252 replies to this topic

[Talorien]

Do I get this right:

25k CBills per Skill Point respec is crazy (2.2 million for full respec). Then another 9.1 million to rebuy.

So 11.3 million to respec. It pretty much means mechs are stuck with their first spec.

A full respec should cost about 100k for a FULL REFUND OF ALL SKILL POINTS AND CBILLS.

Even better: pay to 'unlock' points to spend, not nodes, the first time. After that, free respec at any time (i.e. just redistribute all unlocked points in the skill tree).

[VanillaG]

Talorien, on 12 February 2017 - 07:24 AM, said:

Do I get this right:

25k CBills per Skill Point respec is crazy (2.2 million for full respec). Then another 9.1 million to rebuy.

So 11.3 million to respec. It pretty much means mechs are stuck with their first spec.

A full respec should cost about 100k for a FULL REFUND OF ALL SKILL POINTS AND CBILLS.

Even better: pay to 'unlock' points to spend, not nodes, the first time. After that, free respec at any time (i.e. just redistribute all unlocked points in the skill tree).

Who is going to do a full respec? Most people agree that there are couple of trees that are mandatory for any build so you are really only to changing a small number of nodes during a respec.

[VanillaG]

As to the OP, after thinking it over my idea is to consolidate the Upper Torso, Lower Torso, and Mech Operations trees into one tree with a 10 tier bundle of multiple skill nodes. Basically you get equivalent performance as the current tree for a dramatically lower price and roughly the same XP investment.

Since would take 67 skill nodes to max out the core skills that leaves each pilot with with only 24 nodes to further spec out their mech. If a pilot was able to live with non-maxed heat or movement quirks it would give them more points to specialize which means that it actually gives the pilot some harder choices to make in regards to how the spec out a mech. They would no longer be able to get max defense, radar dep, seismic, max heat, max lower agility, and a weapons tree on a single mech.

Edited by VanillaG, 12 February 2017 - 12:06 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

VanillaG, on 12 February 2017 - 12:05 PM, said:

As to the OP, after thinking it over my idea is to consolidate the Upper Torso, Lower Torso, and Mech Operations trees into one tree with a 10 tier bundle of multiple skill nodes. Basically you get equivalent performance as the current tree for a dramatically lower price and roughly the same XP investment.

Since would take 67 skill nodes to max out the core skills that leaves each pilot with with only 24 nodes to further spec out their mech. If a pilot was able to live with non-maxed heat or movement quirks it would give them more points to specialize which means that it actually gives the pilot some harder choices to make in regards to how the spec out a mech. They would no longer be able to get max defense, radar dep, seismic, max heat, max lower agility, and a weapons tree on a single mech.

might work.

[Kael Posavatz]

Bishop Steiner, on 12 February 2017 - 06:42 PM, said:

might work.

And that's just it. It might work.

There have been a lot of ideas put forth that might work. There were a lot of ideas put forth regarding Energy Draw and InfoWar that might have worked.

Until PGI puts up Skill Tree PTS2 we don't know that it will work.

There are some things that the Skill Trees need to do, some that are really urgent, and some that it would be really nice if they did.

It would be really nice if there was a single pay-point for XP, c-bills, and MC, maybe using slider bars, rather than this mishmash of split node sides and conversion boxes that are scattered all over the place.

It would be really nice if some attention was paid to the fact that the Urbie won't benefit from the increased torso yaw. And, while three of the nodes are in end-chains, two of the increased yaw nodes are useful cross-over points.

It is Urgent that consumables be divorced from mech progression. PGI has done very well avoiding anything like Pay-to-Win, but by attaching consumables to mech skill-trees you are giving players the option of using mechs with max-performance consumables and 91 nodes in non-consumable slots. This is the definition of a P2W mechanic as a free-to-player will only be able to do one of these things.

It is necessary that some rationalization of the skill-pathways occur.

It is necessary that some attention is given to that in PTS1 it takes ~5million c-bills to bring a mech roughly up to that of live-server 'elite' status (some skills are better, heat containment is worse). In the current live-server a mech without modules can generally perform quite well. The same is very often not the case for unelited mechs.

It is necessary that costs do not discourage tinkering (11+ million for a full respec comes very close).

It is necessary that costs as a whole be given some attention. Modules are a capital expense. Once purchased they can be used freely on any mech. Even those with hundreds of mechs very often do not have a full complement of modules on all of them. So while a full set of skill nodes is cheaper than a full set of modules on an individual mech basis, in the long run it will be far more expensive.

[VanillaG]

Bishop Steiner, on 12 February 2017 - 06:42 PM, said:

might work.

The one thing that bundling does is invert the current skill progression. The current skill progression front loads the unlocking of the generic agility and performance quirks while the specialization around sensor and weapon quirks usually come much later due to them being locked behind the GXP wall.

Bundling the agility and performance quirks into high XP but low CBill bundles means that those are going to be some of the last quirks to be purchased. A new pilot can focus on grinding out the CBills necessary to upgrade the mech in the Mechlab while also purchasing nodes with low XP and high CBill costs in the Sensor, Defense, and Weapon trees. Once the mech is "properly" upgraded and equipped the pilot can focus on grinding out the XP necessary unlock more of the generic agility and performance quirks. Since the benefits between tiers are lower my guess is that you would see very few mechs with maxed agility and performance quirks.

Another benefit is that makes Veteran players make some harder choices about how to spend their current XP. If they truly want to keep their current mech performance they can do so with very little cost at the expense of being able to specialize their mech with the new trees. As it stands right now they can get all of the best benefits of the current skills and the best benefits of the new trees without any trade offs.

[Jables McBarty]

FupDup, on 09 February 2017 - 06:48 PM, said:

What I mean by specialist in this case is spending my Skill Point pool on one or maybe two trees. Right now the system makes us pick four to five nearly full trees.

Let's pretend that I got to be the Balance Overlord and have my way with the new Skill Tree. I'd make each tree have a bare minimum of 50 nodes (likely higher), compared to each tree currently having only around 20 nodes.

Let's go full potato and pretend that it each tree allowed the full 91 SP in it. The value per node would be different in some cases, but overall the maximum possible values would be higher if you invested into the full tree.

For example, yes a lot of people would probably spend all 91 of their SP on one weapon system. In this case, they are now specialized into one role. They get no agility buffs, no durability buffs, no sensors, etc. Just pure firepower. They do one thing and one thing only. Glass Cannon in this case.

As another extreme, let's say that you decided to build your Atlas to have all 91 of your SP in the survival tree and nothing else. Now you're going to be a literal wall of armor, but you're going to be clumsy and not have all that much firepower. Once again, you do just one thing and one thing only.

As a more balanced example, let's say that a light mech user splits his skills to have like 46 weapon and 45 mobility to try to be a ninja.

Ideally, the values should be balanced such that some people would even choose to go 50+ skill points into the InfoTech tree. If somebody goes all the way with 91 SP in IT, I honestly think they should get the old MW game radar that goes through terrain in all directions with very good range. Suddenly, a dedicated scout that has no firepower at all and extremely low armor can be incredibly powerful and decisive in the match. Of course, if he gets caught in a firefight then it's ggclose for him.

Etc. That is what specialization and roles look like, not "pick any five trees of your choice." You would still have the option to spread across a lot of trees of course, but your build won't have a clear strength or role if you do that.

+1