SWTOR German Interview .. Advance Class is a Permanent Choice

[Kepi]

From this recent Interview Bioware has changed their mind again about Advance Classes and the ability to respec between them. (eg. Juggernaut to Maurader or Powertech to Mercenary)

They have decided that your AC choice will be a permanent one at level 10. They believe that once you choose your AC at level 10 you are to stick with it since if they allow you to switch between AC's it will allow for FOTM gameplay and thats not something they want.

Is it possible to change his Advanced class?
We have changed her mind again. It will not be possible to modify the Advanced class. We believe it is currently not necessary. Talent trees are to be reset but can not continue to the advanced class. At least not at launch. Probably not.

The interview is in german so google translate can only do so much but you get the point.

What are your thoughts ... Discuss :P

PS. you can also listen to the interview in English here

[Deleted]

that made me very very happy.

[Deleted]

i like the fact that they don't want to make it just right for everybody and that decsisions are lasting.

[WoWGoneBad]

GOOD cant say how HAPPY i am with this choice.

what good is choosing an AC if you can switch at will. It makes your choice in class and AC that much more important

[vizzle]

Do not care either way. All it means is I personally am not going to waste my time rolling two of the same Class just so I can try both ACs.

[Doylez]

Well that sucks. Still not sure if I want to be a Vanguard or Commando :-/

[Deleted]

I never even knew that was up for debate. I thought all you would be able to respec in the future was the specific spec of your AC, e.g. Guardian Tank or DPS,

Good decision, I mean the WoW equivalent to changing your AC would have been something like "respeccing" your mage to a warlock - stupid!

[Kepi]

Without breaking much NDA but the only thing that will make AC respec make sense will be that the in game description of each Advance Classes just plain suck, doesnt even go into depth as to what each Advance Class is possible in doing.

Now also most Advance Classes you wont be able to get a true feel as to how they play until the high 20's or more so early 30's .. this will be a complete downer if you would have to restart you character. This reminds me of Rift where when you chose the base class but then chose your souls and then go a bit into the game and didnt like how it all played together .. the respec at launch was just horrid and the only real option you had was to restart your character.

There also will be plenty of people who will be leveling with friends like myself, as i will be with friends who want to dps ill be basically placed in a position to choose either tank or heals for my BH and as with my experience in most mmo's good tanks are harder to come by while leveling rather than a competent healer so ill be having to choose Powertech but then at max level all i really wanted to do was play DPS so i would be stuck at having to level up another Bounty Hunter just play as Mercenary.

[Dreavus]

They never changed their mind. They never said you could respec advanced classes. They have only said that you could respec within your advanced class trees.

[durenas]

It's fine. Treat each advanced class as if it was a separate class. Reroll another if you decide you want to do something different.

[azrielen]

This is worrisome to me. What if the advanced class I thought sounded awesome at level 10 turns out to be a play style that just doesn't suit me at max level? Hmm. (LOL REROLL, I know, but that seems like a big investment with no way to go back or change it.)

I think it would be better if Advanced Classes were changeable, but the means by which you could change them was difficult/expensive.

[Kepi]

They never changed their mind. They never said you could respec advanced classes. They have only said that you could respec within your advanced class trees.

wrong, in an event earlier in august they mentioned that AC respecs would be allowed.

quote taken from TorReport.com

Advanced Class Respec
They also announced they’ve changed their mind on respecing your advanced class, and Bioware will allow players to change their advanced class later on after picking one at level 10. They felt the decision was a big one and they didn’t want players to have to pay for a wrong choice they made early on in the game.
The respec will be relatively cheap the first time around, and after that it’ll become a lot more difficult/expensive.

Video from where the quote was taken from:

[Deleted]

Well, what if you roll a mage in WoW and then decide you want to play with pets and use dots instead of direct damage? Reroll time.

It is not like swtor is doing anything crazy or unusual here, for the sake of argument ACs could be considered separate classes. I guess it is a little more confusing, especially if the game is not clear about the differences between the ACs but if make everything perfectly clear for launch I dont see any reason to allow people to change their AC. That would be horrible.

[Dreavus]

wrong, in an event earlier in august they mentioned that AC respecs would be allowed.

quote taken from TorReport.com

So I was. Fancy that. Good thing it's back to their origin decision then. Respeccing advanced classes is stupid anyways.

[Sargerus]

Well that sucks. Still not sure if I want to be a Vanguard or Commando :-/

Vanguard is more melee and Commando is ranged with heal skills.

[vizzle]

Well, what if you roll a mage in WoW and then decide you want to play with pets and use dots instead of direct damage? Reroll time.

It is not like swtor is doing anything crazy or unusual here, for the sake of argument ACs could be considered separate classes. I guess it is a little more confusing, especially if the game is not clear about the differences between the ACs but if make everything perfectly clear for launch I dont see any reason to allow people to change their AC. That would be horrible.

Oh lawd do we really want to get into this again?

[synthetikv]

advanced classes should be looked at as regular wow classes are. you can't swap from mage to warlock, so in the same vein you can't swap from merc to powertech. i like this idea. and hey if anything gives some more incentive to level a char lightside/darkside for diff story options.

and worse case scenario they change this 2 years from now and we all start whining about how swtor is dieing!!!

[spleen1015]

Well, what if you roll a mage in WoW and then decide you want to play with pets and use dots instead of direct damage? Reroll time.

It is not like swtor is doing anything crazy or unusual here, for the sake of argument ACs could be considered separate classes. I guess it is a little more confusing, especially if the game is not clear about the differences between the ACs but if make everything perfectly clear for launch I dont see any reason to allow people to change their AC. That would be horrible.

+1

People fail to recognize that Advanced Classes in SWTOR are the same thing as Classes in WoW, etc, you just choose it at level 10 instead of when you make your toon.

[Abelf]

I really don't want to have to play through the same 200 hour story twice to be able to play both ACs. I would much rather they have players pay a large credit fee, engage in a long quest line, and have a long cooldown on switching again (days, weeks, months). Oh well, it's not a make it or break it issue for me.

Another part of that interview says that they won't have 'target of target'... kind of odd.

[iggie]

If I wasn't able to change I probably wouldn't roll a smuggler. The necessity to take cover worries me a lot in pvp/pve content.