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[T e c h 4 9]

Hello everyone!

I have 3 ACH-Prime variants, all mastered. Just for fun I did a quick comparison of quirks/skills/modules from current live system to PTS, on my Invasion variant. Here's what I came up with:

Under the current live system, it cost me 57250 XP to level to master, and this covers all 3 since they are the same variant. Under the PTS, it would cost me 127500 XP (EACH!) to level to the following skill specs:

12 SP in Mech Operations/19 SP in Lower Chassis/20 SP in Laser/14 SP in Defensive/20 SP in Sensors

This is 85 SP total, leaving 6 SP to work with. This would cost 8.5 million C-Bills for each variant. Under the current live system, I would have the following modules installed: Advanced Seismic, C-ERS Laser Range and Cooldown 5, and Target Info Gathering. The total cost for all 4 modules is 16 million C-Bills, but these can be swapped between multiple 'mechs.

Under the new Skill Tree system on the PTS, I think the enhancements (that's what PGI is calling it) are better than what exists under the current live system with being mastered and those modules - overall anyway. I'd give up 4m in range, some torso/arm mobility, weapons convergence, maybe a little bit of heat dissipation, quick ignition cut by almost 20%, and lose 50m on Seismic, but also gain some accel/decel (50%/40%), turn rate (30%), lower fall damage by 40%, armor and structure buffs (25%/35%), 7.5% better hill climb, 10% speed retention, 35% sensor range, 80% radar dep (but with ECM already), 50% reduction in screen shake, slight target decay duration improvement, and 360 target retention to 200m.

Assuming I did this for all 3 variants, it would cost me 25.5 million C-Bills to spec them out in the Skill Tree, and a total of 382500 XP/HXP/GXP (!). Unfortunately, it looks like I only get 71296 HXP to use for all 3 variants combined, at least, that's what was in the PTS for it. So it doesn't look like I'd have enough HXP to spec out even 1 of them, and have to resort to using GXP to fill in the gaps. Those modules would be worth 34500 GXP and 16 million C-Bills in total across all 3 variants, so it does seem like the cost to upgrade or "master" a 'mech is higher both from an XP and C-bill perspective, unless you factor in the fact that under the current system you'd have to have 3 different variants in order to master any of them, so if you had to purchase the 'mechs you'd have that additional cost as well (varies by the 'mech - Locusts are cheap, but Assaults are not!).

Two things jump out at me:

1) overall, the "enhancements" will be better for each 'mech under the new skill tree system, though the current implementation does not give as much customization as some would like (having to take "unwanted" skills due to the way the tree is designed).

2) for those of us that have many mastered 'mechs (and modules), we will likely NOT get enough HXP/GXP carried over to spec our 'mechs comparatively to as they are now (the ones we currently own), and whether we'll get enough C-Bills refunded as well is not clear either (I doubt it).

My conclusion: those of us that have been playing this game a while and that have a large investment in our fleet of 'mechs and modules will likely be set back quite a bit from where we are right now. This of course does not factor in the amount of time we will have to spend spec'ing each 'mech out again either, which is lost play time for matches. I hope PGI takes these observations into account when considering the implementation of any new skill tree system, as it may turn alot of current players off.