22 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

... forget it. After seeing all the mixed feedback, this could go 6 ways by Sunday and people are still going to be upset. My proposal:

Change fast fire to a durability skill (adds some percentage to armor and structure, higher percentage for lights like the skill tree does)

Change pin point to be an accuracy skill that increases projectile/missile velocity ~5%, and decreases laser duration by ~5%.

Boom, done, nobody has hurt feelings, TTK has a minor increase, everyone is as happy as they are now, but probably a little happier.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 10 February 2017 - 09:35 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

I'd be happy to try the squirks tree if they decided to try it while keeping all quirks on all mechs the way they were. The 2% blanket buff to IS mechs (node gain tables) is a small step in the right direction for faction balance that I would be happy to test out.

The skill tree as a replacement for modules and old-skills is fine. The values are so small so it's almost fluff. But by removing so many quirks balance is thrown out the window and that's disastrous!

Edited by Duke Nedo, 10 February 2017 - 09:39 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

Duke Nedo, on 10 February 2017 - 09:39 AM, said:

I'd be happy to try the squirks tree if they decided to try it while keeping all quirks on all mechs the way they were. The 2% blanket buff to IS mechs (node gain tables) is a small step in the right direction for faction balance that I would be happy to test out.

The skill tree as a replacement for modules and old-skills is fine. The values are so small so it's almost fluff. But by removing so many quirks balance is thrown out the window and that's disastrous!

Yeah, but some values aren't small, like projectile velocities, jam chances, laser durations, Accel/decel (50% for each!?!?!).

I don't know, I'm happy with the game as is, with continued balance tweaking. The skill tree has been fun, but after seeing all the feedback I could see it getting very unfun because different people have different opinions on where is should go.

Should it... be a replacement for the old system? Should it actually lower the bar significantly and actually only allow you to have one or two of the things you had before? People seem to want to make it more of like an RPG build where you can only focus on using a long sword, or you can be tank, or you can be hard to hit, or you can cast spells. That's great for those games, but I don't know about this one. Its more like being able to choose ~4-5/10 then 1/10, which is how I would prefer it.

[Fantastic Tuesday]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 February 2017 - 09:35 AM, said:

Change fast fire to a durability skill (adds some percentage to armor and structure, higher percentage for lights like the skill tree does)

Change pin point to be an accuracy skill that increases projectile/missile velocity ~5%, and decreases laser duration by ~5%.

No to the first, the armour buffs should just be included in the default armour and structure values, to be honest.

Hell yes to the second.

[Gas Guzzler]

Fantastic Tuesday, on 10 February 2017 - 09:44 AM, said:

No to the first, the armour buffs should just be included in the default armour and structure values, to be honest.

Hell yes to the second.

Works for me!

[Duke Nedo]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 February 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

Yeah, but some values aren't small, like projectile velocities, jam chances, laser durations, Accel/decel (50% for each!?!?!).

I don't know, I'm happy with the game as is, with continued balance tweaking. The skill tree has been fun, but after seeing all the feedback I could see it getting very unfun because different people have different opinions on where is should go.

Should it... be a replacement for the old system? Should it actually lower the bar significantly and actually only allow you to have one or two of the things you had before? People seem to want to make it more of like an RPG build where you can only focus on using a long sword, or you can be tank, or you can be hard to hit, or you can cast spells. That's great for those games, but I don't know about this one. Its more like being able to choose ~4-5/10 then 1/10, which is how I would prefer it.

Yeah, I kind of agree, except that I don't know if PGI could take the credibility hit of killing off the squirks tree completely... again... like ED and infotech. Not sure it's even on the table to scrap this as well?

Mostly I am depressed by the poor starting values here. Doing nothing about the quirks and just launching the squirktree on top would have been eons better for a start.

[kapusta11]

So... scrap it because people who don't know what the hell that is they want from the game complain too much?

They want "roles". They want brawlers but don't like SRM boats/SRM+cSPL builds. They want Skirmishers but despise laser vomit and IS LPLs. They want Snipers yet they absolutely hate Gauss and PPCs. I say sсrew them.

New skill trees have a potential, even more so with the new tech on the horizon. If Kodiak keeps stomping everyone around then fix the gоddamn tech disparity by changing actual equipment stats. Quirks/skills will never accomplish that.

[Ultimax]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 February 2017 - 09:35 AM, said:

... forget it. After seeing all the mixed feedback, this could go 6 ways by Sunday and people are still going to be upset. My proposal:

Change fast fire to a durability skill (adds some percentage to armor and structure, higher percentage for lights like the skill tree does)

Change pin point to be an accuracy skill that increases projectile/missile velocity ~5%, and decreases laser duration by ~5%.

Boom, done, nobody has hurt feelings, TTK has a minor increase, everyone is as happy as they are now, but probably a little happier.

I might have some time this weekend to work on extended feedback to address a lot of issues.

New system does not need to be scrapped, it needs extensive heavy modification however.

[Gas Guzzler]

kapusta11, on 10 February 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

So... scrap it because people who don't know what the hell that is they want from the game complain too much?

They want "roles". They want brawlers but don't like SRM boats/SRM+cSPL builds. They want Skirmishers but despise laser vomit and IS LPLs. They want Snipers yet they absolutely hate Gauss and PPCs. I say sсrew them.

New skill trees have a potential, even more so with the new tech on the horizon. If Kodiak keeps stomping everyone around then fix the gоddamn tech disparity by changing actual equipment stats. Quirks/skills will never accomplish that.

I don't disagree, but its hard to wade through that feedback when it pops up everywhere.

Also, it costs to much. Why not take this opportunity to help get new players into the game? Yeah they don't have to buy 3 mechs, but they still have to spend 9 million c-bills and grind for 137000 xp.. and then they only have one mech mastered instead of 3. If they want another variant (because god forbid two variants of one chassis be useful at different roles), then that's another 9 million and 137000 xp on top of the cost of the mech.

Ultimax, on 10 February 2017 - 10:13 AM, said:

I might have some time this weekend to work on extended feedback to address a lot of issues.

New system does not need to be scrapped, it needs extensive heavy modification however.

Honestly I agree, but some of the modifications I see being proposed will make it worse in my opinion, so its easier and safer to keep the status quo IMO.

[TercieI]

It's not ideal, but it's better than a the proposed tree by a wide margin.

Honestly, the more I consider, the more convinced I am that quirks a superior method of balancing, but they require a skilled, careful, diligent hand to adjust them monthly based on actual high level play. And that, unfortunately, seems out of reach.

[Gas Guzzler]

TercieI, on 10 February 2017 - 10:45 AM, said:

It's not ideal, but it's better than a the proposed tree by a wide margin.

Honestly, the more I consider, the more convinced I am that quirks a superior method of balancing, but they require a skilled, careful, diligent hand to adjust them monthly based on actual high level play. And that, unfortunately, seems out of reach.

OH definitely. In another thread I was just saying how there's no good way the skill tree can actually make up for quirks, because if that's how its done, certain mechs will be pieces of **** until mastered.

Ideally, tech should be balanced so the best mechs in either faction should not have quirks. From there, quirks make up for mech balance. And then the skill tree should provide an equal shift upward.

They should really just remove their goal of a "drastic reduction in inherent mech quirks" for the skill tree. That needs to be accomplished with tech balance, and only maybe to a SLIGHT degree in the skill tree.

[Skribs]

If the additional points Mechs receive were free and available when you first get the Mech, then it would be like customizable quirks. But I agree, the new system seems inferior to the old, and the only ways in which it is better can be accomplished without the new system.

[Monkey Lover]

No way, I think there is way more positives than negatives.

[Cy Mitchell]

There are no "skills". These are just player applied quirks. The system is fine except that once again the players are being given too much freedom which will allow them to break the game. There needs to be limits. Mechs that currently are powerful without quirks just need to get enough Skill Points to get them back to the same relative level. Maybe they should only get enough to make them slightly less powerful than they currently are. Mechs that need basic quirks can keep them and then they should be given enough Skill Points to close the gap on the best Mechs.

The present system of giving all Mechs an equal number of Skill points to spend in the same skill tree will never work because great Mechs are going to get greater.

That and the cost are the two deal killers. But I want them to address those issues not throw the whole thing out like they did info tech and energy draw. There was some good in both of those but it all got scraped. All those work hours for nothing. Lets get something worthwhile out of it this time.

[Skribs]

Monkey Lover, on 10 February 2017 - 11:11 AM, said:

No way, I think there is way more positives than negatives.

I think most of the positives can be done without the skill tree. The biggest things I see touted are the removal of the 3-mech rule and the increase in TTL.

Well, they can remove the 3-mech rule. They can adjust TTL by changing pinpoint to give a 10% armor and structure bonus.

Modules are more expensive now, but are less expensive if you swap them around in your competitive or favorite mechs, so it's a wash (good or bad depending on how many Mechs and modules you have).

There's the idea of customization, but most people are concerned about cookie cutter builds, as well as analysis paralysis of lancemates between drops.

I see a lot of negatives, such as balance getting screwed up, additional costs and time sinks, and encouragement of boating, to name a few.

[Gas Guzzler]

Rampage, on 10 February 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

There are no "skills". These are just player applied quirks. The system is fine except that once again the players are being given too much freedom which will allow them to break the game. There needs to be limits. Mechs that currently are powerful without quirks just need to get enough Skill Points to get them back to the same relative level. Maybe they should only get enough to make them slightly less powerful than they currently are. Mechs that need basic quirks can keep them and then they should be given enough Skill Points to close the gap on the best Mechs.

The present system of giving all Mechs an equal number of Skill points to spend in the same skill tree will never work because great Mechs are going to get greater.

That and the cost are the two deal killers. But I want them to address those issues not throw the whole thing out like they did info tech and energy draw. There was some good in both of those but it all got scraped. All those work hours for nothing. Lets get something worthwhile out of it this time.

After thinking on it, I think that applying different number or skills to different mechs just isn't the way to go. I think the skill tree just needs to provide very minor benefits, and they should be relatively equal across all the mechs. The BASE mechs need to be balanced, which means the best mechs of each faction have no quirks and are balanced against each other. Less ideal mechs get quirks to make up the difference, and the skill tree provides an even shift upward for all, with some tradeoffs (even with 91 skills there are tradeoffs to make).

If they balance by skill points, you have mechs that are way UP/OP before mastery, and then PGI has to dynamically adjust skill points with balance changes. Which means people will either lose skill points or have to re-spec things. I'd much rather quirks remain the iterative balance method, where the skill tree is a constant set of minor bonuses to player chosen things. I could see a slight reduction of skill points making sense, but I feel the skill tree should more or less get you to where you were with the old skill tree + modules, with more emphasis on durability/agility and less emphasis on DPS. (I think going from 17% cooldown from the old tree + module to 5% is probably a good call for TTK reasons).

[Orville Righteous]

I kind of wish it would be cheaper to skill up Lights and maybe Mediums. A locust is pretty cheap to buy (3 million?) but it still costs the same 9 million to skill up as a Dire Wolf. I'd like the nodes to be cheaper to buy for lights. Just IMO.

Overall, I'm liking the new system. I can see a lot of potential. I wish it was in place when I first started. I'd have a bunch of different mechs instead of a bunch of 3 chassis.

[naterist]

kapusta11, on 10 February 2017 - 10:12 AM, said:

So... scrap it because people who don't know what the hell that is they want from the game complain too much?

They want "roles". They want brawlers but don't like SRM boats/SRM+cSPL builds. They want Skirmishers but despise laser vomit and IS LPLs. They want Snipers yet they absolutely hate Gauss and PPCs. I say sсrew them.

New skill trees have a potential, even more so with the new tech on the horizon. If Kodiak keeps stomping everyone around then fix the gоddamn tech disparity by changing actual equipment stats. Quirks/skills will never accomplish that.

i love this.

if anything, we need to drop initial cbills for a node down, keep the respec cost, thats at a good level, and maybe we can give the values on both sides a minor increase.

but scrap it? heck no, this is awesome.

[Gas Guzzler]

naterist, on 10 February 2017 - 11:34 AM, said:

i love this.

if anything, we need to drop initial cbills for a node down, keep the respec cost, thats at a good level, and maybe we can give the values on both sides a minor increase.

but scrap it? heck no, this is awesome.

I like it too, I'm primarily concerned with where the feedback will drive it.

And actually I disagree about buffing nodes, there are some nodes that definitely need nerfs if anything.

[Cy Mitchell]

Gas Guzzler, on 10 February 2017 - 11:25 AM, said:

After thinking on it, I think that applying different number or skills to different mechs just isn't the way to go. I think the skill tree just needs to provide very minor benefits, and they should be relatively equal across all the mechs. The BASE mechs need to be balanced, which means the best mechs of each faction have no quirks and are balanced against each other. Less ideal mechs get quirks to make up the difference, and the skill tree provides an even shift upward for all, with some tradeoffs (even with 91 skills there are tradeoffs to make).

If they balance by skill points, you have mechs that are way UP/OP before mastery, and then PGI has to dynamically adjust skill points with balance changes. Which means people will either lose skill points or have to re-spec things. I'd much rather quirks remain the iterative balance method, where the skill tree is a constant set of minor bonuses to player chosen things. I could see a slight reduction of skill points making sense, but I feel the skill tree should more or less get you to where you were with the old skill tree + modules, with more emphasis on durability/agility and less emphasis on DPS. (I think going from 17% cooldown from the old tree + module to 5% is probably a good call for TTK reasons).

I do not disagree with this IF the Mechs can be balanced with quirks and base stats. That has never happened so far. Using the Skill Tree would give the players the opportunity to do the balancing.

If they do not limit SP then I feel that they need to dial back some of the benefit levels that the player applied quirks provide. They cannot or at least should not introduce the Skill Tree in its present iteration because some of the Mechs are just going to be way too strong.