Specifically, how the week four update has changed the entire feel of the game for me. This is in regards to acquiring specializations, and the removing of permanent talents. On one hand, this is a great idea as the original method led to a large issue of keeping track of where you got specific talents. The new way leads to a lot less book keeping. Which is good, and fits with the idea of the system.
However it feels wrong to me.
The original method gave me hope on how to incorporate new specializations, that were going to come out in the later books, onto an existing character. It felt more organic, and gave more weight to the choices you make. When I first read the original document rules, I felt I immediately knew how the Jedi were going to be incorporated, without becoming the "I'm better than you at everything" class that seemed to happen with them in the previous d20 version. I could see how a character such as Luke Skywalker could change from being a backwater farm boy, to a capable leader and soldier and eventually a full fledged Jedi, Or how Han Solo went from smuggler to respected leader. The original rules espoused Yoda's words of "You must unlearn, what you have learned".
You had a limit on how many specializations you had - admittedly, three was rather arbitrary, but with a finite amount you had a hard choice on how to build your character. With the new rules, this is not as meaningful as it just costs you more and more to learn new abilities. This reeks of power creep to me. I liked the idea of my characters initial class choice being meaningful, which it still is, as your class skills will never change and influence how your character develops and how their early development will influence their future. Even though Han became a General and soldier, at his core he still thought like a smuggler.
Choosing to leave a specialization meant that you lost something, but was offset by the option of getting new abilities. This filled me with hope for Age of Rebellion. I could play a character that started out as a bounty hunter, but along the way decided to give up my mercenary ways and embrace a greater ideal. Sure, I would still be influenced by my early career, but as the character grew I could put to rest some of my past and become something new. This progression was very much like Luke becoming a Jedi.
I imagined the Original trilogy, if run as a campaign under FFG's current plan for the RPG would have been like this: During a New Hope, Luke starts as a Explorer: Fringer or Technician: Outlaw tech (he was a tinkerer). During the campaign he gets some experience, saves it till the end and buys the Force Sensitive exile specialty, and ups his piloting (space) skill. He blows up the Death Star.
The GM then buys Age of Rebellion and Luke takes new specialization of Fighter Pilot from the Soldier class (Just an example here) but also wants to take the Wing Commander specialization so he gives up his original Fringer/Outlaw Tech specialization to become a capable soldier and leader. During the campaign he spends more points on the force sensitive exile and the GM lets him take the Lightsaber skill. He proceeds to fight the campaign Nemesis by himself and gets his hand cut off.
After this long campaign (which included much of the time between the first and second movie) the GM gets the newly released force and Destiny where Luke gives up the Force Sensitive Exile, and takes the Jedi class.
During this whole campaign Luke's player would have made choices on how his character developed. Losing some abilities, but gaining new ones. This feels like an organic way of playing a character. Under the new system, you would just have to spend more experience, and thus the choices become less meaningful. Eventually every character could have every ability (not likely, but with enough time it's possible) You could end up with a character that has a 7 page character sheet. This seems counter intuitive to the the games design, as you now have to keep track of so many abilities.
All in all, I love this system as I've read it. (haven't played yet - lack of dice is a big factor), but I'm not a fan of the specialization changes. I'm hoping that the game goes back to the original 'more book keeping' method or they do a drastic re-design again.
As with all Systems I intend to homebrew my own setting, I will keep the core mechanics - the dice rolling is superb in my opinion. But I'll probably change the class structure around.
Ideas I may incorporate are:
that you only get the additional class skills from your FIRST specialization and class. Once again, an important choice that will influence your character.
Keep the finite number of specializations, but less permanent talents.
Make permanent talents cost MORE, but can only ever be taken once - Even across multiple Specializations.