10 replies to this topic

[l33tworks]

Disclaimer.

This is NOT another economy bashing "but Mah Mastered mechs" thread.

Personally I think PGI are being very reasnable with costs and this is coming from someone who has 100 mechs with only a handfull of modules.

The real problem is people are up in arms about about some temporary economy sink that even IF it takes you a year to remaster your mechs you will still get there and have fun doing so, but dont seem to care much about a dimwitted skill system that will be PERMANENT that had so much potential. Cant see the forest for the trees....

Here is the scary truth. On ngng podcast in regards to why they didnt allow for linear skill trees, I found the actual reasoning heartbreaking.

Russ and Chris (especially) bassicaly said the whole taking unwanted nodes was INTENDED so that you HAVE to take to take the whole tree if you are going to take it at all (Chris bassically flat out says this) the idea being so that people are forced into taking on a role, pressumably by using up all their points on entire trees because they have no sensible choice to do otherwise... Mobility firepower Survivability were stated as the intended roles.

I honestly find the shortsightedness of how carelessly the so called attempt at "roles" was implented baffling.

Its incredibly unimaginative to go about it this way and imo it just shows that pgi don't actually care about us having fun or tinkering with 1000s of possible combinations of nodes but rather they just cared about and implemted the skill tree because its a needed economy sink.. As long as theres 91 points of clicking I dont they care how shallow they make it...Sorry if i am wrong thats just how i see it given how little they seem to care about giving the player a choice of variety.

Its really sad because if you go to the trouble of making up hundreads of different nodes that pressumably should allow you allow you to custom tailor your mech to fit a large VARIETY of roles, but PGI Dev team simply are happy to limit you to a handfull of 3 or so, mobilty firepower survivability, as valid options.

If thats the case why go to all the trouble of a 250+ nodes skill tree system if its intended by design to have to select them all together in massive chunks of just a few different combinations...? Surely something like mobility/firepower/Survibality + - bar of points you can distribute around these 3, with some simple clicks on or off for specials like seismic radar derp etc wpuld be more ideal eith FAR less clicks.

Heres the kicker.
I DONT MIND THE CLICKS IF THEY ARE MEANINGFULL TO ME.

No one does. The problem with the clicking is when its always taking you to the same damn place you didnt want to be the last 80 times you done it because you have no actual say in it.

Tldr:Instead of a linear tree which would allow for hundeads of mech roles, even if its just tiny variations, like one mech has longer range bit higher duration than another, they want just 3 major roles, and othewise all the mechs SPECCED out the same?

Why go for "boring warrior online" when you can go gor "DAFUQ nodes is thst guy running warrior online"

[Elizander]

Would've been great if you could configure to a hill-humper DPS, side-peeker DPS, poptart DPS, brawler DPS, sniper DPS, flanker, frontline, support/scout or any others.

The only way for this to happen though is to have a core set of basic nodes that is considered standard and going beyond this to specialize in something reduces your overall efficiency in basic functions. That exists to some extent in the skill tree, but only if you use your imagination. They could have just as easily created it with a central core of skills, role-based extensions and some number tweaking.

[cazidin]

TL:DR Russ and Chris basically gave us useless nodes because they think it keeps things balanced and believe they'd have to replace them with OTHER bad nodes anyway and that nothing can be done to make them worth taking.

[chucklesMuch]

cazidin, on 13 March 2017 - 06:32 AM, said:

TL:DR Russ and Chris basically gave us useless nodes because they think it keeps things balanced and believe they'd have to replace them with OTHER bad nodes anyway and that nothing can be done to make them worth taking.

True.... or nodes that are irrelevant to your current build... like energy duration for ppc's (if you want heat reductions) D:<


I saw a ray, perhaps a glimmer, of hope when Chris mentioned revisiting the useless SP modes. Surely there are a heap more useful things that could be added in place of needing to buy fillers... and can we please just skip past the irrelevant ones!

Edited by chucklesMuch, 13 March 2017 - 10:44 AM.

[AlexEss]

Actually the nodes are more like a "here is a bit cucomber to tide you over to dinner"...

You pick those up along the way rather than having to wait to build up those points without any reward along the way...

They did explain this in the podcast... The cost would be the same but you would only have these big peaks.

Also outside of #metahumping.. A shoe to you is a house to mouse...

After all they can not make all the nodes usefull and big ticket because then you would end up with a sesmic situation all over again.

So i wonder who is the short sighted....

[Gas Guzzler]

I... just don't care that I have to spend a couple nodes on Hill Climb to get what I want. In fact, I more fear what we will be left with if they rework the skill tree to not take advantage of "burner" nodes like that.

[Christophe Ivanov]

My Problem was I could not test as much as I wanted too in Public testing. Every time I configured what I thought was the correct settings to my likening and ready to test, I couldn't even get into a test match. So now I have no idea if my nodes were set the right way I THINK they should be. After 4 days trying to get into a match, I gave up. This was before the public testing concluded. I wish PGI all the best, but this could have been done better.

[1453 R]

Low-value nodes do not have to be null value nodes. If you need low-value nodes in front of high-value ones to limit access to high-value nodes on a given 'Mech, that's all right. That happens all the time in skill tree development in other games. But 'low' is not 'null'. Players should not be actively disgusted at the filler they have to take to get to the meat.

'Roles' are not binary or absolute things. There is a gradient between roles. Take the mobility of a Scout, add to it the firepower of a DPS, and you get a Striker/Raider. Not as Scout-y as scouts, not as DPS-y as a DPS, but the mix of the two roles is as valid as either role purely on its own. the problem is not in blending of roles, which Piranha seems to hate - it's in the lack of value some roles have, and the ability of some 'Mechs to blend too many roles at once.

These two fairly simple concepts are all one really needs to try and fix the skill tree. Let's see how close we (don't) get in a week-ish when the thing drops, shall we?

[MechaBattler]

People aren't going to take them as they are. They'll avoid them like the plague. No surprise there.

Honestly I feel like they could have made an effort to improve on them. Like what if fall damage reduction also reduced the amount of speed you lose when you fall? Take that physics! I think hill climb going high enough would be worth it on it's own. Improved Gyros though...

Everyone is so damn precious about their min maxing.

[Alan Davion]

l33tworks, on 13 March 2017 - 06:15 AM, said:

Mobility firepower Survivability were stated as the intended roles.

I honestly find the shortsightedness of how carelessly the so called attempt at "roles" was implented baffling.

Gonna start off with these two lines right here.

I don't know if it's just me, but I'm starting to think that PGI as a whole just can't comprehend the concept of having different roles in this game. Like at all. For a variety of reasons.

One. The game modes. Literally all the game modes are just variations of TDM. They had a glimmer of an idea when they changed Conquest to not end so quickly just by killing all the mechs. You had to make sure you controlled some of the resource nodes as well.

Thing is, conquest works in games like Battlefield because the game has re-spawn points/tickets/whatever, and the more control points you have causes the other side to lose re-spawn points/tickets/whatever, making it a point to come up with a strategy to win back some of those control points and try to even up the re-spawn points/tickets/whatever.

Because MWO doesn't use re-spawn points/tickets/whatever outside of CW/FW/FP/Whatever, more often than not the easiest way to win is to just kill the enemies because it's One-And-Done.

This of course leads to all game modes being played more or less the exact same way.

Two. The maps. It's hard to say which is the bigger offender here, the maps or the modes. The maps of course determine the placement or the path of objectives on the map, whether it's the resource nodes on Conquest or the VIP on Escort, whatever.

Some of the maps have some good design elements, but generally most of the maps are poorly designed and thought out, especially the CW/FW/FP/Whatever maps with all those idiotic choke points.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I would bet real money that if you tried to setup a TT Battletech map like some of these CW/FW/FP/Whatever maps, you'd more than likely be asked, politely or not so politely to GTFO for trying to stack the deck in your favor, or however you want to phrase it.

To put it simply, both the maps and modes need to be seriously looked at and in some really bad cases, probably completely redesigned in order to provide better overall balance and gameplay.

To whit, with regards to the rest of your post there l33t, I absolutely agree 100% with everything you said.

[Widowmaker1981]

l33tworks, on 13 March 2017 - 06:15 AM, said:

Russ and Chris (especially) bassicaly said the whole taking unwanted nodes was INTENDED so that you HAVE to take to take the whole tree if you are going to take it at all (Chris bassically flat out says this) the idea being so that people are forced into taking on a role, pressumably by using up all their points on entire trees because they have no sensible choice to do otherwise... Mobility firepower Survivability were stated as the intended roles.

Thats really not how it is though, on the last PTS i barely ever maxing out trees:

• Firepower: boat builds take 14 - 24 points out of 75, dual weapon builds maybe up to 35 if stacking weapon quirks. Nothing ever maxes that (i dont run 3 weapon type mechs ever anyway)
  
• Survival: Lol, not at those values. New version doesnt sound like it will require maxing (ignore structure, take armour?)
  
• Mobility: most i took was max acc/dec and 3/5 of speed tweak. Lights might want to max speed tweak, but i dont play lights much so i didnt play around with them heavily.
  
• Sensors: totally mech dependent, some took almost everything (shadowcat) others just took seismic (14 points?)
  
• Operations: yep, this one kinda forces you to take all of it, except for really cool running mechs which can ignore it entirely.. its only 20ish points to max it though.
  
• Misc: Well, no mech maxed it, because sod capture accel and narc, but yeah quite a few mostly maxed it. Absolutely do not need to though, you can buff any consumable selectively... just think its probably a touch too powerful for the node cost.
  
• Jumpjets: Definitely dont need to take the whole tree (because vectoring sucks and heat gen is very much optional)

edit: JJs

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 13 March 2017 - 11:56 AM.