47 replies to this topic

[Queen of England]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 March 2017 - 06:11 PM, said:

It is daunting at first, but that actually well hamstring a lot of your mechs. This actually allows you to tune to the strength of each variant, as opposed to the glut of must haves that it would appear at first, or that a linear tree would still encourage. This setup will take more effort, but any legit customization does. The big concern for me is NPE, and I feel you should be able to access the Testing Grounds before actually "buying in".

If it turns into a big performance problem, I'll just max mobility and tech sensors out to get seismic and radar derp and just leave it. That should keep me under 20 seconds per 'mech, which seems fine. I have plenty of 'mechs that I've never gotten past basic skills right now, and it hasn't seemed to cause any problems.

I've skilled out 5 mechs in PTS 2 so far, and I haven't been able to find 91 nodes I want to take on any 'mech. The most I've done on any is 86. On most of them I run out of stuff that I can get to without wasting a ton of skill points after spending about 75.

Ultimately, the skill tree isn't fun, so the main goal is going to be minimizing the amount of time I waste interacting with it so I can get back to the fun stuff in game and in the mechlab.

Edited by Queen of England, 06 March 2017 - 06:30 PM.

[Ted Wayz]

Once you get refunded all your skills then redo 300 mechs to the same performance level without saying f-it I am outta here or spending mucho time grinding, then I will listen.

Being able to make a handful mechs, usable who cares? I have spent 3 years plus making these mechs what they are. I do not intend on spending the next three getting them all back to the same level.

And to mention that it will just reinforce a meta and lead to everyone buying the same "l33t" skills. And to add that it doesn't make sense to give the same opportunity to all mechs, or not to have separate clan v IS. Nor does it accentuate roles...why does this sound like progress?

And to say I am a little suspicious of the timing of this Pollyanna post...

[Queen of England]

Ted Wayz, on 06 March 2017 - 06:49 PM, said:

And to say I am a little suspicious of the timing of this Pollyanna post...

Maybe you've been spending a little too much time at tea with Romano?

[BearFlag]

The assertion that the current tree is somehow superior to linear trees for creating decisions/trade-offs is simply not true. It's a matter of design.

The fact remains there are 91 nodes and some are micro-divided and used as fluff trade-offs just to make something more desirable remote. You have five nodes each of Hill Climb and Quick Ignition, for crying out loud, which prob should be 1 and 2 respectively.

Trade-offs can be created in a linear system with much more economy and much more intuitively. Make the desirable trees deep, the less desirable ones shallow, limit the SPs. Presto, hard choices, painful trade-offs. Want Speed Tweak, sorry eight nodes to max. Hill Climb, one. The current system is over-populated and unnecessarily complex.

If someone wants to boat, they're going to boat. This tree does not prevent it and a linear approach would not make it easier. With straight progression, fewer overall nodes and fewer SPs, you get the same decisions without the bloat.

Edited by BearFlag, 06 March 2017 - 07:12 PM.

[JC Daxion]

heh, i kinda pretty much agree with your assessment. I think they are really on the right track here, but it needs a crap ton of testing and adjusting. But really we are only going to get that on live.


I'd like to see at least one more tweak, maybe two before it goes out the door. But i really think going live is the test it needs. Time for the masses to play and see how it really works out.

That said, some node need tweaking for sure.

[Bishop Steiner]

JC Daxion, on 06 March 2017 - 07:33 PM, said:

heh, i kinda pretty much agree with your assessment. I think they are really on the right track here, but it needs a crap ton of testing and adjusting. But really we are only going to get that on live.


I'd like to see at least one more tweak, maybe two before it goes out the door. But i really think going live is the test it needs. Time for the masses to play and see how it really works out.

That said, some node need tweaking for sure.

That's the biggest issue, there is just so much that for balance really needs live 12v12. The 4v4 environment really doesn't give an accurate assessment, overall. Nor does testing tweaks in the testing grounds in a vacuum.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 06 March 2017 - 07:42 PM.

[BenWhiskeyjack]

Bishop Steiner, on 06 March 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

That was one of the things I noticed the more I built.... and of course, that is also likely what the more competitive players hate... this does not efficiently allow for maximized single weapon boats......(you can still build efficient ones, but will miss nodes in doing so).... which I am pretty sure is the idea.

Also the more I tinkered with different chassis, the more I found myself straying away from what were initially perceived "must have" Nodes, and often building several variations of the same chassis very differently based on perceived role. One Catapult got a lot of mobility unlocks... (my K2), one got a lot of Sensor Unlocks (my C1(F)). If I had a Butterbee, I would probably have unlocked the JJ Nodes to aid it getting in and out as a brawler.

I'm liking that aspect a lot, because it is encouraging me to really closely pay attention to the stuff, instead of cut and paste metamechs, with everything getting the same unlocks, etc.
I'm sure that some will still distill it thusly, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as cut and dried any more... and really minmaxxing now makes it feel like you are actualyl giving up something to maximize something else. That I approve of.

I think you're right that overall this isn't the end of the world, but the above point really makes the case that we shouldn't have respec costs on this. We all like to experiment, and it will be required as part of this change. So between the respec costs and the fact that this overall isn't a fully baked cake, it feels like PGI needs to look at it for another month or so to really ensure it's actually good. I also would advocate for something closer to a linear tree with some sort of caps and organization that force choices (i.e. seismic or radar derp or partial of both)

[Ajantise]

Basically the devs want to show us that there are working hard, so they make big patch change notes about small insignificant fixes, and big chaos skill trees.
Please make the skill trees simple and linear. Dont force the players in to something they dont want.
Now the skill tree is a mess.
Too much, does not mean better.
When you chose 91 points and go in the mech lab.... its 5 good and 50 stupid quirks.
FIX IT FAST!