With the next patch, much will change in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The 4 core attributes will disappear, and groups will now receive more experience points.
The Force Finds a Way
There are only a few days left until the expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire for BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic celebrates its launch. The game is turning many things upside down. It also changes the fundamental systems. Class-specific attributes will be abolished, group players can look forward to noticeably more experience points, and companions can – in theory – soon run around naked after their ladies and gentlemen.
Mastery – the New Value for All
Currently, it seems to be in vogue to simplify and unify the various character attributes of MMORPGs further. After WildStar, SWTOR is now also taking this step and saying goodbye to Strength, Willpower, Agility, and Accuracy. The 4 attributes are replaced by Mastery; it serves the same purpose but now has a uniform name for all classes.
Also, the Wave Value finds its end with KotFE: It will be integrated into the critical hit value, so the chance of a critical hit will increase along with the damage of these attacks. However, the effectiveness of the value has been adjusted and reduced, as it now fulfills two purposes at once. By the way: If a spell would hit critically due to a talent, the excess value is added to the damage of the attack. This attribute is designed to never be useless.
Once a character reaches level 65, Endurance grants them more health points than before. This leads to a significant increase and is intended to particularly impact PvP, where battles are currently ending too quickly – at least in the eyes of the developers.
Group Play and Companion Clothing
Group play has always been a tricky thing in MMORPGs. While you want to reward players on one side for teaming up, you must ensure that experience gains within a group are not so rapid that no one wants to play solo anymore. SWTOR has clearly moved away from the difficulty of this issue: All group members now always receive the maximum amount of experience points, as if they had defeated an enemy solo.
Finally, there is a change for the companions: They will no longer draw any power from their own equipment and can therefore be equipped completely independently of attributes and other “useless frills” so that players can focus on the important things: the visual look! It won’t be long before we see numerous Vettes in the typical Twi’lek outfit – so quite naked.
