155 replies to this topic

[Kaargh]

After some games, in add to saw that 240m only of seismics generate a total of 249m cbills (and had a 69m in reserve), i can tell u that skill tree is brownmaterialfrombullass. Una PUTTANATACOLOSSALE (translate this)
Bye, maybe i'll quit.

Edited by Kaargh, 17 May 2017 - 02:17 AM.

[Brom96]

It broke the game, really. Good luck with it.

[Grus]

Suck it up drink water and drive on. Adapt and overcome. Any "min max meta" can be counted with proper tactics.

[SumoRex]

well. I was prepared to give it a go. I mean you've got to if you want to play after the patch, right?
I spent 1.5 hours figuring out a build with my 91 points then didn't know how to actually make the purchase.
screw that. log out. doubt I'll be back.

Legendary Founder, day one player. Had enough.

[Liquid Leopard]

Sharkomodo, on 16 May 2017 - 01:08 AM, 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.

Sharkomodo, on 16 May 2017 - 01:08 AM, said:

...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.

^ Pretty much this.

I've been playing for 4 years and now I have to re-learn the game. After I've spent $600+ on this game now I'm looking at having to fumble around skill trees for most of the 153 mechs I own.

PGI, are you ****ing kidding me?!?

[Grus]

SumoRex, on 17 May 2017 - 02:54 PM, said:

well. I was prepared to give it a go. I mean you've got to if you want to play after the patch, right?
I spent 1.5 hours figuring out a build with my 91 points then didn't know how to actually make the purchase.
screw that. log out. doubt I'll be back.

Legendary Founder, day one player. Had enough.

I guess the big yellow button on the right wasn't obvious enough. I hope you've figured put the "Any key" by now...

[Thalos]

I'm done with this game, I bought the Night Gyr package a month ago and have been playing this game on and off since beta. I have to say this new skill system just threw a big *** wrench in my face. I now have to go through each damn mech I have and try and pick the best skills which in the old system would have taking me about 5m or less now its taking me 15m or longer. NOPE not interested in doing that for my 42 mechs. Once my prem time ends that's it I'm done with this game. First it was the old mechbay that for the love of God I have no clue why they changed it, it was simple and easy to use then they created UI 2.0 which was a monstrosity. This skill system reminds me of exactly that. Yeah sure they will tune it up over the next year but I have 0 interest in sticking around to figure out all the changes. TKS PGI you did a fantastic job alienating myself anyways.

[Thalos]

Sharkomodo, on 16 May 2017 - 01:08 AM, said:

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.

I would have much more preferred a drop down menu in your skills tab that would show relevant skills for the equipped weapons and equipment you have already on the mech. That would have been sooooo much easier and quick to set a mech up with the best quick picks skills.

[Dollar Bill]

When I first saw the new Skill Tree at its reveal during Mech Con back in December, I was like YEAH! But...then I remembered...this was PGI doing this. The same clueless devs that brought us the voting system FAIL, map gate FAIL, mech resizing FAIL, CW/FP FAIL (like changing the name would magically make it better), wildly extreme over buffs followed by extreme pound-into-the-dirt nerfs FAIL. The list goes on FAIL, and on FAIL, and on FAIL!!!

I wondered for a second, maybe this is where they redeem themselves. This Skill Tree is one of the best ideas I've seen yet. You can customize your mech, and have the freedom to chose what you want the way you want it. I felt this is what MWO needed to breath new life into the game. And to make up for all the unbelievably stupid game-killing things PGI has done to MWO. I had a little faith in PGI to make it right.

But then...reality struck. I saw Skill Maze version 1.0 on the PTS. Like a fool, I put too much hope into PGI not to fuc_k it up. And, like a fool, I paid the price. Man, was I depressed. Customization, GONE. Freedom, GONE. Fun, GONE. Common sense UI, GONE!

Why does PGI keep taking great ideas, and then put them thru the hysterically bad implementation, Russ/Paul infested, good idea meat grinder?!

I'm trying to hang in there...but the Skill Maze may be the last straw. It will not accomplish what the delusional senior PGI devs want. And, is yet another overly complicated, totally unnecessary, salt creating, frustration inducing, game killing, PGI FAIL!

Edited by Dollar Bill, 17 May 2017 - 09:34 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Lily from animove, on 26 April 2017 - 08:38 AM, said:

Well lets look here:



if i want the heat reduction quirks, I have to buy SOO DAMN many stuff I never gonna need, quick ignition? thats for bad gamplay derps shutting down. Hill climb (multiple times)? SERIOUSLY?

a MUCH better layout would have been dividing the heat into having to spend on more nodes, so heat contaiment needs more skillpoints. While making less hill climb and ignition nodes but spending one skill point on them grant more %. so many sueless stuff to buy to get to the relevant things. that really hurts.

Is that really better? Your way, you pay more points for the same benefit. PGI's way you pay the same points, but you get more. If you absolutely never ever benefit from the extra stuff, you still don't actually lose anything.


I think the problem is more that the system feels needlessly complex and is really more like a maze then a skill system. The only issue it really solves is that you no longer need more than one variant of a mech, and that you don't need to shuffle modules around or buy multiple copies of them.

Oh, and they got rid of the useless convergence skill that hasn't had any effect whatsoever in many years.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 18 May 2017 - 12:30 AM.

[SgtMac]

Greygor 727, on 25 April 2017 - 03:58 PM, said:

Because of the roundabout way to get the actual Skill Tree items you want for your mech, the Tree needs to be in direct lines for achieving the results you want to have. As stated by Source Mystic above, I had to purchase every-other node that I did not want including nodes that did not apply to my build to achieve less than what I have.

LRMs. Start with the current existing maximum range of 1,000M. With the current Piloting Skills, unlocking and purchasing the module for that specific IS or Clan LRM added 100M. With the current system maxed out you barely get over 1,000M which is equal to the current starting point without having to unlock or purchase anything.

If you want us to purchase more than every other skill node to get where we want to go with this haphazard diagram then increase our reimbursement to 200SP and allow us 200 nodes. Remember, you are the ones who created this mess of a tree. Make it more streamlined to keep it at 91 or preferably 100.

Make it easier for someone to correct their selection mistakes after their purchase. I'm trying to make one small correction and for reasons unknown to me I cannot make changes.

This Skill Tree system is a complete mess.

Reduce your headaches now and just scrap the entire system.

I feel a striaght line, diagram would be better. want range increase find that weapon, and only spend points there, want view or scanner increase only spend points on those lines. Laser heat decrease, etc... i got confused reading the new tree, and shut the game down. I am gonna try play wihtout using the tree, but im very unhappy with loosing my vision and weapon modules and arty strikes.

[Ovion]

SgtMac, on 18 May 2017 - 07:52 AM, said:

I feel a striaght line, diagram would be better. want range increase find that weapon, and only spend points there, want view or scanner increase only spend points on those lines. Laser heat decrease, etc... i got confused reading the new tree, and shut the game down. I am gonna try play wihtout using the tree, but im very unhappy with loosing my vision and weapon modules and arty strikes.

It's really not that difficult.

Just take 10-15min, read through the patch notes, read through the tree, start playing about - maybe use one of several online tools that have cropped up

It'll quickly make a lot more sense.
A straight line would result in the purest min-max system, rather than variety.
This was explained in the FAQ and notes.

Don't take things all-at-once, go one step at a time, one mech at a time, and make sure you read the instructions.

Edited by Ovion, 18 May 2017 - 08:22 AM.

[Mechanised]

Dee Eight, on 25 April 2017 - 05:17 PM, said:

Well I'm sure they've looked at the data they alone have access to, which tells them the actual people complaining...aren't the ones actually contributing in any meaningful fashion to their revenue...and the ones who are in favour of it...ARE the ones keeping the company afloat.

I paid for mechs.. now they go and make me reassign everything that i have assigned from the time i played this game.. and i have been playing for a very long time from Beta.. I've just decided to say fk it because i aint sitting and reassigning what i already assigned to my many mechs over the years. This is stupid and overkill.. ive had it.. im gonna go play Dota and give my money to them..

[Ovion]

Mechanised, on 18 May 2017 - 01:24 PM, said:

I paid for mechs.. now they go and make me reassign everything that i have assigned from the time i played this game.. and i have been playing for a very long time from Beta.. I've just decided to say fk it because i aint sitting and reassigning what i already assigned to my many mechs over the years. This is stupid and overkill.. ive had it.. im gonna go play Dota and give my money to them..

Honestly - that sounds like a you problem.

simply 'cant be bothered', when it's overall a better system if you just take 10-20 minutes to learn it.

I have 30-40 mechs I use regularly and 224 mechs total.
If you can't be bothered, that's on you not PGI - especially when Skill Tree has been on the cards for years, and clearly, blatantly signposted for 8 months.

[TK TikTok]

Ovion, on 18 May 2017 - 02:30 PM, said:

Honestly - that sounds like a you problem.

simply 'cant be bothered', when it's overall a better system if you just take 10-20 minutes to learn it.

I have 30-40 mechs I use regularly and 224 mechs total.
If you can't be bothered, that's on you not PGI - especially when Skill Tree has been on the cards for years, and clearly, blatantly signposted for 8 months.

CAN YOU SAY TITANFALL

[SgtMac]

Ovion, on 18 May 2017 - 08:18 AM, said:

It's really not that difficult.

Just take 10-15min, read through the patch notes, read through the tree, start playing about - maybe use one of several online tools that have cropped up

It'll quickly make a lot more sense.
A straight line would result in the purest min-max system, rather than variety.
This was explained in the FAQ and notes.

Don't take things all-at-once, go one step at a time, one mech at a time, and make sure you read the instructions.

I have, and I am still confused. Nowhere does it mention th possibility of going back to the tree and removing stuff I dont want and keeping what I did like and it still working. Ok i reread that you can turn it off the image shows it not working anymore, but is that how it actuall works? Again this is too confusing to pick up quicly and thre for e a bad change. A linear system with all the same rules would be much easier. And like many players since Founding, im not gonna waste my resources tring to guess how to do this. If you play classic battletech most mech were min maxed(who came up with that damn term anyhow? It used to be known as specialization). An overly complex tree isnt going to be attractive to new players looking for a simple game t jump into stompy robots and shoot things. Why PGI did everything in ints ability nt to use the good things from all the previous mechwarrior games is still a mystery. Having played several matches without the skill tree i didnt see an major performance issues except slow mechs. And the amazing ability to disolve an assualt mech inside of 10 seconds. I dont like the new sstem, nad im betting people with similar issues to mine wotn lie it either. But I am a die hard BTfan, Just gonna play standard mechs, no skill trees a bit longer before i decide to quit or not.

Edited by SgtMac, 18 May 2017 - 06:33 PM.

[Astrocanis]

Ruar, on 26 April 2017 - 09:05 AM, said:

They think they are providing diversity and player choice. I honestly believe that whoever is in charge of the tree at PGI truly feels they are doing the right thing. And for the most part they have a good idea that just needs a bit of final tweaking by making the nodes more linear. I'm not sure what it's going to take to get them to realize they need to make things more linear, but we'll see what happens when they announce this going live and whether or not people start leaving.

That said, if one of the goals of the tree change is to reduce TTK then they need to strip out the offensive quirks and start over with balance. If they leave the quirks in, put in the skill tree, and then take the quirks away it's going to be just as upsetting as taking out the quirks now. We still have the FEDCOM civil war updates coming out which is going to shift gameplay a lot.

While I understand the easy to read numbers being lost when some quirks are removed I can see the need to go ahead and make this change so the game can be properly balanced. Yes, it's going to cause some mismatches. No, there isn't much faith in PGI getting quirks right anytime soon. However, I think quirks are overrated for the most part and solid builds can be created without having to rely on offensive quirks.
Keep in mind, the quirks being stripped are primarily offensive in nature.

So in the end I think the quirk issue is not a sticking point. It's something to be watched in the future, but it's also necessary so I'm willing to see how things go forward in regards to offensive quirks.

So the answer to improving balance is to make more choices available? Increasing the build complexity, in my opinion (of course) will not result in making balance easier to achieve. It will "accomplish" the opposite. Want balance? Eliminate skill trees and go with vanilla mechs and quirk them for speed, agility, structure / armor and heat. No weapon quirks. The control then is that there are no variables. By taking the simplicity of the old tree and adding additional complexity, they are creating problems on a log scale, not an arithmetic one where balance is concerned. Adding quirks on top of this will be putting out a fire with gasoline.

Edited by Astrocanis, 18 May 2017 - 07:04 PM.

[Grus]

SgtMac, on 18 May 2017 - 06:23 PM, said:

I have, and I am still confused. Nowhere does it mention th possibility of going back to the tree and removing stuff I dont want and keeping what I did like and it still working. Ok i reread that you can turn it off the image shows it not working anymore, but is that how it actuall works? Again this is too confusing to pick up quicly and thre for e a bad change. A linear system with all the same rules would be much easier. And like many players since Founding, im not gonna waste my resources tring to guess how to do this. If you play classic battletech most mech were min maxed(who came up with that damn term anyhow? It used to be known as specialization). An overly complex tree isnt going to be attractive to new players looking for a simple game t jump into stompy robots and shoot things. Why PGI did everything in ints ability nt to use the good things from all the previous mechwarrior games is still a mystery. Having played several matches without the skill tree i didnt see an major performance issues except slow mechs. And the amazing ability to disolve an assualt mech inside of 10 seconds. I dont like the new sstem, nad im betting people with similar issues to mine wotn lie it either. But I am a die hard BTfan, Just gonna play standard mechs, no skill trees a bit longer before i decide to quit or not.

reading this gave me a headake. Look, it's not that difficult to work with. Skillong out my fort mach took me a little time but after that it's easy. Like riding a bike. Stop being inflexible and take a few minutes to work the tree. You will see a vast improvement if done to your play stile, in performance of said mech.

[Grus]

Astrocanis, on 18 May 2017 - 07:03 PM, said:

So the answer to improving balance is to make more choices available? Increasing the build complexity, in my opinion (of course) will not result in making balance easier to achieve. It will "accomplish" the opposite. Want balance? Eliminate skill trees and go with vanilla mechs and quirk them for speed, agility, structure / armor and heat. No weapon quirks. The control then is that there are no variables. By taking the simplicity of the old tree and adding additional complexity, they are creating problems on a log scale, not an arithmetic one where balance is concerned. Adding quirks on top of this will be putting out a fire with gasoline.

I disagree. Take for example my hellbringer. I was in a match where i was set up for sniping, 4erll. At range I was dominating, I think I was up to 800ish damage done when a sneaky Cataphract snuck up and got in brawl range. He very politely but with vigor, rebalenced my ride, and alowed me to choose another. Balance is fine, it's the pilot or tactics or both that need buffing.

[ClanBondsman]

My 2 cents worth.. I am a new player.. started playing just around time tuka3 event started.
For those wondering I did pay some so I am a freemium player ie I play mostly free but with some paying here and there to support the game.
When I started playing 2 weeks ago I felt the mech's were balanced and was actually having fun learning the game and playing with my unit mates.. did poorly at first but when I finally hit about 100 hours of play time started doing pretty decent... got a few kills per match and went from like 50 match score to 100+ most matches.
I am still a green player and still learning the game.. then all of a sudden they announce this new skill tree.. I am thinking to myself oh cool maybe an oppurtunity to catch up with players who have played a bit and put us on equal ground.
BOY WAS I WRONG ABOUT THAT!!!
The new skill tree is a nightmare.. I picked what I thought would be good skills for 2 of my 4 mechs that I have purchased.. and playing them did not feel balanced at all!!
I went from 100's match score down to about 20's as the mechs now feel useless in fights even though I took max armor tree, bolstered my weapons and even took spotting mech tree stuff to make so I could spot and hold target on enemy mech easier, however the actual gameplay I got was not at all what the skill tree would suggest.. my mech felt unbalanced and was a pain in the A** to play.. literally was no fun at all.
I am not sure if developers intended to make new players want to quit or not.. but this skill tree took any fun I was having out of the game.
Not only do you throw this big clunky skill tree at us.. but you don't even include a tutorial or anything along with it so new players understand what they are doing.. ie what the F*** is torso yaw.. torso turn speed and all these things mean?? I am sure players who have been playing this game years know what everything does and means.. but was any thought put into what will new players think about this??
IN SHORT YOU TURNED BALANCED MECHS WITH A VARIETY OF PLAY STYLES INTO COOKIE CUTTER SKILL TREE THAT IS CLUNKY/CONFUSING AS **** AND A TURNOFF TO ANY NEW PLAYERS.
I decided the minute I logged into my favorite mech and tested the skill tree that I would NOT be playing this game again for several months if at all again.
I really liked the old system with basic, elite, mastery tiers however I felt they were kinda cookie cutter as well.. should have something similar maybe but with each mech being somewhat specialized with a possible option that after you have mastered the mech you could then go back and use cbills/mech specific XP you have accumulated to then specilize your mech by changing the mastery tier (nodes) to whatever you want.. ie basic tier came with like accel/decel/ some heat things.. you could change the accel/decel to example capture points faster or whatever.. would offer far more customize ability but still make the mechs balanced and new player friendly.

There is serious balance issues with the new skill tree and the game is no longer any fun for me.
Randomly reading through other player comments I can agree whole-hearted that you will lose paying members of this game just as you lose your F2P members as both will find the game not to be fun anymore, when the F2P start leaving the que times will get longer.. and soon enough you will have 30+ minute que times for Paying members to fight other Paying members whom they can't crush as easily and so they will get bored of fighting their counterparts over and over and over as you will not have any fresh blood to satisfy them and the long wait times will drive them nuts. I have played several several games and seen many go out of business due to ignoring their f2p playerbase.
Simply put with an online game that requires other players if you don't have other players to play with and against it is no fun for anyone.

I really do hope you read these comments and Fix your broken game developers.. if not.. no skin off my teeth as they say.
Until then I will be playing other games that while not the best at least they are balanced and playable with some fun involved.