67 replies to this topic

[MookieDog]

Chound, on 11 February 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

HIH !!!!!!! 136k XP. I'm just starting,

Ya because we put in the time. We earned our stuff.. You dont get a free pass. I understand your pain we were all there once. Happy Grinding!

[jajsamurai]

romwyzard, on 09 February 2017 - 11:07 AM, said:

Basically everything you've worked so hard on will be gone and you have to spend a large amount of cash to get your Mechs back to their skill level and modules. This means that the money you've spent so far is basically spinning around the toilet bowl

This is not even close to true. It take 9M C-bills to master a mech in the new system. It cost well over 12M C-bills in the old system. Seismic wall hack was 6-Million by itself. Add in large pulse laser range and cooldown and thats another 6M C-bills. Radar dep would run another 6 mill as I recall so on one mech alone I have 18 Million Cbills. The new system costs half of that. I don't see why you are complaining that the cost to master in cbills has been reduced by 50% or more.

[MotokoMK]

You dont get the point. It's not the question whats better now... The question should be: How much money have you spent so far ?

Example: Old (not in years ^^) Player
3x Dire Wolf's for about 17.5 mio = 52,5 mio
lets say 4 Modules (Range, 360, Radar, Cooldown) which he is changing trough the mechs = 18 mio (we will get this back)
so in total 52.5 mio already spent

New Player:
needs only 1 Dire for 17.5 mio + 9 mio to master it = 26.5 mio in total
Looks much better for our new players now.

BUT: The Old guys have to pay another 3x 9 mio to master their 3 Variants... comes to a total of 79.5 mio

Bad example to choose an clan mech, bc you can build every design with every variant, but who sells a 17.5 mio mech when you only get about 7 mio back (without items) Not counting the hours to get the money...

[Chuck Corneliusson]

I would like PGI to take the modules out of this new skill tree and leave them as they are now. That way we can still switch modules between chassis. It makes playing a brand-new Mech a lot easier if you can put your modules on it before you take it into a match for the first time.

[SuperFunkTron]

Chuck Corneliusson, on 12 February 2017 - 01:32 PM, said:

I would like PGI to take the modules out of this new skill tree and leave them as they are now. That way we can still switch modules between chassis. It makes playing a brand-new Mech a lot easier if you can put your modules on it before you take it into a match for the first time.

The problem with this is that those modules become unattainable for new players. Lets use FP as an scenario to show why the hold system is worse for new players. If you want to outfit a whole drop deck (we will say 4 mechs as a bare minimum so as to exclude the actually need for a larger variety of mechs to handle different maps), Radar deprivation alone will cost 24million c-bills (4x6million). To get a 20 % variant of that costs only 6 nodes, or 600k c-bills. If someone wants the Radar deprivation skill maxed out, it requires 16 nodes (1.6 milliion). If we compare the drop decks of the old vs new system, only looking at the cost of Radar Deprivation, the old system requires 24million vs the new system requiring 6.4million to equip the same number of mechs.

The old system provides more value only if there is a chance to move that single module around while the new system allows putting it on every mech for just over 1/4 of the cost. If we examine this farther, the additional 4.4 million c-bills investment per a single radar deprivation module could be used to provide an additional 44 nodes of improvements for a single mech, or a total of 60 nodes for the same price. These costs are for a single module alone, not to mention the other 3 non consumable modules that people say they can move around for a comparable cost. Using an FP drop deck as a comparison point again, and the assumption of 18million c-bills to get all the "preferred" modules (not including the extra slot when elited) on each mech, we are at looking at 72 million c-bills in modules alone to fill 80% of modules slots for those 4 mechs. For the same 72 million c-bills, you could max out 7.9 mechs in the new system. To clarify, you not only make the new mech comparable to the old system, but you make each one significantly better and more efficient specifically to your needs.

The old module system provides it benefit only when you throw the same module between no less than 4 mechs for the mech modules and at least 2 mechs with the same weapon modules, assuming that you are playing quick play and using the exact same modules.

TL:DR- The old system isn't as cheap at it seems.

[MookieDog]

MotokoMK, on 12 February 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

You dont get the point. It's not the question whats better now... The question should be: How much money have you spent so far ?

Example: Old (not in years ^^) Player
3x Dire Wolf's for about 17.5 mio = 52,5 mio
lets say 4 Modules (Range, 360, Radar, Cooldown) which he is changing trough the mechs = 18 mio (we will get this back)
so in total 52.5 mio already spent

New Player:
needs only 1 Dire for 17.5 mio + 9 mio to master it = 26.5 mio in total
Looks much better for our new players now.

BUT: The Old guys have to pay another 3x 9 mio to master their 3 Variants... comes to a total of 79.5 mio

Bad example to choose an clan mech, bc you can build every design with every variant, but who sells a 17.5 mio mech when you only get about 7 mio back (without items) Not counting the hours to get the money...

Heh... maybe you dont get it.

Ok so here is my current situation: I have five MAD-3R's, 1 Bounty Hunter, 1 MAD-5D, 1 MAD-5M. On the MAD-3R's alone I have 750K XP, the BH 300K+, the 5D-250K+, 5M-200K+XP. All of that XP sits and does nothing unless I have MC and convert but thats another issue. To add to that I have the modules to back all of those mechs up; Radar DERP, Seismic, weapon mods, ect...

But the bottom line is.... I took me time to build all of those mechs up. Every mech to be fully 100% either scout ready or FW ready was 30 million+ Cbills, sometimes more. To fully kit out a mech with the new rules.. its 9.1 million. So you pick your mechs you want to concentrate on and branch out from there. If you play IS mechs, buy maybe an XL, double heat sinks, and you may spend 20 million.. maybe. You can still change out weapons and engines.

If you play clans.. which you said.. your three Direwolves.. really? You can only run one in FW (clans are at what 245 tons?), and you can only play one in pug matches. Its a that non issue unless you are discoing immediately after you get killed, and are jumping into another match in another DW.

Sorry, you are not going to be able to snap your fingers and have all of your mech mastered in a day, like under the old system.

Happy Grinding, and save those C-Bills.

Edited by MookieDog, 12 February 2017 - 05:02 PM.

[Hotthedd]

SuperFunkTron, on 12 February 2017 - 02:00 PM, said:

Lets use FP as an scenario to show why the hold system is worse for new players.

New players should not be dropping in FP.

[SuperFunkTron]

Hotthedd, on 13 February 2017 - 05:29 AM, said:

New players should not be dropping in FP.

Is that really all you have to discredit those facts? I've been dropping with players who are jumping into FP after a month or two and are pulling reasonable scores (1000 average). These guys are still new, and doing well, and you don't want them there why?

In case you missed the the case referring to QP, here it is again:
The old module system provides it benefit only when you throw the same module between no less than 4 mechs for the mech modules and at least 2 mechs with the same weapon modules, assuming that you are playing quick play and using the exact same modules.

That means that someone would would have be forced into using the same build across all of those mechs, reinforcing a "meta" with a very high cost to pay for experimenting with other weapons (weapon nodules run at 3million a piece) as they figure out not only what best suits them but what suits that particular mech (large pulse lasers aren't useful on every single mech in the game).

For your sake, lets expand on the cost benefit here. For each new weapon that a new player would want to explore in modules, there is an additional 6 million c-bills needed for the range and cooldown modules. If the new player tries out just 3 different weapons with their modules, that is an additional 18 million added to the single radar deprivation and other mech module.... totaling to 30 million. 30 million will master 4 and third new mechs entirely which would benefit from a much wider array of upgrades than the current module system.

So even under your belief that new players shouldn't be in FP, the old system makes getting FP ready much more expensive. Feel free to do the math for both QP and FP and see which comes out better for facilitating progression to FP.

[Znail]

It's correct that the total cost to fully max out a drop deck is higher in the current system then in the new one. But that neglects that a new player can't max out his mechs early on as GXP limits how much you can spend on mudules. This is true for quite a while so a new player will be at a slight handicap, but on the other hand so will you need to drop in Facation Play to meet enemies that have maxed out mechs as other newish players are in the same situation.

[Hotthedd]

SuperFunkTron, on 13 February 2017 - 06:24 AM, said:

Is that really all you have to discredit those facts? I've been dropping with players who are jumping into FP after a month or two and are pulling reasonable scores (1000 average). These guys are still new, and doing well, and you don't want them there why?

In case you missed the the case referring to QP, here it is again:
The old module system provides it benefit only when you throw the same module between no less than 4 mechs for the mech modules and at least 2 mechs with the same weapon modules, assuming that you are playing quick play and using the exact same modules.

That means that someone would would have be forced into using the same build across all of those mechs, reinforcing a "meta" with a very high cost to pay for experimenting with other weapons (weapon nodules run at 3million a piece) as they figure out not only what best suits them but what suits that particular mech (large pulse lasers aren't useful on every single mech in the game).

For your sake, lets expand on the cost benefit here. For each new weapon that a new player would want to explore in modules, there is an additional 6 million c-bills needed for the range and cooldown modules. If the new player tries out just 3 different weapons with their modules, that is an additional 18 million added to the single radar deprivation and other mech module.... totaling to 30 million. 30 million will master 4 and third new mechs entirely which would benefit from a much wider array of upgrades than the current module system.

So even under your belief that new players shouldn't be in FP, the old system makes getting FP ready much more expensive. Feel free to do the math for both QP and FP and see which comes out better for facilitating progression to FP.

I wasn't trying to discredit your entire argument, just that example of WHY you were premising your argument.
I will amend my statement: MOST new players should not be doing FP. They don't have the equipment, and most probably still need to hone their skills. If they already possess the skills, and are grouped with a team, and have invested the money to have the equipment (which is very few new players), then sure, let them enjoy FP without gimping their team.

As for the rest of your argument, I am in agreement (mostly). I agree that the new system actually LOWERS the barrier for entry, and that it is a good thing.

[SuperFunkTron]

@Hotthed

Sorry if my delivery came out harsh. I mistakenly assumed it was a one line attack at the whole premise after reading some of the other posts in other threads this morning.

[Hotthedd]

SuperFunkTron, on 13 February 2017 - 08:58 AM, said:

@Hotthed

Sorry if my delivery came out harsh. I mistakenly assumed it was a one line attack at the whole premise after reading some of the other posts in other threads this morning.

No worries.
It gave me a chance to clarify my statement.

[Smokey2]

So if you look at the node tree, the best ones are usually at the bottom. Forcing you to buy a bunch of crap ones, you don't want, to get the ones you actually want. Sounds like I'm dealing with my satellite TV provider. It's called bundling. Sole purpose is to make you bill higher. PGI is probably hoping you'll buy more MCs to get back to were you were before.

[Gat]

Spending some time thinking about this I am of two minds. It does seem expensive especially to new players. Being a C-Bill hoarder 9 mill dose seem like a lot on the face of things.

First argument from an advanced player perspective. 100,000 C-Bills and 1,500 XP is easily earned in a single match. From a mech leveling aspect the comes to between 1 to 3 nodes per match. This is a good reward incentive because you get something every match rather than the current system.

The con 1, grinding a freshe mech can be excruciatingly painful. There are some mechs that are fun throughout the leveling process, but then there are those that are a slog until they have the needed mods, which this drags out.
Note: Some of the mechs that are a slog are also the ones you only get because of the 3 chassy requirement for opening up master. No need to play the garbage chassis.

New players do not earn XP and C-Bills at the rate of advanced players, so moving the quarks to this new system makes starting out with a fresh mech harder.

Building a Drop Deck
New players need to focus on building a drop deck of four mechs. If they are dumping both C-Bills and XP into each node then they don't have money to buy mechs. This puts new players in the bad situation of choosing to spec out a single mech and just use trial mechs for the other three drop deck slots or slog through playing many matches with a mech they are not unlocking nodes on just to build a drop deck that will then let them do CW and level up all four mechs at a similar rate. I am not saying the current system is any better but it is an aspect to consider.

In terms of the trees themselves. Some of them actually add more mech diversity just because players may have to pick nodes they wouldn't have normally considered. This makes Min/Maxing a lot more challenging, and forces players to consider which of the nodes they wouldn't have even considered before in terms of their play style for patching to the nodes they do want. The major concern here is someone being forced to spend C-Bills on nodes that can't be used by a mech, Namely arm actuators. In the old system it didn't matter if your mech didn't need them because it didn't really cost anything, but in this there are a few places where the player would be forced to get a skill that flat out can't be used by the mech or mech build. The cases where you have to get a hill climb node is fine because you still get some benefit. Another case is Operations, heat efficient mechs like Gauss mechs, as a off the cuff example, you may not really see any benefit in this section because you have to pick from nodes that provide no benefit do get some specific skills you may want. This could be considered a tax, but it does fall out of line from the hill climb argument that even though you wouldn't want it it provides some benefit the case I mentioned hypothetically could be providing no benefit.

Other players have posted their suggestions about what to do. My only purpose here is to point out some areas that could use some more design assessment.

[Chound]

MookieDog, on 12 February 2017 - 04:59 PM, said:

Heh... maybe you dont get it.

Ok so here is my current situation: I have five MAD-3R's, 1 Bounty Hunter, 1 MAD-5D, 1 MAD-5M. On the MAD-3R's alone I have 750K XP, the BH 300K+, the 5D-250K+, 5M-200K+XP. All of that XP sits and does nothing unless I have MC and convert but thats another issue. To add to that I have the modules to back all of those mechs up; Radar DERP, Seismic, weapon mods, ect...

But the bottom line is.... I took me time to build all of those mechs up. Every mech to be fully 100% either scout ready or FW ready was 30 million+ Cbills, sometimes more. To fully kit out a mech with the new rules.. its 9.1 million. So you pick your mechs you want to concentrate on and branch out from there. If you play IS mechs, buy maybe an XL, double heat sinks, and you may spend 20 million.. maybe. You can still change out weapons and engines.

If you play clans.. which you said.. your three Direwolves.. really? You can only run one in FW (clans are at what 245 tons?), and you can only play one in pug matches. Its a that non issue unless you are discoing immediately after you get killed, and are jumping into another match in another DW.

Sorry, you are not going to be able to snap your fingers and have all of your mech mastered in a day, like under the old system.

Happy Grinding, and save those C-Bills.

only if he doesn't master the mecfh. In the old system you need three variants of a mech to master one mech. once you have the three mechs you use the XP to unlock mech skills that are attatched to the mech and gxp for pilot skills.
With the new system you can buy one mech and start mastering it with GXP or XP and Cbills. It sounds a lot easier under the new system to gain skills. Some players really struggle to get their C bills.

Edited by Chound, 15 February 2017 - 02:41 AM.

[Asterisk]

Eteokles81, on 09 February 2017 - 10:32 AM, said:

Not only cbills. A not so active or fairly new player who didn't yet have any or only a few modules will be set back hardcore in comparison.

Just compare what a new player got in just a few hours of Gameplay by looking at the first tier of the old skill tree! To only and just get what he had, only the first tier, would be impossible now!

Even worse if you maybe made some slight errors in selling mechs you didn't need any more (because for example as a noob, you sold them after completing tier 1 in each of them, so you could go speed tweak on one variant you wanted). Trying to get a mech just to the level it was in the old system is straight impossible for players who didn't play until owning dozens of modules!

In short, take the first tier skills to the top of the new skill tree and make them cheaper, so new players have a better chance to catch up!

Example: Cool Run, 7.5%. Done after first match in the old system! Now I need 16500XP (!!) and 1.1Mio cBills, only to get 8%!

This is me. I don't get to play very much, as I'm almost constantly in the field for work. When I am home though, I like to sit down, pop on some MWO and drive stompy robots. I've played since the very beginning, and I have a couple of dozen Mechs mastered--and that's a big deal for me. That's a ton of time played and hard work. I'm not a great player. Sure, I do my best to help my team win, but I'm by no means top-tier.

I like to get a few comfortable mechs--those that were my favorite back in my tabletop days--and master them. I'll try different loadouts on them. Sometimes I'll get crazy and set them up with new paint schemes. For the last year or so, I've really enjoyed my time in MWO, because there hasn't been the pressure to squeeze every single C-Bill out of every single fight. I've been able to be a much more calm, even courteous player that than that guy that gets over competitive and screams at people to leave CW or delete the game because they aren't good "enough."

After spending a couple of hours in the the Meclab and trying to rebuild my 'Mechs, the pressure's back. Just to get the money and the XP to get my 'Mechs back to where they currently are on live is going to be weeks or months of play time. Even worse, if I want to try new or different builds again. What's worse is that every several months, I've had to change the loadouts on several of my 'Mechs as the meta changes; now that's going to be even more expensive. Granted, I can get the XP back, and that's no problem--but I don't have the money to pour into the MC or time to earn the CBills to have to respec one of my mechs once a month. *Shrug* I'm being priced out of the game. If these changes move forward as-is, I hope that the upcoming single-player offerings are as captivating or moreso than MWO. When I play other MMO's, I usually only have a single character because I loathe repeating content. I really don't want to have to re-grind my favorite 'Mechs. I already put in the work once.

EDIT: Just jumping back in to say that the joy of the game, for me is in experimentation. In the system's present iteration, I certainly can't afford to try new things. Worse still is the pressure to get a build right, the first time, without testing; if I focus on upper chassis and it turns out what I really needed was lower chassis, it's a helluva grind to go back after one match and find out I was wrong.

Edited by Asterisk, 15 February 2017 - 09:27 AM.

[Hotthedd]

Asterisk, on 15 February 2017 - 09:23 AM, said:

What's worse is that every several months, I've had to change the loadouts on several of my 'Mechs as the meta changes;

Dude, don't chase the meta. Play what you enjoy playing and the C-bills and XP will accumulate naturally.

[Re4PeRger]

I still could't wrap my mind around it completely, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The 136K EXP + 9M cbills to master one mech seems ok for me, you don't need to buy 3 mechs to get them mastered, anymore. so far so good.
New players have a hard time against others who have been around a while, okay, sad but true, but there may be other ways to soften their way into the game, cadet bonuses for example or maybe a fight versus bots in a future patch, who knows.
To get your cbils back you already spent for your modules, absolutely fair...
BUT.... *angry voice on*
I have almost 100 mechs (some ppl here have waaay more, my deepest respect goes to such devotion to the game), some of them mastered, most of them at least with completed basic efficiencies. I only own a few modules, they always deemed to be too expensive for the small effect (yeah, I may be wrong here, some modules are game changers i.e. radar derp.), I did not even swap between mechs -it was okay, I got along that way. So now with the new skill revamp I'll get a refund of my Mech XP but I have to pay said 9.1M cbills per mech to master it again?! Guys! This is a robbery, I already paid for this with real money an time, so please give us the amount of cbills necessary to skill our mechs to the level they are now!
*angry voice off*
What else concerns me, I like experimenting with loadouts! Many patches brought changes in meta, unloved mechs suddenly became enjoyable. I often played a match, died, and cycled through my remaining mates to check out their loadout. Many times I came up with a nice idea for a new loadout but now, I'm afraid I will refrain from experimenting if I'm going to be billed for every change I make.
This skill system just propels boating, chassis with more than one weapontype have to split SP between them. Such mechs may be more versatile, but we all know that such a mech will be shred by the new buffed meta-8xC-ERLL-l4z0rboat at 1500m.
My roadmap so far: Sit back and wait, no more cash for PGI, no more cbills for skills to begin with, just sit and wait and watch where the pain train goes.

[MechWarior9169571]

jajsamurai, on 11 February 2017 - 08:12 PM, said:

This is not even close to true. It take 9M C-bills to master a mech in the new system. It cost well over 12M C-bills in the old system. Seismic wall hack was 6-Million by itself. Add in large pulse laser range and cooldown and thats another 6M C-bills. Radar dep would run another 6 mill as I recall so on one mech alone I have 18 Million Cbills. The new system costs half of that. I don't see why you are complaining that the cost to master in cbills has been reduced by 50% or more.

Please stop being disingenuous! Those seismic sensors and radar deps were interchangeable between mechs. Which means you only really had to buy one of each WITH gxp alone, no c-bills needed. If you play CW then you have to buy more but that dropdeck can also change modules between mechs if you change mechs out in it.

Most of the fun in the game is had when you experiment with a mech's loadout to find what you like or just for the goofs sometimes. That will be gone with the new system because it would be insane to start over on a skilltree system to "switch specialities". The end result would be that you would have to rebuy the same mech and remaster it on a new skilltree. Funfactor = 0! Yeah, I know everyone has to grind a little, but that's taking it way too far!

I for one won't be buying mechpacks or using anymore MC if this insanity is implemented. The whole implementation of adding c-bills to the mix just comes off to me as being too greedy. I already paid for the mechpacks I bought, and earned the xp grinding it playing matches. Why should I have to use more MC or grind more c-bills for something I already have (yes the new system will have a different twist, but my point stands). I like the comparison one player had to the extras being taken away by the dealer on the new car you just bought and one having to buy them again at an inflated cost!

The whole idea of more C-bill sinks being needed is offensive to me, Hotthedd. Things cost enough as it is, why in the hell should more things be added? Are you an employee of PGI and "in the know"? To me that sounds like you are speaking out of your a$$ and simply trying to justify the unjustifiable.

In the end it all boils down to making the game more fun. To me the answer would be to keep what you got so that skills are locked once bought with MC or C-bills and XP (you won't be screwed if you want to change you mech). Make them for XP or GXP only (like the current system)! Pissing your loyal fan base off with this super greedy move is not a good idea, take C-Bills/MC out of the whole skill tree system. Boil down some skilltrees like lump AC's together. The idea is not a terrible one - the idea to put more variability into the game might actually be fun, but the implementation of it is pure BS!

I hate to make predictions, but I'll be sure to make this one: At it's current state the skilltree rework will be the deathknell for PGI. Sorry for the commando pun!

Edited by romwyzard, 15 February 2017 - 02:41 PM.

[SuperFunkTron]

I did a few respecs today and found that the system doesn't charge for nodes that stay in place. Is that consistent with other people's experience? After a week of the PTS being out, I think that the small respec cost itself isn't so bad, but the repurchasing of the node is the more painful element. I could see either a reduction in initial node cost OR a reduced node cost when doing a respec. I want the experimenting and fine tuning to be encouraged, but considering the realistic nature of taking your mech in for "tuning" it makes sense that some cost be associated with adjusting your upgrades. To expand on the 2nd idea, make it cost 30-40k per node when doing the respec (25k for the service plus 5-10 for "moving upgrades").