BioWare Teaches Old Jedi New Tricks With SWTOR Skill Tree Revamp

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor Posted:
Share:

SWTOR Disciplines

With the launch of Shadow of Revan, BioWare's making major changes to the way you'll develop your Star Wars: The Old Republic character. The short of it is: skill trees are out, disciplines are in.

As described in a developer's blog, skill trees are a slightly more fixed way of gaining your advanced class's skills. You'll gain them automatically as you level, and will gain key skills earlier, but you'll also be able to spend some points on utility skills, so every character doesn't play exactly the same.

As the post explains, even with the greater flexibility of skill trees, there were only a few viable builds, so BioWare decided to do away with the unnecessary complexity. Design time spend re-balancing skill trees when there was a level update was also a factor behind the change.

It's probably a good move, but there will undoubtedly be some grumbling from folks who complain that all the flexibility of the system is being taken away -- even when they've been using the same build that they copied off the Internet a year ago. What do you think of the change?

Share:
Got a news tip? Contact us directly here!

In this article: SWTOR, BioWare, Shadow of Revan.

About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Discussion (3)

Coldflo99 4 years ago
I was an avid player coming from the old KOTOR and upon initial release I, along with all of my friends were in love with the game. Then they got rid of the trees! Was it a good thing? Well thats when we all stopped playing and now in 2020 they are down to one active server. I came back, played thru the Revan storyline. Hated the fixed streamlined mechanics and never did play again. I didnt "copy" my build off the net. Ive been playing D&D, Star Wars and mmos for a very long time. I came up with my original build myself but doubt that it was orginal. And it was alot more fun when I could build up my tree manually.... Sorry, but it was an epic fail. I dont know how theyve managed to keep the game going since.

Big Boi 9 years ago
Having played SWTOR to cap (55 at that time) and also looking at RIFT's system..this looks oddly similar. SWTOR is already ridiculously simple as far as MMOs go so I guess character development had to be dumbed down too..

Adrian87 9 years ago
I do not play SWTOR, but customization is very important for me. If i would be a SWTOR player i would not like this change at all.


Read Next

You May Enjoy