18 replies to this topic

[Kuaron]

I’d like to discuss a little pricing and allocation in a constructive manner.

Problem 1:
You have to specialize on one weapon branch if you want the maximum out of the important mobility (you want all of it!), durability (almost all) and sensors (seismic & raderp, ya know). Otherwise you are missing the optimum. There is no advantage, not even a single reason, to partly skill multiple weapon branches. Skilling even more than two seems insane, a most noobish error without justification.
This being said, Mechs with hardpoints of too many different types are considered inferior an the old system already to boating-able chassis.

Problem 2:
You have to invest enormous amounts of money of CBills and XP for – no, not mastering, just what is the equivalent of basicing and eliteing one Mech.
If mastering in the new system is supposed to be the equivalent to mastering + stuffing full with modules in the old one, therefore buying two other variants you don’t care about at all, grind them until they are basiced or elited and ditch them immediately after. For each single Mech. This may be a problem for people who keep all three variants and enjoy all of them without additional effort mastering the remaining two (which is true for probably the majority of the players). But also, there is a lack of an equivalent to buying merely one variant and basicing it. You have to spend big amounts of CBs from the even start.


Now, concerning the solutions. If you agree on both being a problem, how would you solve it?

Currently on the PTS, there are less popular skill choices between the popular ones, the latter are spread across the skill tree s.t. you have to open almost an entire branch to get i.e. all 5 of the precious heat get skills. Some people may dislike this for prolonging the grind, but it does be a measure against over-specialisation and cherry-picking. But only inside one branch – you instead specialize on entire branches now. So it is only partly effective.

What would be desirable, IMO, is an easy start and an expensive finish of a specialisation in a way that would give generalized skill builds more value in absolute but less in, as the name suggests, particular specialisations.
This is supposed to adress both problems, 1 as well as 2.

There are multiple ways to choose from.

Way 1 – variable cost:

• Make skill trees linear (meaning no compulsory unpopular choices to take on the way to the desired ones). More free choice, see also.
  
• Make popular skills significantly more expensive than unpopular ones.
  
• Make higher tiers (4–5) of the same skill significantly more expensive than the first ones, like >4–5 times as expensive (also addressing problem 2).
  
• Change the overall limit from 91 nodes to a maximum number of XP spent.
  
• Bonus: Lowtier Skills costing only XP, no CBs (→ problem 2 again).

Way 2 – variable value:

• Make skill trees linear, as above.
  
• Make lower tier skills give a much (much!) greater improvement than the latter ones. Instead of i.e. 1%+1%+1%+1%+1% more like 2.75%+1.2%+0.6%+0.3%+0.15% or at least 1,9%+1,2%+0,9%+0,6%+0,4%.
  
• Combine less popular skills to less nodes. I.e. instead of 1%+1%+1%+1%+1% do 3%+1.4%+0.6% or 3.2%+1.8%.
  
• Bonus: You still can let one Mech’s (not branche’s) first skills cost no CBs and add the cost on top of the last a Mech learns (being an equivalent to the expensive modules).

Way 3 – reverse philosophy:

• Put the valuable, desired and popular skills on the start and the unpopular refinement skills on the end of the skill tree.
  
• This way, ofc. one takes the main improvement of the main weapon first. Let us call this “basicing” the Mach. But then one would have the choice between having the main weapon (i.e. SRMs on a CAT-C4) get a minor improvement (velocity) or the secondary/backup weapon (MLs) a major improvement (laser heat gen).
  
• Reduce overall skill limit (supposing you don’t have to grind out entire branches any more to get your desired skills, them being more a matter of choice).

Opinions, preferences and more suggestions?

Edited by Kuaron, 09 February 2017 - 06:05 AM.

[Kuaron]

This being said, how would you handle the sensors branch in case of a linearized tree?

I still kinda like the idea of seismic requiring good overall sensors (and therefore being hidden behind appropriate skills) and ECM skills as upgrades from their closest relative, the radar derp.

[Fox2232]

For Problem 1:
There are so many mechs with all kinds of hardpoint without quirks to boost them all. My most enjoyable mech has LRM/SRM quirks and I only use lasers on him And it rocks.
+ There was information that: "Quirks are not Gone" and mech which end up being weak will get sufficient boost.

For Problem 2:
As relatively new player who is hit by cost much more than you, I suggest even increasing initial cost. Because currently modules cost few millions while new tree will give you same functionality for 100k and you can have as many of them as you want.
Your Problem 2 is actually not problem of initial cost, but issue with respecing and experimentation cost. As current system tells people to stick with what they made instead of promoting diversity and experimentation (Big source of joy for many).

[ingramli]

My solution:

No more "tree design", make it another way. A mech can utilize up to 50,000pt of XP (similar to the grind requirement before), XP can be allocate to enable different upgrade, and release the XP by "disable" it, for example (numbers are just placeholder),

Seismic Sensor : 7,500XP &750,000CB (For 150M detection)
Seismic Sensor upgrade 1: 4,000XP&400,000CB (+50M detection radius, only available after enabling the basic sensor)
Seismic Sensor upgrade 2: 6,000XP&600,000CB (+50M detection radius, only available after enabling the upgrade 1)

Speed tweak: 5,000XP&500,000CB (Speed + 7.5%)
...............................

The cap is the total xp possible to be utilize on the specific mech, which can be adjusted as a mean to buff/nerf a mech. In addition, the change of modules enabled should be FREE. The XP and CB above is the cost to "unlock", once it is unlocked, it remain unlocked forever, whether it is "enabled" or "disabled".

And yes, i am sure that PGI will be less than happy with this idea because they want us to spend insane amount to grind or pay for premium time.

Edited by ingramli, 09 February 2017 - 07:51 AM.

[Kuaron]

Fox2232, on 09 February 2017 - 07:12 AM, said:

For Problem 1:
There are so many mechs with all kinds of hardpoint without quirks to boost them all. My most enjoyable mech has LRM/SRM quirks and I only use lasers on him And it rocks.
+ There was information that: "Quirks are not Gone" and mech which end up being weak will get sufficient boost.

For Problem 2:
As relatively new player who is hit by cost much more than you, I suggest even increasing initial cost. Because currently modules cost few millions while new tree will give you same functionality for 100k and you can have as many of them as you want.
Your Problem 2 is actually not problem of initial cost, but issue with respecing and experimentation cost. As current system tells people to stick with what they made instead of promoting diversity and experimentation (Big source of joy for many).

Problem 1:
The best Mechs don’t even have quirks, don’t need them, they are still good. There was a time where a few overquirked IS mechs made the game but they are all long nerfed since.
With the new 8/8 quirks and other quirks on the newer Mechs, PGI changed its policy from quirking Mechs according to their preferred weapon choice to giving single, otherwise useless hardpoints qirkes to make them more attractive and this way create choice and versatility. The MAD-IIC-8 would be just a worse Prime variant without its quirked missile slot – but this way you have a reson and a choice to make something out of it. Or continue using lasers, as the hardpoints suggest, opposing to the quirks, as you do. This is the completely correct direction PGI took – and the branches as they are on PTS1 are taking the opposite route.
I assume you see where this is going.

Problem 2:
Yes, I had seen your thread.
But I disagree.
You do can have a viable half-skilled Mech for cheap now, being basiced and maybe with a borrowed module. It’s not about experimentation, it’s about playing on low budget.
Tbh, I am against overly freely respecing, as you suggest in your thread. It’s nice for new players to see what does what, I give you that. But I also like the idea of a Mech building a specific character after a time, and I want this character also being able to be called a hybrid/mixed build instead of a mere specialisation on one of the current branches. This is not supported by the PTS1 skill tree. (Yes, I’m speaking about problem 1 again.) What you are suggesting, though, is less about diversity and more about needing less Mechs for the same builds. Similar to what we have now: They are all skilled the same and you only need to change the equipment to make a Mech a completely different one.
This is not necessarily bad, I just don’t like it as much.

@ ingramli:

ingramli, on 09 February 2017 - 07:39 AM, said:

My solution:

No more "tree design", make it another way. A mech can utilize up to 50,000pt of XP (similar to the grind requirement before), XP can be allocate to enable different upgrade, and release the XP by "disable" it, for example (numbers are just placeholder),

So you would mainly stay with the old system but include modules as skills and give skills CB cost in exchange?
And the lock/unlock and cap stuff making you change a Mech’s specialization as quickly as Fox also wishes.

Hm…
It is a smaller step than a tree system, but it is an improvement over the current/old one, I guess, and it could work. Apart from the question of taste, I’m not sure how this solution adresses the problems above.
(If PGI was about to make this but stay greedy, they could just invent some big numbers.)

[Kuaron]

Ah, look at this:



Fantastic Tuesday is speaking about boating for most of his critique. And he even mentions what is called “way 2” here in this thread.
He seems to be seeing the same problems.
His own suggestion has something to do with WoW but I never played it.
Anyone be so nice and explain what’s the case there?

Something about maximum skillpoints per branch?
Wouldn’t this mean that either the nodes need to be balanced really well (instead of bulk on the way to better ones) or the choices what not to choose would become obvious?

Also, another thread finds a really interesting suggestion to prevent boating and deserves to be linked here:
https://mwomercs.com...-trees-concept/
Changing the branches from weapon types (laser, pulse etc.) to quirk types (cooldown, heat gen etc.) to address problem 1.
With some minor tweaking I can imagine problem 2 easily solved as well.
Let’s call it way 4 for consistency.

Edit:
Found way 5:
https://mwomercs.com...rcent-dividing/

Edited by Kuaron, 09 February 2017 - 03:03 PM.

[Sickario]

I voted for 1 but I was a bit worried about the "significant" cost of the final tiers. Whatever the costs may be, they need to be more-or-less in line with the costs of the old system. In other words, while I understand longtime veterans have plenty of currency to spare, us newer players don't need to be knocked back down to square one and having to grind out again for that which we already paid.

I also want to request that anything we bought before the skill tree public test began, can we please be allowed to sell it back at full value, instead of the usual half value, especially anything we paid MC to get? I know we're not getting our MC's back, but it would be nice if this loss can be mitigated by allowing us to get back the same cost in C-bills that it would have cost to buy the Mechs. I know a lot of people who bought 3 variances in order to get mastered plan on keeping all 3 of of their Mechs, but there are some of us who only did so because it we had to, when in truth we only wanted one Mech (which is now being fixed, and we appreciate it). But I don't think it's asking for too much, especially if we paid MC's for the Mechs, to get a full refund if we wish to sell one or two of the other variances.

I know this isn't something that I'm likely to see but I figured there'd be no harm in asking. I haven't been playing for a long time, but I paid a significant financial cost in order to get a running start in catching up with the veterans. Then I found out that the system would be changed. While I like the changes as a concept, I hate the idea of losing all that value of what I spent. Yes I can keep the other variances and give them a try but honestly I don't see much of a need for them at this point. Selling them back at half cost is just compounding the loss, and because I didn't have the C-bills to buy the variances at the time my only recourse was to buy them with MC's if i wanted to get at least one of them to Elite ASAP so they could be an asset to my unit. And that's why I was hoping to at least get their full C-bill value back if I decided to sell them. And I know, no one put a gun to my head and made me buy them, it was my choice and I know I'm probably going to have to accept the loss, but I'm asking anyway.

I'd also like to add something about respec-ing. I don't like the idea of having to pay a significant amount for changing our spec. If nothing else at least give it a time limit, maybe a week or so to where we can change it again at a lower (or no) cost in case we decide the spec we have chosen isn't working as well as we hoped.

I also have an idea about fixing the concerns about all Mechs becoming boats with the new changes. Why not keep the current point system where we can only put in so many points per mech, but give more points for certain Mechs, especially Heroes and Champions and Primes or what have you, but make those extra points only spendable in weapons categories. That way they'd have more flexibility if they wanted to use more than two types of weapons, while avoiding becoming pay-to-win and/or giving certain Mechs too much of an advantage over other ones.

Just my thoughts on what I've seen so far.

[Codpond]

Yea guys there are enough pay walls for new players. Let's get more people up to fighting strength. Casual player retention is of the upmost importance.

[Kuaron]

@ Sickario:
Maybe you (and you too, Philocrates) liked it more if I wrote “lower levels of skills costing significantly less” instead of “higher significantly more”.

Refunds for second and third variants is a legit argument if PGI tries to justify the high skill cost with their former necessity.
I’d rather have cheaper skills (in CB) though.

Respecing with time restrictions is a good idea!
I like it much more than making respecing too cheap overall (and thus the skill choices inconsequential).
Respecing should be less expensive still, but (after the testing period) no that cheap, if you ask me. But as already said, this is a matter of taste.

Fixed skill points for each weapon branch as a measure against boating has been suggested here:
https://mwomercs.com...gainst-boating/
I’m not sure about it. Seems quite stiff and restrictive, even if it might happen to do the job. Also, it still doesn’t influence how you spend your remaining 61 points.
Of course there must not be a privilege for heroes and champs here. Call it as you like but this would be pay2win and PGI hopefully knows it.

[Sickario]

Fair enough, and thanks for the level-headed response, Kauron. I'd be okay with "similar levels of skill costs" or however it would be phrased hehe. I just don't like the idea of paying a great deal more, especially for something that I've already purchased.

And that's a good point about the pay-to-win problem that PGI has done a good job of avoiding thus far. I'm just trying to think of a solution to the boat issue, because this "one size fits all" approach is part of the problem. Maybe the amount of points you get can be affected by weight? I don't mean taking away points from Lights (they seem to be pretty much the right amount since few can use more than one or two weapons anyway) as much as giving a few more points to Heavy and Assault Mech, limited to weapon types to allow them to keep a wide variety of weapons if they want.

I saw another great idea in another thread where we just pick out generalized characteristics to work for all weapons, with a final special ability that would change depending on what kind of weapon you were using (tighter spread for missiles, less jamming for UAC, high crits perhaps for AC, etc.), but that may difficult for getting everyone to agree on what special skill would benefit their weapon class the most.

[Kynesis]

I have only just started to look at the PTS and think about how the pro's and con's of the system and how it might be improved, so what I'm offering here isn't a solution as such, but guidelines and direction.

There should be pools of talent points, equally divided for offence, a pool of points for defence, a pool of points for utility and a pool of points for mobility.

Each category should have no more than say, five tiers and three to five exclusive choices for each tier.
Each node within a tier should include a trade-off.

If you want a faster mech for example, you may have to sacrifice turning ability, torso twisting, acceleration, braking or perhaps maximum armour.

It would be nice if players could choose what exactly they are willing to sacrifice for a given nodes advantage, but it is important to keep the system relatively simple. People shouldn't have to juggle tiny values, spreadsheets or refer to external sources to figure out how to build a decent mech or avoid traps.

It would be nice if each mech (not necessarily each variant) had a tier that was specific to its character / lore / role.

It is entirely reasonable to have a cost to respec but there is no good reason to break that cost down to individual nodes if you're not trying to whittle out every cent from your loyal customers.

Edited by Kynesis, 10 February 2017 - 03:55 AM.

[Captain Arctic]

I suggest this simple solution (be ready for "TL;DR" if you'll decide to read it).
In few words: separate weapons+auxiliary and defense+utility nodes in two independent trees with their own limit of SPs.

P.S.: few words as promised

P.P.S.: Making skill trees linear was exactly my first thought about "how to fix the new system", but then I've found that it's not enough effective to counter the boating. Until the system will be oversaturated with defensive/utility skills, but this makes the new specialization system pointless. So while playing and testing the new system I was continuing to think that there must be a simple and effective way to get rid of the boating. Changing just variables were not an option too, because this isn't a guaranteed way. The larger variables, the easier to miss something. And when I was analyzing and comparing the new system and the old one, I've finally found the simple and guaranteed way. As long as you have spare unspent SPs in the offensive/auxiliary part of the Skill Tree (which you can't spend on the second part), you will be itching to spend them for a secondary weapon to become more effective on the battlefield.

Edited by Captain Arctic, 10 February 2017 - 09:44 AM.

[Kuaron]

Though about your suggestion for a moment.

Thanks for linking it, first of all.
It surely is an improvement over what we have on PTS1.
But a problem I see with such fixed limits is that they create another optimum. If you lock the offensive skills at a number suitable for about 2 branches, you gat an optimum at two weapon groups. Welcome back LPL+ML vomit! Welcome back Gauss+PPC meta! It’s not like builds with two weapon types were totally underdog before, but at the end of the day there is very little done for those with 3+ weapon types, just shifted the balance from 1 to 2.
I guess, there is no way but to rebuild the branches and/or to massively change the cost of the individual skills in some way.

Edited by Kuaron, 10 February 2017 - 12:35 PM.

[Captain Arctic]

Yes, you're right, but I know at least 3 reasons to make the new system optimized for two weapon types:
1. It's simply the classical way for military actions and therefore for first person shooters too: main weapon and backup sidearm.
2. It will not harm single weapon type boats like KDK-3, but will make them more equal to hybrids like Atlas.
3. Existence of a meta is unavoidable, but two weapon types meta is more complicated (better) than "press X to win".
I'm sure that later there'll be a need for tweaking some variables somehow, but first things first.

And about more than 2 weapon types on board: this always was pointless and useless due to tonnage/slots limits - nothing to lose.

P.S.: I've described my future suggestion for the next step, which could resolve weapon types limitation at all. You can find it in my main post right below the main suggestion, if you're interested.

Edited by Captain Arctic, 11 February 2017 - 03:13 AM.

[The Lost Boy]

There is a use for partially opening a weapon skill tree. On my PTS Scortch, I have 4srm6a, 2 ac10, 2 small pulse. I unlocked the srm fully, and the 5 velocity levels for the ac! The velocity buff for an ac10 or 20 is VERY usefull. Not very noobish at all.

[TheMadTypist]

I'm afraid I don't have a fix for problem 1, but for problem 2, I can understand why they made it so expensive to go all the way because you can do a lot more now than you could before (and the power difference between skilled and unskilled is bigger), but getting people invested in the system (akin to basic/elite-ing) will be harder, especially trying to earn while up against fully skilled veterans- and I don't think that's intentional or desirable.

As the bonuses you'll be building up will be quite small in the beginning, I think the pricing should reflect that. The first ten nodes should cost only 25k each- as in, no matter what 10 nodes you unlock on that mech in what tree, they're only 25k each. The next ten go up to 50k, to let new players know it's going to be expensive to go all the way while still allowing them to get a foothold, nodes 21-30 cost 75k each to ease the transition to the full price while allowing an appreciable bonus to build up, and nodes 31-91 cost the full 100k, such that the full depth and new height of power still needs an equivalent investment to reach it.

Effectively, you're getting nodes 1-30 for half price (10x25, 10x50, 10x75 = 15x100) so getting an investment into the system is easier, the minor initial bonuses are less expensive, and the full depth still has that 'end game' grind they were going for.

[EpyonComet]

As I read through the OP, it seemed for the first half that I was going to vote for "not agreeing on the problems," but actually I like Method 2 a lot.

Also there's no need for huge, sweeping changes to enable experimentation, they just need to make it so that, once you invest in a skill, you can pull that skill point back out, with the game keeping track of the investment, effectively refunding you a skill point for the mech without giving you back, or costing, any additional C-bills or XP.

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

[SmokedJag]

People "boat" because it works and they don't need mismatched fluff weapons when they know the opposition is another company of 'Mechs. Very few 'Mechs can carry enough weaponry to specialize in more than one range bracket at a time.

[Kuaron]

Lemming of the BDA, on 11 February 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

There is a use for partially opening a weapon skill tree. On my PTS Scortch, I have 4srm6a, 2 ac10, 2 small pulse. I unlocked the srm fully, and the 5 velocity levels for the ac! The velocity buff for an ac10 or 20 is VERY usefull. Not very noobish at all.

The Scortch doesn’t really have a choice but to use two weapon types. This is a very bad argument if supposed to be in favour of the PTS1 skill system.
In case of the Scortch, it is discouraged to use all three.

EpyonComet, on 11 February 2017 - 09:28 AM, said:

As I read through the OP, it seemed for the first half that I was going to vote for "not agreeing on the problems," but actually I like Method 2 a lot. Also there's no need for huge, sweeping changes to enable experimentation, they just need to make it so that, once you invest in a skill, you can pull that skill point back out, with the game keeping track of the investment, effectively refunding you a skill point for the mech without giving you back, or costing, any additional C-bills or XP.

You mean about like this?
(I have no specific opinion on this proposal, tbh.)
But which problems do you see way 2 solving if not the listed ones?

TheMadTypist, on 11 February 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

As the bonuses you'll be building up will be quite small in the beginning, I think the pricing should reflect that. The first ten nodes should cost only 25k each- as in, no matter what 10 nodes you unlock on that mech in what tree, they're only 25k each. The next ten go up to 50k, to let new players know it's going to be expensive to go all the way while still allowing them to get a foothold, nodes 21-30 cost 75k each to ease the transition to the full price while allowing an appreciable bonus to build up, and nodes 31-91 cost the full 100k, such that the full depth and new height of power still needs an equivalent investment to reach it.

This is how it should look, but why not going one step further and make the first 10 free of CB cost? Basicing a Mech (sinking the first 14k XP into skills) doesn’t cost CBs now.

SmokedJag, on 11 February 2017 - 10:35 AM, said:

People "boat" because it works and they don't need mismatched fluff weapons when they know the opposition is another company of 'Mechs. Very few 'Mechs can carry enough weaponry to specialize in more than one range bracket at a time.

Very true. If participants of a system don’t behave as intended, it’s not their fault. That’s why we are speaking of how to design the system, not how to blame individuals.