20517 replies to this topic

[FLG 01]

Compact engines seem pretty gimmicky on most Mechs, but I would love to try them out - especially on the Crab. Given how tanky it can be with STD, it seems not entirely unreasonable to maximize the effect by adding bigger weapons to the CT: 2x SNPPC + 1x SL, 250 engine, ES+FF (arms stripped), 12 DHS. (Can be further tweaked if we get HFF).

[Sereglach]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 05:12 AM, said:

Having it's moral checked by forum toxicity, I fear.

For good reason, frankly; and given PGI's severe damage control it's more than just forum toxicity, but a serious problem that PGI has given themselves. It'll be interesting to see what their "ace in the hole solution" is when/if they put up their announced incoming post for tonight. If they actually managed to do something that is smart and alleviates the firestorm, then hype for new goodies will probably follow. Otherwise I don't think PGI is going to be able to successfully cover up their screw-up with new shiny toys this time.

Odanan, on 13 March 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

Renewing my bets!

Mechs:
- Uziel (IS)
- Mad Cat MKII (Clan)
(the other 2 I have no idea, but hoping for Fire Moth for Clan and Avatar for IS)

Renewing the bet that it's going to follow the roadmap and they'll be announcing 2 IS mechs only for March. Uziel, mediocre or not, seems like an IS shoe-in for nostalgia reasons from MW4. Personally I don't think it'll be a terrible mech in MWO, but it really does depend on final geometry and artwork.

Odanan, on 13 March 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

Weapons:
- Snub Nose PPC (confirmed)
- Heavy Machinegun (confirmed)
- Light Machinegun
- Light Gauss
- Light PPC
- Heavy PPC
- Ultra AC 2, 5 and 20 for IS
- ER Small and ER Medium Lasers for IS
- Streak SRM 4 and 6 para IS
- Heavy Small, Medium and Large Lasers for Clan
- Advanced Tactical Missile (ATM 3, 6, 9 and 12) for Clan
- Heavy Gauss Rifle
- Heavy Flamer

Not sure:
- Rotary Autocannons (hard to balance)
- Light, Medium and Heavy Rifles (uncommon, but would be a great option for lighter mechs)
- Plasma RIfle
- MRMs (too many tubes - breaks the mech geometry)

All would be nice, I also wouldn't mind the ER Flamer, Clan Plasma Cannon (the only weapon that actually doesn't do physical damage in TT . . . Flamers should be doing physical damage), Magshot, and AP Gauss.

Odanan, on 13 March 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

Wildest dreams:
- specialized armor (Reflective, Reactive...)
- LFE!!!!!

MRMs, Rotary ACs, and these "Wildest Dreams" items are all easily done, along with small cockpits and XL gyros. I outlined simple ways all of this could be done (and more), HERE; and Compact Engines could easily be balanced by giving a 100% increase to CT structure to balance the extreme tonnage costs. They could even throw in HAGs, Micro Lasers, MMLs, and Laser AMS no problem.

Most of the stuff isn't that hard and PGI already has the existing tech to do it.

Edited by Sereglach, 13 March 2017 - 04:24 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Or off curiosity, did you test the skill tree? If so, how extensively? Because no offense, but the level of QQ over if it's frankly ridiculous.

[Bishop Steiner]

Meta Tryhards rejoice! You screamed loud enough, and stirred up the mob sufficiently to send the skill tree to the scrap heap with Infowar and Energy Draw! Rejoice, you succeeded in your real goal, to maintain the Stale Meta Status Quo! Now you have plenty of time to ensure any replacement is designed to maintain the superiority of your linear minmax builds!

[Sereglach]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 04:26 PM, said:

Or off curiosity, did you test the skill tree? If so, how extensively? Because no offense, but the level of QQ over if it's frankly ridiculous.

I tested it quite extensively.

I thought the economy of it was ridiculous, I stood to lose out terribly over my stable of ~116 mechs (100% mastered, by the way) but swapping just enough modules for a CW deck (an intended gameplay mechanic encouraged by loading screen tooltips no less). Let alone the insane new grind that it was going to put on players. For 57250 experience I could have a mech at "Mastered" status with zero c-bill investment; and even if old mastered doesn't equal new mastered, the previous incarnation of the skill tree system would charge me c-bills just to get back what I had previously. The thought of basically regrinding over 100 mechs just to get them were they were was absolutely absurd.

I thought the layout of the trees was terrible, and that linear tree branches stemming off from a "core" or "start-point" was the way they should have gone; and every node branch should have been made viable and something worth considering. "Filler" nodes was a terrible path to go.

I disagreed with the respec cost and believe it will help kill diversity in the long run. Combined with the layout or "maze" (as many were referring to it) people would just look online to find the best "meta" paths through the mess and never respec. Also, placing a respec cost whenever PGI needs and/or decides to rebalance the trees again stifles diversity.

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 07:38 PM, said:

Meta Tryhards rejoice! You screamed loud enough, and stirred up the mob sufficiently to send the skill tree to the scrap heap with Infowar and Energy Draw! Rejoice, you succeeded in your real goal, to maintain the Stale Meta Status Quo! Now you have plenty of time to ensure any replacement is designed to maintain the superiority of your linear minmax builds!

No, it's not; and now you're exerting a "ridiculous level of QQ" yourself over failing to directly read the post given. Unlike Inforwar and Energy Draw, PGI is not backing down on whether the skill tree will become a reality. However, they have agreed to give it more testing and it will be back after we test and have the Incursion game mode brought into the game.

On a different but similar note in that regard, many people (myself included) actually did like certain aspects of both of those previous PTS runs, but PGI decided on an "all or nothing" mentality. Rather than taking things people really liked from them and bringing them to live (like the ECM change or Sensor dynamics) and scrapping the stuff people hated (ghost range) PGI just scrapped the whole thing.

I don't want a status quo, but I do want a quality skill system brought into the game that isn't going to explode the grind for mechs. I also don't want PGI to shoot themselves in the foot and go the way of Star Wars Galaxies, which instituted a similar grind explosion and "rebrand" of their skill system on the players and had the population die out within a scant few months. PGI has stated that they've realized what they did wrong after some serious introspection (and obviously an insane level of pre-order cancellations) and will be seeking to fix this in the future.

It's not dead, it's just going to get the PTS time it truly deserves and needs before going live. However, PGI wants to get Incursion out the door before they bring the skill tree back to the PTS and continue iterations.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the mean time, it looks like people can now look forward to the new IS hero mech announcements and "future tech" that should be coming tomorrow, without as much anxiety over the state of the game.

Edited by Sereglach, 13 March 2017 - 07:52 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Sereglach, on 13 March 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

I tested it quite extensively.

I thought the economy of it was ridiculous, I stood to lose out terribly over my stable of ~116 mechs (100% mastered, by the way) but swapping just enough modules for a CW deck (an intended gameplay mechanic encouraged by loading screen tooltips no less). Let alone the insane new grind that it was going to put on players. For 57250 experience I could have a mech at "Mastered" status with zero c-bill investment; and even if old mastered doesn't equal new mastered, the previous incarnation of the skill tree system would charge me c-bills just to get back what I had previously. The thought of basically regrinding over 100 mechs just to get them were they were was absolutely absurd.

I thought the layout of the trees was terrible, and that linear tree branches stemming off from a "core" or "start-point" was the way they should have gone; and every node branch should have been made viable and something worth considering. "Filler" nodes was a terrible path to go.

I disagreed with the respec cost and believe it will help kill diversity in the long run. Combined with the layout or "maze" (as many were referring to it) people would just look online to find the best "meta" paths through the mess and never respec. Also, placing a respec cost whenever PGI needs and/or decides to rebalance the trees again stifles diversity.


No, it's not; and now you're exerting a "ridiculous level of QQ" yourself over failing to directly read the post given. Unlike Inforwar and Energy Draw, PGI is not backing down on whether the skill tree will become a reality. However, they have agreed to give it more testing and it will be back after we test and have the Incursion game mode brought into the game.

On a different but similar note in that regard, many people (myself included) actually did like certain aspects of both of those previous PTS runs, but PGI decided on an "all or nothing" mentality. Rather than taking things people really liked from them and bringing them to live (like the ECM change or Sensor dynamics) and scrapping the stuff people hated (ghost range) PGI just scrapped the whole thing.

I don't want a status quo, but I do want a quality skill system brought into the game that isn't going to explode the grind for mechs. I also don't want PGI to shoot themselves in the foot and go the way of Star Wars Galaxies, which instituted a similar grind explosion and "rebrand" of their skill system on the players and had the population die out within a scant few months. PGI has stated that they've realized what they did wrong after some serious introspection (and obviously an insane level of pre-order cancellations) and will be seeking to fix this in the future.

It's not dead, it's just going to get the PTS time it truly deserves and needs before going live. However, PGI wants to get Incursion out the door before they bring the skill tree back to the PTS and continue iterations.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the mean time, it looks like people can now look forward to the new IS hero mech announcements and "future tech" that should be coming tomorrow, without as much anxiety over the state of the game.

They never actually backed down on Infowar, either. But hey, not any of my business. Y'all won. Enjoy it. You have managed to set things back to the very status you all complained about... the only thing to look forward to: Would you like another mech pack?

Congrats on that. Really.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 13 March 2017 - 08:01 PM.

[Sereglach]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 08:00 PM, said:

They never actually backed down on Infowar, either. But hey, not any of my business. Y'all won. Enjoy it.

Pay more attention, please. Russ has already put your kinds of concerns over the situation to rest:

Russ Bullock, on 13 March 2017 - 07:04 PM, said:

I few thoughts on the subject.

Many might view this as similar to power draw in that it might seemingly be delayed indefinitely, at this point in time that is certainly not the case. While energy draw showed some interesting promise and I would like re explore that at some point it was ultimately an experimental feature. The new skill tree is still viewed internally as a solid improvement to the balance of the game and the starting point for so many new balance methods.

As to the skill tree, I think some levels of disagreement on the right path for balance or the layout of the skill tree nodes would be expected and could be accepted. As the shortcomings in our transition process became clear and we could see that certain players were going to lose progress that became obviously unacceptable and we had no choice but to delay.

As Alex mentioned this discovery helped us realize we had to adjust our refund plan to one of refunding progress.

As we rectify these problems we will also take time to further refine the user interface as well as continue to make as many balance improvements as possible.

[Bishop Steiner]

Sereglach, on 13 March 2017 - 08:01 PM, said:

Pay more attention, please. Russ has already put your kinds of concerns over the situation to rest:

Yup. Sounds great. And any time they try to move forward, the same people will incite the same mob, to the same results. Sorry, seen this horse and pony show before.

So like I said, enjoy it, you got what you wanted. Congrats. Why should you give a **** if I'm salty about it?

[Odanan]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 07:38 PM, said:

Meta Tryhards rejoice! You screamed loud enough, and stirred up the mob sufficiently to send the skill tree to the scrap heap with Infowar and Energy Draw! Rejoice, you succeeded in your real goal, to maintain the Stale Meta Status Quo! Now you have plenty of time to ensure any replacement is designed to maintain the superiority of your linear minmax builds!

I hope they don't delay it indefinitely, but I don't complain if it's pushed for 1 or 2 patches ahead. Better to make the adjustments before release than trying to fix after release (bringing even more complainings).

Maybe they will try a different approach, like: for mastered mechs you get all the 91 (was it 91?) skill nodes bought.

[Odanan]

BTW, today is the day!!

[ShadowbaneX]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 08:07 PM, said:

any time they try to move forward, the same people will incite the same mob, to the same results. Sorry, seen this horse and pony show before.

If they were actually moving forward I'd have a concern. As it is, I don't think there's much progress in what they proposed. Side-grades, evolutionary dead ends, steps backwards? Those are more apt descriptions. Changing for the sake of change isn't going to make the game better. Something does need to be done, but "I know! We'll dig our way out!" might not make the situation better.

[CK16]

https://youtu.be/DE2l5filkMU

[Metus regem]

Bishop Steiner, on 13 March 2017 - 08:07 PM, said:

Yup. Sounds great. And any time they try to move forward, the same people will incite the same mob, to the same results. Sorry, seen this horse and pony show before.

So like I said, enjoy it, you got what you wanted. Congrats. Why should you give a **** if I'm salty about it?

Honestly it sounded like everything was going okay, until they announced the decoupling of agility from engine size, a very good thing I might add, then everything became a sh*t-show like ED and Infowar (after they added ghost laser range).

[Pariah Devalis]

Upside: At least we might be able to see the impact on balance the newtech makes before introducing the second variable that is the skilltree. My curiosity alone might be satiated. I really want to see how introducing the tech jump changes things in the current environment.

[TheArisen]

Metus regem, on 14 March 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

Honestly it sounded like everything was going okay, until they announced the decoupling of agility from engine size, a very good thing I might add, then everything became a sh*t-show like ED and Infowar (after they added ghost laser range).

Can you explain why decoupling agility from the engine size is a good thing? I've only seen the basic "it'd be good"

[Pariah Devalis]

TheArisen, on 14 March 2017 - 09:09 AM, said:

Can you explain why decoupling agility from the engine size is a good thing? I've only seen the basic "it'd be good"

Well, several reasons, actually.

• Allows more ease of balancing when it comes to how mechs of any given weight should handle, cross tech
  
• Allows mechs to leverage speed vs survivability more when comparing a high XL engine vs a moderate STD one, without impacting torso twist, turning, or base accelleration rate
  
• Benefits mechs with either low engine caps for their tonnage, or mechs with locked engine sizes that are teenie weenie
  
• It actually makes some degree of sense given that mechs don't actually move directly due to the power plant, as it just generates power for the myomers that in turn move the mech

Will cause the locked high engine mechs to perform worse, but if PGI integrates the mobility-centric aspects of those mechs into base mobility stats like they said they would, damage there should be mitigates or eliminated. Conversely, mechs like the Night Gyr, which is already a good mech, would likely benefit as suddenly it doesn't handle like a brick mired in molasses, though it would still be as slow as ever.

[Metus regem]

TheArisen, on 14 March 2017 - 09:09 AM, said:

Can you explain why decoupling agility from the engine size is a good thing? I've only seen the basic "it'd be good"

Let me put it to you this way, why should a Phoenix Hawk (a mech known for it's agility), be just as agile as a Centurion (a mech known to be rugged), if both are using the same engine? Why should a Battlemaster be more agile than a Timber Wolf just because the Battlemaster is pushing the same sized engine?

The decoupling allowed for more differentiation between mechs with in all weight classes as well as mechs that are the same weight. This means that mechs that are meant to be agile could be made to be agile, while mechs that are known to be tough and rugged could be made to be tough and rugged, with out giving them agility as well due to an engine upgrade. This also made taking the maximum engine size less of an automatic choice.

[CK16]

This day, I tell you.....hury up PGI D:

[Metus regem]

CK16, on 14 March 2017 - 09:29 AM, said:

This day, I tell you.....hury up PGI D:

I think they are scrambling right now, thanks to what happened to the skill tree... too bad, it had potential, just needed some tweaking....

Still I stand by my, PGI PLZ no Uziel.... there are better choices for an IS mech that show cases new tech...

And by better, I mean better hit boxes, better cockpit placements, better hard points, better hard point placements....

Some that come to mind:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Stiletto
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Chimera
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Sha_Yu
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hellspawn
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Cronus
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Argus
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Verfolger
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Lao_Hu
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Thanatos
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Legacy

[Pariah Devalis]

I will say this. If they announce the Nova Cat, today.... If decoupling the engine is still going live, I'm gonna be happy. Otherwise, my longstanding fear with the Nova Cat was that a 70 ton mech with a 280 engine would be god awful to pilot. It would handle horribly. Worse than the Gyr, and I can barely tolerate that mech as is.