I played a Level 1 sentinel through level 40. The biggest complaint is that the class no longer feels like a smooth combatant. The abilities feel clunky and don't fit together smoothly. I found myself using the basic attack more often than on live because there were fewer abilities and they were slow to come off cooldown. When you do line up a group of attacks it's alright, but those opportunities are few and far between even in longer battles. All of the battles also take a lot longer so the whole thing feels like you are slogging through molasses.

I am currently leveling a Sentinel on live and it feels a lot smoother at level 10 than the one on the PTS felt at level 30.

Just because why not, I tried making a character through character create on the PTS and it did actually work. I was able to get into the game as a level 1 sith inquisitor with a juggernaut combat style, so is there a particular reason we shouldn't just do that? Is there some sort of bug that we should be aware of because I was able to click through all the buttons and play the game seemingly normally.

Juggernaut seems mostly fine with the early game ability spread (though it's still worse than live of course due to having less abilities) and I'll test more when I have time.

Powertech from what I played is terrible with only a few abilities in the first 10-15 levels - exacerbated by the horrible experience in the ABC tree where you only get your first choice at level 23. Overpruning a combat style that already had the lowest amount of abilities in the game is very apparent here.

The ABC choices need to go back to level 10. A 22 level gap is far far far too high considering the lack of abilities some combat styles now have between levels 1-20. For most combat styles, you rely heavily upon those early abilities, passives and morphs to perform well - they're what define and differentiate one discipline to the other. At that point you might as well lock disciplines entirely until level 23 since they don't really do anything before then.

Playing early flashpoints is going to be extremely boring at least for the Powertech and low level characters will rely entirely on high level teammates to carry them through group finder. Healing and tanking prior to getting their first discipline specific ability and morph will be impractical to say the least - more so for healers.

I downloaded the PTS just for this. I leveled a immortals juggernaut to 4 on both test and real servers so I could directly compare.

-At level 2 ended up in a cutsene to offer me a choice for guardian animations since I picked 1 light side choice. As a body type 3 male it centered on my chest and not my face. WIP? It was also choppy, didn't explain diddly squat and had zero voice acting. Was the NPC supposed to be voiced? Then I was immediate given a choice of a second combat style with next to no explanation of what was going on. No hover over to explain the different classes, but at least a confirmation? The whole thing seems like players are expected to study SWTORista before playing for the first time.

-The new inventory is horrible. Why is it tied to the character sheet so I have a character sheet overlapping a character sheet/inventory? Text fields a jumbled mess. Nothing aligns. I'm hoping this is a pre-alpha we are looking at.

-So down to combat. On pts I got a 3rd attack at lvl 4. It looked and felt like I was hacking at things with a golf club. Boring and ugly. Going back to the live server and having twice the skills was an actual relief. Everything flowed so much better and looked so much more graceful.

- I only got a fraction of the loot on PTS than I did on live. Was that a matter of bad luck or are you taking out the low level gear. Please, for the love of god, please tell me you didn't butcher the loot table? I use that gear for cosmetics!

- Speaking of low level gear. Quest #1 "Blade of Ancients" gives out a lvl 7 lightsaber instead of the Apprentice Practice Blade. I cant use it for 3 more levels, and it makes no sense at that point in the story. Then to my horror, quest #2 got a changed reward as well. Now instead of the unique Apprentice Pummeler Mk-1 chest, there is a very often used skin called Korriban Battler Jacket, which is also lvl 7 and can't be used for 3 more levels.

So what are you going to do with the unique starter planet armors that you are replacing? There are some really cool ones and I will be very grumpy if you took them out of the game without a plan on how to get them into players hands.

To sum up PTS vs Live lvl 2-4, PTS is a significant downgrade in the new character experience and I am now extremely worried about what you have done to low level gear.

I played a Level 1 sentinel through level 40. The biggest complaint is that the class no longer feels like a smooth combatant. The abilities feel clunky and don't fit together smoothly. I found myself using the basic attack more often than on live because there were fewer abilities and they were slow to come off cooldown. When you do line up a group of attacks it's alright, but those opportunities are few and far between even in longer battles. All of the battles also take a lot longer so the whole thing feels like you are slogging through molasses.

 

I am currently leveling a Sentinel on live and it feels a lot smoother at level 10 than the one on the PTS felt at level 30.

To follow up on this:

I made a new character just in case there was something in the latest update that would have fixed the issues. Leveling was basically the same as I had seen with the previous character. I played as if I was a starting player (no mounts on Tython, no companion until T-7 joined - I did see a lot of people "testing" using both fast mounts and Shae Vizla as a companion). So far through level 20 (Combat Sentinel):

1) The first 15 or so levels are very clunky and the abilities do not flow together well. The attack sequence was pretty much always Force Leap (to charge up for Slash) followed by 2 Slash followed by 3 Strike to get back to being able to do one Slash (rinse and repeat). A very boring sequence that doesn't even look good. The sentinel class is also very vulnerable to split mobs with ranged attacks on each side. You use up you closer to attack the first mob (which you need to do to charge up for Slash) then have to slow walk to the next one, the whole time taking a pounding from the ranged attacker (I don't think a low level sentinel will be viable in lowbies PVP like this). It starts to get better from level 15 to 20 as a few more abilities become available. I'm not sure if it is a bug or working as intended but there were still two abilities I could not train at all that were on the trainer (the "you are not the right discipline" message). One of those was force sweep, a classic sentinel maneuver for dealing with multiple enemies. The class is otherwise lacking any ability to deal damage to multiple opponents.

2) Leveling crafting is a hot mess at low level. There is almost nothing to craft that is worth the time to do it. Hopefully there are more options later other than just "improved versions" of the 8 schematics that were available. Leveling crafting is slow with only one companion so I'll have to move a more experienced character to the PTS to see the whole show.

3) Conquest took an extremely long time, especially near the end where I noticed, non-Storytime missions were yieldiing less than 100 CXP for completion. All in all it took over 5 hours to get to 100K with a leveling character..

I'll be doing some more testing from lvl 20-40 which seemed like it was better on the previous run through, though in that one a was able to train force sweep. Without that, this run through may be very tedious.

Character 1 background:

Created sith sorcerer and copied over to pts.

Leveling and questing:

Leveled the character to lvl 3 then entered the training the force quest, this gives me the choice to select my primary combat style, I selected guardian and the had the choice for the secondary style and I chose sage, I then leveled to 4 thought to see a trainer on korriban to get new abilities if any, however I was not able to speak to them as I am not a warrior or inquisitor (pure assumption but would fit) I can still use my holo-trainer that I had copied across. This would be less than ideal for a new player. this also breaks the quest "A Fighting Chance" as you can not speak to the trainers, using the holo-trainer at this location does not work for the quest.

Character 2:

Created a sith marauder and copied across.

proceeded to perform the above situation, succeeded to retrain as a jedi sentinel and jedi sage, again at level 4 was unable to use inquisitor or warrior trainers on Korriban, also noticed that when changing styles from sentinel to sage it would remove all gear as a sage can not use medium armor that is given to the sentinel.

Character 3:

Created Sorc on pts (I realize this was not the preferred way but want to make sure the issue wasn't from transfer)

Performed the same steps as character 1 with the exact same results however as was not transferred I had not holo-trainer to use

Some Bugs:

Noticed that sometimes you can not change between combat styles without having to log out and then back in, it would be nice that when you change combat styles it would remember the previously selected discipline (not sure if WIP), further to this point i trained as a guardian then tried to swap directly to sage just to see what happens with the trainer and was not able to swap needed to log out and back in.

-The new inventory is horrible. Why is it tied to the character sheet so I have a character sheet overlapping a character sheet/inventory? Text fields a jumbled mess. Nothing aligns. I'm hoping this is a pre-alpha we are looking at.

As far as I am aware the original character sheet will not be staying on release, just the new sheet. I believe the old one is just there as a few things in the new character sheet are still a WIP(Work In Progress).

I don't know where else to put this (if there is a specific forum for the combat style's feedback, direct me to it and i'll copy and paste) but i'll second what someone else said about the new "choosing your secondary spec." Both for Force and Tech users. There is NO EXPLANATION AT ALL for abilities and what they do. Which.......if we could switch secondary specs on the fly or pay for it over time, that would be fine. But since it is a ONE TIME ONLY AND PERMANENT, there needs to be WAY more information in the choosing a secondary screen. Explaining which each combat style is, which weapon, explaining all of the abilities you will get and which you can choose from and the 3 different advance specs each combat style has.

Also, with being only able to pick ONE secondary combat style, AND its permanent.......this either feels like lying from the 7.0 announcement live stream or deceptive marketing or manipulation. And it hurts.

Why can't we switch more specs later on? I get only having 2 to switch back and forth on AT THE GAMEPLAY MOMENT, but why can't we later flip out our secondary for another one we like/want to try?

If i'm a commando, and I pick mercenary, but then want to later tank, why can't I switch to PT? Why am I stuck with ONLY commando and mercenary? Was this ALWAYS the plan or did it change? Because if it was the former, communication was failed multiple times over, if it is the later, why oh why oh WHY was that NOT communicated before?

Also, with being only able to pick ONE secondary combat style, AND its permanent.......this either feels like lying from the 7.0 announcement live stream or deceptive marketing or manipulation. And it hurts.

 

Why can't we switch more specs later on? I get only having 2 to switch back and forth on AT THE GAMEPLAY MOMENT, but why can't we later flip out our secondary for another one we like/want to try?

 

If i'm a commando, and I pick mercenary, but then want to later tank, why can't I switch to PT? Why am I stuck with ONLY commando and mercenary? Was this ALWAYS the plan or did it change? Because if it was the former, communication was failed multiple times over, if it is the later, why oh why oh WHY was that NOT communicated before?

It was explained that they initially considered a more fluid system to change classes like the one FFXIV uses, but then decided for the current one to not completely invalidate the Legacy system. If they had allowed to change classes at will, from their POV, it would have made the need for alts redundant. They want us to make alts, because it's what the game has been about so far, so we are locked to 2 permanent choices. With the chance going forward that a third loadout MIGHT be added, possibly expanding the choices available.

- Speaking of low level gear. Quest #1 "Blade of Ancients" gives out a lvl 7 lightsaber instead of the Apprentice Practice Blade. I cant use it for 3 more levels, and it makes no sense at that point in the story. Then to my horror, quest #2 got a changed reward as well. Now instead of the unique Apprentice Pummeler Mk-1 chest, there is a very often used skin called Korriban Battler Jacket, which is also lvl 7 and can't be used for 3 more levels.

 

So what are you going to do with the unique starter planet armors that you are replacing? There are some really cool ones and I will be very grumpy if you took them out of the game without a plan on how to get them into players hands.

I agree with the sentiment. I don't see why we needed new armor in the first place for leveling before the new stuff takes place, you already have it programmed to where it changes what items you're rewarded when you swap combat styles, so why replace what we have? I even checked stats and see if there's a difference. The answer? Nope, no difference whatsoever. So... what's the point? At that point it's just change for the sake of change, not to mention redundant.

At the very least make it so the force users aren't wearing the same thing as the tech users? It's kind of immersion breaking when my Jedi Guardian is either wearing the armor of a Trooper or a Smuggler, instead of... oh I don't know. A Jedi Guardian or Sentinel? Same thing for when my Warrior looks like he's from imperial intelligence...

I only got a fraction of the loot on PTS than I did on live. Was that a matter of bad luck or are you taking out the low level gear. Please, for the love of god, please tell me you didn't butcher the loot table? I use that gear for cosmetics!

Have you played a high level toon on the PTS? Is the amount of loot diminished at that level as well? I'm asking because I can amass a lot more creds selling all the useless gear they throw at us on Live than what I could garner deconstructing to frags and buying a Legendary Ember. Having achieved optimized sets for my various toons a long time ago, the need for spending frags on gear was nil as I'm not one trying to get gear chievo's that mean nothing to me. I never bought in to the value of the reward creds causing the inflation we have seen because it is paltry compared to what I make selling useless gear.

It was explained that they initially considered a more fluid system to change classes like the one FFXIV uses, but then decided for the current one to not completely invalidate the Legacy system. If they had allowed to change classes at will, from their POV, it would have made the need for alts redundant. They want us to make alts, because it's what the game has been about so far, so we are locked to 2 permanent choices. With the chance going forward that a third loadout MIGHT be added, possibly expanding the choices available.

Do you know where this information was communicated? Because this is news to me, and many other people i'm in discords and groups and guilds with. They had no idea, and now are upset. If this was changed before, I don't think it was communicated well, if at all.

Do you know where this information was communicated? Because this is news to me, and many other people i'm in discords and groups and guilds with. They had no idea, and now are upset. If this was changed before, I don't think it was communicated well, if at all.

There was an August interview with Chris Shmidt, the game design director, on SWTOR Escape Pod Cast, where he goes into detailed answers about the whole process and their reasonings behind the 7.0 changes. It's a long interview, but

Rolled a new Sith Assassin and levelled a bit on Korriban to get a feel for the new levelling process. I thought 7.0 was just destroying endgame for me, but mea culpa, it's also going to make the class stories and levelling process less fun for me.

Like others have said, changing the rewards for the class quests from class-specific outfits to generic is a bad change. Why do that? It just doesn't make sense.

Gameplay was still faceroll easy same as on LIVE. It just felt slow to me. That plus the lack of any mobility makes things feel like a bit of a slog compared to LIVE.

I checked and assassins don't get any mobility until level 31 when they finally get force speed. I dread levelling any higher than korriban and facing all those ranged enemies and knockbacks with nothing to do but slowly walk towards the enemy while they shoot at me.

... playing a ranged class is supposed to be a choice, not something you do because playing melee dps is a miserable experience.

I'm old and used to the old combat system and levelling experience. As far as I'm concerned the new gameplay and class rewards are less fun and immersive than what we have currently.

An actual new player might have a better experience since they won't be comparing it to the way things used to be. Although I still think the old class-specific outfits should be put back, even a new player will wonder why their force user is wearing gunbelts.

There was an August interview with Chris Shmidt, the game design director, on SWTOR Escape Pod Cast, where he goes into detailed answers about the whole process and their reasonings behind the 7.0 changes. It's a long interview, but

where he starts speaking specifically about the class switching and combat styles.

Well thank you for letting me know. I have no idea how I missed this (since I read every dev post) and I don't get if this has been common knowledge for 3-4 months, why no one has told me!?!? Man this is both depressing and angering.

I get only having 2 to flip back and forth, that's fine. But there should be an option to pay at cost to switch out a spec you tried and didn't like and want something else. Especially since you can't test them before confirming.

And paying $20 (which is more then a month of sub btw. 2000 CC = $20) for either a 3rd or to even SWITCH IT!?!?! Is BEYOND greedy and very nasty toward the players.

On to the actual feedback requested. Since I've recently levelled a Mercenary on Live, I went ahead and tried to level one on PTS.

As a premise, the following is from the point of view of someone who spends 80% of his time ingame roleplaying. and the remaining 20% doing story content, daily Heroics, and random Veteran dungeons.

That said, I reached the early 20's so far. The first thing I will say is that I have to add my voice to those who have pointed out the current ability unlock progression feels too slow. Having the same 3 abilities from lvl 3 to 15 gets boring fast. On top of that, not having an AoE until level 19 feels very odd compared to the Live progression, especially considering people usually start doing dungeons way before that, where AoE is often vital.

The next point regards discipline-specific abilities. Why was decided to set the first one to unlock at lvl 23, when on Live it's unlocked at 10? Personally it doesn't make any sense, especially considering each current Advanced Class is their own Style in 7.0 and the umbrella class concept doesn't exist anymore and the disciplines beng active from lvl 1. It should go back to lvl 10. Either that, or have some kind of new quest introducing disciplines at lvl 23 like the old AC quests played at lvl 10, and not have them selectable until then. As it is now it's a very baffling choice on a conceptual level.

As for the combat feel, even with the above issues, it still felt as easy as it is on Live while using the same amount of restriced abilties, especialy after getting the first companion. Just not particularly engaging due to the barebone base abilities at disposal.

Overall there's lots of room for improvement. The general pace for abiliites progression feels way off in the early levels, which is actually the biggest problem if it was considered with new players in mind. People get bored fast and feel like the game is sluggish if their character doesn't have a good sense of progression in their abilities' toolkit within the first 15-20 levels. The current PTS iteration works directly against that.

On top of that, as a veteran player, it makes the thought of rolling new alts jarring if I have to wait 30-40 levels to enjoy a class the same way I do now within the first 15-20.

Combat Style:

There was an August interview with Chris Shmidt, the game design director, on SWTOR Escape Pod Cast, where he goes into detailed answers about the whole process and their reasonings behind the 7.0 changes. It's a long interview, but

where he starts speaking specifically about the class switching and combat styles.

Was this linked in a Dev post here somewhere? If it wasn't it should have been. This is completely different to what we were told in the livestream. We were given the impression that we'd be able to have additional skills from the either the tech group or force group depending on the class we chose. This podcast reflects what we're seeing on the PTS - we'll have to switch between two specs entirely. I was really hoping that I could pick force choke and stealth abilities to have on my sorcerer along with lightning but this isn't what we're getting.

I made a level 1 Juggernaut on live and copied across to level (as the Warrior story is my favourite class story). When I did the secondary spec quest, I was hoping to get "Sorcerer" as an option for my Juggernaut BUT it was not offered. ]EDIT!! - I'm an idiot - I did not notice the scroll down option - Sorc is there[/i]

My edited questions on this:

[*]Will the PTS be updated so we can easily switch between primary and secondary specs? At present, when you switch you lose all you ability bar locations which is real pain in the bottom.

[*] Will you be activating load outs?

[*]Will there be an updated dev post about how this is all supposed to work? Several of us were saying in chat that switching between primary and secondary spec was random. Sometimes you could, sometimes it didn't work - shouldn't switching only be restricted inside a phase/instance (FP, Op, PvP)?

One other thought I had: did the ability to have a second spec in this PTS patch get added by mistake? It seems very odd to include it and have it fail to work properly when this is the one thing people are so het up about in the general forums. Devs, this is frankly a mess and not doing you any favours with the nay-sayers.

For all those wondering: if you copied over a high level character, to get the question for choosing secondary/primary spec to appear you need to relog once your on the PTS. In addition, I got the option to choose to abandon my main's current-used-for-years lightning spec (never going to happen) and switch permanently to a light-side option. I'd much rather the option existed to switch sides completely but here we are. If we're going to be able to do this hence the option to change specs, let us know!

Dark-Light Toggle

The loss of this is really noticeable. I'm now realising just how much I used this, especially to level neutral characters. Not a fan of this alignment selection being gone. It was asked in another thread about keeping the alignment selector and getting rid of everything else (such as the dark or light side controlling the galaxy). Please bring back the alignment selector! I really don't want to have to go back to the days of being forced to choose "diplomacy".

Levelling:

When I made my level 1, I made sure I copied over my DvL xp armor set as that's generally what I use on my alts that I'm not boosting to 70. The legacy perks work (after some weird flakiness with the level 1 legacy mount perk failing making me run around on my legs like a fool).

I agree with the person who said levelling seems slower. It does - it seems to be taking a little longer to kill things and it seems a more challenging but it's still easy. Currently at level 11 and still on Korriban. Will post more feedback if I continue levelling this character. However that bugged inventory is still a nightmare and is putting me off continuing.

Rolled a new Sith Assassin and levelled a bit on Korriban to get a feel for the new levelling process. I thought 7.0 was just destroying endgame for me, but mea culpa, it's also going to make the class stories and levelling process less fun for me.

 

Like others have said, changing the rewards for the class quests from class-specific outfits to generic is a bad change. Why do that? It just doesn't make sense.

 

Gameplay was still faceroll easy same as on LIVE. It just felt slow to me. That plus the lack of any mobility makes things feel like a bit of a slog compared to LIVE.

 

I checked and assassins don't get any mobility until level 31 when they finally get force speed. I dread levelling any higher than korriban and facing all those ranged enemies and knockbacks with nothing to do but slowly walk towards the enemy while they shoot at me.

 

... playing a ranged class is supposed to be a choice, not something you do because playing melee dps is a miserable experience.

 

I'm old and used to the old combat system and levelling experience. As far as I'm concerned the new gameplay and class rewards are less fun and immersive than what we have currently.

 

An actual new player might have a better experience since they won't be comparing it to the way things used to be. Although I still think the old class-specific outfits should be put back, even a new player will wonder why their force user is wearing gunbelts.

They really need to give Assassin/Shadow Force Leap and early. Seeing as how the Companions can do it with a double bladed lightsaber, no reason they can't get it for PCs.

After having thought about it overnight and played a little more in the 1-20 range, my feedback is this:

1) Sentinel combat is clunky and does not flow well in this range. There are too few abilities at low level to create a smooth combat style. It is all Strike and Slash ("energy" management is problematic). The Sentinel also needs some sort of "ranged" attack or speed boost between levels 10 and 15 where you start running into mobs of enemies with ranged attacks that are in two different locations but trigger at the same time. It is also very weak at engaging multiple enemies at the same time which really extends the time to kill mobs. This would be alright for silvers and golds which appear in ones and twos, but standard enemies appearing in groups of 4 or more take too long to kill in groups compared to AOE based classes.

On live I run a base combat combo of Force Leap, Force Sweep, Zealous Strike, Blade Rush (I consider this along with Precision, Blade Barrage, Clashing Blast, and Twin Saber throw to be iconic Sentinel abilities). It branches from there depending on level. I think this is a core combo that should be available by level 15 (when you leave Tython) . Pulling the level 22 abilities back to level 15 would help too. Gore is pretty far down the list and I use it as a finisher and not a standard attack (mainly because it is slow and interrupts the flow of other abilities).

2) Perhaps it is just me but I could not figure out how to put weapons in the costume designer so I ended up with mismatched weapons throughout the leveling process. The knight end quest (where you make your lightsaber) is dropping a modable weapon and you still get mods as rewards there and at the Mod station which leaves with a very weak, non-upgradeable weapon. Most of the lightsabers that dropped also did not have color crystals and there was no place to get those except for the one you get for the Moracen and Spanios quest.

3) I think modable equipment should be retained and the advantage to group content runners would be a better selection of mods. The drop items currently on the PTS give the wrong bonuses a lot. A Sentinel should be able to choose to get more alacrity since speed of attack is the core of the class. They seem to be overall heavy on the stats that are capped the tightest. The green arrow on gear is also not really indicative of what is actually an upgrade for the class. It tends to show something as an upgrade if it has more mastery even if it has inappropriate stats mixed in.

Level 20-40 is up next to see how the trees work out. I already see some issues there like putting a slow on a melee attack. No one is going to choose that option (for a sentinel in particular). The gore modification that strikes a second opponent in line with the first is hard to line up properly making it not very useful either.

This likely won't happen but it would be really interesting to see a build of the PTS where you receive all your base combat style abilities between say, level 1-30 (maybe 1-40 idk I haven't prototyped it).

Then, have the discipline specific tree start at that point. This way you would always be gaining something every few levels! You'd gain access to your dcds and gap closers earlier and then be able to decide which of the disciplines you like the feel of based on your experience using your whole base kit.

I briefly looked at the marauder and where they get each ability compared to live and I honestly couldn't bring myself to level it any more. Not only do you gain far fewer abilities overall, you don't receive fundamental abilities til way later than you do on live. Powertechs and Marauders seem to have it the worst from what I've seen so far (with the former getting a whole 4 abilities level 1-14, 5 abilities between 1-18).

Sorcerer doesn't seem as bad initially because you start with the 3 basic force powers - but it's still pretty bad. Every class gets AoE far too late, dcds too late, rotational features too late etc etc. Instead of squashing abilities into neat segments with clear and consistent progression, they've been spread over such a large range of levels that the early game is going to be extremely boring to play imo.

Something as seemingly small as not having an AoE ability in the first few levels feels horrible on the PTS compared to live. It significantly slows down the rate at which you move between groups of enemies. Randomly granting DCDs and mobility abilities to different combat styles at different levels will also result in a very unbalanced low-mid PvP experience - which is something that is already bad on live and will only be exacerbated with this change (most notably for melee styles).

I feel like I'm mostly just reiterating the same feedback at this point. When I first heard of the expansion and got details having two combat styles and cross faction mirrored styles, I got excited at how many new characters I might want to make. If what's on the PTS goes live, I might make a single character. I'm just not excited about it anymore. SWTOR drew me in because of how often you got abilities and how many of them you got.

I understand why you might want new players to get abilities slower so they can learn what they do, but equally a lack of tutorials explaining abilities and rotations means that it won't matter anyway. There are still new players who don't know what an interrupt is!

I like levelling on live, I likely won't in 7.0 if things don't change. Realistically, you won't need all your abilities early (unless you want to play PvP or scaled group content) - but not having them leads to a less enjoyable experience.

Tried a second class. Trooper, but using the scoundrel combat style.

The trooper trainer wouldn't work, but the scoundrel trainer did. It would be simpler to just make all trainers 'universal' trainers like the holo trainers if the coding allows it.

The pacing and abilities gained felt much better with ruffian scoundrel that when I tested deception assassin. Ruffian is technically a melee class but there's enough ranged abilities that at least you're doing something while walking towards enemies.

You also still gain both an aoe ability AND a hard stun early, which I like. Scoundrel can do more in the early levelling process than just spam couple of basic attacks over and over.

The odd changes for what level you get new abilties compared to LIVE seems a bit arbitrary and will make some combat styles feel much worse while levelling then others. If you want new players to get into the game then it's not just the max level gameplay that's important, but also how things flow while levelling.

For assassin/shadows I suggest moving force speed from level 31 back to pre-level 10 the way it is on LIVE. Ranged and melee with some ranged attacks (such as scoundrels) can make do without their moblity for longer than pure melee classes.

(No mobility plus all melee attacks) vs (ranged enemies with knockbacks) = (frustrating and tedious gameplay).

I began an Operative and played until the class quest took me to the fleet. This was at level 12 without using any xp buffs.

The pacing of level grants feels fine. What does NOT feel right is the granting of abilities within that window(lvl 1-12). During all of Hutta I only had three basic abilities...rifle shot, knife attack, and grenade. Stealth was granted at about level nine, at which time the trainer became unusable with a system message claiming I was not a disciple of that class. At level five I was granted rewards for at least two quests that were not usable until level seven. This is not a big deal since leveling moves fast at this stage. However, it would be better if all quest rewards were usable when you get them. the overall experience was not terrible, but some fine-tuning is required.

I started a Jedi Knight in origin but chose Shadow as a combat style. I only leveled to 6 for now.

Some notes so far:

- starting with 3 abilities but not getting any new ones until you reach level 7 feels very boring

- the icon you have over your head is that of the combat style- imho there should at least also be an indicator which origin you chose- but maybe that is just me

- the quest you get upon reaching the Jedi Temple (from one of the two padawans at the entrance to see a master trainer) is broken: you get send to the trainer of your origin who you cannot talk to if you chose a different combat style