After Last nights announcement from the Bioware development team I've decided to stop playing SWTOR. I attempted to rush the trooper story so I could have commando unlocked for my Merc main and even planned on finishing the class stories so I could say I finally did it but I feel that the game is not really as fun as I remember it being, lots of game breaking bugs and annoyances are still in the game(NPC's invisible, camera randomly moving still, codex missing, Camera's in cut scenes zoomed in where they are not supposed to be, Dialog sentences not really fitting with the voice lines..ect.) the new stories are not as good as they used to be (IMO seems to be a lot of poorly written fan service). Lots of modern quality of life elements are being ignored (a new modern map system with terrain depth and/or color, a better UI that can toggle off strong hold announcements in cut scenes ect..) Instead they seem to use their resources to add new items to the cash shop and slowly bread crumb story to keep the player base coming back. It would be great to see them turn around with a new enemy and story but instead we keep getting the Emperor, Revan and Malgus coming back again and again with some "The Mandalorian" fan service sprinkled on top to keep the non force users in a story that makes a little more sense to them. I've seen this all in the World of Warcraft and when I finally stopped giving them my money I had already spent way more then the game was worth.

It's my opinion that these new class changes were put in as a way to resnag interest as well as keep players in just to grind. If you wish to have a certain class as one of your secondary advanced classes you will have to unlock it on your legacy by grinding out up to chapter 3 on that class..to then leave the character and go back to the one that you were invested in the first place..that seems like a bad design and I feel it wont be too long until you can just buy the legacy unlock in the cartel market. Also you will only be able to pick one new advanced class on a pre-existing character or decided on deleting that character that you invested so much time in for a new one that gets 2 advanced classes. This seems like its either very poorly designed or a last minute change because the marketing team is forcing the devs to implement a way for more player engagement.

I'm gonna just end my rant by saying, how is it we are just now being told about this? The expansion is going to drop in a few weeks? Did they leave that info out so that everyone would come back in hopes to gear up for the expansion? Well if so they got me for a little wile at least...for the last time. You guys overall are a great community. Maybe even greater after I leave. Peace out!

I'm gonna just end my rant by saying, how is it we are just now being told about this?

A few people including me repeatedly said this is how it is gonna work yet many people chose to believe in blind hope that the system would be like they imagined while all signs pointed to the opposite.

Even though I agree the clarification was late, many people had been pointing out that existing characters would be limited and we had design evidence from PTS to support it so we were expecting this. If anything it is even more limited than we expected since the mirror change for force users seems to be even more limited than we imagined.

You cant blame others when you didnt pay attention to the signs.

err which announcement from yesterday ?

That's what I'm wondering. I've gotten all classes through Chapter 3, but if I read the rant right, they're saying new players won't be able to pick alternate advance classes until they get the class to Chapter 3 first.

That seems like a bad idea for new players.

The thing that gets me is that they're now locking new combat styles to subscribers (I highly doubt that everyone will be inclined to make new characters. I'm sure not. Why make a new character when the new loot system will already make it impossible to get gear for my existing ones?).

I mean, I'm not quitting, but I unsubscribed and there would have to be a huge story update to make me resubscribe.

All those resources and hype about combat styles that won't even work like they promised, when all I ever cared about is the story... and we're getting a ridiculously tiny story update. It seems 7.0 is just an update that aims to force us to play old content to keep us playing (and making us do twice the work for conquest too). Am I the only one who's really tired of running old content?

That's what I'm wondering. I've gotten all classes through Chapter 3, but if I read the rant right, they're saying new players won't be able to pick alternate advance classes until they get the class to Chapter 3 first.

 

That seems like a bad idea for new players.

Except force users, to be able to switch to the mirror class with their first combat style, they have to be BEFORE chapter 3.

What a mess.

err which announcement from yesterday ?

That existing characters would be limited and wouldnt be able to change their existing initial combat style, only add a 2nd combat style. Expect force users being limited to mirror for initial combat style but under heavy requirements.

Everyone who show how the system worked on PTS and knows about design understood the system was intended to limit existing characters yet many people chose to believe otherwise and now they are surprised even though many of us have been warning them for a while now.

I'm not saying anyone's right or wrong to quit, I'm not addressing that.

But my understanding is that unlocking the second style on a given character requires that you first finish chapter 3 on -that- character (and you need to be subscribed to use the second style). Where does this notion that you need to have the style unlocked in your legacy come from?

check these forums:

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=998627

https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=998627&page=15

err which announcement from yesterday ?

If you don’t look at the Dev Tracker part of the forums, you would have completely missed it.

BioWare didn’t even have the guts to post it as a proper announcement in the general section.

They hid it in the PTS section disguised as if answering a question posed a month ago.

Then had ChrisS talk about it in a private discord. And his info muddied the waters even more.

It’s really poor communication like they are trying to sneak it past the majority or players and media.

That existing characters would be limited and wouldnt be able to change their existing initial combat style, only add a 2nd combat style. Expect force users being limited to mirror for initial combat style but under heavy requirements.

 

Everyone who show how the system worked on PTS and knows about design understood the system was intended to limit existing characters yet many people chose to believe otherwise and now they are surprised even though many of us have been warning them for a while now.

While not disagreeing with the point, as I didn't trust how they worded it and was careful in my expectations but there were countless posts asking for clarification and what did they do? Ignore the posts until yesterday which is only a few days from launch. That is not how it should have been done and furthermore a lot of this discussion was done on Discord and not on the forums which leads a bad taste in people's mouths, as it could look that they were trying to hide it.

While not disagreeing with the point, as I didn't trust how they worded it and was careful in my expectations but there were countless posts asking for clarification and what did they do? Ignore the posts until yesterday which is only a few days from launch. That is not how it should have been done and furthermore a lot of this discussion was done on Discord and not on the forums which leads a bad taste in people's mouths, as it could look that they were trying to hide it.

Oh i agree, it should have been done earlier because many people were clearly misinformed, it is why I decided to warn people and explain why it was obvious that existing characters would be limited but I was met with a surprising amount of resistance from many people who just had blind faith things would turn out their way.

Firstly like you said the way the post was worded was vague and could be interpreted either way, so anyone trusting it blindly was simply wrong to use it as any form of evidence.

More importantly the design of the combat style system limiting force users to only the mirror was an enormous sign saying "WE AS THE DEVELOPERS INTEND TO LIMIT THE INITIAL COMBAT STYLE OF EXISTING CHARACTERS", yet even when this was used as evidence someone just denied and and believed the devs totally coded this specific part to be limiting and went through the effort only to rewrite it later with all the combat styles available.

Oh i agree, it should have been done earlier because many people were clearly misinformed, it is why I decided to warn people and explain why it was obvious that existing characters would be limited but I was met with a surprising amount of resistance from many people who just had blind faith things would turn out their way.

 

Firstly like you said the way the post was worded was vague and could be interpreted either way, so anyone trusting it blindly was simply wrong to use it as any form of evidence.

 

More importantly the design of the combat style system limiting force users to only the mirror was an enormous sign saying "WE AS THE DEVELOPERS INTEND TO LIMIT THE INITIAL COMBAT STYLE OF EXISTING CHARACTERS", yet even when this was used as evidence someone just denied and and believed the devs totally coded this specific part to be limiting and went through the effort only to rewrite it later with all the combat styles available.

You gotta remember that the cynicism required to interpret BioBabble (dev talk) doesn’t usually comes to players who haven’t been burnt by the Devs in the past or haven’t been burnt enough.

Others are just brainwashed White Knights who believe everything BioWare says even when the evidence says different.

Hopefully this will wake some people up from their stupor and realise that Bioware can be shifty and what they say isn’t always what they mean.

It’s why many of us have been pushing back against a lot of their announcements. We can already see or imagine how bad some of the overall game changes will be in 7.0.

It’s why myself and others have unsubbed in protest to 7.0 so our cancelled sub feedback forms go directly to upper management. We can always resub if they’ve made changes in 7.0.

Oh i agree, it should have been done earlier because many people were clearly misinformed, it is why I decided to warn people and explain why it was obvious that existing characters would be limited but I was met with a surprising amount of resistance from many people who just had blind faith things would turn out their way.

 

Firstly like you said the way the post was worded was vague and could be interpreted either way, so anyone trusting it blindly was simply wrong to use it as any form of evidence.

 

More importantly the design of the combat style system limiting force users to only the mirror was an enormous sign saying "WE AS THE DEVELOPERS INTEND TO LIMIT THE INITIAL COMBAT STYLE OF EXISTING CHARACTERS", yet even when this was used as evidence someone just denied and and believed the devs totally coded this specific part to be limiting and went through the effort only to rewrite it later with all the combat styles available.

You're always using that argument, but there was NOTHING vague about the original announcement from the devs. NOTHING (unless you don't understand basic English). Nobody was misinformed, we just trusted the devs to deliver on what they promised.

A few people including me repeatedly said this is how it is gonna work yet many people chose to believe in blind hope that the system would be like they imagined while all signs pointed to the opposite.

Actually you're wrong as the signs pointed towards it being the case. Jackie even said that the devs originally intended for it to be the case. Yes you get to say "told you so" - but the only reason you had to say that was distrust in the developers' capabilities (which to be frank, is sadly the correct attitude after everything that's happened with SWTOR).

It's just yet another sad kick in the shins for loyal players.

Where oh where have I seen this before....?

*********************************

WoW has flying. It's a contentious subject, for many reasons, but the ability to fly in current content was never an issue.

Until WoD.

Three DAYS before the release, a now-fired Dev, whose name rhymes with Smackex Not-ia-dabi, gave an interview to a heretofore unknown website. Many questions came up regarding WoD, not the least of which was "How would players be able to acquire flight?" Smack-ex demurred, saying, "We're not sure yet on if players will pay by account, or by toon".

WoD releases. Not much to do. Three months go by. Wizard announces NO flying in WoD. AT ALL.

Naturally the boards explode. MoDs couldn't delete threads fast enough, and the ability to unsubscribe WAS REMOVED FROM THEIR WEBSITE. (You had to talk to a CS person).

10 days pass. Finally Wizard says, "Ok, you can fly in WoD, but you'll have to jump through hoops first". Thus was born Pathfinder. Parts I AND II.

I have seen this before.

but there was NOTHING vague about the original announcement from the devs. NOTHING.

Well outside the fact that it could very easily be interpreted to refer to the 2nd combat style.

Actually you're wrong as the signs pointed towards it being the case. Jackie even said that the devs originally intended for it to be the case.

Hence why I never used the vague bioware post as my main argument and instead pointed out the intended design behind combat style system which was implemented on PTS, or the benefit for bioware which was people making new characters if existing characters were limited.

All signs pointed to existing characters being limited, but you decided to be hopeful and read words the way you want while ignoring all other evidence. And yes, I know the devs vague post was meant to imply what you wanted, the fact remains you trusted words over actions.

Words will always mean nothing, actions are what matters, and the way the combat style system was designed in pts is ACTION due to the work required to make it and intend behind the way it was designed.

And this has nothing to do with me being skeptical of swtor devs, I actually find them to be better devs than most, especially with what they created over the years with the limited resources they have been given, this is about simple facts, you have actions in the form of PTS and the way the system was designed, and you ignored that and chose to trust vague words.

And I dont believe this was some evil trick by bioware devs, though many "loyal" people when faced with this choose to believe it is the case, it was something they simply managed badly or were worried of the consequences.

distrust in the developers' capabilities (which to be frank, is sadly the correct attitude after everything that's happened with SWTOR).

 

It's just yet another sad kick in the shins for loyal players.

With the way BioWare have developed this game over the last 10 years, us Legacy swtor players should all be professional cynics by now. I think this expansion will be the 5th or 6th time I’ve felt betrayed by the Dev team.

And to be fair, it’s not usually their skills or programming capabilities that I question or that really let me down (except maybe be all the bugs that are never fixed ), no, it’s usually their communication or lack there of that’s the biggest problem.

If BioWare actually stopped trying to be shifty when there is a problem and didn’t hide behind silence as their usual default, people would be more accepting of bad news.

This info could have easily been explained months ago when it was brought up on the PTS. BioWare could have also made a proper yellow announcement in the general section and apologised to the players for misleading them. But instead they’ve tried to sneak this past people by posting this info in an obscure PTS thread and on a private discord.

There is no accountability and it shows zero ethics in doing it like this.

At this point, Keith really should be making a yellow post to explain to the players and apologise how this whole thing has been handled. It’s the very least he could do!

People were under the impression that current characters would be able to swap to 2 different advanced classes instead of retaining the class identity they currently have and selecting a second advanced class? I'm one to be critical but like.. this feels like a weak reason to be upset. I figured this was how it was going to be from the start.

The Force-classes having mirrored animations for DS/LS also seems fine? DSV and LSV are extremely easy to get to. So much so that I did it on a F2P account in less than a week, and getting through the first 3 chapters is very easy. Faster than ever and who would know that they would prefer one advanced class' animations over the mirror's way ahead of time? If that's the case, why not play that class? Pushing through the vanilla story is less than a week's work if you want to get it done. Really, just play alts like we have long before this.

The only thing I will absolutely agree on is the abysmal communication. I know there is a hierarchy here and the process will not allow for wanton responding because that invites more trouble than anything (devs regularly work until release, so almost anything is practically subject to change as I understand it), but this seems like one of those things they might have wanted to include, I don't know, in the actual announcement? In fact, we still have people ingame asking if they can be a Powertech with a vibrosword earnestly and other similar combinations. The info rollout has been awful and has only added dread to what was supposed to be a grand achievement for this game.

I'm far more interested in playing with the new hairstyles than I am for 'combat styles' (such a lame name).

I'm one to be critical but like.. this feels like a weak reason to be upset. I figured this was how it was going to be from the start.

Good point, at the end of the day in 7.0 at the very least you will be able to have a 2nd combat style on your character which is an addition.

And for us willing to level we ll have unique class story combinations like powertech-sniper in the trooper storyline.

That existing characters would be limited and wouldnt be able to change their existing initial combat style, only add a 2nd combat style. Expect force users being limited to mirror for initial combat style but under heavy requirements.

 

Everyone who show how the system worked on PTS and knows about design understood the system was intended to limit existing characters yet many people chose to believe otherwise and now they are surprised even though many of us have been warning them for a while now.

I don't get why people would want to. You've been playing that character since whenever with its already existing combat style. Why all of a sudden do you want to change it? Be disappointed you can't if you want, but to have a figurative hissy fit over it doesn't make sense.

I don't see it a bad thing to have players replay old content. For myself, I finished all 8 class stories and have moved on. As I got each class into Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne I got nostalgic for the Class stories because yes, playing the same story 8 times can get stale a bit. I made 8 new characters this time playing the other subclass option for each class. Now it might be interesting to play a class story with another class's powers.

The stories cannot go on forever. As much fun as it is, it will get boring after repeated play. Even the Star Wars movies I've seen a million times now; it's not as exciting to watch for the million and oneth time. They're not wrong to try to gain interest in replaying old content. One can quibble on how they're doing it, but to do it at all is fine.

can i have your stuff?

What a witty, unique reply. I salute you for your creativity and eloquence. Very unexpected reply, too.

Hopefully this will wake some people up from their stupor and realise that Bioware can be shifty and what they say isn’t always what they mean.

Judging by how many forumers fell for the hype in the summer, I doubt that this will ever happen. I didn't believe any of their "good sounding" news. And I spoke out about it already in the summer. It's only now that more and more players realise what happened and happens. And it will get worse after 7.0 actually hits and the players who don't follow the forums or reddit will get shocked. Imagine you log in to 7.0 without having heard about combat styles before. How can this not be confusing to players? Even I have problems understanding their explanations.

It’s why many of us have been pushing back against a lot of their announcements. We can already see or imagine how bad some of the overall game changes will be in 7.0.

In my opinion, this came too late. Right in the summer, the outcry should have come. But the majority fell for it. I disliked everything I read about 7.0 from the very first announcement (except that there will be some new story).

It’s why myself and others have unsubbed in protest to 7.0 so our cancelled sub feedback forms go directly to upper management. We can always resub if they’ve made changes in 7.0.

Exactly.

And to be fair, it’s not usually their skills or programming capabilities that I question or that really let me down (except maybe be all the bugs that are never fixed ), no, it’s usually their communication or lack there of that’s the biggest problem.

 

If BioWare actually stopped trying to be shifty when there is a problem and didn’t hide behind silence as their usual default, people would be more accepting of bad news. (...)!

Yes, but what baffles me is that even after 10 years, so many "legacy players" still believe yellow posts. At this point, I can only call it naive to believe anything which sounds too good to be true.

And, regarding communication here: It's the job of the community manager. BW has two of them since 2020. And both haven't been doing their job properly. Which is: to manage the community. When Jackie introduced herself on this board, I replied critical to what she claimed she would do. I didn't believe she would actually follow through with it. And I was right (maybe she wants to, but isn't allowed to; I have nothing personally against her or anyone from BW; I don't know them). We have the 10 years anniversary coming up and there is NOTHING happening on BW's official channels hyping the expansion. Most of the threads on this board are negative or worried. Their Twitter still talks about a decoration instead of - for example - step by step highlighting individual bits that 7.0 will bring to the game (if there will be brought something to the game, maybe the issue is that so many things are being taken out and they don't know how to market that positively?). So many questions remain unanswered and ignored. What a marketing disaster from BW imho. Disappointing. But not surprising to me.

At this point, Keith really should be making a yellow post to explain to the players and apologise how this whole thing has been handled. It’s the very least he could do!

Isn't Mr. Kanneg is pleased with how things are right now? His buddies, the NM raiding community, is satisfied with his doings. Within his peer circle, he thus gets very good feedback. It's our fault that we don't play the game like Mr. Kanneg does, and wants us to do.

I don't get why people would want to. You've been playing that character since whenever with its already existing combat style. Why all of a sudden do you want to change it?

never for a millisecond did I think I would be able to change my initial class or did I ever want to to begin with.

Thank you. I thought I was the only one who has no idea why he would want to change his characters. I won't even add a second combat style (if it's possible to not add one). Especially, since I go preferred in January and will lose it anyway. Wouldn't want risking having logged out with the wrong style when my sub ends.