SWTOR

[Sky]

Yeah, it's gotten muddy with the testing and constant interviewing.

As far as I understand it right now:

AC switching is in at steeply increasing cost, until lvl 20 or so, when you're locked in. To allow people to get a feel for the AC before locking in the choice - though I imagine most core skills come later than the cutoff.

Respec within AC is in, at escalating cost.

No dual spec/multi-spec currently.

I really wish they'd follow Rift, and I feel I should mention that at least once in the thread  . Even though I tended to settle on a spec to fill each role, it's nice to have the variety to dial in what you feel suits you best. And within classes that multiple specs can fill the same role, it's nice to have a couple to fit the situation (ie; my cleric can have a purifier-based heal style as well as a warden style, for flexibility).

[sam, an eggplant]

Right, dual-spec is not in yet, it will be post-release.

[Reg]

I hope that it did actually quietly die in a corner. God knows it wouldn't be the first time an MMO dev decided to stubbornly hold on to some stupid issue and ended making his game worse because of it. I can think of a couple of games that improved amazingly once their old guard devs finally left.

[Threash]

AC switching is in at steeply increasing cost, until lvl 20 or so, when you're locked in. To allow people to get a feel for the AC before locking in the choice - though I imagine most core skills come later than the cutoff.

Respec within AC is in, at escalating cost.

No dual spec/multi-spec currently.

This is going to kill the game for me.  Even dual specs are simply no longer enough.  I have five different specs that i can switch between at will in Rift, respeccing any one of them costs about as much as you get for a single daily quest.  That is the bare minimum a new game should be shooting for.

[sam, an eggplant]

You could very accurately say that Rift innovated in its mechanics while SWTOR focused on content.

[Threash]

Still, it's one of those things that once you get it and see how great it works you can't do without.

[Ingmar]

Worth considering is whether or not you really need any respecs or dual specs before you hit the endgame in a game that provides you a companion character that can fill any role, and how long you think it will be before you're looking at seriously consuming any endgame content.

[sam, an eggplant]

Worth considering is whether or not you really need any respecs or dual specs before you hit the endgame in a game that provides you a companion character that can fill any role, and how long you think it will be before you're looking at seriously consuming any endgame content.

The last I heard, companions were not usable on endgame content (raids and PvP). Also, they're MMO pets. Pets can't really replace a player.

[Threash]

Give them enough damage and DPS players can easily be replaced by a pet.

[Paelos]

Give them enough damage and DPS players can easily be replaced by a pet.

God willing.

[sam, an eggplant]

Give them enough damage and DPS players can easily be replaced by a pet.

Not if the content requires more than standing stationary and practicing your rotation.

[Ingmar]

Worth considering is whether or not you really need any respecs or dual specs before you hit the endgame in a game that provides you a companion character that can fill any role, and how long you think it will be before you're looking at seriously consuming any endgame content.

The last I heard, companions were not usable on endgame content (raids and PvP). Also, they're MMO pets. Pets can't really replace a player.

Yes I know. You'll note I was talking entirely about *before* the endgame. If you're not to the endgame by the time they patch in dual specs, no big deal, the swap-able companion can probably cover most of your needs before then.

[Paelos]

Give them enough damage and DPS players can easily be replaced by a pet.

Not if the content requires more than standing stationary and practicing your rotation.

I can train a dog to get out of fire faster than I could train some of the people I've raided with.

[Ingmar]

Yeah running out of fire is not a terribly complicated bit of AI. Guild Wars henchmen could do it even at release when their AI was terrible.

[caladein]

This is going to kill the game for me.  Even dual specs are simply no longer enough.  I have five different specs that i can switch between at will in Rift, respeccing any one of them costs about as much as you get for a single daily quest.  That is the bare minimum a new game should be shooting for.

Saying "but Rift gives you five stored specs!" is ignoring the context of both games (Rift and SWTOR) having radically different class designs.

I don't even think there's much of a need for being able to swap in-the-field if companions turn out to be even relatively competent.  Moreover, being able to swap specs without "going back to town" seems to encourage encounter/instance design balanced around either using all/most of the specs for just that content or having a bench.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yeah running out of fire is not a terribly complicated bit of AI. Guild Wars henchmen could do it even at release when their AI was terrible.

"Run out of the fire" is MMO-shorthand for all the weird shit modern raids make you do. This includes running out of range from other players when you have a debuff, collapsing on one person in a specific location, spreading out X yards apart like marks on a clock, tossing a hot potato back and forth, jumping on a platform and flying around, running through floating crystals the same color as a buff on your character, quickly switching targets to nuke down an add, switching targets when the boss reaches a certain percentage of health, interrupting some spells but not others, joining interrupt rotations, using survivability cooldowns to avoid raidwide damage pulses, etc. None of it is rocket science, it's mostly simple action/response, but it changes fight to fight and pet AI won't do all that crap.

I'm pretty surprised I had to explain this here.

[Amaron]

I've actually heard nothing but the complete opposite: that there will be no dual-specs within an AC, but you can switch ACs for a rapidly increasing fee.

They already have normal respecing they just don't have "dual spec".   They also seem pretty firm on not allowing you to change your AC.   All this has been reported pretty piecemeal though.

[sam, an eggplant]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

[Ingmar]

Yeah running out of fire is not a terribly complicated bit of AI. Guild Wars henchmen could do it even at release when their AI was terrible.

"Run out of the fire" is MMO-shorthand for all the weird shit modern raids make you do. This includes running out of range from other players when you have a debuff, collapsing on one person in a specific location, spreading out X yards apart like marks on a clock, tossing a hot potato back and forth, jumping on a platform and flying around, running through floating crystals the same color as a buff on your character, quickly switching targets to nuke down an add, switching targets when the boss reaches a certain percentage of health, interrupting some spells but not others, joining interrupt rotations, using survivability cooldowns to avoid raidwide damage pulses, etc. None of it is rocket science, it's mostly simple action/response, but it changes fight to fight and pet AI won't do all that crap.

I'm pretty surprised I had to explain this here.

I'm pretty surprised you think the leveling content where you're using the henchmen will have a lot of this kind of stuff.

[Chimpy]

Pretty sure Paelos meant the literal sense of "Don't stand in the fire", not the expanded stuff. From reading his WoW board posts I am pretty sure he was playing with people who it took the kindergarten teacher a week to teach how to clap their hands.

[Mosesandstick]

Advanced class switching is definitely in. They said it would very quickly become prohibitively expensive.

[Sjofn]

Pretty sure Paelos meant the literal sense of "Don't stand in the fire", not the expanded stuff. From reading his WoW board posts I am pretty sure he was playing with people who it took the kindergarten teacher a week to teach how to clap their hands.

No, that's me. 

[caladein]

I'm pretty surprised you think the leveling content where you're using the henchmen will have a lot of this kind of stuff.

I don't know if it will, but I definitely think it should to an extent.  One of the best things I found about Cataclysm's leveling was you were often presented with relatively low-risk raid mechanics.  Break line-of-sight with the big dragon, interrupt something, don't stand in fire, side-step the mob that's charging at you, things like that.

None of it was particularly deadly but it did consistently introduce players to patterns and skills they would find useful later on.

[Paelos]

Pretty sure Paelos meant the literal sense of "Don't stand in the fire", not the expanded stuff. From reading his WoW board posts I am pretty sure he was playing with people who it took the kindergarten teacher a week to teach how to clap their hands.

Yeah I played with people who couldn't walk and chew gum. Nor were they willing to listen to people explain how to chew.

[Lantyssa]

Bowing out of BC for the moment.  Doing this so I can have some questions answered.

[koro]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

 

[Evildrider]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

Advanced classes in TOR are not like going from Fire Mage to Frost Mage spec.  It's more like going from a Priest to a Warrior or say a Rogue to a Mage.

Other than that, Dual-spec "after launch", Respecs available within your AC at increasing costs (like say WoW), and you can change your AC at increasing high costs until level 20ish.  That's the current stance on everything at least.  I don't see it changing from that.

[eldaec]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

The difference is that base to advanced happens much quicker here and is only really a way to signal that the two advanced classes share content/story.

A better comparison is base and advanced class in Daoc, which most people probably don't even remember existed.

[Ingmar]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

The difference is that base to advanced happens much quicker here and is only really a way to signal that the two advanced classes share content/story.

A better comparison is base and advanced class in Daoc, which most people probably don't even remember existed.

Most people didn't play viking-base-class casters who couldn't benefit from acuity buffs because those only worked on mystics. 

[Sheepherder]

[Sjofn]

Right. The advanced class is like the final class in Everquest2, which was widely thought to be a great idea, remains in EQ2 to this day, and emulated by lots of other MMOs.

The difference is that base to advanced happens much quicker here and is only really a way to signal that the two advanced classes share content/story.

A better comparison is base and advanced class in Daoc, which most people probably don't even remember existed.

Most people didn't play viking-base-class casters who couldn't benefit from acuity buffs because those only worked on mystics. 

But at least you had your FREE TWOHANDED WEAPON that you never used.

[Fordel]

Re-roll Valewalker!

[sam, an eggplant]

The difference is that base to advanced happens much quicker here and is only really a way to signal that the two advanced classes share content/story.

Well now we're getting into NDA territory so I'll just say that the mechanic wasn't a good idea in EQ2 and I don't see any reason why it would be any better in another game.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Seriously, if it's november and the nda is still up, fuck that shit.

[luckton]

Is there another beta test this weekend?