In 7.0 we are going to have major changes to the class system, some long asked for by players and others necessary for long term balance (or something)

 

Pulling back and taking a look at how these systems are going to work, between having two Combat Styles (formerly Advanced Classes) with up to 6 disciplines to swap between with a new ability morph system replacing Utilities, and a loadout system to combine quick slots, gear, outfits, and key binds; that's a lot. The learning curve here for many players is going to be difficult if these systems are not incredibly intuitive and provide a superior UX to what we have in place today.

 

Hopefully we are going to have these systems start to take shape on the PTS soon so we can provide the feedback needed to make sure this works as intended

You're making it sound worse than it is. And consider that many mmo'ers play for many hours per month (10 would be a very lite player); I don't foresee any major issues. No one will be forced to switch specs or play multiple advanced classes if they prefer one. The new functionality isn't really anything that someone with 2 characters with different advanced classes hasn't already been dealing with.

You're making it sound worse than it is. And consider that many mmo'ers play for many hours per month (10 would be a very lite player); I don't foresee any major issues. No one will be forced to switch specs or play multiple advanced classes if they prefer one. The new functionality isn't really anything that someone with 2 characters with different advanced classes hasn't already been dealing with.

 

Exactly. While I'm going to use this opportunity to finally try out Sage, I know I'm going to rely on melee lightsaber class because I want to hit with my lightsaber But now, I can try it out and not feel like I can't hit with my lightsaber.

I actually think that the learning curve for new players will be easier for new players, not harder, especially if we see some sort of cross character armoury system to hold our gear.

 

There is also a much lower learning curve for each individual class due to the removal of abilities and pruning, which makes swapping your combat style easier. New players won't even unlock their second combat style until some point during act 3 in the story, and they might not even gain access to it at first if they are f2p.

 

The new ABC system is more intuitive than utilities in my opinion and the game even chooses an option by default, so new players who might have not known they needed to pick a utility will still benefit from an ABC choice. You can also individually respec your ABC options whereas on live, you have to respec all of your utilities to change one. If you don't know all your choices off by heart, you're going to spend a good while reading back through everything just to figure out what you picked originally - all because you want to change one thing.

 

Setting up a button to instantly swap your gear, ABC choices, keybinds, combat style, discipline etc might sound intense at first, but the alternative requires you to manually do all of the above every single time you want to swap to a different discipline. The new system would allow you to just press a button after setting it up once. It's one of the best features available in FF14.

 

It seems like a lot of new complex systems from the outset, but they are being designed with the intent to provide quality of life boosts over what we currently have and ease new players into the two combat style system by not giving them both from level 1.

No one will be forced to switch specs or play multiple advanced classes if they prefer one. .

This, more importantly this sadly often depends on the community, if the game has a very tryhard high end mentality they might lead to such demands from others.

 

Thankfully I feel swtor has a far more casual friendly mentality so you are able to do all the content you want with the spec of your choice without anyone trying to force you to play something more "optimal" and if they ever try, shut them down because you dont want a community that obsesses over being "optimal" at everything.

See WoW for an example of bad community obsessing over meta.

Edited October 1, 2021 by ralphieceaser

I expect setting up your characters to be what you want will be time consuming and possibly confusing and frustrating. Once they are set up, things should be smooth and easy, assuming Bioware does a good job with integrating all of the moving pieces and designing an intuitive UI. That's a big assumption and something Bioware doesn't have a good track record in.

 

My concern with system complexity is that the more complex a system is, the harder it is to get it to work right. The potential for 7.0 being broken on release is huge, and that doesn't include issues like class balance.

The problem is not so much the number of abilities but that they are just dropped on players without any explanation or even need to use them let alone learn how they work with each other in a rotation. Levelling is so easy that once you have a healing comp you barely have to do anything other than aoe so players get to 75 with no real grasp of their class and then get frustrated when they can't compete in end game.

 

I run FPs all the time with sins who don't stealth because they've never had to, operatives who don't roll and mercs who don't realise they have a combat rez. It's not their fault, these abilities are just dropped on them in amongst a mass of "+2% crit" and "+1% damage reduction" abilities and just get missed or forgotten about.

 

If the story focussed a bit less on galaxy destroying super weapons and a bit more on missions that taught you your skills and how they work with each other then the jump from levelling to end game wouldn't be quite so painful.

 

7.0 could start that process by putting in some class specific solo FPs or mini games in which you actually need to use your class abilities . Double champions which cross heal so you have to keep one cced, target dummies which you have to hit with your basic rotation in sequence to trigger a door to open.