252 replies to this topic

[Xenoid]

My $.02. I'd like to see the skill tree remain, but have it build upon a player chosen archetype for the mech's role, such as...

Sniper:
Adv. Zoom
+5% extra range on gauss, erppcs, erll's etc.
-5% on internal structure
-10% on armor
Increased cool down on long range weapons
etc., etc. etc.

Brawler:
Adv. Seismic
+5% damage on short - mid range weapons
-5% damage on long range weapons
Armor and internal structure bonus
Increased cool down on short range weapons
etc., etc.,

And so on with skirmishers, scouts, etc.

Just spitballing here.

[Exard3k]

Xenoid, on 10 February 2017 - 06:03 PM, said:

My $.02. I'd like to see the skill tree remain, but have it build upon a player chosen archetype for the mech's role, such as...

Sniper:
Adv. Zoom
+5% extra range on gauss, erppcs, erll's etc.
-5% on internal structure
-10% on armor
Increased cool down on long range weapons
etc., etc. etc.

Brawler:
Adv. Seismic
+5% damage on short - mid range weapons
-5% damage on long range weapons
Armor and internal structure bonus
Increased cool down on short range weapons
etc., etc.,

And so on with skirmishers, scouts, etc.

Just spitballing here.

Why fixed roles? You can get all these quirks in the present skill tree if you want your mech to be that kind of "class".

[T e c h 4 9]

Personally, I think the 'mech's role should be tied to the actual chassis/variant. I also think quirks are a good way to do that. Using quirks to achieve "balance" is not what I see them as being the best thing to use them for; rather, use them to define specific roles for a chassis/variant. Sure, give the players some choice to specialize within the chassis/variant, of course.

For example, a Catapult should pretty much always be a missile boat, and that's it. Now, different variants could mean it's an LRM boat, or an SRM brawler. I don't think there should be energy boats in that chassis (Jester, K2), period. Quirks could make the chassis/variant a really good missile boat, and nothing else. Sure, you need back-up weapons, but NO MISSILE hardpoints on a Catapult? Why??

But, I digress. They say "you can please some of the people some of the time, but not ALL the people ALL the time.". So true.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Bishop Steiner, on 10 February 2017 - 05:21 PM, said:

Um... Let's see, we have the HBK-4J, Trebuchet, Whitwhorth and Dervish all doing the same thing.. so let's eliminate all of them but one... you know the 55 ton Triplets have a lot of variants that kind of tread on each other's toes.... maybe we just get rid of the Griffin and Wolverine, entirely?

Griffin and Wolverine aren't necessarily the same, after all one runs PPCs/LRMs while the other runs AC/PPCs and SRMs (generally having a more mid range feel rather than a long range), not what I would call exactly similar roles. That said, LRM/ML boats are sadly an abundant role within mediums. WHile it makes sense to have pocket versions of different mechs (Whitworth would be a pocket Trebuchet) this starts to go into the territory of what I mentioned earlier in this thread or another one, that roles some of those mechs should deviate a bit from their traditional role, like the Dervish could be the jumping SRM bomber.

As for Jenner vs Assassin, again there is room for deviation. Assassin could be more like a 10 ton heavier SRM bomber version of the Javelin (like will most likely be the preferred use anyway) while the Jenner is more about lasers or mixing lasers and missiles.

Bishop Steiner, on 10 February 2017 - 05:21 PM, said:

The Trebuchet, for instance, is more mobile, and less well armored than the 4J. So while their Missiles may overlap... one might get a superior Mobility Tree, whereas the Other gets a Superior Survivability tree.

Yeah, but that role is also filled by the Apollo. I just don't like the idea of making the role overlap worse than it has to be given that it decreases the need for new mechs (which is the thing they are still trying to sell us for the most part), especially for a variant that isn't really a traditional build for the Hunchback. I don't know that all these variants have to go, the 4J just happens to be a role that is highly saturated in the medium class already.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 February 2017 - 07:07 PM.

[Aidan Pendragon]

I'll skip the 229 replies and just add my +1 to the original post.

-The biggest problem is the mixing in of the random and less useful skills to get the better ones. As everyone has said, why do you have to get Hill Climb to get other, unrelated skills, etc.? Far better to make each of the skills a linear chain, maybe with increasing costs as you go down it.

-Too many of the skills are "required," as the posts on just the first page of this thread spell out well. Once you have accounted for the heat, mobility, etc. there is much less room for customization. A good idea would be to make certain skill trees cheaper for certain 'Mech types (mobility for light 'Mechs, durability for Assaults, etc.)--that would encourage role specialization without forcing it on anyone, which seems to be a big no-no for PGI.

-The 25k c-bill/10 MC cost for respec'ing a single node is way too much. Nobody cares now because they're playing with PTS funny money, but once out into the wild.... This is less of a concern with experienced players who are re-mastering their 'Mechs as it will be with new players and anyone trying to master a new 'Mech. Say you only have enough XP and funds to get part of the way through the tree, then decide later on that you want to go in a different direction. It'll cost you quite a bit to back up. This should be lower by a factor of 10, like 2.5k c-bills.

-Sad to see 100% Radar derp is still an option, and one that everyone will take. This module/skill has been OP'd from the start. It should act like an Anti-Target Decay module, but never get you to 100% derp...or at least it should be counted in seconds, not percentage, which would have the same effect.

-Last thought: 10 out of 10 for style to PGI for putting this on the PTS instead of just pushing it live, but minus several million for good thinking for only giving it ~2 weeks before their patch date. This skill system is so rough that there's no way they can rework it in time to meet their target.

[Kojak Bear]

This is my detailed proposal on what could improve the Skill Tree System. Please read, feedback and share, if you are inclined to agree. Thanks!

https://drive.google...N3NUMEx2MmhUNE0

[Zergling]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

So as standard in your world view, nobody will make any choices for the upper torso nodes ?

Some people might experiment with them, but the non-potatoes will realise the points are better spent elsewhere.

Although I do admit the possibility that mechs with particularly restrictive torso twist arcs (like the Dire) might try to sacrifice some points from elsewhere for increased torso yaw.
For mechs that aren't so restricted in torso twist, there doesn't seem much point; sure some extra torso arc is useful, but its not as useful as weapon skills.

In the end, I can't see it being common; I guesstimate around 9 in 10 optimised builds won't bother with them.


EDIT: was just testing the Lower Chassis and Jumpjet trees on my Summoner; both trees are definitely 'meh'. If the bonuses for those trees were stronger or cheaper to acquire, they might be worth taking, but as it stands now they aren't worth specialising in.

Edited by Zergling, 10 February 2017 - 11:27 PM.

[MadcatX]

Well I did my due diligence, here's my general feedback on the bigger things in no particular order. Also I didn't test EVERYTHING on the list (a.k.a. every weapon skill tree).

- Like the UI but would like to see a few improvements:
- Converting historical XP is a pain, add a slider or a button to convert all.
- The purchased skill display is a bit awkward, you need to scroll down and it's just one long list. Maybe break it down by category.
- Add in parentheses what the actual new value would be after a skill change where possible (new speed, new ranges
(although that could make the list longer if ranges for all weapons of a tree are listed, maybe set it to only display currently equipped weapons?)

- I've got a couple mixed feelings regarding costs:
- Respecs should be free. I'm better at judging a mech's performance based on how I play by actually playing the mech a couple times and then tweaking the tree to get it running exactly how I want. Also I do enjoy experimenting and respec costs hinder that greatly
- Mixed feelings about the cost to fully spec a mech. On one side, I think it should be a XP only. On the other, it's cheaper for anything above a light mech than buying the current system. And then there's the bigger picture that you have modules in the tree now, some folks bought a lot, some just a few and kept swapping.
- There's too many mandatory nodes that I need to purchase that I don't want to actually get to the nodes I do, paying with either cbills and XP feels like a complete waste on those.

- The trees themselvesL
- Love the concept but think it definitely needs some tweaking.
- Too many "must haves" (mobility for speed tweak, defensive in general and my personal pet peeve the mandatory target decay if running LRM's to name a few)
- Love that there's a jumpjet tree, particularly the forward vector for my mediums. The lift and initial burst are FAR too too small
- Too many that are mandatory but are of no use to particular chassis/variants. AMS overload on a build that doesn't have AMS, The upper mobility mandatory ones, especially the arms.
- Values need to be changed on several nodes. For the ones that replace modules but are never really used like hill climb, raise it a lot to make it a viable choice. As for weapons, some options seem outright better then others.
- Streamline the nodes to make it easier for people like me who will be specing quite a few current mechs. Currently if I want longer sensor ranges I need to navigate through the entire tree to find the nodes I need.
- Was hoping to see SOME variety in the trees available depending on chassis/variant. Not enough to pigeonhole to a single role but enough to give different chassis/variants their own flavour so the speak,

In conclusion, I think there's great potential here, it just needs some adjustments.

Edited by MadcatX, 10 February 2017 - 09:58 PM.

[Reno Blade]

Bishop Steiner, on 10 February 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

interesting, IDK if I totally am behind it, but would definitely be willing to test it out in said format. But they would also have to clean up those trees and allow for more linear progression, IMO, for that to be a viable answer... after all, as it is currently, capped points just mean that a chunk of each tree is pointless.

I have no trouble with the though of capping them, just that if we do have such a limitation, we should only "get what we pay for", too, instead of being forced to get Hill Climb or other things we roundly ignored as Modules.

Yes definitely, if we have only 30 points for all mech related branches, then these should not require you to spec stuff you don't want (e.g. mech arms to get a Torso node).
Not sure if the players would still only spec the same survival and leave the rest out of it, but then at least you would need to make a choice between the branches and can't spec all of them.

I've had a lot of different Ideas regarding the cost also in my original post, but I begin to think that a limit per "class" might be the easiest way.
It would actually mimik the current Module slot distribution quite well (e.g. x Weapon modules, y mech modules, z consumables).

For more fun, we could have different amount of SP per class on different mechs.
e.g. Weapon / Mech / InfoTech (incl. Aux) distribution of
light = 20 / 30 / 41
med = 20 / 40 / 31
heavy = 30 / 30 / 31
assault = 35 / 25 / 21

Quote from previous post to get complete details here:

Reno Blade, on 10 February 2017 - 09:47 AM, said:

Overall
The skill tree looks decent on first sight.
Many choices for specialization in weapons and your mech.
But, most likely the majority will spec full Survival and Mech-Ops branch on all mechs, part of InfoTech and Movement branch and then specialize in few weapons with the last few points. Not sure if players will even skip mech specific branches for more weapons instead of just boating a single type to have enough SP for the mech branches (Survival, Infotech, Mech-Ops…)
It might be better to limit the amount of Mech-based branches (e.g. max 30 points in these).

The number of SP per branch could be increased and some connections reshuffled to allow for more specialization with less sacrifice.
E.g. the Gauss branch requires to spec multiple Charge and Velocity nodes to get Cooldown or Range.
The cooldown bonus is only 5% (for 5 Nodes)

Most SP should provide a value of 1 or higher to make it worth to spec it at all.
0.8 values for a SP seems to be very small and overall benefit of anything below 10% is hardly noticeable or worth it.

Targeting the end-result of weapon bonus to be around 10% for Clan and 12% for IS should be the best approach. In case of IS mechs, the inherent quirks can help in that part, but should not be the basis of the skill values for all mechs.



Inherent Quirks
Keeping the mech quirks in addition might be a good thing also for the longer term, as it will still push the low-performers.
The reduction of weapon specific quirks in many cases are also good. The overall result looks very good imho.


Cost
In general it’s expected to be similar to current cost if you used some module in every mech. But Module swapping made it cheap for people with large Mech count.
Comparing the max cost to the current Mech + Modules give different results for how players used Modules in the current game.

If the players never got Modules, the SP cost is very high, while players who have 2-5 expensive modules per mech are saving CBills now.
One way to overcome these could be to give different cost to Module-like skills (e.g. Weapon classes and also Seismic, Radar-Dep etc.) or increase the count of the Nodes required to gain max effect.

For easier implementation there could be “Elite” skills which give more boost and will cost a lot, while the rest of the skills will cost less. With the same cost as end result, the player could choose for the lower skills with less cost or Elite the Mech to have the special Elite skills (giving more bonus to weapon CD/Range or sensor bonus like Seismic).

Option 1 (more nodes, current pricing)
e.g. Seismic sensor node count increased from 2 (100m each) to 5 (40m each) for a total of 200m (same).
e.g. Gauss Cooldown node from 5 (1% each) to 10 (1% each) for a total of 10%

Option 2 (Elite skill nodes, all basic nodes only cost half, Elite cost more).
e.g. Seismic sensor is one Elite node and provides 200m for 3-6mio CBills (current price or more)
e.g. Gauss Cooldown node at the end of the branch as single Elite node provides 10% fo 3-6 mio CBills

Option 3 (Mixed Basic and Elite nodes, all basic nodes cost half, Elite cost more).
e.g. Seismic sensor 1-4 provide 25m for normal (cheap) price, Seismic5 (Elite) provides 100m for 4x the price and is deep down in the branch.
e.g. Gauss Cooldown 1-5 provide 1% each node and the Gauss Cooldown 6 (Elite) node at the end of the branch provides additional 5% fo 1-3 mio CBills

EDIT:
Option4 (Increased cost deeper the branches, the more SP you spend)
e.g. skills cost less on top of the branches and more CBills/XP deep down the branch
e.g. first 30 skills cost less than next 30 and the last 31 will cost even more.
This would give beginners the ability to get cheap survival skills and then move further down if they got enough games (for XP and CBills) in the mech to decide and spend the expensive points.

EDIT:
BONUS for multiple variants of the same chassis or same variant!
Reduce the cost for additional variants of the same chassis by 33% (e.g. HBK-4P and a HBK-4G) and further increase the discount if you have multiples of the same variant (e.g. 2x HBK-4G) by total of 66%.
That way you give people a reason to USE and OWN multiple variants rather than picking only one.
This also provides a reason for all the collectors who want /already own over 100 mechs.


EDIT:
Role diversity
Using different amount of max cap for skill classes would actually mimik the current Module slot distribution quite well (e.g. x Weapon modules, y mech modules, z consumables).

For more fun and diversity, we could have different amount of SP per class on different mechs.
e.g. Weapon / Mech / InfoTech (incl. Aux) distribution of
light = 20 / 30 / 41
med = 20 / 40 / 31
heavy = 30 / 30 / 31
assault = 35 / 25 / 21



Respec
If the above Elite skills could not be implemented, the re-spec CBill cost could be removed (or give discount, e.g. if you respect only one branch) as the spending of SP is already costing CBills.
If specing the same nodes again and again will cost the same CBill price every time, you will run out of CBills very fast, but will sit on XP and GXP at some time without the ability to use it up as fast as you spend CBills.

If the mech has all 91 SP, you should not need to “buy” the SP anymore and should only require the respect fee and the XP required for each Node.

Another option could be to spend more XP than CBills if you respect. That would also provide benefit to all the XP conversion (cost MC) and the GXP you gain in the game, as well as Champion variants.



Synergy of branches/classes
As the players will likely try to max the efficiency of their loadout and use of SP, they will focus on a single weapon or maybe two and use SP for survival and mech-ops.
To give a bonus to multi-weapon builds, the skill tree could have inter-branch synergies for multi weapons.

e.g. if specing 10 SP into laser and 10 SP into UACs, you would get 10% bonus effect on both branches skills. Specing a third branch could then push this by another 10% for all branches.

e.g. Laser range and cooldown of 10% skills from Laser branch with 10 SP + 10 SP from UAC branch and 10 SP from SRM branch would be boosted by the 20% synergy for a total of 12% effect.

e.g. If someone would go crazy and skill 5 different weapon branches (Laser, PPC, SRM, LRM, AC), the 40% bonus to all of these skills would push that 10% range skill to 14%.
Not a big difference, but a bonus which adds up in total and might make a weapon platform build interesting for players.



Difference between Mech Weight Classes on Skills
It’s good to have the smaller mechs gaining more from certain skills
The difference could be increased and could be also affecting other Infotech skills like Radar Dep and Target Decay.


Skill Class specific
• Firepower
See above for weapon synergies.
Could use more nodes for total of 10-12% effect (especially cooldown).

• Survival
Almost must-have for all builds!

• Mobility
Upper Body seems to have too many Arm nodes and requires you to spend many unwanted points to get the Torso skills.
Jump Jet nodes are not very attractive

• Operations
Nearly a must-have

• Infotech
Very useful and many skills are easy to get (Seismic, Radar-Dep), even if counting the other Nodes required to reach. Might need to increase count for the strong ones (Seismic)

conclusion for the classes/branches:
I think the whole Mech-Ops, Survival and Movement branches should have a total cap, so you have to choose between being more tough, or having better agility, or better sensors or better heat control.
e.g. 30 points max for these skill classes/branches.

Then the weapons and InfoTech should be the rest of the points (e.g. 61).

That would also give you more points to spend on multiple weapons rather than puthing 60+ into your mech.
Giving you more reason to actually spec AND use multiple weapons instead of single weapon type and boating that.


UI specific
• 'Mech Enhancements Window
• Compatibility Alerts
• New XP Conversion Interface
• Transferring Historical XP (HXP)
Looks good so far.



Game balance
• Component Health / Critical hit changes
Crits are ok, but in most cases the mech is doomed quite fast if you lose armor, so the impact of crits is most noticeable if you have a large health pool (heavy and assault).

Anything with low structure health (e.g. Med/Light without extra structure bonus) is going to lose the component section without noticing the critical hit at all.
Component health and total structure could be doubled over the board to increase TTK.


• Target Info Gathering
More from the previous InfoTech PTS4 could be included here.
More range differences and especially the ECM change (no hard-counter for LRM locks).

With the Mech Class specific ranges and Mech Class specific SP range increases, the InfoTech for scouting might be finally interesting, but it needs to be a big difference between Assault and Light (e.g. 500m vs 1200m).

Adding more consumables to the Aux branch would bring more reason than just the UAV.


• ECM
Good move to make the default range of ECM less effective.
Not sure if the investment will limit ECM specs much, if they boat single weapons, they should have enough SP.

• Targeting Computers
Looks OK on paper


• IS vs Clan balance
SP providing more for IS than Clan is a good start, but 0.8 values for a SP seems to be very small and overall benefit of anything below 10% is hardly noticeable or worth it.

Targeting end result of weapon bonus to be around 10% for Clan and 12% for IS should be the best approach. In case of IS mechs, the inherent quirks can help in that part, but not for all mechs.


• Ballistic Weapons
• Energy Weapons
• Missile Weapons
Looks good on paper for the Crit changes.

Edited by Reno Blade, 10 February 2017 - 11:17 PM.

[Mystere]

Reno Blade, on 10 February 2017 - 11:13 PM, said:

Yes definitely, if we have only 30 points for all mech related branches, then these should not require you to spec stuff you don't want (e.g. mech arms to get a Torso node).
Not sure if the players would still only spec the same survival and leave the rest out of it, but then at least you would need to make a choice between the branches and can't spec all of them.

I've had a lot of different Ideas regarding the cost also in my original post, but I begin to think that a limit per "class" might be the easiest way.
It would actually mimik the current Module slot distribution quite well (e.g. x Weapon modules, y mech modules, z consumables).

For more fun, we could have different amount of SP per class on different mechs.
e.g. Weapon / Mech / InfoTech (incl. Aux) distribution of
light = 20 / 30 / 41
med = 20 / 40 / 31
heavy = 30 / 30 / 31
assault = 35 / 25 / 21

Negative. A limit per class would be lame and reeks of MVP. It should either be per variant or at the very least per chassis.

Edited by Mystere, 11 February 2017 - 01:30 AM.

[z3a1ot]

MrHail, on 10 February 2017 - 04:13 AM, said:

Just an idea:



This idea can be applied to all the trees.
It's an idea that is based on choice and diminishing returns.
These 2 should always go in a skill tree imo.

You have to chose what you get and if you go all the way to the bottom you spend a lot of points.
Maybe you guys can come up with better choices or better numbers but everything can be improved.

This idea has been taken from other people on the forum plus other games like WOW or League which use similar systems.

This is the best idea I could find among all of these propositions. It should have been like this from the start, choice and diminishing returns, not what we have now. I hope PGI sees this idea here.

Edited by z3a1ot, 11 February 2017 - 02:51 AM.

[DrxAbstract]

Aidan Pendragon, on 10 February 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

-The biggest problem is the mixing in of the random and less useful skills to get the better ones. As everyone has said, why do you have to get Hill Climb to get other, unrelated skills, etc.? Far better to make each of the skills a linear chain, maybe with increasing costs as you go down it.

-Too many of the skills are "required," as the posts on just the first page of this thread spell out well. Once you have accounted for the heat, mobility, etc. there is much less room for customization. A good idea would be to make certain skill trees cheaper for certain 'Mech types (mobility for light 'Mechs, durability for Assaults, etc.)--that would encourage role specialization without forcing it on anyone, which seems to be a big no-no for PGI.

This is where you run into problems though; Some Lights need durability because an absurd level of mobility bonuses would be necessary to compensate for their small engines and vice versa for some assaults, whereas other Assaults simply don't need (And shouldn't get) either... Which is a fundamental issue with having a generic skill tree system. They're keeping quirks to 'help' with that but, as usual, Lights/Mediums are thus far getting few-to-none while Heavies/Assaults are walking around with a list of bonuses longer than my arm.

Aidan Pendragon, on 10 February 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

-The 25k c-bill/10 MC cost for respec'ing a single node is way too much. Nobody cares now because they're playing with PTS funny money, but once out into the wild.... This is less of a concern with experienced players who are re-mastering their 'Mechs as it will be with new players and anyone trying to master a new 'Mech. Say you only have enough XP and funds to get part of the way through the tree, then decide later on that you want to go in a different direction. It'll cost you quite a bit to back up. This should be lower by a factor of 10, like 2.5k c-bills.

I'd say the cost could use a reduction, say 10-15k C-Bills and 5 MC, but match rewards need to be increased by 20% C-Bills+XP and they should start handing out 1 MC per victory in Quick Play and 2 MC per victory in FW because the Paulconomy is still one of MWO's glaring issues and the biggest kick in the nuts to new players.

Aidan Pendragon, on 10 February 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

-Sad to see 100% Radar derp is still an option, and one that everyone will take. This module/skill has been OP'd from the start. It should act like an Anti-Target Decay module, but never get you to 100% derp...or at least it should be counted in seconds, not percentage, which would have the same effect.

I personally don't spec into a full 5/5(100%) Radar Dep, settling for 3/5 and 4/5 on most builds, which is unfortunately necessary at this point due to the layout of the tree resulting in anyone going speccing it having additional +Lock time.

Aidan Pendragon, on 10 February 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

-Last thought: 10 out of 10 for style to PGI for putting this on the PTS instead of just pushing it live, but minus several million for good thinking for only giving it ~2 weeks before their patch date. This skill system is so rough that there's no way they can rework it in time to meet their target.

Yeah... You're not alone in this sentiment. There simply isn't enough time to collect feedback and make the multiple changes people in general have agreed should be made to make it passable on Live while the fine-tuning continues, let alone the more specific and necessary alterations.

[Sergey Kosinskiy]

Well this is something.

[Khobai]

Quote

and this is what happens when one lets opinion override facts and data. You don't LIKE Assaults having it. SO it's bad, got it. Not that it is actually unbalancing anything.

no the vast majority of assaults really should not have it. they dont carry advance sensor packages. go read some battletech lore.

[Bishop Steiner]

z3a1ot, on 11 February 2017 - 02:29 AM, said:

This is the best idea I could find among all of these propositions. It should have been like this from the start, choice and diminishing returns, not what we have now. I hope PGI sees this idea here.

personally I prefer a ballistic arc...too much advantage at the beginning and we see people just grab one or two of everything, and the system gets abused. I'd rather they start small, increase, then decrease again, so if a person is going to use a tree they at least need to make some sort of serious investment in it.

[RustKnight5]

I'm a newer player so the whole balance of numbers is not for me to judge, and I am really only on the pts to play around with builds but these are the two things that stood out to me with the the skill trees as being strange.

First why are nodes and points tied together so, currently if I have a node and want to move that "point" to another node i have to refund the XP from it at a cost and buy a whole new one and if I wanted to move that "point" back to it buy it all over again for full price. This seems strange would it not be a better system to have a XP/GXP/HXP converter to convert that into points then have to buy nodes separately to put points on to or not at will for free. For example I decide to unlock all the nodes in the ultra auto cannon tree for my mech that's 20 nodes I buy them for 2 million in total, 100,000 each, now I need to convert 30000 xp into points, 1500 each, to use those nodes. Then later decide I want to use LBXs instead so I buy that tree 20 nodes 2 million, but instead of having to pay to move points off the Ultra AC tree I can do it for free since i just have the points and if I change my mind again can move them back for free since I own those nodes forever i just don't always use them. If I did this in the current system it would cost me 2.5 million each time i wanted to do this switch, that's 2 million to buy the nodes again and 500,00 for the refund to take the points (XP) off the old ones.

Secondly some of the trees look to be a mess of things you don't want or need but have to get anyways to get to what you want, just seems off. I looked at the doc Kojak Bear made and that is significantly more straight forward then what is currently up.

Just my thoughts

[z3a1ot]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 February 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

personally I prefer a ballistic arc...too much advantage at the beginning and we see people just grab one or two of everything, and the system gets abused. I'd rather they start small, increase, then decrease again, so if a person is going to use a tree they at least need to make some sort of serious investment in it.

The way I understood this system that I quoted earlier is that when you choose one efficiency/node in a row you cant pick more than one in that row. So you choose in a next row efficiency that you want and so on but only 1 at a time. Of course those values in that idea are just placeholders I believe and they could be worked on, smaller values at the beginning or bigger ones its up to PGI to decide and to balance.

[Zergling]

Khobai, on 11 February 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

no the vast majority of assaults really should not have it. they dont carry advance sensor packages. go read some battletech lore.

Actually, assault mechs are commonly used as command mechs in the lore, so many designs are either fluffed as having advanced sensors (like Cyclops) or they have equipment like C3 Masters or Active Probes.

[Bishop Steiner]

Zergling, on 11 February 2017 - 10:05 AM, said:

Actually, assault mechs are commonly used as command mechs in the lore, so many designs are either fluffed as having advanced sensors (like Cyclops) or they have equipment like C3 Masters or Active Probes.

in fact, if Khobai were to "read some lore", he'd find the advanced sensor packages are the exception, not the rule in ALL classes. Ditto with Comm gear. Anything with a Tek BattleComm, Dalban Micronics, or of course the Tacticon B2000, has advanced capabilities... so Phoenix Hawk, Wolverine, Marauder, and Cyclops, jsut off those 3 systems... and the BLR was a frequent command vehicle along with the Atlas being designed as the premiere such by the head of the Star League....

Whereas many Lights, have no sensor packages of note... BY LORE.

But, then there is a reason I started largely ignoring said user, long ago.

[VitriolicViolet]

i believe also the King Crab in its original form was a command mech, black knight as well. there are many mechs at the heavier end with advanced comms.