5 replies to this topic

[Malrock]

Ok so the new method of refunding I find to be a VAST improvement over the old system. Feels much better to get 91 points, and the idea of having points makes the most sense as well. Thank you PGI for moving to this solution. This was a solid move in the right direction. You have fixed one of the biggest gripes people had with the old system.

Unfortunately you have ignored the other biggest gripe people had with the old system. The actual layout of the skill tree's themselves.

As to the skill trees themselves... they are still poorly designed, have way too many appearances of choice, and are overwhelming for users, new and old alike.

Your skill maze is actually making people hate your game.

Too many choices is literally making people exhausted and unhappy with the game.

http://www.nytimes.c...7shortcuts.html

and

https://www.fastcomp...ing-you-unhappy

The worst part is that the choices aren't even real choices... they are false choices. You either are going to go into a tree in order to get the things at the bottom of it or you are skipping the tree, everything else is meaningless filler. PGI stated as much when they laid out the explanation of their tree design and how the good points are spread out at the bottom of the tree. Forcing people to make lots of meaningless choices doesn't help the game and doesn't actually give people choice, but instead it produces the illusion of having to make a lot of choices which overwhelms people. Much better to just let people choose a small subset of trees lets say four of them and provide them with stock benefits for their tree choice, as these are really the only decisions people are actually making.

At the very least they should allow you to click on the nodes you actually want at the bottom of the tree and then let the computer fill in the garbage at the top of the tree in the most point efficient manner possible.

Further you are utterly failing to make the node choices themselves feel like they are making an impact or difference. (your stated design goal) No single node in any tree changes the way your game play feels. It is only when taking nodes in bunches that you can actually tell any difference. No one can feel a sub 1% improvement to their mech.

Also as many others have voiced in other threads the trees feel awful to use due to their design in addition to their layout. Would it kill you to give me a point tally so i know how many points i have spent or a point count down so i know how many more nodes I can acquire before i hit 91? I mean i want to know who close i am getting to 91 and how many points i have left as I am kitting out my mech, but it doesn't tell me that easily in the skill screen, It won't even tell me how many points i am proposing to spend in a given tree these things only populate after the points get locked in, or almost locked in.

[Ruar]

Malrock, on 27 April 2017 - 09:58 AM, said:

Ok so the new method of refunding I find to be a VAST improvement over the old system. Feels much better to get 91 points, and the idea of having points makes the most sense as well. Thank you PGI for moving to this solution. This was a solid move in the right direction. You have fixed one of the biggest gripes people had with the old system.

Unfortunately you have ignored the other biggest gripe people had with the old system. The actual layout of the skill tree's themselves.

As to the skill trees themselves... they are still poorly designed, have way too many appearances of choice, and are overwhelming for users, new and old alike.

Your skill maze is actually making people hate your game.

Too many choices is literally making people exhausted and unhappy with the game.

http://www.nytimes.c...7shortcuts.html

and

https://www.fastcomp...ing-you-unhappy

The worst part is that the choices aren't even real choices... they are false choices. You either are going to go into a tree in order to get the things at the bottom of it or you are skipping the tree, everything else is meaningless filler. PGI stated as much when they laid out the explanation of their tree design and how the good points are spread out at the bottom of the tree. Forcing people to make lots of meaningless choices doesn't help the game and doesn't actually give people choice, but instead it produces the illusion of having to make a lot of choices which overwhelms people. Much better to just let people choose a small subset of trees lets say four of them and provide them with stock benefits for their tree choice, as these are really the only decisions people are actually making.

At the very least they should allow you to click on the nodes you actually want at the bottom of the tree and then let the computer fill in the garbage at the top of the tree in the most point efficient manner possible.

Further you are utterly failing to make the node choices themselves feel like they are making an impact or difference. (your stated design goal) No single node in any tree changes the way your game play feels. It is only when taking nodes in bunches that you can actually tell any difference. No one can feel a sub 1% improvement to their mech.

Also as many others have voiced in other threads the trees feel awful to use due to their design in addition to their layout. Would it kill you to give me a point tally so i know how many points i have spent or a point count down so i know how many more nodes I can acquire before i hit 91? I mean i want to know who close i am getting to 91 and how many points i have left as I am kitting out my mech, but it doesn't tell me that easily in the skill screen, It won't even tell me how many points i am proposing to spend in a given tree these things only populate after the points get locked in, or almost locked in.

At the top of the screen each section has a total amount of points selected. On the right it shows your SP count out of 91. It's not super intuitive, and it took me a bit of looking to find the section tally, but it does provide that information.

Honestly, everything you stated could be solved in a linear tree. Easy to follow, click the bottom of the line to fill it out completely, and you don't have to skip through pointless nodes to get to the stuff you value.

Here is an example of how the sensor tree could look linear. If the costs for some of branches is too high or too low it's a pretty simple thing to add or reduce the total number of nodes.

[Mycroft000]

Ruar, on 27 April 2017 - 10:06 AM, said:

IMG

This seems completely reasonable to me. I'm already spending 19 Nodes in the PTS system, this would reduce it to 16 Nodes, but it would lead to more meaningful choices. By spending 19 Nodes on PTS I'm getting 6 Modules worth of benefits some to full Module effect, others to lesser degrees, but the effect is still provided. The version illustrated above reduces my access to a multitude of effects that I get because I AM GOING TO GET Radar Dep AND Seismic in almost all of my mechs. This means that anyone who is running Radar Dep against me isn't going to see a great effect because out of 3.5 seconds of available Target Decay I'm forced to take 2.1 seconds of Target Decay to get to Radar Dep. I don't see how this is accomplishing a desired effect.

[Malrock]

Ruar, on 27 April 2017 - 10:06 AM, said:

At the top of the screen each section has a total amount of points selected. On the right it shows your SP count out of 91. It's not super intuitive, and it took me a bit of looking to find the section tally, but it does provide that information.

Honestly, everything you stated could be solved in a linear tree. Easy to follow, click the bottom of the line to fill it out completely, and you don't have to skip through pointless nodes to get to the stuff you value.

Here is an example of how the sensor tree could look linear. If the costs for some of branches is too high or too low it's a pretty simple thing to add or reduce the total number of nodes.

Not everything would be solved by linear trees... although many items could be solved, the granularity of the nodes would still be a problem and the overwhelming amount of choice could still be an issue even in a linear style tree.. to fix the granularity problem they would have to cut the number of nodes by at least half and then double the benefits each node provides at a minimum to get to anywhere approaching viable.

[Ruar]

So I'm on test and noticing that the sub sections do not tally your total points in that area as you go. The nodes active is displayed, but not how much you've spent in each section. Sorry about that.

[Malrock]

Ruar, on 27 April 2017 - 10:46 AM, said:

So I'm on test and noticing that the sub sections do not tally your total points in that area as you go. The nodes active is displayed, but not how much you've spent in each section. Sorry about that.

Yup it is only once you have confirmed/locked in the points that you find out how many you put into an area.