95 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

Koniving, on 05 December 2016 - 07:45 PM, said:

The "Skill tree" is effectively your "Quirk tree".. Each mech is allowed to have a limited amount of them. Looked like the number was 12 or 13 of them total.

See what you can do with that, eh?

I'm tellin ya, its skills and quirks all rolled into one so they ought to call it a squirks-tree, with squirk points, etc. I can't wait to start assigning squirks to my mechs.

Squirks.

[Deathlike]

FupDup, on 05 December 2016 - 07:19 PM, said:

As a part of the lore I think so, but the TT game rules only had the 120m shutdown mech detector ability (unless there were special rulebooks I don't know about).

Anyways, putting the current Seismic Wallhack function on BAP just means that BAP will be used on most mech builds. If BAP was restricted to only being mounted on mechs with a scouting role (ECM is restricted after all), though, then it would be much better.

Myth Lynx said:

OH HAI THAR

FupDup, on 05 December 2016 - 07:47 PM, said:

I believe the mentioned limit was 75 skill points. Since each "tree" part seems to be around 20 "nodes" in size (give or take), that gives you almost four full trees.

Takes at least 750,000 XP to get there though...

The grind will be real.

I feel the point of this dumb idea is to screw over a new player. Just think about it how this translates in time spent just grinding.

There will be less of a point to acquiring new mechs (other than real money) than it is to grind the mechs you literally want.

Honestly... like every PGI plan... they haven't really thought this through.

[MauttyKoray]

Koniving, on 05 December 2016 - 07:57 PM, said:

Sounds a wee bit excessive. The total of 'skill points' to unlock.
Good thing there isn't that many range-increasing skill points for a single weapon type. Small laser range +2.5% * 75 ... Small laser with a maximum range of 862.5 meters.

I like the idea, don't get me wrong.

Being stripped of all quirks could also allow for a real assertion of each mech's quality prior to giving minor armor/structure quirks to make up for their large size.

I don't believe you'll have that many nodes to increase a single aspect... A bit excessive of a hyperbole there...

[Hunka Junk]

Deathlike, on 05 December 2016 - 08:02 PM, said:

The grind will be real.

I feel the point of this dumb idea is to screw over a new player. Just think about it how this translates in time spent just grinding.

There will be less of a point to acquiring new mechs (other than real money) than it is to grind the mechs you literally want.

Honestly... like every PGI plan... they haven't really thought this through.

Poor new players. T5 without radar derp is going to be LRMopolis.

Poor old players. Think of the number of people who are going to pour 150+ mechs worth of skill points exclusively into their KDK-3.

Maybe they'll just nerf...um...wait...how does anything get nerfed now?

[MauttyKoray]

Hunka Junk, on 05 December 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

Poor new players. T5 without radar derp is going to be LRMopolis.

Poor old players. Think of the number of people who are going to pour 150+ mechs worth of skill points exclusively into their KDK-3.

Maybe they'll just nerf...um...wait...how does anything get nerfed now?

Yeah well...radar derp has always needed to be changed from 'instant loss of lock' to 'reduces the time enemy can hold lock'. Even a pure 50% cut would have been preferable to the ridiculously overpowered instant loss.

[Appogee]

Animus41, on 05 December 2016 - 04:53 PM, said:

Just a quick thought. Is respecing mechs going to monetize like every other game out there? If so what then PGI can change the meta whenever they feel they need some quick cash flow. And we all know that PGI would have no problem doing just that.

Of course that's what they're going to do.

[Navy Sixes]

Hunka Junk, on 05 December 2016 - 09:08 PM, said:

Poor new players. T5 without radar derp is going to be LRMopolis.

Unless you know a way for new players to begin with 15,000 GXP, how is this any different from the way things are right now?

[Besh]

Been thinking about whether to post on the Topic of the new SkillTree, or not, for over a day now...and now that I do, I 100% expect to take a lot of flak for what I am going to write . Simply 'cos....I seem to look at it form different angles than most people who are posting about it .

So here goes .

Removing ALL quirks from ALL Chassis has been one of the smartest things they could have done re. Balance . Why ? Simply because it knocks each and every Chassis back to its inherent capabilities . I am aware there are reasonable concerns regarding IS 'Mechs and structure Boni, esp. in regards to the Torsi, and we will have to see how that pans out/whether and/or what they are going to do in regards to that . But ultimatively, it looks like ALL the "Dartboard of Balance" quirk - and subsequent "Meta" reshuffling which has been a source of constant grief - will be done and over with . Good Move !

Now, players will have the choice to customize/specialize each and every Chassis they own, to their liking . This shows me several things :

• PGI are serious about the long haul for this Game . It seems to me, the way the skill tree is designed is heavily influenced by them definitely wanting to renew the License in 2018 . How can I think that ? Well, for one, the new SkillTree is a move to attract new Players of a different demographic . There are a HUGE number of people out there who play onlineGames where it takes YEARS (!) to get one Character fully developed ( or where you are basically NEVER done with it ). Those people do not mind "the Grind", cos for them ( just like me ), what some call "Grind" is simply "playing the Game" Second, it WILL take LONGER to get the feeling you have a fully "mastered" and "specced" 'Mech . Its IS a heavy incentive for existing Players to KEEP playing . It even is an incentive for playes who USED to play the Game much and dont do so anymore, to start playing it more again .
  
• They want more variety on the Maps . People who think everyone will simply concentrate on the "most OP" Chassis ( in terms of hardpoints/locations and what not ) seem to have no clue how of the GamerNation mind works . People LOVE to customize. People will totally, and absolutely, LOVE to take the "underdog *Meh!* ****'Mech" and fiddle around with it until it becomes a totally surprising MonsterPiece highly trained in the Art of shreddin' . With this new SkillTree, expect to see surprising and amazing things to happen to Chassis you up to now thought were totally worthless .
  
• They want to LEVEL the playing field . Quite a few posters mourn about making it harder on new Players with the new SkillTree, giving "established Players" even more of an Edge, etc . Nonsense ! From now on, you will buy a clean Slate when you buy a 'Mech, and it will be up to you, and your gaming/playerskill to advance it, and up to your smarts to make it into something xceptional . It means redialling Powercreep, which is a TOTAL necessity for this Game to survive anymuch longer . Also, the creeping suspicion of hidden "pay2play" will be turned back a notch . Dont get me wrong, I am aware it will still be there by the fairly new habit of hiding certain Pods, or ECM capability, behind a paywall . But no longer will it be possible to simply by an excellent Chassis ( re. hardpoints/location, podspace etc. ) which is also heavily quirked, and simply start owning in it provided you have the player Skills . Dialling back the ability to simply BUY better performance is a GREAT Move, and also a necessity to maintin the f2p Status of the Game . Which in turn is another good step in attracting new Players .

On the matter of QP Maps into FW : This may look wrong at the Moment, but provided FW is taking off again at 4.1, gives the opportunity to do something many, many people have suggested to make FW better : Make taking a Planet some sort of "Campaign" with several different GameModes/Objectives on different Maps . Like, incooprporate some meaningfull progression into the capture, instead of simply fighting the same fight(s) 11-14 times over slices . I am NOT saying this WILL happpen . I am just saying....it could, and bringing QP Maps into FW can be a 1st Step towards it .



I have not watched the entire 'MechCon Stream . I have seen some summary Vids, and read what I could so far . And to me, everything I saw and read simply means they DO have Plans for the future . As a company, as well as for MW:O . Whether they will be able to bring those Plans to fruition, and whether they will be commercially successfull if so, will have to be seen . But ONE thing they definitly learned : to NOT promise features /talk about Stuff they are not sure whether, or in what shape, they can deliver .

Just get it inot your heads people: what may look stupid to us, or you personally, may be inlfuenced by circumstances and though processe beyond our knowledge . And some of it may well be put into play to OPEN UP possibilities for the future .

Finally: I do own I think 73 'Mechs, and just stocked up on bays during last Sale . I am totally looking forward to being able to customize each and everyone of the Variants I own, and maybe even get duplicates, or triplets in some Cases, to be able to have differently specialized Variants of the same Chassis .

To me, there is no "Grind", no "EndGame" and no "ultimate Goal" .

Playing the Game is the reason I play it . With the new SkillTree, a new Dimension has been brought to MW:O . One I do greatly appreciate . Simply keeping on playing has some meaning and real impact now . And THAT is GOOD !

Edited by Besh, 05 December 2016 - 11:54 PM.

[Duke Nedo]

Besh, on 05 December 2016 - 11:50 PM, said:

• They want to LEVEL the playing field . Quite a few posters mourn about making it harder on new Players with the new SkillTree, giving "established Players" even more of an Edge, etc . Nonsense ! From now on, you will buy a clean Slate when you buy a 'Mech, and it will be up to you, and your gaming/playerskill to advance it, and up to your smarts to make it into something xceptional . It means redialling Powercreep, which is a TOTAL necessity for this Game to survive anymuch longer . Also, the creeping suspicion of hidden "pay2play" will be turned back a notch . Dont get me wrong, I am aware it will still be there by the fairly new habit of hiding certain Pods, or ECM capability, behind a paywall . But no longer will it be possible to simply by an excellent Chassis ( re. hardpoints/location, podspace etc. ) which is also heavily quirked, and simply start owning in it provided you have the player Skills . Dialling back the ability to simply BUY better performance is a GREAT Move, and also a necessity to maintin the f2p Status of the Game . Which in turn is another good step in attracting new Players .

No. Any sane player will ace out his 10-20 best mechs and play these and only these whenever they want to win, and let the other 180+ mechs rot in their mech bays.

[Sagamore]

Duke Nedo, on 06 December 2016 - 12:16 AM, said:

No. Any sane player will ace out his 10-20 best mechs and play these and only these whenever they want to win, and let the other 180+ mechs rot in their mech bays.

So what if you max level all of your dakka mechs because that is the flavour of the month and then laser vomit comes back into style? Time to pay real money to respec. Free to play players are going to be stuck with last year's meta XP trees. I suppose they could sell their fully experienced mech and repurchase the same variant, taking a different path for "free".

[Duke Nedo]

Sagamore, on 06 December 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:

So what if you max level all of your dakka mechs because that is the flavour of the month and then laser vomit comes back into style? Time to pay real money to respec. Free to play players are going to be stuck with last year's meta XP trees. I suppose they could sell their fully experienced mech and repurchase the same variant, taking a different path for "free".

Aye, something like that... I'll for one will be very careful how I spend my XP if it's very restrictive. With 10k per SP I can ace out 17 mechs, I'd probably just ace out 4-5 and play these mechs exclusively to start with and see how things evolve.

[Besh]

Duke Nedo, on 06 December 2016 - 12:16 AM, said:

No. Any sane player will ace out his 10-20 best mechs and play these and only these whenever they want to win, and let the other 180+ mechs rot in their mech bays.

I do not think "acing out" will necessarily be possible with SkillTree 1.0 . In fact, look around at the numbers and time required to get a good number of Unlocks for ONE Chassis . And you are talking 10-20.

I am of a mind to allow for the Idea of PGI intentionally making it REALLY Hard and time consuming to get to extreme unlockStatus on any Single Chassis . I am thinking basic stuff will be "farily" easy to complete for everyone . But to get anywhere near "acing out" will be enormous . At least it looks like it up to now .

And I DO think this will be fully intentional . I DO think they are throwing the Idea of "mastering a 'Mech" out of the window . They are replacing it with " Keep playing . Keep making your 'Mechs better . You can....for a pretty long time " . And I DO think this is GOOD for the Game .

Edited by Besh, 06 December 2016 - 12:26 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Besh, on 06 December 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

I do not think "acing out" will necessarily be possible with SkillTree 1.0 . In fact, look around at the numbers and time required to get a good number of Unlocks for ONE Chassis . And you are talking 10-20.

I am of a mind to allow for the Idea of PGI intentionally making it REALLY Hard and time consuming to get to extreme unlockStatus on any Single Chassis . I am thinking basic stuff will be "farily" easy to complete for everyone . But to get anywhere near "acing out" will be enormous . At least it looks like it up to now .

And I DO think this will be fully intentional . I DO think they are throwing the Idea of "mastering a 'Mech" out of the window . They are replacing it with " Keep playing . Keep making your 'Mechs better . You can....for a pretty long time " . And I DO think this is GOOD for the Game .

If all xp gets turned into legacy XP like I interpreted it, then I will have 13M LXP which is enough to either buy 6 unlocks for each of my 200 mechs, or to ace out 17 of my 200 mechs. I'll without a doubt ace out 17 mechs and only play these, and these mechs will be the new ruler by which every other mech is now measured.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 06 December 2016 - 12:29 AM.

[Kmieciu]

Besh, on 06 December 2016 - 12:25 AM, said:

I do not think "acing out" will necessarily be possible.

"acing out" means reaching the SP cap. Russ said the cap is 75 SP x 10 000XP = 750 000XP.
Which is a lot compared to the current 57250 XP it takes to master a mech.

Duke Nedo, on 06 December 2016 - 12:29 AM, said:

I'll without a doubt ace out 17 mechs and only play these, and these mechs will be the new ruler by which every other mech is now measured.

I'm in the same boat. Got about 12M XP at the moment. That will be enough to "ace" 15 mechs.
I'll start with whose that have negative or no quirks under the current system:
Timber Wolf, Ebon Jaguar, Kodiak, Stormcrow, HBKIIC, Arctic Cheetah.

Looking forward to stomping trial mechs in FW. (without Factions in it)

Edited by Kmieciu, 06 December 2016 - 12:44 AM.

[Cementi]

Trimming buckets for FP may or may not help. However I do feel quickplay maps on FP is a good thing because the single biggest thing that keeps me from ever queing FP is the horrible funneling of the attackers into kill boxes on the current FP maps.

While I was on board with quirks at first they were never what I though they should have been. I thought they should have been defensive only as any offensive quirk would adversely affect allready short TTK. Also I hated how quirks shoe horned you into specific weapon systems. While that is not as bad as it used to be there are still a few that stand out. PPC's for example are absolute crap unless you have velocity quirks at least in my opinion.

As far as the xp grind......dude at least wait till it is in testing. Those values can be changed, maybe xp earnings will be amped up. We do not know so put up a rational feedback instead of a freak out session and wait till testing for that even. Also your missing the point that you will not have to grind three mechs anymore on top of being able to tailor your mech for your playstyle. Worried about not liking what you skill into......try your load outs before locking in weapon specific load outs.

I am sure with this kind of system they will likely have a respec option. Likely at an MC cost. If you do not like that buy another cbill mech and talent it a different way.

I also disagree. They have taken a huge step back and reevaluated choices they made as quirks were not working and their doing this has basicly admited this.They were constantly having to change them back and forth. Now they can just focus on adjusting weapons such. After some play time allows them to collect data there is nothing saying they cannot reintroduce armor and structure quirks to some mechs. ie hunchbacks hunch for example.

Bottom line, chill out and wait for testing.

Edited by Cementi, 06 December 2016 - 12:53 AM.

[xengk]

RestosIII, on 05 December 2016 - 04:40 PM, said:

Modules being gone? Great! I love it! Quirks being gone? Oh dear lord the balancing fun this is going to be.

We are our own Balance Lord, we are now Paul.

[Cementi]

Just rewatched the stuff and they even say you can respec.

[Appogee]

Cost of respecing ... unknown.

Note too that the 750,000 to 'ace out' a Mech is based on the assumption that it's 10,000XP to unlock one skill, for all 75 skilis. However, in other games, the cost to unlock becomes progressively higher as you get further down the tree.

That's the way it currently works in MWO for Modules.

So 750,000 may turn out to be a significant understatement of the number of XP points required to 'ace out' a Mech.

Edited by Appogee, 06 December 2016 - 02:37 AM.

[Evil Goof]

Wecx, on 05 December 2016 - 07:38 PM, said:

WOW why should a level 7 Targeting computer weight 7 TONS.

or a TAG laser weight 1 ton.

Or a MACHINEGUN weighing .5 or 1000 pounds.

How about BAP?

The list goes on.

No it actually doesn't. Not apples to apples. A seismograph isn't magical tech like lasers and advanced targeting computers. You going to be shocked, but they actually exist today! Oh and they don't weigh a ton.

[Duke Nedo]

Appogee, on 06 December 2016 - 01:22 AM, said:

Cost of repecing ... unknown.

Note too that the 750,000 to 'ace out' a Mech is based on the assumption that it's 10,000XP to unlock one skill, for all 75 skilis. However, in other games, the cost to unlock becomes progressively higher as you get further down the tree.

That's the way it currently works in MWO for Modules.

So 750,000 may turn out to be a significant understatement of the number of XP points required to 'ace out' a Mech.

From the trailer it looks like a flat 10k though, somewhere it's written 10k xp per SP and in another place it's written that for 230k XP you can afford 23 SP. (or was it 210k/21?)