Hi everyone, I am new here on the forums but I have been watching swtorista's videos on youtube, and while she does a good job of putting a smile on things I truly do not like these changes. As someone with not as much time, this will not help me, it will just make the characters I've been able to make less useful and the choices harder in deciding between mechanics I barely understand when I do manage to learn them. Ideally, I just wanted to be able to do weapon swaps like a double-bladed lightsaber on sage. Thank you for your time and if this is all supposed to go to a single thread and I missed it I am sorry for that too.

sorry boss, but almost every class needs ability trimming. almost every single class has too man defensive and movement abilities.

 

the game is built around tanks, healers, and dps. the current situation is such that many dps have abilities tantamount to tanks. tanks can dps like dps (well, jugg tanks can). and dps can self-heal effecitvely w/o healers. it's just absurd. ability pruning is 100% necessary.

 

all you have to do is wait 3-4 weeks, and you can watch a 10 minute youtube video that will tell you exactly what skills to take. and then you'll never have to think about it again.

It's not that I don't want to think, it's that at least as far as I have seen the intent is to simplify and streamline the game, and it's failing to do that while removing content.

Hi everyone, I am new here on the forums.

Welcome.

 

I've been on PTS, and on some classes I know what I'm choosing, on others, to put it mildly, I'm nowhere near as adept, but before despairing about how abilities are changing / being moved to passives / going away, I think the big crux is having to choose between what's left.

 

For those who've been playing a while and expect x, y, and z to be in our rotation, and then suddenly we're presented with x, y, OR z .. that's a bit different.

 

But don't panic.

Yet.

It's not that I don't want to think, it's that at least as far as I have seen the intent is to simplify and streamline the game, and it's failing to do that while removing content.

 

this addresses a very real problem with the game. right now, you have X, Y, and Z abilities/utilities. individually, each ability is fine. but when you have access to all three, your DPS spec becomes too tanky (as in you don't need heals or tanks). the same is true of mobility enhancements. there are simply too many "goodies" in the game. they absolutely have to reduce access to these abilities.

 

frankly, it's better to give players a choice between (e.g.) X, Y, and Z, than to just force players "choice" X. so you can cater your spec to various roles and/or operations. hence the loadouts.

 

streamlining also reduces the number of buttons you need to press. that does make the game simpler (once you've selected your options). like it or not. there are pros and cons.

 

what I don't see as debatable is that the power creep on DCDs and mobility in this game has gotten out of control and even beyond the game engine to reliably and regularly "render." if you don't know what I'm talking about, google "swtor desync"

Edited October 10, 2021 by CheesyEZ

But don't panic. Yet.

Best advice to be fair.

They're not done yet. Remember they are testing the base specs for each class. Once that's done I expect they will then introduce the option mentioned on the livestream which allows us to add other abilities we would not have had originally depending on whether you're character is a force or tech user. I'm still hoping I can get force choke on my inquisitors. I've yet to try the latest PTS however, I've tried all of the others and each time the improvements/changes have been good.

I'm ALL for some of the ability PRUNE, that some have talked about. It's not the Majority, but I think making TANKS and HEALERs more valuable certainly has it BENEFITs--that only however works if people want to PLAY them!

 

Just wished they'd limited it to removing 1 CORE ability for each Class, based on Combat Style choosen!.

 

Just removing ONE be limiting for the vast majority; it also allow people to ADJUST quicker,

 

I mean many Republic TANKS were very disappointed with the changes, cause loosing 2 of their 3 abilities really HURT at least that was 95% of several 1000's (49k) of reply's were mostly disappointed, all except perhaps the last 2? Yet in contrast Jedi TANKS (Vanguard) to Sith Juggernaut TANKs, most thought they got off EASY in contrast. Taking away abilities they NEVER used anyways, and BUFFING them far more!

 

Sentinel is another Class some or many have expressed CONCERNs about; same with Sage, and a few others... ...yet as it's been said it's likely all Classes will likely see 1-2 updates at the very least before it hit's LIVE.

 

So all we can do is HOPE...

Edited October 10, 2021 by Strathkin
Grammar

Remove at least 6 abilities from every spec, much needed!

the game is built around tanks, healers, and dps. the current situation is such that many dps have abilities tantamount to tanks. tanks can dps like dps (well, jugg tanks can). and dps can self-heal effecitvely w/o healers. it's just absurd. ability pruning is 100% necessary.

 

Agreed and amen to that.

 

But for 7.0 to work, BW cannot be as Passive as it was in these two years of 6.0 Pandemic or not.

As a PvPer, these problems have been existing since 6.0 launched, and BW did not do **** in two years

1. You cannot have only one class of tank (Jugg viable)

2. You cannot have the burst of PT and then give them survivability skills not fixed

3. You really cannot have Operatives/Smugglers have everything of anything and not do anything about it, the class has become so much worse in meta no.6

4. You cannot have Operatives/Smuggler heal without burst and think they are fun in PvP

 

The problem is not the expansion is what happens afterwards. Tacticals where supposed to make it easy for the BW to fix things. It was so easy that in two years they fixed nearly nothing, yes they fixed the broken set on Sins and it stopped there.

the game is built around tanks, healers, and dps. the current situation is such that many dps have abilities tantamount to tanks. tanks can dps like dps (well, jugg tanks can). and dps can self-heal effecitvely w/o healers. it's just absurd. ability pruning is 100% necessary.

There is an inconsistency in this argument. For example, dps have too many dcd's as you say. I can get behind that. But even tanks have to reduce their dcd's to pretty much to the same degree.

 

And jugg tanks or skanks can do higher dps perhaps but not like other dps. They don't have all the dps abilities after all and some defensive stats are in order. So this sounds more like a pvp issue and that's a very small segment of the game to make such a general statement. I mean If it were true people playing raids/ops would be all over it with the survivability of a tank and the same dps, they do have skanks fill the role of a tank sometimes but not as dps. All that needs to be done is to disallow DPS gear for tanks and boom the DPS issue is gone. They have different coloured mods anyways and the set bonuses can also be marked for dps or tanks.

 

I think that DPS having less survivability might be a good thing but then it would increase the need for tanks and there is a problem with that: not many players like to play tanks and this is exacerbated by the fact that you don't need tanks in most content so the current generation of players isn't used to tanking mostly. And now that tanks will have less survivability as well I'm really not sure what their overall goal is.

 

You see, the problems you describe can be partly resolved with ability pruning but there are a lot of abilities that don't get pruned that people don't use a lot and a number of them where you go, but why? I mean tanks losing so many dcd's is one of those. Why would they need to pick between 3 dcd's that they all have now? And keep in mind that DPS get this reduction as well. Why not just reduce 3 to 2 and be done with it. Those choices are fake choices anyway. People will figure out which one is best and that's the end of that choice.

 

And a lot of these issues come from other areas like content being made a lot easier and pvp being chronically imbalanced and they try to do both in one go, but I don't think this will work without addressing other issues. One upside though, it could make leveling content more challenging...nah, they won't do that. They'll make sure it doesn't.

There is an inconsistency in this argument. For example, dps have too many dcd's as you say. I can get behind that. But even tanks have to reduce their dcd's to pretty much to the same degree.

 

there's nothing remotely inconsistent in this argument. the only role that is pretty much locked into its role is healing. tanks do too much dps (vis-a-vis their ability to take dmg). dps do too much self-healing and/or have too many dcds, mobility enhancements, and/or immunity perks.

 

the argument is power creep. and the power creep in these areas is undeniable and out of control. it's so bad that the game engine cannot even handle some of the abilities on a regular and practical basis.

 

you're conflating my argument with what you see on the PTS from BW. I have zero faith in BW to make effective changes across the board. that's a separate issue from the fact that dcds need to be clipped, immunities need to be clipped, movement abilities need drastic rethinking. also, part of the problem you're seeing with tanks is that dps and tanks have access to the same utilities. remember when that happened in the utilities? tanks and dps sharing the same choices means you're going to need to nerf tanks if you nerf dps. it's silly. the shared utilities turns out to not work so well.

Edited October 11, 2021 by CheesyEZ

There are definitely some valid points here about power creep etc...

 

But I would recommend extreme caution in pruning abilities. I've seen this same situation in other MMOs, and the vast majority of the player base does not react well to an expansion that makes them less powerful and/or removes choices.

 

Edit:

On the point of too many dcds and movement utilities for dps, is this perhaps related to a lack of dps utility options? I'm looking at my current sorc utility choices, and I see almost none that would increase my dps. So currently dps choose a bunch of dcds and movement abilities/perks without paying a price in their dps.

 

I think the correct response may be separate utility options for tanks vs. dps vs. heals. Seems like it would be a lot easier to balance that way (they could still have some shared options, just not identical options).

Edited October 12, 2021 by Ulrah

Counterpoint: Yes, please do take some abilities away. There are just too many and I'm sick of searching around my hotbars for stuff that can definitely double up.

I know it’s cool to prune abilities, but it actually sucks. Do NOT follow WoW’s example—that game has killed itself. I enjoy the complexity of things as they are. Not saying don’t balance the game, balance it, but taking away things just to make it more user friendly is a mistake that WoW made that should not be repeated in every single MMO I play. This problem follows me around, lmao. Keep the complexity, please.

I have the feeling that with the loss of so many defensive utilities biochem becomes more dominant than it's anyway. The need for Adrenals, Stims will rise sharply.

off the top of my head, the only significant pruning I can come up with is removing Phasewalk from sins.

 

every other attempt to "fix" balance/dcd/CC/utility issues is to pile new abilities/utilities on top of existing ones.

 

now snipers have a teleport. why in holy hell does the ultimate area control class have a teleport? it's just so ridiculously random.

 

between basic abilities and utility points, sins and maras can make themselves immune to (almost all) CC for 11+ seconds. 11 seconds of up time on a target without having to use a CC of your own or your break. at worst, having to pop a soft break (like predation for a root). that's absurd. and oh by the way, here's a tactical so you also get 2 cloaks/camos. really? that's not overkill at all?

 

take enet for example. mercs were in a sorry state. bad mobility. easily interrupted. no dcds that would force a focus swap (e.g., stealth/reflect/barrier/PW). so what does BW do to make them competitive? electro-net. a single target hinder and snare. don't get me wrong, enet is and always has been an incredibly powerful tool. but out side of a 1v1 kiting scenario, it did absolutely nothing to address a single one of the problems that plagued mercs (dcds). on top of that, they were given the troll movement ability of jet-out (w/e it's called). the "escape" that you can't see where you're going and could just be leaped to immediately afterward. then they added the smokescreen talent to remedy the leap issue, except they put it in a tier where no one in his right mind would ever take the utility.

 

mercs are the poster child for BW's track record of BAD DECISIONS and then fixing those bad decisions by adding to the arms race. it's true of (virtually) every class. when mercs were clearly over powered in 5.x (finally the CDs to stand and fight b/c god knows they can't move), then also have top tier burst. instead of pruning or tweaking DCD/utility choices? BW nerfed their dmg. now all anyone has to do is CC or aoe when they pop a dcd and then lul at the weak arse dps the merc does. when all they needed to do was have to choose between reactive shield 40% heal utility and the kolo overload utility. force that choice, and their dcds are typical non-stealth/non-escape dcds.

Edited October 19, 2021 by CheesyEZ

Just another player of the many who agrees with the OP title.

 

+1