64 replies to this topic

[Wecx]

FupDup, on 05 December 2016 - 06:03 PM, said:

For the bad mech issue, I think that PGI shouldn't completely wipe out the existing quirk system...They should still retain innate quirks that mechs don't have to unlock. Then, the player can just use the skill tree to stack on top of those default quirks.

Yeah, but, the tree would need to be examined heavily. Summoner for example with its current velocity quirks don't need any more. The locust is already pretty fast. Thier tree would have to be examined so you don't have +100 velocity and so forth.

[Y E O N N E]

Wecx, on 05 December 2016 - 06:08 PM, said:

Thier tree would have to be examined so you don't have +100 velocity and so forth.

No, no, they should totally let me have +100 velocity...to my Locust run-speed.

[Wecx]

Yeonne Greene, on 05 December 2016 - 06:09 PM, said:

No, no, they should totally let me have +100 velocity...to my Locust run-speed.

Well, I was just using that as the example for the summoner, I am not going to do a run-down of the quirks.

[Y E O N N E]

Wecx, on 05 December 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

Well, I was just using that as the example for the summoner, I am not going to do a run-down of the quirks.

It would be glorious. I would be accused of hacking so hard as I warp from one end of the map to the other before their assaults have moved two grid-squares.

[AnimosityMonk]

We all know the PGI will screw this up big time or as they would put it "Monday". I order to do it right then all currently owned and mastered mechs will have all 75 pts available and whatever skills the player chooses for that mech will not require c-bills to implement. There are a lot of players who can not afford to buy mech bays so they basic, elite or master mechs then sell them to free up the bay then buy a new mech. I personally have mastered every Jaeger but then sold them off to buy and master other mechs. I should not be penalized with having to regrind them all over again if/when I decide to purchase/play in the future. Right now all the mech skills you unlock stay unlocked whether you own that particular mech and that is the way it needs to stay.

"Give me a 1 to 1 conversion or give me my money back!"

Edited by Animus41, 05 December 2016 - 07:23 PM.

[MauttyKoray]

East Indy, on 05 December 2016 - 04:23 PM, said:

Let me preface by thanking PGI for being open about game design plans — especially works in progress. It's not easy to subject an idea to criticism. It's extremely helpful, all the same. I'd like to calmly and rationally explain why embedding quirks in skill trees is not a positive change for this game, and is so fundamentally flawed that no amount of testing can fix it.

So, again: hey, it's an idea, interesting concept. But it's not going to work.

1. It's a Solution in Search of a Problem
Why? Because MWO is not a game with a shortage of potential variety. If a player wants a certain style with certain weapons in a certain weight class moving at a certain speed, there are dozens of 'Mechs available, each with a half-dozen variants. And then each one can be pulled into the 'Mechlab.

Open-ended customization would make sense if MWO were a limited-roster title like Wipeout or F-Zero. But it's not. We have scores of choices to suit a playstyle, and as the Roughneck's unveiling suggests, if there's a burning desire for a loadout regardless of lore, PGI can oblige.


2. Its Logistics Don't Work With the Current UX
Several players have pointed out that skill purchases are totally at odds with a smooth Mechlab experience.

Let's say you've made a build with four LB-X autocannons. You'll show everyone! You pop your range and cooldown modules in. You're about to push "Quickplay" when you come to your senses, rip out the LB-Xs, and choose a sensible loadout. You hit tonnage, swap modules, hit solo queue and immediately earn Ace of Spades.

Now, let's try that with quirked skill trees. You rip out the LB-Xs and choose the sensible loadout. But you'd already invested in LB-X quirks. So, you go to Skills. You deactivate all the LB-X points. (You can, can't you?) Then you need to reactivate all the points for your new loadout. Well, actually — had you purchased them for this specific 'Mech? If you didn't, time for some button clicks, and maybe a microtransaction. Then you've got to work your way down trees, hopscotching to get the right combination of quirks. And you may need to do it three or four times for each system. What if it's not solo queue you're playing. What if four unit-mates are waiting? Heaven forbid you change your mind again and decide to go True Blue on the LBs.


3. Every Solution to Balance Weak 'Mechs with Strong 'Mechs is Awkward
Take the two 100-ton 'Mechs bookending Mech_Con's stage backdrop.

The Atlas needs its brains quirked out to be half-effective. The Kodiak is so powerful it's been nerfed once, and indirectly nerfed twice. In order for MWO not to fold in on itself the day quirked skill trees are released, the Atlas needs some way of at least keeping pace with the Kodiak.

Oh, there are options. But all of them stink.

a. Give the Weaker 'Mech Points to Start With. This is by far the most straightforward solution, and I imagine the first PGI will try in an effort to save the design. Whatever 'Mechs receive in skill points as a baseline, the Atlas receives more. But how many more does it need? The Atlas isn't slightly more quirked than the Kodiak. It's exponentially more quirked than the Kodiak. Does this mean it has four times the skill points? Five? Ten? Is that even enough to match today's (insufficient) quirks? Is a new player ready to invest scores of points? Awkward.

b. Increase the Bonus of Weaker 'Mechs' Skill. Instead of having a Scrooge moneybin of skill points, a skill point would purchase more than 2.5%, or whatever the bonus, so that the same number of skill points could allow the Atlas to reach its current level of quirks. One problem: many 'Mechs are better off than the Atlas but not as good as the Kodiak. A few 'Mechs are worse. This mean every single 'Mech will have a different bonus factor. Hey, our balance solution created a new balance problem! Awkward.

c. Give Weak 'Mechs Deeper Trees. The least baked of the solutions, it nevertheless needs to be identified. If an Atlas needs more quirk bonuses, let the player keep buying them! Except this saddles the player with a kind of 30-year mortgage where they pay their way out of performance debt and finally reach parity long, long after the Kodiak has been getting 1K games like it's breathing air. And, like increased bonuses, every 'Mech will have its own depth. What happens when a tree gets truncated — refund? Awkward.

--

Universalizing quirks is not going to work. Save your dev time and PTS electricity.

My own humble suggestion is to simply make quirks more uniform — less eclectic, looking at you AMS RoF — so that QUIRKS = BETTER all the time, which in turn makes them easier to understand. It doesn't matter if quirks are simple and similar, because MWO provides so many more dials for players to use for customization.

Just trying to help!

1. Every mech has been stuff in specific roles due to its included quirks. You took the mech based on what you could make it into restricted by what bonuses you received from quirks. Now you can personally 'quirk' your mech to fit the way you want it to play and not be restricted to always taking a UAC5 because of quirks, or dual PPCs because of quirks, etc.

2. Russ stated we'll be able to 'reset' the allocation of our points, the assumption being that it will cost CBills, however no one really knows yet as we haven't tried it out. I think prior to doomsaying the mechanic, we all need to at least test it in the PTS first. Besides, if you want to play it safe and make it a mech that can be more malleable, it looks like 'general' quirks (torso twist, heat bonuses, etc) are still there like we have now in the basic tier.

3. I dislike quirks being buff/nerf balancers like they have been, and even at the start of the mechanic the originally planned intention was thought to be similar to how Battletech 'quirked' their mechs in rules to allow them to act like they did in the lore and books. Specialized designs that acted in a specific way that benefitted (or ********) the mech's performance such as the Awesome being a dedicated PPC platform or the Vindicator being able to bleed heat off its PPC by using a body of water.\

Honestly I can't really agree or disagree with you on this point. It is risky, and may or may not actually benefit the game. However we won't know until we try and the old, outdated skill system along with the bandaid quirks and the shaky module system with insanely useful and horribly useless ones both being present might have their time to be laid to rest finally.

Viktor Drake, on 05 December 2016 - 04:37 PM, said:

You have hit most of the issues on the money but I will add one.

The Grind.

Right now it is set at 10,000 XP per skill point or 750,000 XP to Master a mech. Now take your two examples, the Atlas and the Kodiak. As you point out, the Atlas needs a truly massive amount of quirks to make it competitive while the Kodiak really needs none. Even if they do some sort of asymmetrical bonus system where the Altas gains more power from skill, quicker, right out of the gate the Atlas is going to be at a massive disadvantage. The question then is how long before that Atlas will gain enough SP's to offset its initial disadvantage? 10 SP,? 30 SP? 50 SP? 75 SP? Even 10 SP will require about 66 matches if the Altas can earn 1500 XP a match. 50 SP will require over 300. That is a hell of alot of time playing a gimped mech.

Its 100% possible the 10k exp is simply a place holder. Russ did say they wanted to Public Test Server the system first and this could be one of the things that change. It could be set at 1,000 exp, 2.5k exp, even 5k exp.

Personally I think a constantly increasing cost per point would be ideal. Start with the first point at a lower cost and then continue to increase with each point making it easy to get a foothold in a mech but then requiring devotion to that mech in order to fully master your tree in it.

[GenghisJr]

If I have to remaster 130 mechs, I will never spend another cent with PGI, its a time thing, I've paid the price in grind, I'm not paying twice.

[PlzDie]

Viktor Drake, on 05 December 2016 - 05:02 PM, said:

Yeah you hit the nail on the head there. I too wanted a pilot skill tree that allowed me to specialize my... lets call it, "Character's" individual skills and allow me to burn up all the excess XP I accumulate on my mechs. This would have been a positive thing that would only work to slowly buff everyone over time and give us a reason to play.

As is though, I can only see the change as being a huge negative. All my 100+ mechs lose their quirks, many of which I purchased specifically because of those quirks. Then based on what they showed at Mechcon, I will have to grind hundreds of matches on each of those 100+ mechs to gain back those lost quirks. The thought of this just sends me into a deep depression.

I mean sure, I would love to add some mobility quirks to my Huntsman or add some armor and/or structure quirks to my Viper, but not at the expense of having to grind out several hundred matches to do so and not at the expense of losing all my quirks on my Phoenix Hawk, Atlas, Linebacker, etc, again especially not when it will take me several hundred matches each to get them back to where they are now.

So I am really, really, really hoping PGI sees the light here and at the very least, reduces the SP cost down to like 1000 XP instead of 10,000 XP each because if they don't, I think we are going to have another Star Wars Galaxies situation where the players are going to leave in droves due to an ill thought out "Enhancement". SWG never recovered by the way.

I have the same concern, I also have a 100+ mechs all of them mastered in the 4 years I played this game.
I get PGI will be refunding the c-bills and xp used for leveling these mechs, and modules, they cannot refund the time I spent.

What worries me is that if all this is done and the new skill tree is in place I might only have enough xp and c-bills to outfit a handful of my owned mechs.
There is no way in hell that I am going to spend the amount of time that will be needed to regrind all of the mechs left out to get them useful again, life is too damn short.

For now I will wait and see, but this is PGI......

Edited by PlzDie, 05 December 2016 - 09:51 PM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

NEED MORE INFO.

Barely annoucned 3 days ago and already, these threads waste no time

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 05 December 2016 - 09:52 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Bud Crue, on 05 December 2016 - 04:45 PM, said:

...and here come the folks saying "because community members have wanted a redo of the skills tree for a long time".

To which I answer: I thought it was a PILOT skill tree we wanted, not another mech based "tree". At least that is what I wanted. The game play sensation that I...me... was gaining experience and making choices that had real consequences in the game for good and ill. A skills tree where if I chose a path that benefited me in one way, it would cost or even potentially harm me in another. Instead, it appears we have Mech based Skill-Quirks or what I hence forth dub:

"squirks"

Not exactly what I was hoping for.

I agree I wanted a pilot skill tree also. I am sort of considering this new skill tee a modification tree instead. Because that is what it is. It really should be called mech modification tree. Maybe it is called that in game when its added?

I do really like what I see so far for the tree anyway.

Edited by Johnny Z, 05 December 2016 - 10:00 PM.

[JC Daxion]

Bud Crue, on 05 December 2016 - 04:45 PM, said:

...and here come the folks saying "because community members have wanted a redo of the skills tree for a long time".

heh.. and here i have been saying... Skill tree is basically fine as is.. gets people to grind/sink some c-bills, and it worked.. I could of cared less about a skill tree..


that said, maybe i will love it.. I dunno, no where near enough info

[Xzip]

Hey people. I get - you are worried about your mastery going to trash - frankly? I am too.

But can we please have some dedicated topics to discuss problem of balancing out new system in term of quirks/bad mechs? Like, can we have seperate thread for balance and for grind problems? Stop derailing each other.

Then I see there is ton of topics saying the same things over and over and over and derailing meta is strong...

bleh.

[DerMaulwurf]

The biggest issue, that I see is that skill trees are likely to encourage boating. Why would you spread out your points over ballistic, missile and energy quirks if you could just bring one type and maximize the return on your skill points?

Of course you can encourage the spread of skill points by setting a ceiling either the hard way or softer by diminishing returns. But then you reduce the whole building aspect to chose X out of N, which reduces variety and thereby lessens the impact of doing this whole rework.

[Remillard]

FupDup, on 05 December 2016 - 06:03 PM, said:

For the bad mech issue, I think that PGI shouldn't completely wipe out the existing quirk system...They should still retain innate quirks that mechs don't have to unlock. Then, the player can just use the skill tree to stack on top of those default quirks.

This makes some sense, though I might dial that back to chassis quirks myself. It seems like most of the quirks that put the Atlas to some level of parity with the Kodiak are structural in nature. If we keep the structural quirks intact (the "health" of the mech to some degree) then we let the player play with points for speed, agility, and weapons systems, that seems relatively fair to me.

[Quxudica]

I'm just hoping the Re-spec option fully refunds 100% of your points and doesn't force you into grinding again. Grind is not fun. I don't need a bloody treadmill to get me to play a game. Though I realize an entire generation of gamers have no been raised on games that force-feed them progression treadmills and made them think grind is legit content..

[Xzip]

Remillard, on 06 December 2016 - 08:16 AM, said:

This makes some sense, though I might dial that back to chassis quirks myself. It seems like most of the quirks that put the Atlas to some level of parity with the Kodiak are structural in nature. If we keep the structural quirks intact (the "health" of the mech to some degree) then we let the player play with points for speed, agility, and weapons systems, that seems relatively fair to me.

It doesn't solve problem of undergunned mechs like Spider 5K/5V or Shadowcat or Commando or many others, sadly.

[Remillard]

Xzip, on 06 December 2016 - 08:34 AM, said:

It doesn't solve problem of undergunned mechs like Spider 5K/5V or Shadowcat or Commando or many others, sadly.

True, though unless they were going to give you skill points to add hardpoints, that wasn't going to get solved anyway, was it? I'm not super familiar with these families so I went to Smurfy's quirks page and looked at the Commando quirks (and Spider because it was next the list) and it looks like the primary non-structural quirks are cooldown, heat generation, and so forth much like every other chassis. Are these needed just to reach parity in the same weight class, assuming ALL light mechs were stripped back to nothing and we're just dealing with hit boxes and hardpoint geometry?

Honestly before we can even discuss this, some sort of definition of parity needs to be agreed on. Given that just the way the mechs were design bakes in various benefits and flaws it's already a difficult task to try to setup something fair. And I don't think every mech needs to be absolutely equal in all things. Just every mech ought to have a niche at least for something it's good at ideally. However maybe this is already a fool's errand given the number of mechs already in-game.

As a baseline though, like I said in my earlier post, just a "how many body shots can this mech take?" is probably at least a reasonable starting point for non-pilot skill related parity.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

let me buyCustom Pilots and Skilltress for it ,not that ******* for my 156 mechs

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 06 December 2016 - 07:36 PM.

[Gas Guzzler]

BLOOD WOLF, on 05 December 2016 - 09:51 PM, said:

NEED MORE INFO.

Barely annoucned 3 days ago and already, these threads waste no time

Its called being proactive.

[Xzip]

Remilard,

Spider 5K is only working at this moment thanks to its absurdly high energy cooldown and burn time. Compare that with any other light - only Locust 1V is comparable and they both only have 1E and 4B. It works well as harasser, duel machine against some other lights or carrion feeder.

Spider 5V used to have 30% quirk for each aspect of its energy - and considering max it could bring was two MPL - this mech needed it. Sadly range one was removed and in the end I sold mine - in world of 6ML Locusts, 6 SPL ACHs, SRMBomb Jenners... it was dead.

Commandos - I have no idea - I toyed with getting them but in the end I decided they are not worth my time.

Your idea to make baseline is good - but I am not sure if armor is really gonna be that great baseline. I frankly think armor baseline should be geometry relevant and weapon quirks baseline should be used hardpoints relevant.