814 replies to this topic

[N0MAD]

OK i got a small problem, can some one on PTS help me out.
I did a spec, i spent the 91 points and $, i went Pulse lasers and SRM, now i want to change the Pulse laser line to just laser line, so i had to delete the pulse laser branch only but it wants to charge me 200mc to do it, i dont see a Cbill cost to do it just MC?.
Is this correct ? am i missing something or what? can some one clue me in?
ok found it, ignore this post.

Edited by N0MAD, 09 February 2017 - 05:51 PM.

[Archer Bowman]

I have to buy hill climb which I never use, if I want quick ignition 3 or cool run 3 or anything beyond them.. For me, I've always found speed retention, gyros and hill climb to be useless but now I have to buy them to get the other items I actually want. Let us buy just the items we want or stick with the current system. I see no added advantage to this system for the player.

[Firefox54]

I've been playing the game for about a month and am about 360 matches into the system. So, I'm still relatively new and not that good, but here are my thoughts about the new skill tree and, at the bottom (in case anyone wants to skip this) a suggestion for giving out SP instead of returning XP and/or CBills, which I think would help alleviate a lot of concerns.

People talk about specialization and, while there are a ton of Firepower nodes (195), if you max out two weapons (40 SP) you have 51 nodes to pick from the other 99 nodes in the Survival, Mobility and Operations trees (84 if you get rid of jump jets). So, there are some decisions that you have to make. I guess the question is if you can get two weapons fully maxed and then 50% - 60% of the nodes in the other trees, does this allow for enough potential specialization or broad performance across all areas for individuals to select from? ... probably. Maybe there are some other tweaks, but at least you can't get every node on all the trees.

For acquiring the nodes, while you need 1500 XP in the new system ... getting the GXP for the pilot skills was a real slog. While once you got them they worked for all mechs, I only reached one (a 15K skill) and was taking forever to get to another 15K skill. I didn't mind too much because the benefit was for all mechs. Now, I can get the same skill faster and at least improve one mech rapidly. I don't mind that too much. The new trees also require me to think a bit more about what I want to do ... that's not so bad now but would have been really confusing when I started (there's not a lot of clear help when one starts). However, at some point, someone in the community will develop a guide to the Skill Tree and that will remove some of those problems. Also, the respec option allows me to fix a mistake, albeit at a cost, but that's ok ... I like the respec option.

As for the costs ... I average about 70K CB and 500XP a match (again, not that good). So, in three matches I get 1500XP and 210K CB. That's enough to buy a node and leave me with 110K CB. So, in 273 matches (which for me was less than a month), I'd master a mech with 91 SP and have about $30 MILLION CB extra. So, in about less than the time I've currently played (which was more frequent because of an event) I would have been able to fully master a Mech and had $30M extra CB. As it is now, I have 3 Marauders and 2 Warhammers with three of them having completed the basic skills. I'm still pretty far away from Mastering a mech. So, in this regard, I like the skill change.

Additionally, I really didn't want to buy 9 heavy mechs to get to mastery in my Marauder. While I've been forced to try some hard point configurations I might not have normally tried (and that has been helping my play), I would have preferred to be able to purchase a medium or light mech to play around in as well, but since my skills weren't that good I didn't want to start in one of those mechs. So, as a new player, the new approach would have given me an opportunity to try a wider style of mechs (outside the trial mechs, of which I played all of them) that I could configure.

As for a con, I think some of the trees, particularly the Operations and/or Survival trees, require too many nodes that I'm not interested in obtaining (e.g., Hill Climbing, Fall Damage). These "roadblocks" will require that I need about 20 SP to get my mechs with full basic skills back to the same level ... but I'm only get 5 SP worth of XP back and no CBills. While I don't mind purchasing some nodes that I really don't want (we had to do it in the current version), I think some of the current trees force that issue too much.

More significantly, if I need 20 SP just to get my one mech with all of the basic skills back to its current level, and I'm only getting 5 SP worth of XP and no CBills, what is going to happen to those individuals who have been playing the game a long time? What good is getting a bunch of XP back when it's going to cost someone millions and millions of CBills to get back to where they are currently in their development?

Some have suggested returning some CBills as well as XP. However, my suggested fix is to not return XP and/or CBills at all, but instead give players some equivalence in SP ... this way individuals aren't given XP with no CBills or truck loads of CBills to make up the difference. Instead, they receive the necessary SP currency to get back to (or close to) their current builds (and I apologize if this has already been suggested ... I couldn't read 20 pages of comments). For example, if getting back to the Basic skills requires about 20 SP (above), then give each mech with those skills 20 SP ... someone who has reached Elite status should get a similar equivalence (I'm not there, so I don't know what that would be). For pilot skills, provide some additional SP to the mech if the pilot skill would have benefitted the mech. I don't know what to do about modules because I have none. This way, players aren't on the hook for huge amount of CBills and XP that might not even be enough to get them back to where they're at.

I believe this last point is VERY important ... you (PGI) shouldn't want to set back players so far that they cannot recover relatively easily ... particularly the long-standing players of the game. Since SP is the new "currency", it seems like this should be a good "fix" to the problem of what individuals are getting back.

[Honsau]

So by adding the c-bill tax on to the skill tree they really want players with over 100 mechs to quit? I can't see pouring in hundreds of millions of c bills just to make all of my mechs playable.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Probably Not, on 09 February 2017 - 02:57 PM, said:

So think of something that isn't "cooldown, ROF and the like." Also, ROF bonus absolutely does matter for MGs at the very least. And regarding range: every meter counts.

I guess?

I have never noticed an appreciable difference in the capabilities of machineguns when certain quirks were in palce, and they were never worth the money (or space) to put a module into.

Probably Not, on 09 February 2017 - 02:57 PM, said:

It's a tool. The NARC is also a tool, and it got SOME kind of bone tossed in its direction.

The NARC has more weight and requires ammunition to use. In addition, the beacon only lasts a certain amount of time. There are several things that can be used to enhance the NARC.

TAG? Not so much. The only thing I can think of that would help TAG at all would be some boost to range, but the thing's already got 750m of range, which is more than enough in all but the most circumstantial cases.

Honsau, on 09 February 2017 - 06:00 PM, said:

So by adding the c-bill tax on to the skill tree they really want players with over 100 mechs to quit? I can't see pouring in hundreds of millions of c bills just to make all of my mechs playable.

Do you honestly or use *all* of your mechs?

[MrKvola]

AnimeFreak40K, on 09 February 2017 - 06:15 PM, said:

<snip>

Do you honestly or use *all* of your mechs?

No, not all, but quite a lot of them. but PGI is just about to add additional effort and grind to get them back to where they were. And almost quadrupling the grind for new 'mechs. Not liking it.

[Draglock]

AnimeFreak40K, on 09 February 2017 - 06:15 PM, said:

I guess?

I have never noticed an appreciable difference in the capabilities of machineguns when certain quirks were in palce, and they were never worth the money (or space) to put a module into.


The NARC has more weight and requires ammunition to use. In addition, the beacon only lasts a certain amount of time. There are several things that can be used to enhance the NARC.

TAG? Not so much. The only thing I can think of that would help TAG at all would be some boost to range, but the thing's already got 750m of range, which is more than enough in all but the most circumstantial cases.


Do you honestly or use *all* of your mechs?

Yes I play all 240+ mechs "THAT IS THE REASON I GOT THEM IS TO PLAY THEM"

[Kael Posavatz]

pacifica812, on 09 February 2017 - 03:52 PM, said:

Not so. You have the option of unlocking with either XP or GXP, depending on which side of the node you click - left side GXP, right side XP.

Okay, it took me a while to figure out what you were saying.

[CENSORED]

That is not intuitive or particularly clear.

I dislike it. Intensely.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

I've only read about half of the comments, so if I'm repeating old stuff, I guess that's because it's important.

In general, I like the concept.

The interface is clean and easy to navigate.

I don't like that at default size, most of the skill branch boxes extend below the bottom of my screen.
I did discover that you can zoom using the scroll wheel, but it would be nice if the default size for the skill branch boxes fit naturally on a 1080P screen.

The price to master one 'mech is steep, but maybe reasonable.

As a long-time player (and self-admitted whale) I have about 290 'mechs in my 'mech bays at the moment. I think I have about 150 of them with the master-level module slot unlocked. I have enough modules to have about 20 of them competition-ready (with probably a hundred modules left over). The 1.3 Billion C-Bills and GXP, HXP, etc., should be more than enough resources to fully master over 100 'mechs.

However, for a new player, this per-'mech grind might be painful. It does reduce the need to earn skills on three 'mechs, so in practice, the time to master one 'mech might be about the same.

Paying to re-spec your 'mech punishes experimentation, which will almost certainly hurt new payers more than old.

Locking most of the Torso-agility skills behind a slew of Arm-agility skills is punishing to 'mechs without arm hard points.

No strike, flamer, machine gun, or cool shot skills?

Certain 'mechs, particularly those that favor boating a single category of weapon, will greatly benefit from this system. I expect some kind of balance adjustment to follow. When your balance decisions make me want to re-spec a 'mech, can I get that re-spec for free? Having to pay potentially millions of CB every few months because of a balance patch will cost you players.

[Radkres]

To fix Boating and diversity Merge the Weapon Skill trees. So You Would Have Three Weapon Trees Missile / Ballistic / Energy.
Then make them Range / Cooldown/ Jam / Spread o.O

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

My Observations,

1) If you try and get a little of each skill group to make your Mech 'well rounded' you will fail miserably. You have to take skill nodes you dont really want to unlock ones that you do. This would be fine if 'End Game Content' (aka FP) maps were huge (30-45 minutes for a light mech to cross it from upper left corner to bottom right corner) has 3 possible drop zones for each side that way you dont KNOW where the OpFor is at so your Scouts have to scout for them because there is no lanes funneling them.)

2) Yes us long time players are going to get a grip load of xp and Cbills but a respec will cost you 11.6million c-bills each time you do so (as in full respec with a wipe of 91 points(2.5mil) and putting the 91 points back on (9.1 mil). For 10 Mechs to be fully spec'd (9.1mil) then respec'd(11.6mil) thats 207 million cbills if you have 100 mechs 2.07 Billion and thats just to spec and then respec once, so you either have to be Rich as Blake (and holding all that loot) or you know without a doubt how you want to spec each mech and never change it.

3)Boating is going to be the norm. Taking a 'Well rounded' Mech into FP would be foolish in the extreme because the OpFor is going to use Meta, and well rounded it wont be.

4)We still dont know what the Final goal of the Developers is in regards to FP. Is it going to be like Planetary leagues (an if your units tag is on a planet only you, your designated allies and hired Mercs will be the only ones able to defend it[and your other planets if you have them.]. Or will it be like now where the planets dont mean anything but bragging rights.

THIS I think is the most important of my points. If its going to stay like it is now I wouldnt even bother changing the skill and modules but shift gears and focus fully on MechWarrior 5

[AnimeFreak40K]

MrKvola, on 09 February 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

No, not all, but quite a lot of them. but PGI is just about to add additional effort and grind to get them back to where they were. And almost quadrupling the grind for new 'mechs. Not liking it.

How so?

Your mechs have been zeroed out, but you lost nothing, you just need to convert that Historical XP to Mech XP.

It presently costs 135,000 or so XP and 9,100,000 C-Bills to unlock all 91 nodes. Unless you have very few mechs and none of the mastered, you are going to have plenty of Historical XP (that can be turned into Mech XP) and GXP lying around to be used.

Under the old (or, rather, present) system, it would cost 128,750 XP to Master out a single mech, spread out across at the bare minimum, 3 mechs.
At present, it costs 14,250 XP to fully Basic a mech. But to be able to Elite that mech, you need to Basic out 2 others, for a total of 42,750 XP. Then it costs another 21,500 XP to fully Elite the mech, but to Master it, you have to do the same thing for 2 additional mechs of the same Class, which at minimum is a total of 64,500 XP.

The grind is there, yes. But rather than force a player to grind out 2+ additional mechs to fully master just one, a player can fully focus on that one mech they like.

And the C-Bill cost? Most (but by no means all) players have purchased and applied any number of modules... most of these are the 'very expensive' type (6 million each). So if you have Seismic and Radar Derp, you actually come away with *more* C-Bills.

[exiledangel]

so how many people have asked for the javelin money back now since you only need the 1 chasis to master

[process]

Cross-posting from my feedback thread here: https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5609499

process, on 09 February 2017 - 05:46 PM, said:

First, it must be said:

You cannot charge players to re-spec.

To associate cost with customization is antithetical to the core principles of a Mechwarrior game. This is by far the most egregious problem with this initial iteration the skill tree system, and is extremely unfriendly to new and old players alike.

It will feel even worse when PGI inevitably re-works how certain abilities function, altering their value to players.

Second, by revising the mastery system to focus on a single variant, you are disincentivizing players from purchasing more than 1 variant per chassis. This may be desirable for certain chassis with similar loadouts, but for others it only serves to inflate the grind, since each variant now requires the equivalent time and cost that three used to.

In addition, while it might be more friendly for beginners, it immediately reduces the enjoyment for veteran players with large stables. To speak only for myself, it's taken years to master my 200+ mechs, and I'm not too keen on having to invest upwards of twice that long to master them under this new system.

This may also have the unintended consequence of undercutting PGI's own business model, as they may no longer be able to sustain themselves on mech packs and other large-bundle deals.

As someone who sincerely wants this game to be great, it's really distressing to see PGI propose a system that could potentially cripple their product and alienate their customers.

---

With the major negatives aside, I do think the new tree system has much to offer. The degree to which a player can tailor their mech is a vast improvement over the stale "skill" progression we have now. While it's not currently implemented, I see lots of opportunities in the proposed system to add variety and uniqueness at both the chassis and variant level.

A few suggestions to improve the tree system, making it more user-friendly, without compromising the concept of the tree:

• Make all skill nodes permanently unlocked, and shared within each chassis. Having to re-acquire skill nodes is tremendously tedious and a major fun-sink. Make skill nodes cost more to unlock if that's what it takes to make the game economy work. I would much rather grind a little longer than to be punished for experimenting. It's especially asinine not to have them shared between variants of the same mech, since in theory it's the same mech you're supposedly mastering. This is essentially the same as needing to unlock modules with GXP, but per chassis, and even under my proposed system, a significant investment. Again, increase the cost to unlock skill nodes if you have to.
  
• Remove GXP and HXP; use more MC. Too many currencies! By sharing experience via shared permanent skill nodes within a variant per suggestion 1, you eliminate the need for the intermediary HXP. GXP has always felt sort of tacked on, it would be better to use MC directly as an alternate for both cbill and XP upgrades and unlocks.
  
• Mech XP sharing. To address the problem of disincentivizing more than one variant per chassis, other owned variants should receive some percentage of XP earned by other variants. This way, you aren't completely abandoning variants while you grinding a single one. Conceptually, you aren't efficiently mastering those other variants, but because they share a common chassis, there should be some common knowledge gained by piloting just one of the variants.
  
• Diminishing skill tree values to offset boating. The current skill tree values are access linearly. This makes it much too easy to pour points into a single weapon type, which already has the benefit of being easier to operate in-game. The total amount of bonus for a particular trait could be the same, but the greatest values are closer to the top, which has the added benefit further of incentivizing mixed builds.
  
• Reinstate an "Elite" rank at the equivalent Mech XP as the current "Master" rank (57,250 XP). Throw us old farts some recognition for our years of grinding and support.
  
• Reduce the number of skill points and/or skill nodes. 91 nodes seems like a arbitrarily large number. I would refit the system to no more than 50 skill points.
  
• Re-evaluate skill node placement. This goes without say. Certain trees seem very OP at the moment, such as the sensors tree that permits what would have been multiple 6 million cbill mech modules.

Overall, the skill tree is an interesting concept and, optimistically, has the potential to be a big step in the right direction. However, the initial implementation is a mess that seems to be creating a lot of uncertainty for many players, including myself. If the proposed system is executed without certain critical changes, I see myself significantly reducing the amount of time and money I spend on this game.

Edited by process, 09 February 2017 - 09:16 PM.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Overall, I like the idea. However, my biggest criticism at present is that certain, useful nodes are locked behind fairly useless ones. For example:
I have a very brawly Atlas S. As a brawler, turn speed and all torso skills are exceptionally important. Arm agility and movement, not so much. I have to give up several nodes that could be placed elsewhere to get the ones that would suit this mech best.

Keeping with the brawly Atlas S, things like Sensor Range and Target Retention and Target Decay are nowhere near as important as Radar Deprivation and Seismic Sensors. Yet many of those important skills are hidden behind less important ones.

Some other issues that I can see as being problems:
As other folks have pointed out, the present setup will discourage mixed/balanced builds, which means more boating. Now, some mechs this doesn't hurt too much, such as the Black Knight, as it only has Energy Weapons. However, others like the Timber Wolf, will see far more boating.

While a number of these features can make for some very interesting tweaks and quirks, I can see a handful being "you need to take these, no matter what"...which would be almost the entirety of the Survival Tree. The 2 AMS skills can be ignored, and the falling-damage ones will be taken because of their placement and required unlocking to enable the ones that really matter: the Armor and Structure boosts. These will become "standard issue" so to speak, much like Radar Dep and Seismic are 'standard issue' amongst many vet players.
This is an issue because in a way, it limits the number of points available to go elsewhere.

All of this being said, I like what I'm seeing and, for the most part, it is a very good step in the right direction. I think with a few tweaks on how things can get unlocked or where they're placed for unlocking will help things along nicely.

[SuperFunkTron]

Ramrod AI, on 09 February 2017 - 05:27 PM, said:

So basically an entirely new, needlessly complicated dynamic replacing a system that wasn't broken in the first place. This is going to be sooooooooooooo broken after the patch. And better prepare for the salt mines to go into overtime!

I think they've already opened for business

[SuperFunkTron]

I keep reading that this new system will encourage boating. Will it really encourage it more than the current system? I already see a ton of boats around. I have yet to have a chance to try mixed load out, but I'm starting to think that more mild quirks across more weapons systems would end up balancing out in terms of heat and range. I'm not sure if others felt it but I think the mechs run a little bit hotter now and just piling lasers in particular will likely mean that more breaks are needed between shots. This is still conjecture so someone please offer their experienced take on it so I can have some more insight on that aspect of the trees.

[Stitchedup]

If i could make one change it would be that if you unlock a node it is permanently locked open (no respec cost,. you can still only use the 91 skill points but just shift them around.
You could give extra skill points to under proforming mechs to help them (104 for the poor Victor) and i do think the cBill cost should be looked at
With this system we are being taxed to unlock a skill, which used to cost us either cBills or GXP, not both and now it can cost you MC if you dont like it. Surely the mech packs have been paying the bills

Edited by Stitchedup, 09 February 2017 - 08:26 PM.

[WVAnonymous]

Teer Kerensky, on 09 February 2017 - 03:24 PM, said:

Duh. You will need a lot of C-Bills to buy skills for the mechs you want to play, unless you want to ignore them all together..

Using the max 91 skills on a mech requires 9.1 million C-Bills.

If you were new to the game you'd likely like this change.

If you have only about half a dozen of different expensive modules then obviously that's not a lot.


Duh. You will need a lot of C-Bills to buy skills for the mechs you want to play. Using the max 91 skills on a mech requires 9.1 million C-Bills.

My point was that I will have half a billion c-bills, so I'm not bothered. If I had no c-bills, I'd be annoyed.

What was your point, other than liking the word "duh"?

[SuperFunkTron]

I think its worth pointing out that it doesn't require 91 nodes to bring mechs up from the current system to the new system. If you want to make your mechs comparable to what you have "mastered" now, you are looking at approximately 50 nodes as I understand it. The argument that Those who have everything maxed out from before doesn't hold once its made clear that this system offers the chance to improve your mech significantly more than the old system allowed.