7 replies to this topic

[Scyther]

The skill tree is an important step for MWO, and should have a minimum of two goals:

1) It shouldn't make things harder/less interesting for existing players.
2) It shouldn't be unwelcoming/overwhelming to new players.

A number of other goals could/should be met (make the game more fun/interesting, address mech balance issues, promote voluntary spending on the players part, etc.) but if the above two aren't met then the other issues won't actually matter.

With that in mind let's compare the existing skill tree with the version on PTS2 currently (ST2), to assess the basic impact it will have on new/existing players. Observations/summary will follow the skill comparison.

Existing Tree:

Tier 1 - Basic (listed in the order they might typically be acquired, Elite/X2 values in brackets)

Spoiler

750 XP - Cool Run - Increase Heat Dissipation by 7.5% (15%)

1,000XP - Heat Containment - Max Heat Threshold before shutdown +10% (20%)

1,500XP - Hard Brake - Increase Mech deceleration by 7.5% (15%)

1,000XP - Kinetic Burst - Increase Mech acceleration by 7.5% (15%)

2,500XP - Twist Speed - Increase torso twist speed by 2.5% (5%)

2,500XP - Twist X - Increase torso twist angle by 2.5% (5%)

3,500XP - Anchor Turn - Increase Mech turn rate by 2.5% (5%)

1,500XP - Arm Reflex - Increase arm speed by 2.5% (5%)
-----------
14,250 XP Required

Note: There has been some controversy over time as to whether some of these abilities even work/are useful, or whether a 2.5% / 5% increase is meaningful even if it does work.

Tier 2 - Elite

Spoiler

8,500XP - Spead Tweak - Increase Mech speed by 7.5%

4,000XP - Quick Ignition - StartUp/ShutDown 33% faster

3,000XP - Fast Fire - Weapon Cooldown rate +5%

6,000XP - PinPoint - Weapons converge 15% faster
-----------
21,500 XP Required

Note: Completing Tier 2 unlocks X2 multiplier for Tier 1 skills. Pinpoint has been useless for years and represents a 6K XP tax to Elite your mech.

Tier 3 - Mastery
Not covered as it isn't directly replaced in Skill Tree 2 (ST2).

Let's take a fairly typical Mech, the Hunchback 4H. We will duplicate the effects of the existing skill tree and see what that might involve for new/existing players. Given the design of ST2 we can't simply select the same effects/bonuses, we instead unlock a path of nodes which sums up into the desired bonuses.

I will unlock a minimal path, uncovering mostly 'good' bonuses along the way and avoiding useless/unneeded ones.


Tier 1 Basic: Cool Run + Heat Containment - Operations Tree

Spoiler

-Quick Ignition 1-7% -Speed Retention 1-10% -Hill Climb 1-5% -Heat Containment 2-3%
-Cool Run 1-2% -Hill Climb 2-5% -Cool Run 3-2% -Improved Gyro 3-17.5%
-Heat Containment 1-3% -Improved Gyro 2-17.5% -Heat Containment 3-3%
-Cool Run 2-2% -Quick Ignition 4-7% -Speed Retention 3-10% -Quick Ignition 5-7%
-Cool Run 4-2% (for a total of 8%) -Heat Containment 5-3% (total of 12%)
-----------
13,600 XP Required, 17 nodes unlocked
765,000 C-Bills Required

Note: We unlock some other portions of Basic and even Elite tier along the way. However to match two simple skills from the existing tree (two clicks, total 1,750XP and 0 C-bills), we spent almost as much XP as the entire Tier 1-Basic, three-quarters of a million C-Bills, and ventured into a somewhat clunky and non-transparent giant skill tree to make 17 node selections.

Tier 1 Basic: Hard Brake / Kinetic Burst - Mobility Tree

Spoiler

-Kinetic Burst 1-5% -Torso Pitch 1-2% -Hard Brake 1-5% -Kinetic Burst 2-5% (total 10%)
-Hard Brake 3-5% (total 10%)
-----------
17,600 XP Required, 22 nodes unlocked (total)
990,000 C-Bills Required

Note: The next two unlocks takes us above the XP requirements for all of Tier 1 Basic, plus an extra million CB. However we have gained small bonuses in Brake/Accel, Heat Containment and a few other useful areas.

Tier 1 Basic: Twist Speed / Twist X / Anchor Turn- Mobility Tree

Spoiler

-Torso Yaw 1-2% -Torso Pitch 2-2% -Torso Yaw 3-2% (4% total)
-Hard Brake 2-5% (Elite level) -Torso Speed 3-5% (Elite level) -Arm Pitch 2-6%
-Anchor Turn 1-5% (Elite level)
-----------
23,200 XP Required, 29 nodes unlocked
1,305,000 C-Bills Required

Note: Arm Reflex does not exist in ST2, but Arm Pitch has shown up instead. We have roughly duplicated existing Tier 1 Basic Skills, at the cost of an extra 8,950 XP (63% more XP), 1.3 million C-Bills, and 29 complex skill choices vs. 8 simple ones. On the plus side we have picked up some additional nodes and raised a few skills to their Elite (X2) levels.

Tier 2 Elite: Speed Tweak (Mobility Tree) + Quick Ignition (Operations Tree)

Spoiler

-Torso Pitch 4-2% -Hard Brake 5-5% -Anchor Turn 4-5% -Arm Pitch 5-6%
-Speed Tweak 2-1.5% -Anchor Turn 5-5% -Speed Tweak 4-1.5% -Speed Tweak 5-1.5%
-Torso Pitch 3-2% -Torso Pitch 5-2% -Anchor Turn 3-5% -Arm Pitch 4-6%
-Speed Tweak 1-1.5% -Torso Speed 5-5% -Speed Tweak 3-1.5% (7.5% total)
-Quick Ignition 2-7% -Quick Ignition 3-7% (35% total with unlocks from Cool Run)
-----------
36,800 XP Required, 46 nodes unlocked
2,070,000 C-Bills Required

Note: We have now surpassed the total XP requirements for both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Elite, added in 2 million C-bills, and unlocked 46 skill nodes vs. 10 in existing system. However we have gained substantial increases in Hard Brake, Torso Speed and Anchor Turn beyond what is possible in current skill lab.

Tier 2 Elite: Fast Fire - FirePower Tree, and maxing Cool Run/Heat Containment (Operations)

Spoiler

-Range 1-1.5% -Laser Duration 1-1.5% -LaserDur 2-1.5% -Range 3 1.5%
-Cooldown 2-0.9%
-LaserDur 3-1.5% -Cooldown 3-0.9% -Cooldown 4-0.9% -Heat Generation 1-1%
-LaserDur 5-1.5% -Cooldown 6-0.9% -Cooldown 9-0.9% (for a total of 4.5%)
-Cool Run 5-2% (10% total) -Hill Climb 3-5% -Heat Containment 4-3% (15% total)
-----------
48,800 XP required, 61 nodes unlocked
2,745,000 C-Bills required

Note: The 6,000 XP 'Elite Tax' from Tier 2-Pinpoint is gone, however we still require 13,050 more XP to duplicate current Tier 1 and 2 skills (37% more XP), as well as tossing an additional 2.7 million C-Bills into the mix. I stopped at 4.5% for the Fast Fire/Cooldown replacement because frankly, only a crazy person would have made those nodes 0.9% instead of 1%.

Issues Raised by Skill Tree 2 (ST2)

Spoiler

This is my first foray onto PTS/ST2. I am sure other players have already figured these things out. The issues this experiment raised for me are:

-Time and Cost per mech: for new players, or existing players who may end up levelling mechs without GSP, ST2 represents roughly a 25-40% 'time and C-bill tax' over the current average per mech (time in number of matches required to earn the XP needed).

-The 'Really New User' effect: a truly new user can earn 750 XP (1 match), no C-Bills, use 1 click on a compact screen and boom, 7.5% Heat Dissipation (an important early skill). 1 more match, no C-Bills, 1 click, boom, 10% max heat threshold. A couple more matches, 2 more clicks, 7.5% Accel/Decel boost. These are all early, fast, noticeable, cheap, easily understood bonuses for a new player. Often that is enough to get them hooked on the upgrade path. Replace that with a tl'dr 'Wall of Skill Nodes' with higher cost/lower payoff and you may well lose that potential new recruit.

-Skill Node Ambiguity/Hidden Costs: unlocking skills such as Speed Retention, Hill Climb, Improved Gyro, and Arm Pitch have me wondering. Current mechs have a default 50% speed when legged. Skill nodes for Speed Retention; does that mean if I don't buy any, I can't move when legged? If I buy 2/20%, do I only move at 20% speed when legged? Or if I buy 2 Speed Retention nodes can I now move at 70% max speed when legged, with the 50kph cap? It's hard to tell what I am buying here. The same for Hill Climb, Improved Gyro and Arm Pitch. Am I adding to the mechs baseline or am I buying from a starting point of zero?

-Arm Pitch/Reflex: why is Arm Pitch even a thing? Did arms not go up and down before? Is Arm Reflex/Speed limited by anything now? Does Arm Pitch affect Arm Speed? What am I getting here?

-Skill Caps: Cool Run maxed at 15% before with X2 Efficiency, now seems capped at 10%. Heat Containment reached 20% with X2, now capped at 15%. Which other skills/abilities are capped at lower levels than before?

-Torso Pitch Speed: I have Torso Speed nodes, with text that says they affect Torso Yaw speed, however my Torso Pitch also has a degrees/second limit in mech info. Is this also affected?

-A small thing, but the 'Current Mech Enhancements' window blocks out a sizeable portion of the 'Auxiliary' tree heading, the right side scroll arrow, and some of the skill node window. It should be draggable/movable, or at least moved an inch lower. I realize it can be minimized but if I want to see the info it shouldn't be blocking out other relevant screen space.

Observations

I am interested in the possibilities offered by something like the skill tree. I would be happy to customize my mech to a greater degree and choose abilities which more closely suit my playstyle.

I believe taking an already-difficult and hard to master game like MWO and adding even more complexity/time sink to it would be a backwards step. Particularly increasing the time, XP and C-Bill sinks per mech posed to new players seems unwise. On the other hand, we have the elimination of the 3-mech rule so skilling up a single mech variant will actually be faster, skilling up 2 mechs of the same type about the same, and skilling up 3 or more mechs of the same chassis will be slower and more expensive. Which just makes selling 'mech packs' that much trickier.

I was concerned that it took 61 of my 91 nodes to replicate current basic/elite skills, before counting anything for modules/consumables. Hopefully 30 nodes remaining represents a fair bit of flexibility.

Finally, I spent 57 minutes in the skill tree setting up that one mech. Granted, it was my first one, and I was taking some notes. Even so I suspect ST2 will take significant time away from actually playing matches, with a questionable return on entertainment value (since so much of it is simply replicating what is done now on a single screen with 13 choices and a few clicks).

I like the way ST2 is heading but think it could definitely use some trimming and some new-player-friendly adjustments.

[Insanity09]

Very well put together post, I applaud you MadBadger.

Keeping things simple, streamlined, and easy to understand has great value.
Clear and meaningful choices are helpful.

I think the numbers clearly showed that the two basic design goals you mentioned at the start are not being met.
In addition to pushing away new(er) players, I also would suggest that many more long-term players might be turned off by this.

[the sixth tier]

*i saw that you addressed that the 3-mech rule is gone, but i don't think you addressed how that would nullify the extra xp and c-bill cost you mentioned.* won't not having to fully basic 2 other variants more than make up for the few million c-bills and extra xp? if a new player hasn't bought more bays yet, trying to get a 'mech for each weight class mastered requires a complicated *and costly* process of buying/selling mechs multiple times to basic and later elite them just to master the one they want to use.

Edited by the sixth tier, 29 April 2017 - 11:54 AM.

[Scyther]

It is true that the 3-mech rule removal will actually speed up levelling/skilling a single mech, assuming you are only skilling up one mech of that variant.

For people buying a Mastery pack, Mech Pack, various other packages, or who simply want 2 or more mechs of the same chassis because they like them, they want different loadouts, or for CW drop decks, the extra penalty is still there. And of course for 'new' players working on their first mech or two, that big difference between a 750 or 1500 XP early skill with no C-Bill cost and noticeable impact (Cool Run, Heat Containment, Kinetic Burst, Hard Brake) vs '1.5%' nodes for 800XP and 45,000 C-Bills is still there.

To put it in hours/matches terms, I looked at my long term averages. I'm no hotshot player and I don't often play fully-geared or levelled mechs (much like a new player), so my XP per battle average is 1,246. Call it 1,000 or even 1,200 XP per battle for newer players. My C-Bills per battle are 121,573. (This is with me playing on Premium about half the time, if the stats page doesn't account for that). So 100K to 120K per battle for a decent but newer player.

To 'Basic' a single mech under the new skill tree takes roughly 21 matches vs. 12 for the current Basic. To 'Elite' it takes roughly 44 matches vs 32 for current Elite. To Elite 3 mechs currently is 96 matches. If you are working on 1 mech only, that's a nice savings (half the matches to elite 1 mech vs eliting 3). If you are working 2 mech variants, you're about equal. If you for whatever reason are eliting 3 mech variants, it now takes 132 matches vs 96. So depending on how many mech variants you want you go from half the time (but more C-Bills), to similar time (but quite a few more C-Bills) to 3 variants taking almost 40% longer and costing an extra 8 million C-Bills.

These numbers aren't way out of line, but they do represent quite significant changes from the current system (both in potential saved matches and potential extra costs). For new players, or players not oozing GSP from the refund, I think the extra costs may turn out to be more significant than the savings.

[Kozmik]

Well done Mad Badger -- I agree with all of the points you have made here!

[the sixth tier]

i think it depends on the weight class, too, cost-wise. if you want a marauder you can just buy the one instead of 3 (over 17 million more c-bills). if you're down to your last bay and want to master something new you're buying all 3 twice if it's your first 'mech in that weight class. what i mean is that the 2.7 million is pretty much a light before you buy the equipment. the price of a kdk-3, stock, covers that 6 times.

i sort-of agree on the packs. it's the same in that you can get all the variants with the default equipment. really the same thing. we're just not forced to skill all of them, so there may be a perceived value loss. if people want one 'mech for mc, they can buy it, or they can get a discount on all the variants if they want them. makes sense in my brain.

i think that's like arguing that the rule of three should stay because it might discourage people from buying hundreds of bays, though.

[Linkin]

This is great, thank you!

[ClanBondsman]

I am a new player.. I started when tuka3 event started.
I am not playing this game now due to the needlessly complicated and confusing skill tree.
I loved the old master tier system but would suggest a few improvments to both help new and old players alike.. ie when you master tier a mech you then get an option to use cbills and accumulated mech specific XP to customize your mech tier nodes.. ie 750 XP - Cool Run - Increase Heat Dissipation by 7.5% (15%) that one example you could instead change to 3,000XP - Fast Fire - Weapon Cooldown rate +5% as example if you had good heat dissipation already and wanted faster weapon cooldowns.
This should have some kind of cap obviously to make for more balanced play.
However I feel this uncomplicated system would be new player friendly and still offer more experienced players customization that they are seeking.
With new skill tree I feel the mechs are far more unbalanced and the game is no longer fun to play.
There is not tutorial video to explain skill tree or what the values mean, the mech does not play as well as before the skill tree.
Skill tree makes all the mechs seem the same ie very cookie cutter although it offers more perceived options in reality it just makes the players more likely to take the same skill setup for every mech they play.
To me every mech should have a specific role or play style and players then choose the mech for the playstyle they want.. then with master tier nodes can customize to fit them.. currently I feel the game is very unbalanced and has gone backwards in terms of development.
As noted by several people this game has a High learning curve and is not so much new player friendly the new skill tree only furthers this and will most likely drive off a lot of new players.
I myself will not be playing MWO until they balance the skill tree/revert to the old system/ or do something to make it new player friendly.
I was having fun and learning until new skill tree went LIVE.. I tried it.. did not like it one bit and refuse to play MWO until something is done with skill tree.

Edited by ClanBondsman, 19 May 2017 - 09:45 AM.