus invest more time in a character but in the hybrid model it is less attractive. If you were going to have a limit and a lock out to a permanent choice it only really makes sense to have it after a character has access to their final rotation.

I still have a hard time getting my head around the need for it to be a permanent choice at any stage. I can agree that it shouldn't be a choice made on a whim, hence why I think it should have an associated cartel coin cost, but limited number of uses and lock outs just add levels of complexity and data tracking that is unnecessary. I think it's an interesting question and one that ultimately reveals a schism in the player base and how they envision their character.

You will get no arguments here.. I think the light side and dark side has been a complete waste of time on their part.. I wish they would have done much more with it.. Sadly for now it seems that it only has a minor impact on your gear and that is about it..

They could have done more with the stories.. They are for the most part Single player affairs.. In fact I can't think of a single point in the Jedi, smuggler, and trooper stories that require another player.. So they very well could have made your LS/DS choice have an impact on out come.. It would have been nice..



Meh..

The benefit of having a set class with a preset set of skills is balance.. How would you make an Op that could allow anyone with any varying talents to succeed?? It would just seem to me that the freestyle approach isn't very structured and therefore hard to balance.. But then I have never played a game like that so.. I don't know.. It just seems to me that someone out there would find the worst build and couldn't do much of anything..

That boils down to one simple question... Do you want story or don't you?? This game was sold on the idea of story.. And I must say.. I tend to agree in many way.. I think the game lives or dies on story.. I enjoyed story when I was leveling.. I am starting to hating now that I am leveled..

This game is what is really because one simple reason.. Bioware wanted to create a game that would compete with WOW.. There was no game on the market that could directly compete with WOW.. They might have done it had EA not get involved.. This game was loosely designed around the system that WOW uses.. Characters creation is a bit different.. Character organization is completely different.. But there are a lot of skills that look the same to similar skills in WOW.. That circle of healing that sages do in this game.. Looks exactly like the circle of healing that Priests do in WOW.. In fact Sage healers and Priest healers could almost be one in the same.. Then we have companions and WOW does not..

Well.. Story is going to leave them pretty much restricted to the classes we have.. They have already said that cost to voice out and create the conversations for a new class will prohibit a new class from being added.. As for adding an AC?? I don't know if that one is going to happen either.. They really would have to add a new AC to all classes.. Which coding wise to me is more work that adding a new class.. You couldn't just add a new AC to consular and call it good.. You would have to add one to all of them.. Then the balance issues.. Which they have proven to be slow at fixing at times.. I am talking about the shadow and their spikiness here...

No.. I don't think faction change is ever going to happen.. This is one of those things where story is just going to kill it.. The companions are the biggest issue.. You can't exactly expect Elara Dorne to serve the empire again?? Kira Carsen is a child of the Imperor.. She fought all her life to break free of his hold.. She isn't going back.. What to do with them??

That is why I said, this game is going to both live and die by story... Story on the one hand is awesome and fun to play.. But like a book, you can only read it so many times.. I think this game is to restricted in a number of ways due to story.. And voice acting..

Ok.. Idea..

What if we added a new class that could either be both Imperial or Republic.. And it can be a faction change but doesn't have to be..

WOW had deathknights.. They started at level 50, there was a small starter area, it took you through about 8 levels then you dumped in to the normal story and sent to outland..

Something like that could be done here.. Either create a completely new character start at level 40 or something.. Play 10 levels and drop them into the normal story at Makeb.. Or, their current character can become this new class all companions are lost, level is reduced to 40, you choose what faction, play your 10 level and get new companions in that time.. Start out again at lvl 50 and Makeb??

Meh.. I need to stop driking coffee..

Right the pandas.. I forgot about them.. I stopped playing during Cataclysm.. I couldn't stomach playing a panda bear.. Although.. I did go back over the summer.. I thought the pet battles was an interesting concept.. I also liked that all pets were available to all of your characters.. I doubt Bioware would do that..

All I can remember from my time in WoW was the Paladin bubble and hearthstone. Not to mention their self heals still generated AOE threat.

And the AC swap as currently proposed wouldn't change that. If you were playing your Consular as a Shadow they would not have access to the default healing abilities of the Sage, and if you swapped over to playing as a Sage then you wouldn't have access to the taunt abilities and tanking stance of the Shadow. It would keep the unique abilities of the ACs separate. The biggest hurdle in implementing such a feature would be keeping track of the advancement in various abilities when you switch between them. My limited knowledge of object oriented programming suggests that it wouldn't be an insurmountable hurdle, especially if the abilities already have unique identities.

Considering the fact that the devs have NEVER reversed their stance that the AC's are fundamentally DIFFERENT class designs and that they see the AC's as DIFFERENT classes, it is not me that is attempting to pretend anything.

As a wiser man than I once said "What is, is. Upon this bedrock principle, everything else is built."

Some posters who want to claim that the AC's are not different classes in an attempt to muddy the waters surrounding this hot topic have even let slip that they DO know that the AC's are different classes. Let's look at two quotes:

The first poster wants to claim that all CLASSES share a skill tree, yet no classes share a skill tree. Basic classes or story lines share a skill tree, although the AC's share one similar but DIFFERENT skill tree. Since it is only the AC's that even be said to remotely share a skill tree, the first poster must realize that the AC's are different classes.

The second poster keeps saying that he is asking for the ability to swap AC's and not classes, yet he recognizes that this discussion revolves around class changes.

And I am suggesting that if BW made it even clearer than they already have that AC's are different classes, there would be less entrenched argument.

Could you BE any more self contradictory? in the first paragraph, you want to claim that other games definition of classes "works", even when chosen at creation,because the different classes use different weapons and have different abilities. Yet, in the last paragraph, you admit that the AC's use different weapons and have different abilities. It would seem that you, as well, understand that the AC's are different classes, and simply want to "change the rules" because they do not mesh with your desire to see class changes implemented.

I agree. I think that it is the devs, the original dev staff to be exact, that created this problem in the first place as I see it. Since they have not, to my knowledge, come flat out and said "AC is your class", and instead danced around the issue IMO they have invited speculation....not to mention the poor design in the first place.

If it was me, I would have your AC chosen at character creation. There would be no choice at level 10...you would choose your class at creation, as it should be.

Then no one would be able to say, IMO, that AC is not a class. I believe the argument would lose any teeth it may have.

Well.. Do we really need both AC swapping and Dual spec'ing for end game flexibility.. I never understood this concept that we should have 1 character that does it all.. The entire concept of specializing seems to be completely lost.. I can understand some character flexibility as long as it remains true to what the character is.. But running to the nearest phone booth to put your super suit on is to much in my opinion.. Where do we draw the line?? Are we going to let a Jedi Sentinel change into a trooper tank?? Or a gunslinger into a sage healer?? WOW never allowed you to change classes.. Your Warlock was forever a warlock.. You could change spec.. But you were still always a warlock.. In a lot of ways I think the integrity of our class needs to be protected.. Why should a shadow be allowed to become a sage or the other way around??

To me the need for it to be permanent is because it is your characters identity.. It is who your character is at a very fundamental level.. I don't understand why people are so willing to change it.. Also what is it that some people have against a choice they make having a consequence?? Or simply living with the choices they make??

What challenge is there in a game if they have the character that can do it all change into everything they will ever need, can make them into whatever they want to be and if I don't like it I can change it whenever I want??

That just doesn't seem to be a game to me.. It just seems like someone that doesn't really want to play the game, so they will make a single character and it needs to do everything.. I think people like that have lost what an RPG is.. You played D&D, you know what I am talking about..