17 replies to this topic

[Vashramire]

Am I the only one that saw the weapon branch as mostly a waste? I found most reliability in Getting agility with all accell/decel and speed tweaks as priority then all the armor/structure nodes then all the heat redux/max heat cap and then Seismic/radar derp. That left only a handful of points left but basically was a build I found useful on every mech more so than the 5% cooldown for weapons that took too many points to implement. Basically it put all mechs back to pre PTS functionality, mobility/module sans weapons plus boosted survivability.

If this goes live like it is with all the problems the trees have, if it doesn't frustrate me into taking a break till they get it reasonable, it is a build that I would use on every mech probably. No real reason to change much between mechs unless they have ECM or something.

So the "build your mech how you want to play" isn't much of a thing with these trees and more of a "let's spend points to ungimp our mechs and get them back to the status quo we had before". No real diversity, just mandatory skills with trash on the way. Am I wrong?

[Cato Phoenix]

Not wrong.

[Skribs]

You see it as clearly as most of us do. It's just a cash-grab for us to buy more C-Bills or premium time.

[Fetherator]

It seems most of u didnt read any PTS info from PGI there was.
If you had, you would find out that the hole system is going to change in many ways.
Examples?
targeting time changed
lose lock time changed
Missile Range changed
HP on Components changed
ECM range changed
quirks altered or gone
movement of mechs changed
engines impact only on maxspeed and Acc Dec (so you could save weight by using lighter engines)
IS to Clan unequal benefits from skilltree
Gauss degraded Criticals
U-AC2 degraded Crits
Skilltree allows more Crits to Missiles
and so many more

What makes you all think, skilling your mechs ONCE would solve problems?
You will rebuild it so often and have to reequip many things...

[Capt Deadpool]

Fetherator, on 11 March 2017 - 06:55 PM, said:

It seems most of u didnt read any PTS info from PGI there was.
If you had, you would find out that the hole system is going to change in many ways.
Examples?
targeting time changed
lose lock time changed
Missile Range changed
HP on Components changed
ECM range changed
quirks altered or gone
movement of mechs changed
engines impact only on maxspeed and Acc Dec (so you could save weight by using lighter engines)
IS to Clan unequal benefits from skilltree
Gauss degraded Criticals
U-AC2 degraded Crits
Skilltree allows more Crits to Missiles
and so many more

What makes you all think, skilling your mechs ONCE would solve problems?
You will rebuild it so often and have to reequip many things...

Nothing you said disproves the OP, in which the best route is maximizing agility, survivability, radar derp/seismic, heat management, then a couple points in weapons if any are left over.

[Widowmaker1981]

Well, no i dont agree. Really agile mechs or those with MASC dont need agility tree, very cool running mechs (dual gauss etc) dont need operations tree.. just as examples... Weapon tree is not really about cooldown. Stacking firepower tree heavily with weapon quirks is very powerful. I ended up with pretty different builds depending on mech/build on the PTS - main issue in my eyes was the survival tree not ever being worth taking due to low values.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 12 March 2017 - 02:37 AM.

[Fetherator]

Capt Deadpool, on 11 March 2017 - 09:50 PM, said:

Nothing you said disproves the OP, in which the best route is maximizing agility, survivability, radar derp/seismic, heat management, then a couple points in weapons if any are left over.

Nothing is finaly set, values may change and so we all have to reskill again,
and well HELLO again to the clicks

[Vashramire]

Fetherator, on 11 March 2017 - 06:55 PM, said:

It seems most of u didnt read any PTS info from PGI there was.
If you had, you would find out that the hole system is going to change in many ways.
Examples?
targeting time changed
lose lock time changed
Missile Range changed
HP on Components changed
ECM range changed
quirks altered or gone
movement of mechs changed
engines impact only on maxspeed and Acc Dec (so you could save weight by using lighter engines)
IS to Clan unequal benefits from skilltree
Gauss degraded Criticals
U-AC2 degraded Crits
Skilltree allows more Crits to Missiles
and so many more

What makes you all think, skilling your mechs ONCE would solve problems?
You will rebuild it so often and have to reequip many things...

Granted nothing is set in stone but I did test and read all the notes for the PTS and I just feel that dumping 20-30 points in firepower for minimal stat increases just wasn't going to be worth it unless it was a niche mech with a niche build. Even if you gave me every node in the firepower tree for 20 points it is feasible that the points would, in most cases, be better served in increasing survivability, agility, or sensors because a good pilot in a bad situation(surrounded/incoming heavy focused fire) would be at a greater advantage with those than 10% CD/range/velocity because a dead mech does 0 damage and if you can at least limp away, you can still help your team in some way.

None of the changes they are implementing are going to change any of my builds because quirks are still a thing along with hardpoints and some 4 years of trying every build known to man to min/max mechs I like with and without quirks. Unless they seriously boost the Firepower tree to compete and basically negate the armor/structure bonuses from the trees, there is little reason to choose 3-5% dps increase over 10-20% mech health. Something I hope they do not do because power creep since clans launching has gotten ridiculous. If they are going to keep weapon quirks on the mechs then I'd say just remove the Firepower tree all together because it's just bait for inexperienced players to feed the PGI "Bad Idea" Train.

I could be wrong though. Maybe more testing is needed but I was just hoping that what I was seeing wasn't all in my head. Because when you get a mech, you only really "get" it when it's skills are mastered and under the new system, some people may never really get their mechs even if they own them.

[XDarkPrinceX]

Vashramire, on 12 March 2017 - 05:03 AM, said:

Unless they seriously boost the Firepower tree to compete and basically negate the armor/structure bonuses from the trees, there is little reason to choose 3-5% dps increase over 10-20% mech health.

I totally agree with that, I tried a few setups on my black knight 6b which quirks have cool down for energy, and I maxed out the laser side of the tree and my DPS and sustained DPS was much lower then it is now with only a basic mastered mech and level 5 cooldown/range consumable, current setup 340 Damage before a shutdown occurs, in PTS 288 Damage with medium lasers firing in chain 1 after another, with ER large it was 140 Damage before a shutdown in PTS it was 98

but if I took those points and put them into armor/hp/manuevarability I got a heavy that felt like a cross of a medium and light with an assault body.

[Capt Deadpool]

The thing is, they want increased TTK, so they will not buff the firepower tree. The whole skill system essentially is just a cover for increasing TTK.

Here is what the new skill tree does, summed up:

1. Give players the illusion of choice, but 90% of the time the same nodes will be unlocked. Unless something needs Ecm or doesn't need agility or heat management, then there will be extra points for the essentially negligible firepower tree.

2. Give new players far more opportunity to screw up their mechs, allowing respecs to be a c-bill sink

3. And the main purpose of the tree, increase TTK


By no means am I upset by these changes, I am fairly ambivalent as my favorite mechs will end up being more effective relative to the rest of the field. But most people on the forum don't really get the purpose or the tree or what it's effects will be.

[Fetherator]

Capt Deadpool, on 12 March 2017 - 09:19 AM, said:

.
.
.
2. Give new players far more opportunity to screw up their mechs, allowing respecs to be a c-bill sink
.
.
.

thats not realy true.
So far im getting given information right it will be like:

First time unlocking and purchasing a skill will cost

• approx 45.000 cbills (PGI is measuring, maybe it gets lower)
  
• 
  800 GXP or XP your decision (clicking left or right side of node)

Deactivating (respec) a node will cost

• zero

Reactivating a node wich was purchased before (no visual Lock) will cost

• 400 GXP or XP your decision (clicking left or right side of node)

Edited by Fetherator, 12 March 2017 - 10:34 AM.

[soapyfrog]

You said "thats not realy true." and then posted information showing that it IS true, respecing is a c-bill and time sink.

[Fetherator]

soapyfrog, on 12 March 2017 - 10:44 AM, said:

You said "thats not realy true." and then posted information showing that it IS true, respecing is a c-bill and time sink.

where did u read that?

And what does respecing do, your opinion?

[soapyfrog]

Respec = changing your skill tree

If I have unlocked a full 91 nodes and I decide I want a different build or change my skill tree because I just picked wrong because I didn't know what was doing, well that costs a ton of extra cbills and XP even though I have already fully mastered my mech.

Then if at some future point I want to go back to skill nodes I already 100% paid for it still costs me XP!

There is no good reason for that. It's just PGI poking us in the eye.

[Fetherator]

soapyfrog, on 12 March 2017 - 11:03 AM, said:

Respec = changing your skill tree

If I have unlocked a full 91 nodes and I decide I want a different build or change my skill tree because I just picked wrong because I didn't know what was doing, well that costs a ton of extra cbills and XP even though I have already fully mastered my mech.

Then if at some future point I want to go back to skill nodes I already 100% paid for it still costs me XP!

There is no good reason for that. It's just PGI poking us in the eye.

You are respecing nodes not skillpoints.
If you like to choose ones u didnt purchase earlier u have to pay 45.000cbills/800xp, or if u did purchase them just the 400xp.

I partly agree with a post from you in another discussion about skilltree costs:

soapyfrog said:

Respecs should be completely free. If you paid for skill points instead of skill nodes, we wouldn't even have to have this conversation and PGI would still have everything it wants.

If PGI would set it up "your" way, the conclusion would be:
Buying a skillpoint will cost 45.000cbills/800xp
Maxed at 91 points.
player can put bought skillpoints in PGIs tree.
PGI even could do big changes in tree without needing to reset or payback already chosen nodes. (would be good 4 them)

Many players, even myself would like that too, but
i dont know what PGI wants, because i dont know their numbers.

what happens to all your XP?

I would like if changing to Ferro/DoubleHS/Artemis would cost XP instead.

[feeWAIVER]

Capt Deadpool, on 11 March 2017 - 09:50 PM, said:

Nothing you said disproves the OP, in which the best route is maximizing agility, survivability, radar derp/seismic, heat management, then a couple points in weapons if any are left over.

Not all Mechs.
For my Legend Killer, I will put all my points into weapons, then agility/survivability secondary.

[Capt Deadpool]

feeWAIVER, on 12 March 2017 - 11:44 AM, said:

Not all Mechs.
For my Legend Killer, I will put all my points into weapons, then agility/survivability secondary.

Yes there are exceptions.

[oldradagast]

Skribs, on 11 March 2017 - 06:08 PM, said:

You see it as clearly as most of us do. It's just a cash-grab for us to buy more C-Bills or premium time.

Precisely.

GRIND is not CONTENT.

The skill maze will be solved soon enough, with only a handful of viable builds, weapon specific skills excluded. It's no different than the false choices of the module system - Hmmm... do I take Hill Climb or Seismic? Choices, choices... - except with a far more confusing interface, respec costs, and more grind added on top. It will also suck from a new user's perspective since it is tangled web of insanity and false choices. The old system, for all its flaws, was about the only thing a new player couldn't mess up. They could play lousy mechs with lousy builds, but at least they could level up like everyone else without needing to research things. Not so under the new system. And, of course, the only viable builds will all be documented on various 3rd party sites because PGI.

GRIND is not CONTENT or CHOICE.