36 replies to this topic

[Random Carnage]

I'm actually ok with having slow progression, just limit the total gap between fully spec'd and fully un-spec'd. Those that commit to a single chassis and grind it out - all power to 'em. I'm not a fan of the instant gratification mindset that demands everything "now" without putting in much effort.

[Tarogato]

My comments copied from reddit, for what it's worth:



I'm really worried about this. It has potential to be something really great, but I have more qualm than faith.

1 - hopefully the time to grind out a new skill tree isn't all that different from the time it took to grind out XP under the old tree and earn the C-Bills for the modules. But at the rate of conversion in the screenshots they showed, it could take a LOT longer to grind mechs.


2 - quirks are being replaced by a system that is several times more complicated. Some of those mechs that needed boosts like 20% heat gen or 40% cooldown to be not utterly terrible... now instead of just giving them that quirk, it has to be added to one of these complex skill trees either as extra nodes or as a greater bonus per-node (which is no different from quirks, other than it's much less transparent to the player and MUCH more sophisticated and time-consuming to balance from a development perspective.)


3 - with no quirks, redundant variants will be back to the way they were - even more redundant than they are now. For instance, you might be selling your CDA-2B and just buying a second CDA-2A instead and spec'ing it differently. Same with the Firestarters, Ravens, Blackjacks, Ice Ferrets, Quickdraws, Stalkers, Thunderbolts, Awesome, Maulers, and probably plenty more. There will be no reason to buy the sub-par variants unless they are quirked to be competitive with the better variants, and "quirking" things under the skill tree will be a lot more involved of a process than just slapping a quirk in an XML like it has been in the past.


4 - there is going to be even more min-max than ever. Some skills will be much more useful than others, and PGI will take ages to realise this and address it by reconciling their values. Also, now there will be a skill tree meta that even further divides the gap between the good players and bad, where bad players might be investing in rather useless skills not realising that there are better options. Balacing all the skill options so that they are equally viable could be at best a very time consuming affair, and at worst an absolute nightmare.


5 - skill specialisation could lead to weapon imbalances. For instance, if you're putting dual gauss on some of your mechs, you might invest all of your skills in gauss cooldown, gauss velocity, gauss charge, range, armour hardening, crit resistance, and you don't even need to unlock any of the heat skills. So gauss could be potentially VERY good if you eschew the nonessentials and stack only what you need to make it better. Which means gauss would need some kind of nerf, either to the weapon itself or to the values in the skill tree. And this just means that mechs that adding a single gauss alongside a significant helping of other weapons that demand skills themselves will just be plagued with a sub-par gauss rifle, perhaps to the point where there is no reason to mount the gauss unless it's reasonable to fully invest in all of its skills. Gauss is just an example, but this could happen almost any weapon, really. TLDR: boating could get buffed, which is the last thing we need...


6 - how do you balance the best chasses? If there is a minimum viable of essential skills to unlock, and the best mechs in the game can unlock those essential skills, then how do inherently worse mechs compete? If the Timberwolf gets all of the speed, torso twist, acceleration, cooling, etc... that it needs, how does something like the Cataphract catch up? It can unlock all those same skills, but after that... even if it gets a higher skill point cap than the Timberwolf, perhaps the rest of the skills to unlock aren't even valuable enough to overcome the Timberwolf? So you'd need to buff the base skill values for the Cataphract (which is just basically quirks all over again) or you need to reduce the skill points on the Timber to the point where it might not have enough skill points to truly specialise if it wanted to. Or what happens if in the course of balancing mechs you remove skill points or nodes? Dealing with players who have already allocated or unlocked those skills will be troublesome, because you'll have to refund that investment and inform them somehow in game that their tree has been affected by a balance change and they might want to review it.


7 - respec'ing will probably be a pain in the butt. Now you'll not only have to rebuild your mech (especially for competitive play!), but you'll have to respec it or spend extra MC just to have the ability to quickswap specs? Or you have to buy another copy of the mech to get around it (and that's another mechbay...) This sounds like its inhibiting new players from enjoying their time experimenting, and it's less of a hassle for the already grizzled all-powerful vet who has everything he needs.


8 - just in general, I could see this being entirely too sophisticated for the majority of people who play this game, and only that top 20% of patient and experienced players will ever get comfortable with it. Not to mention that for most people it will just be a race to Metamechs.com to see what Gman says and copy him because sheeple gon' sheep.

[Scandinavian Jawbreaker]

Besh, on 06 December 2016 - 12:15 AM, said:

Imho, looking at the new SkillTree with thoughts of "mastering a 'Mech", or unlocking ALL the skills/quirks for a given Chassis/Variant, is looking at it from the wrong angle(s) . You are looking at it from the past .

What if "mastering" a 'Mech has NO meaning at all in the future of MW:O (i.e. does NOT exist ) ? . What if it is MEANT to be nigh on impossible to "finalize" even ONE Varaint in terms of Unlocks....let alone several, and what if it is intentional that in the future, every single Unlock is a meaningfull choice, and one you should not take lightly ?

What if SkillTree 1.0 is a Step in the direction of: there is no EndGame and final Goal, not even for a single 'Mech Variant . Keep playing. Keep making your 'Mechs better . For a pretty long time you can, on every single one .

Would that be so bad really ?

It all sounds fine and dandy when you put it that way. However I have ~1 mil XP on my most played mechs. Compared to players starting the grind my most played mechs will be straight out OP. And we're fighting in a same match and propably the player is lesser tier than I am. Is that good for game balance? Definately no. I don't have a real problem with it, I play alot, but looking at the big picture this seems pretty messed up.

[xengk]

I would like to see the new skill tree encourage owning multiple variant.

Example:
Having a HBK 4G: skill cost at 100%
Having a HBK 4G, 4H: skill cost at 80%
Having a HBK 4G, 4H, 4J: skill cost at 60%
Having a HBK 4G, 4H, 4J, 4SP: skill cost capped at 50%
Having a HBK 4G, 4H, 4J, 4SP, 4P: skill cost capped at 50%
Having a HBK 4G, 4H, 4J, 4SP, 4P, GI: skill cost capped at 50%

Alternative having the same variant also count toward skill cost discount.
Example having 2 HBK 4G, 1 4J, 1 4SP: skill cost capped at 50%

This way, there is still a reason to buy mech pack for multiple variant, also encourage player to own and try out different variant/build.

[The Unstoppable Puggernaut]

So what do we say about new ideas?
Implementation, Implementation, Implementation.

1. In this video I can see a Hellbringer, trying to increase his IS Autocannon skills. My first comment is, I like the way this is going but I really hope the implementation is not screwed up. I freeze framed so much of this video just to see what the other tree's had.

2. So when this gets rofled out, I am going to have to waste weeks configuring just some of the mechs I want to use (as I have very limited play time). This system is going to take ages. In the current system, if I wanted to change my weapon load out for brawling, I'd put in seismic. And now it is death by click??? I'd need pre-set profiles please
It's NOT hard to do, its a simple database full of item text.

3. As everyones highlighted, the XP -> SP conversion. Ouch. I think my 30%C-bill variants are quite safe but the other variants... pffft. Grindywindyblindydonthavetimey.

---

Things I really like, I can play the mechs the way I DAMN WANT TO

The JJ vector boost, finally !!!! Power to the lights. I hope this is a skill tree and not just a binary option.

I like the cart, at first it looks a bit complicated but it actually seems to provide you everything you need datawise so I am happy with that. I just hope you can reset skills per tree and not per mech, otherwise you'll have to start all the way from scratch :|

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Overall I love the idea but this will make a whole lotta mechs redundant. You'll see.

[Zeoraimer]

My guesses:
Re-spec'ing Skill Points = MC cost

PGI will be shifting the meta whenever they need a payday, (Like the recent AC/UAC global nerfs). This will force everyone to re-spec. Netting a massive MC expenditure.

I now have buyers remorse: I bought 27 mech bays with MC as part of earned MCs, MC sale, and the Mechbay sale...

I too echo the concerns about how long it will take to grind just one mech now. Under the old system, mastering 12 variants @ ~60,000 XP each = 720,000 XP - that is still short 30,000 XP short of maxing out just ONE mech... Judging by my play time this year, I think I'll manage maybe 1.3 mechs per year...

And this will make many variants redundant (lack of hardpoints, or sub-optimal placement) - if I sell them now, then buying that 27 mech bays earlier is even more pointless...


Maybe, on the bright side, buying mech packs give you some free Skill points as early adopters reward. Would you like to buy a mech pack?

[ACWILD]

Zeoraimer, on 06 December 2016 - 02:47 AM, said:

My guesses:
Re-spec'ing Skill Points = MC cost

Fine, if that's how it's gonna be, i'll find another game to play.

[Duke Nedo]

Another thing that wasn't brought up yet: The skilltrees are per mech... what happens if I sell a skilled mech and re-buy it when the meta shifts? I spend another year skilling the same mech up?

[Arekasune]

I second Tarogato's concerns, mostly around variants and changing configs. It just seems like this system is going to neuter the incentive to have some of the "lesser" variants, especially on chassis's whose variants don't differ much in terms of hardpoints. Like what's the point of having four Black Knights with this system?

I suppose, in a way, I can answer that question with the next concern; cost of respeccing. Is the idea going to be that respeccing is enough of a pain for me to go and just level another variant? Using the BK example: I suppose if I spec out one variant for laser vomit, and one for ER PPCs or Pulses, then that saves me respec costs. But the problem there was also raised by Tarogato. In that situation, why not just buy the same, let's say lowest price variant and just taking it down different skill trees?

Honestly I'm not worried about boating because everyone always boats already anyway assuming they have the hardpoints available to do so. Idk. I'm only a tier 4 so I don't claim to be an expert, but one thing I enjoy about BattleTech is the -variety-, and this system seems to reduce the variety available in the game at first inspection.

Edited by Arekasune, 06 December 2016 - 04:02 AM.

[PlzDie]

Random Carnage, on 06 December 2016 - 12:50 AM, said:

I'm actually ok with having slow progression, just limit the total gap between fully spec'd and fully un-spec'd. Those that commit to a single chassis and grind it out - all power to 'em. I'm not a fan of the instant gratification mindset that demands everything "now" without putting in much effort.

I put in 4 years worth of effort to get where I am now, I think that is quite "much". I am definitely not a fan of having everything reset, and if PGI keep to the numbers shown on the trailer having to restart with not nearly enough to get all my mechs useful again.

[keith]

i'll add my 2 cents of someone whos been watching and waiting for some sort of development to play again. i hope this skill tree gets rid of the 3 mech rule. i hope all the xp gain is per chasis, because if they do laser, missile, dakka yaddaa.... each chasis is different it should go into a massive a pool of xp say for mara. then for all var its pulled for and u can spec each 1 different, then reset for either mc or a cbill cost. yet i doubt they did that, gonna wait till see what they did before playing again

[MW Waldorf Statler]

with this costs ,and by 256 Mechs ...im never level all mechs (for all im have buying Camo for 750 MC) with this MM ...Months for one Mech by 3-4 Hours/Week ...never ...never buy more any Mech or Camothats not one Charakter ,thats mass an mechs, like a Skillteree for each unit in a Strategical Game...give many Games with better, and faster Ways to play and level

[Random Carnage]

It'll get adjusted. I think people are nervous given the current early indicators, but I don't expect the grind will remain as flagged here. Lets just take a breath and see where things fall.

[Appogee]

After 4 years of a placeholder skill tree, they unveil a new skill tree ... with placeholder values.

Laziest devs in the galaxy.

Edited by Appogee, 06 December 2016 - 11:16 PM.

[Kargush]

[WildeKarde]

Easiest option would be to give so many skill points per level of skills completed. Say 25 SP if a mech had basics completed, 50 for elite and 75 if you have mastered. That means you can go straight to same level you have on a mech.

Spare XP sitting gets pooled as they were going to do anyway

[ACWILD]

I really can't get along with the idea of having to spend c-bills or MC to try new builds on MY mechs.
I find it rude and unfair.