46 replies to this topic

[Lily from animove]

Johnny Z, on 18 January 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

I am glad you said it isn't about FOTM players because the rest of what you said doesn't make any sense.

Players that are not FOTM players will enjoy crafting a mech to their liking through the mech tree and applaud balance improvements.

The thread is about if it can act as a balance tool, balance does also happen on FOTM gamers new gamers and the ones just building for fun. But it still does affect all 3 groupds differently and will cause balance gaps to open when it makes it hard for soem people s adjusting to the balance changes. A non FOTM gamer is still affected when soemoen else is a FOTM gamer, because both may have to play against each other or with each other. But the skill tree system with respec costs will give a disadvantage to those who cannot afford adapting to the changes. and this isn't good from a balance point of view. and this is what the thread is about.

Johnny Z, on 18 January 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

If there are sim elements such as mechbay costs then that's even better.

No, because they are not fair in how they affect different kinds of people and their playstyle, especially when a so consideredn "change of balance" puts someone suddenly at disadvantage and he has to pay to even that out again. That's like sellign a car, suddenly getting the engine changed and when you want it different, how about paying again for it? The people mostly affected are those not having enough time for MWO, and mostly those are already at a big disadvantage.

Johnny Z, on 18 January 2017 - 07:58 AM, said:

This new way is actual mech modifications. Not a skill tree. From what I understand.
Furthermore! I hope changing load outs costs creds! Sim ftw. FOTM players will love it!

could also clal it fairy dust. or Russty dusty feature. It has a similar effect and acts like a skill tree that 100's of games had before, just because you name it "mech modification" doesn't changes what it does.

FOTM players won't love it, but they will utilize it, and by this grants them more advantage over non FOTM gamers. and this is already a first step into adding an unbalanced factor by design. Such a thing can never bee a good initialisation for a "balance tool".

[Johnny Z]

Lily from animove, on 18 January 2017 - 08:17 AM, said:

The thread is about if it can act as a balance tool, balance does also happen on FOTM gamers new gamers and the ones just building for fun. But it still does affect all 3 groupds differently and will cause balance gaps to open when it makes it hard for soem people s adjusting to the balance changes. A non FOTM gamer is still affected when soemoen else is a FOTM gamer, because both may have to play against each other or with each other. But the skill tree system with respec costs will give a disadvantage to those who cannot afford adapting to the changes. and this isn't good from a balance point of view. and this is what the thread is about.



No, because they are not fair in how they affect different kinds of people and their playstyle, especially when a so consideredn "change of balance" puts someone suddenly at disadvantage and he has to pay to even that out again. That's like sellign a car, suddenly getting the engine changed and when you want it different, how about paying again for it? The people mostly affected are those not having enough time for MWO, and mostly those are already at a big disadvantage.




could also clal it fairy dust. or Russty dusty feature. It has a similar effect and acts like a skill tree that 100's of games had before, just because you name it "mech modification" doesn't changes what it does.

FOTM players won't love it, but they will utilize it, and by this grants them more advantage over non FOTM gamers. and this is already a first step into adding an unbalanced factor by design. Such a thing can never bee a good initialisation for a "balance tool".

Even if everything you just said is true it doesn't change that adding to the sim with mech modification costs and adding the beginnings of a game economy is a good thing.

[Tristan Winter]

El Bandito, on 18 January 2017 - 08:05 AM, said:

Because assuming all mechs get the same trees to choose from and same amount of nodes, that means the classes with more guns will obviously benefit more than those with less. Also, Russ did say that many of the quirks will be removed with the coming of new skill tree, and guess which classes have the most quirks to rely on?

I agree with your last point, but I'm not quite sure it's as simple as you describe in your first point. It seems like such a general statement might have many exceptions. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the BJ benefited more from a jump jet quirk than a Dire Wolf. On the other hand, I'm not sure if a Commando benefits as much from a speed quirk as a Timber Wolf.

There's a kind of bell curve when it comes to effectiveness in MWO, I think. If you have a 75 ton heavy mech, the effective difference of moving 50 kph instead of 40 kph isn't really too big of a deal. But moving 100 kph instead of 80 kph is a huge deal. But I could also see there being a point of diminishing returns. The advantage of moving 240 kph instead of 200 kph may not turn out to be that important. And the advantage of moving 1000 kph instead of 800 kph in MWO is certainly not that important.

[Lily from animove]

Johnny Z, on 18 January 2017 - 08:22 AM, said:

Even if everything you just said is true it doesn't change that adding to the sim with mech modification costs and adding the beginnings of a game economy is a good thing.

it's a good thing for the sim, not a generally good thing for the game itself. why not add adjustign your battlemech locking the mech for month simulatign the factory? well mostlikely becaue thats nonsense from the "game" aspect compared to the great accuracy of the sim aspect. it would be similary liked like R&R.

[JC Daxion]

Lily from animove, on 18 January 2017 - 07:44 AM, said:

It's not about the FOTM players, those players have enough cbills to always respec, but they will eb annoyed by it. But the noobs and newbies short on Cbills they need for new mechs, they will not be able to switch to the FOTM's and so in relation have to stick to inferior builds should balance shift.

Umm well first, anyone swapping around their mech's to a flavor of the month build will easily be able to afford perhaps having to spend XP, as my guess is if you actually are putting the effort into leveling a mech to get it outiftted you are going to wanna play it once it is there right?

2, we have no idea how the costs will be done. Are they when you pick a new skill? is it to unlock something? is it buying the skill? Once bought can you buy others and swap back, like a weapon in inventory ect..


3, Obviously if they change the balance on certain skills, PGI could always give a free respec that is a very simple thing to do.


But it is pretty obvious that skill tree and balance are going to be part of the same deal with anything as dynamic as multiple options, so how that is done is the bigger question.


But all that aside, flavor of the month, is completely about an old mech becoming viable, or a new mech, or weapon tweak.. It is very rarely about swapping the build on a top performer already. So really not sure what this will do to people that don't have many mechs anyway. They would most likely have to buy the "FOTM" mech anyway.. and if your the kinda person that has a ton of mechs, well you probably have the XP/C-bills anyway..

Edited by JC Daxion, 18 January 2017 - 12:59 PM.

[MechaBattler]

Seems like they could do away with quirks by giving some mechs extra skill points to start with. That way a person can tailor their "quirks" to how they can get the most out of the mech. And PGI won't get any flak about the "Dartboard of destiny". From there they could just give or take extra points away as needed. It puts it squarely on the community to decide what works best.

My only concern is that some skills will not be as effective as others, but still have the same skill cost. Like 10% hill climb doesn't sound worth unless it's a pretty low point cost or if it leads into something better.

[LordNothing]

rebalancing the new tress will be problematic at best. there will be a lot of salt every time pgi changes one of the nodes as they are determined to require nerfing. people who bought into that node will be mad whenever its nerfed. what if there is a node to reduce srm spread, players use this on all their non artemis srm-6 builds, but its so tight that they become op, pgi nerfs them. so a choice a player has made is rendered useless, and they are stuck with the node until they can afford to respec and redo their to pick the new superior option. unless pgi can selectively unspec nodes for you when it changes something. if there is a dependency hierarchy (and it looks like there is), pgi might have to unspec many upgrades and refund the players every time a nerf or buff is in order. if they dont, there will be salt.