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[Cy Mitchell]

There has been a lot of stated concerns about the new Skill Tree encouraging boating of weapons.

The old Skill tree did not do that. Yes, the Module system did but the Skill Tree did not. It had more generic quirks that affected the Mech chassis as a whole and did not favor one weapon system over another.

The modules, on the other hand, did encourage weapon boating because if you only had one weapon then you would choose to fill all the weapon slots with a module that enhanced that one system. If you had two or three weapons systems then the modules effect was diluted because it did not apply to them all.

Enter the new Skill Tree and the impact is magnified because now instead of two or at the most three weapon modules you can in effect add as many as four that will have a beneficial effect on a single weapon system. Thus it dramatically increases the likelihood of boating one type of weapon and thus harveting all the possible benefits for that weapon.


If we remove all the weapon systems form the skill tree and instead properly balance the individual weapon then there is no reason to have those trees. In addition, every Mech that can equip the weapon will gain the same individual benefit from using it. Everyone will have the same duration, range, spread, weapon heat, cooldown, velocity, etc., etc. when equipping that weapon. No skill tree quirks and no weapons quirks on the Mechs.

Then you move to the Mech chassis characteristics and supply quirks there to improve the performance of lessor Mechs to draw them closer to top tier Mechs. These quirks can be base quirks on the variant in addition to extra quirks the player can add through the skill tree. However, they would not be weapon quirks. Instead they would be things like the current offerings in the non-weapon trees such as better armor and structure, better agility, more ammo, better heat containment, better heat dissipation, better targeting and sensors etc.

Mech that were designed to boat can still boat, Mechs that were designed around mixed builds can safely run one, two or three weapon systems without being clearly inferior due to the inability to fully enhance more than one weapon system.


In short: The old module system encouraged boating of weapons. The new system takes this to a whole differently level and potentially makes it a bigger problem. Removing weapon quirks from the Skill Tree levels the playing field.

P.S. Clan and IS weapons need to be balanced at the base level.