For my money this is just not that big of a deal (yet)  a few years down the line after having alted through most of the stories it may make a difference but right now I couldn't care less.  I noticed many people complaining that this somehow limits the different feels/playstyles offered by the game and I have to wonder what difference does that make as long as they offer enough variety to satisfy the target market?

One poster even metions Vanguard as a game to have gotten it right but for me my mind quickly asks "what difference has that made" maybe 500k people tried that game far more than half of that seemed to have not cared enough to make the game anything more than an SOE station pass add on.

If I'm BW and creating all these unique classes isn't my strong suit (take it from a big fan of BW it isn't) then I'm going to make enough that I think I can service my playerbase and move on to something that I am good at.

My only problem with this is I would hope that as time went on they got rid of the mirrored stories and gave every single class it's own unique story.

Originally posted by Papechulo
I love how no one has pointed out that one of the most successful MMOs (WoW) has, quite literally, the exact same classes on each side. You have a Warrior, on either side, and you can get the exact same weapons, armor, etc. that a Warrior on the opposing faction can get.

That being said, classes are only mirrored if you have 2 players who play with the exact same style. I plan on playing the Smuggler first, and I would be willing to bet that no one will play the Agent the same way I play the Smuggler. I will even go as far to say that no one will play a Smuggler as I do.

When it comes down to it, its about the player making his characters mirrored. If you played the Trooper, and want to play the Bounty Hunter, why not switch up your style a little? "Because the player shouldn't have to to get a new experience!" Then that's you being LAZY while playing a VIDEO GAME.

You are misunderstanding the concept of "mirroring" here.  WoW has 10 unique classes.  Playable on both sides.  There aren't 2 classes with the exact same mechanics which is what SWTOR has. 

Not that big of a deal for me personally. It sounds like a lot of players would just hate the game for the perspective given in an article. Why don't you play it first? I don't plan to play all 8 clases anyway, so why do I care if they mirror them somehow to balance the PvP? I'll maybe play 2-3 classes, it will be enough of an entertainment for me. JK, Smuggler, BH, IA. Thats more than i can EVER handle being a casual gamer. Maybe smuggler and IA will feel a bit similar but thats going to be a play of hundreds of hours apart, so WHO CARES!

The game has 8 classes at release.  That's pretty average for an MMO.  I don't think it's realistic to ask for more and I garuntee people would have a fit if each faction had only 4 playable classes.

Now listen, though.  Since they are on the lower range of release classes this means we need to hold them to ahigher standard when it comes to class balance.  If we take the sacrafice of fewer overall classes we need to make sure they give us the benefit!

Originally posted by elocke

Originally posted by Papechulo
I love how no one has pointed out that one of the most successful MMOs (WoW) has, quite literally, the exact same classes on each side. You have a Warrior, on either side, and you can get the exact same weapons, armor, etc. that a Warrior on the opposing faction can get.

That being said, classes are only mirrored if you have 2 players who play with the exact same style. I plan on playing the Smuggler first, and I would be willing to bet that no one will play the Agent the same way I play the Smuggler. I will even go as far to say that no one will play a Smuggler as I do.

When it comes down to it, its about the player making his characters mirrored. If you played the Trooper, and want to play the Bounty Hunter, why not switch up your style a little? "Because the player shouldn't have to to get a new experience!" Then that's you being LAZY while playing a VIDEO GAME.

You are misunderstanding the concept of "mirroring" here.  WoW has 10 unique classes.  Playable on both sides.  There aren't 2 classes with the exact same mechanics which is what SWTOR has. 

>.0 ok. From a technical point of view When WoW launced each side only had 8 classes to play .the 7 main ones. And one unique class for their side,Paladin for alliance and Shaman for horde.

TOR has 8 Uniques classes Playable on both sides,and each side has unique animations for that class. An alliance  Warrior is going to have the exact same animations as a Horde Warrior. So if you really think about it, thats 2 times the work for one class. And from what I have seen the mirrored classes Style of play is seperated just enough to feel and paly just a bit different.

Originally posted by elocke

Originally posted by DeserttFoxx

Those of you who are against mirriored classes, are the minority, plain and simple.  Mirrored classes,e specailly from the pvp side is a good thing, it means people can choose to play waht they want to play.

So every class is unique, i guess i can only play one faction,  i hope my friends are playing that faction, i hope my guild wants to play that faction.

I dont get all this sudden hate on mirriored classes, since when is it a bad thing? Name one mmo, just one, that doesnt have mirrored classes.

Vanguard

Lotro

WoW

I'm sure there are others but these 3 stand out to me as having diverse classes.

WoW doesnt have mirrored classes? it doesnt need too since all factions have access to the same classes exactly since TBC expac, and the fact that Alliance had paladins gave them a huge advantage in vanila end game PVE.

Most MMO's today either have "mirrored" classes or "mirrored" factions, the only issue with ToR is that there are 3 classes for each faction, the AC's are more like spec's/talent trees since more than half of your abilities still come from the core class which means weather you fight a sage or a shadow, a guardian or a sentinal they will still share a large portion of their bag of tricks. This while it might add some benefits to ballancing the game alltough from playing for 4 days straight the game is even less ballanced than when WoW's paladins used to 1 shot any undead player(pre patch 0.3 or what's it 4 during the beta) it causes the game to lack variety especially in PVP.

IMO they should've left the core classes as a standalone class and made the AC standalone core classes the advanced class system was one of the more annoying things in Tabula Rasa for me. AC's need to mean somthing picking one at level 10 seems to be too underwhealming and meaningless, AC's should've been left for an expansion or the end game, what TOR did just feels like a very lenghty class selection during the char creation phase..

The difference in classes in this setting is supposed to be about how one uses the skills, not the skills themselves. So of course, bounty hunters and gunslingers have the same tools and skill sets. How they choose to use them is what makes them good or bad.

The difference in the game design is in the interactive story line. Omitting that and pretending it isn't part of your on going character creation is missing a key element of SWTOR.

This game won't before everyone. But I have faith millions will enjoy it.

Wow guys really?  Everytime I take a break and come back to this site the amount of bashing on new games coming out seems to get more and more out of hand.  All the other MMO's don't mirror classes, they just use THE EXACT SAME CLASS.  So instead of doing this they took the class and flavored it for the side.  In my opinion this adds on to what most do.  Sure they might have one class on each side that can only be chosen by that side, but then they have a rough mirror of it anyway. 

This isn't ideal, of course we want completely unique classes on each side, and we want 10 of them, and we want them balanced.  Maybe with expansions they will add some unique classes to each side who knows.  The things that get peoples panties in a wad on the internet these days makes me get my panties in a wad on the internet these days.

Vanguard

Lotro

WoW

I'm sure there are others but these 3 stand out to me as having diverse classes.

Um, your kidding right? WoW, diverse? Maybe in vanilla and before space goats. That game is so homoginized now I have to ask, when did you last play it? Shaman and paladins on horde and alliance. Every class pretty much shares abilities across the board.

I have to ask again, are you serious?

Originally posted by elocke

You are misunderstanding the concept of "mirroring" here.  WoW has 10 unique classes.  Playable on both sides.  There aren't 2 classes with the exact same mechanics which is what SWTOR has. 

I think you misunderstand what mirroring is. WoW has 10 classes. They certainly aren't unique to horde or alliance. A protection warrior functions exactly the same on horde or alliance (and they didn't even change the names of the abilities).  I'd say WoW has mirrored it's classes as much or more than ToR has.

Sure WoW has racials but people cried about those too.  I specifically remember how Alliance would cry about shaman and horde would cry about paladins. Seems to me the "majority" of both PVE and PVP players wanted mirrored classes/abilities in that game. ToR would be no different in this regard.

Having played both Bounty Hunter and Trooper, I can tell you that 'aesthetically' they are very diverse in both their skills and story.

However, 'mathematically' they are identical, as they should be for game balance, especially in PVP situations. I think people forget that and that is why they complain about classes being too much alike. And I think the devs sometimes forget this too and it causes class balance to get out of whack.

My point is that if anyone looks too closely into it they are going see similarites, but I think BW has done a pretty good job of masking the underlying mathematics to give each side of the mirror it's own flavor. Now hopefully they will be able to keep the rest of the classes balanced with each other in the same way...

Just my 2¢ worth here.

Most of you are completely insane!  Utterly... Completely... INSANE!

Yes, classes are mirrored between factions.  But not perfectly mirrored.  And the animations are truly different.  In the given example you compare the Vanguard and the Powertech.  Well their skill trees are the same.  And the attacks are similar and supposed to have the "same damage".

But I can tell you from experience that they "feel different". 

The Vanguard's "Pulse Cannon" really does work differently from the Powertech's Flamethrower.  Specifically that Pulse Cannon attack simultaneously hits a "cone in front" of you that extends a good ways back.  By comparison Flamethrower doesn't hit as wide a cone and does not extend as far.

And there are other instances where the skills are very different.  But the haters here are so rapid that I'm not going to bother enumerating them.  We all know that they're not going to play SWTOR so why should I try to convince them otherwise.

Originally posted by Bigjit

Originally posted by elocke

You are misunderstanding the concept of "mirroring" here.  WoW has 10 unique classes.  Playable on both sides.  There aren't 2 classes with the exact same mechanics which is what SWTOR has. 

I think you misunderstand what mirroring is. WoW has 10 classes. They certainly aren't unique to horde or alliance. A protection warrior functions exactly the same on horde or alliance (and they didn't even change the names of the abilities).  I'd say WoW has mirrored it's classes as much or more than ToR has.

Sure WoW has racials but people cried about those too.  I specifically remember how Alliance would cry about shaman and horde would cry about paladins. Seems to me the "majority" of both PVE and PVP players wanted mirrored classes/abilities in that game. ToR would be no different in this regard.

 That is not mirrioring actually as they are the same class completely no changing of lore, or even name, or discription to mask that fact. Like in D&d a fighter is a fighter regardless of where you go, since the general statistics that make a fighter are rather universal, but a red wizard of thray is merely a buffed up mirrior of a mage that uses the same spell types.  Noww looking at war you have mirrioring as the two classes that are mirrioring each other  have different methods and machanics but serve a simular function in groups or play.  Even in rifts the classes are not really mirriors as the races actually largely either lived in peace with each other (allowing for the passing of knowledge such as fighting styles), or were taught hwo to fightt by ancestors that were the ones that created the sub-types in the arche-type system.

Originally posted by Bigjit

Vanguard

Lotro

WoW

I'm sure there are others but these 3 stand out to me as having diverse classes.

Um, your kidding right? WoW, diverse? Maybe in vanilla and before space goats. That game is so homoginized now I have to ask, when did you last play it? Shaman and paladins on horde and alliance. Every class pretty much shares abilities across the board.

I have to ask again, are you serious?

Played it last night.  Every class shares abilities across the board in WoW?  Really?  You must be playing a game that looks like WoW but isn't.  Oh wait...that's almost every game since 2004, nm.  Still, they don't.  Really they don't.  A Death Knight is nothing like a Warrior or Paladin or Shaman or Druid, be it DPS or Tank.  Same with Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Priest, and so on. And again, the issue here is MIRRORED classes meaning the same class with a different name and look but plays the exact same way.  Not the same class on each faction.  I'd rather have 10 unique classes on either faction then 4 unique classes on one faction and 4 mirrored classes on the other faction that are the same class minus the name and look.  Now if the game had launched with maybe 6 to 8 per side, it might not be so bad.  Lots of classes that are unique is what I and many others like.

Now it just looks like some people around here are digging for stuff to hate on.  I don't agree with a lot of Bioware's decision and would way rather have a sandbox, but they have made a pretty good game for the WoW market of players.  Their classes are fine, and this game will be a huge success.

It is what it is. To me a mirrored class means I know how the other side plays and what they can do. I DON'T know what the other player can do. That's the fun for me (in PvP at least).

If I switch sides and play a class I've already played the mirror of then I know how to play him/her. I'm there for the story, quests and PvP.

I see no issues here.

Originally posted by elocke

Played it last night.  Every class shares abilities across the board in WoW?  Really?  You must be playing a game that looks like WoW but isn't.  Oh wait...that's almost every game since 2004, nm.  Still, they don't.  Really they don't.  A Death Knight is nothing like a Warrior or Paladin or Shaman or Druid, be it DPS or Tank.  Same with Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Priest, and so on. And again, the issue here is MIRRORED classes meaning the same class with a different name and look but plays the exact same way.  Not the same class on each faction.  I'd rather have 10 unique classes on either faction then 4 unique classes on one faction and 4 mirrored classes on the other faction that are the same class minus the name and look.  Now if the game had launched with maybe 6 to 8 per side, it might not be so bad.  Lots of classes that are unique is what I and many others like.

Yes the classes are mirrored on each side, but theres still 24 unique roles to play based on which specialisations you go down.  There are 4 classes (since the 4 opposite faction are mirrors), each has 2 advanced classes, and each of those has 3 distinct roles based on your specialisation choices (and a few hybrids, but lets stick with the pure roles for now).

24 roles seems like a pretty decent variety to me. 18 DPS roles,  3 tanks and 3 healers. Although those DPS roles are split into debuff, aoe, single target nukes and damage over time. And thats without the mirrored classes with different appearances.

Originally posted by evilastro

Originally posted by elocke

Played it last night.  Every class shares abilities across the board in WoW?  Really?  You must be playing a game that looks like WoW but isn't.  Oh wait...that's almost every game since 2004, nm.  Still, they don't.  Really they don't.  A Death Knight is nothing like a Warrior or Paladin or Shaman or Druid, be it DPS or Tank.  Same with Mage, Warlock, Hunter, Priest, and so on. And again, the issue here is MIRRORED classes meaning the same class with a different name and look but plays the exact same way.  Not the same class on each faction.  I'd rather have 10 unique classes on either faction then 4 unique classes on one faction and 4 mirrored classes on the other faction that are the same class minus the name and look.  Now if the game had launched with maybe 6 to 8 per side, it might not be so bad.  Lots of classes that are unique is what I and many others like.

Yes the classes are mirrored on each side, but theres still 24 unique roles to play based on which specialisations you go down.  There are 4 classes (since the 4 opposite faction are mirrors), each has 2 advanced classes, and each of those has 3 distinct roles based on your specialisation choices (and a few hybrids, but lets stick with the pure roles for now).

24 roles seems like a pretty decent variety to me. 18 DPS roles,  3 tanks and 3 healers. Although those DPS roles are split into debuff, aoe, single target nukes and damage over time. And thats without the mirrored classes with different appearances.

I don't see the advanced classes being that varied.  I really don't.  This isn't like Rift where you have one character and literally 5 dfferent roles built off of 8 distinct callings.  This is your base class that either specializes in healing, dps or tanking.  3 roles.  And the overlap is quite noticeable.  

Originally posted by elocke

I don't see the advanced classes being that varied.  I really don't.  This isn't like Rift where you have one character and literally 5 dfferent roles built off of 8 distinct callings.  This is your base class that either specializes in healing, dps or tanking.  3 roles.  And the overlap is quite noticeable.  

No, you are wrong. Lets use the Sith Sorceror as an example. One talent spec turns you into a healer. One talent spec turns you into a direct damage nuking class. And the last talent spec turns you into a cc / damage over time class. And thats only one of the advanced classes (there are 8 not including the mirror classes). The other advanced class for Inquisitor - the Sith Assassin - can spec into tanking, stealth / damage or damage over time / cc (melee variant).

Yes they share some base abilities, but there are key AA at 10, 20 and 30 point intervals. Its actually cleverly worked out, you can only ever have 3 key abilities if you decide to multi spec. And most heal and tank specs require a full investment in that tree.

Comparing it to Rift is a bit of a joke. Even WOW requires more thought than playing Rift. The skills and roles in SWTOR are actually meaningful and you cant just shove them into a super macro.