140 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Mister Blastman, on 28 April 2017 - 03:40 PM, said:

I wouldn't mind them reworking the skill tree itself. You make a good point, Mischief, we shouldn't need to grab useless crap to get the good stuff, as it defeats the purpose of targeted builds.

If some of us want our 'mechs to stub their toes on rocks in order to armor up, let us. When that robit is stuck in the bottom of a canyon, much good that armor will do when they can't move to cover.

The skill tree should be about tradeoffs, not forced normalcy. There's too much emphasis on requiring players to use skills they don't want in order to get the stuff they do.

So PGI can do two different things:
1. They can change the skill tree and make it better.
2. They can make the useless skills far more valuable. Make them do something worthwhile.

Banshee has only torso weapons. Talk about a mech screwed by the new system; got to buy arm quirks (with no value) and then because it's mixed energy and ballistics you're not able to get the same value of weapon + cooldown/heat gen quirks as someone who just boats lasers or ballistics.

Having played on the PTS and running around on Canyon I probably would give up a small amount of heat management or even some speed on some mechs for some hill climbing. On my ACH I might even give up some mobility for sensor quirks because with the new changes lights are way more mobile already. Maybe even more armor; those arms just fall off. However in the current PTS I can't do that. I'd have to give up a huge swath of the most useful general quirks in those fields to get 1 or 2 pts of the things I'd want under defense or sensors.

As such it's not a real choice. It should be.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I like the new tree. It lets me choose how to level my Mechs instead of them just getting "betterized" and made exactly equal to every other players' Mechs.

Hey, let's face it - Some people want to normalize every mech in the game, and others want the skill tree. OP wants to normalize everything instead of giving choice.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 28 April 2017 - 03:51 PM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Prosperity Park, on 28 April 2017 - 03:50 PM, said:

Hey, let's face it - Some people want to normalize every mech in the game, and others want the skill tree. OP wants to normalize everything instead of giving choice.

Actually PP, while I disagree with Mischief on much of this, his point is not to normalize everything. It's to make it easier, perhaps too easy, to hyper-specialize because he wants to keep closer to the current baseline of performance than he would have to trade off for those specializations.

It's a significantly different argument.

[Ted Wayz]

FupDup, on 28 April 2017 - 11:16 AM, said:

They also need to ditch their fixation on the tangled web mess structure. The whole thing could be so much more "lean" and smooth to navigate if our SP pool was cut in half and the number of nodes was cut in half, with each node giving twice the value.

Or it could be much leaner if you only had to skill one tree that represented your pilot and it applied to all mechs, not a separate tree for each goddamn mech.

I can drive a thousand models of cars pretty effectively without having to "master" each one. Your mastery with a mech comes from actually playing the game.

[Shifty McSwift]

Ted Wayz, on 28 April 2017 - 04:02 PM, said:

Or it could be much leaner if you only had to skill one tree that represented your pilot and it applied to all mechs, not a separate tree for each goddamn mech.

I can drive a thousand models of cars pretty effectively without having to "master" each one. Your mastery with a mech comes from actually playing the game.

Yeah if it were up to me that is how I would do it, and have the pilot skill tree as a series of comparable choices for increasing performance rather than containing such critical upgrades as seismic sensors and radar dep, which would instead be like ECM or JJs.

I made a topic about this asking for peoples opinions, where were you!?! jks

[Ultimax]

VanillaG, on 28 April 2017 - 02:10 PM, said:

There are two major flaws with his design. The first it assumes that all nodes are of equal value, which in the current system is not the case. Some nodes are more valuable but their nature and with the skill tree we have right now you have to pay extra for them because they are at the bottom of the tree. All this does is promote cookie cutter builds because you don't have to invest more to get the max benefit.

1) It's a massively better start than ANYTHING PGI has put forward.
2) If you don't think PGI's will skill will be "solved" by meta players followed by a cookie cutter build template for 90% of good builds then you don't understand this game or it's top end players.

VanillaG, on 28 April 2017 - 02:10 PM, said:

The second flaw is the per weapon tree. It encourages boating early in the game because it takes more XP to unlock different weapons and discourages experimentation because you need to grind out each weapon type.

You didn't read it. You are commenting and you did not read it.


Your statement clearly shows you have no idea what you are talking about - specifically for not reading it.

Go back and read it, I won't invest time with a response otherwise. I'm not here to hold you hand.

[Shifty McSwift]

But the idea of customising your mech further with experience is cool too, it makes you feel a bit like you have driven the thing and repaired it so often that you can customize its output a bit.

[Pjwned]

I would actually agree with nuking the skill tree, but that's because I'd prefer to see it completely removed rather than reverting it to what we have right now on live.

If it's a choice between the years old, outdated piece of crap "skill tree" we have right now on live and the new skill tree, I'd take the new skill tree.

As far as the "tangled web mess" I'm not a fan of it either, and I do think it's dumb to try to take steps to counter "min-maxing" even though a significant part of the mech lab in the first place is to customize your mechs as best as you can, which results in a pretty lame double standard if you're not hindered by the mech lab but you are hindered by the skill tree, but on the other hand if the anti min-max measures affect everybody equally then it's more or less acceptable to me even though I think that's a really stupid way of handling the skill tree.

[Shifty McSwift]

Pjwned, on 28 April 2017 - 04:09 PM, said:

I would actually agree with nuking the skill tree, but that's because I'd prefer to see it completely removed rather than reverting it to what we have right now on live.

If it's a choice between the years old, outdated piece of crap "skill tree" we have right now on live and the new skill tree, I'd take the new skill tree.

See I am more inclined to agree with that, but the OP means to keep the current live module system, not nuke it all, unless I am mistaken. I agree the new skill system provides more options than the module system, or is better in its own way. The module system was far from dynamic, it was mostly radar dep, seismic sensors and maybe 360 retention for specific missile builds, then just upgrade your weapons a bit.

[Ace Selin]

Ultimax, on 28 April 2017 - 12:11 PM, said:

There are also WAY MORE empty choices than there are now - and I really don't want to click 91 nodes per mech.

This system all but guarantees that I will be abandoning more than half of my collection of mechs - because I really have better things to do in my life then click my way through 18,000 freaking nodes.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 28 April 2017 - 03:47 PM, said:

On my ACH I might even give up some mobility for sensor quirks because with the new changes lights are way more mobile already.

No, the new changes nerfed the agility of lights, turn rate is pretty important just like accel/decel is.

[I_AM_ZUUL]

Prosperity Park, on 28 April 2017 - 03:50 PM, said:

I like the new tree. It lets me choose how to level my Mechs instead of them just getting "betterized" and made exactly equal to every other players' Mechs.

Hey, let's face it - Some people want to normalize every mech in the game, and others want the skill tree. OP wants to normalize everything instead of giving choice.

Lets face it... you could not cheer more for this pile of garbage with more inane points if you were Russ alt account

[MischiefSC]

Prosperity Park, on 28 April 2017 - 03:50 PM, said:

I like the new tree. It lets me choose how to level my Mechs instead of them just getting "betterized" and made exactly equal to every other players' Mechs.

Hey, let's face it - Some people want to normalize every mech in the game, and others want the skill tree. OP wants to normalize everything instead of giving choice.

No. That is the exactly the OPPOSITE of what I want. I want actual choices that are different than what I already have when building a mech - I can make a terrible mech. I have 'the choice' to put a LB5X, Streak 4, ERLL and an ERSL on a Kit Fox with no ECM or AMS or anything. I can make a lot of terrible, stupid choices in building mechs. I could put 1 medium laser in a Spider, a STD engine, no endo or FF and fill the rest, with no jjs, with single heatsinks.

Those are not choices. They are bad decisions I'm allowed to make but they're not real choices. That's what the new skill tree represents.

You already have a lot of ways to make bad choices. More ways to make bad choices isn't anything of any value.

What I'm asking for is the ability to make worthwhile choices. I want a skill tree that actually lets me trade off one thing of value for another and end up with more than one build that's useful. I want a skill tree that gives me more useful tradeoffs; as I've said in every single post. Let me trade 1% Speed Tweak for 7.5% Hill Climb. Not require me to get full Hill Climb to get more than 1/2 of Speed Tweak and have to max Speed Tweak to get the last half of Cool Running and having to get Arm Pitch to get any of it.

Make sense? The new Skill Tree *forces* normalization to not be at a huge advantage because *not* getting things like Cool Running and Speed Tweak so you can get anything *other* than the normalized build means you're playing what would, in live, equate to a mech without basics against someone with Elites just so you can get a 1/2 power Radar Derp module. That's not choices, that's letting people be even more bad with building mechs than they are.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 28 April 2017 - 04:35 PM, said:

No, the new changes nerfed the agility of lights, turn rate is pretty important just like accel/decel is.

Didn't play any lights on the PTS. I was just hoping that there were some tradeoffs to be made for lights to get sensor stuff. Could probably neglect most the weapon trees on the ACH; 5% range boost on SPLs really isn't worth a lot, same with the laser burn duration. However range is so short and burn already so short that a few % lost wouldn't matter much.

Ironically the ACH is an example of a mech that really does get value out of arm mobility quirks. That you'd have to get 'velocity' and ballistic ammo quirks just to get enough range quirks to be relevant for SPLs on it is just another example of how the new Skill Tree fails to give worthwhile choices.

[Alteran]

I personally want to see any kind of skill tree nuked. Give us just stock mechs and modules to 'enhance' our Mechs.

Skill trees only WoW'ify things and really don't do anything as Meta's are formed and everyone begins to shift towards it.

All this is going to do is create specific Meta's and these boards will be filled with nerf this and buff that and you're just going to be right where you are now... scratching your heads trying to figure out how to re-re-re-balance (perhaps there is a 4th RE needed?) things.

Stop the insanity of all this and just get rid of it all.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 28 April 2017 - 05:04 PM, said:

Didn't play any lights on the PTS. I was just hoping that there were some tradeoffs to be made for lights to get sensor stuff. Could probably neglect most the weapon trees on the ACH; 5% range boost on SPLs really isn't worth a lot, same with the laser burn duration. However range is so short and burn already so short that a few % lost wouldn't matter much.

Ironically the ACH is an example of a mech that really does get value out of arm mobility quirks. That you'd have to get 'velocity' and ballistic ammo quirks just to get enough range quirks to be relevant for SPLs on it is just another example of how the new Skill Tree fails to give worthwhile choices.

It really depends on the Light and the weapons payload whether you neglect weapons or not.

Like, if you are running a Locust with MedLas poke, there are huge benefits for maximizing your laser duration and squeezing in as many heat-gen nodes as you can without purchasing anything that doesn't apply to the 'Mech. There is zero point to spending anything in durability because you've got so few hit-points already, and you'll have left-overs to spend on sensors clear down to 60% Radar Dep and +100 Seismic. And that's after maximizing all the Operations and Agility stuff that matters as well as getting two Cool-shots in. Similar story if you are running a missile boat; the SRM crit damage and Missile Rack are actually worth it. Missile spread, not so much.

I don't think range quirks on Smalls under 20% are useful anyway. Even without filler nodes, I don't think it's a good investment to spend 10 nodes for 10% range that grants you a mere 11-17 meters when the human element and chaos of battle lets you use your speed to make that up easily. We only bother with them on Live because what the hell else are we going to do with those weapon module slots?

[Bishop Steiner]

Alteran, on 28 April 2017 - 05:19 PM, said:

I personally want to see any kind of skill tree nuked. Give us just stock mechs and modules to 'enhance' our Mechs.

Skill trees only WoW'ify things and really don't do anything as Meta's are formed and everyone begins to shift towards it.

All this is going to do is create specific Meta's and these boards will be filled with nerf this and buff that and you're just going to be right where you are now... scratching your heads trying to figure out how to re-re-re-balance (perhaps there is a 4th RE needed?) things.

Stop the insanity of all this and just get rid of it all.

Tell you what...I'll do you one better.....

Let's get rid of the Skill Tree... and the lame *** crutch modules while we are at it, since neither "have any place in mechwarrior".

[Y E O N N E]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 April 2017 - 05:34 PM, said:

Tell you what...I'll do you one better.....

Let's get rid of the Skill Tree... and the lame *** crutch modules while we are at it, since neither "have any place in mechwarrior".

That is not unreasonable.

[Bishop Steiner]

Yeonne Greene, on 28 April 2017 - 05:35 PM, said:

That is not unreasonable.

It's always been my preference, truth to tell, I just know that this is the system they are going to push thru.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 April 2017 - 05:36 PM, said:

It's always been my preference, truth to tell, I just know that this is the system they are going to push thru.

Yup, ST is coming, no doubting that.

Just hoping they can make some solid tweaks to get it better aligned with their own declared intent, keep it usable etc.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

MischiefSC, on 28 April 2017 - 05:04 PM, said:

Didn't play any lights on the PTS. I was just hoping that there were some tradeoffs to be made for lights to get sensor stuff.

Even without getting weapon quirks, it is hard to justify going down that path.