SWTOR

Draegan, what's your toon name I'll friend you and send you some credits.

Plus, if you're not a bleeding moron it's not hard to figure out what you need to take. That's one of the reasons they are moving to a new system, they came to the same conclusion WoW did, the tree system sucks.

The new system seems not very different to the old one, just with less flexibility.

Hybrids are gone in that I can't get active abilities from multiple trees, like my sage won't be able to get FiB and rejuv+conveyance any more.. I'll be stuck to active abilities and most of the best passives from one tree, and some of the more generic passives from all 3 trees... It's also completely linear, in that you have no choice what to get other than the passives now...

Also, it seems that they removed the cast time reduction for the sage's big heal, wtf (maybe its been rolled into one of the other passives)... Anyway it's early days yet and ill mostly reserve judgement until I see the end result but on the surface the new system looks pretty awful to me..

It's really just WoW's current system plus GW2's tiered "extras" system.

I just read the developer blog again:SWTOR Developer Update: Introduction to Disciplines - Dulfy
I have to laugh at the bullshit he spun there.
"offering a wider array of impactful utility choices".. WRONG, the new system takes away almost all choice...
"While Skill Trees appear on the surface to provide flexibility and choice, in practicality they give very little of either." utter rubbish, the old system did offer some flexibility and choice while the new system offers almost none.
"Players of a skill tree all tend to take the same skills in roughly the same order" i dont get how he can say this with a straight face.. players used to generally pick most of the same skills when they were focussing on a specific tree, so now to improve things we'll remove your ability to choose any skills at all (apart from picking a tree)....

Even though they always boil down to cookie cutter builds, elaborate skill trees are fun and add depth to the game. It may make things simpler but it also makes the game less interesting.

I don't get why an mmo hasn't tried to have a skill tree system similar to Diablo 2. Lets say you have your 3 specs to choose from like currently, then allow the player to dump more points into areas that interest them. Let's say I want to get the strongest force lightning available - let me? There are definite ways to add customisability to these 'static' trees that I haven't seen anyone seriously try

I would agree with you guys had the old skill trees offered you more than one real path. Losing the ability to hybrid spec is going to take away the vast majority of anything like choice more than anything. I long for a huge unwieldy skill tree with 5 or more ways to spec in it.

How about a specialization / skill tree that lasts more than 1-2 expansions because they actually planned out future abilities, accounted for talent point growth, and did the math on power increases already.

Rhanin_sl said:

I would agree with you guys had the old skill trees offered you more than one real path.

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The old trees didn't offer more than one path within the tree, but it offered flexibility in choosing to take parts of multiple trees. That is basically gone with the new system although you can still get some of the passives.

All right I preordered the expansion and subscribed. I don't think ~25 bucks is too bad if I can have fun a couple of weeks, even if I won't play the expansion when it launches (due to warlords) I guess it'll be waiting for me some time

Time to level something, probably a sorc

Some of you commented how world pvp is dead. I talked to a lot of players about it on my server and the general concensus was that you're right, it is dead. Welp I will probably finish the BH storyline and move on. Thanks for the heads up, it'll save me from wasting a lot of my time gearing up for high end pvp.

sakkath_sl said:

The old trees didn't offer more than one path within the tree, but it offered flexibility in choosing to take parts of multiple trees. That is basically gone with the new system although you can still get some of the passives.

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I actually meant to say didn't offer, but I was making clouds at the time lol. It is obvious that the current tree's are lame ducks, other than making maybe 10 point shifts for pvp or pve, there isn't any flexibility. I will miss hybrid specs, even when they aren't more better spec +5 x infinity dps, they are fun for tinkering and dicking around with. One of the few things I liked about WoW until they changed it, was being able to spec in tree's, and play around. I agree with Malakriss, as well, they should have had this shit figured out at least mostly in advance. I expect that is the major reason for the change, I believe they are banking on their resurging subs/interest, the general success of their current f2p/sub system, and renewed interest from Episode VII hype.

As much as I like the ability for people to be creative with spec's, I think when people discover some overly useful hybrids its generally something t BW didn't account for so they have to retool the spec again. This new system will force people to play each spec the way it is designed to be played which in turn should allow BW to focus on balance better, instead of constantly having to adjust for some new FOTM hybrid spec.

on Shadowlands as Zorioni. looking for guild.

arterial_sl said:

As much as I like the ability for people to be creative with spec's, I think when people discover some overly useful hybrids its generally something t BW didn't account for so they have to retool the spec again. This new system will force people to play each spec the way it is designed to be played which in turn should allow BW to focus on balance better, instead of constantly having to adjust for some new FOTM hybrid spec.

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This. If designers are forced to spend time figuring out ways to curtail specs they didn't account for, it's less focus on actual content. That's their spin on it and I happen to believe them. A big part of the last couple of years has been an effort to shore up and balance the various classes. I have to imagine at some point they took a step back and said, "This isn't working." The result is the new system. There's still some choice involved, with the passives, and I think you'll find a good amount of variety in what people take there. All the damage abilities, things you didn't ignore in the first place, are going to be there and to hear them talk about it, it sounds like you'll get those defining abilities sooner than you previously did. That's actually cool.

My toon on Shadowlands that I'm playing is Reavol (random name). Thanks for the help guys.

Question, how many companions am I missing out on by being a story tourist.

Draegan_sl said:

Question, how many companions am I missing out on by being a story tourist.

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Like if you only do the class story? the class story rewards all of the companions, but you only really need treek, my treek uses a legacy set that all of my toons share.

moontayle_sl said:

This. If designers are forced to spend time figuring out ways to curtail specs they didn't account for, it's less focus on actual content. That's their spin on it and I happen to believe them. A big part of the last couple of years has been an effort to shore up and balance the various classes. I have to imagine at some point they took a step back and said, "This isn't working." The result is the new system. There's still some choice involved, with the passives, and I think you'll find a good amount of variety in what people take there. All the damage abilities, things you didn't ignore in the first place, are going to be there and to hear them talk about it, it sounds like you'll get those defining abilities sooner than you previously did. That's actually cool.

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After playing with new tree's a I like them better, you can pick up skills normally that would be in other tree's, a bunch of guys from a pvp guild our server just moved to the Ebon hawk Moon, apparently ranked actually pops on your server, they are pretty good <PostMordem>

I just need mods for all my gear as I level up. Need more planet tokens. I think I have all the armor ones so far.