78 replies to this topic

[Xarian]

Paul Inouye, on 26 September 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

Pinpoint is going to be replaced by an efficiency that increases the health of items (weapons/equipment) by 20%.

As for Fast Fire.. it it working as intended across the board. The AC/2 cooldown is 0.72. Fast fire drops that to 0.68. This is still above the 0.5 chain fire speed and is applied properly.

I was kinda hoping for a 50% increase in Warhorn range.

[aniviron]

Russ Bullock, on 26 September 2014 - 02:12 PM, said:

I will see if i can get one of the designers to post in here.

In general I view the skill tree as "just okay" I would like to see it fleshed out much further - but as someone correctly said, this is not something we can look at until after CW phase 2 releases.

I know there was a plan to replace the convergence one - I will look to get more information.

Not sure how far along you are in the design stage, but I wrote a short novel about role warfare and the skill tree overhaul if you're looking for ideas. http://mwomercs.com/...38#entry3717238

[M4NTiC0R3X]

I like the tree minus the placeholders but this tree is for all mechs and obviously better to have than not. A second tree which forces you to make a choice, just off the top of my head... Assaults could choose a turning speed increase to better brawl and deal w/ ankle biters OR they can choose.. Something of equal power but different

[ski2060]

Dig that idea, Aniviron. Russ, take that idea and make it so!
Yes, we know CW is what's on the board right now, but get some designers to work on that skill idea. It will certainly give players more depth and engagement with their mechs, and make them feel more attached.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Ph30nix, on 26 September 2014 - 12:57 PM, said:

actually fast fire works just fine

its the AC2 that was broken and "fixed" by being nerfed into the ground to avoid fast fire taking it under .5 seconds

id be okay to give them up for either a stronger speed tweak or an extra cooling skill

God please let them give us another extra cooling skill. The ungodly, god awful amounts of heat mechs generate is one of the few things I dislike about this game.

[FupDup]

Viktor Drake, on 26 September 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

God please let them give us another extra cooling skill. The ungodly, god awful amounts of heat mechs generate is one of the few things I dislike about this game.

The reason why we can't have nice things is:

Paul from ATD #4 said:

Answer from Paul: There are no current plans to change the heat threshold towards TT values. Are we hard set against it? No, just at the moment there’s no need to do this.

Playing with a higher rate of cooling makes a lot more builds become heat neutral. A lot of heat neutral builds results in mid-range damage applied at a constant rate over time. This mechanism would be highly exploited by those with knowledge of building efficient heat neutral Mechs.

[Reitrix]

I would prefer to see the entire Pilot Tree system scrapped and replaced by chassis specific unlocks.
Tie it into the quirk system if you have to, but the current handling buffs are part of what makes the Timberwolf so powerful (it handles like a barge on legs until you master. True of most all 'Mechs though)

[Zordicron]

What about this? As I got no response earlier, and suddenly the devs are interested:

http://mwomercs.com/...on-skill-trees/

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Sweet to get some responses from the devs! Thank you!

---

And another plausible idea, to add to consideration, is to keep the Skills tab as unlocks for XP and GXP and then to get benefits of those unlocks by adding a module inside the Mechlab for said benefit.

We get way too much benefit from the current implementation of Mech Skills anyway!

[Reitrix]

DocBach, on 26 September 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

It'd be way more cool if pinpoint was broken down into a couple of different options, but you could only choose one like

"Sharpshooter" -- quicker projectile speed for AC's
"Laser Specialist" -- shorter laser beam burn time
"Missile Command" -- shorter missile lock time

UNless they were interchangeable, You'd be forever locking your 'mech into one role based on that choice, a choice that cannot be undone under the current system.

Which is why i'd much rather see them pick a 'Mech and build a unique Skill Tree for it for every patch. I can't imagine it'd take much development time to come up with a few chassis specific skills that tailor it for the role that variant was designed for.

Getting rid of the generic handling Skills we have now and relegating them to quirks for 'Mechs that need the help (Dragon, Awesome and Locust I'm looking at you) would also help to alleviate the lack of distinction between Medium and Heavy 'Mechs.
In the current system, my Heavies when fully mastered feel like what a Medium should be, while the Mediums end up playing like enormous Lights.

[Gerhardt Jorgensson]

Reitrix, on 26 September 2014 - 09:16 PM, said:

UNless they were interchangeable, You'd be forever locking your 'mech into one role based on that choice, a choice that cannot be undone under the current system.

Which is why i'd much rather see them pick a 'Mech and build a unique Skill Tree for it for every patch. I can't imagine it'd take much development time to come up with a few chassis specific skills that tailor it for the role that variant was designed.

Either of these suggestions would make the game more in line with mmorpgs where players have a limited pool of skill points to distribute. Which, even if you were stuck with your decisions permanently, would make the system more engaging than the current generic skills every 'mech shares. Maybe if the basic skills were all the same, but each 'mech had unique elite skills, or a new tier of chassis specifics skills after master was added?

Edited by Gerhardt Jorgensson, 26 September 2014 - 10:16 PM.

[Grey Ghost]

Paul Inouye, on 26 September 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

As for Fast Fire.. it it working as intended across the board. The AC/2 cooldown is 0.72. Fast fire drops that to 0.68. This is still above the 0.5 chain fire speed and is applied properly.

Speaking of which... How does that stack with the weapon cooldown Modules & Mech Quirks mathematically?

[Reno Blade]

Praetor Knight, on 26 September 2014 - 08:50 PM, said:

Sweet to get some responses from the devs! Thank you!

---

And another plausible idea, to add to consideration, is to keep the Skills tab as unlocks for XP and GXP and then to get benefits of those unlocks by adding a module inside the Mechlab for said benefit.

We get way too much benefit from the current implementation of Mech Skills anyway!

Do you mean like we just "unlock" certain stuff (like fast break or twist X) in the skill tree and unlock a slot for a group of modules affecting the same thing.
Say:
Unlocking movement module slot and you can only equip one or two of these we now have as basic module (acceleration, deceleration, turning, twisting, twist x).
I

It would be a nice idea to limit the effect of the super-strong double-basic talents, because you can only equip one or two of these "skills" as modules.
You could switch your modules to specialize, but you could never have all of the skills together at the same time with the limited slots.
There could also be extra slots for Elite or Mastery and it would feel special.

It would only need a change to the skill tree to unlock slots/modules AND another change to the module slot system to implement these modules and slots from the skill tree.

[Chrithu]

process, on 26 September 2014 - 01:01 PM, said:

Overhaul the entire skill tree. Creating class-specific and/or specialization trees would add a lot more variety to the game.

I was under the impression that this is actually being done and in the process, but delayed until CW is done. They announced overhauling the pilot skills and including pilot XP and Levels ages ago and I did not see an announcement of it being canceled.

[The Wakelord]

I understand that the lvl up system of 3x chassis per mech is a grinding mechanic to encourage ingame purchases such as premium time etc etc

That said, I think we would have a better game if the "mech skills" vs "pilot skills" were radically alterted. Making it so the current
'pilot skills' were renamed to 'mech skills' (as they seem to be predominantly physical alterations to your mech) and new pilot skills were generated that encourage role warfale into the traditional battetech styles of:
- Scout
- Skirmisher
- Striker
- Juggernaut
- Missile Boat
- Brawler

[Vassago Rain]

Xarian, on 26 September 2014 - 01:06 PM, said:

As far as I know, the convergence skill does literally nothing. The game always uses instant convergence, as others have stated.

Actually, in the before days of prehistory, there was convergence, but it made the game really awkward, and didn't function well.

They got rid of it like two years ago.

[Mawai]

Personally, I think the entire skill tree needs to be reworked to allow different choices on each chassis and skills that will promote role warfare by enhancing mech capability in certain areas.

Ideally the 8/4/1 system would get replaced with 32/16/4 where you have to CHOOSE 8/4/1 out of all the possibilities. If that is too many ... even 16/8/2 would make for some variety in skill choices.

Updating to the new system would be a matter of refunding mech xp to be spent again on the same mech.

[A Man In A Can]

Paul Inouye, on 26 September 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

As for Fast Fire.. it it working as intended across the board. The AC/2 cooldown is 0.72. Fast fire drops that to 0.68. This is still above the 0.5 chain fire speed and is applied properly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a level 5 cooldown reduction on top of fast fire equate to 88% of .68 for a cooldown of about .6 (.5984 actual)?

If so, wouldn't that still be above the .5 chain fire speed and thus not cause issues? Or is there something I'm missing?

[DukeDublin]

AC2 firerate used to be 0.5, so lowering that would have caused single weapon ghost heat.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Reno Blade, on 27 September 2014 - 01:42 AM, said:

Do you mean like we just "unlock" certain stuff (like fast break or twist X) in the skill tree and unlock a slot for a group of modules affecting the same thing.
Say:
Unlocking movement module slot and you can only equip one or two of these we now have as basic module (acceleration, deceleration, turning, twisting, twist x).
I

It would be a nice idea to limit the effect of the super-strong double-basic talents, because you can only equip one or two of these "skills" as modules.
You could switch your modules to specialize, but you could never have all of the skills together at the same time with the limited slots.
There could also be extra slots for Elite or Mastery and it would feel special.

It would only need a change to the skill tree to unlock slots/modules AND another change to the module slot system to implement these modules and slots from the skill tree.

Yeah, that's it.

As for more slots I feel that we could see certain equipment add more slots also as another alternative to look into.

Here's one mock up.

Spoiler