Restructuring Classes in SWTOR

I can't believe anyone would want to leave it as it stands. It was a great system to get the game going, but like with any other MMO, it may be time to streamline things a bit.

How many geared 55's do you have? Be honest plz. (by geared I mean 180+)
I can see how your idea would have made sense when the game launched but those of us who have already put in the time to level and GEAR separate alts would be getting the shaft so others can get a shortcut.

Being honest with yourself, does the amount of time you chose to invest in something really justify the developers witholding positive improvements to the game later?

As Blizzard devs have stressed over and over, to make a good game, developers can't be held hostage by player emotions or entitlement senses. These things are not trivial, because gaming is inherently an emotional experience (as a hobby / pleasure craft), but they also can't dominate development decisions.

I mean (non-rhetorical here), how many other QoL changes can we think of in SWTOR or any other MMO that invalidated, trivialized, or otherwise rendered someone's "hard work" (always a creepy term in gaming...) obsolete or unnecessary?

At some point you have to accept that — just like IRL — things that are difficult or costly for you today, may not be for future generations. It's really about how much benefit and satisfaction you got from doing it when it mattered, not permanently hampering all future users just to make you feel better.

I mean gawsh, I leveled several alts before they implemented Double XP Weekends, Complimentary XP Boosts, I didn't have a steady income (so couldn't afford infinite CC to keep myself Boosted / twinked) ... took me way longer. Hours and hours I didn't "need" to spend.

But uh... it's cool, you know? I don't want them to deliberately make all future users' level-up process slower just because it took me longer when I first joined the game and has improved since then.

etc etc.

So by eliminating 8 classes the game gains what? Sure it might work for new players cause they would be getting 2 classes for the price of 1 but the game loses the possible revenue it could have generated by someone who does level a Merc and Powertech. Plus you'd eliminate many players preferred trees to an extent so that doesn't solve much. I would be furious if I lost the ability to use the Arsenal spec.

That's the problem though. I enjoy my Advance Class title. Sith Marauder sound infinitely better than Sith Warrior.

Because the possibility of having a tank/healer hybrid totally wouldn't completely and utterly break PvP......

Yeah separate out two different things: whether this is "necessary" (it seriously is not), and whether it would be "acceptable" (overall, I think it would be).

The original proposals (delete some trees) are definitely objectionable for some of the reasons you're citing.

The newest one floating around this thread is to simply literally mush the 2 ACs together, allowing you to spec into any of the 6 trees on 1 character.

So for example, PT + Merc would just become "Bounty Hunter" and have the following trees:

• Shieldtech
• Bodyguard
• Advanced Prototype
• Arsenal
• Pyrotech

With possible "subpaths" added into Pyrotech to allow you to choose between a Melee-focused or Range-focused design.

The idea is that nothing is really 'lost', they just cut out the fuss & confusion of ACs.

Now if your response is: "That is stupid and pointless, the game functions fine how it is", that's not an illegitimate argument. But I just want to keep everyone on the same page of what's being proposed at this point.

It wouldn't if the designers had any sense about them, because many other MMOs have this and it doesn't affect PvP in any serious way due to design constraints inflicted on each class.

For example — WoW's heyday — technically you could make some loopy Paladin Healer-Tank hybrid, right?

Except you didn't, because it sucked, because the abilities didn't work sensibly together, the gearing needs were different, the Stance used was different (and broke certain abilities no matter which Stance you picked), the resources conflicted (due to resource management differences between Tank and Heal mode), etc...

Like the basic concern is legit, but practically-speaking, it would easily be resolved by proper design choices.

So by merging AC's you'd use the same gear (armoring, earpiece, implants, relics) for your "merged" char without having to switch if you're going from tank to dps and vice versa?

The thing is I don't see why there is a need to merge the 2 Advanced Classes when they are working fine now.

I doubt that would be the case, since we already see within each AC that you can't share gear very effectively.

Tanks in DPS gear, and DPS in Tank gear, are quite gimped. Likewise, Healers and DPS have very different uses for their stat budgets — you "can" share, but you're not being optimal.

It would probably end up like it currently is — each Role needs its own gear (and perhaps each Spec, if you're really optimizing your DPS trees). All that really changes is the number of characters you collect that gear on, and how much you can do with one character.

There isn't. But objectively, there also isn't a need for most of the theoretical discussions that occur in eg, academic environments, yet they sometimes lead to surprising practical developments.

This topic is interesting in the sense of: "Would this work? Would the players be able to handle the change? Would it improve the game?" etc.

You're correct, this isn't needed. At all. But it could work and improve the system, and that's interesting to discuss IMO.