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[EvAbsence]

Overall Impressions

Back in September I posted the following thread "What an MWO Vet Hopes to see at Mechcon"
After attending Mechcon (which was quite a fun experience btw) I was hopeful that some of the ideas I had thrown out there seem to be part of the new system, and that your dev team seems to have been on a similar brainwave. There are definitely some things I like about this tree (and related changes like the removal of the 3 variant requirement), and it is a vast improvement over the existing one at creating some diversity, but after getting my hands on the PTS I do have some concerns with the way in which it has been implemented. I'm sure most if not all of them have been covered by other pilots in this forum, but I'll add my two cents.

• Costs for respeccing seem a bit high and may deter experimentation.
  
• The tree system implemented is over-complicated, and pigeon-holes players into using specific types of weapons, rather than specific categories of weapons. This encourages boating.
  
• Balance in this system is difficult to determine due to low PTS population.
  
• Difficulty in the PTS to determine how detrimental this will be for new players, as a new player will need to manage Cbills for mechs, weapons and engines, and now skills as well.
  
• Difficulty in the PTS to properly determine the value of scouting role due to small group sizes.

Suggested Reformat

I may be putting my prior tree on too high a pedestal, but I do believe it is a better solution to what has been developed.

• It is simple - Everything is visible from one screen to allow better understanding of the mech you are building.
  
• It is compact - Rather than specific nodes at very small values, it groups them into one and makes you take multiple levels of it to progress
  
• It can incorporate gates as needed without mandating that you waste skill points on imperceptibly small benefits that in no way help your mech
  
• It limits the highly desirable functionality provided by existing modules to end-of-tree designs, requiring specialization in a mech ROLE. (Sniper, Brawler, Striker, Support, Tank, Intel)

Even if this format wasn't used, I strongly feel that weapon subtrees should be incorporated into their greater skill branch (Energy, Ballistic, Missile), and similarly focused nodes could be chained together with the occasional opportunity to cross to a new one. Perhaps there are some balance issues inherent with this that I am not privy to, but for the sake of simplicity I feel this is a much better solution. I mean, can you imagine how complicated the PTS would look to a new player? They have yet to experience what a mech COULD be, but they are being asked to pay hard-earned Cbills to guess, without a point of reference, what would be best for them to run on this mech... The most likely result is that people will look up the most common builds for each variant they purchase from places like Metamechs, and you will see a reduction in the variation on the battlefield (albeit just a reduction of builds per variant).

Specific Improvements to As-Is Format (Ease of Use)

Functionality

• GXP vs XP use in the skill tree is not restricted based on how much you have. Additionally, there is no way to tell which type of XP you used per node to unlock it. This leads to a situation where you could complete a mech’s skill tree only to realize at the end that you have used more XP of a certain type than you have. Without the ability to identify where the XP was over used the only option is to wipe all of the node choices and start all over again.
  
  • Solution: Restrict which kind of XP you have access to use on a node. When encountering this the first time the user should be prompted – “You do not have enough XP (or GXP). Do you wish to unlock this node with GXP (or XP)?” An alternative message can be provided if they do not have enough of either type.
• The HXP converter function is difficult to use, and relies on the user remembering the exact amount of HXP they started with. This can easily be corrected by preventing the available HXP value from updating as you type the value to convert in the HXP conversion field.
  
• Acquiring a node before you apply them does not update the quantity in the skill branch listings at the top.

Navigation

• The navigation buttons along the skill branches do not operate.
  
• The Skill Branches would be better displayed along the left side, and expand/contract dependent on selection, much like how the compact MechLab functions.