49 replies to this topic

[Taxxian]

I am really disappointed...

You let the haters win again... but why?

Some whales cant instantly remaster their 300 Variants they never play anyways?
Some IS Chassis loose 5% to 15% of some Quirks? Mostly Chassis that are so bad no one plays them anyways?

MMOs need progress, I get the feeling this game is based on a democracy where a loud minory kills all progress vigorously!

I am part of a large community and many of us where looking forward to the skill tree... as they where looking forward to energy draw...now what everyone gets is NOTHING!

They only way keeping players and getting lost ones back is PROGRESS.

Right now my motivation for playing the game any further is roundabout 0, and thats actually the first time in 4 years of playing MWO I feel this way.

@PGI I am quite sure there are a great many players that were looking forward to the skill trees... they just where silent because if they argue against the haters they get hate, hating PGI is easier because they dont hate back!


So now go hate me, I dont care!

[Karl Streiger]

it's so simple to say haters vs pgi?
Don't you think the story is much more complex?
Don't you think that the thing should have handled by PGI with much more profession?

It's the same story as with the LT or ECM if you like - with the difference that LT and ECM made it into the game without "PTS"

All the months of feedback and in the end only the values did change not the "issue" of both mechanics.
The same can be said about the ED or info warfare or now Skill Tree..... there are grave issues and the only thing PGI does is tone down some values without addressing the core issue. and finally put the "feature" in the long row of "future patches" and will never be seen again.

Serious - this game has in the core all the mechanics and options to be a great game - but they screw really every time. And the only reason is lack of creativity or the complete lack of a clear concept - or its really a dartbord that is the main tool for creating a new concept for a feature.

---

I really watched the whole Skill Tree from the sideline because I was indifferent towards the outcome.
I had my issues with the idea but nothing that could not have been fixed with a rearrangement of the Skills and options that differ from mech to mech (for example special PPC quirks rather pure energy skills for the K2)
But I really hate how PGI managed or mismanaged communication and feedback - again

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 March 2017 - 01:20 AM.

[Mech Nuggets]

I'm with you on this.
I have my 12 Mechbays maxed out atm. bought a Warhawk, a Jenner and a Stormcrow when they were on Chickenlegs Sale knowing the rule of three becomes obsolete with the implementation. Now I won't be able to master ANY of them without buying more Mechbays and more Variants.... I'm not doing that! Thanks for halting my progress!

[Taxxian]

This game is hard to balance and balance will never be perfect...but if we kill all progress not leading to immediate perfect balance we will simply never get any progress!

Of course, the criticism has a point and PGI could of course do better. But we need progress or the game dies from lack of change.

For the most part the skill tree was ok or even good. Some parts where imbalanced but I dont think more than the game is right now!

[JaidenHaze]

It would have been better to read the OP from Russ first instead of complaining here. The skill system wasn't good, a lot of players loose months and years of progress (since they can't remaster their Mechs) and, as Russ writes, it didn't work as intended.

It's easier to delay the whole system instead of fixing it 3 months down the line when a lot of players already left the game for good

[Taxxian]

@JaidenHaze

You claim someone did not read properly because he as an opinion differing from yours? Thats a little arrogant...
I read it of course, and I actually don´t care if 50 of my Mechs are no longer mastered, because those where the Mechs I never played anyways, otherwise they would have had an appropriate amount of XP on them.

The new Skill tree would have been a motivation for me and probably many others... that motivation is gone now.

They have 3 to 4 months to implement the new Tech we get informed about this afternoon... you expect them to implement new Tech, better Skill Tree and better Energy Draw in this time? I have my doubts...

The game is not perfectly balanced and we are right to complain about that, but in addition to that PGI frequently waves carrots in front of our noses, just to pull them away right before we can actually get a bite... that does not help with the balancing that generate additional anger at least for me.

[Pjwned]

Quote

MMOs need progress

There's plenty of Korean MMORPG trash to play instead if you want your "progress" so much.

[B4R4]

the problem are not the whales with 300mechs mastered. That group of players has enough cbills (and probably put a considerable amount in modules as well) to remaster all the more often played mechs. As you were saying, why master the 50 odd mechs that are just collecting dust? ok completionism, but no real loss gameplay wise.
The real issue lies with players like me, having around 50mechs in total, maybe two thirds of them mastered, no cbills to spare and expecting around 30-odd mil cbills in module-refunds. how may mechs can I master with that? oh look, it's barely enough for two dropdecks. and I play MWO for variety, so two dropdecks is not the only thing i'm aiming for.

[Karl Streiger]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 02:20 AM, said:

They have 3 to 4 months to implement the new Tech we get informed about this afternoon... you expect them to implement new Tech, better Skill Tree and better Energy Draw in this time? I have my doubts...

It is not necessary to implement anything. Everything that is necessary is already ingame (with exception of crit splitting)
all you need is a dedicated team that plans stuff accordingly

you don't need to implement a different weapon for the light gauss - you only need to "fix" 5 numbers and voila you have a light gauss or another 5numbers and you have a heavy gauss.
Silver Bullet Gauss or Hyper Assault Gauss would need some "mixing" of LBX or Ultra Mechanic and Gauss but thats it.

90% of a better Heat System, MatchMaker, New Tech, Skill Tree is simple playing and pushing numbers in a spreadsheet - there is no room for "feel" - but this never hit home in the head of the descision maker or at least it "feels" this way

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 March 2017 - 02:40 AM.

[soapyfrog]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 02:20 AM, said:

The new Skill tree would have been a motivation for me and probably many others... that motivation is gone now.

This game is fundamentally fun to play.

If you are not playing it because you feel you don't have an artificial goal to chase, then ... maybe it is YOU who doesn't like MWO actually?

The rest of us love it immensely and do not want to see it ruined by poorly planned changes.

The fun part of this game is playing it with mechs mastered and fully equipped, without thinking about grinding. You know, like mechwarrior has ALWAYS been fun in the past.

[Taxxian]

Well WOW was always fundamentally fun too play too, and they changed nearly all balancing and character customization options more than once in the last 10 years and it is even more fun to play now!

MMOs that get no new Stuff get boring that can hardly be argued about. This game is not perfect especially if we look at balancing closely... so let PGI do there work at designing the game!

Every few months we get promised new features, we even get to test them on the PTS and when we are looking forward to finaly play them they get canceled 2 week prior to release... that is fundamentally not fun!

I rather have a not perfect new feature than no features at all.

Edited by Taxxian, 14 March 2017 - 03:52 AM.

[oldradagast]

Change is not progress, and grind is not content.

Look, I'm not going to go over all the facts condemning the skill maze again since they are everywhere these days, but if the best argument you can come up with is, "who cares if some people are screwed because they bought the wrong mechs or not enough modules," you need to really better consider how a business works.

Successfully businesses don't just say, "Meh, who cares if we lose 5% to 10% of our customers if there's a chance we'll get 1% more customers with this big change."

Very few people were going to join the game or increase their spending because of the skill maze, but clearly plenty of people were going to decrease their spending or end it entirely. That - a hit to the bottom line - is the only reason PGI suddenly reacted. It had nothing to do with forum "whiners" and their annoying facts, since if forum whining put a company under, every company ever founded would have gone out of business years ago.

[Taxxian]

Change is progress if it has many positive aspects, even if and I admit it, there are also some negative ones.

Apart from that just just trumped those numbers from nowhere and I simply do not believe them...

In our unit forum most people are just sad about this development because we prepared for the changes, where looking forward to them and now the same thing that happened to ED and IW happens again...

It is not really relevant who´s fault it is, but the promised feature does not come... after already beeing postponed for a month... same as many time before.

I absolutely understand most of the counter arguments, but I still think the Skill Tree patch would have improved the game for most players and was promised so it should have come.

[R Valentine]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 01:09 AM, said:

I am really disappointed...

You let the haters win again... but why?

Some whales cant instantly remaster their 300 Variants they never play anyways?
Some IS Chassis loose 5% to 15% of some Quirks? Mostly Chassis that are so bad no one plays them anyways?

MMOs need progress, I get the feeling this game is based on a democracy where a loud minory kills all progress vigorously!

I am part of a large community and many of us where looking forward to the skill tree... as they where looking forward to energy draw...now what everyone gets is NOTHING!

They only way keeping players and getting lost ones back is PROGRESS.

Right now my motivation for playing the game any further is roundabout 0, and thats actually the first time in 4 years of playing MWO I feel this way.

@PGI I am quite sure there are a great many players that were looking forward to the skill trees... they just where silent because if they argue against the haters they get hate, hating PGI is easier because they dont hate back!


So now go hate me, I dont care!

The new skill tree wasn't progress. It was a loss of progress, hence why people were dissatisfied with it. Testers 2, White Knights 0. There's no salt like white knight salt.

Edited by Kiran Yagami, 14 March 2017 - 05:39 AM.

[WolvesX]

I'm not a hater - I'm a lover!

A friend is a person who tells you what is true, not what you want to hear.

And as stated before:

At this point I think we can agree that the skill tree wasn't want we, the players, wanted it to be and we can agree, that the refunds where not on point.

Without us players giving vivid and colorfull feedback, this change might have had a very negative impact on the health of the game.

We, as a community, helped to change that.

Thank you all for sharing your opinion, creating videos, drawing ideas (and comics). That engagement and the raw emotions, in some cases, show our involment in the game and our deep care about it.

Edited by WolvesX, 14 March 2017 - 05:49 AM.

[oldradagast]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 05:37 AM, said:

I absolutely understand most of the counter arguments, but I still think the Skill Tree patch would have improved the game for most players and was promised so it should have come.

You "believe it would have improved the game for most players," even though most players - at least the ones who were aware of the skill maze and tested it - were opposed to it?

That doesn't work, you know. And, honestly, most people here want a new and GOOD skill system. There are only a few that want no system at all or the current system kept forever. But PGI's skill maze wasn't what most people wanted based on the data here and - more importantly - on their sudden heel-face-turn the moment their bottom line was affected by players closing their wallets.

[Taxxian]

Well you are on the "We dont want the new stuff until its perfect" side and I am on the "Just give us the promised stuff and fix problems later" side... I get that.

The last year showed me that whatever PGI does there are always many people opposing it and I fear that we will never get any progress this way...

In my eyes PGI proved they can not make a feature, put it on the PTS and we agree...

So how to continue?

1) leave the game as it is
2) put in features without asking the forum

I dont like 1)


If PGI had just invented "LBX Spread Modules" and "Armor Hardening Modules" we would than say "No our Mechs are Mastered and full with modules so give 50 pieces of each new module for free so we dont have to grind for the new modules"? Really?

Edited by Taxxian, 14 March 2017 - 06:55 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

2) put in features without asking the forum

because they read the forum....
because they can make stuff like the LongTom

I would have a third proposal - but considering that I don't want to violate the CoC I will not suggest the only thing that would have stoped a couple of other PR disasters in the past and will obviously stop them in the future

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 March 2017 - 07:02 AM.

[R Valentine]

Taxxian, on 14 March 2017 - 06:48 AM, said:

Well you are on the "We dont want the new stuff until its perfect" side and I am on the "Just give us the promised stuff and fix problems later" side... I get that.

The last year showed me that whatever PGI does there are always many people opposing it and I fear that we will never get any progress this way...

In my eyes PGI proved they can not make a feature, put it on the PTS and we agree...

So how to continue?

1) leave the game as it is
2) put in features without asking the forum

I dont like 1)


If PGI had just invented "LBX Spread Modules" and "Armor Hardening Modules" we would than say "No our Mechs are Mastered and full with modules so give 50 pieces of each new module for free so we dont have to grind for the new modules"? Really?

There wasn't even anything "new" about the skill tree. That was half of the complaints. They just reworked how you come about getting what you already have, but in the end most people would end up buying the same skills as everyone else because there's an optimal path, and everything else is sub-optimal. The exceptions would be specific weapon nodes.

And respec costs were ALWAYS a terrible idea. Changing load outs and tinkering with builds is half the game. If you gate that behind an xp/c-bill sink you severely lower the value of that part of the game, and that's a suicidal business model. And that's on top of making everyone regrind their mechs again because they added a c-bill cost on things that should be xp only. The change was never going to be good. And they couldn't just give us a skill tree. Oh no. They also had to throw in engine decoupling, quirk nerfs, new mech pack, and other garbage that just adds to already convoluted problems.

[Taxxian]

There actually are tons of new skills in the tree.

In every MMO with a skill tree there is an optimal way for every situation.

My Mechs would have been skilled absolutely different!

PPC snipers a skilled entirely different than scouting lights or brawling mediums... PUG Queue Mechs are skilled different from MRBC Mechs. There absolutely was choice, not perfect but it was there...

You are right with the respec costs... but 400XP per node really was not that much... A won game with double XP gets you 5 skillpoints or more... I have no problem with that.