[2021] Jedi Guardian Feedback

With PTS now live, you can help test the Combat Style for the Jedi Guardian.

Please answer the following questions:

• Does this feel like a Jedi Guardian? Please explain why or why not.
• Is there anything that feels missing or out of place in the combat rotation?
• What are your initial thoughts with the effectiveness of the Jedi Guardian against enemies?
• How are you enjoying or not enjoying this class?
• If you have feedback on the different disciplines and ability paths, please note your feedback accordingly so we can track it.

Feel free to answer in as much detail as possible to help us understand your thought process and line of thinking. Please include the specific Discipline and ability path you chose.

Thank you!

Hi all,

Were going through all the feedback thats being posted here. Thank you to everyone who has been providing constructive feedback and answering the questions listed in the feedback thread. There is a lot to read through, but we wanted to acknowledge that we are reading your posts.

One note that we are seeing is concerns of our overall lack of addressing questions in real time that have popped up. We know that this can be frustrating but at this stage of the feedback process, but we need your raw constructive criticism without us potentially changing or tainting it. This is especially important in the first few days of PTS and what we will be following for future phases of PTS. We also know that there is an ask for us to acknowledge every single thread that was created, but please understand that is not feasible in terms of keeping info consolidated and in one place with how the dev tracker functions. Know that we are reading each thread as they are updated and compiling the feedback and reviewing it with the team.

Here are common sentiments that we are seeing:

• Concerns regarding the availability of defensive abilities.
• PTS Jedi Guardian could be effective in story content but not endgame content.
• Saber Throw/Saber Reflect should not be a choice.
• The class is about survivability. The PTS Jedi Guardian does not feel like this.
• Choices being offered as of now dont feel balanced.
• The gear and companion being offered during this phase of PTS does not equate to the live player experience.

We know there are questions surrounding this phase of PTS and will be addressing them in a consolidated dev post later this week after weve reviewed the feedback thats come in since weve launched PTS.

This thread will be updated with a dev post later this week.

Jackie

Hi everyone,

Following up on the post I made a couple days ago. We wanted to bring clarity to some of the feedback weve been reading. First, we would like to share our philosophy on reducing the number of defensive cooldowns available.

Over several years and updates, more and more defensive cooldowns and abilities have been added to the game. Often times this was for class balance purposes, to allow some classes to keep up with others in terms of their defensive kit. Additionally, this was done without adjusting things like Operation boss mechanics which were designed around the class kits available at the time: mainly less defensive cooldowns. The sheer quantity of defensive cooldowns in the game today makes things more difficult to balance for both PvE and PvP. It has made some PvE mechanics completely avoidable, and made the time-to-kill metric in PvP grow steadily to the point where we are approaching tedious levels.

In 7.0, we want to reduce the quantity of defensive skills overall, across all classes, making for a more balanced and enjoyable experience in both PvE and PvP content, while at the same time making the defensives that remain more impactful and fun.

What does this look like in both modes?

• In PvP, our intent is balanced, more dynamic player encounters that move away from rotating defensive cooldowns and move more towards utilizing a broader set of skills in each classs kit.
• In PvE, our intent is to take into account these changes, and adjust NPC encounters as needed to compensate.

Getting a bit more specific, we also intend to give upgraded versions of abilities when being presented as a choice. Heres one example using Blade Blitz from the current PTS:

• Blade Blitz in the Live game:
• 45 second cooldown
• Quickly rush forward 20 meters, dealing weapon damage to enemies in your path and increasing your defense chance by 100% while blitzing. Cannot be used while immobilized or hindered.

Blade Blitz on PTS:

• 35 second cooldown
• Quickly rush forward 20 meters, dealing weapon damage to enemies in your path and increasing your defense chance by 100% while blitzing. Can be used while immobilized and purges movement-impairing effects when activated.

Instead of spending utility points to upgrade abilities, as in the current system, you will be presented with an already upgraded version of several abilities to choose between leading to more interesting decision making, customization, and greater choice for your kit.

In addition to defensive cooldowns, we want to streamline other abilities where it makes sense. For example, instead of dedicating an entirely separate ability and button press to a particular effect, we want to merge or combine them with others in an intuitive way. We can see this in action on the PTS with Freezing Force:

• Freezing Force is removed from Guardians on the PTS, but a modification to Blade Storm via the new ability choice tree upgrades Blade Storm into an AoE that also slows. This offers a similar effect to the old ability, but in a more efficient way.

The intent of the new ability system, which will replace the current utility points system, is that players can make meaningful choices to accommodate their play style or situational needs. Players will be able to pick their own ability modifications and customize their skills in this manner, with all of those choices able to be saved to a Loadout. Loadouts will be able to be swapped with similar ease to the current Utility point system. While the ability choice interface and Loadout features are still in development, those experiences are core to the system and we are working hard to get them to a state where they can be shared on the PTS in a future update. We will share more details in the future on both of these features.

One of the reasons we wanted to share these class changes with our players so early is because we wanted to get your feedback as we are still in the design phase of several other classes. As stated previously, you are not playing a final product. While very rough around the edges, the earlier we can share impactful changes like this the more we can take into account your feedback as we continue building out the remaining classes and iterating on ones youre able to try out on the PTS.

Lastly, for this phase of PTS, the Jedi Guardian was missing both their breaker (Resolute) and interrupt (Force Kick). We understand that players may be worried about what that means for 7.0. It was never our intention to completely remove these from the game. We realize this has caused confusion, so we are going to add these back for the next phase of PTS with the caveat that they may change form in the future. We are currently iterating on different ways of utilizing breaker functionality that doesnt necessarily require an independent icon on your hotbar as well as considering where interrupts fit in with the overall class and encounter design of 7.0. Because of this, we didnt include these in the testable ability sets on PTS.

Please keep in mind that breakers and Interrupts will remain in-game, they just might not appear in the same form as they are now.

Thank you for playing PTS and giving us your constructive feedback.