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I would like to contribute with my feedback about the PTS changes.
Just as a reference, I'm no professional, but I'm a active Player, in both Group Queue for quick matches and Faction Play. Most of my time spent in IS mechs, specially Lights and Medium.
My feedback will be divided in topics, And my main worry is with the whole game experience, specially for the new players.
-Mech Baseline of reference changed?
Mastering mechs, before this revamp, are basically climbing up your chassis to a fully working condition. A not mastered mech was basically a mech with debuffs. The baseline was the fully mastered mech, their skills were already expected, since it was a only way up.
With this new system, now that you no longer have a liner way of level up your mech, the baseline is weaker, your reference is no longer a fully mastered mech, but an skilled mech that you can customize where you will improve. A mech can have it's 91 points added, but not having the mobility bonus, or the weapon bonus from the old skill tree.
In my humble opinion, this is a very interesting way to work with, and it has potential.
-Blending old skills enhancements with modules enhancements and some new stuff:
Skills can now provide tastes of enhancements that weren't possible before. Even with the modules. Here follow some that you weren't able to find on modules or kills:
-UAC Jam chance
-Weapons velocity (it's divided by the type of weapon)
-Spread (SRMs, LBXs, LRMs)
-Gauss extended Charge,
-Laser Duration,
-Armor and Structure ehancements,
-Jump Jet enhancements,
-ECM enhancements,
Some of these were only able before with mech quirks. Now they are Available for all mechs. It brings a lot of options
-Quirks are still around, but soften.
A lot of people asked me about this, and yes. Quirks are still around. They are apparently less specialized (no longer on a specific weapon, but on it's kind) and much more soft on most of mehcs. It looks like the quirk baseline was adapted to the new skills set. but you will be able to find some apparently out of the curve quirks and builds. For instance. Jagermech-DD up to -35% UAC Jam Chance. Some of this still keeps mechs restricted to certain builds.
-Skill that improve the amount of ammo you can carry (ballistics).
It sure looks cool. But honestly, it makes no sense. You're so skilled that you can make each bullet of a ballistic less heavy? Also, the fact that this doesn't apply to other ammo types, so, it's limited.
-More customization, more specialization, more options. But hard trade-offs.
This new revamp provide a whole new world of options to specialize and customize your mech. But as I wrote before, the base line is weaker. So your specialization depends on a very delicate trade off.
Upgrading mobility and armor will limit your your weapon enhancements. Upgrading too many kind of weapons will limit your mobility and armor. Upgrading UAVs, ECMs and other targeting assist skills will cost a lot.
Specialization will provide you more bonuses in your weapon than before. But you will have to sacrifice some of what you had before. Like armor, mobility, heat efficiency, radar and field awareness. For instance, Seismic sensor will require about 16 points.
-Limited mech means... more team play required.
Your mech will no longer be abble to have a vast array of sensors, target information, mobility, weapons enhancements, and so son. This open rooms for mechs specialized in scout and collect information. And mechs that depend on information and scouts.
Mechs that will be more fragile, and mechs that will be more tankish. A more specialized mech requires other mechs with other specializations to fill the spot left by the old skill and modules system.
-A challenge for mechs with lots of different weapons.
Mechs with ballistics, missiles and lasers, for instance, will have a hard time in this new skill tree. You won't have much enhancements. On the other hand, more versatile mechs will be much useful in this sort of game. They could be more adapted to me map, to the different enemies, battle ranges, and so on.
-More customization, more things to learn.
The customization adds a whole new experience. But on the other hand, it's a whole new mechanism to learn and adapt.
The skill tree is interesting, but, it's not user friendly. And it adds a another layer of complex to the learning experience of the new players. A new player has to handle a very painful grinding, a whole and complex experience of piloting (heat, speed, torso twist, etc), a whole building process, and a now a complex skill tree. That's indeed something to worry about.
-Leveling up expenses values.
Each skill costs 1500 XP, and 100,000 c-bills. You can level up to 91 skills. So, to master a single mech, you will require:
136.500 XP
9.100.000 Cbills
If you want to "remove" a skill. You get your XP back. But it will cost you 25.000. Refund you whole skill tree will cost you 2.275.000 bills. And you will have to buy the same skill again for 100.000 c-bills.
I understand this as being very punitive to the learning process and testing. And punishes even more the new players. For instance, lets see the cost of buying, building and mastering a brand new locust:
Locust-1E:
Base price: 1.491.242 Cbills.
Building up: 5.000.000 Cbills (XL 190, 6 SPL, upgrades in the chassis, DHS)
Money spent on mech without skills: 6.491.242 Cbills
Price to master it: 9.100.000 Cbills (yes, mastering will be about 40% more expensive than the whole locust).
Total Price: 15.591.242 Cbills
For those who had grinded modules all over these year. This will be mostly a matter of being careful about spending your c-bills.
For brand new players, this means they will require a lot of grinding. And worse, doing this grinding with a big disadvantage. This punishes too hard new players and their learning process, and will likely push away new players.
Think about how many matches a new player, with a not worked up mech, will require to buy and master a single mech?
In my opinion, these values are unacceptable. Or this values requires a new and faster grinding system.
-More customization brings more variables. More variables make the game harder to balance.
This is a topic that really worries me. By adding more options, the game creates even more variables to the already complex and delicate balance system. Balancing will require more and more overhead. And fast adjustments will be require to hold up the hard meta gaming.
The gap between new players and veterans will become an abyss. Because new players won't have resources to adjust to the constantly balances and metas changes, and they will be legged behind even more.
-Conclusion and Final Words.
I really enjoyed the customized skill tree. And I really enjoyed the reduce of the baseline of the mechs. The need for more specialization and teamwork. It opens a brand new group of options of gaming, and a whole new opportunity for mechs builds and roles.
On the other hand. The system is not friendly, and it punishes too hard errors and tries. The costs are too expensive to the actual grinding rewards, and it demands a lot of effort to master just a single mech without previous grinding. This can be very dangerous to the beginner experience, the gap between veterans and new players will be even bigger.
Other attention point is, balance the game could become harder with this change. And PTS gave us a taste of the mechanics. But besides private lobby, I wasn't able to find any real match. So, there's no real Experience on balance in this PTS.
This feedback aims to be constructive. And It's important to recognize PGI's effort on MWO. PGI team has announced a very ambitious road map, with a lot of very interesting changes that can bring a whole new experience to play.
My final word is, it's a very nice improvement, but requires a lot of more testing and adjustments. And the experience of new players should be really considered. Most of new players won't be posting in forums, they won't speak as much veterans do. So, if you look only the forums, you will be most listening to veterans. And veterans are usually resistant to changes, because they are already in a very comfortable spot.
Thanks and best Regards,
Lamblaska
Edited by Lamblaska, 12 February 2017 - 07:25 AM.
