33 replies to this topic

[smokefield]

@ PGI with regards from people who actually play your game :

lets start with someone who actually made an entirely better skill tree :

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It makes me sad seeing people reference my mock-up in twitch chat and on the forums/reddit. Others are suggesting similar ideas. I don't think PGI ever fully understood what I was saying in the video. That is, I think they glossed over it and got the "general picture" without grasping the meaning. I can imagine them doing just that: watching the video while half paying attention and not really listening. Because dafuq does this kid know. He's only been playing our game for 5 years and has spent an incredible amount of time understanding everything to do with the game. Him and his silly mock-ups.

And every-time I think of it, I imagine Paul and his childish remarks on discord regarding it.
"his tree is so f'd up it isn't funny"
"diminishing returns on a linear system says take the first and skip the rest"
"there is no hard choices in his trees... it's pick the best of what you want"
"headdesk"

This just screams to me that Paul has no ******* clue what was even being communicated, meanwhile the idea has a 94% positive rating on Reddit and very few issues brought up by other players (mostly just clarifications than actual issues).

Regardless of what I do now, I just picture Paul thinking these sort of things and clearly not seeing the point of anything the community suggests. It's also evident from the previous implementations like Energy Draw and InfoTech. He has no clue and like to believe he knows all because he is the "professional". It's such ********. I'm not an engineer, but I do more engineering work than half the engineers I know. Does that mean I don't know wtf i'm talking about? no, it surely doesn't. I guess this is a little different because I have no game developement experience. However, one doesn't need game dev experience to know what would be best for the game in terms of a balancing and experience system. I might not know how to code it, but 5 years playing the game and sciencing the **** out of it I can surely tell you what would be good/bad to do within the game. And at the very least, as a player/customer, I can tell you how much I would prefer one system over another.

and people who support it and actually play this game :

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Post that on the official forums.

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With the billionth PTS and another random wall of text, I still don't have the slightest clue why the **** we need this skill tree.
Nothing added, nothing solved, extreme risk of failure. Pressing matters outside PGI'S ivory tower are Gyr, Kodiak, Marauder. I really WANT to enjoy playing MWO competitive again, but I cannot motivate myself looking at the unbelievable monoculture this mess turned into. Even watching competetive games is super boring, ooooh look we got max Kodiak max Gyr on Team A, and ooooh, max Kodiak max Gyr on Team B WHAT A ******* COINCIDENCE (yea I dont watch div B- spuds that create the fake perception brawling is a thing). Without an active comp scene (or moddability), this game's not gonna be around for long.

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It's a bit of a long read but this skill tree idea is so much better than the one PGI has that it's almost a crime.

and many others :

https://mwomercs.com...p-and-proposal/

[Alan Davion]

Not to rain on your parade, but PGI have flatly rejected any player proposed skill web simply for the fact that all player proposed trees are linear in some fashion, and for some reason they think that makes them easily min/maxed which they are trying, and failing to quash with their overly complex skill webs.

PGI never has and never will be able to grasp the golden rule of "keep it simple stupid", at least not until Russ stops trying to micro manage everything.

[smokefield]

yeah true. but since this seems to be their only game that makes them money at the moment (correct me if i am wrong) one would think they are actually trying to make it better and attract more players, not the opposite.

[Alan Davion]

At the moment MWO is it, and lord only knows what percentage of money they make off MWO gets funneled into MW5.

They keep up this s**t for much longer though and they won't be making any money on MWO, that's for damn sure.

A lot of people have pretty much nailed the problem down lately. Russ needs to stop micromanaging every little f***ing thing, and hire a creative director that actually knows what the f*** they're doing.

[Davegt27]

I think people don't realize that PGI already has a skill tree
They are not asking us to come up with another idea

They just want us to do some bug testing

[smokefield]

true. problem is that the skill tree itself is a bug.

..and some people came with a better solution.

Edited by smokefield, 30 April 2017 - 09:57 AM.

[smokefield]

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Kubernetes, on 30 April 2017 - 04:46 PM, said:

Or at least postpone it until it actually makes sense. Or simply adopt So1ahma's suggested tree.

I don't get it, is there some world-shattering event that's about to happen and PGI must race to release the skill tree before it drops? We've gone years with a crippled skill tree, and suddenly it's NOW NOW NOW GOTTADOITNOW? The current iteration of the tree sucks. I'm honestly dreading it because I'll probably quit playing. I've got a huge list of games I've put off playing in favor of MWO, and those titles are looking more and more appealing the closer we get to SkillTreemageddon.

just adding more people quotes that i am reading through endless posts asking for a fix to this nonsense

[Khobai]

I feel one of the biggest problems is that we were promised a unique skill tree for every variant. Quirks could be removed from the game and migrated into the unique skill trees for each variant. Every mech would be different, have a focused role based on its skill tree, and weaker/stronger mechs could be fine tuned by what skills they got.

But instead we ended up losing quirks that make mechs different and getting a generic skill tree that makes all mechs more similar.

[smokefield]

tell pgi that. customization ? diversity ? having fun in mechlab ? finding that particular loadout for you ? neah. just pick the best chassis based on hitboxes, min-max it based on the skill tree and there you have it...the new meta !

[C E Dwyer]

Davegt27, on 30 April 2017 - 09:45 AM, said:

I think people don't realize that PGI already has a skill tree
They are not asking us to come up with another idea

They just want us to do some bug testing

True but when the bug is a flaw, there are problems.

Now I'd rather have P.G.I's offering than anything I saw produced by the community, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with it.

It needs to be fixed and streamlined but it's what we're getting.

Whether it proves to be the train wreck some people are predicting, or it has minimal effect none of us can tell until it's live, but I don't think in it's current form the release is going to have a positive effect.

I guess when it arrives I'll see how it goes in a full environment.

[smokefield]

have you read and understood what solahma proposed ? and some others with very similar ideas ? ideas backed up by a lot of the players who actually play the game..contrary to pgi stuff, where i am sure you will not find a player above tier 3.... ???? do i need to say more ? are they the people who actually understand their game ? o.0

[Jep Jorgensson]

smokefield, on 30 April 2017 - 08:45 AM, said:

yeah true. but since this seems to be their only game that makes them money at the moment (correct me if i am wrong) one would think they are actually trying to make it better and attract more players, not the opposite.

You would think, but given their history, no. It is not that they are doing it intentionally, they are simply straight up incompetent starting with the top, just to be fair. There are so many examples of it and I do not really have the time to list them all now, but you can see just some of them here:

[smokefield]

yeah i saw this vid. and its sad. really really sad.

[Zigmund Freud]

Khobai, on 30 April 2017 - 11:53 PM, said:

I feel one of the biggest problems is that we were promised a unique skill tree for every variant. Quirks could be removed from the game and migrated into the unique skill trees for each variant. Every mech would be different, have a focused role based on its skill tree, and weaker/stronger mechs could be fine tuned by what skills they got.

But instead we ended up losing quirks that make mechs different and getting a generic skill tree that makes all mechs more similar.

THIS
THIS
THIS
And it's not that hard, i mean yea, you have to spend like entire day of several people brainstorming and adjusting/making trees for every chassis (not even every mech, every chassis would be enough). Probably you also have to launch one more week of PTS to adjust and balance the tree-quirks. But at least it would be worth it, it would be a change for better (removing quirks and making actually new skill tree, not just spreading what we allready have on overcomplicated 242-piece pazzle.

[MechaBattler]

They made a design decision and they're sticking to it. My theory is that they want players to feel like it's a progression system. Like how MMOs have rep grinds and what not. That's why they want this huge web of skill trees. Instead of making FP good for everyone and providing a reason to get loyalty points...

I don't mind it. I kinda enjoy it. Though I wish the firepower tree had more of an effect.

[Scyther]

So before a lot of people go jumping on the 'we were promised unique skill trees for each variant' bandwagon, please note after A LOT of reading and research into Skill Trees for the past week, nowhere did I see a promise or even an indication of 'unique skill trees per variant'.

A half-dozen people did say "I'm pretty sure I saw that somewhere", which is the 'net equivalent of "Oh yeah, I know a guy who knows a guy who said it's true".

They did mention each mech gets its own skill tree, which is correct. For every mech you have you can assign its own set of skill nodes, even if you own more than 1 copy of the same mech.

If you have any valid official source referring to 'unique skill trees by variant' or anything similar, please link it.

Also, players (including myself) are suggesting Skill Trees which are 'better for the players'. I've come to realize in all this research that PGI wants a Skill Tree that is 'better for the devs' and in some ways, in their opinion, 'better for the game'. They aren't looking for an easier, more streamlined tree where you can buy the nodes you want and only the nodes you want.

("Better for the devs" just means "It's already coded and tested and we don't have to spend time re-writing it")

The upcoming skill tree (what was in PTS2 is pretty much what we are getting, in a month or so) is not so terrible as many people are making out. It has its pros and cons, some things will be better some worse.

It's not productive at this point to keep saying "but I can make a better tree" or "this tree I have never actually looked at is terrible". We might as well start looking at the actual tree we are getting (https://kitlaan.gitlab.io/mwoskill/) and decide what we will DO with it when it arrives.

Edited by MadBadger, 01 May 2017 - 11:25 AM.

[smokefield]

pretty simple. min max a couple of meta mechs and play them till the game dies.


..or another skill tree arrives.

[VanillaG]

Khobai, on 30 April 2017 - 11:53 PM, said:

I feel one of the biggest problems is that we were promised a unique skill tree for every variant. Quirks could be removed from the game and migrated into the unique skill trees for each variant. Every mech would be different, have a focused role based on its skill tree, and weaker/stronger mechs could be fine tuned by what skills they got.

But instead we ended up losing quirks that make mechs different and getting a generic skill tree that makes all mechs more similar.

Everyone likes to rip on PGI for not being able to balance weapons and quirk mechs but they are somehow going to be able to come up unique trees for each mech variant that make them better? Who says that people want to play the role that PGI says that mech should have? If PGI wants to keep mechs in a particular role they can give it quirks like they do right now.

The current PTS skill tree implementation is a slight upgrade over what we have with the current skill tree plus modules. We have the granularity to choose when and what we want to upgrade as well as being to upgrade additional types of attributes. With the latest implementation of SP/GSP they have provided a simple mechanism that allows for refunding progress in the event that the trees undergo major changes.

With this framework in place PGI has laid the ground work to allow them to make major changes to the skill trees without the big disruption that refunds are causing now. Want to add in mech specific skill trees, refund SP for each mech and put in the new trees. Want to implement Solhama's skill tree instead, refund the SP for each mech and put in the new trees. While people may not love the current implementation, we need to get the new trees in place before they can tweaked later. People complaining about <my pet feature> should not hold up the implementation because ultimately PGI decides on what direction to take the product.

[Coolant]

smokefield, on 30 April 2017 - 03:35 AM, said:

@ PGI with regards from people who actually play your game :

I actually play the game and like PGI's skill tree

[oldradagast]

smokefield, on 01 May 2017 - 12:41 PM, said:

pretty simple. min max a couple of meta mechs and play them till the game dies.


..or another skill tree arrives.

You know this stupid skill maze is going to get redone regularly, just like quirks were changed regularly and without data or reasons. And you know PGI will find some excuse to not grant free respecs when that happens.

Expect the first major rewrite of the skill maze to show up sometime reasonably soon after new tech comes out (and probably breaks game balance); it'll be really funny since by then people will have burned off much of their free skill points gained from the module refund. Guess what - you get to grind those mechs up AGAIN!