8 replies to this topic

[manadrain]

Hi, everyone, there's a whole lot of words flying around about the economy of the new skills and lots of other angles of this new skill system, I intend to work on some of those in later posts, but for now I want to take a look at how worthwhile the proposed system is in a constructive and friendly manner with the overall goal of steering the developers down a path that leads to greater reward and thus, a better gaming environment that is fun for veterans such as myself, and helps reward newer players into staying and building what has been my favorite video game community since the day I found out it was live.

My goal with this thread is to take a look at the reward factor of the proposed new skill system and the longer grind that comes with it. As stated elsewhere, the current xp to master a 'Mech is 50,000, under the new system, there are 91 sp(nodes) at 1,500 xp a piece to master, that equals 136,500xp to master a new 'Mech; or 2.73 times as much xp. That's closer to three times as long of a grind per 'Mech and, therefore about thrice as many games you need to play. As a longtime gamer, I know that fun and the amount of time spent playing a game are inexorably linked to meaningful rewards. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that 2.7 times as much time should equal 2.7 times the reward to achieve the *same* net effect on your 'Mech, and thus your experience. If I, for one am going to call this system anything of an improvement, it has to at least leave me with the *perception* that I am getting more than 2.7x reward to call this somewhat better, even if the numbers don't agree.

My "test" will be using time to kill all 8 'Mechs in the testing grounds in the same build/chassis on both the Live and PTS builds of the game. The 'Mech I have chosen is my HBR-F(L) kitted out with 3x Large pulse lasers, this is the 'Mech I run the most in group queue and small performance differences will be more apparent because of this. The map is Caustic valley-- I really want to see if you can eek out a little more time to ride the overheat with the new system.

There is a specific order I kill the 'Mechs in, Jenner, Centurion, Awesome, Cataphract, Cicada, Commando, Catapult, and then Atlas. The lights die by legs, everyone else Ct front. Close distance to 250m because we're not testing my aim or mouse here, and fire 1 lpl, then 2 lpl's until it dies, then move on to the next. When they're all dead, record the time.

This is very similar to the method I've used for ages to test a new build, this Hellbringer build has been my benchmark since before the HBR-F(L) came out. There are going to be variables that cannot be reconciled across the two builds of the game, that's the whole point in redoing the skills. There are going to be differences in my two HBR's because of this. If you can take some of the "pseudo" out of this science; then I wholeheartedly encourage you to post your own results right here!


on to my first, tiny bit of data (more will come as time permits)

HBR-F(l) PTS Build no.1 this is my first stab at playable under the new skills, it is meant to mimic my live build of the same 'Mech












that's a *lot* of pics to show the skillout of one 'mech.


time to kill all 8 'Mechs

PTS
4:05
4:05
4:10
4:10
3:58
3:54
3:59
3:54
3:51
3:52

4:05
3:53

Average: 3:59.6

Adjusted average (by dropping the highest and lowest times) 3:59.5



Live Build:






Live
3:58
4:05
3:53
3:50
3:47
3:45
3:49
3:43
3:45
3:53

3:44
3:41

Average: 3:49.4

Adjusted average: 3:48.7


Cumulative difference : As you can see, the live build is faster as tested, calling into question the effectiveness of the newer skills.

ETA: more data, pics and averages... Next time: a PTS rebuild specifically to beat my test!

Edited by manadrain, 16 February 2017 - 01:17 PM.

[Nesutizale]

Quote

the current xp to master a 'Mech is 50,000, under the new system, there are 91 sp(nodes) at 1,500 xp a piece to master, that equals 136,500xp to master a new 'Mech

Are you not forgetting something? It takes 3 Mechs under the current system to master, so 50kx3 150.000 XP.

[soapyfrog]

Nesutizale, on 16 February 2017 - 07:34 AM, said:

Are you not forgetting something? It takes 3 Mechs under the current system to master, so 50kx3 150.000 XP.

You only need to elite two of the mechs, so it is 43k less xp than what you are calculating.

Also in the old system I'd have 3 mechs. In the new system, just 1 for the same (actually slightly more) work.

Edited by soapyfrog, 16 February 2017 - 07:48 AM.

[Nesutizale]

Yah but its still closer then 50k to 135.000

[manadrain]

You guys have an excellent point, at least for clan 'Mechs. IS is different; the plague of the IS pilot is to have to jerk two "badiocre" variants along to elite just to master the "one good one". This system will reduce that for many players; but many chassis (I'm looking at you blackjack and cicada) have more than one viable or desirable variant or build, thus putting us back to a multiplier. Also, it is quite handy to keep multiples of your clan 'mechs on hand, there are many good builds of EBJ, TBR, and SHC for starters. and nobody wants to hold up a group drop for 5 minutes to swap the everything off of your sniper Shadowcat to rebuild it for brawl because Crimson is hot that day. You could also look at it like I do and realize that the real grind of this game is collecting the set of 'Mechs that you as a player want, be it competitive heavies, all backstab lights, every 'Mech in the game that can pack a gauss, or whatever.

The question that I'm looking at here is "Is the time spent mastering each 'Mech worth the power of the skills it grants you, and does the new skill tree offer a quantifiable improvement over the extant live system that corresponds to the increased time spent grinding it."

[Nesutizale]

Please look further into your "is mastering worth it" quest.
From the few games that I played my experiance was that, except for armor/structure, sensors and JJ skills that had quite an impact, the weapons didn't feel that much different to when I used modules.

Still this is just "feeling" based thing and I can't back it up with numbers.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Nesutizale, on 16 February 2017 - 07:34 AM, said:

Are you not forgetting something? It takes 3 Mechs under the current system to master, so 50kx3 150.000 XP.

the garbage of the artificial Rule of Three going away does not in fact qualify as a point in favor for the pts... it is a bad system but replacing a bad system with a worse one is not an "improvement." Your point lacks anything that could be constituted as validity and it calls your critical thinking skills into question for thinking that it was relevant enough to advocate with.

You want to say that the Rule of Three is bad and it should go away... I wholeheartedly agree even if it is completely irrelevant to me ever in any sense because I play to Master Them All, but the punishment of new player experience and thereby new player retention can never be underestimated. But to use that as bonus in favor for the pts which is WORSE for new player experience and new player retention, overlooking the fact that it f*cks over a huge part of the paying customer base by changing the product we paid for in such a radical way... a way that the majority to clearly see as undeniably worse is disingenuous at best.

[Cementi]

Sorry OP but there are other factors on PTS including some cooldown reductions and such to slow down TTK though honestly I would have to look as that may not have been the case with your specific build and mech choice. However many of the perks that are unlocked in the skill tree do not directly buff damage but give you other boosts that are not quantifiable in the test you put up. There are alot of mobility, survival and infotech perks that people feel are going to be absolute must haves. None of those would directly impact the test you chosen which makes your conclusion flawed.

However increased TTK is at least in my opinion a good thing and it seems you might have somewhat proved that and that is without giving the targets access to many of the perks you are ignoring some of which specificly augment the defensive aspects of a mech.

[Cementi]

The xp grind is only slightly worse for those who really want to have one variant of a chassis and three times as bad for those that want 3 variants of a chassis. Much worse for people who want more than that.

The Cbill grind is much MUCH better for those who want to focus on one variant of a chassis and baring respec costs really not that bad for those with multiple variants. Now you wont be able to simply buy a second variant of the same chassis and automaticly have it masterd and sure that is a down side. However you also have the option to now have a totally separate loadout of skills on that mech. That is a perk that I think is worth it. My opinion though and it is obviously not shared.

Maybe they need to put in some kind of xp and cbill cost reduction of skills. X % per variant you have. I am not a coder but this sounds difficult. Maybe I am wrong. This way people can play mech collector and not be penalized but those who want to focus on a single mech also are not penalized either. Best of both worlds.

Edited by Cementi, 16 February 2017 - 07:58 PM.