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I also feel some trees have nodes that are Hard to understand. Example being the +100 seismic sensor nodes or the +20% radar deprivation. For new players this is extremely confusing. i am aware that the seismic is for range ie +100 meters but what does 20% radar deprivation equate to when before we have radar deprivation or no radar deprivation. this could be explained alot better .
The way XP GXP HXP and all the other types of XP are haphazardly placed in the tree and on multiple windows this not very intuitive and creates a lot of confusion when trying to skill out mechs.
Once a mech is skilled out the area previously used just for Quirk information gets jammed with all the new skills and is confusing to follow. Maybe here PGI you could change the color of skill related information to say blue and mech Quirks stay green. The ammo skill is particularly annoying due to it showing ammo values for all types of ammo regardless of what the mech is carrying.
On to the overall feel of the new skills and some balance talk. I like being able to put more than just cool down and range on my mech for offense and the ability to add more agility or defense is nice. I also like the ideas of whats in the Info tech areas. what i dont like is how the weapons trees are making certain mechs more powerful and it is pushing power creep. I was playing around with public enemy #1 last night the Kodiak K3. This mech has gone threw various nerfs since its launch. On the live servers it still is a very powerful mech with a few different builds but now on the PTS it is back to the OP version it formerly was. Dakka bear setup with 2 Uac10 and 2 Uac5 now has access to UAC jam reduction and UAC velocity increase it never had acces to before all while being able to give it agility, extra ammo and more armor and structure. This wouldn't be such a problem if it was one or 2 mechs but this goes on for almost all the mechs who are top performers with little to no quirks on the live servers. All these mechs now have access to more Offensive quirks and more defensive quirks pushing them to Over the top level. Night gyrs , Ebon jags , Timbers all now have big bonuses and feel more powerful on the PTS than live. I understand that the Cool down reduction has been nerfed but it is made up for with laser duration reduction, Ballistic velocity , Jam chance reduction etc. Couple this with the removal of offensive quirks from a large portion of IS mechs and what you end up with is a large imbalance towards the clan side. This probably wont be as noticeable in a QP environment but in FW the balance will be heavily shifted.How much extra tonnage will the IS need to over come this?
Overall TTK for a Clan mech vs IS or VS clan feels to have been lowered. Even with the extra armor and structure the increase in several offensive stats on top performing mechs out weighs the armor. This to me pushes people to have to play Meta Mechs.TTK for IS VS IS feels about right. Mechs feel tanky but still powerful.
The new crit mechanics also needs some tweaking . In the PTS once your amor is gone the next shot you take to that component usually crits off most if not all the weapons and equipment loaded there. compared to live where this is not the case. I feel the crit mechanic needs to be dialed back maybe not to the point it is on live but definitely not as dramatic as the current PTS version.
I'm honestly not sure how PGI can hope to have this new skill tree and not have it drive game imbalance. The only real way is probably to have a mech specific tree tho this creates its own set of problems. I do really hope PGI can come to some sort of balance with it because the current skill tree on the live server lacks depth and feels like a place holder for a much more rewarding system.
Edited by SteelHoves, 10 February 2017 - 09:04 AM.
