Bioware’s been on a bit of a tear lately with Star Wars: The Old Republic, as the RPG developer revealed the latest class for TOR, the Imperial Agent, a week after their announcement of the Jedi Knight. With this reveal, there now only remain two more classes to show off to complete their picture of TOR careers.
While there was some initial cloudiness regarding Bioware’s philosophy on balancing two sides, now that most of the careers have been shown we’re starting to see a bit more of that come to light. The picture that I’m seeing so far, honestly, is uplifting to me as a player. Here’s some of the key points:
- Two sides of the same coin – While it seems that Bioware is not taking a stance where they are creating the exact same abilities for both Empire and Republic, they do seem to be taking a mirrored approach. This reflects the overall lore of the Star Wars universe in the “good vs. evil” sense. For example, the Smuggler and recently revealed Agent are both covert and stealthy in different ways, they will be using cunning rather than brute strength, and they’ll be reliant on the element of surprise. The Bounty Hunter and Trooper are both resourceful warriors with a variety of tools at their disposal and are both frontline fighters. The Jedi and Sith are painfully obvious. All of this points to a “similar but different” idea that Bioware has been known to refine with their previous titles.
- Non-Archetypal – The KOTOR games had loosely based archetypes around which you would customize your character with skill upgrades and stat point distribution. This appears to be making the transition to TOR , because as much discussion has been had about which class is the “tank” and which is the “dps”, none of those archetypes appear obvious in the classes themselves. Instead Bioware appears to be concentrating on making each individual class provide its own flavor to the universe, and with exclusive skills based on the moral choice system, another layer is added that combats the whole “role pigeonholing” we’ve seen in MMOs.
- Iconic and Epic - While it’s true that gameplay and mechanics make a class work, there is something to be said about how Bioware is treating these careers. They’re not just general roles in a Star Wars world, but heroes as well. They’re based upon well-known Star Wars universe characters (or ones easily referenced, as in the case with the Imperial Agent) and they are meant to evoke a sense of being that character when you are playing them. It might seem like fluff to some, but to Bioware, they consider it an essential lynchpin to playing the class, something which falls in line with their promotion of TOR as one that uses story.
While I’m sure some people are feeling a bit fearful that Bioware isn’t traveling a path that is well-trodden when it comes to their careers, I’m personally feeling excited for the potential class dynamic that will be occurring as a result of these philosophies. I’m a traditional support class player, but with two classes left I can’t help but wonder if Bioware is going to force me out of my healing shell and make all the careers healing self-sufficient, meaning I’ll be making my choices based on what feels right to play rather than what is practical. I can’t say that’s a bad thing, and I’m looking forward to what Bioware will be doing in the future to flesh out their chosen careers.
Subscribe for Optimism!
Actually, this really reminds me of the ‘mirror class’ idea that Mythic used in WAR. So the two opposites will fill similar roles but not be identical. I think it’s a fairly successful idea, but it does end up losing some excitement because people think ‘Oh, X is just the mirror class of Y’ but I’d rather have a cool well-balanced game than exciting hype.
Also the imperial agent can’t possibly be as cool as the smuggler
Very reminiscent of how Mythic handled classes in WAR.
Indeed, flashbacks to what WAR did with their mirrored classes come to mind. And with the association the two share under the EA umbrella, if Bioware does decide to go this route, they’ll benefit from Mythic’s real world successes and failures with the system. It’s a win-win.
One thing though, with the whole ‘non-archetypical’ aspect of SW:TOR’s classes… a lot of people actually stick with the holy-trinity archetypes because they feel *comfortable* with them. It’s a lot easier to plan out a group if you know “we need a tank, a healer, and some dps” than it is to try to balance out “do we have enough recovery ability specced among us to keep us all alive, and does someone have enough survivability to take the brunt of this damage”, et cetera. So it’ll be interesting to see how people adapt if that isn’t there.