Helios brings us Rogue_5‘s comlink this week with a first look at the Expertise System that will be coming to SWG. Different professions will have their own expertise in different areas so your character can be different and unique.

Once again, R5 is traveling and unable to personally deliver his Comlink.� As such, I‘ll once more transmit for R5 this week. As you may have heard, we are soon introducing a new character advancement mechanic into the game we are calling the "Expertise System". In a nutshell the Expertise System will allow players the ability to differentiate their characters from others of the same class by allowing specialization in certain aspects related to that class.

As a character gains levels, they will earn Expertise Points that may be spent in a number of different trees. Each class will have access to at least three different trees. Some examples of these are a Class Specific tree, a Weapon Specialization tree and a Galactic Warfare tree.

Each tree is comprised of a number of different boxes that when purchased will allow access to brand new skills and abilities or modifiers that dramatically improve existing skills and abilities. Through the Expertise System players within the same class can be quite different from one another.

Advancement within a tree is based on tier. You must spend a number of points per tier in order to purchase boxes in the next and so on. Some higher tier boxes may have one or more prerequisites that must be purchased first. The current plan is to structure trees such that you can afford to purchase every box in a single tree and perhaps have a little left over to dabble a little in another tree. You don‘t need to do this however and will have the ability to go up a few lines in all of the trees if you‘d like.

For example, you might decide to only pursue expertise that increases your damage output to make character specialize in "DPS" (Damage Per Second). There are a number of ways you might do that. You might choose to make a character that specializes in large bursts of offense over a short period of time or a character that does more damage over the long haul. Or maybe you only focus on one special attack and enhance it to the point that its use is almost innate to your character.

Alternatively, you might choose to make a character that is extremely defensive and has access to abilities such as special shields that absorb damage, enhanced healing abilities, increased damage mitigation and the ability to dodge attacks altogether. You could also build your character solely around combat against other players and gain powerful PvP only abilities that give you and your allies a distinct edge over your opponents on the battlefield. Of course, you can always make a character that is a generalist, picking and choosing abilities from a number of different trees.

The Expertise System will bring plenty of variety to the classes in SWG. It will give individuals a new path of advancement to explore, the ability to customize their characters as they choose and allow you greater control of your own destiny!�

-Helios Titan
-Lead Designer, SWG
"I find your lack of faith...disturbing."