51 replies to this topic

[Old-dirty B]

Al tough the old system didnt offer much customisation at least you were set and done once you grinded the few skills that were there, also it was rather cheap when you had the right modules. After that it was a matter of seconds to make adjustments. Something that cant be said about the new system - moe grinding more time in the mechlab to "finetune" a mech, which doesnt bring any significantly in terms of actual performance... in the end you either succeed or fail mostly because of your gameplay not trough a ton of minuscule adjustments to a mech build.

I prefer a system that is easy and actually allows for significant meaningfull choices... if not, the old system that doesnt nag me and bogs me down is preferred.

Edited by B3R3ND, 11 March 2017 - 08:22 AM.

[Mister Glitchdragon]

Naduk, on 10 March 2017 - 08:26 PM, said:

Your service was long and faithful, so as a parting gift we have contacted your local call of duty office and arranged a position for you there should you wish to take it
They were very happy to hear about your steadfast dedication to not changing or updating and they feel you will connect strongly with their client base

We wish you the best in your future endeavors

If only it could pull a Jerry McGuire and take its devotees with it...

Edited by Mister Glitchdragon, 11 March 2017 - 09:25 AM.

[Alan Davion]

OldOrgandonor, on 11 March 2017 - 06:55 AM, said:

And I don't understand how people can be so desperate for change, change of any kind at all, that they will look upon this new skill tree, with it's hot garbage mechanic and UI, and say "YES! give me MOAR of this!".

Garbage is garbage. The UI itself is terrible (a PGI cultural necessity). The best parts of the tree are gated behind the garbage, so you have to PAY for the garbage to get the parts you want. You have to BUY skills your mech can't use. And wading through the skill tree(s) to unlock your mech is painful and time consuming. And of course, you have to buy the skills first, before you get a chance to see how your mech will run, steer, cool or give or take damage.

OH GASP~!

You'll no longer be an ultra-comp meta-humper with a min-maxed mech to the .00000000000000000000001 decimal place.

PGI gated certain skills behind other skills precisely to squash the single-weapon boating meta and the mentality of people like you whose only concern is making sure they're the most comp of the comp.

Edited by Alan Davion, 11 March 2017 - 09:58 AM.

[MechaBattler]

oldradagast, on 11 March 2017 - 07:14 AM, said:

Exactly. The main choice is in what weapons you get to buff. Everything else will be basically the same. Oh, wait - the old skill system let you do that already with modules. Fancy that. But at least the grind is longer in the new skill system, and there's a nice respec cost, too. Oh, and most mechs are no longer viable thanks to removal of quirks, mechs are less mobile, so there's more sniping, etc. All healthy things for MWO... lol...



Tweaked... No offense, but you do realize how PGI tweaks things, right? They don't fix obvious problems - like the Pinpoint skill, ironically - but they'll eagerly nerf underperforming mechs, ignore overperforming ones ,and so forth.

You're more likely to get the skill maze randomly shuffled every other month or have all the numbers changed by 0.1% randomly each patch than see any thoughtful tweaking out of PGI based on their history.



I was able to look at other people's data and draw my own conclusions from facts: there's no need for me to waste hours of my life repeating the same experiments as others.

That being said, did YOU try the PTS? Because you seem to be missing a few things, like the trashing of a huge number of mech's required quirks, the reduction in mech mobility favoring more sluggish, long-range gun-boating, and the overall horrible design of the skill maze that in no way encourages "customization" any more than the old flat skill system + module system did.

At least the new system is more confusing, costs more per mech, and has a respec cost per skill node. I'm sure those are all good things that MWO badly needs...

I knew it...

[Tordin]

Dear old, half-baked, pit slug of some skill carpet. Good riddance!

Even if the new ones need some tweaking and fixes, its way more promising. Now the C-bill costs were never that big of an deal (much easier to win cbill than xp) regarding the new skill system, they have lowered the cbill costs to 45K and lessened the xp costs from 800xp to 400xp so thats a start.
But the xp grind for those who got tons of mechs (including me) and possible for new players there will be alot of work and play (but we play because we want, find the game fun right?) to get enough xp to try a new tree path for new builds.
That needs to be taken into consideration. Players who have mastered their mechs needs to get all their xp refunded so they can easly master em up again, ready to go. As I understand it, correct me if I missed some details.

Stone Wall, on 10 March 2017 - 07:46 PM, said:

Next update prediction: you might have to pay C-Bills or MC to vote on the map

I dont want that at all, even though that could curb the map bias somewhat. But I want RANDOM maps back and fleshed out voting options for game modes (2 variants for each game mode etc)

Edited by Tordin, 11 March 2017 - 10:26 AM.

[JediPanther]

I'm just waiting for the patch that re-adds the hard game mode selection that we use to have and browsing steam and amazon. I miss that check box for skirmish only. You got to fight without some one just speed capping conquest or base rushing a s s mode. No go-in-circkle-and-circle-straife mode either.

[xe N on]

Dear trash mech variants I never wanted to pilot but were forced to for mastering the meta variant,

I won't miss you!

... No, that's not true. Otherwise I would have sold you already before, but instead I painted you with fancy camos and colors. Some of you I even took to master level, because ... I don't know, maybe it was for nostalgia, but most probably I was just plain stupid and didn't know it better.

My last hope, you would get some some OP quirks in near future, so I can finally be the first ruining some evil overlord meta quirk build is unfortunately gone, too. Apparently, instead you will even nerfed further ... reminds me I really should never speculate in stocks by the way.

So the time has come to say farewell ... Oh, and before you leave my hanger, could pull the new Kodiak and the Nightgyr over there into one of the free mechbays? Oh, that would be great, thanks!

Edited by xe N on, 11 March 2017 - 01:40 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Dear Module Swapping,

Never come back. Ever. I hate you and you make mechlabbing an annoyance, rather than the blessing it should be.



Dear Skill Tree,

Thank you for getting rid of Modules. And than you for letting me actually customize my Mechs' attributes instead of the monotonous auto-leveling we had before. Now I can level myechs once and not have to waste any more extra time hunting and swapping stupid modules. Also, thank you for letting my stack Seismic, Sensor range, target decay, target retention, and radar derp, since it enhances my Scouts' ability to perform their role.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 11 March 2017 - 01:42 PM.

[Baulven]

Alan Davion, on 11 March 2017 - 09:57 AM, said:

OH GASP~!

You'll no longer be an ultra-comp meta-humper with a min-maxed mech to the .00000000000000000000001 decimal place.

PGI gated certain skills behind other skills precisely to squash the single-weapon boating meta and the mentality of people like you whose only concern is making sure they're the most comp of the comp.

Except the skill tree setup pigeon holes you into boating unless you want to spend a ridiculous number of points just on weapons. This is why linear diminishing returns skill trees would be better. Since you could get 3/5 of five weapon groups or 4/5 on two for five points more than maxing a single tree, that would encourage mixed builds. Having to take 20 some points in lasers and 14 points in ballistics makes you say I need to boat one or the other.

[Alan Davion]

Baulven, on 11 March 2017 - 01:54 PM, said:

Except the skill tree setup pigeon holes you into boating unless you want to spend a ridiculous number of points just on weapons. This is why linear diminishing returns skill trees would be better. Since you could get 3/5 of five weapon groups or 4/5 on two for five points more than maxing a single tree, that would encourage mixed builds. Having to take 20 some points in lasers and 14 points in ballistics makes you say I need to boat one or the other.

And that was the point of my post.

By making you spend points on other stuff to get at skills like cooldown or what-the-f***-ever, you can't min-max your mech to the Nth degree like you could before.

You want your cooldown maxed out? That's great, but you're going to have to find a new way to equip your mech to take advantage of both weapon systems.

With a completely linear skill tree people would be able to find a way to game the system just like people have been doing here for the entire games life span. Diminishing returns or not is irrelevant.

PGI likely designed these skill trees precisely to prevent gaming the system and to trash the boating meta that's been killing the game slowly but surely.

[Lupis Volk]

N0ni, on 10 March 2017 - 08:36 PM, said:

"Dear, new skill system...

-

-

-

-

-

"
This post is a work in progress. pay 45,000 Cbills to unlock one sentence.

ftfy

[Felicitatem Parco]

Lupis Volk, on 11 March 2017 - 02:12 PM, said:

ftfy

Oh, I prefer to need 3 Mechs, 100,000 GXP and 18 million Cbills in order to unlock a full paragraph for the first time.

The new tree doesn't require ANY GXP, you only need 1 mech, and it costs a paultry 4.1 million Cbills. You get 5 modules' of content from the sensor tree, alone, for less than 2 million CBills. It's such a ripoff.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 11 March 2017 - 02:22 PM.

[J0anna]

B3R3ND, on 10 March 2017 - 04:11 PM, said:

...i even have to pay attention to my bank account. Too much experimenting and i could end up with a bad mech and no more funds...

I suspect some talented mechwarriors will create an offline skill measuring/experimentation system. Perhaps Li Song, as her mechlab is top notch.

Overall, considering that quite a few skills in the old system are fairly useless (pinpoint, arm speed in some mechs, and torso yaw in some others), the new one isn't all that different. The new system will take quite a while to fully master, however my one fear is that everytime PGI "adjusts" weapon balance and/or introduces new weapons, we'll all be setback hours of work and millions of cbills re-specing hundreds of mechs.

Some skills are vital, while others are worthless. Overall all mechs will become less lethal, not something I look forward to. True, I'll have to re-master some mechs, but some I'll never go near again (steaming piles like the ice feces and the myst lynx - i'll just rip out their weapons and armor so they can receive their proper designation - "Invalid(s)")

[Unnatural Growth]

Alan Davion, on 11 March 2017 - 09:57 AM, said:

OH GASP~!

You'll no longer be an ultra-comp meta-humper with a min-maxed mech to the .00000000000000000000001 decimal place.

PGI gated certain skills behind other skills precisely to squash the single-weapon boating meta and the mentality of people like you whose only concern is making sure they're the most comp of the comp.

You just don't...

Sigh. Wtf is with you man?

You don't know me, or anything about me. Better to just stop typing entirely than to type such hallucinogenic fueled B.S.

..."ultra-comp meta humper..."

..."most comp of the comp..."

You couldn't be any farther off than if you pointed at a tree and shouted "KITTY!". As anyone who's ever seen me play could attest, I am not in the least "comp" in any way. LOL. I don't own a single "meta" build anything. Not one.Most of the mechs I enjoyed playing weren't even "tier 3" mechs. I played them because I enjoyed the mechs. I don't give 2 flying shizzlenits out of a shaved monkey's @zzt about comp. Or "meta". I only play part time, strictly casual, for FUN. Not sure if you know what that word means, try looking it up. It is the polar opposite of "comp".

Hyperbole much?

None of that has anything to do with a new skill tree with a UI that is garbage. Not only in concept, but in execution as well. It is just painful to navigate, needlessly complex, and time consuming. But you're so eager to just tear down ANYONE that disagrees with you that you won't even consider another point of view. Fine, whatever. We don't have to agree on anything. You are nothing to me but a set of random digital bits on the other end of the internet.

And I am a PAYING customer SPORT. My opinion has just as much merit, value, and due for consideration as YOURS does. Whether you agree with the point of view or NOT, is irrelevant. Not sure you've EVER run a business before, I mean actually RUN or OWNED one. But I have, and THIS is not how you treat your paying customers. This is a business. An entertainment outlet business. Businesses that piss off a large percentage of their player base don't stick around for long.

A new skill tree would be nice. Role warfare would be nice. Info tech would be nice. Having actual ROLES in game other than death match kill kill would be nice. This tree doesn't do any of that. You're not going to see the mech role diversity you think this will bring. It's going to flatline mech roles and stifle diversity. A whole fleet of "non-meta" mechs are going to be put on a shelf and left for dead with this thing.

You don't want to talk about any of this. It's pretty obvious. Fine. Really, fine. Your goal is to destroy all opposition to your opinion. Fine. Congrats on that. But don't have the nerve to act surprised when the feces hits the oscillator later on down the road.

[Alan Davion]

OldOrgandonor, on 11 March 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

You just don't...

Sigh. Wtf is with you man?

You don't know me, or anything about me. Better to just stop typing entirely than to type such hallucinogenic fueled B.S.

..."ultra-comp meta humper..."

..."most comp of the comp..."

Hyperbole much?

It's called sarcasm man. Learn to recognize. Geeze, it wasn't directed at you personally.

But my point still stands though.

PGI made these changes to break up the meta and force people to run mechs that are less than perfectly min/maxed, and people are flipping their shite over it.

You want your cooldown maxed out? You're gonna have to spend points on stuff other than whatever weapon you're trying to boat the crap out of. And you still won't be as perfectly min/maxed as you were before these changes.

OldOrgandonor, on 11 March 2017 - 03:06 PM, said:

And I am a PAYING customer SPORT. My opinion has just as much merit, value, and due for consideration as YOURS does. Whether you agree with the point of view or NOT, is irrelevant. Not sure you've EVER run a business before, I mean actually RUN or OWNED one. But I have, and THIS is not how you treat your paying customers. This is a business. An entertainment outlet business. Businesses that piss off a large percentage of their player base don't stick around for long.

A new skill tree would be nice. Role warfare would be nice. Info tech would be nice. Having actual ROLES in game other than death match kill kill would be nice. This tree doesn't do any of that. You're not going to see the mech role diversity you think this will bring. It's going to flatline mech roles and stifle diversity. A whole fleet of "non-meta" mechs are going to be put on a shelf and left for dead with this thing.

Guess what, I was also a paying customer, once I got a computer that could run MWO I bought all of Clan Wave 1, Clan Wave 2, Resistance 1, Clan Wave 3, the Urbanmech, Resistance 2, Clan IIC, the Marauder, the Warhammer, the Rifleman, the Archer, the Phoenix Hawk and the Cyclops.

I would have bought the Phoenix Mechs as well if PGI had been allowed to sell them again a couple years back. But they tried nerfing the Timber Wolf and the Storm Crow at the same time and the community flipped their shite and squashed the Phoenix re-sale poll out of spite over that.

Hell some people voted no because they couldn't deal with the thought of losing their exclusivity cause people have to have SOMETHING to lord over the people that don't have that thing.

That's another great way to piss off your players.

The only reason I skipped over the Kodiak and Viper, and didn't buy anything after the Cyclops, particularly the Bushwhacker for example, is because I've been unable to work for the last 2 years, and the only reason I bought the Cyclops and Phoenix Hawk were because I was just too much of a fan of them to not buy them.

As for why I haven't worked for the last 2 or more years, I suffer from Chron's disease, so try to imagine running your business when you're curled up in the fetal position suffering from excruciating abdominal pain for a minimum of 8 hours everyday.

All told, I've spent $1,135 on MWO just in Mechs. That's not counting however much MC I've bought since I started playing in order to convert mech xp and buy and/or apply camos to my various mechs.

I've probably spent more on MWO than I have on Star Citizen, and I spent at least $1,200 on that game.

You're right, I've never run a business, but even I f***ing know you don't piss off your customers on as regular a basis as PGI seems to do.

It's called having common f***ing sense.

Now, as to why we don't have role warfare and anything related to it, well that's due purely to PGI's complete and utter incompetence, and seeming unwillingness to utilize the rich history and lore, that is until they finally unveiled MW5 last year, which they tried to do back in 2009 before Harmony Gold came along and said "Yeah... You know what... NO~!"

Edited by Alan Davion, 11 March 2017 - 03:35 PM.

[Unnatural Growth]

This skill tree won't get rid of "meta". You'll never get rid of "meta". By it's very nature it evolves with what is available, changing the tree will *maybe* change the meta a bit, but it will still be there. It's the "comp player" mentality, which unfortunately is prevalent in any game. The problem is when the "comp player" is catered to, to the expense of all other facets of the game, as PGI is wont to do unfortunately. It tends to water the game down and make it 2 dimensional (or even 1 dimensional, like we have now).

The thing is, this new tree won't change any of that. It's just going to distill the game down even more, fewer mechs in the field, fewer builds seen in matches, most variants will just be sitting gathering dust. They've taken all the buffs and nerfs off of the chassis and variants, and placed everything in the tree. Right?

So now, you will have mechs that were pretty good, to even OP before, that were taken down a few notches with NERFS, to bring them more in line with the *average* (whatever you care to label it).

And you will have mechs that were generally bad, to terribad before, that were propped up a bit with BUFFS, to bring them more in line with the *average*.

Now I will say that some of this NERFing, and BUFFing was done rather haphazardly in the past, like giving a spastic toddler a fist full of candy and a laser pointer to play with, but it was done none the less.

NOW, with this new skill tree, all the NERFS, and all the BUFFS are gone. It's all in the tree. But, it's the SAME TREE for the OP mechs and the TERRIBAD mechs. Do you follow this so far? And they will each have the same sets of skills to manipulate, and the same skill VALUES to manipulate. Do you see that this will be a problem? Seriously, I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but everyone is so intent on flaming, wailing, crying and name calling, it's getting drowned out in all the din of noise.

So you are going to have mech chassis now that are going to be so badly eclipsed on the field that you'll never see them in game. This makes me disappointed, as I've always liked the mech chassis diversity that this game offers. I like being able to take out that "terribad" chassis (looking at you Cataphract, or Vindicator, or Jenner, or Highlander) and at least being able to have "fun" in it without getting smoked the first time I see an enemy mech.

And all this time, and development work being sunk into this new tree, and we still don't have any more CONTENT. This is not content. We have (supposedly) a new game mode coming out. Great. I hope it's a good one, I really do. What about maps? Remember when we were supposed to be getting a new map every month? Wth happened to that? FW? Man, don't even get me started on that, needs a total rebuild imo. But we get PGI stuffing all this effort into this skill tree, and the UI is just pathetic. I mean even for PGI (which makes everything over complex, ghost heat, energy draw, ghost weapon range, etc), this thing is a nightmare to just NAVIGATE AROUND THE f***ING SCREEN on.

Honestly, I'd have just rather they took out the "Rule of 3" and turned off the old skill tree entirely than this mess of schmidt. And have them focus on some actual CONTENT. Game modes, real role warfare, real REWARDS for roles, other than team death match, and spacebucks for kills/damage, maybe a new F'n map or THREE. Would be nice.

[Cato Phoenix]

Alan Davion, on 11 March 2017 - 09:57 AM, said:

OH GASP~!

You'll no longer be an ultra-comp meta-humper with a min-maxed mech to the .00000000000000000000001 decimal place.

PGI gated certain skills behind other skills precisely to squash the single-weapon boating meta and the mentality of people like you whose only concern is making sure they're the most comp of the comp.

This doesn't squash single-weapon boating meta. It does makes boating less apparent than in PTS 1.0 since some of the quirks overlap. You still, however, derive a significant benefit from just having one weapon type because the number of skill nodes needed is so much less.

The -only- benefit to multiple-weapon loadout mechs is if they purchase a huge chunk of the firepower tree - their 'gate' nodes end up being somewhat useful, whereas a single weapon boat will end up with junk nodes. But that huge expenditure in the tree really stunts you in other areas - mobility, ops, etc. And guess what? A boat mech, if they want to really kick out firepower, can pick the path of least crap to get the cooldowns and range. A multi-weapon mech has to still spend more to unlock the specific weapon nodes. All they gain is whatever node benefit the other mech would count as a junk node. That's it.

'The anti-boating system?' No, dude. Just turns a few nodes into miniscule benefits for the cost of otherwise hobbling your mech.

Current firepower tree: 40 skill points to get all of the cooldown, velocity, heat gen and range except for 1% heat gen and 3% range. (3 nodes). With 4 nodes laser gen, 2 missile spread, 1 mag capacity and 1, LBX10 spread. 8 'additional' nodes, which might be junk depending on your loadout.

So your gauss/ERPPC, or autocannon boat person is pretty much done there, getting 8 junk nodes. and 40 total.

Laservomiteers can add 7 nodes (5 laser gen, 1 heat and 1 range) for total 9 junk nodes (velocity turns into junk) for the full tree and 47 nodes, or alternatively drop 7 nodes (losing 3 junk nodes and 3 cooldown, 1 range) which gives you near total weapon maximization for 40 total skill points and 7 junk nodes.

LBX mechs have it nice, 4+ to round out LBX and they get 44 total nodes with 6 junk nodes.

==============

I could go on, but lets imagine a missile + laser mech. Needing to add 11 (13 for the locked +range/+heatgen) and +18 if you want the entirety of yellow/green trees with missile racks and crit. You've now spent 58 skill points for your mixed build, still have 2 junk nodes. And that laser boat sitting with 3 to 11 extra skill points for other trees. PPC/gauss combos get -18- more skill points for other trees.

The only synergy really exists with some AC/laser builds, or Gauss/PPC, but wait...that's still only if you heavily, heavily invest into this particular tree.

With what I've personally calculated I'll generally use on Mobility/Ops/Auxil/Sensors, I'll have 36 nodes for firepower/armor, and my split will probably be 24 FP/ 12 armor, with investment into one arm of the tree only, ignoring junk nodes.

Alan Davion, on 11 March 2017 - 02:03 PM, said:

You want your cooldown maxed out? That's great, but you're going to have to find a new way to equip your mech to take advantage of both weapon systems.

Nope, you don't have to take advantage of more than 1 weapon system, you just have a few junk nodes to sit on. In fact, your best benefit will be to take advantage of just using that 1 weapon system to minimize your cost / detriment and maximize your gain.

GG, boats still win.

Edited by Cato Phoenix, 11 March 2017 - 05:34 PM.

[LordNothing]

if they had gone back and put a few more coats of paint on the old system it would have worked fine. we needed new modules and a replacement for the pinpoint skill, and quirks needed to be made as generic and keep balance changes in flux to keep the metas in check.

[Lupis Volk]

You know the only thing that has me extremely worried is the IS vs Clan balance. It's fragile as is and from what i hear the new system takes a sledge hammer to it.

[Clownwarlord]

Dear old skill tree,

You will not be missed by me. You have had holes in your system where you did absolutely nothing to better my mech. Yes you where a grind and at times barely so, in fact I would say you where easy. At times you seemed to be necessary to master to get that one module spot that would cost me 6 million cbills to fill, but for the most part never required because I could just use you for the speed tweak and be happy.

You had more to you than just your tree. You also had a field of weapon modules and other modules to be researched and you cost me dearly for each. For every weapon module I had to level you up to level 5 using my precious GXP, and then you would tax me for every weapon module 3 million cbills. Then came the other modules, not the weapon modules but radar deprivation and such that cost me 10 to 15k GXP to research and then be taxed 6 million cbills per mech I attached you too.

You cost so much I would have rather spent the time moving my modules then give you the satisfaction of me paying you my cbills. The cbills I would rather have spent on the latest mech for cbills, or on new weapons, or maybe even some of those basic colors which I have still only ever bought two of them.

But now thankfully you will be gone and so will that 18 million cbill price tag you cost every mech to have modules. Instead I will now have a more reasonable cost around 4 million cbills which I will only pay once. I will also have all my GXP back no longer having to save for the untold amount of weapon modules I would have to research to level 5. Furthermore, your replacement which is better looking will also give me a place to spend all the xp I store up instead of converting it with mc into gxp (I would rather spend mc on mechbays). Instead that stored xp I can use on re-specializing the new skill tree, and it wont even cost me cbills to do so, unlike you. You would cost me 6 million in cbills if I wanted new weapon modules for a re-specialized mech.

So I leave you with this old skill tree. I am glad you are gone, and I am glad you will stay gone. You cost to much, you did very little, and you where just too easy.

Sincerely I will not miss you,
Clownwarlord