Game Update 57 could be a big update, based on some notes already posted in the Test forum, and hints of other changes coming down the wire. The biggest change thus far is the removal of certain group spells from the various player classes from levels 1-20. Because level 1-20, and especially levels 1-10 are considered solo play, those spells which are only useful in groups are being postponed to later levels.

From Rothgar:

These changes are PART (notice the emphasis on the word “part”) of a bigger change that wasn’t fully rolled out to the Test Server.

As you’ve probably guessed, these changes are part of a package to make the game more approachable to new players. There were many spells and abilities that were either useless or made no sense at such a low level.

We can also expect some changes to the default User Interface (UI) appearance of spells and combat arts. Of course, these will be customizable by installing third party UIs. Again from Rothgar:

I’d ask that you wait until you see the other changes that are going with it (to the default layout). Then decide if it fits or not for you.

From SmokeJumper:

You’re seeing some new changes on Test right now. We’re doing a bunch of revamping, some of it to make the game a lot faster when you play it, and a bunch more to make the game more intuitive and cool when start playing for the first time.

The skill progression for the lower levels was a) drowning new players in skills that they didn’t understand, and b) often giving players certain skills way before they needed them. Also, some classes just simply weren’t getting enough useful skills in order to have fun. So we’ve shuffled things around. Details of that shuffling are listed below.

After the jump, the changes to class abilities (mostly from levels 1-20) which have been submitted by Xelgad: