ETA on Advanced Class change?

1) The need to buy/acquire new gear would BENEFIT the game. Crafters would sell more, GF queues would have more players who need their new gear and WZ's would have players regrinding new gear.

2) That's an assumption, not a fact. I'd argue that any player willing to change their AC, is likely a better player than your average player because they are probably swapping for a reason.

3) I'd argue that the ability to swap AC's would ENHANCE the connection to the character because you'd be on ONE toon vs swapping to alts.

4) Replayablity? It's 100% the EXACT SAME experience AC to AC. This has NO impact on that at all.

Ok, so you just want to make it punitive. Got it. I'm actually trying to support an option that would IMPROVE the player experience, not punish players.

None of those are valid reasons. I have decided.

See, I can do it, too.

1) The need to buy/acquire new gear would BENEFIT the game. Crafters would sell more, GF queues would have more players who need their new gear and WZ's would have players regrinding new gear.

2) That's an assumption, not a fact. I'd argue that any player willing to change their AC, is likely a better player than your average player because they are probably swapping for a reason.

3) I'd argue that the ability to swap AC's would ENHANCE the connection to the character because you'd be on ONE toon vs swapping to alts.

4) Replayablity? It's 100% the EXACT SAME experience AC to AC. This has NO impact on that at all.

For better or worse, 6 of 8 ACs has the ability to do this today, without any leveling experience.

Talent trees evolved to provide more customization on a per class basis.

Allowing AC changes would just be the next evolution of that.

The biggest difference between ACs is playing a melee class versus a ranged class.

I would suggest that people tend to enjoy playing what they are good at, so unless you're good at both, you won't switch repeatedly.

At minimum, you should be able to switch your AC before you hit 50 because you may not even know you are better at melee than ranged or vice versa.

Yeah Rat...you're a real winner huh?! It's obvious with this you're simply trolling and I'm done feeding you.

swapping AC is not a cosmetic thing. You can't go from a dual wielding sentinel to a single bladed guardian with a shield off hand at the flip of a switch. Nor would I expect a healing Commando with an Assault Cannon to switch AC and then become a blaster rifle vanguard tank. People think its just cosmetic, people also think its super expensive just swapping out gear mods and armor, or fully augmenting gear. Now take that with the AC change and your swapping out basically every piece of armor you have, fully augmenting it, new relics, new companion gear. People think its purely a cosmetic change, that only thing it involves is the skill tree.

Take into account skill of the player involved (people complain enough about bad tanks) now take into consideration a dps sage swapping to shadow tanking, or dps commando to vanguard tank. dps vanguard to commando heals. DPS to DPS swap is probably fine, DPS to tank/heals tends to get ugly quickly.

You would basically be starting from scratch which is why it would just be easier to swing an alt.

I currently play a Powertech as my main, due to the activities I take part in I have a full set of gear for Tanking (off hand shield), a set for running dailies (dps offhand generator) and a set put aside for PvP (although with bolster I'd probably be better off in my PvE gear as it has a higher rating).

The bottom line is that the game already requires ACs that have DPS -> Tank to have a full set of gear for both. If you have DPS -> Heal you can probably get away with the same gear (I tend to stack Alacrity and Power which works well enough in both roles). Even a DPS -> DPS transition may warrant a full gear swap (Marauder using an Anihilation or Carnage build used to need crit and surge, the Rage build can get away with just power and surge due to the auto-crit).

The learning curve is not so steep. And to be honest not one that you tend to learn while you level anyway. It's only once you start to get the full skill rotation and hit the endgame difficulty barrier and taking part in group content you start to need to learn to play. The players that have issues coping with this barrier aren't going to be able to complete endgame (NiM) content on their current build.3

You step back to level an alt and you take your foot of the credit earning potential. Depending on how often you feel the need to upgrade your gear as you level you have the potential to enter a negative equity where you have to supply the character with credits from a high level alt to keep them viable. Just stepped back onto my low level (23) Mercenary and levelled so fast with the xp buffs that over 7 levels managed to clear only 10k profit after training costs had been paid for. Levelling an alt is not a 'cheaper option' it is a very expensive option.

A high level character can do a full run of weeklies and earn a million credits (takes about 3-5 hours depending on focus and ability), that's a good chunk towards buying mods/ augments. Not to mention the 180+ basic commendations towards level 69 gear.

SWTOR is reasonably cheap to get a semi-decent set of gear together for entry to higher level endgame content. The cost of gaining a new set of gear certainly isn't an impediment to providing an AC swap function.

Oh and why do you need to gear up a companion again?

I'm not trolling. I just decided to play your game, with the change that I have not just said "invalid" and left it at that.

If you are ready to accept that those against class changes have valid reasons, even if you do not agree with them, then perhaps we can move on to having an actual discussion.