Skill Tree Public Test Session
#501
Posted 10 February 2017 - 08:31 PM
#502
Posted 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM
#503
Posted 10 February 2017 - 09:38 PM
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 09:36 AM, said:
With the way that weapons are being easily destroyed, having the option to speed arms in order to fire off a salvo will affect torso twisting just and shielding. Just because you don't see the value in it doesn't mean its not there.
Lol no. You are demonstrating a gross lack of understanding of the game here.
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 09:36 AM, said:
I agree, every mech does benefit from those, but not every mech needs to have the same combination of those to be equally effective. Certain builds will reap more benefit from different variations of those abilities in those trees. You believe that those who don't follow your system are potatoes, others don't really care if they can make those alternate builds more effective for their play style.
If you consider things like role warfare, armor and structure, mobility, sensors, and jumpjets are all solid options. Again, people may be more concerned about spotting for the rest of their team or getting intel based tactical advantages. Not everyone will build just like you do.
This system gives people the option to choose what they prefer. I believe atlases are big on torso twist to help with dispersing damage. You don't have to agree with or even see the value in those things, but that doesn't mean that others can't/won't take advantage of them.
That's great that you have a generic formula. I'm proud that you can apply generic schemes and convince yourself its the single solution in a game that is affected by so many variables.
To sum up your post, everyone who doesn't build as you believe is optimal is a potato and there is no reason they should think, play, or build differently than you to support the play style or role they choose for a mech. You are comfortable with trying to rebuild what the majority of the hold trees and that is fine.
Others will finally have a chance to upgrade things they feel are more important and ignore the things they don't feel provide as much return for the investment.
If you want to keep throwing your opinions out as absolutes and deride others for disagreeing with your "optimized" upgrade choices, just be aware that there will be other people who think you equally incompetent for thinking the way you do. We both have points in this and the new upgrade trees allow us to improve what will be most helpful to achieve our individual goals. That's a pretty big success to allow people to improve in their preferred ways rather than force a generic norm on everyone.
When the only people defending the skill system as offering 'choice, customisation and varied options' have terrible stats and are demonstrating gross misunderstandings of how the game works, it is obvious there opinions on the new skill system are based on misunderstanding of the game.
In other words, they think there's freedom because they don't know how to make an optimal build, because they don't actually know skills are worth taking and what are not.
Potatoes can go ahead and play crap if that is how they enjoy the game, but for those that actually know how to make builds that don't suck, there is no choice, only selections that are better than any other.
If the potatoes actually tried to 'git gud', they'd see it the same way.
Edited by Zergling, 10 February 2017 - 09:39 PM.
#504
Posted 10 February 2017 - 09:52 PM
Ramrod AI, on 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM, said:
How exactly did you jump to the conclusion that they were "encouraged to not change a damned thing and implement something that's barely i it's Alpha stage"?
They literally wrote "...it's clear there are ways to improve the implementation.
The feature obviously represents a big change; we want and value your feedback to help ensure it is also a positive one.
We're in the planning process for an update to the PTS build in an effort to address some of the more common pieces of feedback we've received so far. We'll hold off on providing full details for what you'll see in the update until everything is solid, but we'll get a proper post up for you detailing all of the changes as soon as possible.
We'd also like to inform everyone that while the Skill Tree was initially slated for a release in our upcoming patch on February 21st, we are now targeting a release for the March 21st patch to ensure sufficient time for iteration and improvement on the PTS client."
I'm not sure how they could be any explicit in providing information absolutely contradictory to what you just said.
#505
Posted 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 09:38 PM, said:
Lol no. You are demonstrating a gross lack of understanding of the game here.
Do you have a basis for that or are you just disqualifying without a basis?
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 09:38 PM, said:
In other words, they think there's freedom because they don't know how to make an optimal build, because they don't actually know skills are worth taking and what are not.
Potatoes can go ahead and play crap if that is how they enjoy the game, but for those that actually know how to make builds that don't suck, there is no choice, only selections that are better than any other.
[size=4]If the potatoes actually tried to 'git gud', they'd see it the same way.
Using insults instead of logic doesn't provide any support for your claims. If you want to throw out that you've got better stats because you only use optimized builds and my stats are worse than yours because I'm trying out different builds, you must really need the confidence boost. And how do you even know what builds I run? How do you know how effective my play is if the only time I've run into you was today on the PTS and I outscored you?
#506
Posted 10 February 2017 - 10:37 PM
Ramrod AI, on 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM, said:
yeah...no.
Alex said, and I quote "good feedback". The issue here is that Alex is commenting on the quality of the feedback. You are misunderstanding this to be a commentary on the kind of feedback received.
Second, just because a review is negative does not mean that it is without worth or use. A review that is overwhelmingly negative can still be good when it delivers specific actionable datapoints. Many of the reviews that I have read, by no means all, point to specific problems.
A bad review is one that does nothing to further development, whether it is a game, or a project in your profession. In this regard 'this is great stuff' is very nearly as useless as 'this sucks'.
Third, nowhere have I seen any indication that they are going to ignore what has been said and implement as-is. Or even that they have been encouraged to do just that thing. If they had been--and took it seriously--then I very much doubt they would have pushed off the patch until March.
#507
Posted 10 February 2017 - 10:47 PM
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:
Simple: the extra arc of arm weapons is only useful in fairly rare situations, typically only when shooting at targets far above or below the mech that torso weapons can't reach.
As such, the arm arc is most useful for shooting down UAVs, and extra arm speed isn't going to help with that.
Further, the base arm movement speed is already insanely high at around 100 degrees/second, so there is no benefit from another 40%.
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:
It is a fact of life that when people are better at some activity than others, they have a greater understanding and knowledge of that activity than those that aren't as good.
I'm sorry that fact is insulting to you, but this forum isn't a safe space where everyone has a valid opinion.
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:
I usually pull off stats in the range of 1.20-1.30 W/L and 260-280 average match score while running terrible un-optimised builds.
This is what happens when I run optimised builds:
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:
If you are using optimised builds and still doing badly, then you must have a really poor understanding of how to actually play the game.
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:
I haven't played on the PTS recently, must have been someone else, sorry.
Edited by Zergling, 11 February 2017 - 12:47 AM.
#508
Posted 11 February 2017 - 12:05 AM
SuperFunkTron, on 10 February 2017 - 03:44 PM, said:
Could you elaborate on how this is a cash grab? If we look at the current system, it costs no less than 6 million c-bills to get just 2 modules and can easily climb up to 18-21 million depending on what other modules you want to add. Numerically speaking, that is a much larger c-bill wall than what the PTS is offering, not to mention that the PTS allows for incremental improvements along the way. It is an extra cost to new players, and price reduction should be considered, but a direct comparison of attaining 3 of the cheapest current modules now vs. maxing out the customization in the skill tree will cost the same amount. In the PTS, there is the added benefit that a variety of those module buffs as well as many other buffs are acquired along the way. If I missed something along the way, I am just trying to understand why you feel betrayed.
For the last four and a half years the only currency wall on skills was on modules which were extortionate anyway. I was one of the many players that couldn't justify 6000000 cbills on a module when you could buy a new heavy mech for that instead. Instead I was one of many who bought a mere handful of modules (mainly cooldown) for mechs and weapons that I either used the most or need them most. The point is I could spend a few million cbills but swap then around my 67+ mechs I have gathered in four and a half years.
Then the XP requirements to get a mech fully optimised (elite and double basics) in the current system that's about 35750 XP or 107250 if you want to do it across three chassis or more often than not just 64250 to get just one mech to elite. I'll ignore for now the mastered extra module slot as that loops back to modules that were an optional cost which you could always switch out. Anyway this new system to complete a mech requires you to spend sort of 2.5 times that just on one mech. Then you have the respeccing cost for when inevitably something doesn't work out and you have to change it.
So what is the point of having a minimum of three mech variants available if you only need to pick one. Just some different Hardpoints? I for one liked having to try different builds across three variants to see which one worked best for me. This also means that if you have to spend so much time on one variant a large selection of mechs will become obsolete very quickly because of their Hardpoints. Then we have the shortcut option of using MC to fast track the grind. Sure this had been here all along in gxp conversion but now it's direct to advance the grind using real world money. If anything this will make some people like me buy mechs a lot more rarely as we'll be bored shitless grinding out one mech at a time.
Most of the point of this game is the customising each mech, this system makes it much harder. Most of my mechs have been built around the quirks for that chassis not meta style of course but some mechs are just like that say awesome 8q with PPC's, catapult with LRMs, locust with small pulse lasers, ylw with ac20 etc etc. All I'm going to end up doing in this new system is trying to recreate the original quirks to save me having to rebuild 67 current mechs from scratch.
This new system is farcical and adding a paywall to something which up until now (four and a half years) had been free excluding optional modules that you could swap between mechs for free regardless is just frankly not even cheeky but insulting and Draconian.
On a slight tangent this game is dying the active player base is shrinking the matchmaking is getting worse the tier imbalance is more obvious than ever and ROFL stomps are the norm now (it's now rare to have a close tense game) and even the stalwarts and die hards are getting fed up.
Edited by mad kat, 12 February 2017 - 01:09 AM.
#509
Posted 11 February 2017 - 12:33 AM
Ramrod AI, on 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM, said:
NGNG is a bunch of yes-man. No matter why they do it but I trust nothing that they do. You just need to watch the mech reveals from Sean Lang to know that it basically became an advertisment channel.
But let's not forget there are some good things about the skill tree. There are eminent problems which are discussed, indeed so eminent that they put the good things about the trees into the background.
The additional customization is really, really cool. The idea of the skill trees is good but the implementation is, obviously, not perfect.
Edited by Bluttrunken, 11 February 2017 - 12:43 AM.
#510
Posted 11 February 2017 - 12:57 AM
Alexander Garden, on 10 February 2017 - 03:52 PM, said:
The Skill Tree PTS has been live for just a couple days now, and we're fortunate to have received a lot of great feedback. The reception to the overall framework of the new Skill Tree has been positive, but it's clear there are ways to improve the implementation.
A couple of comments with no intended undertone.
- From glancing over this thread, positivity seems to be a bit limited. Is twitter, reddit and NGNG's twitch channel so vastly different?
- The PTS install itself: It should be noted somewhere, that you need more than twice the DL size to install, since it obvious is decompressed and then copied and then the DL files are deleted. I could not install on my SSD with about 30 gig of free space in the first place.
- The PTS motivation: As is now, there is very little motivation to participate in the PTS. Speaking for myself with a pretty mediocre internet connection (~6 mbps), the download itself took a whole evening i could have devoted to play - i know, it's a one-time effort sans patches, but still. Can you not create a system to just check the live client and copy it's files over?
- The PTS motivation, part 2: There is little incentive to play on the PTS, since you basically stall your live account for it. I see that it might be problematic due to a beta's nature to have rewards carried over. But since the live and the PTS account are still the same person playing, maybe there could be a bonus per match played on PTS, which, after the PTS's phase conclusion is added to the live account? Nothing to get rich (in terms of C-Bills, XP or MC), but maybe a little compensation for "lost" profits?
- The PTS motivation, part 3: Having a running event alongside the PTS phase does not really help PTS popularity. Maybe have PTS phases only when there is no other event running people might want to participate in?
Lastly, apart from every other criticism or praise of the new skill tree: I have not seem it mentioned yet, but the UI is incredibly cumbersome on monitors like mine with on 1440×900 resolution. I realize I can zoom in and out and drag the trees around, but: Please go over this and a clean, concise, no-fuzz version of it, where I can see a whole tree on lower-res monitors. Might even be a simple table.
#511
Posted 11 February 2017 - 01:05 AM
#512
Posted 11 February 2017 - 02:00 AM
- Too much incentive to running 1 weapon system in order to maximize investments in mech-wide skill trees
- No incentive to run any mech (or variant) that doesn't have the best high weapon mounts.
Example: A Jagermech is infinitely superior at boating Gauss or AC/20s than a Catapult K2 due to the height of the weapons on the chassis.
- Mech variants used to mean something (quirks) and now are relatively pointless in delivering actionable information to a pilot facing one.
- Structure and Armor skills will be guaranteed required purchases. They are simply the best bang for the buck and it only takes about 14 skill points to get the most survival out of that branch. The remaining points are quite suitable for most mechs to invest deeply into any other things they want and boat a single weapon system optimally.
Basically, the system will boil down to whether you are running a combat mech or a specialist like ECM, Spotter, Capper, or Jumper. I suspect most skill builds will be more similar to one another than the potential of the system provides due to players learning very quickly what are the optimal investments, and a disincentive to experiment.
- The UI and mechlab are already daunting for new players to navigate and understand, this makes it even more so.
- With 17 mech weights (20-100 tons) and a strong incentive to a.) take only the one with the best hard points for b.) the one weapon type you intend to boat, I believe you will quickly find that new mechs will not sell except for nostalgic CBT players.
For Example: Why buy a Thug when the Hatomato Chi does the exactly same job? Why buy the Flashman when the Penetrator is nigh identical in shape and loadout? Why buy a Huron Warrior when we already have an Enforcer? etc, etc.
We lose the flavor of those mechs from the lore, which is a real shame. Maybe each mech should have its own skill set to choose from to give pilots options to customize, but also value to every variant and expectations that the lore supports.
Edited by Mister Zeus, 11 February 2017 - 02:00 AM.
#513
Posted 11 February 2017 - 02:39 AM
The idea is not bad, the implementation is mediocre (firepower and survival skill tree), usable (mobility skill tree) to miserable (rest).
What i missing here is another / further split in the areas of operations (speed retention, improved gyros and hillclimb.) In my opinion, the actually stand as a stand-alone tree in mobility. The same true for infotech. Here the skill tree sensor should be shared.
Then there must be created a possibility for the mechs which can not run as monobild (there is a lot more in the IS than in Clan).
Otherwise, the "biodiversity" is lost and then you can see only laser or AC or rocket hurl.
Sorry, my english is a littel ..... time ....
Edited by Wolfengel, 11 February 2017 - 02:46 AM.
#514
Posted 11 February 2017 - 03:06 AM
2) Trying out different builds not at all promoted: how about the unlocked and paid for nodes can be 'disabled', but remain available for future builds? That way, after having spent a b*ttload of resources on skillpoints for a variant, at least that variant can swap out all the unlocked nodes to run different builds. Having to pay to actually remove skills is ridiculous and only promotes cheese meta builds.
3) The order of unlocking nodes: if I only want to go down the cooldown route, there's a lot of points I have to get that I don't want at all. I understand that to reach the 'final' level I'd need some 'collateral' unlocks, but to even reach the minor levels I shouldn't have to.
But overall, this could actually be an improvement to the game... if done right.
Edited by Willothius, 11 February 2017 - 03:07 AM.
#515
Posted 11 February 2017 - 05:04 AM
1) It is not perfect, needs work, but some (a lot actually) negative feedback is explained by people's inertness and resistance to any changes. The game is not that great or feature-complete, when you can dump feature after feature, and leave things as they are. It is progress or dying. And MWO is far closer to latter, recent years.
2) Rename it, something like "mech tuning" - c-bill costs, respec costs, and limitations per item are now explained.
3) More skills for info-warfare and role-warfare please? Maybe revive some of decisions from rebalance and infotech PTS?
4) So far not much planning involved - you just go for most juicy skill, avoiding less juicy ones. And node limit benefits boating, since it requires less nodes to upgrade your weapons.
To fix this, the suggestion - nodes should have different "limit weight". Lower level nodes counts as one node in the limit. Medium level nodes count as two in the limit, top level nodes count as three. So, now you have to decide - okay, should i take that radar deprivation, or i can take three lesser upgrades instead. Should i upgrade my lasers to top level, or leave them at mid level, and use saved limit to upgrade my missiles to mid level.
In short - you get viable option to be "jack of all trades, master of none", since you can take more upgrades if you stick to lower level nodes.
#516
Posted 11 February 2017 - 05:22 AM
#517
Posted 11 February 2017 - 06:36 AM
#518
Posted 11 February 2017 - 06:47 AM
Ramrod AI, on 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM, said:
Just because it's feedback about things that need improvement doesn't make it "bad feedback".
Speaking of "good feedback" ... paying to unlock a SP and re-use it, no problem. Paying to unlock a node, and then having to pay to buy a new one is a bad move.
#519
Posted 11 February 2017 - 07:12 AM
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:
Simple: the extra arc of arm weapons is only useful in fairly rare situations, typically only when shooting at targets far above or below the mech that torso weapons can't reach.
As such, the arm arc is most useful for shooting down UAVs, and extra arm speed isn't going to help with that.
Further, the base arm movement speed is already insanely high at around 100 degrees/second, so there is no benefit from another 40%.
Is that based on the current or PTS server? If it plays the same then you are generally correct on this point. But that isn't to say that there aren't inherent benefits to players who can take advantage of that more than you and I would. Making it necessary on the way to buying better nodes may function as a skill buffed on the way to making certain nodes more expensive, or it may legitimately be overkill if arms move that quickly to begin with in the PTS.
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:
I'm sorry that fact is insulting to you, but this forum isn't a safe space where everyone has a valid opinion.
I'd really like to know where you get these "facts". Did you read it on some "winners blog" somewhere? Being better at something does not equate to better knowledge. That is the same as saying weight lifters are inherently better physicist or physiologist because they know how to lift better than someone who studies the science of it. While that knowledge is of benefit to the lifter, his ability to lift more weight does not translate to scientific knowledge. In this game, there are behavioral, psychological, motor skill, and critical thinking factors to consider before even getting into the social variables that dictate how players perform. Playing with a group experimenting with builds, testing strategies... these are all things that have an effect on how the game is. To assume that a player is good based only on his damage output is a gross oversimplification , but I'll let you have this one, you're likely better than me. Despite this, it in no way means that you are able to discuss game mechanics better than people who use their brains and look use more objective and analytical reasoning. You yourself pointed out that you are all about optimizing in a singular fashion and not wasting time on other things.
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:
This is what happens when I run optimised builds:
If you are using optimised builds and still doing badly, then you must have a really poor understanding of how to actually play the game.
We can flop contest all day if it makes you feel better. I told you I'm constantly testing things out and I expect my score to be lower. Its good for you that you pull a high average score and are proud of it. Still doesn't mean that your game knowledge is absolute and unquestionable.
Zergling, on 10 February 2017 - 10:47 PM, said:
Must've been that other Zergling then...
#520
Posted 11 February 2017 - 07:39 AM
mad kat, on 11 February 2017 - 12:05 AM, said:
Then the XP requirements to get a mech fully optimised (elite and double basics) in the current system that's about 35750 XP or 107250 if you want to do it across three chassis or more often than not just 64250 to get just one mech to elite. I'll ignore for now the mastered extra module slot as that loops back to modules that were an optional cost which you could always switch out. Anyway this new system to complete a mech requires you to spend sort of 2.5 times that just on one mech. Then you have the respeccing cost for when inevitably something doesn't work out and you have to change it.
So what is the point of having a minimum of three mech variants available if you only need to pick one. Just some different Hardpoints? I for one liked having to try different builds across three variants to see which one worked best for me. This also means that if you have to spend so much time on one variant a large selection of mechs will become obsolete very quickly because of their Hardpoints. Then we have the shortcut option of using MC to fast track the grind. Sure this had been here all along in gxp conversion but now it's direct to advance the grind using real world money. If anything this will make some people like me but mechs a lot more rarely as we'll be bored shirtless grinding out one mech at a time.
Most of the point of this game is the customising of each mechs, this system makes it much harder. Most of my mechs have been built around the quirks for that chassis not meta style of course but some mechs are just like that say awesome 8q with PPC's catapult with LRMs locust with small pulse lasers ylw with ac20 etc etc. All I'm going to end up doing in this new system is trying to recreate the original quirks to save me having to rebuild 67 mechs from scratch.
This new system is farcical and adding a paywall to something which up until now (four and a half years) had been free excluding optional modules that you could swap between mechs for free regardless is just frankly not even cheeky but insulting and Draconian.
On a slight tangent this game is dying the active player base is shrinking the matchmaking is getting worse the tier imbalance is more obvious than ever and ROFL stomps are the norm now (it's now rare to have a close tense game) and even the stalwarts and die hards are getting fed up.
Thanks for expanding on that. I agree that the cost is a bit extravagant, especially if there will be a cost to respect mechs as well, but if you look at the added benefits it is somewhat justified as you would essentially be added quite a few of the buffs previously given by modules. My biggest concern is making sure that the disparity between fresh mechs and maxed out mechs isn't too big so that new players aren't punished simply for being new. They need reasonable access to these buffs to allow them to compete, but at the same time they shouldn't be free so as to remove the work needed to improve the mech.
Maybe a compromised system where the first 50 nodes are xp only and the remaining 41 come at the current cost would be more acceptable. That way getting a reasonable set of "basic" upgrades is possible while the rest of the grind to maxing out will be a reasonable cost, comparable to 1.5 of the current modules. This will provide an endgame for those needing something to do with their c-bills while giving the same solid base of non-c-bill upgrades need to close the gap between maxed and partially upgraded mechs.
Aside from the cost, I think the general idea of customization is a good one and just needs some reworking to more clearly incentivize mixed builds while not punish mechs that have dedicated single weapon type hard points (Nova and Black Knight). With all the modifications to game dynamics, crits, health points etc in the PTS, I think that a lot that there are a lot of undiscovered subtleties and unappreciated nuances that we've yet to come across, so I'm really excited that they will make adjustments and hopefully give us a better iteration in the next few days.
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