814 replies to this topic

[Flitzomat]

Mr G, on 09 February 2017 - 04:48 AM, said:

So adding to the chorus a little here....

Cbill costs are one thing, But if you have 200 mastered Mechs you probably sit on a big mountains of Cbills as well.

I see following problem: I mastered every mech I own. That´s every chassis at least 3 times except the Gargoyle and the Ice ferret (very sad that they will remain untouched now). Now they change the skill tree and that´s ok but it leaves many mastered Mechs floating in the middle of mediocresness.
That´s why I request two things:
First of all refund HXP on a per chassis basis. So the ones who mastered entire chassis in the past do end up with at least one mastered variant in the future!
Second, give a HXP boost for already mastered Mechs to reward all the grind of the past!

[Gernot von Kurzmann]

;((( that **** kills a mainfun of mwo! You couldnt rebuilt your mech not even more with fun. You must know how you will drive him for forever...

No thanks!!!!

[Official Human Shield]

I do not like the c-bill cost to unlock skills, especially if these c-bills are not refunded during respec. As has been said by others, tinkering with builds and roles is a fundamental part of why I play MWO. Adding a painful grind cost would make me play fewer chassis or never respec.

It punishes those who play the weird variants, the 'flavour' mechs and scouts since the c-bill earnings are much harder for them. It also really punishes new players who already face a steep grind to get new chassis and now face an equally steep grind to master the same chassis once (at 9.1m c-bills). The current module system also requires c-bills to purchase modules, but these can be swapped in and out of chassis and so the grind is not as severe.


Respec with c-bills is not good either. I'd have to pay c-bills to gain that skill point, then pay more c-bills to remove it? This isn't quite freedom to customise, but a lot like income taxes and sales taxes irl. Pay to earn your salary and pay to spend it. Doesn't sound fun in the least.

The cost adds up fast when you look at PGI's sample skill trees - Want to unlock all 5 levels of uac jam chance skills? You need to unlock a total of 15 skills to do that (1.5m c-bills!). Want to change to lbxes? You wasted those skills, but you could remove them for 375,000 c-bills and then spend more c-bills to unlock the lbx skills (Yes, unlocking all 5 levels of lbx spread costs another 1.5m c-bills). The only way to pay only once is to never respec, but master the chassis at 9.1m c-bills per chassis which is a hard grind.


Respec with MC is even worse. This means paying cash to follow the meta. If PGI needs the hard cash through selling MC, a better balance can be found by removing the c-bill cost to skill up and make MC the convenient way to straight up buy XP once and let the player tinker away free after that.
With PGI's proposed system, you're paying to earn and paying to spend (like the taxes analogy above), but with real cash.


I have a few other nitpicks mainly with the new skill tree UI. However, the proposed skill tree economy is a major turn-off.

[Curccu]

Gernot von Kurzmann, on 09 February 2017 - 05:42 AM, said:

;((( that **** kills a mainfun of mwo! You couldnt rebuilt your mech not even more with fun. You must know how you will drive him for forever...

No thanks!!!!

Errr... did you even read the post?
• You can perform a full Respec through the associated button inside the 'Mech Enhancements window.

[Jehofi]

Flitzomat, on 09 February 2017 - 05:33 AM, said:

Cbill costs are one thing, But if you have 200 mastered Mechs you probably sit on a big mountains of Cbills as well.

Or you invested that money into those 200 mechs, you know buying them with cbills.

[MrKvola]

Read the info, read the forum thread, here are my thoughts and suggestions:

1. Skill Points - if they retain their current cost they need to be an unlock, not a one-time investment (yes, I know I get the XP back). The charge for re-skill should be OK as it is, but the skill points need to remain unlocked and free to use after a re-skill (partial or full). Charging the full price for a skill point each time I re-assign it kills variety and experimentation.

2. XP requirement - in order to fully upgrade a 'mech you require 136500 XP. Before the Skill Tree 35750 XP were sufficient to elite the chassis. The additional module slot was ever so often not a requirement, or that useful. That is almost 4 times (3.82 to be exact) more than previously. And even if I discount that additional module slot which would equal say 10 skill points, that makes it still almost 3.5 times as much. The grind is real. And there is going to be significantly more of it than before.

Now a lot of people argument that you do not need 3 'mechs anymore. That may be true, but with the new system you get 1 elited 'mech for the cost of three - by cost I mean time you need to invest in order to level it up. So now if I WANT those three variants (because with battlemechs it is the only way to have different hardpoints on a chassis) I need to spend more than three times as much time to get there. Bye bye Pokemech.

3. C-Bill cost - it is just massive. As it is you would normally buy a chassis, equip it and level it. Once done levelling you would usually have sufficient (or at least a significant portion of) funds for another chassis. With the new system you need to buy a chassis, equip it and then spend all the money you get while grinding XP to actually level it up. So once you are done levelling a chassis you have no or limited cash on hand and you need to grind more c-bills to get another one. Or use cash to buy it. Take away from this what you want.

4. Weapon skills - the new system blatantly promotes weapon boating. A good suggestion was to have a general firepower tree with cooldown, range, heat, precision and jam chance/cooldown. Or have uneven skill point weight distribution where lowest skill points would add the biggest value and specialization would bring only minor bonuses.

5. Useless skills - quite a lot of trees do not allow you to choose specific skills you are after, but force you to take skills that are not important for you or may even not apply - i.e. arm mobility skills for 'mechs that do not have anything in them - say a Locust PB.

I have around 250 'mechs that are elited or mastered. There is no way I will be able to get to the same point with the new system as it is defined in the PTS. It would take a couple of years to get there. I used to move modules around and put them on 'mechs I was playing at the moment. I believe I have around 15m c-bills on hand right now.

This change implemented as it is presented in the PTS would quite possibly put me off the game despite all the time and money invested.

[SuperFunkTron]

So one argument I see recurring is that modules like radar deprivation can not be moved to new mechs now. I didn't realize so many people use this as a immediate crutch on every brand new mech they use. There are many people, new players included, who level up without touching that module. I get that its convenient, but on its own, its hardly a point worth basing a system overhaul on.

I've almost got the PTS downloaded so I can give it a try before attacking the follow through, but I have to say that I'm a little disappointed by the large outcry of "PGI giving us a new challenge is unacceptable!". I too have mastered almost 200 mechs, many that I hated, but having to remaster in this new system is more of an exciting challenge if I know that everyone's gotta do it. New players couldn't afford modules anyways, I sure as hell didn't buy my first one until I had most of the mechs that I wanted. Furthermore, low tier players mostly won't be using them, or if they are using them and are still in the lower tier, really need those buffs to help them at that level.

Without addressing the the PTS itself, I applaud PGI for putting in the effort to offer improved, more in depth systems that they player base has been begging for.

Comments on the attempt itself will come after testing.

[Hastur Azargo]

My thoughts and suggestions:

• Slash XP requrement for purchase of each node in half,
  
• Completely remove C-Bill cost for unlocking nodes and respeccing.

Anything else and you'll be looking at a system that heavily discourages buying new mechs, much less in $20 triplets, as every new mech out there isn't a shiny new toy, but a massive chore. The paradigm of getting new mechs will be:

• Wait until pack buyers figure out optimal loadout + skill build;
  
• Wait until c-bill release;
  
• Buy only the overperfoming meta variant(s) and grind them out to meta loadout/build;
  
• Keep your fingers crossed for PGI to not do a balance pass and tone down your precious meta machine.

Actually, I only just realized PGI is kinda shooting themselves in the leg with this too, as any balance pass that will necessitate change of skills will inevitably lead to people on forums howling "WTF PGI, I JUST SPENT SO MUCH TIME/MONEY BUILDING THIS MECH AND NOW YOU NERF IT". I'm just surprised why PGI didn't realize this back when this was on paper.

[Mr G]

DarthFunkNinja, on 09 February 2017 - 04:55 AM, said:

They can always reduce the number of points available to allocate towards clan mechs. Or even specific chassis.



You will be floating in cbills when you get refunded for all of your modules.

Not nearly enough to fully master anywhere near the amount of mechs I have mastered now and that doesn't address the part about making people less likely and willing to purchase new mechs. You also vastly overestimate the number of modules people have and how much they are going to get refunded versus how much it costs to remaster all the mechs they bought those modules for.

Out of the 216 mechs I own. I have mastered 84 mechs and have elited 47. If I ignore the elited mechs, it'll cost me over 764 million cbills and that's not counting the cost of mastering many of the duplicate mechs I own. Like the 2 griffin 3Ms I own for example and I have a lot of mechs I use frequently duplicated like that so I can quickly swift between different load outs without having to **** around in mech lab. It will more than likely cost me well over 1.2 billion cbills to master all the mechs I have leveled up to the point where I get double proficiency bonus over the 4+ years of play i have in this game. The Module Refund won't even put a dent in that.

I have 1 360 target, 1 ac10 cool down, 1 ac10 range, 2 ac20 cool down, 2 ac20 range, 2 ac 5 cool downs, 1 ac 5 range, 4 seismic sensors, 2 adv sensor ranges, 1 target decay, 5 zoom, 1 cap accel, 3 cl er ppc cool down, 3 cl er ppc range, 1 cl er LL range, 1 cl er LL cool down, 1 cl er ML cool down, 7 CL er ML range, 1 cl er sl cool down, 1 cl er sl range, 2 cl gauss cool, 1 cl gauss range, 1 CL LBX 20 range, I cl lbx 20 cool down, 2 Cl LpL cool down, 2 CL lpl range, 1 Cl MPL cool down, 1 Cl mpl range, 1 cl spl range, 1 cl spl cool down, 1 cl s-srm 6 range, 2 cl s-srm6 cool down, 2 cl-srm6 range 2 cl srm 6 cool down, 2 cl uac 10 cool down, 3 cl uac 10 range, 1 cl uac 20 cooldown, 1 cl uac 20 range, 1 cl ua 5 cooldown, 1 cl uac 5 range, 1 IS er ppc range, 1 IS er ppc cool down, 2 IS ER LL cooldown, 2 IS ER LL range, 2 IS gauss cooldown, 2 hill climb, 2 LL cooldown, 2 LL range, 1 IS lbx 10 cool down, 3 IS LPL cool down, 2 IS LPL range, 2 ML cool down, 6 ML range, 1 mpl cool down, 2 mpl range, 3 ppc cool down, 4 ppc range, 8 radar deps, 1 sl cool down, 2 sl range, 1 shock absorbance, 1 spl cool, 1 spl range, 1 speed ret, 2 srm4 cool down, 2 srm4 range, 4 srm6 cool down, 4 srm6 range, 8 target info, 1 uac 5 cooldown, 1 uac 5 range.

Granted I will be getting a lot of Cbills when they refund modules, but there is no way that will even put a dent into what will be over 1.2 billion cost of mastering all the mechs that I have at least got to the double proficencies so they would be comp playable over the at least 4 years I've been playing the game.

More mechs, more options, more builds the more fun people have. Killing the ability of people to effectively play a wide range and variety of mechs by bleeding them way to much on leveling them up is not the way to go.

oh and just to add a little more to that over the course of my 4+ years of play in total I have earned about 1,671,219,285 cbills. So basically it'll cost me 70% of all the cbills I have ever earned in this game to master the mechs I have leveled up to at least elites.

Edited by Mr G, 09 February 2017 - 06:50 AM.

[Kinski Orlawisch]

Do you have to strip your mechs or do you get the money even when they had been equiped?

[WANTED]

Pluses
+ whole new game experience.
+ I can customize my mech to my playing style ( ie I can make my Commando the ultimate scout mech )
+ unpredictability in mechs you encounter
+ everyone now does not have all the modules to counter everything. Will take a long time to do
+ ECM must now be upgraded to get full effect

I'm not listing negatives as everyone here has done that enough. Basically most are mad about starting over on their meta'd out mechs and the costs associated with that. I think its kind PGI is even contemplating refunding cbills and xp for all those years. Glad they database to do this.

[kptkohle]

To disencourage weapon boating PGI could make two SP-Pools. One for weapon skills and one for all other skills. If you e.g. have 40 of the 91 SP in your weapon pool and 51 SP available for all other skills, there is no advantage anymore for only using one type of weapon.

[Hastur Azargo]

SuperFunkTron, on 09 February 2017 - 06:20 AM, said:

So one argument I see recurring is that modules like radar deprivation can not be moved to new mechs now. I didn't realize so many people use this as a immediate crutch on every brand new mech they use. There are many people, new players included, who level up without touching that module. I get that its convenient, but on its own, its hardly a point worth basing a system overhaul on.

I've almost got the PTS downloaded so I can give it a try before attacking the follow through, but I have to say that I'm a little disappointed by the large outcry of "PGI giving us a new challenge is unacceptable!". I too have mastered almost 200 mechs, many that I hated, but having to remaster in this new system is more of an exciting challenge if I know that everyone's gotta do it. New players couldn't afford modules anyways, I sure as hell didn't buy my first one until I had most of the mechs that I wanted. Furthermore, low tier players mostly won't be using them, or if they are using them and are still in the lower tier, really need those buffs to help them at that level.

Without addressing the the PTS itself, I applaud PGI for putting in the effort to offer improved, more in depth systems that they player base has been begging for.

Comments on the attempt itself will come after testing.

It's not just about radar derp. It's about other modules too. Previously you spent 3 mil. on a weapon cooldown module, and you could put that 12.5% cooldown on any new mech you wanted to equip that weapon on. Now you have to grind every new mech from scratch (with cooldown particularly being nerfed to 5%), to a value of XP that is 2.5 times higher (and remembering that starting at 36k XP before you had double basics and elites and was just grinding for an additional module slot, so make that 3 times higher), and God forbid you went for a loadout that doesn't work, because then all of your c-bill investment is gone, you have to pay to unlearn the skills you went wrong with and then pay to learn new skill for your new build.

As for the challenge, well, remember that MWO is a game that can get pretty repetitive pretty soon, so tripling the grind on all mechs is gonna lead to burnout sooner, even if now you think it's a welcome challenge. Add to that the fact that you will be seeing a lot more minmaxed meta mechs in drops, and that's one less reason for you to ever try leveling a non-meta mech in such an environment.

[Zergling]

The problems I see with this:


136.5k XP is far more than the 57k XP it took to master a mech in the old system. Even accounting for 3 variants of the same chassis, 2 of those only needed to complete basic skills, so that is a still a huge difference in grind.


Many of the quirk nerfs are far too heavy; even with the weapon skill trees, those mechs that are being over-nerfed still won't achieve the same level of bonuses as before.

Mechs without any quirks like the KDK-3 and Timber Wolf aren't being touched at all, which means they'll be getting a buff that they absolutely do not need with this skill system.


Mechs that use weapons across more than one weapon tree will be punished, due to having less points to apply elsewhere.
As such, this system heavily encourages boating of a single weapon type, which is a significant step back.


Many skill nodes are 'must have' choices, like the armor/structure buffs in the survival tree (13 points), the heat buffs in the operations tree (16 points) and radar deprivation/seismic sensor in sensors tree (18 points).

In effect, players don't have 91 points; they have 91 - 13 - 16 - 18 = 44 points.

If mobility skills are added in, to achieve similar buffs as under the existing/previous skill system, the cost comes up to 87 points, leaving nothing remaing for weapon skills!
So all this new skill system achieves is giving players more armor/structure, with the option of trading mobility buffs for weapon buffs.

As such, this skill system has the same flaw as early WoW talent trees; many choices are 'must have' for any build, which means there really aren't many options available.
As WoW did, the 'must have' skills should be removed and their bonuses rolled into base values, as they aren't an option.

coe7, on 08 February 2017 - 04:31 PM, said:

Yes, infact UAV, CS/Strikes are the biggest difference makers on a match. To achieve on average 350-400 match score and high 3-5 KDR, it requires usage of consumables in right spots.

In my experience, they aren't necessary, not even to achieve those scores you describe; in December/Season 6 I achieved 450 average match score and 4.55 K/D (along with 2.25 W/L) using the Black Widow and Summoner M/F, while playing 100% solo.

Dee Eight, on 08 February 2017 - 05:02 PM, said:

People who like to play LRMs will use the range nodes.

Potatoes, in other words.

[Kojak Bear]

First, the positives:
1. Skill tree has lots of variation and skills are arranged in such a way that people can't easily cheese their way into the really good skills like radar derp, seismic, speed tweak, etc.

2. Good survivability tree. That extra structure and armor will most likely increase time-to-kill (if only a bit), if that is what PGI is aiming for.

3. SRM spread reduction is now universal for all mechs with missile hardpoints.

Next, the negatives:
1. Unless it was PGI's aim all along, offensive skills are a bit underwhelming. A 5% maximum increase in weapon cool-down and heat gen (for only 1 weapon type) is obviously less cost-effective that 20% extra armor all over your mech. In the old system, the weapon fire rate would be increased by 17% WITHOUT quirks (level 5 module + fast fire skill).

2. The survivability tree, while good is almost certainly not going to be "optional", but a "must have", which limits the other skill choices. The same is true for the other "must haves" like radar derp, seismic, speed tweak, etc.

3. The c-bill price for skills is way too steep, especially for new players. I agree with some people that this will antagonize the newer players by forcing them to choose between a new mech (mech bay price not included) or spending c-bills on skills.

4. Re-specing is also not worth the asking price. Many new players who do not yet know their preferred playstyle will again be antagonized by the system.

5. Fresh, newly-bought mechs will be at the complete mercy of mastered mechs, since modules cannot be tossed around anymore. This will be especially painful in tier 4/5 (LRM city - fresh mechs have no durability buffs or radar derp and players at this tier are not nearly skilled enough to counter the LRM rain). And even in Tier 1/2, pilot skill won't compensate for the fact that fully mastered (or even partially-skilled) mechs will be roughly 30-40% more durable than freshly bought mechs. The Light Mechs, especially, will be overpowered (+25% armor and +35% structure IN ADDITION to base quirks for some? Really?!?!?).

Suggestions (I will probably repeat some of the other suggestions already here, if only for emphasis, PGI):
1. All mechs get a number of FREE SKILL NODES to start. Maybe 5 is a good number.

2. Lower the skill costs. Seriously. It may not be much of an issue with the veteran players, but making the tree more accessible to new players will seriously increase the game's player base.

3. Over-performing or "Meta" Mechs should have less skill points than the "Bad" Mechs. In conjuction with this, Mechs that are good at weapon boating (4+ hardpoints of a single weapon type?) as well as OMNI mechs should also receive fewer skill points, as they need fewer skill points to optimize their loadouts.

4. Increase the weapon skill values to make them competitive with the defensive/operations/mobility skills. Something like IS Weapon cooldown - 2.5% increments, IS Weapon Heat Gen - 3% increments, IS Weapon Range 3% increments. For the Clans, make it 1.2% weapon cooldown and range and 1.5% heat gen, because... Really, 0.8%? Totally not worth it.

5. If you want to accentuate the different "Flavor" of Clan vs IS, increase the Heat Cap (heat containment) on the Clan Mechs and increase the Heat Dissipation (Cool Run) on the IS Mechs. That would steer Clan Mechs to High-Burst but heat-intensive builds and IS Mechs to High-DPS builds.

6. Have the option to pay a one-time fee of XXXX C-bills and YYYY XP (maybe even ZZZZ MC's instead of C-bills and XP, if you want the business model?) for UNLIMITED Re-specs. That way, it will be feasible to grind for that one-time payment and then enjoy the full customization after hurdling the pay wall.

7. More ballistic ammo per ton? More missile ammo per ton, as well, please. Thank you.

Edited by Kojak Bear, 09 February 2017 - 07:09 AM.

[PFC Carsten]

MovinTarget, on 08 February 2017 - 04:50 PM, said:

I guess the biggest losers are the people that bought a lot of mechs but no modules.

Biggest winners will be all the whales that bought modules in bulk when they were on sale, and/or did early adoption for free modules.

Fine with me, I'm rather having serious doubts about the tendency towads even more boating/minmaxing that the new skilltree seems to encourage. Quite contrary to PGIs wishful thinking of more diversity on the battlefield.

[Kael Posavatz]

I am running into an issue in that XP cost seem arbitrarily split between MechXP and GXP.

Example, I have an FS9-K that I'm toying with, 88 nodes cost 132k xp. I have 93010 historical XP which I transferred over so I should have to pay 38,99 GXP. Instead the skill tree insists what I want to pay is 64,500 XP, and 67500gxp.

example 2, an Adder with 17 nodes should cost 25,500 XP. I have 2.5 billion xp so I don't need to bother with transferring historical XP. But again the skill trees insist my chosen payment option is 4500xp and 21000gxp.


So...here's the question. Is there a way to dictate which XP pool I pay from. If not, was this deliberate, or an oversight?

As it is, I am not feeling too thrilled about this...thing.

[Hastur Azargo]

WANTED, on 09 February 2017 - 06:37 AM, said:

Pluses
+ whole new game experience.
+ I can customize my mech to my playing style ( ie I can make my Commando the ultimate scout mech )
+ unpredictability in mechs you encounter
+ everyone now does not have all the modules to counter everything. Will take a long time to do
+ ECM must now be upgraded to get full effect

I'm not listing negatives as everyone here has done that enough. Basically most are mad about starting over on their meta'd out mechs and the costs associated with that. I think its kind PGI is even contemplating refunding cbills and xp for all those years. Glad they database to do this.

Except your Commando now costs 9 million more, in addition to all the costs of upgrades DHS/Endo/Ferro + Engine if you don't have it, so you're looking at about 15-16 millions of investment into a Commando. Oh, and you have to grind out 136k XP in that, which is a challenge I ain't touching with a 10 foot pole even with premium bonus and on a Double Exp weekend. It's probably not a problem if you like playing the same mech over and over and over, but I don't so I oppose this change.

[Brandiment]

Well at least i can focus on building up a good supernova.

[Zergling]

I'm just not seeing how this skill system encourages choice; it is pretty much just drop most points into certain trees, 1-2 weapon trees and maybe 0-1 mobility trees.


Eg:
Survival Tree = 13 points
Operations Tree = 16 points
Sensors Tree = 18 points
Lower Chassis Tree = 20 points
Weapon Tree = 20 points

And that's all of 87 points.


Alternatively:
Survival Tree = 13 points
Operations Tree = 16 points
Sensors Tree = 18 points
Weapon Tree 1 = 20 points
Weapon Tree 2 = 20 points

Again, 87 points.


So it comes down to this:
Mechs that can limit themselves to a single weapon tree get mobility buffs comparable to the current skill system.
Mechs that need to use 2 weapon trees don't get mobility buffs.
Mechs that need 3 weapon trees get ****ed with a cactus.

And that is all this skill system does.

Edited by Zergling, 09 February 2017 - 07:03 AM.