3 replies to this topic

[Cy Mitchell]

I was also contemplating writing up a proposal for Elite Skill Nodes. My idea would be to reduce the effectiveness of individual skill nodes such as Velocity, Speed Tweak, Turning Speed, Armor, Structure, Jam Reduction, Radar Deprivation, Seismic Sensor or some of the other more desirable attributes by as much as half their currently proposed value and then create an Elite skill at the bottom of the skill tree that gives a significant boost to one individual skill. Each attribute Skill Tree (such as Ballistics) would have one Elite Skill Node. However, each Mech would be restricted to using only one (or at the most two) Elite Skill in its build.

As it stands right now, almost any Mech can get nearly all the desirable skill quirks with the 91 SP that it is allotted. There is not much specialization and there are not many hard choices being made. By limiting the selection of Elite skills that a player is allowed to use, it forces the player to make a conscious choice and chose the big boost that would benefit his intended role or suit his style of play the most.

The cost of the individual nodes needs to be lowered for both XP and C-Bills but the Elite Skill nodes would be multiple times more expensive than the standard skill nodes.

[JC Daxion]

interesting idea..

But my only thought is, are you talking about just for the module points? or also weapons and such? I could see something like this working for weapons, especially those that want to split points between two trees..


If you had to have say.. 30 points spent in weapons.. which you could not do in a single tree for example to unlock them.. maybe it would help those that use two weapon types.. and not even say auto cannon and lasers.. But lasers and pulse lasers for example

also.. maybe they would also close if to many points were put into said tree.. aka to stop someone from maxing one tree.. then spending points in another they don't even use just to unlock elite skills.

Edited by JC Daxion, 13 February 2017 - 01:20 PM.

[Jables McBarty]

I could get behind this if the Elite skills were one of the current OP modules and were restricted to a long tree.

I've been reading Bish's thread, and you could build this into Awol's idea...

AWOL 01, on 09 February 2017 - 08:39 PM, said:

I would like to see various roles to choose from (Scout, Brawler, Sniper) that each have their own Skill Tree. For example, the Brawler's weapon trees would only have cooldown so they can get off more shots, the Sniper would have range, the Scout could have heat gen to keep them from overheating and shutting down when trying to escape. Brawlers would have structure and armor hardening, Scouts would have speed tweak, Snipers have radar range, etc. There could be overlap between the trees, but a Brawler may have to invest more skill points to get to things like speed tweak that it doesn't really need, if that makes sense. This would force players to really think about what they want to do with the mech, and not just use the same general skills that have been pointed out before. I tried varying the skills I used but it was so blatantly obvious what the best way to do it was that there was no point in experimenting too much.

Don't get me wrong, this has great potential, and I'd really like to see it properly implemented...

So at the end of each tree you have to choose one:

Brawler: 360 Target Retention or TIG
Scout: Radar Derp or Target Decay
Sniper: Adv Zoom or Seismic

You could only get the Elite Node for your "primary" tree. So you wouldn't have full brawlers or snipers with Derp--it would be truly restricted to Scouts.

[AWOL 01]

Jables McBarty, on 13 February 2017 - 03:10 PM, said:

I could get behind this if the Elite skills were one of the current OP modules and were restricted to a long tree.

I've been reading Bish's thread, and you could build this into Awol's idea...

So at the end of each tree you have to choose one:

Brawler: 360 Target Retention or TIG
Scout: Radar Derp or Target Decay
Sniper: Adv Zoom or Seismic

You could only get the Elite Node for your "primary" tree. So you wouldn't have full brawlers or snipers with Derp--it would be truly restricted to Scouts.

Exactly, but make it so that the Elite Node(s) are equally appealing and it's not an obvious choice for which one to pick. Maybe even have 3 options for each role?

I would also like to see the skills cost more or have otherwise decreasing returns as you move up the tree. For example:

Option 1:
Node 1 costs 1SP, Node 2 costs 2SP, Node 3 costs 3SP... etc.

Option 2:
Node 1 gives 5% improvement, Node 2 gives 4% improvement, Node 3 gives 3% improvement... etc.

This helps discourage boating of weapons, which is encouraged far too much by the current Skill Tree system. If you want to be exceptionally good at something, it's going to cost you in other areas. If you want to be a Jack-of-all-trades with multiple weapon types you'll have more skill points available to make you more mobile or durable than an SRM/LRM/laser/AC boat that used all their skill points on weapon quirks.