36 replies to this topic

[Gas Guzzler]

Honestly, I enjoyed playing with it last night, and feeling like I was actually improving mechs that needed improving and it was going to be great. I even enjoyed seeing how many skills I could unlock and seeing what I had to give up to get where I wanted to go. But then I realized... everybody is going to have the same attributes on their mechs that I do, so why does it matter?

Every PPC/AC wielding mech is going to have 20% extra velocity.
Pretty much every mech is going to have durability and mobility more or less maxed out.
Every laser boat is going to have -10-15% duration (with the exception of IS SPL/MPL mechs MAYBE, primarily because you need the heat gen skills)

You may as well just work all these values into the base stats, because then you think about what its like for a completely fresh, unbasiced mech, and man, its going to suck for new players.

So I'm back to square one. Fix the Pin Point skill and call it a day.

[soapyfrog]

I totally agree. Heck leave pinpoint broken. The status quo with no changes is immensely preferable.

[cazidin]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 10:23 AM, said:

I totally agree. Heck leave pinpoint broken. The status quo with no changes is immensely preferable.

No.

NO.

NO!!!

We lost the Long Tom, despite a majority demanding it, because PGI couldn't get it to work right.

We lost Info Wars, despite a majority demanding it, because PGI couldn't get it to work right.

We even lost Energy Draw, despite a majority demanding an alternative to Ghost Heat, because PGI not only couldn't get it to work right, but added a lot of unrelated but bad ideas.

Give them constructive feedback. They're listening. Tell them what you want. DEMAND they fix it, not scrap it. Do NOT let another good idea be lost because of a few issues that are quite easily fixed. We're testing this for a reason. Let's help them fix this.

[Alistair Winter]

Among competitive players, sure. In the solo queue, you can give players 5 good specs and 95 bad specs and you can bet your sweet butt that you will see 100 different specs on a regular basis. So there will be some more variation on the potato fields, if not among competitive players.

Also, I would say that, ideally, the skill tree may open up for new mechs that would otherwise be unviable. Just as a random example, you can imagine a situation where a Gauss Shadow Cat was not viable before, but suddenly becomes viable due to skill tree (bonus ammo quirks). Or maybe 2xAC2 or 2xUAC2 Light mechs were not viable before, but suddenly become viable due to skill tree. Now, these are perhaps bad examples, but my point is that while there are still going to be cookie-cutter poptarts and cookie-cutter SRM brawlers, the new skill tree may open up for things that weren't already there. Maybe light mech poptarts are suddenly a lot more popular than before, and become a viable alternative to SRM-boating or SPL-boating or 2xERLL carrying light mechs.

You can't stop the cookie-cutter builds, but you can add more types of mechs to the game. In a very flawed game, there might only be one cookie-cutter build dominating the battlefield (e.g. 4-man groups of Streak+ECM RVN-3Ls in 2012). In a better game, there might be 10 different cookie-cutter builds that are all somewhat popular and good at their specific role.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 02 March 2017 - 10:34 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Honestly, I enjoyed playing with it last night, and feeling like I was actually improving mechs that needed improving and it was going to be great. I even enjoyed seeing how many skills I could unlock and seeing what I had to give up to get where I wanted to go. But then I realized... everybody is going to have the same attributes on their mechs that I do, so why does it matter?

Every PPC/AC wielding mech is going to have 20% extra velocity.
Pretty much every mech is going to have durability and mobility more or less maxed out.
Every laser boat is going to have -10-15% duration (with the exception of IS SPL/MPL mechs MAYBE, primarily because you need the heat gen skills)

You may as well just work all these values into the base stats, because then you think about what its like for a completely fresh, unbasiced mech, and man, its going to suck for new players.

So I'm back to square one. Fix the Pin Point skill and call it a day.

It already sucks for a new player with an unbasiced-no module Mech. The new system would actually make it easier for players to start getting incremental improvements to the performance of the Mech quicker and a little at a time instead of having to get it Elited to get the double bonus and Mastered to get Radar Derp and/or Seismic.

The new player experience is not, in itself, is not a valid reason for giving up and throwing away all this work as has happened in the past.

[Wintersdark]

Alistair Winter, on 02 March 2017 - 10:33 AM, said:

Among competitive players, sure. In the solo queue, you can give players 5 good specs and 95 bad specs and you can bet your sweet butt that you will see 100 different specs on a regular basis. So there will be some more variation on the potato fields, if not among competitive players.

There will NEVER be variety among competitive players. People will ALWAYS identify the best skill builds and use that. This is a fact.

Quote

Also, I would say that, ideally, the skill tree may open up for new mechs that would otherwise be unviable. Just as a random example, you can imagine a situation where a Gauss Shadow Cat was not viable before, but suddenly becomes viable due to skill tree (bonus ammo quirks). Or maybe 2xAC2 or 2xUAC2 Light mechs were not viable before, but suddenly become viable due to skill tree. Now, these are perhaps bad examples, but my point is that while there are still going to be cookie-cutter poptarts and cookie-cutter SRM brawlers, the new skill tree may open up for things that weren't already there. Maybe light mech poptarts are suddenly a lot more popular than before, and become a viable alternative to SRM-boating or SPL-boating or 2xERLL carrying light mechs.

You can't stop the cookie-cutter builds, but you can add more types of mechs to the game. In a very flawed game, there might only be one cookie-cutter build dominating the battlefield (e.g. 4-man groups of Streak+ECM RVN-3Ls in 2012). In a better game, there might be 10 different cookie-cutter builds that are all somewhat popular and good at their specific role.

As it stands, there's quite a bit of flexibility. While there are definitely both severe bugs (accel bugged mechs with 1/100th the acceleration) and broken braking (try to stop with a high speed light!) and some bad tuning issues - Assaults and [wierdly!] lights seem very clumsy, though Mediums and Heavies feel pretty good. For my Mediums, I found myself NOT taking mobility skills for a lot of them.


I'm liking the concept, but not current values. Do you spend all those points to get Seismic and Derp, or not? If you're running an ECM mech you certainly will (to buff the ECM) and thus go full infowar, but (at least IMHO) they're not worth the investment given other good options.

Likewise, you can get fairly comparable heat management from the Weapons tree as compared to Ops, so if you're not going weapons then Operations gets you that, or you can invest heavily in weapons and not bother with Ops.

[MechaBattler]

I like it. More than what we have on live. I'm okay with it, if they scale back IS nerfs. I kinda need those to fight even tankier Clan mech. Bad enough they have the Clan XLs.

[Gas Guzzler]

Rampage, on 02 March 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

The new player experience is not, in itself, is not a valid reason for giving up and throwing away all this work as has happened in the past.

Well I guess 7 words out of my entire post aren't valid then. Shucks.

But really, the current skill system has a much smaller overall effect on a mechs performance than the skill tree on the PTS does.

Edited by Gas Guzzler, 02 March 2017 - 11:02 AM.

[Gas Guzzler]

cazidin, on 02 March 2017 - 10:26 AM, said:

Do NOT let another good idea be lost because of a few issues that are quite easily fixed. We're testing this for a reason. Let's help them fix this.

Like energy draw, I'm not a huge fan of the concept (I hated the concept of energy draw, much stronger feelings there I suppose). I am still supplying feedback in other areas, but I just think its unnecessary for this type of game. The fact that every mech just gets access to -10-15% laser duration or 20% projectile velocity just takes away from the allure... everybody who knows what they are doing are going to take those. Its not interesting.

[cazidin]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

Like energy draw, I'm not a huge fan of the concept (I hated the concept of energy draw, much stronger feelings there I suppose). I am still supplying feedback in other areas, but I just think its unnecessary for this type of game. The fact that every mech just gets access to -10-15% laser duration or 20% projectile velocity just takes away from the allure... everybody who knows what they are doing are going to take those. Its not interesting.

It's at least more in depth than what we have now and has the POTENTIAL for greatness. It has a solid foundation, but needs work. Actually, that can describe this entire game, can't it?

[Cy Mitchell]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

Well I guess 7 words out of my entire post aren't valid then. Shucks.

But really, the current skill system has a much smaller overall effect on a mechs performance than the skill tree on the PTS does.

Other people were already refuting other parts of your post. Did I really need to reiterate what they were saying?

I have enjoyed my experience with the new Skill Tree so far with the exception of the Accel/Decel. They seem a little too extreme at the moment. I do not think that they should use the ACH as the standard for Lights or the KDK as the standard for Assaults but I do agree that the Lights and possibly Assaults could move a LITTLE better. They do not need to be as agile as they currently are on LIVE because they are somewhat too agile there IMO. Something about half way in between PTS and LIve would be good and then fix the ones that are broken. Also, I think Decel ability should, at least, match the ability to accelerate. That, by itself, would make all the Mechs feel better.

Edited by Rampage, 02 March 2017 - 12:04 PM.

[soapyfrog]

cazidin, on 02 March 2017 - 10:26 AM, said:

Give them constructive feedback. They're listening. Tell them what you want. DEMAND they fix it, not scrap it. Do NOT let another good idea be lost because of a few issues that are quite easily fixed. We're testing this for a reason. Let's help them fix this.

I want to believe you since I am facing dropping this game entirely. But It's .... just hard. because they clearly put a ton of man hours just to get it to this point and it's a complete dumpster fire.

And I keep coming back to how punishing it is. How they are charging me through the nose for a bunch of crap I absolutely DO NOT WANT. And this after I have loyally supported them for years. Like a ******* IDIOT.

My faith is collapsing.

[C E Dwyer]

My take on it goes like this.

It's a vast improvement on PTS1 I like where it's going, it still has some flaws in it that need addressing before it goes live.

It's still very harsh on new starts, with so much to look at and not really understanding how everything works, there are lots of pitfalls, the nodes for things like heat braking and turning I think need to be more accessible, and closer to the starting hex.

People that have played for years have enough to unlock pretty much what they need, new starts don't so help them.

Acceleration bug needs to be fixed.

All mechs but specifically lights and Mediums need a baseline, and skill buff on hard breaking. With lights and mediums getting a bigger one. the hexes for hard breaking also need to be placed in a more friendly position on the nodes.

Turning circles on lights and mediums need to be made tighter in the baseline.

Above all need definite fixes before it goes live.

Bellow is personal dislikes about it, that are not critical but leave me thinking, why are you even bothering or persisting with certain sections and I think the reception of the skill tree would be more positive with certain skills removed.

Miscellaneous node why are you bothering with this at all, there is one skill on it that is perhaps worth having and the is the narc timer, the rest are pretty rubbish and no one is ever going to waste time on using this tree with limited points to use.

It needs to be gone, it's just a trap for newbie players that don't know any better, and those are the people that need to be encouraged.

Same goes for Hill climb and Speed retention they were never used by anyone, so get rid of them, shrink the tree or replace the hexes with useful skills, stop forcing us to take skills we would never use in the old system.

That pretty much is it.

If you address what I have mentioned then I will be 100% happy with it.

[soapyfrog]

Cathy, on 02 March 2017 - 12:25 PM, said:

People that have played for years have enough to unlock pretty much what they need

Nope. I don't know why anyone thinks this but it is objectively not true.

[Wintersdark]

soapyfrog, on 02 March 2017 - 12:31 PM, said:

Nope. I don't know why anyone thinks this but it is objectively not true.

Yeah, the real problem is that if you haven't bought a lot of modules (me, for example) but have lots of mechs (160ish) then you don't get many cbills back but it costs millions to get a mech to roughly the same point even totally excluding the module based skills.

That's an issue. If you bought modules for all your mechs, that's fine, but I could never afford modules for 160 mechs. I just bought more mechs instead and didn't bother with modules for anything other than a couple more competitive mechs for use in group/fw play.

So now I have a stable full of mastered mechs that I can't get *anywhere close* to where they are right now (and that's considering they don't have modules now, and not obsessing about "mastery" labels)

Also the cost of consumables is broken. You can buy 4 slots to have 6, but at 60,000 cbills per consumable, that's going to cost you 360,000 cbills to use a load. Rarely are you going to earn that many cbills in a match, and VERY rarely are you going to earn many more.

[Gas Guzzler]

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2017 - 12:42 PM, said:

Yeah, the real problem is that if you haven't bought a lot of modules (me, for example) but have lots of mechs (160ish) then you don't get many cbills back but it costs millions to get a mech to roughly the same point even totally excluding the module based skills.

That's an issue. If you bought modules for all your mechs, that's fine, but I could never afford modules for 160 mechs. I just bought more mechs instead and didn't bother with modules for anything other than a couple more competitive mechs for use in group/fw play.

So now I have a stable full of mastered mechs that I can't get *anywhere close* to where they are right now (and that's considering they don't have modules now, and not obsessing about "mastery" labels)

Also the cost of consumables is broken. You can buy 4 slots to have 6, but at 60,000 cbills per consumable, that's going to cost you 360,000 cbills to use a load. Rarely are you going to earn that many cbills in a match, and VERY rarely are you going to earn many more.

There's a good economic evaluation for someone getting over a billion C-bills in modules back and still not being able to respec his mechs.

https://www.reddit.c..._a_whales_song/

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Alistair Winter, on 02 March 2017 - 10:33 AM, said:

Or maybe 2xAC2 or 2xUAC2 Light mechs were not viable before, but suddenly become viable due to skill tree.

Lolno

Alistair Winter, on 02 March 2017 - 10:33 AM, said:

In a better game, there might be 10 different cookie-cutter builds that are all somewhat popular and good at their specific role.

The skill tree doesn't really make this more of a thing since it buffs already good mechs beyond what they were capable of before. In other words sure some crappy builds are a bit more viable, but everything else is too, in other words you get a net of no real change, you are just left with more of an illusion of choice (and not a good one).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 02 March 2017 - 12:55 PM.

[TercieI]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

There's a good economic evaluation for someone getting over a billion C-bills in modules back and still not being able to respec his mechs.

https://www.reddit.c..._a_whales_song/

PGI doesn't want that guy as a customer, clearly. :/

[Alistair Winter]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 02 March 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

Lolno

It was just a hypothetical example. Give me a break, Kalasa.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 02 March 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

The skill tree doesn't really make this more of a thing since it buffs already good mechs beyond what they were capable of before. In other words sure some crappy builds are a bit more viable, but everything else is too, in other words you get a net of no real change, you are just left with more of an illusion of choice (and not a good one).

Yes, right now. But this is not a fundamental truth about skill trees. They have the potential to create more diversity.

Wintersdark, on 02 March 2017 - 10:40 AM, said:

There will NEVER be variety among competitive players. People will ALWAYS identify the best skill builds and use that. This is a fact.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Do you mean that this is always the case, because PGI can't really create a game with actual role warfare where there is diversity? If so, you're probably right, but if we all adopt a defeatist attitude, then balance discussions become far less enjoyable. To the extent that they're enjoyable to begin with.

Or do you mean that even if PGI had the brightest minds of the human race, we would still inevitably end up with a game where any skill tree leaves MWO with as little variety as if the game had no skill tree to begin with? If that's your opinion, I disagree completely and I suspect there's no reason even having this discussion with you, because neither of us will change our minds about this.

Either way, I don't feel it's particularly helpful to say that the skill tree will never produce more variety, except if it's to throw your hands in the air and withdraw from the conversation.

[soapyfrog]

Gas Guzzler, on 02 March 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

There's a good economic evaluation for someone getting over a billion C-bills in modules back and still not being able to respec his mechs.

Yup, I am not getting a billion back but I am getting quite a lot, as I had quite a few more modules than I strictly needed, and I can basically never hope to afford to skill all my mechs. It's completely out of reach. Like I would have to play 10 matches a day for a year and a half without spending any cbills on anything else to afford it.