252 replies to this topic

[Oberost]

At this point and with the current implementation of the new skill tree I would like just to change the pinpoint accuracy skill in the old skill tree with a new (and useful) skill and call it a day...

I'm not going to repeat what have been said in this thread, but to sum up:

Bad skill tree implementation, forcing us to spend SP in useless skills.
Bad pricing mode (and paying to re-spec is just the cherry on the top).
Really bad UI (once again...).
Not enough % on some skills to make a difference.

A good idea with a really poor thought implementation

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Bombast, on 09 February 2017 - 08:41 PM, said:

No, it isn't. It is astoundingly high because it's twice as high as it is now. I have to regrind 19 mechs, plus 4 that I haven't even mastered under the old system.

And good for you, you can get a mech a quarter of the way through the new system in a week. By my rough math, an average player will take over 60 days to master a mech under this new system, assuming one x2 match a day.

Only 19...? That is not that bad... I have to regrind over 200 cause I have been playing 3 mechs just to Master, before selling 1 or 2 and moving on to the next Chassis. So I am like 80k and 9.1 million short of where I already was (which is 1.2 BILLION when I think about it)

[kuma8877]

RestosIII, on 09 February 2017 - 11:40 PM, said:

I don't play FW currently. So if they base the game on FW, guess what I'll be doing. I'll not be playing FW still, that's for sure.

Is there a reason why not? Obviously discounting where it stands today (especially with the ommision of CDS for you), if they continue to flesh it out more and CDS is an option for you, would you switch over? FW population growth could help justify an FW MM for solo's and small teams and help mitigate the stomps that we get today.

I'm semi hopeful that some of this is going to go hand in hand and if given a chance to blossom (with some adjustments and tweaks) could actually start to flesh out MWO more to what was originally pitched as with FW as the endgame with a purpose and QP the training grounds. I'm a big picture person....

[RestosIII]

kuma8877, on 09 February 2017 - 11:59 PM, said:

Is there a reason why not? Obviously discounting where it stands today (especially with the ommision of CDS for you), if they continue to flesh it out more and CDS is an option for you, would you switch over? FW population growth could help justify an FW MM for solo's and small teams and help mitigate the stomps that we get today.

I'm semi hopeful that some of this is going to go hand in hand and if given a chance to blossom (with some adjustments and tweaks) could actually start to flesh out MWO more to what was originally pitched as with FW as the endgame with a purpose and QP the training grounds. I'm a big picture person....

I tried FW a great while ago, see what had changed, and I still hate the invasion game mode. It's... Just not fun for me, sitting around until the enemy charges, or sitting around until you charge into a meat grinder, only to get spawn camped, or spawn camped, depending on who is winning/losing. Plus, I'm just not a huge fan of dropdecks. If CDS gets added, I'll probably try FW again, but, I don't have any expectations of enjoying it.

Edited by RestosIII, 10 February 2017 - 12:10 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Wintersdark, on 09 February 2017 - 10:44 PM, said:

do you feel modules are mandatory to play currently?

It costs more because modules are rolled into it now.

Yes, you can currently move modules around, but you still need to unlock with GXP currently (huge grind for new players) and buy them (another huge grind for new players), AND need to buy and level three mechs (cost! Grind!)

The new tree IS grindier, but not twice as bad when you consider all the factors.

no, in most cases the things which weren't mandatory before, really feel needed here. Good god, even with the bloody nodes, so many mechs are twice as hot as before... a lot of my heavier mechs simply cannot track really fast mediums, let alone frigging Locusts, etc. C'mon, OI try to give PGI the benefit of the doubt.... but damn. Spent the last 6 hours with CK16, Grevious Smaug and Pariah (and at the end Juodas) and the imbalances were freaking insane. SRMs are the new sexy. But LRMs? Instagibbed any Light to mid Medium with a 1-2 Volleys..... with dual LRM20. It's.... ridiculous. Assault mechs with max Survival Skills.. melt to Mediums.

This thing is a hot radioactive mess, as presented.

kuma8877, on 09 February 2017 - 11:13 PM, said:

Noone has really brought up the fact that FW has taken a more primary role in PGI's focus, and this skill tree pushes you towards FW play due to the higher payouts and use of compromise to create role focused builds (and yes, you can do it but you can't have your cake and eat it too and need to compromise on your chosen nodes) and shorten the overall grind. Perhaps considering the tree in the FW environment, rather than just QP can put it more into perspective.

considering by the time you find a match, you generally make less cbills and hour for CW, to this day, that would be a really dumb approach.

[Dee Eight]

Not enough customization ? This is my mastered bushwacker X2... I run it with 3 MGs, 3 Streak-2s, 2 Medium lasers, AMS, BAP. Modules are seismic, radar dep, and streak cooldown and range. That's 18 million in modules and I only own single examples of the seismic and streak weapon modules.



And this is the same mech under the new skill tree....





More agility all around, better structure & armor, and the equivalent of an improved streak range module, AMS overload, seismic, 360 target retention, sensor range, target decay, target info gathering, speed retention, hill climb, shock absorbtion, gyros and UAV improvements. All for 9.1 million cbills.

Yeah...totally not enough customization there at all.

Edited by Dee Eight, 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Yeah...totally not enough customization there at all.

wow one single item used to prove an entire system. Thanks for reminding me why I generally leave you on ignore. *smh*

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 10 February 2017 - 12:54 AM.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Not enough customization ? This is my mastered bushwacker X2... I run it with 3 MGs, 3 Streak-2s, 2 Medium lasers, AMS, BAP. Modules are seismic, radar dep, and streak cooldown and range. That's 18 million in modules and I only own single examples of the seismic and streak weapon modules.

I already broke this same asinine point down in another thread, but you are incorrect about your assessment. You have 1 full module broken down into the pieces of 5 and that makes you happy while your Mech is undisputably worse off than it was before.

Bishop Steiner, on 10 February 2017 - 12:54 AM, said:

wow one single item used to prove an entire system. Thanks for reminding me why I generally leave you on ignore. *smh*

It is not even a single successful item... he is just clearly wrong. His shining success example is Nerf'd but he has 5 pieces of Modules whereas before he only had the effects of one full one.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Yeah...totally not enough customization there at all.

Congragulations, you took the mostly optimal path of upgrades that every single other mech is going to take with slight variations. Please tell me more about how great the specialization is when I'm choosing the same 70 nodes over and over.

Edited by Snazzy Dragon, 10 February 2017 - 01:20 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Snazzy Dragon, on 10 February 2017 - 01:02 AM, said:

Congragulations, you took the mostly optimal path of upgrades that every single other mech is going to take with slight upgrades. Please tell me more about how great the specialization is when I'm choosing the same 70 nodes over and over.

not to mention it misses the overall effed up and unbalanced buff to nerf nature of so many chassis, even after unlocking it. For every one or two really good result,s are 5-6 bad ones.

[SeventhSL]

People keep saying XP grind but I don’t get it. My examples are below. Where am I going wrong that this new system is some big grind?

A new player needs to do tutorials and run trial mechs until they have enough to purchase their first mech. Under the new system they buy the mech they want and then play it until it is mastered. I love the Mad Dog so depending on the desired variant approximately 22,000,00 Cbills and 136,500 XP to purchase and master it.

Under the old system They would have to buy three variants, grind them all to at least elite status before grinding the one they desired to master. Then they must grind to unlock and purchase the desired modules. Depending on the variants and modules this will cost them approximately 53,100,000 CBills, 128,750 XP and 63,500 GXP. This is somewhat deceptive because to grind that much GXP you need to grind about 635,000 XP. Not only is the current system a substantially larger grind but you must do a lot of it in stock built variants you probably aren’t interested in.

Now a lot of the grind in the old system went towards the next mech so let’s expand the example to get a new player to a fully tooled drop deck.

Under the new system the player needs 4 mechs so he takes his original cost and multiplies it by 4 to get an approximate value. The total is now around 88,000,00 Cbills and 546,000 XP. For his he can cherry pick any 4 mechs from any class he likes and plays in nothing but those 4 mechs.

Under the old system? Well it is kind of a moot point as the new player got an entire drop deck of his choice for less than mastering a single mech under the current system.

Edited by SeventhSL, 10 February 2017 - 02:10 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

SeventhSL, on 10 February 2017 - 01:13 AM, said:

[color=#000000]People keep saying XP grind but I don’t get it. My examples are below. Where am I going wrong that this new system is some big grind?[/color]
[color=#000000]A new player needs to do tutorials and run trial mechs until they have enough to purchase their first mech. Under the new system they buy the mech they want and then play it until it is mastered. I love the Mad Dog so depending on the desired variant approximately 22,000,00 Cbills and 136,500 XP to purchase and master it. [/color]
[color=#000000]Under the old system They would have to buy three variants, grind them all to at least elite status before grinding the one they desired to master. Then they must grind to unlock and purchase the desired modules. Depending on the variants and modules this will cost them approximately 187,200,000 CBills, 128,750 XP and 63,500 GXP. This is somewhat deceptive because to grind that much GXP you need to grind about 635,000 XP. Not only is the current system a substantially larger grind but you must do a lot of it in stock built variants you probably aren’t interested in. [/color]
[color=#000000]Now a lot of the grind in the old system went towards the next mech so let’s expand the example to get a new player to a fully tooled drop deck. [/color]
[color=#000000]Under the new system the player needs 4 mechs so he takes his original cost and multiplies it by 4 to get an approximate value. The total is now around 88,000,00 Cbills and 546,000 XP. For his he can cheery pick any 4 mechs from any class he likes and plays in nothing but those 4 mechs.[/color]
[color=#000000]Under the old system? Well it is kind of a moot point as the new player got an entire drop deck of his choice for less than mastering a single mech under the current system. [/color]

I seriously can't read this man. It's not that hard to format, even copy pasta. Just right click and enter it as "paste as plain text".

*edit* thank you!

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 10 February 2017 - 09:45 AM.

[Carl Vickers]

SeventhSL, on 10 February 2017 - 01:13 AM, said:

People keep saying XP grind but I don’t get it. My examples are below. Where am I going wrong that this new system is some big grind?

A new player needs to do tutorials and run trial mechs until they have enough to purchase their first mech. Under the new system they buy the mech they want and then play it until it is mastered. I love the Mad Dog so depending on the desired variant approximately 22,000,00 Cbills and 136,500 XP to purchase and master it.

Under the old system They would have to buy three variants, grind them all to at least elite status before grinding the one they desired to master. Then they must grind to unlock and purchase the desired modules. Depending on the variants and modules this will cost them approximately 187,200,000 CBills, 128,750 XP and 63,500 GXP. This is somewhat deceptive because to grind that much GXP you need to grind about 635,000 XP. Not only is the current system a substantially larger grind but you must do a lot of it in stock built variants you probably aren’t interested in.

Now a lot of the grind in the old system went towards the next mech so let’s expand the example to get a new player to a fully tooled drop deck.

Under the new system the player needs 4 mechs so he takes his original cost and multiplies it by 4 to get an approximate value. The total is now around 88,000,00 Cbills and 546,000 XP. For his he can cheery pick any 4 mechs from any class he likes and plays in nothing but those 4 mechs.

Under the old system? Well it is kind of a moot point as the new player got an entire drop deck of his choice for less than mastering a single mech under the current system.

[Zergling]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Yeah...totally not enough customization there at all.

For there to be customisation, there must be varied options to choose from, not 'clearly best options' that beat all others.


Here are the standard 'choices' nearly everyone will make:

Armor Hardening, 5 nodes
Skeletal Density, 5 nodes
Fall Damage, 4 nodes
Total cost of Survival tree = 14

Cool Run, 5 nodes
Heat Containment, 5 nodes
Quick Ignition, 5 nodes
Hill Climb, 2 nodes
Speed Retention, 2 nodes
Total cost of Operations tree = 19

Kinetic Burst, 5 nodes
Hard Brake, 5 nodes
Turn Rate, 5 nodes
Speed Tweak, 5 nodes
Total cost of Lower Chassis tree = 20

Radar Deprivation, 5 nodes
Seismic Sensor, 2 nodes
Target Info Gathering, 4 nodes
Sensor Range, 4 nodes
Target Decay, 3 nodes
Target Retention, 1 node
Total cost of Sensors tree = 19

And that is 72 points, leaving just 19 points left. At this point, the player is going to put the remaining points into a single weapon tree.

If for example, it was a SRM boat, these 'choices' would be the best:

SRM cooldown, 5 nodes
SRM spread, 5 nodes
SRM range, 4 nodes
SRM velocity, 5 nodes
Total cost of SRM tree = 19

The only changes are some minor adjustments if the player needs advanced zoom to snipe with, or if their mech runs ECM.

There is no real variation outside of that; none of the other skill nodes are worth taking over those picks.
Eg, it isn't worth dropping Lower Chassis for Jump Jets, nor is it worth dropping Sensors for a second weapon tree.

Edited by Zergling, 10 February 2017 - 01:21 AM.

[SeventhSL]

yer sry mate. Not sure where I went wrong but fixed now.

[Cabusha3]

The discussions of costs are a bit off.

To Master and Keep 1 mech:
Old System: ~14mil for TBR, Minimum of 3 = 42mil
Master and Keep 1 mech, sell other 2 for 1/2. = 28mil Net
Radar Dep + Seismic + 1 WeaponMod (15mil) = 43mil net for 1 Master Timberwolf MINIMUM

New System. 1 TBR = 14mil
+ Master for 9.1Mil = 23mil Net for 1 Master Timberwofl

Edited by Cabusha3, 10 February 2017 - 01:48 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

Dee Eight, on 10 February 2017 - 12:48 AM, said:

Not enough customization ? This is my mastered bushwacker X2... I run it with 3 MGs, 3 Streak-2s, 2 Medium lasers, AMS, BAP. Modules are seismic, radar dep, and streak cooldown and range. That's 18 million in modules and I only own single examples of the seismic and streak weapon modules.



And this is the same mech under the new skill tree....





More agility all around, better structure & armor, and the equivalent of an improved streak range module, AMS overload, seismic, 360 target retention, sensor range, target decay, target info gathering, speed retention, hill climb, shock absorbtion, gyros and UAV improvements. All for 9.1 million cbills.

Yeah...totally not enough customization there at all.

Can someone please post the corresponding screenshot of a dual Gauss+PPC Night Gyr?

IMO that's what we need to discuss.

Edited by Duke Nedo, 10 February 2017 - 02:12 AM.

[SeventhSL]

Quote

The discussions of costs are a bit off.

To Master and Keep 1 mech:
Old System: ~14mil for TBR, Minimum of 3 = 42mil
Master and Keep 1 mech, sell other 2 for 1/2. = 28mil Net
Radar Dep + Seismic + 1 WeaponMod (15mil) = 43mil net for 1 Master Timberwolf MINIMUM

New System. 1 TBR = 14mil
+ Master for 9.1Mil = 23mil Net for 1 Master Timberwofl

Nice pickup. I have edited my Cbill value but not sold off the unwanted variants assuming a new player keeps them to make the cheapest drop deck.

Either way it is still clearly a lower CBill grind under the new system. I mean 9.1 mil to buy the skill tree but I'm typically spending 18-15 mil for 2 mech and 2 weapon modules anyway.

Even selling the unwanted variants as per your example the player saves enough CBills to buy the skill tree for 2 other mechs.

Edited by SeventhSL, 10 February 2017 - 02:26 AM.

[Cold Darkness]

this thread is hillarious.

people complain they have not enough skillpoints, yet MOST of thos problems listed will be solved with LESS skillpoints.

91 skillpoints offer no diversity because you dont need to make choices, instead you just get everything at the same time.

[meteorol]

Cabusha3, on 10 February 2017 - 01:47 AM, said:

The discussions of costs are a bit off.

To Master and Keep 1 mech:
Old System: ~14mil for TBR, Minimum of 3 = 42mil
Master and Keep 1 mech, sell other 2 for 1/2. = 28mil Net
Radar Dep + Seismic + 1 WeaponMod (15mil) = 43mil net for 1 Master Timberwolf MINIMUM

New System. 1 TBR = 14mil
+ Master for 9.1Mil = 23mil Net for 1 Master Timberwofl

No, the cost discussion isn't a bit off. And you are showing exactly the kind of narrow-minded aproach PGI did, which got us this train wreck.

You are calculating costs based on keeping ONE mech. Countless people keep more than one variant. I do have 3 Timbers, 4 Night Gyrs, all mastered, equipped and played regulary for example.

If you buy 3 timber and keep them, that's 42m. + 15m for modules (because you can switch them) thats 57m.

New system?

42m+ 27.3m = 69.3m plus 124k exp (exp for for each single variant!). That's 11.3m cbills more for people who keep variants if they switch modules, which a lot of people do.

And that number gets bigger and bigger if people switched modules between more mechs. Switching 3 modules between 6 mechs? The difference gets bigger by 15m. 9 mechs an 3 modules? You see where this is going.

There is a huge number of people who switched modules between mechs, i'm even willing to bet it's the majority of the playerbase.

Once you got people who have like 100+ mechs and a set of maybe 20 modules or something like that, the costs for mastering mechs under the new system explodes and will prevent them from mastering their mechs at all.

So, once you do something besides "sell 2 of 3 variants and buy a set of modules for every single mech", the cost difference gets massive pretty quickly.

Edited by meteorol, 10 February 2017 - 02:44 AM.