19 replies to this topic

[Greyhart]

Simple really. Assuming a few tweaks are possible in the week or so before 21st Feb.

should the Skill tree be put into the live game and modified. Running the PTS on changes before introducing into the game.

Or should it be delayed until people are reasonably satisfied.

I am inclined to think introduce into the live game as it is better than the current skill tree, but state it is not in its final state and continue to refine through PTS.

History suggests if they try and get something that everyone agrees is good they'll never introduce it into the live game.

[Fox2232]

People overestimate amount of work needed to address biggest pain points.
Full underlaying structure is in place. To get it into 90% perfect, only a lot of values need to be adjusted and few missing nodes added.
To get last 10% there is some coding work needed. But I guess that design guys are not same as coders, therefore if decision is made early enough, they'll manage to get it right.

Hardest part for PGI is to make right decision and make meaningful adjustments instead of listening to 90% of cry-babies who lost 5~10% dps. As those care only about what they lost and ignore all gains.
(This philosophy leads only to mathematically unstable systems which tend to flop.)

[Greyhart]

my view, for what it is worth.

Even the current system is better than what is in game. If PGI try and get the system to a place that everyone agrees is good it is never going to happen. Simply put someone will complain no matter what.

get it live and then there is pressure to sort out problems

[Horseman]

Not unless it undergoes major changes before going live. In the present state, it would kill the game.

Greyhart, on 10 February 2017 - 04:05 AM, said:

get it live and then there is pressure to sort out problems

If it goes live, we can expect it to stay unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Edited by Horseman, 10 February 2017 - 04:11 AM.

[FupDup]

We need a lot more time to polish and tweak this thing so that most of the issues are ironed out. Right now, it has potential but a good number of values and stuff are borked. Several trees need to be rearranged. Etc.

Its live release should be delayed by at least one month. Maybe two just to be sure.

Edited by FupDup, 10 February 2017 - 04:23 AM.

[Odanan]

"Close to perfection" is an unrealistic expectation.

I like the concept, but would prefer if the Skill Tree was delayed at least 1 month, because it needs some serious changes to be in a good state.

Releasing it as it is will only bring problems, and I'm afraid that, after released, it won't receive greater changes.

[Greyhart]

Odanan, on 10 February 2017 - 04:36 AM, said:

"Close to perfection" is an unrealistic expectation.

I like the concept, but would prefer if the Skill Tree was delayed at least 1 month, because it needs some serious changes to be in a good state.

Releasing it as it is will only bring problems, and I'm afraid that, after released, it won't receive greater changes.

yes I deliberately pick a wording that should've discouraged people from voting no.

sort of a social experiment

[Odanan]

Greyhart, on 10 February 2017 - 04:40 AM, said:

yes I deliberately pick a wording that should've discouraged people from voting no.

sort of a social experiment

Biased poll is biased. :/

[Greyhart]

Odanan, on 10 February 2017 - 04:42 AM, said:

Biased poll is biased. :/

and yet even nudging people to vote yes has produced the current result

[Odanan]

Greyhart, on 10 February 2017 - 04:51 AM, said:

and yet even nudging people to vote yes has produced the current result

Indeed!!

[Kuaron]

Depends on how fast PGI is fixing it…

[Koshirou]

Well, IMHO it should not be implemented ever. But if they have to implement it (and no doubt they feel they do) the amount of tweaking that needs to be done cannot be completed in a mere week:
- Trees need to be rewritten from scratch to be drastically simplified (there should be about 50 entries total, maybe 100 including all weapons, instead of 1000+ as we have on the PTS.)
- Skills need to be actually checked for balancing.

[tokumboh]

Ok for me the economics of it is wrong but the premise is right. Here is some of the thing that the Skill tree changes have promoted.

1. TTK

Form what I have tested, I have not had any games and from what I have seen Youtube wise. from the cooldown nerf alone we have longer time to Kill, this is partly because of the armour and structure trees and the fact the weapons trees are less powerful

2. Brawling is back.

I see that because the armour and tankiness, we seem to have better opportunity to move to contact rather than sniping. It makes for better brawling, it may be a consequence of 4 v 4 but I think it is as much a general nerf to weapons in the skill tree excepting spread on LBX and missiles and UAC jam chances. The quirks for cool down are a mere 5% on IS and 4% on Clans not enough to write home about.

3. Proper trade offs

I think it is interesting that people are say I can do what I want. I find that funny, the modules and quirks allowed ridiculous cooldowns and therefor stretching the difference between a elited mech and someone starting out. The reality is that the whole system has been nerfed to stop that difference and also it is making people work out what compromises they have to make with the mech. For example on my Hellbringer, I have had no gone for speed tweak but have gone with the acceleration deceleration quirks, so I spend points on the heat containment and coolrun quirks. I have decidded not to bother with laser cooldown but have gone with duration and heat and you have to make similar decisions in terms of info tech

We are just not used to making these trade offs since there were none to make.

Now the Bad news

1. The economics of this wrong

The cost of 91 SP is one concern for many people whom have mastered many or nearly all of their mechs. We have replaced a swapable set of modules to something that is actually unique to each mech so even though I have two variants of one mech I am pay double what I did in the extreme and in omst cases the cost of buying and mastering a mech has shot up.
The idea that people only bought 3 mechs to master one is a false premise and that needs to be addressed

2. Are we moving a way from Mechcentricty

it come to mind that I await what new mechs are coming down the pipeline and part with my money as an early adopterand often throw down US$20 per month. I do this I suppose because I like and support the game and I like shiny new things but This does not change the fact there is more wrong with the game than right. We have after a number of years some pretty poor maps, game modes which do not encourage strategy, FW which pretty much has become niche in a game which is niche. Now all of these problems are ignored when a new mech is announced. I think that one of the side effects of the skill tree is that how we buy mechs will be different. for example 3 variant of the same chassis may not now appeal. it may be that we buy individual variants and it may even mean that we are given a choice of several chassis and variants. the other thing is that it may change PGI revenue stream to be more creative in terms of possibly paying to enter competitions or paying/sponsoring for new maps or game modes. I believe PGI needs to find other ways to monetise the game such that it produces a better game more mechs does not do this and I say that as a person that like the new mechs and have my own favourites than have not been announced yet

the idea that even I as a casual player have over 100 mechs, kind of says we are looking for something more from PGI

Well what next well I am waiting to play on the server now. I have actually enjoyed doing some of the trade offs with many of my mechs. I am hoping that PGI listens to some of the criticisms that the skill tree has, some of the transitions make no sense rader dep and ECM come to mind but also fo some mech arm speed mixed with torso also done not make sense (in all honesty I was expecting more bespoke trees for each mech.

Now is it ready to roll out I think the costs need to be halved and some of the trees need to be rethought. but overall I play it now even with the painful bits

[Fox2232]

Koshirou, on 10 February 2017 - 05:07 AM, said:

Well, IMHO it should not be implemented ever. But if they have to implement it (and no doubt they feel they do) the amount of tweaking that needs to be done cannot be completed in a mere week:
- Trees need to be rewritten from scratch to be drastically simplified (there should be about 50 entries total, maybe 100 including all weapons, instead of 1000+ as we have on the PTS.)
- Skills need to be actually checked for balancing.

I do laugh a lot on MWO forums. But it is cynical laughter of madness.
- Even in this broken state it is better than current system.
- Thinking that it is too much work to do numbers right in week is same as thinking that you can't put together puzzle with 500 pieces within one week
- Did you even care to count them? Was it too much work to add 5 numbers to find that there are 338 nodes now? I think that explains yours "cannot be completed in a mere week"

Do not even try to put people who make living by creating things and thinking about problems and solutions to your level of: "Can't, won't be, unable, ..."

[TercieI]

Of course not. Iterative testing takes time. Should have been on PTS for first run in November at the latest for a February release.

[Strelok7]

Be Introduced In Feb?

no, never, throw it to the dogs

[Koshirou]

Fox2232, on 10 February 2017 - 05:35 AM, said:

Did you even care to count them?

No I didn't, that's why I wrote a hyperbolically high number.
In any event: Too many. Spreading things out over dozens of teensy little 1% increments is pointless busywork. If I wanted pointless busywork, I'd put in overtime at work instead of playing MWO.

Quote

Thinking that it is too much work to do numbers right in week is same as thinking that you can't put together puzzle with 500 pieces within one week

No, thinking that PGI will not be able to properly balance an entirely new skill system in one week when they have not been able to properly balance the existing systems over the last 5 years is completely reasonable.

Edited by Koshirou, 10 February 2017 - 06:30 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

They can release it in this form if, and only if, they remove ALL quirk nerfs. The only effect these nerfs have right now is to completely overthrow faction balance. If they do it like this, then IS actually gets a 2% blanket buff from the 20% increased gain on nodes, and that would be rather appropriate since IS was the weaker faction before any of this.

[Horseman]

Duke Nedo, on 10 February 2017 - 06:37 AM, said:

They can release it in this form if, and only if, they remove ALL quirk nerfs. The only effect these nerfs have right now is to completely overthrow faction balance. If they do it like this, then IS actually gets a 2% blanket buff from the 20% increased gain on nodes, and that would be rather appropriate since IS was the weaker faction before any of this.

Agreed. First replace the modules and current basic/elite skills, THEN replace quirks with chassis-specific trees

Edited by Horseman, 11 February 2017 - 03:00 PM.

[Cy Mitchell]

They have already announced that it is being moved back to the March 21st patch.

https://mwomercs.com...tree-pts-build/