Old Republic Classes 8/19 Update

[Vasan]

A tank class with a flamethrower, stealth heals, and a stupidly named jedi class. Good stuff.

Healing should be added to one of the agent classes similar to the smuggler, short range heals, quick casting, less powerful.


Trooper:




Commando

• Heavy Blaster Cannon
• Grenades
• Ranged DPS

Vanguard

• Blaster Rifle
• Energy Shields and Defense
• Tank

Smuggler:




Scoundrel

• Blaster ‘Shot Gun’
• Stealth / Medicine
• Burst ranged damage or Healing

Gunslinger

• Dual Pistols
• Quickdraw / Fast Attacks
• Ranged DPS

Jedi Knight:




Jedi Sentinel

• Dual Wield Saber
• Saber fighting specialist
• Melee DPS

Jedi Guardian

• Single Saber / Heavy Armor
• Leadership / Party Buffs
• Tank

Jedi Consular:




Jedi Shadow

• Double Bladed Saber
• Stealth
• Burst melee damage

Jedi Wizard

• Single Saber
• Powerful Telekinesis / Healing
• Ranged Control / Damage or Healing

Bounty Hunter:




Powertech

• Flamethrower
• Defense / Energy Shields
• Tank

Mercenary

• Dual Wield Guns
• Missiles
• Ranged DPS

Sith Warrior:




Sith Juggernaut

• Single Saber / Heavy Armor
• Fear and Darkside Auras
• Tank

Sith Marauder

• Dual Wield Sabers / Armor
• Saber fighting specialist
• Melee DPS

Imperial Agent:




Operative

• Blaster Rifle / Energy Blade
• Stealth
• Burst Ranged damage

Sniper

• Sniper Rifle
• Cover, Ambush, Orbital Strikes
• Ranged DPS

Sith Inquisitor:



Sith Sorcerer

• Single Saber
• Force Lightning / Force Drain
• Ranged DPS or Healer

Sith Assassin

• Double Bladed Saber
• Stealth
• Burst Melee DPS

*note classes not final*

[Drakhon]

Interesting. I wonder if the BH or SW tank ACs will bring more group damage reduction (whether buffs or debuffs) to offset the lack of a secondary healer. I suppose one could argue that Empire groups would just have more player DPS with more healer companions and the reverse for Republic, however.

[Isak]

Looks interesting so far, all the classes look like they could be fun. I haven't been watching this very closely yet, but my main concern is still how are they going to handle population balancing.

[Vasan]

Agreed. Population balancing and how RvR will work are my concerns now. The classes look fine as do graphics and missions/quests. Ranged tank with a flamerthrower, stealth healer, sniper based ae class are interesting choices indeed. They just need to work hard on RvR since areas style pvp isn't sufficent, they need open world RvR with balancing options for low population sides and heavily losing sides. Hell they can just add in areas that open to pvp conflict at certain times, allowing RvR faction control of certain areas to the victor and access to new pvp areas as you gain or lose conflict zones.

Classes look well mirrored apart from the rogue classes, for instance they should be able to balance a buff tank versus a debuff tank in pvp, or telekinesis versus force lighting. It seems they want to offer a ranged sniper class ( imperial agent) only for one side with the trade off being the other side gets another healer. They need to offer snipers for both sides (with not overpowered orbital strikes) and add healing to the imperial agent operative. Mix up the abilties, somewhat, but every class type should have a similar mirror on the other side. I don't care if the dev teams feels "imperial agents shouldn't heal" or *smugglers with sniper rifles might not fit the stereotype", good faction balance trumps that.

[Drakhon]

I admit that PvP balance is something I've been worried about from the beginning because I don't associate BW with balanced classes. DA and ME have terrible balance, but they are single player. There's been an influx of experience from Mythic, but they have never been known for class balance either. It's a worry, but the information isn't out there to confirm/deny it yet.

Mix up the abilties, somewhat, but every class type should have a similar mirror on the other side. I don't care if the dev teams feels "imperial agents shouldn't heal" or *smugglers with sniper rifles might not fit the stereotype", good faction balance trumps that.

I think you are assuming the use of sniper rifles means extra-long range or something. While this makes sense conceptually, the information we have doesn't seem to indicate such - the "standard" range (for blaster abilities anyway) appears to be 30m based on info from Gamescom and this includes the Agent's Snipe and Laze Target abilities. There is currently no reason to expect the Gunslinger to have a shorter range.

You're most likely right on the healing aspect, however.

[Vasan]

Sniper rifle is more a comment on forming equal mirrors with similar weapons and styles, since while a blaster rifle and a blaster shotgun are somewhat similar, with one assumed similar skills and abilties, it strains credibilty to see how equal mirrors can be based off a sniper rifle ambush style class and a fast attack dual pistol class. Mirrored abilties before concept. Unequal mirrors equals poor game balance.

Much better to have one quick pistol firing class with healing and one dedicated stealth based sniper class I say, rather than this four missmash, odd jobs sort of deal they have going with the rogues so far based, it seems, on class concept and not on class balance.

It's even more confusing since gunslinger is referenced as a long range "sniper" class at times (which is to say, not a short ranged attack class), and in others, a quick attack class. And designers specifically list the scoundrel, consular and inquistor as the three healing classes since, of course, smugglers have access to "black market medicine." It smacks, I know this might not work out balance wise, but I am sticking with the concept design.

They also need to upgrade the bug testing of their products in addition to balance concerns, I can think of two nasty design bugs/mistakes in both DA and Mass Effect 2 that really cut into the fun factor in early release. Hopefully neither balance or bugs will be too much of a problem with the extensive beta test I suspect they have planned.

Off Topic and regarding the list above, I neglected to add the class based dynamics such as heat buildup, rage, cover and the like.

[Gisli]

Let's see how this is shaping up...

(1) 2 sided RvR, leading to lack of balance. Check
(2) Distinct classes on the sides, leading to lack of balance. Check
(3) A clear "good" vs. "bad" side, leading to lack of balance. Check

I don't get a sense that game designers are learning much from past efforts. I wonder how the community infrastructure (guild mechanics, alliance, communications) will work out. The devil is in the details there.

[Vasan]

And the lessons are so simple. Equal balanced class mirrors, population balance, underdog assistance, robust server capacity, limited to no pvp cc, and big meaningful fun rvr that needs to be a central concept, not a tacked on afterthought.

You don't need to perfectly fix the above issues, you just need to aggressively address them. We all saw how well warhammer's complete disregard of the above issues led to it's collapse.

I take heart in the fact that the old republic does have potential, the game has resources behind it, with people who actually can design successful popular games. The core pve game appears to be solid.

Let's just hope they clearly unveil the pvp elements soon, along with the communication and social structures. So far it's just quess work on if pvp is open world, or area style, team based or RvR centered. Or some combination therein.

[Drakhon]

Sniper rifle is more a comment on forming equal mirrors with similar weapons and styles, since while a blaster rifle and a blaster shotgun are somewhat similar, with one assumed similar skills and abilties, it strains credibilty to see how equal mirrors can be based off a sniper rifle ambush style class and a fast attack dual pistol class.

Eh, not so much. It's essentially the difference between two-hand and dual-wield which, if not screwed up (like giving dual wield multiple different penalties that theoretically total to equivalent), is just fine. Note that the Smuggler is also cover-based despite it not being mentioned in those descriptions.

I don't get a sense that game designers are learning much from past efforts. I wonder how the community infrastructure (guild mechanics, alliance, communications) will work out. The devil is in the details there.

To be fair, unlike WAR, they have never actually described TOR as an RvR game beyond the "you belong to one of X factions that fight each other" level. We know there will be WoW Battleground/WAR Scenario style PvP areas called Warzones, open world PvP in "appropriate areas" and you can earn gear through PvP. That's pretty much it at this point. Valid concerns certainly if looking for the next RvR game, however.

Almost nothing on community so far. Surprisingly, there will be cross-faction communication and some (extremely limited) cross-faction cooperation for specific quests.

[Vasan]

Cross faction quests and communication are in? Ugh that could get ugly even if limited to small, repeatable flashpoint quests. Surely they must see the abuse that can occur if they do include time senstive or open world rvr questing. It also breaks down faction based unity when people are happily chatting with the other side. Gislim won't like this!

On the flip side prehaps cross faction communication isn't the end of the world. People will always find ways to cheat such as running two accounts, or playing one side while actively feeding information on vent to the other side. There were many destruction/order players who essentially were more closely linked with each other than the faction they played on honestly, the swine. Still cross faction communication will make it easier for normal players to inform to the other side, unless strictly limited, making sure you need to trust and prehaps limit who you pvp with.

As to the other issue, let's take dragon age as an example of good skills lines for two handed and dual wielding. The lines are distinct and support different roles and styles of play. It's not the same abilities with slightly different names but different trees.

It behooves the devs to allow both sides to have both styles of play, even if the flavor is different. First players don't feel like they have to play one side to get access to the specific skill set. Second people cannot bellyache about how one side has the advantage cause they get dual and we only get two handed.

That said I agree you can balance two handed and dual wield type styles, and it would seem ideal to balance that within factions, not specific to each side. Ideally the two skills set will have radically different abilties and play styles, and thus shouldn't fall under a faction based mirror division. The dev team seem to embrace this concept of mirrors, except for these oddball rogue classes, which while both using cover and/or stealth, seem to have heavily different powers and playstyles.

Still I do see how it's a grey area, where it's hard to say well team buffs versus team debuffs is fine to split factions, but dual weapon use versus two handed weapon use is harder to call and depends on the skill sets, and lastly the pretty easy call that splitting up number of healing classes by faction type isn't wise at all.

New information on healing. Smuggler and imperial agents can heal, quick casting healing (assuming stealth is broken on healing). Jedi or Sith have slower casting, but somewhat more powerful heals, I quess. Don't see it personally thought. So either quick heals you can spam at at lower cost, or slightly better heals that are slower and cost alot more energy. Assume the dedicated sith healer class starts getting more and better heals to address this.