11 replies to this topic

[Hobbles v]

so playing with the current PTS, the first thing i set out to do was find out the minimum number of points that need to be allocated to match the current skill trees we have for mastering mechs.

First current Values for reference:
15% Accel
15% Decel
5% Twist range (not sure if twist x skill is both pitch and yaw or just Yaw)
5% Twist Speed
5% Arm Speed
5% Turn Rate
20% Heat Cap
15% Heat Disipation
7.5% Max Speed
15% Weapon Convergence
5% Weapon Cooldown

In the PTS to get as close to matching these Values if possible or beating them requires a player to Spend 57 points. Those 57 points will get you the following:

40% Accel
50% Decel
8% yaw 6% pitch Twist range
5% Twist Speed
40% Arm Speed
24% Turn Rate
15% Heat Cap
10% Heat Disipation
7.5% Max Speed
0% Weapon Convergence
0% Weapon Cooldown

Along with these values comes the addition of the following:

-50% Screen shake
20% speed retention after being legged
24% Arm pitch
15% Hill climb

Overall difference is as follows:

+35% Accel
+45% Decel
+19% Turn Rate
5% lower Heat cap
5% worse heat dissipation
2% Better quick ignition
+35% Arm speed
+3% Yaw range +1% Pitch range (or +6% if pitch is not included in the current twist x skill)
No change in twist speed
No change in top Speed
complete loss of 15% weapon convergence
complete loss of 5% generic weapon cooldown
-50% Screen shake
20% speed retention after being legged
24% Arm pitch
15% Hill climb

Additionally I decided to see how much more investment was needed to match the most common mech module paring Radar Deprivation + Seismic Sensors. To gain these two in as close effect as possible to their current power on need to spend 19 more points to gain the following.

Radar Deprivation equal to the current module
Seismic Sensors with 200m range (down from 250m)
2.1 second target decay (Somewhat countering Radar deprivation globally)
12% Target info gathering
+12% Sensor Range

Total points spent to match the current mech skills + most common mech modules = 76.
This leaves a total of 15 points left to cover the loss of many Weapon quirks and modules.

My overall impressions

- Offense and damage output looks to be getting nerfed slightly with base heat and dissipation going down and the generic 5% cool down going. Also nothing to replace the loss of weapon convergence (Though I've been told this currently does nothing; need to confirm).

- Poke style game play will be even stronger in comparison to the current meta as Accel/Decel skills are going to be far easier to skill to higher than current levels. While skills more critical to the survival of brawlers like twist speed, and maximum speed require far more commitment to match current levels. Lower heat cap and dissipation will encourage slower play.

- Lights will be stronger than before. Mobility overall is going up and easy access to things like hill climb without sacrificing vital modules like radar dep will be a boon to not getting shot.

- Less weapon Variety on each mech since individual skill trees for each type of weapon discourages mixing.

Next Im going to see if those 15 free points will be enough to cover the lost heat skills, the lost offensive quirks and weapon modules on several of my mechs. Updates inc.

[Ibrandul Mike]

either your numbers are wrong or mine... looking at the time it might be mine...

Weapon convergence is left out, because as far as I got it, it didn't do anything at all...

I get to 70/91 points used including boating one weapon type
Top speed can be tweaked as before (5 steps a 1.5%)
Torso twist spead can be brought to 5% as before.
And as long as you can boat a weapon type you can reach 4 (Clan) to 5 (IS) % weapon CD and get other stuff on top of it.

And yes that leaves you with only 21 points.
I assume your calculation for Seismic and Derp is correct so you have 2 points left... not really much.

Like I said, perhaps my numbers are off.

[Soapy Squirrel]

thanks for the early work on this,, will be interesting to see how this all plays out..
you have an idea of what the total xp for a mech will be? rough idea?

[Ibrandul Mike]

Rough? For all 91 skill points (including all respeccs you might ever do, as long as the refunds for respeccs aren't changed)

136.500 XP

It is just 1500 per skill point and you get them refunded atm if you respecc.

[MacClearly]

Finding it hard to get back to equal. Not sure if it is something I am doing wrong, I originally attributed it to wasted points on things I don't want. Can certainly boat the ever living bits out of one weapon but not getting a decent balance... Also hating the wasted points to get seismic and radar derp.

[Gas Guzzler]

MacClearly, on 08 February 2017 - 09:10 PM, said:

Finding it hard to get back to equal. Not sure if it is something I am doing wrong, I originally attributed it to wasted points on things I don't want. Can certainly boat the ever living bits out of one weapon but not getting a decent balance... Also hating the wasted points to get seismic and radar derp.

Yeah I've learned to play without radar derp so that's not that big of a deal, and 12 points to get both seismics isn't worth it.

I also am not sure if the upper torso tree is worth it, unless you are in a mech that begs for a wider torso twist range.

[Hobbles v]

Ibrandul Mike, on 08 February 2017 - 08:52 PM, said:

either your numbers are wrong or mine... looking at the time it might be mine...

Weapon convergence is left out, because as far as I got it, it didn't do anything at all...

I get to 70/91 points used including boating one weapon type
Top speed can be tweaked as before (5 steps a 1.5%)
Torso twist spead can be brought to 5% as before.
And as long as you can boat a weapon type you can reach 4 (Clan) to 5 (IS) % weapon CD and get other stuff on top of it.

And yes that leaves you with only 21 points.
I assume your calculation for Seismic and Derp is correct so you have 2 points left... not really much.

Like I said, perhaps my numbers are off.

Did you reach full speed tweak? That was the first thing I overlooked and spent considerably less points. To get full tweak you gotta buy a lot of extra skills.

[MacClearly]

Gas Guzzler, on 08 February 2017 - 09:14 PM, said:

Yeah I've learned to play without radar derp so that's not that big of a deal, and 12 points to get both seismics isn't worth it.

I also am not sure if the upper torso tree is worth it, unless you are in a mech that begs for a wider torso twist range.

Don't need it in prime time but late night and afternoons when if I play the difference in the quality of players and games is very different and lrm heavy. Also hate that it is an all or nothing choice too.

[Hobbles v]

Gas Guzzler, on 08 February 2017 - 09:14 PM, said:

Yeah I've learned to play without radar derp so that's not that big of a deal, and 12 points to get both seismics isn't worth it.

I also am not sure if the upper torso tree is worth it, unless you are in a mech that begs for a wider torso twist range.

Yeah I'm probably going to sacrifice points in the upper torso tree a lot. So many useless arm skills to buy out just to get the full 5% torso twist speed. Far easier to get strong turn rate skills to aid in twisting.

[Crashburn]

I hope the layout is something that is flexible to revision. I have several issues w/ the layout. Mainly several trees have no obvious flow to them. Quite a few times, they skip from one unrelated skill to another. The only other game I've played w/ trees before is Diablo and in that one the trees flowed to each subsequent skill in a fashion that made sense. For example if you had some lightning spells it went in from a lower level lightning spell....it didn't jump from a fire spell to a lightning to a wind spell.

Now take the skill trees in the new PTS. One of the most egregious is on the Mech Ops tree. Here we have hill climb just thrown in flowing from heat containment and eventually into cool run. First, what does hill climb have to do w/ Heat management? Second, it's stuck in spots where you have to pick it to advance to one side of the tree. On the other you can't max out your cool run. As Hobbles stated above we are already taking a 5% hit in heat cap & dissipation. I think it's safe to assume that most players are going to want to max out the cool run skill which means you burn 2 skill points on Hill climb. I believe most players aren't going to want to take what is basically a 50% hit on heat dissipation if you don't max out cool run. Now I assume the whole purpose of PGI's take on this revamped skill tree is to have differentiation between every mech. In this scenario, you can assume most mechs will have a 15% buff on hill climb. What's the purpose of having it in a tree, if everyone is going to have it. MIght as well pull it out of the tree and give it as a standard quirk to every mech. Also most "mastered" skills tend to be at the bottom of skill trees, yet Hill climb is slightly above the middle of the Ops tree.

It's obvious they just threw a dart at a board and threw it in that spot, as well as they knew most of us would never waste a skill point on hill climb. So this is a way to limit our choices in other trees.

Another somewhat comical tree is the lower chassis. The whole point of skill trees is to specialize in a certain one not everything. In this one I'm maxed out on accel/decel at the mid point of the tree and I don't get the full speed tweak until the very end. I feel this should be broken down differently, as in you can either get the full speed tweak or the max acceleration buffs, not both.

Finally, the sensor tree under info tech. Has anyone ever heard the term....jack of all, master of none? That's what that is! If you want specialization in the game as far as infotech....you just failed at that. Apparently they looked at the 2 most bought mech modules and put those at the bottom of the tree, figuring we'd all use skill points to get that and burn quite a few limiting us in other areas. Couple issues here at least 1 of the seismic sensor or radar derp should be in the upper half of the tree. On top of that it should be more broken out into paths...i.e. you can either go radar derp route, or target decay not both.

In the old format we were limited to having only 2 mech modules (3 on some lights/mediums)...I assume to not have too powerful of a mech w/ regards to infotech. Now lets say you wanted to get the full seismic sensor....well to get there, you have to get radar derp, target decay, target info gathering, target retention, & sensor range. That's a little silly imo. Not to mention that if most players go that route....opposing players will have target decay which is cancelling out the radar derps that we both had to get to advance in the skill tree. Making we wonder what's the point of getting a skill that will be counteracted to a degree by most players easily acquiring target decay?

Edited by Crashburn, 09 February 2017 - 11:39 AM.

[Hobbles v]

Well after toying around with my Warhammer 6D i found the following:

First I tried making it as close as possible in performance offensively to my current Warhammer in the live client.
the build is XL340, 3 LPL, 4 ML, 9 heatsinks.

Because of skills points that i had to pick up on the way to there was a lot of bonuses to be had. After tinkering and sacrificing some hard to get skills like twist speed and full out radar dep (stopped at 60%) I came to a build that compares to the live 6D as listed Below.

Positives:
35% Better Accel
35% Better Decel
7% Better turn rate
3% Better arm speed
50% less screen shake
12% better TiG
1.4s Target Decay
9% more sensor range
15% better hill climb
200(m?) 360 target retention
20% less fall damage
6% lower pulse duration
15% lower laser duration
6% more armour
10% more structure

Neutral
Same weapon ranges
same speed
Same weapon heat gen bonus (5% for both types)

Negatives
5% lower base heat cap
5% lower base heat dissipation
15% weapon convergence (probably nothing lost here as I dont think the skill worked before)
5% less twist speed
1% lower twist range
5% less quick ignition
40% less Radar deprivation effect
50m less seismic sensor range
less PPC velocity
no improved consumables

The base heat skill loss came out to about a 2% difference on the heat of each alpha. Being 45% heat standing still on emerald taiga on the live client and 47% heat on the pts. Hard to track the dissipation loss.

The new system however currently HEAVILY will favour weapon type boating. Switching my 6D to 3 LPL 3 MPL seems the more powerful choice.

2 pts less Alpha
Less effective range from the secondary lasers
Heat management is a wash. Less generated but lower disipation due to 2 less heat sinks.

What was gained by dumping all the points invested in my medium lasers:

another 6% turn rate
9% laser duration on my pulse lasers
another 15% structure bonus
9% more armour
Full power Radar Deprivation
more sensor range and TiG

In short definitely worth the medium laser range loss. Boating will be the only way to go for sure.

Edited by Hobbles v, 09 February 2017 - 02:33 PM.

[Trademark]

Hidie Ho!™

Thanks for the Stats Hobbs! Makes it easier for the rest of us lazy folk.