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- This new skill system really hurts the new player experience.
New players buy one Radar Derp and pass it around their mechs while they level them up.
Now, every single fresh, 0xp mech is going to be easily spotted / murdered by LRMs for the first few dozen matches until that player can save up enough xp and Cbills to afford Derp.
This makes leveling up new mechs more difficult than ever, which is a burden that new players will have to deal with.. especially in Tier 4/5, where LRMs are very popular.
The solution:
Give every single mech ~20 free nodes to unlock, right out of the box.
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- The biggest issue with this new skill system is that it encourages boating one weapon and penalizes build diversity. Mauler MX90 / Nova / Kodiak 3 / Grasshopper or any mech with multiples of one hardpoint type get to upgrade all of their weapons. Marauder / Orion / Victor / Vindicator are severely punished by having multiple types of hardpoints.
PGI claims that this system, and I quote:
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Promote greater build and 'Mech diversity
The system utterly fails at their own design goal.
The solution:
Don't have individual weapon skills. Consolidate weapon skills into categories that affect all three weapon types.
-Rate of fire: Reduce weapons cooldown for all weapons
-Range: Increase range for all weapons
-Heat efficiency: Reduce heat generation for all weapons
-Precision: Consolidate missile spread, LBX spread, laser duration, and projectile velocity into a single catch-all skill.
BOOM, then boats would be on the same footing as mechs that are forced to have a small number of three types of hardpoints.
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- The new system allows overperforming mechs to become even more powerful.
The Kodiak 3, the Marauder IIc and other mechs that are already clear overperformers manage to get an even larger leg-up on the competition within their weight bracket, with the new skill system.
The solution:
Overperforming mechs should have fewer nodes available to them.
Underperforming mechs should have more nodes available to them.
PGI has the stats. They know which mechs score, on average, more damage / kills than the other mechs within their weight bracket. The mechs that have better hitboxes / hardpoints should receive fewer nodes than ones that have terrible hitboxes and low / spread / diverse hardpoints.
