283 replies to this topic

[vandalhooch]

N0MAD, on 07 December 2016 - 08:17 PM, said:

You keep omitting the ingame money cost, another handicap to respec for your so called free respec another burden on the new player most likely scratching for coin in game..

Will they be scratching for coin more in the future when mastering a single mech or now when they have to purchase three different variants just to master one?

[vandalhooch]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 December 2016 - 09:05 PM, said:

Because I wouldn't have to do that before? Granted there will be a set of specs you always go into (agility/heat related ones will almost always be defaults) but the point is that the way they are trying to go into this isn't making me want to spend MC, it is making me want to never customize, it doesn't encourage me to do anything but avoid it. Whereas as Solahama suggested on reddit, switching to unlock-esque system encourages me to use MC because it allows me to actually skip grinding or even the cost of respec completely, which should be acceptable given the price that could possibly take.

For reference:

^ this is the way it always should've been, it was always weird that you could never directly level up a mech with MC, you always had to have some mech XP laying around to transfer to GXP to actually level it up. It just never made sense, this would solve the shady monetization of resets and the lack of a direct way to level up a mech with money.

Yes. Let's introduce a system that will cause the tinfoil hat brigade to begin their "Pay-2-Win" chants again. That sounds like a capital idea.

BTW: Why does everyone criticizing the idea fail to acknowledge that every single match, regardless of which mech you are in, earns GXP that can be used to spec any mech? Why are you all obsessed with the MC costs? I predict that MC expenditure on respecs will be very minimal, even for new players because GXP will not be going into unlocking modules!

New mech? Use Mech XP earned in your initial matches to master it. GXP earned in those matches ends up being saved for future respecs if and only if you stop playing this particular mech after mastering it.

GXP will mitigate the need for MC expenditure as well as respec grinding.

Quote

Not when you consider how many mechs are getting churned out and how daunting it is to new players trying to get setup, let alone keep and enjoy a few joke mechs on the side. If they are really wanting people to spend MC off of this, 10 matches won't pay for a respec.



Speaking of getting people to spend MC, is it time we remove the MC consumables yet, do they honestly serve a purpose at this point? Better yet, why aren't consumables getting rolled up into skill trees as well?

C-bill sinks are still necessary because most players will eventually settle on an optimal build for each mech and respec will become less common.

[Y E O N N E]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 December 2016 - 08:55 PM, said:

You don't see anyone really complaining about it either, like you do about Planetside 2 and Warframe.

I dunno, I've seen complaints about how new players are penalized relative to older players who have access to all those pages. AKA, the exact same problem we have in MWO where veterans have access to Mastered 'Mechs.

I also can't say I've ever seen any complaints about Warframe that don't revolve around the fact that the game is monotonous and uninteresting because literally everything is excessively overpowered.

Quote

It may not be to that huge degree, but it is still pretty important when we consider the fact that quirks are also getting rolled up into this.

If Russ is to be believed, not the ones that matter.

We shall see.

[MauttyKoray]

So from what I can gather of the Tweet information above.

-First and foremost, Skill Point Costs, Skill bonuses, etc are all PLACE HOLDER VALUES and are subject to change before release. (So those of you whining about XP cost may be whining for nothing) Russ also stated that the Grind time should actually be similar. (Unsure if he means simply the Skill XP grind, or including the grind for CBills to add modules.)

-Resets will be MC or Cbills, MC resets and keeps the 'Skill Point', while Cbills you lose the Skill Point. (i.e. pay for instant respec, or use ingame and have to grind a little more)

-Resets don't have to be 'total' resets. You can choose what to reset, but any node beyond the one you choose will also be reset (i.e. if I have 5 AC range nodes and want to reset the 3rd one, both nodes 4 and 5 will also reset, but I'll keep nodes 1 and 2)

-Some chassis 'need baseline help'? So they will either have base quirks to start with or will finally be rebalanced at their core stats? (Needs more info.)

[L3mming2]

Nightmare1, on 07 December 2016 - 06:16 PM, said:

I was a newbie back in the days of R&R. You want to talk tough on newbies? Now that was tough!

As for this, I don't see it being a problem for newbies who are half-way intelligent. Only people who have never gamed before, or are just plain stupid, would start haphazardly assigning leveling points. There's a lot of resources available in the form of played-created guides, tutorials, and website to help guide people through this game. I'm sure we'll see some player-created leveling help too.

Shoot, I'll be incorporating this new system into my Training Night sessions for my Unit, just to help my newer players with the transition.

Solo puggers who don't do their homework have no grounds to complain. What PGI's doing is no different from the industry standard, except that it appears to be more free-to-play friendly so far.

its not as easy as it looks, for example how much torso speed twist will you need when u max out lower limb mobility on your LCT? as it is inportant to be able to keep your burn on target during turns...

i'm glad i have 800+ K xp on my LCT to find out...

keep in mind that this nbr will varry between chassi's equiped engines, and with mobility quirks (yes quirks are going to stay but wil be added to the base stats of the chassi)

[Duke Nedo]

MauttyKoray, on 07 December 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

-Some chassis 'need baseline help'? So they will either have base quirks to start with or will finally be rebalanced at their core stats? (Needs more info.)

This one I found funny.

Russ: "All quirks are removed!"

Russ: "Also we are not forgetting that some Chassis need baseline help like say my Dragon. We have a plan for this in working with the base stats." Read: quirks are back. The way I read it at least, they may not "quirk" the skill tree, they are simply putting the quirks back in on the base stats of the variant?

Edited by Duke Nedo, 07 December 2016 - 11:50 PM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Duke Nedo, on 07 December 2016 - 11:50 PM, said:

This one I found funny.

Russ: "All quirks are removed!"

Russ: "Also we are not forgetting that some Chassis need baseline help like say my Dragon. We have a plan for this in working with the base stats." Read: quirks are back. The way I read it at least, they may not "quirk" the skill tree, they are simply putting the quirks back in on the base stats of the variant?

He said the tree is to replace quirks. Which will probably end up with quirks being bonus starting nodes unlocked by default.
So they will stay. just where they are, just not being called quirks anymore.

[RestosIII]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 08 December 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:

He said the tree is to replace quirks. Which will probably end up with quirks being bonus starting nodes unlocked by default.
So they will stay. just where they are, just not being called quirks anymore.

There's something that has been having me... Since they're going to be modifying the baseline for those mechs, and they're technically not "quirks", does that mean we're straight up not going to see them? Because if so, we're going to have a real fun time trying to figure out HP values and the like. Hopefully there will be transparency about it somewhere, because figuring out balance and strengths/weaknesses would be really difficult otherwise.

[Duke Nedo]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 08 December 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:

He said the tree is to replace quirks. Which will probably end up with quirks being bonus starting nodes unlocked by default.
So they will stay. just where they are, just not being called quirks anymore.

Aye, aye, it's now base stats instead. Originally I thought the idea was to modify the skill-trees them selves but this tweet doesn't sound like it any more.

[Appogee]

Duke Nedo, on 08 December 2016 - 01:00 AM, said:

Aye, aye, it's now base stats instead. Originally I thought the idea was to modify the skill-trees them selves but this tweet doesn't sound like it any more.

I don't understand what he means by 'base stats'. Can anyone help me understand that?

For example, is "laser cooldown duration" considered a "base stat", can it change by variant?

If so, then it's exactly the same as a quirk, isn't it?

Edited by Appogee, 08 December 2016 - 01:58 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Appogee, on 08 December 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

I don't understand what he means by 'base stats'. Can anyone help me understand that?

For example, is "laser cooldown duration" considered a "base stat", can it change by variant?

If so, then it's exactly the same as a quirk, isn't it?

That's the way I read it, but perhaps he was just sloppy when wording it on a small tweet. It could mean something a bit more novel. In any case it really sounds like a modifier that is applied before the skill-tree is added on top.

One guess would be that it will be almost exclusively agility, speed, structure and armor-modifiers, then perhaps it makes more sense to call it base-stats instead of quirks.

[Appogee]

MauttyKoray, on 07 December 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

So from what I can gather of the Tweet information above.

-First and foremost, Skill Point Costs, Skill bonuses, etc are all PLACE HOLDER VALUES and are subject to change before release. (So those of you whining about XP cost may be whining for nothing) Russ also stated that the Grind time should actually be similar. (Unsure if he means simply the Skill XP grind, or including the grind for CBills to add modules.)

-Resets will be MC or Cbills, MC resets and keeps the 'Skill Point', while Cbills you lose the Skill Point. (i.e. pay for instant respec, or use ingame and have to grind a little more)

-Resets don't have to be 'total' resets. You can choose what to reset, but any node beyond the one you choose will also be reset (i.e. if I have 5 AC range nodes and want to reset the 3rd one, both nodes 4 and 5 will also reset, but I'll keep nodes 1 and 2)

-Some chassis 'need baseline help'? So they will either have base quirks to start with or will finally be rebalanced at their core stats? (Needs more info.)

This would certainly be a lot better than what we first feared.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 11:18 PM, said:

I dunno, I've seen complaints about how new players are penalized relative to older players who have access to all those pages. AKA, the exact same problem we have in MWO where veterans have access to Mastered 'Mechs.

Yeah, but that is going to be a problem regardless of which avenue we take, so if that is the only complaint then I don't really see the problem with at least going with the least player antagonistic approach.

vandalhooch, on 07 December 2016 - 10:42 PM, said:

Yes. Let's introduce a system that will cause the tinfoil hat brigade to begin their "Pay-2-Win" chants again. That sounds like a capital idea.

Ummmm, you realize those MC nodes aren't any better than other nodes right? They are just nodes you don't ever have to pay for again when respecing?

vandalhooch, on 07 December 2016 - 10:42 PM, said:

BTW: Why does everyone criticizing the idea fail to acknowledge that every single match, regardless of which mech you are in, earns GXP that can be used to spec any mech?

This is easy, because that amount of GXP is often negligible, I believe it is 1/10th of the Mech XP you make per match.

vandalhooch, on 07 December 2016 - 10:42 PM, said:

Why are you all obsessed with the MC costs? I predict that MC expenditure on respecs will be very minimal

We shall see, but I expect it to be on the expensive side since they seem to be trying to make money through MC all the sudden (it might help if there main revenue stream actually used MC).

vandalhooch, on 07 December 2016 - 10:42 PM, said:

C-bill sinks are still necessary because most players will eventually settle on an optimal build for each mech and respec will become less common.

New mechs are the c-bill sinks that you seek....well that and duplicates (so I can have 2-3 versions of the same build) on top of saving up for balance changes that are inevitable. I don't think you understand that at least on the comp side, we often tweak builds either, so that optimal build might change a bit between matches.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 08 December 2016 - 07:15 AM.

[Barantor]

MauttyKoray, on 07 December 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

So from what I can gather of the Tweet information above.

-First and foremost, Skill Point Costs, Skill bonuses, etc are all PLACE HOLDER VALUES and are subject to change before release. (So those of you whining about XP cost may be whining for nothing) Russ also stated that the Grind time should actually be similar. (Unsure if he means simply the Skill XP grind, or including the grind for CBills to add modules.)

-Resets will be MC or Cbills, MC resets and keeps the 'Skill Point', while Cbills you lose the Skill Point. (i.e. pay for instant respec, or use ingame and have to grind a little more)

-Resets don't have to be 'total' resets. You can choose what to reset, but any node beyond the one you choose will also be reset (i.e. if I have 5 AC range nodes and want to reset the 3rd one, both nodes 4 and 5 will also reset, but I'll keep nodes 1 and 2)

-Some chassis 'need baseline help'? So they will either have base quirks to start with or will finally be rebalanced at their core stats? (Needs more info.)

That's a pretty good summary.

I'm excited to hear more details. I don't think it will be as bad or grindy as some folks feel it will be.

[Wintersdark]

vandalhooch, on 07 December 2016 - 10:42 PM, said:

BTW: Why does everyone criticizing the idea fail to acknowledge that every single match, regardless of which mech you are in, earns GXP that can be used to spec any mech? Why are you all obsessed with the MC costs? I predict that MC expenditure on respecs will be very minimal, even for new players because GXP will not be going into unlocking modules!

Very minimal. Consider:

You've mastered a mech. Just now. That means you've just now finished your build. You obviously don't want to respec right now because you haven't played a single match with that build.

So, you play a few matches. 5, 10 matches. You decide you want to change your build. Right there, you've already earned enough XP to cover a good portion of the respec. Enough to cover the "basics" - that is, what you'd currently have with the pilot skills but no modules - and that is more than enough to be competitive in the solo queue.

Give it ~20 matches, and you've earned enough XP to fully re-master the mech from start to finish. Seriously, mastering a mech now really doesn't take much time at all - and I'm an "ultra-casual" player these days.

Every match you play gets you further along. *shrugs*

Quote

New mech? Use Mech XP earned in your initial matches to master it. GXP earned in those matches ends up being saved for future respecs if and only if you stop playing this particular mech after mastering it.

GXP will mitigate the need for MC expenditure as well as respec grinding.

I doubt you'll even need to do that, though it's an option.

As things stand right now, unless you spend lots of MC converting XP to GXP, we earn zounds of XP we can never use on chassis once they're mastered, and as I said mastering a chassis is a pretty quick process when all is said and done (well; at least mastering ONE mech is pretty quick, it takes a lot longer when you've got to grind 3).

Quote

C-bill sinks are still necessary because most players will eventually settle on an optimal build for each mech and respec will become less common.

Particularly when you can always opt to just buy a second chassis should you waffle between two builds commonly. Set up the two mechs they way you like and call it a day. Once you've done that, there's no ongoing cost at all again.

*shrugs*

I'm a mechlabwhore. I spend a ridiculous amount of time changing builds on my mechs, and change them in basically every play session. If anyone should be grouchy about this, it'd be me. But I'm not.

We're gaining the ability to change things we formerly couldn't.

Currently, quirks and pilot skills are fixed, they are what they are. Now we'll be able to choose what we want, and change them. There's a cost to this, but it's the standard F2P paradigm of money or play time. If you choose not to pay either, you're no worse off than you are today - just not changing things.

Of course, we CAN change modules freely now (after we've spent the GXP and millions of cbills to buy them), but when all is said and done: Aside from switching modules from one mech to another, how often do you change the modules on a mech to different modules?

Practically never. You equip the best modules, and leave them there. So, yeah, we'll have to pay (money or time) to change them, but considering the time payment is constantly being earned while you play the mech, it's not really a problem.

Appogee, on 08 December 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

I don't understand what he means by 'base stats'. Can anyone help me understand that?

For example, is "laser cooldown duration" considered a "base stat", can it change by variant?

If so, then it's exactly the same as a quirk, isn't it?

I'd say no, but this is interpretation based on sloppy wording.

Given they are all about "quirks are going away", I'd assume "base stats" are things like torso twist range, yaw/pitch rate, turn speed, etc. The base level mech handling values that exist outside of quirks - those mech values that we had before quirks where a thing.

RestosIII, on 08 December 2016 - 12:57 AM, said:

There's something that has been having me... Since they're going to be modifying the baseline for those mechs, and they're technically not "quirks", does that mean we're straight up not going to see them? Because if so, we're going to have a real fun time trying to figure out HP values and the like. Hopefully there will be transparency about it somewhere, because figuring out balance and strengths/weaknesses would be really difficult otherwise.

As above, probably features like the normal baseline mech handling characteristics that are already shown, and that existed before quirks.

[Wintersdark]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 December 2016 - 11:18 PM, said:

I dunno, I've seen complaints about how new players are penalized relative to older players who have access to all those pages. AKA, the exact same problem we have in MWO where veterans have access to Mastered 'Mechs.

This is a problem we're always going to have in one form or another. The alternative is totally removing skills/modules and NOT putting any progression sort of improvements in to replace them, so a brand new mech is identical to a vet's mech - there's no "tuning".

While there's value in that design, people have overwhelmingly shown they prefer there to be some form of progression with mechs (read: skill trees, etc) across games. So, it's not going to go away.

Thus, this system clearly doesn't solve the "newbie vs. guy with mastered mech+modules+consumables" problem, it doesn't make it any worse either.

And it does allow the new player to level his first mech, without first having to buy 3 of the same type of mech to do it. That's a step forward, at least.

[bar10jim]

El Bandito, on 06 December 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

Not a little longer, a lot longer. Since every SP you invested in the tree will be gone if you do not pay MC.

Dahrsis, on 07 December 2016 - 01:29 AM, said:

Nevertheless i still hope there is an option to reset single node points (from last aquired to first aquired) for either MC (1 MC per node sounds right) or to be earned back with Exp.

Uh...Russ said on twitter that you could respec (despec?) individual nodes - you would also lose any child nodes that are only connected to the tree by the node you are deleting.

So, despecing say five of the AC5 cooldown nodes and five of the AC5 range modes to respec or UAC 5 nodes may only be ten nodes to respec.from the ballistics/weapons tree.

If what Russ said about roughly the same time-to-spec as now (57,000 XP and change, call it 60,000 XP); and the mech we saw had 75 spec points, that means it would cost roughly 60,000 XP/75 Spec points would be roughly 800 XP per Spec point. Respecing 10 nodes would take 8,000 XP plus whatever C-bill requirement is added.

OH!, what a horrible grind.
Maybe we should wait and see what they actually come up with?

Edited by bar10jim, 08 December 2016 - 04:01 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Appogee, on 08 December 2016 - 01:57 AM, said:

I don't understand what he means by 'base stats'. Can anyone help me understand that?

For example, is "laser cooldown duration" considered a "base stat", can it change by variant?

If so, then it's exactly the same as a quirk, isn't it?

Base stats will be the stats of a mech that come with it stock. For example, right now my PHX has a boatload of mobility and structure quirks just to make them competitive. These quirks if I understand Russ's tweets right, will be considered base stats before I start dabbling in the skill tree.

I think there was a plan to wrap these quirks into the skill tree in some form or fashion but it sounds like when the realized just how crazy balancing this was going to be, they scrapped the idea.

[bar10jim]

Haakon Magnusson, on 07 December 2016 - 03:12 AM, said:

As always, Russ says feature is almost ready and could go live next patch (Or something to this effect)
But the fact is they don't even have an executive summary what the system is going to be like, which to me implies some technical aspects got ready just at the last minute and they tossed the skill tree screenies in.

And now they have the HUGE task of trying to balance all those trees so that it is feasible to remove quirks from all mechs not have the bad ones be total crap.

And I am slightly worried though, even if bad ones get "deeper trees", they are going to suck more XP.. which means that the newbie buying, say dragon versus say griffin is going to be rather annoyed that he needs to gather a LOT of XP to even be on equal playing field.

Not impossible I am sure, just worriesome, I think this might be in playable condition somewhere around next summer.

Maybe mechs with deeper trees might have lower-priced nodes? Or X number or free nodes?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 07 December 2016 - 09:05 PM, said:

Speaking of getting people to spend MC, is it time we remove the MC consumables yet, do they honestly serve a purpose at this point? Better yet, why aren't consumables getting rolled up into skill trees as well?

Uhhh,,,,because they're Consumable?

Edited by bar10jim, 08 December 2016 - 04:35 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

bar10jim, on 08 December 2016 - 04:05 PM, said:

Uhhh,,,,because they're Consumable?

Your point captain obvious?