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The way I see it, the purpose of the skill tree is two fold. Firstly, to provide reasoning and a reward for players to play or 'grind' 'Mechs, The second is to add incentive for players to purchase more 'Mechs in a chassis line, a perfectly viable and fair marketing strategy. Most F2P games have something like this though variants are somewhat unique to MW:O. Either way, it's a fair system.
However, the problem with MW:O's current implementation is that it's very bare bones. While it provides rewards for players to grind 'Mechs, and also reasoning for players to purchase three different variants, it is flawed for several reasons.
- It is currently seen as a chore, just another necessity, which must be overcome before a chassis can be as competitive as possible. Basically; it's not really fun or interesting.
- It leads to balancing problems as the same tree is used for each 'Mech. Because of this, certain 'Mechs get far more benefit than others while certain 'Mechs become far too effective in some areas than others. For example, Speed Tweak allows a Timber Wolf or Stormcrow to reach speeds that completely outclass other mediums and heavies.
- Also, it's not a tree. There are no branches. The tree is a lie.
So the solution is to make it more interesting, give it more depth and tailor it somewhat for each 'Mech while keeping the purpose of adding incentive to buy multiple 'Mechs and grind them. This idea isn't really unique and it's been discussed a lot, and I'm sure there's probably better ways to implement it, but this is just my imagining.
- The three 'tiers' are kept (albeit renamed) but are divided into 'Piloting' and 'Gunnery'. In effect this is simply for easier categorization and understanding, but it also links with BattleTech's pilot rules for those of us that want to see a bit more BattleTech in MW:O.
- Instead of the player being required to unlock every single 'efficiency' to move to each tier, the player has a 'limit'. The idea being that the player gets to pick from a pool of efficiencies from each tier up to a limit. So there might be 15 basic/green efficiencies available, but the player can only pick 8. Once he unlocks 8 from basic/green, the basic/green tree locks and they have access to the next tier. This serves to make skill unlocking more interesting, and adds more personal choice to where a pilot might want to specialise or be more effective.
- Like a proper tree, certain skills might have pre-requisite skills. This could mean that final skills that give high bonuses would require dedication through a certain area, and would reward specialising. Just more diversity. Certain skills would also not stack; for example, 'Assault Charge II's' top speed bonus would replace 'Assault Charge I's'.
- Skills could also be 'de-learned' for half the XP if the player wanted to change their skill set, adding an extra layer of customization.
- The idea would be that each chassis has its own tree, and hence could be tailored for each 'Mech to add extra diversity and also a balancing method.
The biggest area of work IMO would be in design and balance for each 'Mech, though this system could still work if there was simply a tree for each weight class and then added to in the future. Perhaps 'Mechs would only have unique Veteran and Elite skills.
Such an idea would require a massive rework of the current system and I certainly don't think something like this could, or even necessarily should, be undertaken, especially with CW Phase III and Solaris on the horizon. But I just feel that out of everything in MW:O, the skill system is most neglected and I don't think that the 'pilot' element of MechWarrior is really represented at all.
If you read through all of that, congratulations and thanks for taking the time.
Edited by AUSwarrior24, 02 April 2015 - 06:13 PM.
