62 replies to this topic

[eta0h]

Mister Blastman, on 09 February 2017 - 03:20 PM, said:

I think I'm done with this game if PGI doesn't make it 1:1.

ALL my past effort should be reflected in this new version. If it is not, why bother? I'm not starting over, or even half over. The c-bill cost for all of this is nonsense.

Same here, if I have to re-grind or pump real dollars into this game to get mechs to an equivalent of where they are now the player base will be one less for it. Prediction....MWLL player base gains a decent boost in the near future.

[eta0h]

Lukoi Banacek, on 09 February 2017 - 12:40 PM, said:

Recommendation:
Grandfather already mastered mechs with 91 SP and 9.1mil in ghost cash
Or
Redo the costs
Or
Lump all HXP into one mega pool in conjunction with reduced c bill costs.

Costing us our mechlab money to cover down on "leveling" costs in addition to regrinding exp to previously mastered mechs is just poor design overall.

These are very solid recommendations. My issue isn't with a new skill tree, rather having to pay time and or real dollars AGAIN to get to the same place I currently sit. Plus, the thought of being charged at the current tax rate to tune and tweak just comes off as deeply greedy.

[Jeremiah Thoryn]

In reading your topic Lukoi, my suggestion for the skill points is this: make the first variant cost full price as is proposed now. 100k cbills per point. After this is fully "purchased" in a single variant, all other variants of the same chassis now get the 91 points free. Or give a steep percentage based discount based on the amount of variants owned (say 25% discount per variant, the 4th variant making it free on any variants after this one) Of course still charge for "respec" but that should diminish the cost to an acceptable level and probably allow for people to keep what mechs they have now mastered.

Another thing I would suggest is to have a ingame "preview" tool of the skill point tree. Meaning it lets you choose your path along the SP then shows the total quirk effects in the mechlab, but does not save it. It allows the player to see the effect of the choices they've made without having to pay out each time they want to experiment. Once the player is satisfied with the build they can then make the changes permanent, and after this point require a respec to change the SP.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Jeremiah Thoryn, on 10 February 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

In reading your topic Lukoi, my suggestion for the skill points is this: make the first variant cost full price as is proposed now. 100k cbills per point. After this is fully "purchased" in a single variant, all other variants of the same chassis now get the 91 points free. Or give a steep percentage based discount based on the amount of variants owned (say 25% discount per variant, the 4th variant making it free on any variants after this one) Of course still charge for "respec" but that should diminish the cost to an acceptable level and probably allow for people to keep what mechs they have now mastered.

Another thing I would suggest is to have a ingame "preview" tool of the skill point tree. Meaning it lets you choose your path along the SP then shows the total quirk effects in the mechlab, but does not save it. It allows the player to see the effect of the choices they've made without having to pay out each time they want to experiment. Once the player is satisfied with the build they can then make the changes permanent, and after this point require a respec to change the SP.

Roughneck proposed something similar, in effect keeping the 3-variant flavor alive without making it mandatory. Ultimately, like eta0h said, it smacks of greed and just poorly thought out design if mechs that are currently mastered suddenly are too expensive to master under this proposed new format.

Its all placeholder PGI. Tweak the numbers down on PTS and see how the players react. Should be easy enough.

[Ruar]

Agreed the historical exp conversion is off.

If I already have a mech mastered then I should see 91 skill points for us in the new system. If I bought modules worth 50mil I should be refunded that 50 mil.

I don't understand why we can't see a one for one exchange with what we currently have.

Any unspent exp above the mastery level should just go away. Unspent exp on mechs not mastered should go into the historical exp pool along with a one for one refund on the exp spent up to that point.

Switching to a new system shouldn't force the players to lose anything. PGI shouldn't punish us because they decided they needed to change their game mechanics.

[Jeremiah Thoryn]

Lukoi Banacek, on 10 February 2017 - 05:58 AM, said:

Its all placeholder PGI. Tweak the numbers down on PTS and see how the players react. Should be easy enough.

Indeed it should be easy enough. I do hope the developers realize how important it is to get this mostly right. If they publish this to live as is, I believe it will definitely cause a precipitous drop in people playing this game especially paying customers, as those people are ones that mostly have the most mechs. It can be iterated on and corrected. I just hope they get it right enough where it does not cause an exodus.

Edited by Jeremiah Thoryn, 10 February 2017 - 06:16 AM.

[JudgeRW]

Agree with the OP. Everything we currently have needs to convert over 1:1. If I have 20 mechs performing at peak, then in the new system, I should be able to get those same 20 mechs performing at peak. Whatever magic needs to happen (and there are some good suggestions in this thread) is irrelevant really, it just needs to happen.

[Lukoi Banacek]

JudgeRW, on 10 February 2017 - 07:20 AM, said:

Agree with the OP. Everything we currently have needs to convert over 1:1. If I have 20 mechs performing at peak, then in the new system, I should be able to get those same 20 mechs performing at peak. Whatever magic needs to happen (and there are some good suggestions in this thread) is irrelevant really, it just needs to happen.

Absolutely.

[Morggo]

I agree with the general consensus that all existing mechs should be made whole. Period.

Where I disagree with some points of view is how/to what degree.
First off, I disagree that a mech mastered in today's "old" system ("oMastered") should immediately be brought up to fully mastered in the new "ultra" mastery system. ("uMastery"). That is getting more value or freebies that wasn't earned "by the grind".. I'd be fine with PGI turning the tables on us (IF they posted here ) and saying "that is just unreasonably nuts".

What we really should expect and get, as some have mentioned, is the 50 or so nodes that make the equivalent of the oMaster skills today. Just have them unlocked, and heck, pre-checked on patch day. If you have a mech just basic'd... you'd get whatever nodes equate to those, etc. No xp cost, no cbill cost. Simple, available in the database to make happen technically. Probably take a programmer and a tester the weekend to do and confirm. From there, I'd say refund the excess XP, all the GXP, module cbills etc.. that is what then forms the basis for buffing up mechs to get to 91 nodes. Because that's really what all these new nodes represent.. skills you don't really get today or modules. I've rebuilt some mechs on PTS and can confirm, at least in my case, they are all way out performing their Live counterparts. Like, by a lot. (the defensive tree alone is huge).

Anyway, that's my take...

tl;dr:
Map out the equivalent skills in the new tree. Unlock the nodes that match earned skills on existing mechs for free. Refund banked XP, all GXP, and module cbills. Done. Enjoy.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Well, it takes more than 50 for one thing because of the organization of the nodes.

And I can certainly see grandfathering us to the level we were at, at no cost and then letting us use our cash/xp to make up the module impact difference.

But here is something you are forgetting, grind wise. Under the current system, if I want seismic on a mech, I have to buy mutliple modules to outfit multiple mechs concurrently, but only have to gxp unlock seismic at its highest point once. I only have to sp3nd 5 levels to get the full 10% ERLL range module once in GXP and then can buy as many modules as needed to cover the mechs I want outfitted.

Under the new system you have to spend the money for each mech (not unlike now, but with the inability to bridge the gap by module swapping) AND grind the xp for the ERLL/Seismic/whatever module like node you want, for every mech you want to master!

That is a ridiculous slap in the face. I have already spent the time needed to unlock all of these "modules," and purchased hundreds of millions in multiples. Now I am going to go from forty seismic modules I can outfit mechs with, to cbills to outfit the node but only enough gxp to grind up ONE mech to seismic? I need to grind xp for every mech?

Wasting my time and burning all of my progress in no way pushes me or most people to want to repeat the process a multiple of times. It does however, incentivize me to try ither games with a less harsh model.

Grandfathering mechs and equivalent cash/gxp is really the best way to approach this if you dont want to turn off a very large segment of the whale population.

Edited by Lukoi Banacek, 10 February 2017 - 09:29 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

JudgeRW, on 10 February 2017 - 07:20 AM, said:

Agree with the OP. Everything we currently have needs to convert over 1:1. If I have 20 mechs performing at peak, then in the new system, I should be able to get those same 20 mechs performing at peak. Whatever magic needs to happen (and there are some good suggestions in this thread) is irrelevant really, it just needs to happen.

Make the magic happen PGI!! (Sounds like a nifty campaign slogan)

[Revis Volek]

Mister Blastman, on 09 February 2017 - 03:20 PM, said:

I think I'm done with this game if PGI doesn't make it 1:1.

ALL my past effort should be reflected in this new version. If it is not, why bother? I'm not starting over, or even half over. The c-bill cost for all of this is nonsense.

Me feelings exactly...


Why isnt my money and time worth as much today as it was 2 years ago?

[Lukoi Banacek]

Revis Volek, on 10 February 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

Me feelings exactly...


Why isnt my money and time worth as much today as it was 2 years ago?

The upside being PGI can tweak numbers pretty easily. Hopefully they see the ton of feedback on this subject and make some changes this weekend.

[Curley GumboKiller Bradley]

Used to be you could buy as your first module a radar deprivation to keep the LRM's from destroying you before you crossed the field.

Now you have to drive down the node list to get it.
Even worse for seismic sensor.

Not a fan of this new system.
I will most likely sit it out and check every 3-6 months to see if something better has been implemented.
Otherwise I may be done.

And forget about the Valentines sweet deals promotion. Not throwing good money into something I may be walking away from after almost three years.

Edited by Curley GumboKiller Bradley, 10 February 2017 - 01:54 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Yea, the NPE style grind will never end as long as you wish to purchase new mechs. Getting some small stockpile of mechs at least took the sting off. This model removes even that.

[DOMV2]

OMG: Like Lukoi I have a lot of chassis I have acquired and built up for roles (50/50 Clan/IS). I only have 247 Mechs of which 130 are fully mastered with master modules unlocked and the rest a mixture of elite and basic with every pilot skill tree skill maxed out and sufficient, all ready too expensive, modules to fully outfit multiple drop decks for Clan and IS which was an insane grind. Well over 2000 hrs.

And aside from the conversion rate not covering remastering the same number of chassis, the though of using this new leveling tree is enough to make me wonder if they went out of their way to torture us or is it to distract us from what everything truly costs now? I will have to spend literally hours trying to figure out these new trees and many more hours trying to figure out how to get roughly the same builds for my competitive decks.

Instead of playing, working on strategies and practicing with my group, I now need to manage this Byzantine set of skills maps.

Honestly, I can not even begin to understand why this was a priority for dev time over maps modes etc...

It is going to take several hours for me to what if some of these chassis to be able to make any well reasoned attempt at suggesting things that would make it better.

My first concern is that we are made whole for the support we have poured into this game.

Aside from my purely selfish desire to be treated equitably, I worry that this is a huge impediment to new players. They are all ready at a disadvantage in mechs and roles they can fill. This amplifies it by making them have to figure out all of these skill trees rather than today where it is fill in each row and everyone gets the same benefits. Now experienced players that take the time and credits can specialize to a degree no early players will be able to match. Looking at the trees alone would give me pause to whether I wanted to start playing. I do have a real job and life and play for FUN and comrade of my team and other players. I don't just play one chassis or class of mech or tech. I like the variety of play styles I can enjoy. I think this will discourage that style and force players to pick a few chassis to specialize and that is it.

As I said, I will need to take more time playing around with the trees but I can not envision it getting easier. I will probably need to work out some spread sheets just to be able to determine what all my true costs are.

[Lukoi Banacek]

The good news is PGI listened to the volume of feedback, is delaying the implementation and promising iterative adjustments for further testing. Hope this is one of those areas for iterative adjustments.

[DOMV2]

Being forced to buy skills not used by your Mech to get to ones that are makes no sense whatsoever. Make the skill branches more liner so you not forced into burning SP on useless or unwanted skill points. I keep getting the warning "This skill tree contains some nodes that have no effect on you current Mech's loadout. which should never happen just to get to nodes that are correct for your mechs.

[tokumboh]

Having read a lot of the complaints my idea would be to give 30-50 skill points for each mastered mech in the old system this would be the equivalent of mastering without modules and this could be spent as you like or basically convert all mastered mechs into the equivalent skill points or XP and C bill combination thereof,

That would make sense across the board people would still have to grind out the weapons module equivalent since most of us would have bought the modules and swapped them around.

[Lukoi Banacek]

tokumboh, on 12 February 2017 - 08:57 AM, said:

Having read a lot of the complaints my idea would be to give 30-50 skill points for each mastered mech in the old system this would be the equivalent of mastering without modules and this could be spent as you like or basically convert all mastered mechs into the equivalent skill points or XP and C bill combination thereof,

That would make sense across the board people would still have to grind out the weapons module equivalent since most of us would have bought the modules and swapped them around.

That's been bandied around quite a bit (alot of folks consider 59 or so to be the sweet spot). It might serve as a reasonable "grandfathering clause" for most players, especially whales, as you're right....most of us swap some of our modules around.

But after growing 40+ sets, I'd argue people like myself have given back enough grind to be relatively "done" with this part of the game and clear to move onto other mechs/pursuits.