34 replies to this topic

[Bud Crue]

So here we go again.

Gotta head to work, so this intital post is going to be light, but starting off with that which is most important to me: my Quickdraws. First test is a G with 2SRM4A, 4MPL XL355 and 2 Jump Jets.

Consider the mech for a moment. Its a G. PGI took away all of its agility quirks. What makes a Quickdraw a quickdraw? Agility. Offensively, it has no quirks other than 15% cool down on missiles and 20% cool down on lasers, pretty impressive in this new reduced quirk world but it is a 60 ton mech with the firepower of a Jenner so it needs em. Build seeks to take full advantage of these "baseline values" that PGI has given it. Thus the fire power of a Jenner, on the frame of a slightly oversized Griffin and he Speed and mobility of an Enforcer.

Now lets squirk it.

Now given those OP baseline values (that OP was sarcasm) there is no need to waste nodes on firepower branch...actually there is plenty of need but this is a Quickdraw and if you only have the firepower of a Jenner there is no real point in bothering with firepower as you will need every mobility node, armor node, sensors nodes that you can get just to survive.

Specifically: all 22, survival, 19 nodes on sensors to get full derp and seismic; 37 on mobility (you can avoid arm pitch). That puts you at 78. What to do with the last 13.

Operations or Firepower? All 13 go to firepower. Just to get me to "missile rack 1".

So. Zip from operations and miscellaneous. Zilch for new and improved jump jets. But I now move only a bit slower than I do under the current system, but I also run significantly hotter. I suspect that after a bit f practice I am going to sacrifice that key mobility (that which makes a Quickdraw a Quickdraw) for some of the operations nodes and maybe even more firepower.

Thus far. Not liking the Skills Tree 2.0 any more than 1.0. Feels like an overall nerf. Add in the premptive nerfs that they did and it is doubly so. Apply to mecha that are already second rate (or worse) and you will end up with lots of mechs no one who wants to be competitive will ever play, ever again.

[Acehilator]

Problem is the quirk nerfs (as always) and engine decoupling. Don't mix them in with the skill tree itself.

I actually like the new tree setups, it forces you to make some really hard choices. I can see people skilling their mechs according to playstyle and preference, and only a part of the potential 91 skillpoints becoming cookie cutter. Full Radar Deprevation might be the only "must have" left. On first glance, amount of unwanted "filler" skillpoints seems to be kind of ok, a lot better than the first iteration.

IS quirk nerfs and engine decoupling, that is a whole other story.

/edit: spelling

Edited by Acehilator, 02 March 2017 - 05:19 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Acehilator, on 02 March 2017 - 05:18 AM, said:

Problem is the quirk nerfs (as always) and engine decoupling. Don't mix them in with the skill tree itself.

I actually like the new tree setups, it forces you to make some really hard choices. I can see people skilling their mechs according to playstyle and preference, and only a part of the potential 91 skillpoints becoming cookie cutter. Full Radar Deprevation might be the only "must have" left. On first glance, amount of unwanted "filler" skillpoints seems to be kind of ok, a lot better than the first iteration.

IS quirk nerfs and engine decoupling, that is a whole other story.

/edit: spelling

It ought to be a whole other story, but PGI has made both engine decoupling and elimination of quirks a massive part of the skills tree story.

[Acehilator]

Ok, some more testing... I guess I spoke too soon, lol.

Mandatory skills remaining: Sensor Systems tree, and Mech Operations tree for pretty much all mechs that are not exclusively Ballistic boats.

Sensor Systems:
- full Radar Deprivation: 17 points (including 8% sensor range, 8% target info gathering speed, 2.1sec target decay, 200m 360° retention range)
- full Seismic Sensor: +3 (including 0.7sec target decay)
- Advanced Zoom: +3 (including 2% sensor range, 2% target info gathering speed
- full Enhanced ECM: +2 (no filler needed)

Mech Operations:
- Full Cool Run & Heat Containment: 21 points (including -28% startup duration, 10% hill climb, -70% screen shake, 10% speed retention)

No reason not to take full seismic for three points, which means 41 out of 91 nodes are cookie cutter. That is 45% of all skillpoints. And 23 out of those 41 skillpoints are "filler" points. I mean some of them are sure nice, but still. That means that you just spent only 44% of your points on stuff that you really wanted, 56% of your points just to get there.

That is underwhelming

[Acehilator]

Bud Crue, on 02 March 2017 - 06:12 AM, said:

It ought to be a whole other story, but PGI has made both engine decoupling and elimination of quirks a massive part of the skills tree story.

When was the last patch where IS mechs didn't get nerfed?

And looking at some other threads, the whole engine decoupling thing is just a trainwreck and potentially buggy, I personally have only tested two of my mechs so far (LRM Awesome with 300XL and AC2 Shadowhawk with 280XL), both are rather unaffected.

[Dee Eight]

Percentage based changes in the sensor/info tree varies with the mech weight category. A spider gets a 7% sensor range per node while a Supernova only gets 2% and a viper gets 5%.

[Davegt27]

not sure if anyone will ready this thread and not wanting to start a new one

my first impression is the ICON/Font for GXP/XP is hard to read I have a magnifying glass and I still cant make it out

oh I mean SP? anyways any chance PGI can make the fonts easier to read?

2) under the fire power it has 0/73 lets say I just want to cut to the chase and make things easy (or more fun) can I get a 1 click get all 73 (and be done with it)

yeah yeah that would be to easy probably some reason you cant

3) how about this lets say I want some node deep down in the tree, can I click on the node and the game give me the shortest nodes to the top
these would high light and I could get a two click (one click to high light the sequence and one to approve)

regards
davegt27

[Dark Wooki33 IIC]

My 3lpl qkd-4g felt "right"(all "fast" mechs are suffering bad dec atm), slightly hotter and i missed the range on the lpl.
Got all intresting mobility/operation/durability points and a few on sensors/auxiliary.
Non in weapons ... you know that 20 percent quirk is one of the biggest in game?

No need to get greedy one the wrong end.

On a sidenote:
Running an xl heavy without good durability quirks with a brawl loadout is debatable, especially if the mech is probably the best 3lpl platform in the entire game. But everyone his own, i guess.

[Bud Crue]

Dark Wooki33 IIC, on 02 March 2017 - 08:42 AM, said:

My 3lpl qkd-4g felt "right"(all "fast" mechs are suffering bad dec atm), slightly hotter and i missed the range on the lpl.
Got all intresting mobility/operation/durability points and a few on sensors/auxiliary.
Non in weapons ... you know that 20 percent quirk is one of the biggest in game?

No need to get greedy one the wrong end.

On a sidenote:
Running an xl heavy without good durability quirks with a brawl loadout is debatable, especially if the mech is probably the best 3lpl platform in the entire game. But everyone his own, i guess.

Yes, I even stated that the cooldown quirk was good, but when the most you can do with a Heavy is 2 SRM6s then I think having decent quirks are justified.

As to your build, are you skipping firepower in favor of operations? What did you take?

[soapyfrog]

Acehilator, on 02 March 2017 - 05:18 AM, said:

Problem is the quirk nerfs (as always) and engine decoupling. Don't mix them in with the skill tree itself.

The problem is 100% the skill tree.

They can decouple engines and remove every single quirk and I would keep playing. But this skill tree and the costs associated with it just tear it all to hell.

[Acehilator]

Dark Wooki33 IIC, on 02 March 2017 - 08:42 AM, said:

On a sidenote:
Running an xl heavy without good durability quirks with a brawl loadout is debatable, especially if the mech is probably the best 3lpl platform in the entire game. But everyone his own, i guess.

This is getting offtopic, but the Thunderbolt-9SE would like to have a word with you
On Live it is not even a contest, but holy hell has that thing been nerfed on the PTS, wow.

[Bud Crue]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 08:51 AM, said:

The problem is 100% the skill tree.

They can decouple engines and remove every single quirk and I would keep playing. But this skill tree and the costs associated with it just tear it all to hell.

No. It is the failure to recognize that all mechs are not equal. Their obsession with removing quirks kills numerous mechs' competitiveness. You cannnot recover that or their quirks in ANY skills tree where all mechs have equal access to everything. If they would actually BUFF lower tier mechs or even just not nerf them, then they could have a shot at being competitive or at least interesting verses the better mechs under this skills tree. But by hurting the low perfomers beforehand guarantees an even greater negative skew when the skills of this or any other skills tree are actually applied.

[Acehilator]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 08:51 AM, said:

The problem is 100% the skill tree.

They can decouple engines and remove every single quirk and I would keep playing. But this skill tree and the costs associated with it just tear it all to hell.

Costs are pretty much fine now.

[Dark Wooki33 IIC]

Bud Crue, on 02 March 2017 - 08:49 AM, said:

As to your build, are you skipping firepower in favor of operations? What did you take?

Yeah nothing in firepower, 20/22 in survival (actual a no brainer, but i guess you could also have enough fun with only 10-12 invested)33/40 agility, 22/25 in operations, 10/27 in sensors (basic seismic and only radarderp 60, but its a fast mech so ...) and 6/22 in auxiliary (coolshot stuff).

[soapyfrog]

Acehilator, on 02 March 2017 - 08:59 AM, said:

Costs are pretty much fine now.

Nope. I cannot afford to skill all my mechs, and I probably will never be able to afford it, that is how insane it is.

Also respecs of course cost you extra, extra c-bills, extra xp grind.

And consumable costs going up by 50%.

So no. Not fine. Not fine at all.

[Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS]

Acehilator, on 02 March 2017 - 08:59 AM, said:

Costs are pretty much fine now.

No.

Average players gaining $150,000-$200,000 C-bills per match with premium time will never be able to afford the consumables, much less experiment with different builds.

[Dark Wooki33 IIC]

Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS, on 02 March 2017 - 10:27 AM, said:

No.

Average players gaining $150,000-$200,000 C-bills per match with premium time will never be able to afford the consumables, much less experiment with different builds.

Consumables arent made to be spammed every game, if you are not in a game deciding situation oyu simply not use them ...
Skilling a complete mech isnt much more expensive then 1 modul of old. Pretty cheap to be honest.

[Bud Crue]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 10:21 AM, said:

Nope. I cannot afford to skill all my mechs, and I probably will never be able to afford it, that is how insane it is.

Also respecs of course cost you extra, extra c-bills, extra xp grind.

And consumable costs going up by 50%.

So no. Not fine. Not fine at all.

Speaking exclusively to the cost issue...what's the problem? XP or Cbills?

AT 800XP per node you need ~15K XP over current mastery numbers to get a full 91 node set. Cbill cost is 5,460,000 or less than a radar derp module at current game prices.

For me I don't think I have a cbill shortfall, but even if I did after I sell off redundant mechs, particularly if the nerfs go live and there are no quirks to differentiate some mechs (e.g. a couple of Archers, Black Knights, Thunderbolts, Grasshoppers, Crabs, etc.) I figure my collection of 149 mastered mechs will be reduced to maybe 120 with plenty of cbills to fully node out all of them. Even those short of the 15K XP will only take a few matches to get em back to 91 nodes/mastery status.

[Acehilator]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 10:21 AM, said:

Nope. I cannot afford to skill all my mechs, and I probably will never be able to afford it, that is how insane it is.

Also respecs of course cost you extra, extra c-bills, extra xp grind.

And consumable costs going up by 50%.

So no. Not fine. Not fine at all.

Full 91 points are 5.46mio for a mech that is better than under the current system. If you have one expensive module or two of the cheap ones for it, you are golden. If you are a Pokemech collector with 300 mechs and 30 modules total, #firstworldproblems.

How often do you want to completely reskill your mechs? Moving around 10 or 20 points two or three times is not that big of a deal, with nodes you had previously unlocked only costing 400xp and no cbills. Moving 20 with only 5 being unlocked previously would be 14k xp and 900k cbills. Oh my, one evening of casual play to do a respec. The sky is falling.

Regarding consumables:
- strikes are not worth it anyways
- UAVs are extremely situational in QP, people playing group queue and/or FW should be able to afford them easily
- leaves coolshot, which is now coolshot 18 for cbills, and it is well worth the money (and borderline OP if you take the skills)

[Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS]

Dark Wooki33 IIC, on 02 March 2017 - 10:32 AM, said:

Consumables arent made to be spammed every game, if you are not in a game deciding situation oyu simply not use them ...
Skilling a complete mech isnt much more expensive then 1 modul of old. Pretty cheap to be honest.

The players most affected - new players - don't have a handle on game deciding situations yet. They also don't know builds yet.

I suppose it will temporarily increase player count though, as people run out of money and start new accounts.

Edited by Ahh Screw it - WATCH THIS, 02 March 2017 - 11:24 AM.