155 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

The Basilisk, on 05 May 2017 - 12:03 AM, said:

They will do it in a way that is wrong but easy to do and then improve it from there and call it development pointing the finger at everyone that complains telling him/her "we don't know what you want, you wanted an improved skill tree we made one, you wanted improvements to the skill tree we did them"

I'm not angry at you - I'm angry at PGI. But when you speak of "improve it from there," this is PGI we're talking about. The Pinpoint skill has done nothing for 4+ years and is still in there... as part of a simplistic, placeholder "skill system," that has been in place for almost 5 years. And that's just one of the simple things they never fixed. That's why I have no confidence in them fixing the mess created from their skill maze. It will be a complicated solution that will involve real work, real data, and real understanding of the game... from a company that couldn't - or wouldn't - find a way to do something with the Pinpoint skill for FOUR YEARS.

[Karl Streiger]

oldradagast, on 05 May 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

I'm not angry at you - I'm angry at PGI. But when you speak of "improve it from there," this is PGI we're talking about. The Pinpoint skill has done nothing for 4+ years and is still in there... as part of a simplistic, placeholder "skill system," that has been in place for almost 5 years. And that's just one of the simple things they never fixed. That's why I have no confidence in them fixing the mess created from their skill maze. It will be a complicated solution that will involve real work, real data, and real understanding of the game... from a company that couldn't - or wouldn't - find a way to do something with the Pinpoint skill for FOUR YEARS.

Well we could call names when you say "The Company" didn't we?

[Ardwolf]

Some things I'd like to point out and add to the fruitless discussion:

Don't hate on PGI:
PGI isn't responsible for this, Russ and Paul are. One trip to glassdoor will show you that working under those two is a miserable and unrewarding experience. The poor developers that have to put the nightmare that is Russ and Paul's thoughts to paper are the real MVPs here. I wouldn't have the patience to do that, I'd quit on day 1.

The skill tree is bad for the game:
Regardless of whether you're against, pro, or indifferent to the skill tree means nothing. This will drive players away, current and newcomers alike. There will be very, very few players returning after seeing the skill tree web of eternal clicks. What does this mean? A net loss in a player base that cannot afford it. Like the skill tree? Hate it? That DOES NOT MATTER. All that matters is its effect on the game and its players, which is negative. If I were a brand new player to the game, and I was greeted with this skill tree mess, I would straight up not give MWO the time of day and find something easier to get into.

The skill tree is bad for sales:
I know multiple people, from average to high skill level that have straight up said "I'm not supporting this **** anymore". I'm sure just about everyone here has heard the same thing. This means a net loss for the game's economy. Budget cuts leads to a smaller dev team, leads to less getting done, leads to a stagnant game. On the road we're traveling the coming tech update may very well be the last large content block we ever see in MWO's lifetime. It'll be all mechs and mechpacks from here on out.

It could be done BETTER:
I'm sure most of us has seen some of the proposed alternatives from the dedicated players of this game. A lot of the unofficial skill trees look phenomenal and far less irritating, be it for whales, newcomers, or middle of the road. For whatever reason PGI is adamant on this course of action, and only willing to mildly tweak it to stem the tide. The only conclusion I can draw is the following.

It's highly likely they're trying to kill their own game:
Mechwarrior 5 is going to be their new baby, and I highly doubt they have the means to support this game as well as continued development on MW5. This is mostly conspiracy theory but it does have quite a bit of merit. I can't imagine any normal, sane individual being this oblivious to what is right in front of their face. Infowars, Ghost heat 2.0, this skill tree, as well as other overwhelming stupidity that predates my time here. There's only two conclusions here; Russ and Paul are autistic, or they want to pave the way for their new game.

Personal opinion here, take it with the grain of salt if it suits you, but don't lie to yourself that this is good for the game. If you like it, that's cool, everyone has different opinions. The big issue here isn't how it impacts how you play, it's how it impacts the game as a whole, which in no realm of reality will it be a positive change. Less players, less money, worse queue times, worse experience due to very good players being matched with even worse ungood players.

I for one likely won't continue playing. I might hop on just to see how the skill tree impacts the game and hope to hell I'm wrong, and the game will stay installed just to have some shits and giggles when the tech comes as well, but not long after that the game will likely be removed from my PC and I'll move on to greener pastures(Not MW5, nor anything else being lead by Russ Bullock or Paul Inouye).

[Grus]

I'll quote (with paraphrasing) Carl Vickers "don't be a potato and you'll be fine."

[23203]

First of all this changes terminate the ability to change a loadout in under 5 mins.
Second this changes will need XP and C-Bills.

With this new skill system there will be a lot of changes for month. Feel free to be the tester of this with your hard earned
XP an C-Bills. When i think about this its a good strategy to stop playing MWO and wait at least 3 month or more.

Hope this will not end like armoured warefare with a game that has no playerbase left. If that happens and people
have to wait 10 or more minutes with the result that Mech Warrior Online will switch to Mechwarrior offline!!!!

[Darkhorse045]

As a player, I like and fear this system. I like it because I like to personalize my mech and spend a lot of time in the mechlab. But once I get a build I like, I very rarely change it. So this system doesn't bother me for that. I suspect some generalized tools will come out after a month or two that will help with moving/ clearing skill trees.

Secondly, I am honestly not bothered by a cost to re-spec a mech. Say what you will, in the end, I have my opinion on the matter. I don't change my liked mechs enough to be bothered by it. And as for the cost of nodes, the only ones I likely would be worried about are weapon nodes anyways. As for the argument of clicks, I bet more than a few clanners click more in a single match with UACs and such than they will clicking in the tree. I know I have done it more than a few times.

Why I partially fear this, I remember the disaster of Don Long Tom (though I do have a fond memory of running as a suicide squad light way back.) I remember how bad the que times for FP were because of Don Long Tom.

In the end though, I am cautiously optimistic. I will likely keep playing regardless, as I stopped spending money a long time ago.

[Linkx]

I do not like ... This is wrong!

[X T R E M E]

But who did it? ... sure he does not play this game!

Edited by XtremeAlex, 13 May 2017 - 03:33 PM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Scynonymz, on 25 April 2017 - 03:24 PM, said:

I literally just logged into the forum to write this post. I'm glad someone beat me to it. But I seriously feel this move is just adding a new layer of balance issues as well as alienating not only existing players, but new players as well.

Here's my question to you. What "New Layer of balance issues?"

The game is nothing BUT balance issues, because we never balanced 3025 era tech, so we're not really adding more layers, we're just compounding the existing base of problems.

Look, this game lost me a couple of months back when PGI DIDN'T include the skill tree when they were originally supposed to because, yet again the "greater playerbase" threw a fit.

Every single move, has over the time pushed many like myself away. for me, pushing back the skill tree is what broke the back as it were. Some have persisted through, other's bounced years back. But my personal playtime went from playing 50+ hours a week, to less than 1 a week now. And the skill tree, will actually, be one thing to bring me BACK in, because it fixes a few problems [namely, the unused convergence node].

Of course, it's kinda, too little too late. Given the coming tech jump, and my absolute HATE for the fedcom civil war era [I'm just entirely tired of that setting... we've been in it, and the clan invasion for far, far too long.] That MWO's probably lost me from here on out, which is sad, because there is a good, core game, and the coming skill tree is going to help strengthen that core... So for those of you who love Fedcom CW, you're about to have a great time... still, it's sad that it's taken this long to get this change, and it's sad that we never got the base tech balanced, which has only caused all these problems down the line.

[Ade the Rare]

I'm just gonna quit 'til the new tech comes along. By then I imagine there will have been a "hotfix" or two

Then, I'll carry on. However, when Clan can *still* roflstomp anything they point in the direction of in FW, because they *still* have all the quirks (sorry, I mean "skills"), and they're still saying balancing the game is a "continuous process", that's when I'll quit for another year or so.

Hopefully by the time I resurface from that we'll have the Fafnir, unless they want to *really* stay true to the lore and wait until the *real* 3060's, in which case I wish my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren good hunting!

[Ovion]

So, the new system is FAR cheaper (50% to 65% on average), making it better for new players.


The new system is granular, meaning rather than needing 3 mechs and hitting plateaus, new players can start improving their mech a little bit (1-5 SP) each match.

Under the new system, in the time it would take to get *just* 1.2 to 3 of your mech, and elited it - you will have done the equivalent of Mastered it with modules.

The new system 'taxes' certain 'desirable' nodes with 'undesirable' nodes. BUT at least those Nodes do something - unlock Pinpoint we've had for years, and years that does nothing, and Fast Fire that was off for a while, then reduced in effectiveness.

ALL mechs are being adjusted, until we can see how that affects Live performance, and the upcoming changes to weapons, and the upcoming new tech, etc, everything will be in flux.



Throwing your toys out of the pram and declaring the end of the game, when we're getting the thing that's been asked for and need for 2-3 years is a tad premature and rather silly.

I honestly think give it a month and everything will have found a new groove (just in time for the next major bout of changes, then the month after that. xD)

[Sharkomodo]

This game is not BattleTech, it's a BattleTech-flavored video games. I write for the board game (yes, really). I came here to see cool animations and play with friends, but this isn't Battletech. As such, PGI can do things however they want. That said, I have over 230 mechs and I have zero desire to go through some insanely convoluted system to convert even 1 of them, much less all of them. Yes, I do play literally all of them within any 2 month period, often playing 15 different mechs in one night. The modules made it fast and easy to swap guns on a given mech, changing its role. Now I either have to undo and redo this crazy tree, or buy a second copy of a given chassis. No thanks to both. So for me , personally, this is a big ol screw you and it kills most of my desire to play past patch day. Maybe it'll be awesome, but I doubt it, and mechanically, I want no part of it. Good luck to those who do. I will say though, when you've bought $2K+ worth of MWO, being chucked out by a mechanic you want no part of leaves you a touch miffed. Not much I can do but get over it, cuz HBS ain't gonna be BattleTech either, just a new flavor of video game.

[The Basilisk]

Ovion, on 15 May 2017 - 05:21 AM, said:

So, the new system is FAR cheaper (50% to 65% on average), making it better for new players.


The new system is granular, meaning rather than needing 3 mechs and hitting plateaus, new players can start improving their mech a little bit (1-5 SP) each match.

Under the new system, in the time it would take to get *just* 1.2 to 3 of your mech, and elited it - you will have done the equivalent of Mastered it with modules.

The new system 'taxes' certain 'desirable' nodes with 'undesirable' nodes. BUT at least those Nodes do something - unlock Pinpoint we've had for years, and years that does nothing, and Fast Fire that was off for a while, then reduced in effectiveness.

ALL mechs are being adjusted, until we can see how that affects Live performance, and the upcoming changes to weapons, and the upcoming new tech, etc, everything will be in flux.



Throwing your toys out of the pram and declaring the end of the game, when we're getting the thing that's been asked for and need for 2-3 years is a tad premature and rather silly.

I honestly think give it a month and everything will have found a new groove (just in time for the next major bout of changes, then the month after that. xD)

Sure ... but you missed an important fact.
There are little to no new players.
And with the whiners and butthurt ppl that are screeming and creaming their bullsh.. hurt little feelings all over redit and the rest of the internet there won't be lots of new ppl comming and also not a lot of oldsters returning who have been waiting for anny major change for some time now.

The main problem of MWO is atm the veteran players beeing salty about the long known fact pgi is building and balancing with crude rocks and sledge hammers.

[Sharkomodo]

I have no idea if there are new players or not. I only know my personal experience playing, and the skill tree kills my interest. I'm not saying it should ruin everyone's, but it ruins mine.

[Rogue Jedi]

Source Mystic, on 02 May 2017 - 10:37 AM, said:

ALL THE TREES EXCEPT 2 ARE WORTHLESS ...

mycroft000, on 02 May 2017 - 12:11 PM, said:

So you're thinking Agility and Armor right?

Source Mystic, on 03 May 2017 - 01:43 PM, said:

NO THE AGILITY TREE WILL ONLY BE TAKEN BY ASSAULTS AND LIGHTS MOST EVERYONE ELSE WILL IGNORE IT.

So are you saying agility is worthless, but Lights and assualts will take it and the Medium and Heavy Mechs will ignore it?
Sorry but if it is good for not far off half of Mechs then how is it worthless?
I am genualy curious how something can be both worthless and worth taking on Mechs in 2 opposite weight classes.

Exagerating to make a point, only to then contradict yourself works to significantly weaken your point.

I did play all the PTS sessions, just curious did you test the Jumpjet tree? because that makes a huge diferance to a Mechs jumping performance.
the Modules tree is also great, I look fowards to taking 2 UAVs and an arty strike into each match ^{(admitidly I would often not use them but many times I have realy wanted to pop a second UAV but not had it available)}.

the mobility branch does make a noticable diferance, in Lights I would be taking most of mobility and sensors with a few weapon, UAV and suvivability nodes, if a Mech packs more than 2 jumpjets I will likely be investing in the jump jet tree, if a Mech has ECM I may well invest heavily into sensors to enhance it.

if you just want weapons and armor fine, good for you, but the tree does ^{(in my opinion)} have a lot more to offer than just those 2 branches.
If you disagree that is fine, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but if you do not respect others opinions that can cause them to have less respect for yours.

[Ovion]

The Basilisk, on 16 May 2017 - 01:43 AM, said:

Sure ... but you missed an important fact.
There are little to no new players.
And with the whiners and butthurt ppl that are screeming and creaming their bullsh.. hurt little feelings all over redit and the rest of the internet there won't be lots of new ppl comming and also not a lot of oldsters returning who have been waiting for anny major change for some time now.

The main problem of MWO is atm the veteran players beeing salty about the long known fact pgi is building and balancing with crude rocks and sledge hammers.

THere's actually a LOT of people just waiting for the skill tree to drop to play, many others that used to play and are now coming back to it, etc.

Plus with the interest in Battletech generated by the HBS game, and its upcoming beta, there'll be a trickle through from that.
PLUS, it makes it easier to invite / interest people with the SIGNIFICANTLY lower barrier to entry.

I personally know at least 3-4 people who will start playing with Skill Tree, and another 2-3 more that will come back to the game because of it.
Lots of players I talk to also know a few people who will be interested.
We'll have an influx of players.

[R Valentine]

Tyberian Thirteenanvel, on 13 May 2017 - 10:20 PM, said:

Bunch of babies.... all i see are children whining about the fact they cant min max their builds and have to make compromises. Fucken boohoo, quit your bellyaching and deal with it.

What are you talking about? The skill tree is the ultimate min/max and boat 1 weapon upgrade. Min/maxing is more important than ever now.

[Korwyn Daemak]

Why the hell haven't these companies learned from the mistakes of the rest?

Every RPG, whether MMO or single player story, starts with an overly complicated talent system. Look at games like Mass Effect, WoW, or the Witcher. These games started with giving a new talent or series of skill points every level and had you pick from a massive number of options. Theory crafters get involved and figure out the most efficient path to a specific play style, post online and boom, you only see a handful of builds. In the end they end up streamlining the system to make the game easier for newbies and less wasteful for core addicts.

MWO was in the perfect position to introduce us to a unique and streamlined skill system. They could have learned from the hundreds of games with skill trees. Instead they came up with one of the most frustratingly massive skill tree systems gamers have ever seen.

I lost interest in MWO when they decided to keep it an arena style shooter instead of creating an MMO like the Battletech Universe deserves. I had high hopes with some of the recent patches and even Faction Warfare. All pretty underwhelming.

This "new" skill tree system will keep WMO off my machine for for the foreseeable future.

I can't see this system sticking around for more than a year. Hopefully it doesn't kill MWO completely.

[Sharkomodo]

Yeah the skill tree is WAY worse than I feared. I'm out. Good luck with the crap storm that will be left.

[Malifax]

I am out of here. This is the worst mistake in the history of PGI.