7 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

This is looking good and its definitely something like I want to see in live.

However, there are just a ton of tiles and skill points to sift through making into almost a kind of Path of Exile Warrior Online. I have played this game since 2012 and even I am like dayam this is a lot of ****.

The premise of a skill tree system is specialization, however, there is no rhyme or reason(save for maybe the weapon tree) to how these tiles are spread around. It's as if you are creating this in part to fight specialization or stacking when min maxing is the whole point of a system like this. I believe this is the cause of tile and point inflation in your design of this new system.

The problem with this is that people are clicking on tiles without much care and I see this on the twitch streams as well. Its a bit of a mess so its just click click click and then okay I got the thing at the end I wanted.

TLDR I like it but it needs refinement and simplicity. I feel the number of tiles and points can be deflated or simplified some other way.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 05 March 2017 - 11:15 AM.

[oldradagast]

The skill maze is a mess. It shouldn't be a maze. When things have gotten so bad people are just clicking random junk to get "that one skill everyone needs in this tree," then the concept has failed.

There shouldn't be a "1 skill everyone needs," and hiding it behind an XP and cbill tax of junk does not in anyway change the fact that everyone needs that "one skill." That is GRIND, not CHOICE or ROLES. It just makes it take longer to get to that skill - wheee! more grind and more time playing a sub-optimal mech! - and it makes it harder for new players to find the needed skills amid the maze of trash.

There's no excuse for a skill tree to be this complicated, riddled with false choices, and burdened with utterly useless skills in this day and age. It is doubly problematic for a game that ALREADY has arguably "too many choices" to worry about, with hundreds of mechs and nearly infinite builds, the vast majority of which are also false choices and utterly useless in an actual game.

PGI needs to keep it simple. MWO is already a miserably complicated game to learn for new players. The last thing it needs is a tangled skill maze that becomes a frustrating XP and cbill sink as new players struggle to make workable skill builds and veteran players wistfully let most of their mechs rust because they don't have the time or resources to level most of them back to their previous state.

Edited by oldradagast, 05 March 2017 - 11:15 AM.

[Drunk Canuck]

It's pretty awful, to be honest. I can't see anything worthwhile in the PTS aside from being able to buff your Mech's defensive and offensive abilities. a lot of skills are just dumb (fall damage in particular). Agility decoupling just makes it even hard to try and balance anything. Timberwolf turns like a fricking double trailer transport truck despite it having a big engine. Big engines mean your Mech doesn't stop quick enough and takes forever to accelerate. If that's the way it's going to be, remove fixed tech from all Clan OmniMech's.

[Gentleman Reaper]

oldradagast, on 05 March 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

The skill maze is a mess. It shouldn't be a maze. When things have gotten so bad people are just clicking random junk to get "that one skill everyone needs in this tree," then the concept has failed.

There shouldn't be a "1 skill everyone needs," and hiding it behind an XP and cbill tax of junk does not in anyway change the fact that everyone needs that "one skill." That is GRIND, not CHOICE or ROLES. It just makes it take longer to get to that skill - wheee! more grind and more time playing a sub-optimal mech! - and it makes it harder for new players to find the needed skills amid the maze of trash.

There's no excuse for a skill tree to be this complicated, riddled with false choices, and burdened with utterly useless skills in this day and age. It is doubly problematic for a game that ALREADY has arguably "too many choices" to worry about, with hundreds of mechs and nearly infinite builds, the vast majority of which are also false choices and utterly useless in an actual game.

PGI needs to keep it simple. MWO is already a miserably complicated game to learn for new players. The last thing it needs is a tangled skill maze that becomes a frustrating XP and cbill sink as new players struggle to make workable skill builds and veteran players wistfully let most of their mechs rust because they don't have the time or resources to level most of them back to their previous state.

The thing is, you have a different concept for the Skill Trees than PGI has, neither one is better or worse than the other, but they lead to different outcomes.

On PGI's side, you have the current skill webs with "filler" nodes, this is to prevent min-maxing by requiring users to fill out most of the tree if you want to get all the nodes of a specific skill, this system eliminates bias towards boats or similar builds that the current module system has, but at the expense of choosing exactly how you want to spec your mech.

What you're asking for is linear trees, the benefit of this is the large amount of choice presented to players, but at the expense of offering no less advantage for specific builds than we currently have in live. This would mean that the game doesn't feel that different than it does now, but it's not what I want, I want a system that doesn't put me at a disadvantage because I like to run mechs with mixed weapons.

It's certainly possible to try an find a good middle point between the different concepts thrown around the forums, semi-linear trees with diminishing returns would lessen build-bias, but I don't think it would be worth rebuilding all the trees when I feel the current system works fine, aside from needing tweaks.

I get how much you despise this system judging by you making your point heard on every single topic posted here, but I want you to understand why there are people like me who like this system, it's not bad design, it's just not necessarily what some people were expecting.

[Cato Phoenix]

Filler nodes including skills that cannot apply to your mech.

We have things like heat generation locked down behind SRM spread - even if your mech cannot load out any missiles.

This would be like making a barbarian in D&D take combat casting to get cleave.

[Gentleman Reaper]

Cato Phoenix, on 05 March 2017 - 06:45 PM, said:

Filler nodes including skills that cannot apply to your mech.

We have things like heat generation locked down behind SRM spread - even if your mech cannot load out any missiles.

This would be like making a barbarian in D&D take combat casting to get cleave.

Like I said, build-specific nodes like weapon spread and arm pitch need to be moved where it's not a requirement to get a universal node, all filler nodes should impact your mech. This means the auxiliary tree needs to be linear because all of its nodes rely on a piece of equipment to have an effect.

Edited by Gentleman Reaper, 05 March 2017 - 06:58 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Gentleman Reaper, on 05 March 2017 - 05:15 PM, said:

The thing is, you have a different concept for the Skill Trees than PGI has, neither one is better or worse than the other, but they lead to different outcomes.

On PGI's side, you have the current skill webs with "filler" nodes, this is to prevent min-maxing by requiring users to fill out most of the tree if you want to get all the nodes of a specific skill, this system eliminates bias towards boats or similar builds that the current module system has, but at the expense of choosing exactly how you want to spec your mech.

This is exactly my point

The reason there are tons of tiles and points is because PGI is trying to design a tree that prevents min max (where you only put points on good skills and ignore worthless skills) specialization.

Its ruining the decision process by flooding people with skill points and too many choices. People are just click click click unlocking entire catagories without much care.

We need fewer hex tiles and fewer skill points and make the spending of a each skill point a more important decision.

[Kmieciu]

oldradagast, on 05 March 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

When things have gotten so bad people are just clicking random junk to get "that one skill everyone needs in this tree," then the concept has failed.

This is exactly what I think about the new skill tree.
Right now we buy useless "pinpoint" skill just to get elite skills (aka double basics).
Or Arm Reflex on mechs with no arm weapon hardpoints. Or Twist X on the Urbanmech. LOL.


This new skill tree takes it to the extremes. I don't need hill climb and speed retention. I need speed tweak.
If speed tweak is so valuable (it is), it should cost more skill points. DUH!

Then we would have a choice between getting both hill climb & speed retention OR speed tweak.
That would be an interesting choice.

Edited by Kmieciu, 06 March 2017 - 12:19 AM.