41 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

With the current skill tree on PTS, you have 91 nodes to select and the branches are around 20 nodes deep, meaning you will by default spread nodes between firepower, survival, mobility, infotech, and operations. You will have most of the things you could possibly want for your mech. My suggestion is to add 2nd and 3rd tiers to current branches (first tier), allowing for a maximum of 3 times the current bonuses. This means that a branch can be 60 nodes deep, with serious benefits, but this specialization will come with costs beyond having fewer nodes to select from other trees. The other caveats are:

1. Firepower-Infotech, and Survival-Mobility are opposing paths, so that to achieve the second tier is to block off the first tier in the other. Ex: To select even one node of the 2nd tier from firepower means all Tier 1 infotech nodes will become unavailable. In addition, you are limited to the first tier in two sections that are not blocked.

2. To open up 3rd tier nodes of any of the 4 sections Firepower, Infotech, Survival, Mobility, is to make the other three sections unavailable. As an example, to achieve +22.5% speed tweak in 3rd tier mobility, you have give up all firepower, survival, and infotech nodes, so you will forgo all weapon and toughness skills as an example. You may still select from the operations path however.

Opinions? Discuss?

Update 2-11:
Regarding exclusively prohibited trees, I feel that is a necessity to prevent some OP combinations. Path blocking results in highly specialized mechs that have great strengths.. and great weaknesses. I based my choices on (http://tvtropes.org/...petitiveBalance) which lists stereotypes that confer competitive balance.

Fragile Speedster: Tier 3 Mobility
Glass cannon: Tier 3 weapons
Stone wall: Tier 3 survival
Puppet Fighter: Tier 3 Infotech
Mighty Glacier: Tier 2 Survival, Tier 1 Weapons
Mage/Wizard: Tier 2 Infotech, Tier 1 Mobility
Stealth Expert: Tier 2 Mobility, Tier 1 Weapons/Infotech
Close range combatant: Tier 2 weapons, Tier 1 Survival/Mobility
Long range combatant: Tier 2 weapons, Tier 1 Mobility
Jack of All Stats: Tier 1 everything

The section block as a result of specialization prevents the following game breaking combinations:
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Survival (ex: srm brawl that is both fast and durable)
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Weapons (ex: snipers with range and cannot be caught)
Tier 3 Weapons, Tier 3 Survival (ex: a turret that is both durable and deals massive damage at range)
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Infotech (ex: 191kph locust with 600 meter seismic)


Update 2-12:
Thanks for the comments thus far. One of the main concerns brought up is the blocking off of entire sections of nodes as you specialize. I feel this is necessary to prevent game breaking combinations, but a possible compromise is to add unique and powerful skills upon reaching Tier 2 and Tier 3 as compensation of the loss of other nodes.

Some ideas/suggestions:
Infotech Tier 2: Omniscience I > within the center comprising half of your field of view, target-able mechs are targeted automatically for you and your teammates. Target retention and info gathering also occur. Radar deprivation and ECM still act as counters.
Infotech Tier 3: Omniscience II > within your full field of view, target-able mechs are targeted automatically for you and your teammates. Target retention and info gathering also occur. Radar deprivation and ECM still act as counters.

Survival Tier 2: Resilience I > -15% critical damage taken, this applies to both damage to components and bonus damage to structure
Survival Tier 3: Resilience II > -15% (30% cumulative) critical damage taken, this applies to both damage to components and bonus damage to structure

Mobility Tier 2: Balance > No stagger upon losing a leg, 50kph cap on one leg is also removed.
Mobility Tier 3: Cloud Step > Fall damage reduced by 90%, jump jets recharge at 25% of normal rate while air borne and not in use.

Firepower Tier 2: Accuracy I > +20% critical chance
Firepower Tier 3: Accuracy II > +20% critical chance (40% cumulative)


Update 2-15: I'll try to explain the balance mechanism a bit more

Take 2 Cheetas, built exactly the same way with 6 small pulse lasers, ECM, and piloted by pilots of exactly the same skill. How would it play out differently if the Cheeta only differed on skill tree choices, specifically if it were boosted to Tier 3 Firepower, Survival, Mobility, or Infotech respectively?

Tier 3 Firepower versus Tier 3 Survival:
Neither has a info or mobility advantage, so suppose the fight starts face to face. Firepower has more range, shorter burn duration, and higher dps, but Survival can shrug the damage off. The fight outcome depends on each's ability to focus damage on components, with the caveat that while it's easier for Firepower to dish it out, Survival can take it.

Tier 3 Firepower/Survival versus Tier 3 Mobility:
Mobility does not want to fight a fair fight, mobility wants to evade, circle, and ambush Firepower/Survival at every opportunity, which it can do with superior speed, turn, and jump jets. Firepower/Survival recognizes this, so if Firepower/Survival finds a corner and waits, a stalemate occurs. If Mobility attacks head on, Mobility loses, so Mobility stays away. If Firepower/Survival doesn't choose stalemate, then if Firepower/Survival catches Mobility in the open where Mobility cannot escape right away, Firepower/Survival wins. If Mobility succeeds in successively choosing good ambush locations, then Mobility wins. The advantage still lies with Firepower/Survival since any mistakes on Mobility's part results in death, however Mobility's weakness in 1vs1 is made up for with strong scouting and flanking capabilities in group engagements.

Tier 3 Infotech versus Tier 3 Firepower/Survival/Mobility
Infotech's only advantage is choosing the location of engagement. With a 600 meter radius seismic, Infotech will find out the location of Firepower/Survival/Mobility without ever exposing itself. Having no advantages in a fair fight, Infotech's only chance at victory is a fatal sneak attack to the back. This is easiest against Firepower, which has no mobility nor durability advantage. Escape is still a possibility if the sneak attack fails. The sneak attack itself is hardest to succeed against Survival, which can likely survive not only instant death, but perhaps even prevent the loss of a side torso. However, Mobility presents the hardest challenge, as it can turn the fastest to avoid a fatal wound and also escape is impossible once detected so there is no second chance. The fight will be close, but Mobility will have a much easier time spreading damage and will emerge the victor. As the weakest fighter, Infotech's enormous info gathering capabilities allows him to see the battlefield clearer than any other and would be an asset to any commander.


A final balancing point is it should be visible after a mech is scanned if it has reached Tier 2 or 3 specialization, via an icon of some sort. If you see someone with Tier 2 Weapons, you know he gave up Infotech and has no radar deprivation nor seismic sensor. Someone with Tier 2 Survival is slow to turn and twist. Someone with Tier 2 Mobility or Infotech is a weaker than average fighter. Someone that reached Tier 3 has multiplied weaknesses.

Edited by ironnightbird, 20 February 2017 - 05:21 PM.

[PraetorGix]

Sound nice but I think PGI would struggle to find useful nodes to include, without them being super OP or technically problematic. Your speed tweak of 22.5% immediately screams trouble in the case of a Locust for example.

[Nightbird]

Would it though? To get that 22.5% speed tweak, it has no survival (hitpoints boost), no infotech (radar derp, seismic), no firepower (range, duration, cooldown), so what can it do?

[50 50]

It's a nice idea but I agree that there may not be enough skills to create second tier branches.
We can probably add in a few additional skills and further break up the small handful that only have two nodes into 5 node skills.
Otherwise, increasing some of the existing skills to go higher than level 5, particularly for weaker mech variants, would add that extra bit.

[Fox2232]

People all around here scream: "My dps is 5% lower, PGI broke my mech!" Ignoring that they gained so much survivability and utility.

But you give them solution: Throw Away everything and overboost one thing like Weapons.
Yeah, pure glass cannon. Or Most Sluggish Tank Ever. Or: "I am totally useless tool, but Gotta go Fast!"

Idea is worse than what we have now. Especially since taking progressively stronger nodes means that leveling player will spend more time being very weak. And everyone will definitely use just one weapon type.
Taking Strong nodes 1st and gaining smaller and smaller boosts once invested into same stuff... can give 60% of total achievable power to players who spent 30 nodes.
(This can be especially useful on weapons as: 1 weapon type boat may get max power after spending 25 points. But spending those 25 points across starting parts of 3 weapons may give 60/50/50% bonus to each.)

[Adran]

The OP may not be entirely right in their particular suggestion, but I agree with the concept behind it. Deepen the degree of choice and make it so I CAN'T just make my mech God Mode in everything. As it stands, even not being able to get on the PTS, I'm fairly confident I can make my Catapult into a god-mode mech. As it's my primary go-to mech most of the time, that'll make me happy, but I won't be satisfied with the fairly boring "choice" I'm being presented with here. There isn't really any choices to make.

[Nightbird]

It feels like people want everything, be ace of all trades. This will only result in cookie cutter builds as everyone has everthing. What I'm suggesting is the ability to create a role for your mech. Want to be a commander? Max out info tech, get 600 meter seismic sensor, supreme sensor range, 15 seconds target decay, 300 meter ecm cover. Want to be an anvil? Max out survival, almost double your toughness, enjoy the shade when it rains hellfire. Yes, there is a cost, no, you can't do everthing, and if you'd prefer to be jack of all trades, you still can.

[Nightbird]

Also consider the impacts this can have on strategy, both in faction play and competitive play. Will a team go with an unstoppable force or an immovable object strat? Kite like the wind or orchestrate a chess match?</p>

Edited by ironnightbird, 10 February 2017 - 08:52 AM.

[Nightbird]

There's also no reason why this idea cannot be combined with wishes for lower node costs, or more linear trees or having diminishing returns or having increased costs for nodes (earlier nodes are cheaper).

[Gas Guzzler]

I don't know, I am already forgoing the infotech tree completely and the upper agility tree on any build that uses more than one primary weapon.

[Nightbird]

Oh hey Gas! Do you mind posting your build?

For example, this is my master of all trades build for the two weapon Ebon (2LPL+6ERML build), it does give up the upper agility tree but that's all it gives up (in exchange for survival, which is completely new so I don't consider that a true loss)

[Gas Guzzler]

ironnightbird, on 10 February 2017 - 02:47 PM, said:

Oh hey Gas! Do you mind posting your build?

For example, this is my master of all trades build for the two weapon Ebon (2LPL+6ERML build), it does give up the upper agility tree but that's all it gives up (in exchange for survival, which is completely new so I don't consider that a true loss)

I focused more on weapons and less on infotech (didn't touch the sensors tree). Why would you not max out duration, thats like the most OP thing on there.

That list also looks longer because you have improvements from the standard skill tree that didn't show up before. Annnnd a number of this things you HAD to pick up to get other things.

Honestly, things like the 50% accel/decel are out of place IMO. That is much too high. It used to be 15, lets make the max 25 instead of 50.

I can post mine later when I have time.. my wife wants to hang out tonight.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 10 February 2017 - 02:59 PM.

[Nightbird]

With the new skill tree, my thinking is, do we only want what we can already get or rather we're forced to get now? A little weapons, a little mobility, a little infotech, a little operations, all in a fancy new interface with minor changes here and there? I feel it's a missed opportunity to add customization depth, sure, you can still do a little of everything, but you can also do a lot of one thing, and that would really open the doors to a completely fresh set of strategies.

[Gas Guzzler]

ironnightbird, on 10 February 2017 - 05:15 PM, said:

With the new skill tree, my thinking is, do we only want what we can already get or rather we're forced to get now? A little weapons, a little mobility, a little infotech, a little operations, all in a fancy new interface with minor changes here and there? I feel it's a missed opportunity to add customization depth, sure, you can still do a little of everything, but you can also do a lot of one thing, and that would really open the doors to a completely fresh set of strategies.

Well, I chose to drop infotech entirely in exchange for extra weapon stuff and durability that I couldn't have before.. I think that's cool.

[Nightbird]

For most mechs, is there any decision other than infotech or some additional weapon nodes? Pretty much everything else is a necessity right? If you throw in some upper mech mobility, oh boy, we're really going wild

Edited by ironnightbird, 10 February 2017 - 10:01 PM.

[Nightbird]

I rewrote the OP, hopefully making it clearer.

[Gas Guzzler]

ironnightbird, on 10 February 2017 - 09:33 PM, said:

For most mechs, is there any decision other than infotech or some additional weapon nodes? Pretty much everything else is a necessity right? If you throw in some upper mech mobility, oh boy, we're really going wild

Still more tradeoffs than the choice of a weapon module or a mech module frankly..

Also, you said the Ebon is a Master of all trades? How is it in a brawl?

Basically the cool run and heat containment, along with the lower agility is pretty much a given, and durability is strongly recommended. I think if you want to fully skil up two weapon trees your are going to sacrifice a big.part of one of those.

[VirtualRiot]

I agree with deepening the tiers to allow for more advanced levels of specialization. From playing around in the PTS so far, I can see that I will be using the same 2 or 3 skill combinations for 90% of my mechs.
You get to have everything you need, and almost nothing you dont.

A more compelling system would fore you to make choices between things you want.
If I was the designer, I would simply extrapolate the current trees by 3x.
For example, with the current tree, you can get a max of 10% LRM spread reduction. With the extrapolated tree, you could achieve 30% spread reduction, but you would have many less points to put in other trees.

What I want to see in this game is more diversity, but with these trees, I feel most mechs carrying the same load-out will be the same.

With these trees, my 7MPL TDR-5SS will almost surely be nearly exactly the same as every other 7MPL TDR-5SS on the field, because there is an optimal set of skills.
If the trees were deeper, maybe I decided to go full glass cannon on my TDR, but the other guy decided to go full cinderblock. Now that would be a more interesting brawl.

Edited by VirtualRiot, 11 February 2017 - 08:45 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Honestly if we want to have deeper specialization that's cool. We should honestly nerf some nodes anyway, but we can add them back in if it takes twice the nodes.

I just don't like exclusive/prohibited trees.

[Nightbird]

Gas Guzzler, on 11 February 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

Honestly if we want to have deeper specialization that's cool. We should honestly nerf some nodes anyway, but we can add them back in if it takes twice the nodes.

I just don't like exclusive/prohibited trees.

Regarding exclusively prohibited trees, I feel that is a necessity to prevent some OP combinations. Path blocking results in highly specialized mechs having great strengths.. and great weaknesses. I based my choices on (http://tvtropes.org/...petitiveBalance) which lists stereotypes that confer competitive balance.

Fragile Speedster: Tier 3 Mobility
Glass cannon: Tier 3 weapons
Stone wall: Tier 3 survival
Puppet Fighter: Tier 3 Infotech
Mighty Glacier: Tier 2 Survival, Tier 1 Weapons
Mage/Wizard: Tier 2 Infotech, Tier 1 Mobility
Stealth Expert: Tier 2 Mobility, Tier 1 Weapons/Infotech
Close range combatant: Tier 2 weapons, Tier 1 Survival/Mobility
Long range combatant: Tier 2 weapons, Tier 1 Mobility
Jack of All Stats: Tier 1 everything

The section block as a result of specialization prevents the following game breaking combinations:
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Survival (ex: srm brawl that is both fast and durable)
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Weapons (ex: snipers with range and cannot be caught)
Tier 3 Weapons, Tier 3 Survival (ex: a turret that is both durable and deals massive damage at range)
Tier 3 Mobility, Tier 3 Infotech (ex: 191kph locust with 600 meter seismic)

Edited by ironnightbird, 11 February 2017 - 11:12 AM.