70 replies to this topic

[soapyfrog]

Kmieciu, on 13 March 2017 - 12:21 AM, said:

When the mobility tree forces you to waste 2 nodes on arm pitch, just to get speed tweak and your mech does not have arm weapons, I say it's a problem.

It has problems but it is not THE problem.

Skill tree problems are fixable now or in the future.

Exorbitant costs and respec costs, though? That simply drives people out of the game... and that is a muuuuch harder problem to fix.

[Insomnium80]

Kmieciu, on 11 March 2017 - 06:22 AM, said:

Russ Says you're a cheapskate.

You are lying.

[Kmieciu]

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 03:07 AM, said:

Skill tree problems are fixable now or in the future.

Do you actually believe PGI will change the layout of the tree after it goes live?
Will they doing full Cbill / XP refund after each change?
I doubt it.

[Insomnium80]

BSK, on 11 March 2017 - 09:49 AM, said:

With 300 mechs I would prefer to see an easier system to skill all mechs at the same time. There is no way I am going to make 91 * 300 = 27.300 clicks which PGI would strap with a security check®, making it another 27.300 clicks for "YES I WANT TO DO THAT AND YES I WANT TO USE MY MONEY!"

You're dreaming of mastering 300 mechs? Go ahead.

[Phoolan Devi]

Skribs, on 11 March 2017 - 07:34 PM, said:

It will still only let me master about half of the Mechs I have mastered right now.

Resetting my progress is not what I call a fun time for a game.

Since mastering under the new skill tree is something different than under the old, if you can master half of your mechs, then you can get all to the old lvl and nothing is lost!

[Phoolan Devi]

soapyfrog, on 11 March 2017 - 08:34 PM, said:

It really doesn't. The moment a new players has more than 5 or 6 mechs it becomes longer and more expensive, much more so if they have variants.

Non-premium players are especially hurt. Though I suppose that could be a design goal.

Not really! For new players, even when they gave more than 5-6 mechs, it's still a big time cut in grinding!

[soapyfrog]

Phoolan Devi, on 13 March 2017 - 04:39 AM, said:

Not really! For new players, even when they gave more than 5-6 mechs, it's still a big time cut in grinding!

No it isn't, because every mech takes 15,000xp more at MINIMUM to master than in the old system, and that grind is now open ended; a mech could take 150,000+ xp because you are changing your nodes alot. In the old system you needed ~125,000 xp to master one and elite two mechs, in the new system you need 72,800 xp minimum to master just 1, so it is clear that the per mech cost is only lower if you never buy a two or more variants. Moreover, especially for non-premium players, the need to unlock skill nodes really cuts into the ability to improve your mech with new equipment as you go because a huge chunk of your MAYBE 90,000 c-bills per match has to go to the skill tree.

The c-bill grind gets longer after 5-6 mechs because of the minimum 5.46 million c-bill surcharge (and of course it coudl wind up being 10 or 12 million per mech depending if you want to change your skill tree around or not) you pay on each starts to outstrip the cost of a set of modules after that point.

Obvious the more they lower the price per skill node the better it gets for everyone. e.g. if they lower it to 45k per node as has been hinted, well it's still bad but at least a new player would have to own 8-10 mechs before the price starts to get worse for them.

Lower prices are definitely a good idea. Elimination of respec costs is a must to eliminate the infinite xp grind that it seems only a few masochists here inexplicably want.

[Athom83]

I think quite a few people in this topic are forgetting a major thing (that also makes the OP invalid). Once you purchase a skill for a mech, you keep it forever. There is no cost for removing skills and you don't have to re-buy the skills. You only have to use a little (half the original cost) XP to requip any skill that you removed. For us Mech Poor Module Poor players, it is just fine. I prefer to spend my C-Bills on equipment that I can use on every one of my mechs (I only use IS mechs for reasons). Because of this I have over 150k XP for my Blackjack, and almost as much for my Dragon (which I ended up selling a while ago (Yes I know selling mechs is a "taboo" but )). A lot o the people complaining are doing so because they can't afford to "Master" all of thier mechs which were before. And that there will be massive rift in usability between "stock" mechs and "mastered" mechs. But what about everyone who didn't have the liquid in-game income to purchase multiples of a single mech just to "master" it. Were they not facing the odds by being near "stock" against enemies who've "mastered" theirs?

[Kmieciu]

Athom83, on 13 March 2017 - 05:35 AM, said:

Because of this I have over 150k XP for my Blackjack, and almost as much for my Dragon.

I hope you'll enjoy the quirk changes done to those mechs on March 21st.

[soapyfrog]

Athom83, on 13 March 2017 - 05:35 AM, said:

I think quite a few people in this topic are forgetting a major thing (that also makes the OP invalid). Once you purchase a skill for a mech, you keep it forever. There is no cost for removing skills and you don't have to re-buy the skills. You only have to use a little (half the original cost) XP to requip any skill that you removed.

"you keep skills forever except you have to pay to reacquire them"...

That "little" xp can be several thousand for even a minor respec. Why does it even cost xp?? No reason. Not a single good goddamn reason.

[Athom83]

Kmieciu, on 13 March 2017 - 06:08 AM, said:

I hope you'll enjoy the quirk changes done to those mechs on March 21st.

Honestly, it isn't that bad. Plus with skills I can overclock the cooldown so I fire a true hailstorm of shells with the new skills, even more than I currently do. My preferred is the DC with twin AC-2s. Yes it will run a lot hotter without skills, but you don't need to invest a whole lot to get some of the skills to help. Another reasons the whining is invalid. You don't have to fully purchase every skill. You can buy 20-40 nodes for a mech and be done with it. If you don't use a mech, why bother fully upgrading it? Why not just upgrade it to the point where you can have fun in it?

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 06:30 AM, said:

"you keep skills forever except you have to pay to reacquire them"...
That "little" xp can be several thousand for even a minor respec. Why does it even cost xp?? No reason. Not a single good goddamn reason.

Well if you have **** tons of XP sitting around because you play and enjoy a mech it really is a non-issue. I don't have 100s of mechs sitting around that I don't play. I own a few mechs that I love and that I play regularly. The ones I do play either have 100k XP sitting around, or I just bought (which I get XP pretty quickly). Edit; And the reason is to give a reason to make WISE CHOICES instead of just grabing everything because you can.

Edited by Athom83, 13 March 2017 - 07:20 AM.

[Rizn Nuke]

To get this thread back to the topic: I like the idea (I have also posted it before, maybe I even inspired you ) and support it full-heartedly. I'd just keep it simple and have a flat 1000 CB per level.

On the subject of respeccing I also had some propositions on my original thread

With my 40 Mechs and 100,000,000 CB refund I could level up all my mechs to 70 SP instead of 55 SP.

Edited by Rizn Nuke, 13 March 2017 - 08:01 AM.

[soapyfrog]

Athom83, on 13 March 2017 - 07:16 AM, said:

Well if you have **** tons of XP sitting around because you play and enjoy a mech it really is a non-issue.

If it costs no XP it is even less of a non-issue, and maybe people will be tempted to fool around with mechs they don't play very much!

There is NO downside to having no respec costs. Adding any cost to respecs is simply a punishment for trying new things.

[Phoolan Devi]

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 05:26 AM, said:

No it isn't, because every mech takes 15,000xp more at MINIMUM to master than in the old system, and that grind is now open ended; a mech could take 150,000+ xp because you are changing your nodes alot. In the old system you needed ~125,000 xp to master one and elite two mechs, in the new system you need 72,800 xp minimum to master just 1, so it is clear that the per mech cost is only lower if you never buy a two or more variants. Moreover, especially for non-premium players, the need to unlock skill nodes really cuts into the ability to improve your mech with new equipment as you go because a huge chunk of your MAYBE 90,000 c-bills per match has to go to the skill tree.

The c-bill grind gets longer after 5-6 mechs because of the minimum 5.46 million c-bill surcharge (and of course it coudl wind up being 10 or 12 million per mech depending if you want to change your skill tree around or not) you pay on each starts to outstrip the cost of a set of modules after that point.

Obvious the more they lower the price per skill node the better it gets for everyone. e.g. if they lower it to 45k per node as has been hinted, well it's still bad but at least a new player would have to own 8-10 mechs before the price starts to get worse for them.

Lower prices are definitely a good idea. Elimination of respec costs is a must to eliminate the infinite xp grind that it seems only a few masochists here inexplicably want.

First of all, it takes about the same amount of exp to get a mech in the new skill tree up to the lvl of a mastered mech in the old.

Second, while you had, under the old system 6 mechs of two chassis, you can now have 6 chassis.

Third, if we talk about modules, getting them unlocked in the old system was a horrendous grind (for example, taking a simple lpl range module to max did cost 3,500 gxp which is about 70,000 xp! Thats a almost totally mastered new mech right there!)

[Athom83]

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

If it costs no XP it is even less of a non-issue, and maybe people will be tempted to fool around with mechs they don't play very much! There is NO downside to having no respec costs. Adding any cost to respecs is simply a punishment for trying new things.

While I agree that the respec cost may be a bit high, having 0 cost is also a problem. The reason there is a cost in the first place is to make you pause and think about your choices. You can play around if you've used the mech enough to know how you want to tweak it. And if you've used it enough, you should have the spare XP to play around with it.

[soapyfrog]

Phoolan Devi, on 13 March 2017 - 09:39 AM, said:

Third, if we talk about modules, getting them unlocked in the old system was a horrendous grind (for example, taking a simple lpl range module to max did cost 3,500 gxp which is about 70,000 xp! Thats a almost totally mastered new mech right there!)

Bad things in the old system are not justifications for having bad things in the new system.

Athom83, on 13 March 2017 - 09:41 AM, said:

While I agree that the respec cost may be a bit high, having 0 cost is also a problem. The reason there is a cost in the first place is to make you pause and think about your choices. You can play around if you've used the mech enough to know how you want to tweak it. And if you've used it enough, you should have the spare XP to play around with it.

Having zero cost to respec is not a problem. There is no reason to penalize people for wanting to change their mech.

Also "used it enough" is ********. You could want to respec before you are even finished getting 91 nodes, or you could want to respec a mech you don't often play, in either case there is no reason for a penalty.

There is no upside to having a respec cost.

[Skribs]

You are locked into a spec for at least a match.

I don't need MWO to feel like an RPG.

I don't need extra grind on top of what we already have.

[Athom83]

Skribs, on 13 March 2017 - 09:50 AM, said:

You are locked into a spec for at least a match. I don't need MWO to feel like an RPG. I don't need extra grind on top of what we already have.

The thing most people seem to forget; MWO is by definition a MMO:RPG. Just because you fight in 12v12, 4v4, or 1v1 combat and not walking around smacking slimes in the face with a stick until they go poof does not change that.

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 09:46 AM, said:

Having zero cost to respec is not a problem. There is no reason to penalize people for wanting to change their mech. Also "used it enough" is ********. You could want to respec before you are even finished getting 91 nodes, or you could want to respec a mech you don't often play, in either case there is no reason for a penalty.

You seem to be one of those "I want shiny thing for free" people. The reason there is a cost is to get people to start THINKING before they act and purchase a load of skills. Doing so will also get them to start thinking in matches, passively making gameplay better for everyone. Plus, a lot of the skills in the new system will be general skills which makes your mech better no matter what. Why would you want to remove those? I can see why you might want to change around skills in the Firepower tree, but the other trees seem like you would skill up enough in them and never change them.

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 09:46 AM, said:

There is no upside to having a respec cost.

Having people start to think in terms of cost-benefits seems like an upside to me. Also, getting people to play the game and not pay the game. Seriously, if there was no XP cost for respecing what would stop people from just throwing money at the game, purchase every skill, pick and choose the ones they want, then complain when it doesn't work or that they threw money at the game and had their money wasted by being caped at 91 nodes? It also curbs people from going "I want to do laser vomit now. *Blagh*", "Oop, now I want missile vomit. *Splat*", "Time to boat dakka. *dakka dakka dakka*", et cetera. My point is, the upside is to try to get people to start designing their mechs general purpose and teamwork focused and logically thinking of how to upgrade your mech to your playstyle.

[soapyfrog]

Athom83, on 13 March 2017 - 10:48 AM, said:

The thing most people seem to forget; MWO is by definition a MMO:RPG. Just because you fight in 12v12, 4v4, or 1v1 combat and not walking around smacking slimes in the face with a stick until they go poof does not change that.

And MMOs do not have any use for XP (you stop accumulating it!!) at level cap which is where 95% of the actual game takes place.

Also they don't knock you down a level when you respec.

For the rest your post, you are just trundling out a bunch of nonsense logic. Customizing mechs is fun, throwing more barriers in the way of that reduces fun which reduces desire to play which shrinks the playerbase which kills the game.

[Athom83]

soapyfrog, on 13 March 2017 - 11:06 AM, said:

For the rest your post, you are just trundling out a bunch of nonsense logic. Customizing mechs is fun, throwing more barriers in the way of that reduces fun which reduces desire to play which shrinks the playerbase which kills the game.

So people complaining that on one hand, MWO doesn't follow lore, but when they make a change to be somewhat more lore-friendly (Customizing mechs in lore was very rare and very costly) its a bad thing? And I'm illogical? Also, the vocal minority does not represent the silent majority. MWO will be staying alive and well. Your mere presence here proves it. If you really wanted to quit you'd be long gone by now.

Yes, I love customizing mechs. But I also love playing the game with a good loadout I made. I don't really want to forever use a single mech while constantly changing its loadout. When I find a good loadout I keep it the way it is (only making minor changes) and I move on to a new mech. What some find as "fun" is boring to others, while what those others see as "fun" may seem boring to everyone else.

Edited by Athom83, 13 March 2017 - 11:23 AM.