61 replies to this topic

[Dooarf]

This is really good.

[Vitade]

This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for when I heard we were getting a skill tree however many months ago.

I hope that PGI will take the time to read and consider this.

One concern I have with the current tree is that the recent iterations of the skill tree seem to have "resource sink" type qualities to them (structure of the trees and "bad" nodes hiding "good" ones). I hope that PGI recognizes that by making a FUN game free of sink-type systems, they will get more players, and thus increase their revenue streams, rather than trying to milk an increasingly smaller group of increasingly bitter players.

[Volkodav]

Good. It must be checked on the test server.

[Ultimax]

Pjwned, on 12 March 2017 - 09:40 PM, said:

1) There shouldn't be guaranteed skill points for weapons, even if there's less overall skill points as a result; if you want weapon skills then you can give something else up.

Nonsense.

There are mechs that very clearly need weapon quirks, and this is where they can buy them.

They shouldn't be forced to skimp elsewhere with the same opportunity costs as other superior mechs.

A Dragon or a Vindicator should very clearly not have to make the same choices in build opportunity as a Kodiak, because that is ridiculous.

This system allows you to give the Kodiak ZERO and give the Dragon 14 (each, for all of it's weapon types) at the same time while simultaneously doesn't affect anything else in the entire skill tree.

That can't be done with PGI's current skill tree on PTS.


On top of this, if you want to run all ballistics - you can.
You want to run ballistics and lasers and missiles, you can and you aren't spreading a single pat of butter over an entire loaf of bread.

Pjwned, on 12 March 2017 - 09:40 PM, said:

2) Arbitrary firepower skill point allotment is all but certain to be a nightmare to deal with, both for PGI to actually handle correctly and for players to actually deal with what they have without obsessive whining and crying for more firepower skill points on their pet mech; this already happens enough with the current quirk system and anything that even resembles something to put a damper on that crap is automatically worthwhile.

The firepower tree shouldn't be some special snowflake that works differently from everything else, so even if PGI's skill tree is not that good it's still better than this proposal.

The first iterations of quirks took some time to get right, but there were mechs on the field that clearly had no place there before - just because PGI is awful at iterative balance doesn't mean the idea doesn't have merit.


Wrapping everything up into the skill system would at least allow some pretty clean control compared to the way they've done it in the past.


Not to mention that the allotment doesn't need to be arbitrary, you look at a mech, it's hardpoints, possible loadouts and its overall powerlevel at base and then give it enough skill points to make a strong build out of if it's a weak mech or you give it little to nothing if it already has inherently strong options.


The system would only be arbitrary if the person deciding things was completely incompetent, even a modicum of creativity and planning could solve this.

Edited by Ultimax, 13 March 2017 - 03:53 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

I wish I had seen this sooner. This is so incredible.

Literally 100/100 points in my book. If PGI implemented this proposal, it would keep me playing MWO for years.

Edited by Alistair Winter, 13 March 2017 - 08:13 PM.

[Krasnopesky]

It boggles the mind to think one person came up with this *clearly* superior offering.

[Monkey Lover]

With this skill tree i would feel sorry for the potatoes who don't know how to meta, goodluck cw lol

[50 50]

Ultimax, on 13 March 2017 - 03:50 PM, said:

Nonsense.

There are mechs that very clearly need weapon quirks, and this is where they can buy them.

They shouldn't be forced to skimp elsewhere with the same opportunity costs as other superior mechs.

A Dragon or a Vindicator should very clearly not have to make the same choices in build opportunity as a Kodiak, because that is ridiculous.

This system allows you to give the Kodiak ZERO and give the Dragon 14 (each, for all of it's weapon types) at the same time while simultaneously doesn't affect anything else in the entire skill tree.

That can't be done with PGI's current skill tree on PTS.

On top of this, if you want to run all ballistics - you can.
You want to run ballistics and lasers and missiles, you can and you aren't spreading a single pat of butter over an entire loaf of bread.

I disagree.
It's a good proposal, well present and how we should be making out points.
But this skill tree won't work.
Unfortunately, the free points for the weapons on a mech or having individual custom differences per variant is not a sustainable way to manage the system.
The system needs to be generic for all mechs and then just have the Clan vs IS differences to allow for technology differences.
Having different weapon trees for each weapon was seen as a decided bad idea in PTS 1.0 as any point system then favours boating, so unless you give mixed hadpoint mechs 3 times as many points, there really is no point in having points and just give the bonuses to all mechs or none at all.

The reason the skill tree was a web was so it could soak up some of the excess points we had so it really meant something to get to those more powerful nodes.

The simple maths of this is that the more skills we could get, the more complex the web needed to be to make those choices mean something.

So.... do it the other way around.

Drastically reduce the number of available points and we can have a less complex more streamlined system.
However, I do believe that having some cross over is good where some skills can be seen as related.
Ballistic Velocity for example.
To increase Ballistic Velocity, you also have to branch into some Ranged nodes. Is that bad? No, because extra range is always good, but it means that to really get to the top of the ballistic tree you will need to spend a good chunk of points.

And that's where the balance comes in.

Let's take the Kodiak, specifically the KDK-3, as the example.
The ballistics on this mech in those high points is what makes it.
Now that the Engine ratings have been decoupled from the mobility it's fast for a 100ton assault but twists and turns like a pig in mud.
So if a player really wants to take advantage of those nice weapon points and they have to blow 25 of their 50 skill points just on ballistic nodes. Then what? It's mobility is still lousy, need 25 points to max that out and get all the upper and lower mobility. Or do you put the 25 points into Survival so it can take some punishment. Oh oh, it's sensors are rubbish, no radar deprivation, no seismic. SO maybe a little bit here and a little bit there is the way to go to get some bonuses. It may not be advantageous to invest any points in the Ballistics tree.

The real points are:

• Everyone would do something different.
  
• There is no right or wrong answer as getting any bonus is good.
  
• Min/Maxing one or two trees means leaving some big gaps elsewhere.
  
• Not min/maxing means the mech is not overly power in any direction but has a lot of 'features'.

But with 91 skill points?
You can get the ballistics, you can get the armour, you can get the mobility, you can get the sensors, you can have you cake and eat it.

No.
Less points.
Can simplify the skill tree.
Have a few cross over skills to build bulk into the choices.
Less clicking
Less cost
Harder decisions.
Better balance.

[Pjwned]

Ultimax, on 13 March 2017 - 03:50 PM, said:

Nonsense.

There are mechs that very clearly need weapon quirks, and this is where they can buy them.

They shouldn't be forced to skimp elsewhere with the same opportunity costs as other superior mechs.

A Dragon or a Vindicator should very clearly not have to make the same choices in build opportunity as a Kodiak, because that is ridiculous.

This system allows you to give the Kodiak ZERO and give the Dragon 14 (each, for all of it's weapon types) at the same time while simultaneously doesn't affect anything else in the entire skill tree.

That can't be done with PGI's current skill tree on PTS.

They don't need weapon quirks, I don't care about "BUT MUH HURRDURR-DURF7 MECH" examples, and even if I did care it is still possible for those mechs to get quirks through the skill tree even though none of them should get any period.

I don't care about quirk apologism because quirks are a shitfest that have only ever led to band-aid fixes for glaring balance issues, which is largely due to quirks being inherently ****.

Quote

On top of this, if you want to run all ballistics - you can.
You want to run ballistics and lasers and missiles, you can and you aren't spreading a single pat of butter over an entire loaf of bread.

That was already addressed with the first skill tree revision, when the firepower tree turned into generic global bonuses for all weapons equipped, aside from a very few type-specific quirks like ballistic velocity.

Quote

The first iterations of quirks took some time to get right, but there were mechs on the field that clearly had no place there before - just because PGI is awful at iterative balance doesn't mean the idea doesn't have merit.

It's both, actually; quirks are **** and PGI is awful at any meaningful work on balance which makes quirks even more **** in practice.

Quote

Wrapping everything up into the skill system would at least allow some pretty clean control compared to the way they've done it in the past.

It's not any better in that regard at all. What can they do with a different system--which is just the same **** in a different wrapper--that they can't do now?

Oh, nothing? Okay then.

Quote

Not to mention that the allotment doesn't need to be arbitrary, you look at a mech, it's hardpoints, possible loadouts and its overall powerlevel at base and then give it enough skill points to make a strong build out of if it's a weak mech or you give it little to nothing if it already has inherently strong options.


The system would only be arbitrary if the person deciding things was completely incompetent, even a modicum of creativity and planning could solve this.

So in other words arbitrary and highly subjective.

I'm really convinced now.

[CrashKingSnev]

This... this is really good! I appreciate the work PGI has done in making the new Skill Tree, and I know there are probably considerations that aren't readily apparent, but I sincerely hope the final build looks a lot like this.

Thanks So1ahma! This is awesome. Lots of issues I had with the PTS addressed here. I'd feel really good if this is what we ended up with.

[Gas Guzzler]

Oh look, someone is having their regular quirk-hate-speech rant.

Quirks are fine, without quirks there can't be balance.

[Ultimax]

Pjwned, on 14 March 2017 - 03:03 AM, said:

They don't need weapon quirks, I don't care about "BUT MUH HURRDURR-DURF7 MECH" examples, and even if I did care it is still possible for those mechs to get quirks through the skill tree even though none of them should get any period.

They you're living in a fantasy world.

Pjwned, on 14 March 2017 - 03:03 AM, said:

I don't care about quirk apologism because quirks are a shitfest that have only ever led to band-aid fixes for glaring balance issues, which is largely due to quirks being inherently ****.

And I don't care about clowns who are unable to comprehend basic design issues.

"Glaring" balance issues like mech hardpoints imbalances, tech base imbalances and model design imbalances based on BT artwork do not have available other routes to be solved without outright changing those mechs beyond recognition from what they originally were.

I'd be fine with that, but there's a large portion of BT lore lovers who would be (rightfully) upset by that.


Quirks are a compromise, compromises are things rational people (and all developers) do.

[Solahma]

50 50, on 14 March 2017 - 02:19 AM, said:

Unfortunately, the free points for the weapons on a mech or having individual custom differences per variant is not a sustainable way to manage the system.

It's extremely manageable. It's literally just a number you give to each mech. Best performing variants get less points, worst performing variants get more points. Also more manageable when new weapons come out that throw a wrench in balance overall. Some mechs that were under-performing before might be over-performing with their new available weapons and builds.

50 50, on 14 March 2017 - 02:19 AM, said:

The system needs to be generic for all mechs and then just have the Clan vs IS differences to allow for technology differences.
Having different weapon trees for each weapon was seen as a decided bad idea in PTS 1.0 as any point system then favours boating, so unless you give mixed hadpoint mechs 3 times as many points, there really is no point in having points and just give the bonuses to all mechs or none at all.

AW, someone hasn't fully understood the proposal. That's alright. It is radically different. The proposed design actually does not share points between firepower trees. ALL trees have the same available points. I tried to make this clear, but some people still don't understand that concept. Unlike the linear weapon trees in PTS 1.0, the best comparison would be that instead of having 10 points to invest between 3 trees, you now have 10 points to specifically invest into all three independently. Mechs that utilize several weapon systems are at an inherent disadvantage in MWO compared to boating. My proposal provides zero benefit to boating, because I can upgrade ALL weapon trees by the same amount, based on my mechs Firepower Rating. A mech with 14 points, like in the example, can activate 14 nodes on EVERY weapon tree.

So no, my proposal is not the same as PTS 1.0. It directly addresses the issue of boating by not rewarding boating within the skill tree in any way other than the grind necessary to optimize your mech for your loadout(s)

50 50, on 14 March 2017 - 02:19 AM, said:

The reason the skill tree was a web was so it could soak up some of the excess points we had so it really meant something to get to those more powerful nodes.

You can achieve the same thing on my proposal by manipulating how the values are structured down each branch and how many nodes a particular upgrade requires. If each node increased in value, and you have to unlock 6 nodes to get the largest benefit for that upgrade, you're essentially accomplishing the same thing: A larger investment for powerful upgrades.

Edited by Solahma, 14 March 2017 - 10:39 AM.

[Pjwned]

Ultimax, on 14 March 2017 - 09:10 AM, said:

And I don't care about clowns who are unable to comprehend basic design issues.

"Glaring" balance issues like mech hardpoints imbalances, tech base imbalances and model design imbalances based on BT artwork do not have available other routes to be solved without outright changing those mechs beyond recognition from what they originally were.

I'd be fine with that, but there's a large portion of BT lore lovers who would be (rightfully) upset by that.


Quirks are a compromise, compromises are things rational people (and all developers) do.

Still not convinced by any of those reasons to justify quirks.

1) Hardpoint imbalances could largely be solved by sized hardpoints.

2) Tech imbalance isn't a reason for quirks, because that should be addressed directly instead of quirk band-aid fixes, which is actually part of the goal of the new tech coming later this year. Tech imbalance is the worst possible justification for quirks and it's obvious you're a huge quirk apologist if you think that.

3a) A lot of mech design issues have to do with mechs having low slung arms, and that should be addressed by allowing mechs to move their arms somehow (e.g arms raised up in front of them) instead of arms just being completely static which is stupid.

3b) If all else fails, the design of the mech itself could be altered slightly; a good example would be the Dragon, which is actually supposed to have a nice, high mount for its ballistic arm, except for some reason it doesn't have that in MWO, and in addition the lower arm actuator could be removed on 1 (or more) of the DRG variants to allow more space for ballistics and more importantly mount an AC20.

If none of that could make a mech worth using--without drastically altering the mech itself anyways--then at that point quirks could be a valid consideration.

[50 50]

Solahma, on 14 March 2017 - 10:36 AM, said:

It's extremely manageable. It's literally just a number you give to each mech. Best performing variants get less points, worst performing variants get more points. Also more manageable when new weapons come out that throw a wrench in balance overall. Some mechs that were under-performing before might be over-performing with their new available weapons and builds.



AW, someone hasn't fully understood the proposal. That's alright. It is radically different. The proposed design actually does not share points between firepower trees. ALL trees have the same available points. I tried to make this clear, but some people still don't understand that concept. Unlike the linear weapon trees in PTS 1.0, the best comparison would be that instead of having 10 points to invest between 3 trees, you now have 10 points to specifically invest into all three independently. Mechs that utilize several weapon systems are at an inherent disadvantage in MWO compared to boating. My proposal provides zero benefit to boating, because I can upgrade ALL weapon trees by the same amount, based on my mechs Firepower Rating. A mech with 14 points, like in the example, can activate 14 nodes on EVERY weapon tree.

So no, my proposal is not the same as PTS 1.0. It directly addresses the issue of boating by not rewarding boating within the skill tree in any way other than the grind necessary to optimize your mech for your loadout(s)



You can achieve the same thing on my proposal by manipulating how the values are structured down each branch and how many nodes a particular upgrade requires. If each node increased in value, and you have to unlock 6 nodes to get the largest benefit for that upgrade, you're essentially accomplishing the same thing: A larger investment for powerful upgrades.

I really want to congratulate you on your presentation Solahma.
Many people greatly appreciate the effort and it is great that it was seen and acknowledged by PGI.
That is awesome and you deserve it for the thought and effort.

But it deserves the same level of attention and criticism that has been levelled at PGI for their efforts and I can tell from the various posts in this thread that many have not really looked over it in the same level of detail or really understood what this design would mean.

I hope the following discussion is seen as a constructive comparison as I have taken the time to watch and re-watch your presentation and read your notes several times to make sure I have understood it. Please do not take this discussion as an attack on your efforts, I truly appreciate them.

See below:

Spoiler

One of the points made was to promote build diversity.
IT DOES do this with the 6 trees by forcing some hard choices amongst the available nodes by reducing the number of points that are available to allocate.

I do completely agree in less points overall but also with keeping the firepower tree as part of the groups that you have to spend those points on. If you want to invest in firepower and have your uber ballistic mech, then it will suffer from not having points in other trees. That's where it will balance.

Lets talk about the design of the trees though.
It's not a maze.
It's clean.
It's easy to read and see the paths.
It does min/max.
I kind of like the spread out star burst design but if new skills are added, and there are a few missing so it's great you've included some... there might be more, then the design needs to easily allow for expansion.
I feel it needs to be more of a waterfall design where there are core values at the top, but then to specialize you have to invest deeper or have the side branches open up after a certain level of investment. This means devoting more of those points.

However you did mention that some mechs could have different levels of skill points and different firepower values.

There is something like 500 variants and you mentioned that this value could be unique for each one because some variants are seen as better than others. Even if it was just a particular chassis, that's something like 80 or 90 different mechs to allocate different point values to.

It does allow more player customization, but is it easier to manage than the quirks?

It was also discussed for balance purposes locking some trees, reducing the amount of nodes in a tree or the actual skill point max... per mech. It could be simplified to chassis, then to weight class, then to faction.

Let's compare that to the PGI design.
We had a tree with dfferent values for clan compared to IS but it was the same trees for all mechs and we had the same number of points. Eventally to make it manageable it comes back to this.

I too thought it would be great if we had a specific tree per mech chassis so we could allocate points into it to further enhance the traits that define that particular mech. Sadly, it's not practical to have this micro management and I can understand why.

In the end, some of these mechs are simply not the combat monsters others are. Base agility values will help this a little but ultimately the current game modes, particularly quick play, do not allow the different roles to be valued as much. They fit a different purpose, but we are not able to see that shine at the moment.

The Firepower tree is a big point to discuss as typically that's where the focus is. In your presentation there is a single tree for every weapon with points to unlock for every weapon. This still favours boating because you don't have to unlock as much and therefore can work on other mechs faster etc.

IT DOES resolve the difference in terms of nullifying the power benefits of boating because there is no limit to the what can be invested.But you are talking about a different tree for each weapon and points to unlock for each based on the firepower score.
There are currently:
4 LRMS
3 SRMS
1 sSRM
NARC was in a different spot.
4 AC
1 UAC
1 LBx
1 Gauss
1 MG
10 Laser weapons (not counting TAG but including PPCs)
That is 26 individual weapons for the IS.

If you mech had 14 points to unlock for each of those (assuming it has the three hard point types) then you are looking at a potential 364 nodes to unlock.

However, you did for some reason not divide up the SRMs or LRMS like you did the Autocannons or lasers.
So, that would reduce your example to 21 trees for 294 nodes.

BUT, each weapon has 3 core values: Range, Cooldown (Our existing modules) and Heat reduction.
Each can have 5 levels for 15 nodes total.

Then there are weapon specific nodes for certain types of weapons.
Velocity (Should work for missiles, ballistics and the PPCs)
Laser duration
LBx spread
Missile spread
UAC jam chance
Gauss charge
Plus a few new bonus skils like the magazine capacity and missile racks.

Let's assume that most weapons at the moment have 4 or 5 values that can have 5 levels for nodes.
We are really looking at 20 to 25 nodes per weapon that players may want to unlock.
Possibly more as there are some additional nodes like the PPC ECM disruption that could be added, we could also get something like improving the LRM and PPC minimum range.
Oh, there was the critical hit improvement for missiles.

With 21 trees that would be between 420 to 525 nodes.

AND THEN..... new tech where the weapon count literally doubles or triples!
I have not bothered counting.
And that's just the IS.

If these points are free, it's still a lot of micro management and clicking to allocate.
It's just not practical. The obvious answer is to further streamline and combine the trees.
After all, all weapons have the same core values of range, heat and cooldown.
A few specific skills relate to lasers, missiles and ballistic weapon types. Reduce it down to the core values and we get back to what was in PTS 2.

If we look at the PGI version from PTS 2 as a comparison there was a total of 73 weapon nodes. If you wanted to just get generic skills there were about 20. To focus on one of the branches (lasers, missiles or ballistics) it was about 25 points. Ok, it was a little convoluted and maze like but you could get the skills you wanted and all of them for the the weapon type you wanted. Swapping from an LBx to a UAC would mean re-allocating 5 nodes or if you were wanting to test it out you simply stick to the core values and not worry until you might settle on a design.

In summary:
Does your presentation provide some good ideas? Yes.
Is it workable and better? No.
Can it be reviewed and worked on for a v2.0? Definitely. I'd love to help.

Edited by 50 50, 15 March 2017 - 03:58 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

It is a great presentation and I will give you a lot of credit for the amount of work that you put into it. A lot of people are saying that it is much simpler and aesthetically it is nicer looking than PGis. However, when you factor in an additional tree for every weapon in the game then it becomes a lot less simple and less aesthetically pleasing.

The one thing that I really like about it is that you are using it to balance Mechs by limiting the number of Firepower quirks allowed on high performance Mechs. That can effectively be done on PGIs tree also and I presented some examples on how it can be accomplished. Interestingly, a couple of the people that are complimenting the concept here said the Skill Tree should not be used for that purpose when I proposed it.

I know most of your values are probably place holders but I am very anti-power creep and therefore think that many of your values are way too high. You can also make nodes more attractive by decreasing values in more popular nodes rather than increasing the unpopular ones. That way the game does not suffer from ever increasing speeds and weapon damage. I make the same arguments about buffs and nerfs when I say that bringing every Mech up to the level of the Kodiak would be much worse for the game than lowering the performance of the Kodiak.

I am OK with the ST that PGI presented. I rather liked the effects that all those "useless" nodes had on my Mechs during testing.

I do applaud the way you presented this proposal and the amount of thought you put into it. That amount of thoroughness is a rarity on this forum and reddit. I understand that PGI spent hours analyzing your proposal and had a meeting with you concerning it. Are you at liberty to discuss their thoughts and reservations about it? I gathered that they felt it did not accomplish some of the goals that they set out to reach with their skill system. Can you talk about any of that conversation?

[Judah Malganis]

I think you have some great ideas. The only things I'd do different is not tie down a specific number of max useable nodes per tree (i.e. you get your pts to spread over your trees as you wish). You'd get a lot less cookie-cutter builds by giving more freedom.

Also, it seem kind of tedious to have one tree for every weapon. It'd be better if you separated by ballistic, energy, and missile trees, all drawing from the same skill pt pool as the other trees. I think your approach, by allowing individual weapons to get buffed, will allow a lot more boating than PGI is interested in. In separating by class, you at least get "do I want jam chance reduction vs lbx shot spread?"-type scenarios. I never saw what they have against boating anyways. If you have a mech with 11 energy slots, or 6 missile slots, and nothing else, what are you supposed to do?

[Solahma]

Thanks for the criticism guys, I really do appreciate your thoughts on this as it was mostly created based on feedback to begin with.
Of course, the direction and fundamental goals of my presentation are very different than PGI's.

Judah Malganis, on 19 March 2017 - 07:42 PM, said:

I think your approach, by allowing individual weapons to get buffed, will allow a lot more boating than PGI is interested in. In separating by class, you at least get "do I want jam chance reduction vs lbx shot spread?"-type scenarios. I never saw what they have against boating anyways. If you have a mech with 11 energy slots, or 6 missile slots, and nothing else, what are you supposed to do?

By allowing individual weapons to be buffed equally, you eliminate the benefit from boating almost entirely. The ONLY benefit of boating in the system I've presented is in the cost (assuming there IS a cost for firepower to begin with). Buffing your UAC5 and spamming UAC5s is no different than buffing AC5s AND UAC5s and mixing them. So really, you're making it EASIER to NOT boat in terms of performance. Boating is inherently good via the mechlab. The only 100% sure way to avoid boating is weapon hard-point sizes which is an entirely different conversation.

50 50, on 15 March 2017 - 03:51 AM, said:

The Firepower tree is a big point to discuss as typically that's where the focus is. In your presentation there is a single tree for every weapon with points to unlock for every weapon. This still favours boating because you don't have to unlock as much and therefore can work on other mechs faster etc.

Yes, but that can be also considered a GOOD thing. Boating is inherently better than not boating (in the majority of builds). This allows players the CHOICE of having a min/max'd build earlier and the rest of the weapon trees becomes a progression thing. Unlocking more weapon nodes for future builds. I personally would fight for 100% free weapon node activation/allocation because that would encourage customization and not leave non-leveled mechs in the dust in terms of performance.

50 50, on 15 March 2017 - 03:51 AM, said:

IT DOES resolve the difference in terms of nullifying the power benefits of boating because there is no limit to the what can be invested.But you are talking about a different tree for each weapon and points to unlock for each based on the firepower score.
There are currently:
4 LRMS
3 SRMS
1 sSRM
NARC was in a different spot.
4 AC
1 UAC
1 LBx
1 Gauss
1 MG
10 Laser weapons (not counting TAG but including PPCs)
That is 26 individual weapons for the IS.
If you mech had 14 points to unlock for each of those (assuming it has the three hard point types) then you are looking at a potential 364 nodes to unlock.

How many mechs take that many weapons? How many mechs have the hardpoints to fit every weapon? will you ever unlock the AC10 skill tree nodes for a Spider? I understand the criticism here, and I mostly agree that separate weapon trees are daunting. But IMO it's the best solution overall. The biggest problem with combining trees, like all ballistics, is that you no longer have control over VERY different ballistic weapons. You don't want to buff your AC10 and AC20 in the same way you would want to buff your AC2 and AC5. Missiles are different because their stats don't change, just the quantity of missiles, so they can be combined with very minimal impact.

So yes, while it's a gigantic list of weapons and potential nodes, it creates a much higher level of customization than is available currently or in PGI's ST.
In regard to the new technology coming out. My proposal handles additions like that very well. There will simply be unique trees for the new weapons.
The player is in control of the grind. If someone wants their new build to be top-performance, they have to grind to unlock that build's weapon nodes. Again, this is assuming it is even made into a grind. That's entirely optional as you mentioned. You could make firepower nodes 100% free. This would allow complete customization of builds for all players, new and veterans, which isn't a bad idea.

Regardless of the grind. A mech is typically only going to have 2-4 weapon systems at any given time. That's 2-4 trees, or ~30-60 nodes for firepower on average that a player would need to be considered fully-optimized. Probably ~30-45 would be more likely. Mechs with more than 3 weapon systems are typically joke builds. So let's design a system around what actually happens, not what COULD happen.

Rampage, on 15 March 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

I know most of your values are probably place holders but I am very anti-power creep and therefore think that many of your values are way too high. You can also make nodes more attractive by decreasing values in more popular nodes rather than increasing the unpopular ones.

Precisely

Rampage, on 15 March 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

I understand that PGI spent hours analyzing your proposal and had a meeting with you concerning it. Are you at liberty to discuss their thoughts and reservations about it? I gathered that they felt it did not accomplish some of the goals that they set out to reach with their skill system. Can you talk about any of that conversation?

I don't think PGI had spent hours looking at it, perhaps they did, but there were a few points that were clearly not understood, but that didn't really matter as I'll explain. The best thing to take from it all is that the overall goals are completely different, even if the wording of the goals is very similar. In my video, I cover how the proposal covers the goals as originally worded for the PTS, but the meaning of those goals is very general and open for interpretation. My proposal was geared toward building a system that met those goals according to how the community viewed them. More control, meaningful choices, balanced, and the ability to balance and tweak in the future. A system where no choice was necessarily a wrong choice, so you could specialize a lot more toward a specific performance goal. However, PGI's ST is now geared toward being a simple skill-tree replacement, with more options thrown in from module effects. It's a shuffle of existing systems and not the revolutionary "choose your quirks!" system originally pitched to us. I never thought it would remove quirks, but the original intent was that it would greatly reduce quirks. Chris has since addressed this in the podcast to clarify that quirks are remaining to a large extent, further illustrating how much of a simple replacement system their ST is. It's not really ambitious IMO.

Sorry, got carried away from the actual meeting there. That understanding is necessary because it set the mood for the whole discussion: a fundamental difference in goals. What PGI wants to accomplish versus what the community wants to see. Now some people scoff at the idea when I say "what the community wants". They claim "vocal minority" and claim that just because the majority of vocal people have something to say, that they surely do not represent the majority of players. The fact is, the people who play the game and participate in the community discussions have A LOT of experience with this game, what THEY want, and have the ability to empathize with what OTHERS want. We aren't all selfish ****** only screaming and crying for what we want for ourselves. But this is how some at PGI act. And I'll be honest, it's infuriating and disrespectful. Instead of having an actual conversation or being open with a person or the community, some would rather make flippant remarks and wave-off ideas, suggestions, and efforts by the community. It's really shameful to see when that happens.

However, that really has little to do with our conversation. I apologize for the rant. SO, our conversation was actually pretty nice, what little time we had to actually discuss. The problem with my little meet-up was that it was "hosted" by Phil and Daeron, which isn't bad in and of itself, but it made the majority of the time Phil discussing one thing or some general skill tree thing, then Daeron trying to understand the reasons behind my proposal, but neither had taken the time outside of this discussion to actually read it thoroughly or watch the video explanation, because there were obvious points that they did not understand. I tried to clarify were possible, but getting back to the fundamental difference in goals, it simply didn't matter at that point. It didn't matter that Phil and Daeron weren't on the same page with me, willing or otherwise. I don't blame them, because THEY were not the people I felt I had to get to. Chris is who I needed to make sure understood the proposal, and I got the feeling that he did. He explained PGI's reasoning and goals well to me and that's all I personally needed to hear. I didn't need to fight for my proposal or argue any points because I got to a point of mutual understanding with Chris, and that's all that mattered and all I was after. Up until that point, I was still not sure what PGI was trying to accomplish, because their vision seemed to be constantly changing since the Skill Tree announcement at MechCon. More of a constant miscommunication with us than a change of vision really. We are left in the dark about the TRUE purpose of everything and we end up with this disconnection. Where PGI does one thing when the community expects another. Neither is necessarily wrong, but if I expect my drink to taste like milk and it ends up being water, I'm going to be surprised. I think a lot of people still expect milk, when they should be expecting water.

I hope that paints a bit of a picture. I don't want to go into specifics of our conversation, because a lot of the specifics don't matter because of what I tried to explain above. I appreciated the opportunity to have a more direct conversation, but a lot of it felt hijacked by Phil and Daeron unfortunately. I didn't feel too bad about it, because it was also a podcast prep-time for them, but there would have been a lot more value if I had a more 1-on-1 conversation with Chris. But again, once the reasoning of both systems was apparent to both Chris and myself, it was clear that we were on completely different paths in terms of design goals.

Hopefully I can sum-up this whole ordeal in a video soon, and to help people understand these differences as Chris put them to me, I've just been really busy.

I'll continue to check here periodically.

Edited by Solahma, 28 March 2017 - 07:12 AM.

[Mr Jorgenson]

A very well laid out and well thought out skill tree.
If PGI make any attempt to get closer to this I will be very happy, it'll make the game much better and more rewarding.

I guess my one criticism is personally I feel just like how the different sizes of missiles (SRM# or LRM#) are grouped together, the ER and Normal versions of lasers should be grouped. Not sure how to approach ballistics with that philosophy. But I guess it wouldn't bother me if ER and Normal lasers were separated. What are your thoughts?

Edited by Feels Goodman V56, 26 April 2017 - 06:08 PM.

[Dollar Bill]

How about PGI having another look at this proposal? But this time, don't allow Russ in the room? This will work and is a far better way of doing the skill tree. But it goes against Russ's miss guided view of how it should be. So sadly it will never happen.

Edited by Dollar Bill, 27 April 2017 - 10:39 PM.