18 replies to this topic

[The Lighthouse]

After I see how PGI has done to current quirks, especially IS mech quirks, it is very obvious that both Paul and Russ have completely forgotten why these mechs have gotten quirks in the first place.

Look at Atlas and Kodiak-3. Simply asking: what mech would you choose for your next assault mech? Kodiaks, especially Kodiak-3 has...

1) Arguably better hitboxes.
2) Superior clan techs, including safe Clan XL engine.
3) And most importantly, super crazy high hardpoints.

Quirks, if I remember correctly, were created to compensate such imbalance. Garbage mechs like Vindicators have very strong quirks to counter such imbalance issues caused by the Mech's physical aspects and technology issues.

This whole new skill tree, in essence, completely ignores this underlying issue.



NO, I am sorry. I know a lot of people won't like to hear this, but we are never supposed to have "freedom" on customizing mechs, because then so many mechs are going to be completely worthless. There is literally no reason to get Atlas when I can get Kodiak KDK-3 and put all of the UAC-related enhancements on it.

Secondary, this new skill tree system inherently encourages boating even more! Of course, as us humans always do, we optimize stuffs. There is an limit on how much I can spend skill points on each mechs. I could try spend a lot of skill points so I can use all of ballistic, energy, and missiles. Or, I could just focus on one of the weapon types and spend rest of the skill points on others stuffs like movement enhancements and radar.

The choice is so painfully obvious. We are ALL going to make mechs boats. Mechs that can't do boat well (and many of them are already considered as bad mechs) are even worse while already superior mechs like KDK-3 for ballistic, Battlemaster for energy, Griffin for missiles and other boat-friendly mechs get even more stronger. Of course clan omnimechs which can swap the parts to make boat also got stronger.

This whole skill tree, regardless of the number, is bad by design. IS mechs are going to massively suffer, and the mechs with bad hitboxes, bad hardpoints are also going to massively suffer as well.

Even worse, the boating, which really makes the game one-dimensional and utterly boring, is even further encouraged, and you are not really going to change this no matter how much you can adjust the number. "Freedom", by design, inevitably encourages boating in this game.


Even before we are talking about the cost of c-bills and stuffs, the whole concept is just detrimental to the gameplay and must be scrapped.



Plus : And also it is kind of pointless. Everyone is going to take seismic and radar deprav, and we have already spent a lot of skill points. As I see it, there are so many obvious choices that really these choices we are given hardly matter. Only meaningful choices are really weapons, and this is where we are getting boating issue.

Edited by The Lighthouse, 08 February 2017 - 06:18 PM.

[Riitters]

Do you know how to read? Some IS mechs (See: Probably a decent amount of them after a balance patch or two) will be keeping parts of their quirks. Have you considered the fact that if the Atlas is underperforming they can decide to throw another 20 points at it to buff it's mobility or open up a new weapon tree? Sure, you're mad that you'll have to make a damn decision on how you want to boat something if you aren't taking defensive and mobility quirks, but your entire point is a gross exaggeration.
We have already been told that underperforming IS mechs will keep some (if not most) quirks.

[Weepy Wanebow]

Also people are brain storming ways to counter act the obvious boating encouragement. While I agree that the current skill tree system is a hot mess, it is just the first play test. Just like energy draw, I suspect that this won't actually roll out until it achieves some level of "this works". But they have been talking about replacing the quirk system off and on, roughly since shortly after it came out. They are moving toward other ideas to help balance the game..."This rough draft is stupid and permotes boating which is ****" while not even knowing the accurate info on what is actually happening with quirks doesn't actually offer PGI anything they can work it

[The Lost Boy]

So the atlas d with 140 points of armor ct is pointless BEFORE buff with skelliton and armor hardness? Most of the quirks in place are still there, the offensive ones were reduced in some cases but all the manouver, agility are still there on IS. So the BLR-2C is still gonna be a beast, Spirit Bear will still(big gun 4srm6a) be nasty, Scortch(still good), Orion IIC, Oxide, Jager DD, Grasshopper, TMB, Cheetah, how are any of these getting worse? Boating on these mechs was the norm and wont change a bit. How many times has the Cheetah and Oxide been nerfed? They are still good, due too inherent chassis strengths. Like MANY other mechs. I like what they have done so far. Lets try it out.

To the OP, how about a report on what you did on the PTS?

[Andi Nagasia]

@The Lighthouse,
all the Skill Tree really does is give people the opportunity to build their favorite mech as they please,

i wanted a PPC LCT or a PPC SHC but nether ever happened,
with this new Skill Tree i Can, and for that, ill try and see if i can make it better than it currently is,
also with current Skill Tree Bonuses, most Good IS mechs only Get Better,

[Exard3k]

I see the boating issue too. Right now we have two weapon modules that favours single weapon type builds aka boating because you can get two modules for that very weapon. With mixed builds you can only have one module per weapon type or even weapons without modules in case of 3+ different weapons that are common in Battletech and many hardpoint loadouts in MWO.

The new skill system won't change that. If you boat, you can dig into one branch (?) while you have to spend three times as much SP for getting the same performance in an AC+Missiles+Laser build. Always was stupid and not "battletechish" as it encourages players to boating a single weapon type for the sake of optimization. But lots of mechs are specialized in VARIETY but there is no skill tree for that. So you end up with your main gun to be skilled and all other weapons are unskilled while e.g. PPC-Boats have 100% of their weapons optimized at the same cost.

We "had" quirks that were like +20% missiles, +20% energy + 20% ballistic. Great quirks to ensure all weapons have the same performance a grasshopper has with just 20% energy (not counting in that stupid missile slot). We don't have this reflected in the skill tree right now.

Edited by Exard3k, 08 February 2017 - 08:06 PM.

[TwoUps]

With 91/338 skill nodes to choose for each mech, I can just imagine the amount of time (assuming that PGI decided to make it affordable enough) it will take me to master all my mechs (around 70) .. after that just trying to keep track of what each mech was built for will be a challenge (since i can hardly track where each mech is built for, and where are the modules located).. And it might be enough to make me cry when PGI decided to "balance" (the mech quirks, weapons, etc) in future...

[TwoUps]

This skill tree changes might add "flexibility/customization" for someone who is experienced MWO player.. but can be really a turn off for NOOBs, potential players or non-regular players....

Over the years I had been trying to get people to play MWO with the main 'barrier to entry' being MWO's complexity.. Typically the person need to be interested in FPS, robot/tank control, fixed mechwarrior backstory, different missile/ballistic/laser weapons, and complex/unique mech configuration/ management system. This will add another level of complexity before players are competitive enough to enjoy MWO..

[Strattus]

I think the OPs comments about the Kodiak vs the Atlas are valid.... in a way. If you look back at the lore and the TT battle values for the mechs mentioned, there is absolutely no comparison!!

Kodiak-3 BV (1.0) - 2,278
Atlas AS7D BV (1.0) - 1,557

I'm of the opinion that Battletech (with the IS and Clan tech) has always been inherently unbalanced. PGI (IMHO) has done a great job in balancing the game, and continuing to change to balance and how the balance is done to keep the majority of players on a more even playing level (using maths, of all things!). I find myself playing those mechs in my mechbay that I enjoy playing, and can come up with my own load-outs (that I am constantly tweaking).

Yes, people will boat, yes Clan tech is op BUT victories will still be had by IS forces, and a well coordinated unit almost always means a better chance at victory.

[Avarice1of2]

There just are not enough skill points for varied mechs. Simply put if the mechs had 91 sp for chassis quirks aka defensive, maneuverability, sensors, and a fix number for weapons only things would be easier for varied mechs. It would also make it more likely to experiment on mechs that are mainly boats.

[suffocater]

I think they should work on this atleast until the new tech is ready. The current state will really harm the game and with new tech coming a few months later, we will have to reevaluate every mech again.

[The Lighthouse]

Lemming of the BDA, on 08 February 2017 - 07:46 PM, said:

So the atlas d with 140 points of armor ct is pointless BEFORE buff with skelliton and armor hardness? Most of the quirks in place are still there, the offensive ones were reduced in some cases but all the manouver, agility are still there on IS. So the BLR-2C is still gonna be a beast, Spirit Bear will still(big gun 4srm6a) be nasty, Scortch(still good), Orion IIC, Oxide, Jager DD, Grasshopper, TMB, Cheetah, how are any of these getting worse? Boating on these mechs was the norm and wont change a bit. How many times has the Cheetah and Oxide been nerfed? They are still good, due too inherent chassis strengths. Like MANY other mechs. I like what they have done so far. Lets try it out.

To the OP, how about a report on what you did on the PTS?

Let's see. We are looking at my beloved BJ-3 for instance. Currently it has these quirks.

Structure buffs
10% Energy Range
10% Energy Heat Generation
50% PPC Velocity
10% PPC Heat Generation

And with modules it has...
10% PPC Range
10% Medium Laser Range
12% PPC Cooldown

Now, in PTS, you can't actually match current elite mechs, they always give you much lesser value overall (8.5% vs 7.5%, massive diff in heat capacity stuffs, had to give up everything related to torso values) But otherwise removing same things and useless stuffs, we get...

10% PPC Range
20% + 20% PPC Velocity
5% PPC Cooldown
5% PPC Heat Generation
10% Energy Heat Generation
10% Energy Range

So I lose 10% PPC Velocity, 7% Cooldown, 5% Heat Generation, and 10% Medium Laser Range. We have two problems with this.

1) Pretty much all IS mechs' offensive quirks have been nerfed, not just good Blackjack here, but also crappy mechs like Vindicator. Oh and crappy Clan mechs too. Only mechs that have not impacted by these is ironically top-performing mechs like KDK-3 which do not have any quirks in the first place, for a very good reason. This is why people are saying PGI has buffed the KDK-3.

2) Notice I completely lost Medium Laser Range? I ran out of points after I put all of the essential stuffs and just maxed out PPC. It is impossible to get a decent second type of the weapons since skill points are limited.
And of course, the obvious answer -increasing the number of skill points- pretty much throw the concept of "customizing your own mechs" out of the window because everyone can get everything same.
This limitation only leads to MOAR boating, since we can only really max out just one type of the weapons.


Here is the thing: If you put "Your Mech, you way", people are going to do their own way, by optimizing their mechs to death. The most obvious destination is a boat, since it is the most optimized form of the mech. The obvious answer for my refute would be "well, then we try restrict these", then we are throwing "Your Mech, you way" already.

These are why I said the whole skill tree is totally pointless and detrimental to the game.

Edited by The Lighthouse, 09 February 2017 - 04:19 AM.

[Fox2232]

Shiroi Tsuki, on 09 February 2017 - 01:21 AM, said:

It's a no for me.
All it basically is a massive AC/20 measuring contest.
If we're adding functional cockpit monitors, I'd like to see the Heat sink/ammo status/Auto detect no signal back.

Kangarad, on 09 February 2017 - 03:13 AM, said:

Oh noes were going to have more people steal kills to feed theyr kill boards.

GET YOUR OWN KMDD's.

The Lighthouse, on 09 February 2017 - 03:24 AM, said:

Let's see. We are looking at my beloved BJ-3 for instance. Currently it has these quirks.

Structure buffs
10% Energy Range
10% Energy Heat Generation
50% PPC Velocity
10% PPC Heat Generation

And with modules it has...
10% PPC Range
10% Medium Laser Range
12% PPC Cooldown

Now, in PTS, you can't actually match current elite mechs, they always give you much lesser value overall (8.5% vs 7.5%, massive diff in heat capacity stuffs, had to give up everything related to torso values) But otherwise removing same things and useless stuffs, we get...

10% PPC Range
20% + 20% PPC Velocity
5% PPC Cooldown
5% PPC Heat Generation
10% Energy Heat Generation
10% Energy Range

So I lose 10% PPC Velocity, 7% Cooldown, 5% Heat Generation, and 10% Medium Laser Range. We have two problems with this.

1) Pretty much all IS mechs' offensive quirks have been nerfed, not just good Blackjack here, but also crappy mechs like Vindicator. Oh and crappy Clan mechs too. Only mechs that have not impacted by these is ironically top-performing mechs like KDK-3 which do not have any quirks in the first place, for a very good reason. This is why people are saying PGI has buffed the KDK-3.

2) Notice I completely lost Medium Laser Range? I ran out of points after I put all of the essential stuffs and just maxed out PPC. It is impossible to get a decent second type of the weapons since skill points are limited.
And of course, the obvious answer -increasing the number of skill points- pretty much throw the concept of "customizing your own mechs" out of the window because everyone can get everything same.
This limitation only leads to MOAR boating, since we can only really max out just one type of the weapons.


Here is the thing: If you put "Your Mech, you way", people are going to do their own way, by optimizing their mechs to death. The most obvious destination is a boat, since it is the most optimized form of the mech. The obvious answer for my refute would be "well, then we try restrict these", then we are throwing "Your Mech, you way" already.

These are why I said the whole skill tree is totally pointless and detrimental to the game.

Maybe you should say how many points you invested to get that poor upgrade you are so sad about. 30 at max is my guess.
Then please note that there are: Laser Tree, Pulse laser Tree, PPC tree which affect Energy based weapons.

In other words: Taking "Laser Range" in Laser tree affects all lasers which are not "Pulse Lasers".
That's actually buff over ability to take THREE modules per mech only.

Maybe it would be bit better if there was one "Energy Tree" which would boost all energy weapons and then those 3 sub trees.
But that's not really needed.

One additional note, This tree makes all mechs stronger than they were before. It gives so much more without taking anything away. My complaint is actually that it only gives pretty cool boosts. And some not so cool boosts instead of making trade-offs.

[OneTomboNation]

The new skill tree lets me take my dual AC10,2 MLAS Bushwacker and quirk it as i see fit, since machine gun ROF and arm twist do nothing for me. It lets you specialize your mech. I can add defensive quirks to defend against laswer boats so I can close on them and avoid LRMS with Radar Derpity derp. I only have to buff 2 diff weapons.

If you have a build that uses all its various hardpoints are are mounting 3 or 4 weps...you just need to pick your primary and secondary weps to quirk out. Or do all 4 and nothing else! It will encourage a lt of choices in the field. I don't agree with the OP. I dont blindly take seismic or other modules youd think are a given. Have you seen PTS videos? Mechs are finally tanks when adding defensive quirks. Maybe the Metas will have a high skew toward offensive quirks, but Im curious to see how it can be countered when you have a team of tanks rolling at you with speed and agility and it becomes a brawl.

[Zergling]

Fox2232, on 09 February 2017 - 04:15 AM, said:

Maybe you should say how many points you invested to get that poor upgrade you are so sad about. 30 at max is my guess.

Guess how many points players effectively have to allocate as they choose?

Hint: it's not 91, or anywhere near close to it.

Fox2232, on 09 February 2017 - 04:15 AM, said:

One additional note, This tree makes all mechs stronger than they were before. It gives so much more without taking anything away.

Lol no it doesn't.

It is quite obvious that many mechs (especially IS mechs) are worse off, and some mechs like the KDK-3 and Timber Wolf are better off.

Edited by Zergling, 09 February 2017 - 09:10 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

The Lighthouse, on 08 February 2017 - 06:17 PM, said:

After I see how PGI has done to current quirks, especially IS mech quirks, it is very obvious that both Paul and Russ have completely forgotten why these mechs have gotten quirks in the first place.

Look at Atlas and Kodiak-3. Simply asking: what mech would you choose for your next assault mech? Kodiaks, especially Kodiak-3 has...

1) Arguably better hitboxes.
2) Superior clan techs, including safe Clan XL engine.
3) And most importantly, super crazy high hardpoints.

Quirks, if I remember correctly, were created to compensate such imbalance. Garbage mechs like Vindicators have very strong quirks to counter such imbalance issues caused by the Mech's physical aspects and technology issues.

This whole new skill tree, in essence, completely ignores this underlying issue.



NO, I am sorry. I know a lot of people won't like to hear this, but we are never supposed to have "freedom" on customizing mechs, because then so many mechs are going to be completely worthless. There is literally no reason to get Atlas when I can get Kodiak KDK-3 and put all of the UAC-related enhancements on it.

Secondary, this new skill tree system inherently encourages boating even more! Of course, as us humans always do, we optimize stuffs. There is an limit on how much I can spend skill points on each mechs. I could try spend a lot of skill points so I can use all of ballistic, energy, and missiles. Or, I could just focus on one of the weapon types and spend rest of the skill points on others stuffs like movement enhancements and radar.

The choice is so painfully obvious. We are ALL going to make mechs boats. Mechs that can't do boat well (and many of them are already considered as bad mechs) are even worse while already superior mechs like KDK-3 for ballistic, Battlemaster for energy, Griffin for missiles and other boat-friendly mechs get even more stronger. Of course clan omnimechs which can swap the parts to make boat also got stronger.

This whole skill tree, regardless of the number, is bad by design. IS mechs are going to massively suffer, and the mechs with bad hitboxes, bad hardpoints are also going to massively suffer as well.

Even worse, the boating, which really makes the game one-dimensional and utterly boring, is even further encouraged, and you are not really going to change this no matter how much you can adjust the number. "Freedom", by design, inevitably encourages boating in this game.


Even before we are talking about the cost of c-bills and stuffs, the whole concept is just detrimental to the gameplay and must be scrapped.



Plus : And also it is kind of pointless. Everyone is going to take seismic and radar deprav, and we have already spent a lot of skill points. As I see it, there are so many obvious choices that really these choices we are given hardly matter. Only meaningful choices are really weapons, and this is where we are getting boating issue.

Most of the quirks remain. IS mechs are insanely durable in some cases.

And no, everyone is not going to take seismic and radar dep. I'm not unless I have skills I don't know what to do with.

And for the love of god, boating has always been a thing in MechWarrior.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 09 February 2017 - 09:13 AM.

[Lolo van Trollinger]

@andi nagasa:
if you want that ppc locust, that will be hurting you a lot - usual pick for sniper locust is advanced zoom, radar deprevation and seismic. that alone will be ruining you. you will pick up all other bulldung that devs put in between you and the goodies at the same time. and god beware you had two of those locusts decked out exactly the same for a certain tactic. farmtime again.

now imagine running a 240 ton deck of 2 ECM atlas and 2 ER LL locusts. you will be ruined. you start all over farming again.
this is a very big "puts me off". and you cant even let it auto-route the skill tree. you have to put them all by hand.

imagine someone who has 200 mechs, some of them duplicates, all decked out.
they will go insane respeccing each and every one of them.
they will find out that they end up with only 75%-80% speccable with the refund.
this is going to get a lot of QQ and RQ from people who have been a regular money source for the game.

and the whole interface for the skill trees is a pain in the behind, too.

[Ravenlord]

Andi Nagasia, on 08 February 2017 - 07:51 PM, said:

also with current Skill Tree Bonuses, most Good IS mechs only Get Better,

No they don't, especially not in relation to clan mechs who often had only very few if any quirks so far..

[Koshirou]

Riitters, on 08 February 2017 - 07:31 PM, said:

Do you know how to read? Some IS mechs (See: Probably a decent amount of them after a balance patch or two) will be keeping parts of their quirks.

a.) Almost all IS weapon quirks are nerfed.
b.) Relatively, Clan Mechs will gain an advantage, or rather lose a disadvantage, since their module slot deficits disappear.
c.) Similarly, IS structure buffs lose relative value since all Mechs including Clans (owned by people with functioning brains and enough XP) are going to have the same hefty armor and structure buffs from the Survival skill tree. This skill tree, I'm just going to say it, should simply not exist anyway.

To offset these problems, IS Mechs would not need to "keep part of their quirks", they would need their remaining quirks increased quite drastically. As I've written elsewhere: The idée fixe that the game can somehow be balanced across chassis, variants and tech bases while getting rid of quirks is delusional.