65 replies to this topic

[Nightmare1]

Wintersdark, on 25 February 2017 - 06:10 PM, said:

Nay. It was delayed a bit because Reasons. Tina posted that it'll be a couple days.

Yeah, I made another post changing my answer.

[baddagger]

I want to comment on Armor and give my recommendations (these will fit with the timeline advance):

In the mech bay give us the ability to put on different Armor:
Standard Armor
Ferro-Fibrous
Laser Reflective (+25% strength against laser weapons, -15% against all other weapons)
Hardened Armor (+15% against all weapons, -10% mobility)
Reactive Armor (+25% strength against all none-laser weapons, occupies same space as FF Armor)

These are based on battletech lore, with some changes.

[Simulacrum]

After reading the Quirks changes I feel confused.
So if you bought a Mech with real money (BNC-LM for example) because, among other things, of its mobility Quirks you lose the benefits because of your idea of a new skill system? In the last announcement of PGI I read something about merging actual Quirks with the new Mobility statistics but I can't see it in the change result. That is disappointing.

[ARM32]

Small bug with speed on PTS.


Also - hate "unlock" some useless skills for get what i'm really need. ~25% useless skills for my mechs. Still a good work with skill tree - 7/10 for now.

[DOMV2]

Just looking at it, some things are better but the necessity to go through nodes that have nothing to do with the mech are still an issue to me. The junk nodes are just a pt and cost sink for no benefit to the players and goes against the flexibility goal since it is inflexible and is like ghost heat in that it creates a ghost cost for all the modules behind it.

The skill tree accept changes button never activates to apply skills?

Edited by DOMV2, 02 March 2017 - 07:11 AM.

[MightyHawks94]

[color=gray]
Thursday, March 2, 2017[/color]
[color=gray]
9:58 AM[/color]

A solution to the mechs without arms skill investment problem:

-mechs without arms needing to take arm mobility skills to progress further in the mobility skill tree.

-this is an unnecessary punishment to mechs without arms as no opportunity cost is conferred, just a cost.

-SOLUTION: Roll arm/torso pitch and yaw into just one skill

-*Increase yaw speed by 2.5%* increases both arm and torso yaw speed by 2.5%

-*Increase pitch speed by 2.5%* increases both arm and torso pitch speeds by 2.5%

This removes the penalty to mechs that do not have arms (Locust, Cicada, etc.) whilst allowing arm mobility boosts to those mechs that do have arms.

[MagikMan191]

I agree Kali and too have spent well over $1k in the last 4 years and will not put another dime in if not fairly compensated for the costs put in. Makes this totally biased against longtime players and supporters.

MM

[C E Dwyer]

ARM32, on 02 March 2017 - 05:55 AM, said:

Small bug with speed on PTS.


Also - hate "unlock" some useless skills for get what i'm really need. ~25% useless skills for my mechs. Still a good work with skill tree - 7/10 for now.

I found this acceleration bug in my founders Atlas also.

[Kharonte]

Cathy, on 02 March 2017 - 11:42 AM, said:

I found this acceleration bug in my founders Atlas also.

This is the best way to elong the TTK... for sure. (just kidding... I really want to check the new new Skill Tree)

[Death Proof]

I like what I'm seeing so far with the new skill tree. My biggest complaint is concerning the UI; The available unlockable skills should be immediately identifiable instead of looking exactly like unlocked skills. They should stand out from unlocked skills and unavailable skills.

[Batman2213]

So far the thing I dislike the most about the new skill tree is the way the nodes are scattered, particularly on the firepower tree. In testing out the skill tree for my Nova, which carries nothing but small pulse lasers, I wanted to maximize range and heat efficiency, with cool down and laser duration being secondary concerns. In order to reach every range and heat reduction node, I hade to waste points on FOUR projectile velocity nodes, two ballistic weapon nodes, and two missile weapon nodes. That's almost 10% of my available points spent on nodes for weapons that aren't on my mech. If I were using PPC's, I could benefit from the projectile velocity nodes, but the SEVEN laser duration nodes I had to take to get the maximum heat efficiency would be an even bigger waste.

I would like to see a hybrid between this configuration and the previous one, where the firepower trees are separated by weapon category rather than by specific weapon: Ballistic, Energy, Missile. Each of those trees could then have its own heat efficiency, range and cool down nodes, with outlying nodes on the sides for things like laser duration, UAC jam chance, missile spread, etc.

Secondly, rather than linear progression, I think the skill nodes should have diminishing returns. Early nodes would have greater impact than later nodes, allowing players to decide between focusing their skill points on maxing out a few attributes, or gaining a smaller but still respectable benefit across a wider variety of skills. This would also have a secondary effect of reducing the gap between new players who have just begun to level up their mechs, and veterans who are fully invested.

Example:

1st Node: -5% Heat, +3% Range, +2.5% Cool down
2nd Node: -4% Heat, +2.5% Range, +2% Cool down
3rd Node: -3% Heat, +2% Range, +1.5% Cool down
4th Node: -2% Heat, +1.5% Range, +1% Cool down
5th Node: -1% Heat, +1% Range, +0.5% Cool down

Total: -15% Heat, +10% Range, +7.5% Cool down


Each of these values can be tweaked however you need them, as can the total number of nodes, but I think this is a good illustration of the idea I am trying to convey. A laser boat would probably spend all 15 points on getting these nodes across the energy tree, and might spend more points on laser duration. A PPC boat would do the same, but take projectile velocity instead of laser duration.

In contrast, a mech that carries two weapon types might only take the first three nodes on each tree. They still get roughly 80% of the benefit of maxing out a tree, but only invest 60% of the points to do so. I think this same pattern could also be carried over to the other skill trees. By front loading the benefits in the early skill nodes and then reducing it slightly with each consecutive node of the same type, newer players will benefit from less disadvantage.

I feel like the survival tree would benefit from some kind of dynamic between laser reflection and reactive armor, otherwise it seems pretty good.

I don't care for the agility tree at all. It suffers from the same problem that the firepower tree does. If my weapons are all arm mounted, as they are on my Nova, I think its wasteful to have to sift through torso pitch nodes to get to the arm nodes. The same is true in reverse... if all of my weapons are torso mounted, as in a Kodiak 3 will four auto-cannons, then having to tag the arm nodes to get the torso nodes is wasteful. Finally, having to commit no less than 24 of 30 points to this tree in order to get the full benefit of speed tweak is appalling.

The Jump Jet tree most closely aligns with the format I think the other trees need to take. Vectoring and Vent Calibration are both arranged linearly; now they just need their values front-loaded as I described above, with gradually diminishing returns.

Mech Operations: The Cool Run and Heat Capacity nodes are really the only ones I am interested in. Too bad in order to max them out I have to spend 50% MORE on skill nodes I don't care about.

Sensors: I spend roughly the same amount on skill nodes I don't care about in order to get the ones I actually want...

Auxillary: I really like what this skill tree offers, but I'm a little confused. If I'm reading it correctly, there are skill nodes that give you additional slots for consumables, but in order to take additional consumables of a specific type, you have to take OTHER skill slots.

Example: Right now I can take two consumables, but only one can be an air strike/artillery strike. The Consumable Slot nodes allow me to take up two SIX total consumables, but in order to have more than one of those strikes I also need to pick up the Expanded Reserves Nodes.

Assuming I'm reading that correctly, I actually like this Skill tree. Each category of consumable is on its own part of the tree, so you don't have to take UAV upgrades to get improved air strikes or vice versa.

If the Skill trees became streamlined as I have suggested, you could probably get away with reducing the total number of skill points available for each chassis. By implementing the front-loaded diminishing returns model, you could then give players incentives to branch out with the application of those skill points, while still leaving them the option to min-max a particular loadout if they desire.

[kptkohle]

Altogether the changes done are very good. Stll some minor issues like than Clan mechs are more powerful in the new system.
My KDK-3 was before far too strong, now it's invincible :-)

[kptkohle]

Everybody is complaing that nodes have to be unlocked that make no sense or are not wanted. But this method also applied for the old skill system where e.g. arm skills had to be unlocked to continue in the tree - but nobody complained before.

[Nightmare1]

kptkohle, on 05 March 2017 - 12:50 AM, said:

Everybody is complaing that nodes have to be unlocked that make no sense or are not wanted. But this method also applied for the old skill system where e.g. arm skills had to be unlocked to continue in the tree - but nobody complained before.

Actually, this is incorrect. There were entire threads about this for the previous test version. Where were you???

[Nightmare1]

IKR? I can imagine PGI's roundtable discussion went like this:

[Ducksalot]

The skill tree is not bad , but it is not great , I understand the push to have everyone branch out from the smae build as everyone else but if you want to put SP into other areas , then you are going to have to leave whole sections empty , like do I want advanced zoom or speed tweak 1 , still a rough tree sofar , a little refining will do the trick , thank you

[Firestorm1976]

From what I have experienced so far... there is an awful lot of waste. I have 91 points to distribute and forcing me to unlock irrelevant nodes for the build I am working on sucks. For instance, if I want to focus on weapons range and cool down I have to unlock nodes in laser, missile, and ammo groups. Having to waste those points on things that do not improve my mech in a positive manner is idiotic. Instead of scattering nodes about, reorganize them to let us focus on which branch we want to focus on. This really isn't rocket science guys.

Something I guess that you could do is remove the tree factor and just let us unlock whatever nodes we want without having to do the whole branching business.

Edited by Firestorm1976, 07 March 2017 - 03:03 AM.

[Shino Tenshi]

I've found that there's still a lot of nodes in some of the trees that I'd rather not have to go through to advance other functions. Some examples:

- Wasting nodes on shock absorbance to get stronger armor/internals
- The hard brake/kinetic skills mixed in with yaw/pitch skills
- Operations tree is a complete mess and is my biggest sore spot... most of it's two skills I can often do without for every heat related one
- Sensors is a big mess too... I'd rather not have to waste SP on Target Retention for a sniper or LRM boat who'll never use it... or waste on sensor range to get radar deprivation for a short range combat light that's never going to be fighting outside 800m.

I personally like how the new Firepower and Auxiliary trees are laid out when it comes to minimizing wasted SP.

I'm guessing radar deprivation, seismic sensors, speed tweak, and large portions of the heat related skills are buried because they're more valuable skills and you want some investment to have to go into them. I'm wondering if it wouldn't work better to have the easier to access but cost more, whether that be CBills, XP, or SP. Maybe the beginning of those skills can cost what they do now and the more advanced you get, the higher the CBill/XP cost?

One thing I was really hoping to get out of the new skill tree was some benefit to running up huge amounts of XP on certain mechs. I've got a few of my favorites that have 200k xp extra just sitting there being unused. I think it'd be great to keep it so you can easily fill all 91 SP for the 35k or so XP it's at now and have a solidly functional mech at that point, but having some bonus skills or way of getting 'elite' or 'master' level skills of current nodes for some extra (even if minimal) benefit for a substantially increased XP (and probably CBill) cost would be great.

Overall I like the new skill tree layout and where it's going, but like most I think it could use some tweaks here and there.

Thanks for all the work guys

[Lionheart2012]

Hi team,

Here are my thoughts on the latest Skill Tree sneak peek on the Public Test Server.



Happy viewing!

[Cpt Ralphy]

So the Skill Tree takes the place of the old Skills, modules and some quarks. I think it will achieve that just fine. As it stands now, some variants have more Module slots than others. This new skill tree doesn't take that current variant advantage into consideration. This is where adding or subtracting some nodes depending on the mech variant could help these mechs retain their current status. I assume those extra module slots were not mistakes to begin with.

Thanks

Cpt. Ralphy