105 replies to this topic

[Nik Reaper]

If possible it would seem a good idea to hold a town hall or something similar to discuss the skill tree this month, to have the most popular suggestions passed over and seen how possible such changes are.

The CW round table had effect , and this last one sounded pretty good, mby this is an acceptable format for joint development of crucial features.

[AnTi90d]

I don't see it linked in this forum, so here's the feedback thread on reddit:

https://www.reddit.c...q98&sh=9c609de9

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My 2 cents:

*This new skill system really hurts the new player experience.
New players buy one Radar Derp and pass it around their mechs while they level them up.
Now, every single fresh, 0xp mech is going to be easily spotted / murdered by LRMs for the first few dozen matches until that player can save up enough xp and Cbills to afford Derp.
This makes leveling up new mechs more difficult than ever, which is a burden that new players will have to deal with.. especially in Tier 4/5, where LRMs are very popular.

The solution:

Give every single mech ~20 free nodes to unlock, right out of the box.

-----

*The biggest issue with this new skill system is that it encourages boating one weapon and penalizes build diversity. Mauler MX90 / Nova / Kodiak 3 / Grasshopper or any mech with multiples of one hardpoint type get to upgrade all of their weapons. Marauder / Orion / Victor / Vindicator are severely punished by having multiple types of hardpoints.
PGI claims that this system, and I quote:

Quote

Promote greater build and 'Mech diversity

The system utterly fails at their own design goal.

The solution:

Don't have individual weapon skills. Consolidate weapon skills into categories that affect all three weapon types.
1.) Rate of fire: Reduce weapons cooldown for all weapons
2.) Range: Increase range for all weapons
3.) Heat efficiency: Reduce heat generation for all weapons
4.) Precision: Consolidate missile spread, LBX spread, laser duration, and projectile velocity into a single catch-all skill.
BOOM, then boats would be on the same footing as mechs that are forced to have a small number of three types of hardpoints.

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*The new system allows overperforming mechs to become even more powerful.
The Kodiak 3, the Marauder IIc and other mechs that are already clear overperformers manage to get an even larger leg-up on the competition within their weight bracket, with the new skill system.

The solution:

Overperforming mechs should have fewer nodes available to them.
Underperforming mechs should have more nodes available to them.
PGI has the stats. They know which mechs score, on average, more damage / kills than the other mechs within their weight bracket. The mechs that have better hitboxes / hardpoints should receive fewer nodes than ones that have terrible hitboxes and low / spread / diverse hardpoints.

Edited by AnTi90d, 10 February 2017 - 09:09 PM.

[Ralatar]

TY PGI, good form. This is how it should be done and ty for listening.

I would like to make a small suggestion, for the next PTS please allow 12 man drops. I'm sure the reason for the 4 man drops is population on the test server. Problem is...the game and play dynamics are vastly dif between the two. Mechs you would run in a 12 man often can't be properly tested for changes if run in 8 or 4 man drops as the tactics have to change for each group size most of the time. We can give approximate feed back but unless we're facing similar fight dynamic's hard to accurately gauge changes. IMHO

[Domenoth]

Ralatar, on 10 February 2017 - 09:11 PM, said:

TY PGI, good form. This is how it should be done and ty for listening.

I would like to make a small suggestion, for the next PTS please allow 12 man drops. I'm sure the reason for the 4 man drops is population on the test server. Problem is...the game and play dynamics are vastly dif between the two. Mechs you would run in a 12 man often can't be properly tested for changes if run in 8 or 4 man drops as the tactics have to change for each group size most of the time. We can give approximate feed back but unless we're facing similar fight dynamic's hard to accurately gauge changes. IMHO

I understand what your asking for and I agree it would be useful, but believe me, your request is completely unattainable. I recommend instead that you gather a group of friends together and drop in private matches. Private matches can be 12 v 12 provided you can get the players together.

EDIT:

PGI started giving out premium time specifically to allow people to make full use of private matches for testing purposes.

Edited by Domenoth, 10 February 2017 - 10:38 PM.

[Hoshi Toranaga]

Alexander Garden, on 10 February 2017 - 03:51 PM, said:

Greetings all,

The reception to the overall framework of the new Skill Tree has been positive, but it's clear there are ways to improve the implementation.

Greetings,

You have to be joking. If you mean by "overall framework" that there is a skill system, then yes. Everything else has been HUGELY received negative and rightly so, because the whole system how it is today is bogus and I fear that one more month will not cut it. You will need more than that to address the most important concerns that were raised like:

- Real decisions
- Not screwing old players with HXP
- Actually fulfill your design goals (facilitate diversity)
- Not punish for experimenting
- Actually being better in any way than the current system
- Not forcing useless skills on us to reach something meaningful
- Not overpower clantech totally

In my feeling the whole idea to do this now is opening a can of worms you are unprepared to face.
It also does not address real issues the game has, it makes many worse (balancing).
Now at least you have an OKish balanced game, no it is not perfect, yes there are more powerful systems and chassis etc. However that was always the case in Battletech. What the new skillsystem does is throwing you back 2 years at least balancing wise. Not only is Clan vs IS destabilized, hell even IS vs IS this will make many many chassis overpowered and some obsolete (yes you may argue some are now, but if someone can make it worse, you are doing it).

Hence 1 more month wont cut it. It was a waste of resources that could work on something better. Yes the basic principle is OK, but hell you would need to go back to the drawing board with this. So it will cost even more resources to fix, or you present us and force feed us a half assed compromise attempt in March which will do one of 2 thing:
1. Best case you will bleed away player base
2. There will be an exodus of old players
Both ways your revenue will go down.
Even worse would be if your reputation suffers a critical hit, then good luck selling Mechwarrior 5 and getting backers for that one outside of the total fanboy circle.

PGI has made bad decisions in the past and then took a long time to fix it. This is not how good business is done.

Even if I would not play the game at all and only be the bunsiness man I am. If I take an objective look at this forum full of bad feedback for an idea (not even knowing if many of it is true or not) I would blow the whole thing off. Like many inventions that are basically a wonderful idea (natural gas cars) if the reception is bad, you will not make money from it.

[Appogee]

It's hard to see how PGI could iterate the PTS build in a way that addresses its significant, fundamental downsides:

• Requires double the XP and +20% CBills to Master any Mech (detailed calculations here).
  
• Benefits those with a few mechs; punishes those who collect many Mechs.
  
• Encourages locking in meta builds; taxes experimentation and variety.
  
• Forces unlock of skills you don't want to get the ones you do.
  
• Decrease bankroll of CBills as you level, leaving you with not enough to purchase new Mechs.
  
• Much longer time leveling much less competitive Mechs against players in Mastered Mechs.
  
• Widens gap between new players in unlevelled Mechs and experienced pilots.
  
• Widens advantage of Clan Tech over IS.
  
• Widens gap between OP chassis and uncompetitive ones.

Yes, there are some positives. But they are by far outweighed by these negatives.

I think at best PGI will change some of the leveling values, maybe some of the branching architecture, and then launch it, saying "we addressed your concerns".

Edited by Appogee, 11 February 2017 - 12:09 AM.

[Kamikaze Viking]

I look forward to seeing how this gets tweaked based on most of the coherent feedback that I've read.

I just hope they take a "Less is more" attitude to changes and prune out some of the unnecessary parts instead of adding more things.

Edited by Kamikaze Viking, 11 February 2017 - 01:03 AM.

[Rhent]

The new skill tree will get me to buy ZERO new mechs, to play significantly less to the point of quitting, which will be what the massive Cbill sink will give you to master your mech. Proceed as you want, there are plenty of other games to play.

[XtremWarrior]

AnTi90d, on 10 February 2017 - 09:09 PM, said:

I don't see it linked in this forum, so here's the feedback thread on reddit:

https://www.reddit.c...q98&sh=9c609de9

----------

My 2 cents:

*This new skill system really hurts the new player experience.
New players buy one Radar Derp and pass it around their mechs while they level them up.
Now, every single fresh, 0xp mech is going to be easily spotted / murdered by LRMs for the first few dozen matches until that player can save up enough xp and Cbills to afford Derp.
This makes leveling up new mechs more difficult than ever, which is a burden that new players will have to deal with.. especially in Tier 4/5, where LRMs are very popular.

Sorry but i totally disagree with you on that one.

No matter how you look at it, leveling one Mech with Skill Tree is still a lot easier and cheaper than eliting 3 of them with the old system.
Adding the price of the Radar Derp module changes nothing until that player gets a lot of Mechs. By this time though, he will have learned a bit about the game and have a pool of "strong" chassis (read: fully specs) all fitted with a Radar Derp equivalent to farm CBills.

This also allows new player to try FW a lot sooner than now.

Edited by XtremWarrior, 11 February 2017 - 02:02 AM.

[Hoshi Toranaga]

Appogee, on 11 February 2017 - 12:04 AM, said:

It's hard to see how PGI could iterate the PTS build in a way that addresses its significant, fundamental downsides:

• Requires double the XP and +20% CBills to Master any Mech (detailed calculations here).
  
• Benefits those with a few mechs; punishes those who collect many Mechs.
  
• Encourages locking in meta builds; taxes experimentation and variety.
  
• Forces unlock of skills you don't want to get the ones you do.
  
• Decrease bankroll of CBills as you level, leaving you with not enough to purchase new Mechs.
  
• Much longer time leveling much less competitive Mechs against players in Mastered Mechs.
  
• Widens gap between new players in unlevelled Mechs and experienced pilots.
  
• Widens advantage of Clan Tech over IS.
  
• Widens gap between OP chassis and uncompetitive ones.

Yes, there are some positives. But they are by far outweighed by these negatives.



I think at best PGI will change some of the leveling values, maybe some of the branching architecture, and then launch it, saying "we addressed your concerns".

You sir are genius. I wrote a wall of text, but your summary is precise on the point and as good as can be. I tip my hat to you sir.

Thankfully Battletech beta is starting soon, so I can get my Battletach fix elsewhere if this goes live and maybe go for a few other games...

Edited by Hoshi Toranaga, 11 February 2017 - 02:57 AM.

[Makhina]

1st impression ..... Farewell the CASU to have mech full of skills .....

A LOT OF TUNE

Much XP

And like Bull, I was confused at the beginning to find out how many points could be allocated to your Mech ...... COOLDOWN, HEAT, RANGE and other possibility of obtaining ........ and at least For 2 type of arming easily ....

But the specialization is the car if you want a mech super Tanki you can, a dakka with more mun and a higher pace you can, a ******* scout, you can .......

[Nimnul]

I want more skills

[Appogee]

Hoshi Toranaga, on 11 February 2017 - 02:54 AM, said:

Thankfully Battletech beta is starting soon, so I can get my Battletach fix elsewhere if this goes live and maybe go for a few other games...

Thanks.

I too am looking forward to BT... and for the same reason. I'll play it until MWO's meta players have worked out the optimal ways to level the optimal Mechs, then focus my MWOing on getting a meta deck leveled out.

The rest of my 247 Mechs can sit there until I either sell them or the meta changes.

No more cash for PGI. I've sunk too much already, and I won't reward 'double the grind' being passed off as progress.

[Dr Cara Carcass]

Colonel ONeill, on 10 February 2017 - 04:27 PM, said:

We use buckets over here

Got me good. My apple juice is spread all over my screen.

Edited by Cara Carcass, 11 February 2017 - 05:09 AM.

[Chound]

Haji1096, on 10 February 2017 - 04:57 PM, said:

It doesn't seem like the design team plays MWO when they design new mechanisms for it.

Everything is ham-fisted and doesn't even come close to realizing the stated goals when a new idea is implemented.

See Energy Draw and the Map change as evidence.

not so much playing mwo as spending time in the lab buying a mech and then mastering it the hard way grinding Cbills

[Chound]

I starting with the nodes but some items need to be reconsidered. adjust the ui so it's easier to isolate the different skill trees. I had a hard time getting to some skill nodes because the two popup windows with information on skills use. I felt there were too many of the arm speed and scanner range nodes blocking things I really needed like the advanced Zoom, radar deprivation, seismic sensors, were blocking I don't know if the UAV should have been in a separate skill tree.uav could have been shrunk down and included. The UAV could be put in with defense items.

[Marius Romanis]

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD


AN ENTIRE THREAD IN AGREEMENT AND THANKING PGI FOR DELAYING SOMETHING ?!
why has the world not ended ?

[Rhialto]

Can I get a quick reply on this one?

What have you planned for SUPPLY CACHES?

I don't know if I should open them up now or wait after the patch because many contain modules. What will replace modules in caches? Trying to figure out if investment is better before or after.

[Lucky Rookie]

Kojak Bear, on 10 February 2017 - 07:54 PM, said:

Here's a long,detailed list of my recommendations on the Skill Tree System. Please read, share and feedback. Thanks.

https://drive.google...N3NUMEx2MmhUNE0

One other note: PGI should give us the option to pay a one-time fee of XXXX C-Bills (maybe 4 million?) and YYYY XP (20,000?) or even the equivalent MC's (maybe 100? 200?), after which we get to enjoy UNLIMITED FREE re-specs. That way, the grind is more feasible and we get all customization opportunities after hurdling the pay wall. This will also encourage people to buy premium time to grind out the C-Bills/XP for the goal of free re-specs.

Thank you for all your work Kojak. This is the most coherent, comprehensive and easy to understand proposal I've ever seen about the skill tree system itself (rightfully excluding costs, respecs and, HXP et al). You obviously thought about almost everything when putting this document together. Kudos! PGI should really take a look at this, and ditto players. More feedback on this would be awesome.

As a player I love this idea. This can be easily expanded in the future with new tech, new mechanics and so on as opposed to PGI's first iteration, which is too convoluted at this point.

From the developer's point of view, this proposal is largely compatible with the current code, except for the needed changes/additions to code & UI to handle different costs for different nodes on the tree. Which they may not be willing to do and that would suck.

As a parting note let me stress again that if different specialties and more mech variety is one of the design goals, then having mutually exclusive trees (or parts of a single tree) is almost a must. For example there is no point of having a weapon tree where you can max out duration, range, heat, and cooldown at the same time. There is no choice there and it promotes boating very heavly. Adding useless nodes in between to increase the costs of the powerful nodes still does not promote conscious choice with meaningful tradeoffs.

Edited by Lucky Rookie, 11 February 2017 - 07:18 AM.

[Paradox42]

A lot of people seem to be worried about the cost. And to be honest, this is the smallest problem with the skill tree as it can be adjust easily.

The true problem about the skill tree is....there is no benefit from it compared to what we have now.

1. A lot more complexity if you have to pick 91 out of 330+ Skill Points. This makes the game harder to learn and since most things are only optional on paper, it doesnt add diversity in options and choices. Meaning the game being less beginner friendly.

2. Especially the Armor and Structure quirks make Lights completely obsolete

3. One of the core elements, especially for the old Battletech and MW 1-4 Players, tinkering in the mechlab and trying stuff out is punished since it costs to much.

4. The game is very grind intensive already, considering that the playerbase of MWO is older on average compared to other games, and these kind of players tend to have less time to play, they might just turn to other games.

5. Since there is an increase in complexity, it is difficult for players to connect their actions in the mechlab / skill tree to the results of their games. Therefore there is not much sense of learning/skill development, which is important in terms of intrinsic motivation for players long term motivation.

6. By increasing complexity, the skill gap between players (in this case..how well they understand the metrics behind the game) is increased, since we have problems with match making already, this will result in more and harder stomps. This is very demotivating for the lower skilled players and we run the risk to loose even more players.


Conclusion: Just cancel the whole skill tree idea. What is in place right now, is sufficient and easy to grasp. If you want the more casual players more involved, just skip the rule of three. And a lot of people are happy and more motivated, since it gives them the chance to add diversity to their mechstable.


But what could PGI improve?

There are actually a couple of things, worth investing manpower into. Even if they dont seem to offer a profit right away, they might be more profitable in the end.

1. Do anything you can to make the game more fun to the players. How? First of all, i would start creating User Journeys if you dont have them yet. (I really hope you do! If not, pretend you did and start working on them asap!) Figure out how different kind of player types approach the game and what makes it enjoyable for them and what they desire to be implemented.

2. Work on balancing. The Tier System is really bad. I know we dont have enough palyers for a decent ELO System, bust still it makes sense to implement one. Why? Because, ELO actually gives players a motivation to reach a certain skill level. It provides them with a sense of accomplishment and actually is an important feedback system in terms of their skill. For Matchmaking it would be super helpful. Even if we put all players in one big pool, at least for the solo and group queue you could use a mix of ELO and Tonnage Balancing system to get more balanced matches, which would drive satisfaction and therefore activity.

3. Sell Collector Mechs with custom paintjobs/skins which are not available for C-Bills. Ingame no difference, just more pretty. As you might have noticed already...people go crazy about collecting stuff like that. Great source of revenue without having to mess with the balancing.

4. Give the community the opportunity to create their own designs, and submit it to contests. Drives engagement!

5. Invest in creating maps. Balance maps in terms of spawn points, domination zones and conquest points.

6. Do Events where people running premium time can win premium stuff compared to people without premium time. Great revenue source! Fair. And doesn't mess with the balancing again.

7. Do your balancing based on the best players not on the average or bad ones. Only if you do that, you give people the chance to get better. Especially once you created good feedback mechanisms.

8. You guys created a great game, but within the last year you invested into a lot of faulty ideas. Starting at Heat scale, over the schedule and PR of the MWOWC and now to the skill tree. Please stop ruining your great game. Listen to the players, especially the ones who have a much deeper understanding of the game than any developer could have since they put so much time playing and understanding the game. This game has one of the best, smartest and most skilled communitys. Utilize this more and a game a lot of us believe is getting close to the end of its life cycle might be rising again and have a really great long tail.

9. You are welcome. This was free advise. Usually I charge my clients lots of money for this kind of advise. But I love the game and the community to much. Still, if you don't get this straight, I might just be one of the many who ends up turnign his back on the game since I cant stand it anymore. This would be sad.