283 replies to this topic

[Quicksilver Aberration]

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Impatience. Not going to have any sympathy for someone who has no patience.

Strawman, there is more to this and you know it.

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

You have to wait matches because you were impatient and spent your GXP instead of playing through the mastery.

That sort of excuse only works on someone like me who has been playing long enough that I have built up a lot of XP, again, if I'm having issues reconciling this, what do you think those who have not played as much as I have will think? This game already taxes experimentation with things like your inventory and the fact that you have to pay every time you switch an upgrade, we are just adding more taxes on top of that customization.

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

You describing the player base at large or just yourself? You think the general populace is going to pony up the C-bills for 4-6 Kodiaks?

If they aren't having to buy less powerful variants to master just to get the KDK-3 mastered, it's very likely. It's not like the Kodiak is the first mech that was powerful and/or versatile enough to be worth getting duplicates for.

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

A system where you can spend MC to instantly master a mech. Oh, wait. It will already exist.

Actually, you are ignoring a key condition to that, you have to have the Mech XP free to do that. If I were a brand new player, I can't actually do that. That condition makes no sense, why are we not able to turn money directly into XP? That has actually been bothering me since way before this skill tree.

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Are you claiming you have access to PGI's accounting books?

Really? I don't have to, PGI has admitted that mech packs are their main revenue stream, or selling mechs in general. Thus their revenue is directly tied into the desire to collect mechs, especially if the new ones are also power creeped.

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Maybe. And maybe people who collect through C-bills have little affect on PGI's bottom line. I don't know and neither do you.

Collecting c-bills mean playing the game, which is helping the game regardless given the small population we are currently dealing with. That said, you do want those people to spend those c-bills.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2016 - 08:55 PM.

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 08 December 2016 - 08:09 PM, said:

... Russ clearly said a mastery in the new system will take as much time as it does currently. So, worrying about 10 matches per skill is unnecessary.

Why do you feel there will be extra grinding, then?

"Because reasons."

Having not seen this in action however, I will reserve judgement, but I have concerns like anyone else.

[Davegt27]

nightmare1

thanks for the reply (I used to play Starfleet battles back in the early 1980's) and video

[vandalhooch]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 December 2016 - 08:40 PM, said:

Strawman, there is more to this and you know it.

No there isn't. You are upset because you won't have the GXP to make several spec changes to try things out. The reason you don't have the GXP to do that is because you spent your GXP to skip the grind of mastering a mech by playing it.

What more is there? No one else is complaining about not having GXP to respec their mechs because they are sitting on piles of it. I have unlocked every single module, including maxing out the weapon modules, and am still sitting on 1.1 million GXP. I have 163 of 166 mechs fully mastered. I could easily use some GXP to finish off the last three but I haven't. I'm going to be patient and grind them out.

With the new system, GXP becomes a resource to manage. It will add a new facet to the game, albeit a pretty minor one. Events and grab bags that reward GXP now become valuable instead of "missed" opportunities to get something "good." I like that idea.

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That sort of excuse only works on someone like me who has been playing long enough that I have built up a lot of XP, again, if I'm having issues reconciling this, what do you think those who have not played as much as I have will think?

Many will be sitting on piles of GXP and won't need to think at all about your situation because they exercised more patience than you. The newer players aren't going to have the C-bills to buy dozens of different mechs and so aren't going to need large amounts of GXP for respecs. They'll still be busy grinding out the initial Mech XP in the first place.

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This game already taxes experimentation with things like your inventory

What? You know you don't have to sell inventory items, right?

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and the fact that you have to pay every time you switch an upgrade, we are just adding more taxes on top of that customization.

Their called sinks. Games that reward players with some sort of currency for just playing the game have to have them in order to prevent inflation. The fact that there is no player-to-player market limits the rate of inflation but does not eliminate it. Here's how it will work if you remove the C-bill sinks:
1 - Players, through just playing the game, will earn massive numbers of C-bills.
2 - In-game prices of items will have to be increased in order to slow the rate at which players go through the game's content. Or, C-bill payouts will have to reduced in each match. Either choice will upset the player base. All developers deal with "racing players" in different ways but they must be dealt with or you will lose them when they feel that they've "finished" the game. See - Extra Credits
3 - Increased prices of basic items (mechs and weapons in this case) will drastically hurt new players who haven't been playing long enough to be sitting on hordes of C-bills.

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If they aren't having to buy less powerful variants to master just to get the KDK-3 mastered, it's very likely. It's not like the Kodiak is the first mech that was powerful and/or versatile enough to be worth getting duplicates for.

But you said that buying duplicate mechs will make up for players not having to buy three variants. Will every player actually do that for each mech they decide is a keeper? If not, then you've lost one more C-bill sink to the game and actually reduced mech bay sales as well. Those losses have to be made up for by the new system.

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Actually, you are ignoring a key condition to that, you have to have the Mech XP free to do that. If I were a brand new player, I can't actually do that.

You're comparing your comp-level experience of constantly making minor tweaks to dozens of mechs to that of a brand new player? The brand new player doesn't need to do respecs for dozens of mechs. They'll be running their initial four mechs for quite a while amassing Mech XP every time they want to respec and slowly accruing GXP until they decide to pull the trigger and spend some real money on the game and get MC for mech bays or pre-order a new chassis. I fully expect that PGI will start including quantities of GXP in their pre-order bonus content. I think you may have forgotten just how much GXP you spent unlocking those modules. New players will not be spending their GXP on that so when they finally do start to build up a sizable collection they'll have significant GXP to work with. Unless of course they are as impatient as you were and burn through it. If so, I've got no sympathy for them suffering the consequences for their choices just like I have none for you.

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That condition makes no sense, why are we not able to turn money directly into XP? That has actually been bothering me since way before this skill tree.

That would allow you to race through the game's content. It's bad business for any developer to allow a player to rush through the entire game. Players enjoy games because they achieve things. Earning that Mech XP for the next node or to respec a previous node is a goal to be achieved. It's motivation.

You find enjoyment of the game through other goals (prestige in winning comp level matches), ostensibly. But, your goals in this game are in the very small minority and giving you the system you seem to want would not allow PGI to remain financially stable do to the loss of many potential long-term players getting bored with "finishing" the game too quickly.

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Really? I don't have to, PGI has admitted that mech packs are their main revenue stream, or selling mechs in general. Thus their revenue is directly tied into the desire to collect mechs, especially if the new ones are also power creeped.

51% of revenue is not the same as 95% of revenue. Do you know which type of "their main revenue stream" is going on here? Did they tell you that?

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Collecting c-bills mean playing the game, which is helping the game regardless given the small population we are currently dealing with.

And if you don't have to grind Mech XP or GXP how apt are you yourself to drop in the public queues? Does allowing you to avoid those queues hurt or help this free-to-play game from PGI's perspective?

[Quicksilver Aberration]

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 09:27 PM, said:

With the new system, GXP becomes a resource to manage.

I don't care about anything else you said but this one, because it made my jaw drop at the ridiculousness of this statement and to me is the real difference between our views right now. The idea of resources (especially ones that cost you time or real money) you have to "manage" is stupid for a PvP game. Resources have one focus in a F2P PvP game, slowing down the access of content to the point where you are encouraged to spend money to avoid all that (so you have the time vs money trade-off). Ideally that should only be one resource because it makes things simple and nice to the user (which is what you really should be going for). The idea that this needs to be a resource to "manage" is absolutely absurd because you are in effect trying to add some aspect of R&R to this (because is it suddenly needs to be managed better, expenditures can set you back) and that doesn't work well in a F2P for obvious reason.

If you want consequences for expenditure choices, ask for that in MW5 (a single player game) where it belongs because it sure as hell does not belong in a PvP F2P game. Honestly this game technically already has that problem of which you can make bad choices that cost you time and money, but they don't need to be made worse (and honestly I would prefer them to not be here either).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2016 - 10:19 PM.

[vandalhooch]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 08 December 2016 - 10:16 PM, said:

I don't care about anything else you said

Okay. Nothing fallacious about doing that.

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but this one, because it made my jaw drop at the ridiculousness of this statement and to me is the real difference between our views right now. The idea of resources (especially ones that cost you time or real money) you have to "manage" is stupid for a PvP game.

C-bills are stupid for a PvP game.

Money in CS:GO is stupid in a PvP game.

In what way does GXP cost you real money?

If there is no time requirement for getting all the resources you'll ever need, how exactly is a F2P game supposed to ensure there are always opponents available for everyone to play against?

You do realize that this "lack of GXP" problem is not universal, right? Most players are not in your situation. They don't have several hundred mechs. They aren't planning on near constant tinkering with nodes of dozens of them. And, they didn't use their GXP as a shortcut to avoid having to you know "play the game." Playing the game is it's own reward. If you see "playing the game" as a grind you have to go through in order that you can . . . what is it exactly you want out of this game again?

It sounds like you are really upset that you might have to play this game in order to be able to play this game. If you are only here so that you can participate in private lobby matches then more power too you, but you aren't actually helping the game to remain viable despite any pittance of money you yourself might have spent.

A free-to-play, PvP game stays viable as long as there are enough players for everyone to find matches consistently. The small portion of those players who actually pay money to the developer will stop paying if there is no one to play against. If you do nothing but private lobbies, you are just as useless to the viability of the game as someone who has permanently quit. The game must have mechanics in place that encourage as many players as possible (free and paying) to play as often as possible.

With the new skill tree, the daily double XP bonus will now have more meaning and some players might be more apt to drop just one or two more times to collect just a little more Mech XP and GXP on chassis they didn't use yet. All of those, "one more drops" in aggregate will increase the likelihood that everyone will have a larger player pool to draw opponents from. It's why the double XP system was implemented in the first place but the current skill system doesn't synergize with the mechanic at all. The new system will. That makes for a better game for everyone.

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Resources have one focus in a F2P PvP game, slowing down the access of content to the point where you are encouraged to spend money to avoid all that (so you have the time vs money trade-off). Ideally that should only be one resource because it makes things simple and nice to the user (which is what you really should be going for).

Yep. We should all have to grind for our gold ammo. No more MC or Mech XP or GXP. Gold ammo all the way. If you don't want to grind for it, then just pay for it. Sounds like a great game. Sign me up!

You know what makes MWO different from those other F2P PvP games you are referencing? There are no Tiers for equipment/units in the game. A complete noob flush from his cadet bonus matches can choose to buy any mech they want for their first in game purchase. Is that how those other games work? If not, then why should the resource management system of this game be the same as those others?

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The idea that this needs to be a resource to "manage" is absolutely absurd because you are in effect trying to add some aspect of R&R to this (because is it suddenly needs to be managed better, expenditures can set you back) and that doesn't work well in a F2P for obvious reason.

Says the guy who's all salty because he wasn't patient enough to just play the game and earn rewards.

Look, you took a short cut and now are getting burned for it. I don't have the slightest bit of sympathy for you.

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If you want consequences for expenditure choices, ask for that in MW5 (a single player game) where it belongs because it sure as hell does not belong in a PvP F2P game.

Because all PvP F2P games must operate with the same mechanics, right? Why don't we just adopt the whole system and rename this game World of Mechs?

I know, we can just get rid of that pesky tonnage limit each mech has. Why should players be punished for making bad choices between speed, armor, ammo, heat and firepower? Let's just make every mech 200 tons, run at 200 kph and carry 5 of every weapon. No need to make any sort of choice at all. After all, you might make a bad choice and end up being punished for it in a match. Come to think of it, maps with varied terrain offer choices for which players might end up being punished for making bad ones. Better make all the maps flat planes.

I'm going to assume that you aren't against players being punished for making those types of bad choices. You just seem to not want to admit that you made some bad choices of your own. Or more accurately, you don't want to actually be punished for those choices. Once again, no sympathy from me.

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Honestly this game technically already has that problem of which you can make bad choices that cost you time and money, but they don't need to be made worse (and honestly I would prefer them to not be here either).

Yes, I see. You don't want there to be consequences for your bad choices. You'll pardon me if I don't support you in this cause.

BTW: Your lack of addressing all the other points of my post is pretty telling in its own right.

[Pjwned]

vandalhooch, on 08 December 2016 - 09:27 PM, said:

What more is there? No one else is complaining about not having GXP to respec their mechs because they are sitting on piles of it. I have unlocked every single module, including maxing out the weapon modules, and am still sitting on 1.1 million GXP. I have 163 of 166 mechs fully mastered. I could easily use some GXP to finish off the last three but I haven't. I'm going to be patient and grind them out.

It's not a problem for you so it's not a problem for anybody else.

Of course, it's so simple! Good thing you're not completely wrong about that or anything, since that would make you look like an idiot! Phew...

[Pjwned]

Wintersdark, on 08 December 2016 - 08:13 PM, said:

Why's don't really matter. We get truly free (not cbill) respec options as well as paid ones that refund costs... So, that's a good thing. If we didn't, I'd be screaming too.... But that's not the case.

Sure, I'd love if the respec was free AND refunded spent XP, but I feel this is a very reasonable microtransaction point. It maintains time or money, and choosing to only rarely respec will ensure its both free in terms of Mc AND uses otherwise worthless MC

And that's fair, but my point was that the knob polishing over PGI not doing something dangerously stupid with their new skill tree is not warranted in the least.

[Dahrsis]

I still fail to see why the Skilltree change is something negative, based on the information we have atm (Full XP/C-Bill compensation, some Mechs retain Quirks because of unfavorable Hull/Hardpoint placement).

The new player who buys his first Mech starts out stronger than ever before. Because he has to buy only ONE mech which he then, via normal play, levels up completly. It means for him he can grab his favorite Chassis, level it full and has a strong solid base to go on from then on out. He probably has even enough C-Bills to spent to do another one in a different weight class too.
Two Mechs to buy to be competetive instead of six is a big deal for a new player. At least in my book.

For the old players out there. I have only a line up of 50 Mechs. Not all are Mastered, but every single one of them has the setup (Engine/Weapons/Modules) finished which i think is the best for me playing that variant.
When the new Skilltree hits, nothing will change for me. Except that i do not have any MG Cooldown % anywhere near them (i hope). And nothing should change for you. If you have 10, 100 or 300 Mechs. Nothing changes.

The only ones to suffer (in this case a very loose term) are people who either cant decide on a load out for the life of them, or people who need to fiddle around with the loadout on a regular basis. Yes, you may have the shorter straw and maybe you are pressed into even playing the game suboptimal with a 90% leveld build to regain those 5000xp and 250.000 C-Bills it takes to change to your new setup. Tho you would have done that anyway to test it, wouldn´t you?

What people miss here i think is that it is far more friendly to new players and that it gives you the option of having a Mech with quirks closer to your playstyle without any excess quirks you never use (MG Cooldown, yeah...).

The only thing i am corncerned about is the handling of chassis which are subpar atm and rely on heavy quirking to make them useful (This goes for IS and Clan and we all know what they are). I hope THAT part is handled well.

[Wintersdark]

Deathlike, on 08 December 2016 - 09:05 PM, said:

"Because reasons."

Having not seen this in action however, I will reserve judgement, but I have concerns like anyone else.

What can one say to that?

Seriously, though, the design as stated is equal time to master a mech, AND no more stupid three mech system. That's a step forward on its own.

PGI may certainly drop the ball somewhere, but until we see if they do there's no sense worrying about that. After all,the existing system is HORRIBLE. It'd take some effort to make things worse. And while I wouldn't out that past PGI, well, what's the point of complaining about everything "Because reasons", particularly when they've specifically said they're not going to do what you feared?


At least they're FINALLY addressing one of the last major "placeholder" systems. Another thing they should have done many years ago.

[Wintersdark]

Pjwned, on 08 December 2016 - 11:29 PM, said:

And that's fair, but my point was that the knob polishing over PGI not doing something dangerously stupid with their new skill tree is not warranted in the least.

*shrugs* yet it appears necessary given how many people are complaining about things PGI has specifically said they're not doing? "No free respecs!" "More grinding!"

Both of those WHERE very real dangers, despite being dangerously stupid. Both of those, after all, are basically industry standard approaches. I hate them too, but that's also why this is the ONLY F2P game I play. As a rule of thumb, I can't stand F2P/"freemium" monetization schemes, even when implemented in a non exploitive manner.

But the normal approach IS to charge for stuff, and make things more grindy than ever if people don't pay. And to be as exploitive as possible.

That's just how this **** works, and PGI isn't particularly known for making good choices.

With that said.... They HAVE directly addressed these issue already, so there's that.

[Count Zero 74]

I like trees

[Deathlike]

Wintersdark, on 09 December 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

What can one say to that?

Seriously, though, the design as stated is equal time to master a mech, AND no more stupid three mech system. That's a step forward on its own.

PGI may certainly drop the ball somewhere, but until we see if they do there's no sense worrying about that. After all,the existing system is HORRIBLE. It'd take some effort to make things worse. And while I wouldn't out that past PGI, well, what's the point of complaining about everything "Because reasons", particularly when they've specifically said they're not going to do what you feared?


At least they're FINALLY addressing one of the last major "placeholder" systems. Another thing they should have done many years ago.

Let me say this... all the XP wasted grinding on sub-par mechs like the Spider-5V... is lots of wasted C-bills.

Even if you lift the restrictions, the time lost/waste/spent is not a good feeling for those of us that went through it.

The worst part is if the replacing system is worse than the "placeholder" system... because more grinding for the chassis that I do want to run is not necessarily better. Basically, if the time spent is more than ~3 times what one chassis mastery has to be (since I prefer trying to master stuff 3 at a time, ideally - I'm already in the hole/sunk cost spending effectively 3 times I would normally have to just to acquire 2 other variants for one particular variant to be mastered), it's a worse system IMO.

If the supposed system 10 times (at least from what was said in passing) longer... then this is complete BS. You're just replacing one crappy system with another crappy one... despite it being "different".

Edited by Deathlike, 09 December 2016 - 03:21 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Deathlike, on 09 December 2016 - 03:19 AM, said:

Let me say this... all the XP wasted grinding on sub-par mechs like the Spider-5V... is lots of wasted C-bills.

Even if you lift the restrictions, the time lost/waste/spent is not a good feeling for those of us that went through it.

The worst part is if the replacing system is worse than the "placeholder" system... because more grinding for the chassis that I do want to run is not necessarily better. Basically, if the time spent is more than ~3 times what one chassis mastery has to be (since I prefer trying to master stuff 3 at a time, ideally - I'm already in the hole/sunk cost spending effectively 3 times I would normally have to just to acquire 2 other variants for one particular variant to be mastered), it's a worse system IMO.

If the supposed system 10 times (at least from what was said in passing) longer... then this is complete BS. You're just replacing one crappy system with another crappy one... despite it being "different".

so your are hypothesizing a worst case, but where is your best case? At this point you are leaning on one side without the relevant information. So get back to the middle.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 December 2016 - 04:34 AM.

[Haakon Magnusson]

Peter2k, on 07 December 2016 - 03:49 AM, said:

That's not what Russ said at all
It would take longer to find the tweets, but something tells me you wouldn't open them, even in a browser, anyway

All values we saw in the video are placeholders

It's not going to be in the game anytime soon, it's going on the PTS soon

Getting the values right is what's the next month is for (I'm assuming Russ means January)

Mechs that need help, get a baseline of quirks (no idea if they just keep the old quirks, or give out new) and the skill tree is on top

PTS? they have said it would be in PTS, well that's good. I don't follow tweets so I wouldn't know (As always, I keep hoping that PGI would use their forums as a forum to communicate) though with US having Trump now I might have to start, the comedy could continue to be good.

And they did imply that all quirks would be gone unless they have said something else in some other media, other than the announcement. Some of the bad ones might be saved by quirks on top of skill tree but I get the feeling they want quirks gone.

[Widowmaker1981]

We really have far too little information to be complaining at the moment - im also in the situation where ive spent GXP as its come in, because i didnt find playing mechs at below their best to be a useful experience (especially assaults, and especially before the agility skill giganerfs)... but ill still have plenty because of all the currently spent mech XP being refunded as legacy GXP.

Its definitely possible for them to make the new system too grindy, and if they do that ill complain with the rest of you, as i will if they fail at balancing the crap chassis with the good ones - but the system isnt flawed in and of itself (unlike, say, Energy Draw which is a horribly flawed concept from the start), so ill reserve judgement until i see the final values.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 December 2016 - 04:48 AM, said:

Energy Draw which is a horribly flawed concept from the start),

No it wasn't and usually all we get are the assertions rather than the demonstrations.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 December 2016 - 04:50 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 December 2016 - 04:50 AM, said:

No it wasn't and usually all we get are the assertions rather than the demonstrations.

If you dont understand why firing an LRM20 at the same time as two medium lasers shouldnt be treated the same as firing 3 PPCs at the same time, i cant help you.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Widowmaker1981, on 09 December 2016 - 04:55 AM, said:

If you dont understand why firing an LRM20 at the same time as two medium lasers shouldnt be treated the same as firing 3 PPCs at the same time, i cant help you.

............................................why do I even bother. Under ED that was not the case. Firing an LRM20 and two mediums might have yielded no penalty at all.

Figures, this is exactly what these people where doing during the testing, making crap up.

I tested all sorts of builds and ED, caught whatever GH could not. I was sure enough by evidence that ED was going to go in. But look what we have here, a crusade and campaign from people who have no clue what they are talking about, convincing other people with fallacious arguments-----> A killer of any good idea.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 December 2016 - 05:15 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 December 2016 - 05:07 AM, said:

............................................why do I even bother. Under ED that was not the case. Firing an LRM20 and two mediums might have yielded no penalty at all.

Figures, this is exactly what these people where doing during the testing, making crap up.

I tested all sorts of builds and ED, caught whatever GH could not. I was sure enough by evidence that ED was going to go in. But look what we have here, a crusade and campaign from people who have no clue what they are talking about, convincing other people with fallacious arguments-----> A killer of any good idea.

Ok, so i was being slightly hyperbolic, i apologise for that.

However its still a bad idea, because it doesnt take into account things like:

Theres no point using long duration lasers unless they can have a significantly higher alpha than PPFLD, because exposure is dangerous, and staring doubly so.

Limiting medium term burst DPS (which the last version of ED DID DO) is a very, very bad thing, because it entirely removes the purpose of assault mechs entirely. In the latest version of ED, you could cap your damage output with a 75 ton mech loadout, any heavier weapon loadout was pointless because you simply couldnt use it - and no, that doesnt force assaults to bring a mixed range band loadout and use half at any one time, it forces them to simply stop existing (because agility / speed is VASTLY better than having a load of guns you cant fire)