392 replies to this topic

[Duncan1dah0]

I agree with the concern that it's not ready yet. I would like to see a couple more rounds of refinement. I got on the test servers each time and my biggest take away was that was too much work and not fun. I have a lot of mechs and I am not looking forward to clicking 91 times and transferring XP balances. I concur that the firepower tree needs further refinement. I sure hope the lights get the love they need. I felt they were getting further nerfed.

Honestly I've not played for the last couple of weeks because of the dread for this change and the pointlessness of gaining xp with this looming over our heads. Hum, as I say this maybe it is the right decision to do it and just deal with the chaos, salt and upset players vs us being in limbo longer. Some day's you really make it feel like it's your game and not our game.

[cazidin]

Gattsus, on 08 March 2017 - 05:58 PM, said:

• the cost of remastering is a no no
  
• my vindicator will still suck,,,,

1.Agreed.
2.And it probably always will.

[shameless]

all hail the Clan overlords...

[Nightbird]

Add a suggestion here to give bad mechs a quirk for higher node capacity than 91. No one will care if vindicators get +50 nodes...

[LordLosh]

so not ready....

[Firefox54]

Unfortunately, I did not play the PTS (was playing live instead). However, my biggest concern is on the skill tree.

PROs: I like that there is now flexibility in selecting where we want to improve our mech ... I feel that is a good step in the right direction for specializing mechs.

I'm thankful the PGI has taken feedback and made some changes.

CONs: In general, I'd prefer to not pick nodes that I really don't want. We have that in the current system and now would be a good time to remove that from the game.

My biggest issues is with the Firepower tree. In the first iteration, the concern was that someone with one specific weapon could focus on improving that weapon. In the current iteration, the concern should be that one general weapon type can be focused on ... I think that the current iteration will lead to more boating (i.e., if I can simply use all of my energy hardpoints and upgrade them just by going down the appropriate path, why add ballistic or missiles to my mech?)

The whole tree seems really convoluted ... the current mech tree gives us generic choices that makes us select some things that we may not need or even be capable of using ... but the pilot skill tree has limited slots and forces us to select between the modules we want to use for our mech ... this causes there to be some trade-offs (which is where the proposed system wants to be). Why isn't the new skill tree based off of the pilot skill tree? Simply give us all of the options and let us pick the ones we want with a maximum number of skill points. If the "unwanted" nodes in the proposed skill tree are just there to "slow" people down from getting the better skills (or adding the additional benefit) just make those skills more expensive.

In general, the skill tree needs to be simpler. The game is already reasonably complex to figure out the nuances (which I enjoy to a point) ... but don't throw this skill tree in the mix. The current live approach is much more intuitive and straight forward. The proposed approach is just too messy.

My suggestion ... just create a simpler system that we can select the skills we want AND separate the firepower tree back to individual weapons. If needed for balance, make some skills more expensive OR reduce the maximum number of SP that can be spent. The skill tree should just be simpler ... like the current pilot skills (i.e., if I want to just max out some weapon range or cooldown or etc ... I can just do that).

If you put a simple system in place, the mechanics of how many SP things cost or the max number of SP a player gets can be tweaked ... but we want the skill tree to be correct.

I echo others on another round of PTS before going live.

Thanks for listening.

[Andi Nagasia]

a Good Start,

some good mechs will get better,
but generally i think all mechs will go up alittle, perhaps not in the same way,

i run a LCT-PB with a ERPPC, Skill Trees will allow me to get -%Heat gen to all Energy,
same goes with my SHC(their ok but its very meh) PPCs on a SHC, finally i can run cooler Sniper,
also i cant wait to run my AS7-K with all those Structure Quirks, so muhc Hp,

im sure the ammo Quirks for ballistics and Missiles will help my IS mechs much more,

shameless, on 08 March 2017 - 06:05 PM, said:

all hail the Clan overlords...

suddenly all Clan Weapons get hit with a Global -20% cooldown,

Edited by Andi Nagasia, 08 March 2017 - 06:38 PM.

[EgoSlayer]

This announcement just goes to show how truly disconnected PGI is from their player base.

[Marius Evander]

Gentleman Reaper, on 08 March 2017 - 03:19 PM, said:

Laser duration and velocity should be combined

definately need to combine everything they can, im sure other things could be combined aswell to futher help mixed builds and dissuade boating.

Sereglach, on 08 March 2017 - 03:38 PM, said:

Veteran players with large rosters of formerly mastered mechs are screwed the most (EDIT: because currently people with large rosters of mastered mechs that swapped modules -aka most of us- won't even be able to afford to get our mechs back to where we had them before this change).

- No mention of whether or not we'll still be forced to take nodes we don't want, or have no purpose on the mech, in order to take nodes we do want. Again, if you want a certain level of investment then put certain nodes after a path of relevant nodes, and not buried under non-pertinent nodes.

- No mention of further adjustments to mech agility to keep heavy mechs from still dominating queues. Improvements have been made but it still has a long ways to go. MWO needs more counterplay in the weight classes, like there used to be before PGI started giving everything that's not a light obscene agility quirks.

Also, as a final note that's semi-unrelated . . . there's all this talk and focus on infowar and making infowar based mech builds, but all of the in-game rewards STILL favor pure damage dealing and kills over anything else. When will we see more about in-game rewards matching up to gameplay styles that you're trying to encourage people to take through options but without the "real" encouragement (aka c-bills).

People with large rosters of mechs without modules should be glad its taken years for them to fix the system. Be thankful you got to play dozens of mechs you couldn't actually afford. Module moving was so you didnt have to override 6-12 mil investment when you changed your mech loadout. For people who actually bought modules like me, I will be able to afford some new toys if I have spare mechbays. The skill tree costs are good, just not happy there will be no refund every time they rebalance it.

Of course we will have to take nodes we dont want, pgi wont fix it, it would require rebuilding the whole system to what it should have been, a this or that, speed or armor etc. The most hilarious example of this is the double ARM PITCH block in mobility tree, when a lot of mechs dont even use arms.

It would be nice if lights saw more play agreed, but the cryengine can't cope with things moving fast.

It would be nice if capping and AMS and a few other things gave better rewards

Hallgeirr Olafsson, on 08 March 2017 - 03:45 PM, said:

How about this as well. Say you have a few mechs (or several) that you favor and as a result have those mechs not only mastered under the current system, but also have another 200K xp or more on that particular mech. Why not allow for the purchase of additional points beyond the 91 point max value. Say one point per 200 or 300 thousand mech xp? Just a thought...

Sounds great in theory put people who played nothing but eg Timberwolves for years would have every node in all the skill trees. Broken OP.

Gas Guzzler, on 08 March 2017 - 03:49 PM, said:

And yeah, you will never have to hunt down or swap modules again, you will just have to grind C-bills for hours instead!

Its not that expensive, im going to be able to afford more mechs with the cbills ill get back after treeing all of my 50 ish mechs.

Kali Rinpoche, on 08 March 2017 - 03:58 PM, said:

PGI, you have failed again to address the high legacy cost of the new system for us veteran players with large stables of mechs. Please tell me why many of us will be having to spend billions of cbills to spec out mechs to make them playable again.

60k per node is still too high.

If this goes live, I will have to reconsider my future financial commitment to this product.

Be thankful you got to exploit a flawed system and play with mechs you couldn't actually afford for years.

Draglock, on 08 March 2017 - 05:06 PM, said:

I like the tree and think is good to go live. Dose it have problem yes, but they have this awesome new tech in gaming called a patch. If some thing is not working they can fix it.

And charge us to rebuild based on the rebalance =( . But I am Glad its going live.

Oldbob10025, on 08 March 2017 - 05:11 PM, said:

Get ready for the Inner Sphere Nerf BAT!!!!! Good bye Inner Sphere mechs and hello to easy button clan mechs...

Pretty sure IS skill tree and Clan skill tree nodes have different values ? #balanced.

DAYLEET, on 08 March 2017 - 05:25 PM, said:

It's about time this got released into the wild and tested in read world, 12vs12 scenario. I do hope your above commitment to change and balance the tree will keep up at a steady pace. Now that everyone will play it, we will need weekly update i think.

Agree but not looking forward to paying for different weapon trees coz of rebalance changing meta =p

Cato Phoenix, on 08 March 2017 - 05:28 PM, said:

Sounds like as good a time as any to switch back to playing clans for FW.

Skill trees dif values for each faction no ?

I wish moules like seismic you could just HAVE weren't too hard to reach in this new tree.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 08 March 2017 - 07:06 PM.

[BearFlag]

Incursion mode coming. More tests. Hopefully, more testers.

I didn't read that they were putting the current ST live and unchanged. But some of the pending changes make it sound like the general scheme will be the same. Not good, IMO. It needs to get smaller and simpler. Players, at least in forum, clearly prefer a linear set up. Gating desirable nodes behind undesirable ones is not the best way to create choice.

And, no, it's not necessary or the inevitable design. I get what they're trying to do, but this is a messy way to do it. Trees linear, desirable trees should be deep, undesirable ones shallow, SPs reduced. Bam, same effect. Simple, intuitive. The difference is traversing irrelevant/unwanted skills using 91 points to still get what you want versus going directly there with fewer SPs to spend.

[Death Proof]

InnerSphereNews, on 08 March 2017 - 03:05 PM, said:

UI Changes


[indent]
- Previously, nodes that were unlocked and equipped were not very distinguishable from nodes that were unlocked but not equipped on a ‘Mech. These nodes have been given a much better color and shape treatment to make it clear which nodes have had points spent on them.



- The links between nodes have had a color, size and functionality pass done. It is now easier to see which nodes are connected, which node paths are open, and which node paths are active. The functionality has been improved to show the difference between active parent nodes and non-active parent nodes. Previously, all parent nodes would have a full color connecting path. Now, only parents that are active will have a full color path to its child node.[/indent]

Awesome. Thanks! That was my main issue with the new skill tree.

[Deathlike]

I'll be here to collect the salt once people realize how badly designed this is.

Chances are though, there will be related MM threads that will go with this too.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 08 March 2017 - 03:44 PM, said:

NOPE.

Halt. Achtung. Stop. Hold up. Whoa. Wait. Hang on a moment. Chotto matte. Slow down. Hit the brakes. Cease. Desist. Decelerate. Reduce momentum.

Wait just a ding-dang minute here why are you rushing this you weren't done yet.


Seriously. https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5644318

YOU ARE NOT DONE TESTING YET STOP
YOU HAVE NOT TRIED ENOUGH VARIATION TO GO LIVE YET STOP
IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE GETTING PEOPLE TO TEST
IT IS NOT BECAUSE YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE MORE TESTING STOP
IT IS BECAUSE YOU STILL DO NOT OFFER ANY FORM OF REWARD FOR TESTING STOP
IF YOU ARE MAKING THIS LIVE BECAUSE NOBODY IS ON THE PTS STOP
IT IS NOT A SIGN THAT YOU ARE DONE STOP
THERE ARE MORE THINGS TO TRY WITH THIS STOP
PLEASE DO NOT RUSH LIKE THIS STOP
RUSHING NEVER GOT ANYTHING DONE FASTER STOP
IT JUST MADE IT HAVE TO BE REDONE AT LEAST ONCE MORE STOP
THIS IS A MISTAKE FULL STOP

Just to reiterate at top 'volume':

THIS IS NOT READY YET WHAT ARE YOU DOING

[Stitchedup]

I dont mind the idea of the skill tree and it looks pretty good, the balance problem can be solved with old style quirks or under preforming mechs get extra nodes or changes in the nodes values in certain chassis.

Iam a little bit salty about the cost to re skill all my mechs (115), i dont have that sort of cbills laying around because i have bought other mechs with them. It punishes people how have supported the game in the past. I would like to see a bit of compensation offered for example 1 free day premium time per mech or 200,000 cbills per mech in garage , because it looks to me this is hitting the streets come hell or high water.

I quess if it does come through in its current form i will just playing about a quarter of my best preforming mechs and forgetting the rest.

Edited by Stitchedup, 08 March 2017 - 08:17 PM.

[ThiefofAlways]

PGI you have not listened and you will get no more of my money. The current tree and mech quirks are better than what you are forcing on us.

Edited by ThiefofAlways, 08 March 2017 - 08:20 PM.

[Ruar]

Looks like I'll be done with the game and cancelling my pre-order mechs. There is no indication of making the trees linear and no acknowledgement that having to purchase unnecessary nodes is being fixed. I'm not going to use a skill tree that forces me to wade through all kinds of skills I can't use or don't want in order to get to the items that will help me. Period.

So many people have made it clear they hate the current design yet we get nothing saying it's going to be fixed. So I'll wait till the 21st to see what is put into live. And then I'll determine if PGI gets anymore of my money or not.

[l33tworks]

Dakota1000, on 08 March 2017 - 05:58 PM, said:

I like the new changes and had wished the skill trees got released last update cycle. The constant delays are getting tiresome. Let it hit the public and let the full community decide and see how it goes. The new player experience will be improved significantly with the much lower grind, some mechs that were useless before will be just gimmicky enough to work. IS has a lot of mechs that will be useful after the patch with their new buffs. I'll never have to swap a module around again.

Please lets just let this change not be delayed more then changed up into something nobody likes. The last time we had a PTS go on too long it became the dumpster fire known as Energy Draw. Lets keep it short and sweet here.

As much as i dont like the non linear nature of the nodes i feel exactly same way. Its time to make some changes to the the dynamics of the game anyway and PGI has to take a leap for better or worse, no going back now.

Leaving the game as it is it will just stagnate. The current skill tree is as tasty as oatmeal and needs to go. The new sustem will have teething problems but its far superior to the old one. We kust need a more linear approach and quirks to remain more prominently.

[Ruar]

l33tworks, on 08 March 2017 - 08:34 PM, said:

As much as i dont like the non linear nature of the nodes i feel exactly same way. Its time to make some changes to the the dynamics of the game anyway and PGI has to take a leap for better or worse, no going back now.

Leaving the game as it is it will just stagnate. The current skill tree is as tasty as oatmeal and needs to go. The new sustem will have teething problems but its far superior to the old one. We kust need a more linear approach and quirks to remain more prominently.

I think most of the testers are good with the idea of a skill tree but are upset at the way it's implemented. Non-linear being the biggest complaint yet we see nothing about that being changed.

How freaking hard is it to give us another test with a linear build before going live with it? So it's delayed. So they end up patching the skill tree in on a different date. Better to get it closer to right than release a bag of flaming poo that drives people, and revenue, away.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

Good, the skill tree actually is useful unlike the current one. I am glad that some nodes are being adjusted as well, just wish we would know what said adjustments were so we could give a bit more feedback on that. Really happy to hear that active, unlocked inactive, and locked inactive nodes will be more clear as well as unlock paths. Still wish that +/- would be used to zoom in and out on the skill tree (side note, would be useful for more granular scaling of decals as well to be able to use +/- as well).

I am not sold on 91 nodes, could have been 100 nodes, 50k per node at 500xp per node, would have been nice even numbers, great for new players who get low income for cbills and xp to see nodes easily within grasp, though, they also have to fight between nodes and upgrading their mech which is meh but whatever the economy in MWO has been bad for a long long time. Which is something that does need addressing (bring back the economy set up from 8v8, I know you want to sell premium time PGI, but I had a friend try to start playing again last night and just the prospect of playing 10-40 games to upgrade a free mech he had to just DHS and Endo with a decent load out made him uninstall again. Economy is ***, if you wanted the skill tree to be a cbill sink you should have thought about how bad new player income is first.) Still stand by there should be no reactivation cost to a node, at all, as it punishes new players making mistakes and punishes experimentation. We already are going to put in a fair bit of time and money into mastering it once, more so if we take the time to unlock every node so we can change what nodes are active whenever, the 400xp tax is just rude and spits in the face of new players and people who wish to experiment over blindly follow what community driven meta says.

The Jester lost a lot of mobility that even with the mobility tree it did not regain which is the main reason for the Jester to exist, please fix this otherwise you just made both catapult heroes lacking value and thus making people who enjoy the chassis and seek informed opinions shy away from spending money on heroes. (Sidenote, butterbee would be a more fun mech if it had a higher engine cap just for a bit more raw speed with the SRM's, agility with last PTS was spot on I felt.)

Historic XP on mechs not currently owned should be accessible via inventory I feel and allow people to directly transfer HXP from unowned mechs to GXP and all HXP to convert to GXP at reduced MC prices. This is is of course a once in a life time thing but, hey, I have heard demand for it so it is a nice way to get a bit of money through MC sales and some happy players.

Issue of people being frustrated at their mechs they dumped 50k or so XP into not being mastered under the new system? It wouldn't be mastered anyways. Best you could hope for is around 60-70 free single use SP coins. By this I mean any mech that currently had spent skill points on it would be given instead of historic XP from said spent XP would get cbill free skill points to slot in that are single use. No progress reset. However. For those of you who have mastered your mechs on live you would find yourself still a good 20 or so skill points below mastery, so you would have to still go out and play each mech a decent bit to remaster them all. But, hey, better than starting from scratch I guess. I am meh on doing this, but it is a solution that PGI can take if they want.

Ideas for balancing later on. Over powered mechs such as the KDK-3 get reduced skill points, as in, limited number. Sure they would just dump it into say survival and still do well, but, not as well as if they had all 91 and put it into mobility, firepower, and survival. For omni's you balance off of the CT I guess? IDK, Omni's are hard to do since the pod swapping. Battlemechs are easy as I said. Maybe each pod has a SP penalty associated with it. Like the Timberwolf A left torso giving a -10 SP. Don't know, something for PGI to play around with.

As it is, I am happy with the overall changes this will bring forth after extensive testing on of all versions. Thank you for giving us an actual tree to work with. In the future, if you change the structure of these skill trees you should give a full refund (but that will be easier as it will be all the same system for all parts of the skill system unlike now) so we don't have the issue of people not getting free respec's which you kind of have to do to not hurt a player base.

[Sereglach]

Cadoazreal, on 08 March 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

People with large rosters of mechs without modules should be glad its taken years for them to fix the system. Be thankful you got to play dozens of mechs you couldn't actually afford. Module moving was so you didnt have to override 6-12 mil investment when you changed your mech loadout. For people who actually bought modules like me, I will be able to afford some new toys if I have spare mechbays. The skill tree costs are good, just not happy there will be no refund every time they rebalance it.

Allow me to enlighten you since you weren't around at the time of the modules release. They were actually advertised as an end game grind that was an optional boost to your mechs and the fact that you could swap them around mechs was a major selling point to get people to approve of the system. Therefore I wasn't playing mechs I "couldn't actually afford". I was playing mechs that I built up and mastered within the system as it was intended.

Also, the skill tree costs are still terrible, because for 57250 XP I could get the "mastered" or the "standard competitive" boosts on a mech with ZERO C-BILL INVESTMENT. Now it will cost (as people have calculated that it's about 80 nodes to get everything the old system offered) 4.8 million c-bills just for people to get their mechs to where they were without modules before this system came into being. That in and of itself is a complete backhanded slap in the face to any veteran player who's invested time and (in most cases) a respectable quantity of money into the game to build a roster of mechs under the systems that PGI put in place. We recognize that mastered in the old system doesn't equal mastered in the new system, but we should have options to at least get back to where we were without obscene c-bill investments.

The new system doesn't even offer alternate ways to gain skill points. It's been suggested by myself and others to have pure XP investments as an alternative to c-bill costs (even if larger xp amounts) and some (again myself included) even talked about using MC in replacement of c-bills as a third option. Regardless, a pure xp system should be available, even if it costs more xp than the c-bills and xp alternative. That at least allows veteran players an option to get back to where they were without re-imposing a massive new grind on the overwhelming majority of the player base.

Thusly, in the end, the veteran players who've been supporting PGI since their inception and have the largest rosters of mechs are getting screwed the most out of this whole thing. Lowering the costs was a start, but players still can't even get back what they had before this change went into effect, and players are not going to want to re-grind their entire roster of mechs like they were starting from near scratch (because even if they have the XP they don't have the c-bills); and players like you are in an extreme minority on that front. Without a fix PGI will suffer a level of anger and player exodus the likes of which hasn't been seen since Star Wars Galaxies.

Cadoazreal, on 08 March 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

Of course we will have to take nodes we dont want, pgi wont fix it, it would require rebuilding the whole system to what it should have been, a this or that, speed or armor etc. The most hilarious example of this is the double ARM PITCH block in mobility tree, when a lot of mechs dont even use arms.

Which if it isn't fixed is just all the more reason that the skill tree isn't ready for prime-time. Requiring some point investment to get to certain nodes is fine, but they should make sense. For example (and there are troves of examples in the PTS forums), requiring full investment into sensor range to get to the ECM nodes makes sense . . . forcing someone to take LBX spread to get to weapon cooldown doesn't.

Regardless, it's nice to see we agree on this.

Cadoazreal, on 08 March 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

It would be nice if lights saw more play agreed, but the cryengine can't cope with things moving fast.

Actually, as has come up again and again and again in conversations, PGI long since passed those limitations with all of their HSR (Host State Rewind) and hit detection improvements (again, before your time as seen by your account creation date). In fact the last set of HSR improvements and networking code improvements had Russ bragging that they've eliminated any and all hurdles to increasing speed, which was the biggest reason they then decided to add MASC to the game. They could easily pass the 200kph mark at this point, they've just chosen not to. If you look through my post history you'll find where I put up a timeline on when all of this happened.

Cadoazreal, on 08 March 2017 - 07:05 PM, said:

It would be nice if capping and AMS and a few other things gave better rewards

Agreed. PGI has a lot of work to do. You can't encourage types of gameplay without actually providing incentives and rewards for participating in that type of gameplay. Until they do so many nodes and gameplay types on the skill trees will be ignored, and people will all just be playing the same meta of kill, kill, kill.