60 replies to this topic

[Nesutizale]

Alan Davion, on 01 May 2017 - 03:22 AM, said:

Not according to Russ. The difference is he just wants you to experiment with different builds by buying 2-3 duplicates of the same mech.

I haven't made the calculation but isn't it
A] cheaper to just buy a handfull of other skills then buying 2-3 other mechs
b] isn't it just easier to figure out the equipment that you want and then just add the skills to it?

On both cases its a pretty strange assumtion that one would buy more / do more then he minimaly has to.
Thats why we have the cheapsteaks. The system allowed it so people used it. Assuming that they would do otherwise is...don't know...strange?

[Alan Davion]

SFC174, on 01 May 2017 - 04:10 AM, said:

This is precisely why they're pushing this skill tree change. For whatever reason, their internal metrics show that people aren't buying enough mechs. So they're hoping that despite removing the rule of 3, people will actually buy more mechs to mitigate the pain of respecing on the new tree.

Never forget that PGI is (supposedly) a business. And they wouldn't push forward with something that generally makes their game less fun to play (mobility nerfs, reload nerfs, forced nodes that no one wants, respec costs) if they didn't think it was going to help their bottom line. I too think they are in for a big surprise.

Yeah, people aren't buying more copies of specific mechs cause of Meta Mechs and their lists.

People take those as the "be all end all" of mechs, outfit their mechs like according to those builds and call it a day.

The skill web is only going to further exacerbate the problem.

[Nesutizale]

If people buy less mechs over time they should start thinking of the why?

My guess would be that the few people that we are allready have enough mechs. We can't play them all and fall most likely back to the ones we have. Maybe buying one for nostalgia or just to get something else.

I can tell that is at least for me the reason why I don't spend neither Cbills or € a lot on mechs and more on equipment.
Got more or less everything I want, why spend more?
Same goes with the new skill system. There is no reason to buy another mech, I have patience. No need to rush things...and even then. Its a game, there are more seriouse things I need my money for and my cbills...well I will figure out where they are most effective of use. When I can respec a mech with less cost then buying one I will do that.

[Bud Crue]

SFC174, on 01 May 2017 - 04:10 AM, said:

This is precisely why they're pushing this skill tree change. For whatever reason, their internal metrics show that people aren't buying enough mechs. So they're hoping that despite removing the rule of 3, people will actually buy more mechs to mitigate the pain of respecing on the new tree.

Never forget that PGI is (supposedly) a business. And they wouldn't push forward with something that generally makes their game less fun to play (mobility nerfs, reload nerfs, forced nodes that no one wants, respec costs) if they didn't think it was going to help their bottom line. I too think they are in for a big surprise.

I think you are giving them too much credit...or you are right, and PGI is doomed.

To wit:
These people claimed their internal metrics insisted that the Enforcer 5P was OP and needed a nerf. Their metrics have shown them that LBX toting Adders are OP. Their metrics demanded that Panthers and Wolfhounds needed bonus armor so as to be tanky and offset their being "under-performers" but that Firestarters are still a dominant light and performing just fine. Their use of metrics is what is causing them to believe that a random assortment of offensive nerfs to mechs that are already the worst in the game will magically lead to a better baseline of performance in the future...i.e. that making bad mechs worse makes bad mechs better; that is what PGI's use of metrics has lead them to conclude.

And you think they have metrics that suggest to them a more profitable path forward for their company?

Well if they interpret and apply such business directing metrics in the same way as they do their in game metrics, then PGI as a business is well and truly screwed.

[Cy Mitchell]

Navid A1, on 30 April 2017 - 10:51 PM, said:

All I see on the forums is complaining about cbill refunds (me included). I agree that PGI messed up with the refunds, shafting people with many modules. I myself am getting around 42000 GSP which will see no use till the end of this game.

The other more important issue however is the recurring XP cost for customization which can kill off playing with mechs and trying different builds.

With the way the skill tree branches are set up, a simple change in weapons costs huge amount of XP (upwards of 8K) every single time you need to try something. This is pretty much a big no to customization, even ignoring the fact that you can not save a certain tree unlock to switch to and from.
Its most punishing for more versatile mechs that can load up on a wide range of builds (e.g. Timber, marauder, etc...)


Its also a counter-intuitive concept. Because when a mech build works well, you are likely to keep the build which leads to having a huge stack of XP that you are not using. On the other hand, on mechs that you are experimenting with, this constant XP cost is going to hurt alot, dragging you across painful grinding, just to be able to try something.
The argument that you also needed to grind modules as well is also irrelevant, since you could use you already purchased modules on any mechs you wanted, completely free.


I think they could have increased the XP cost of unlocking nodes and at the same time made re-equipping an already unlocked node, free.


The thing that hurts the most is that PGI is well aware of what they are doing with punishing the player and rubbing it in the face act.
Its pretty evident by how many times them mention Free, Free, Free for un-equipping a node, Which is hilarious since there is nor case when a player just un-equips a node just for the hell of it.

You un-equip nodes to re-equip something else. So pls PGI, stop it!

In my opinion the respec cost is trivial. Even using your example of 8K means that it will take you somewhere between 3 and 8 games to do the respec you described. Most mechs that are being played very often at all will have a huge pool of unused XP just sitting on them with no way to use it once they are Mastered. And the HSP and GSP amounts that are being refunded means that for most people they will have enough paid Skill Points to Master pretty much all their Mechs right out of the gate. Yet they do not stop earning XP once they are Mastered. Every time you play adds XP.

If you are not using that XP for respec then what use is it?

[Satan n stuff]

Nesutizale, on 01 May 2017 - 04:16 AM, said:

I haven't made the calculation but isn't it
A] cheaper to just buy a handfull of other skills then buying 2-3 other mechs
b] isn't it just easier to figure out the equipment that you want and then just add the skills to it?

On both cases its a pretty strange assumtion that one would buy more / do more then he minimaly has to.
Thats why we have the cheapsteaks. The system allowed it so people used it. Assuming that they would do otherwise is...don't know...strange?

SP are currently priced at 45K Cbills a piece ( ignoring XP cost ) which adds up to well over 4 million just to get master level, you can safely add another million or two for experimentation, but even then it's cheaper than buying two or more identical mechs in most cases. It also doesn't require you to grind extra XP.
As far as I know respeccing will not cost Cbills if you already owned the nodes you switch to, in that case the price is 400XP a piece. That still leaves you with a hell of a lot of clicks if you're going to change your build, but the cost should be fairly reasonable once you've done it a few times. Not that I particularly agree there should be a cost, but it is what it is.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 01 May 2017 - 05:34 AM.

[Ghogiel]

Navid A1, on 30 April 2017 - 10:51 PM, said:

I think they could have increased the XP cost of unlocking nodes and at the same time made re-equipping an already unlocked node, free.

Yeah pretty much. I feel as though if I unlocked all the nodes in the tree once, the mech should be able to respec any of those nodes at no xp cost. It's just a mech lab tax that hurts experimentation for lesser used mechs and for build changing. Which is bullcrap really if you want to tweek for different modes like QP, FP, 1v1, or the up coming ranked queue regularly.

I don't think PGI is going to go with that since iirc in the first iteration of the tree there was also a cbill cost and an xp cost that is greater than the 400 or what ever it is currently at.

I don;t think it will matter TOO much though once the mech has 91 nodes unlocked. Any mech I play tends to have a fair amount of banked XP, but at the same that XP isn't being constantly depleted at 400xp for a single node any time I need to min max for some thing different.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Rampage, on 01 May 2017 - 05:15 AM, said:

If you are not using that XP for respec then what use is it?

Exactly.

[lazytopaz]

Skill tree speccing cost means that half of the game (kinda) is unaccessible. The half of the game called Mechlab.
PGI is shooting it's community in the knee making it more difficult to do what is equally important and fun generating as shooting other mechs in the face : tinkering.
Tinkering is very important and messing with (already limited) accessibility is like kicking a sleeping lion. No one in their right state of mind would do that unless in one of those "hold my beer" situations. Which usually never ends well for anybody.

On the other hand if you are sitting on a mech that you know you will fool around with you can just build a skill tree that is a general purpose which would include things maxed from infotech, mobility, survivability/armor, heat dissipation and maybe one additional slot for coolshot/uav and no point in weapons section.

So we're on the crossroads here.
PGI needs IMHO to do few things in relation to release of skill tree :
- No cost of respec at all. Just unlocking things once to be available for ever.
- Don't remove quirks from mechs (apart from mobility/engine decoupling)
- Monitor situation after implementation of skill tree. Look for emerging OP/very powerful mechs and analyze them case by case (do not go where UAC10 nerf went bcs some dingus thought nerfing uac10 will solve kdk3 problem) and adjust accordingly.

[Alan Davion]

lazytopaz, on 01 May 2017 - 06:21 AM, said:

Skill tree speccing cost means that half of the game (kinda) is unaccessible. The half of the game called Mechlab.
PGI is shooting it's community in the knee making it more difficult to do what is equally important and fun generating as shooting other mechs in the face : tinkering.

I think what you mean to say is PGI is shooting themselves in the foot by chopping the community off at the knee.

[lazytopaz]

I guess in PGI eyes we're acceptable collateral damage/civilian casualites

Game is so great that it doesn't need no filthy community.

Edited by lazytopaz, 01 May 2017 - 07:14 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Alan Davion, on 01 May 2017 - 07:03 AM, said:

I think what you mean to say is PGI is shooting themselves in the foot by chopping the community off at the knee.

They are coming after our knees now? What's next?



Please help, they're gonna take my thumbs!

But in seriousness how are we getting cut off at the knees?

[Alan Davion]

Shifty McSwift, on 01 May 2017 - 07:21 AM, said:

They are coming after our knees now? What's next?



Please help, they're gonna take my thumbs!

But in seriousness how are we getting cut off at the knees?

It's a figure of speech.

Getting cut off at the knees is often used to express a feeling of being held back, limited, restricted, etc.

PGI is cutting us off at the knees by restricting our ability to customize and experiment on our mechs with this skill system with the ridiculous costs we have to sink into the mech if we want to respec.

They want us to experiment by buying 2 or 3 copies of the same mech and outfitting and skilling them all differently.

[TLBFestus]

Truth is that PGI is trying to find a way to replace the 3 mech rule that was a c-bill sink in the past.

Everything boils down to one question for PGI;

"How do we make more people spend more money of our game?".

This current skill tree is no exception to that rule. Somehow they envision it leading to increased income. For myself personally, and I don't count to PGI because I won't spend any money at this point, all it does is further decrease my interest in playing.

I only have a small stable of about 40 mechs, and I'm not looking forward to going through the process of respec-ing them with the new system. I'm darn sure not looking forward to changing them again, and paying any sort of game currency for this privilege once I set them up.

[Shifty McSwift]

Alan Davion, on 01 May 2017 - 07:37 AM, said:

PGI is cutting us off at the knees by restricting our ability to customize and experiment on our mechs with this skill system with the ridiculous costs we have to sink into the mech if we want to respec.

They want us to experiment by buying 2 or 3 copies of the same mech and outfitting and skilling them all differently.

Oh, but it's not like you have to, it is going to be pretty obvious what you are going to do for a given mech after learning the basics of the skill tree in general, it is not like you are going to fully respec every mech 10 times before you get that al dente perfection, you may do a couple of full respecs here and there but it will mostly be small edits, or none, at least after we are all past the newbie to the system stage.

[Alan Davion]

Shifty McSwift, on 01 May 2017 - 07:43 AM, said:

Oh, but it's not like you have to, it is going to be pretty obvious what you are going to do for a given mech after learning the basics of the skill tree in general, it is not like you are going to fully respec every mech 10 times before you get that al dente perfection, you may do a couple of full respecs here and there but it will mostly be small edits, or none, at least after we are all past the newbie to the system stage.

Oh exactly, you don't have to, PGI just wants you to.

[lazytopaz]

Try and think about it from perspective someone who is in his first 10 hours in the game.
Game is already not that user friendly. PGI should really look into entry point difficulty and learning curve for newcomers. Do some giveaways like new fresh accounts get 40 mil cbills, 10 mechbays and Cbill bonus for 15 days.
Introduce excessive on mouse over information in the mechlab that gives away simple tutorial like explanation for everything and add ingame wiki (which would be accessible through tooltips via floaty mouse over).

Folks will figure things out eventually on their own or by simply asking more experienced (and willing/kind enough) players to answer some questions. But experimentation and learning process will be gimped by the fact that they will have to dish out additional currency/exp to figure stuff out in trial and error process.

[Shifty McSwift]

lazytopaz, on 01 May 2017 - 08:10 AM, said:

Try and think about it from perspective someone who is in his first 10 hours in the game.
Game is already not that user friendly. PGI should really look into entry point difficulty and learning curve for newcomers. Do some giveaways like new fresh accounts get 40 mil cbills, 10 mechbays and Cbill bonus for 15 days.
Introduce excessive on mouse over information in the mechlab that gives away simple tutorial like explanation for everything and add ingame wiki (which would be accessible through tooltips via floaty mouse over).

Folks will figure things out eventually on their own or by simply asking more experienced (and willing/kind enough) players to answer some questions. But experimentation and learning process will be gimped by the fact that they will have to dish out additional currency/exp to figure stuff out in trial and error process.

Sure, but the starting process has never exactly been easy, it took me a very long time to grind out enough to buy mechs and modules that were relevant and I have put cash on too in the meantime.

Getting access to the new equivalent and super important modules is actually substantially cheaper overall, once you factor in the buffs that were once free that now must be paid to access though, the price scale obviously starts to change.

The most expensive part of the process for me was always having to buy 3 mechs, and equip them in a manner that they can be efficiently leveled up, after that it was modules. So if anything I think it will get a bit easier for noobs, in regards to pricing at least.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 01 May 2017 - 08:16 AM.

[Coolant]

Navid A1, on 30 April 2017 - 10:51 PM, said:

The thing that hurts the most is that PGI is well aware of what they are doing with punishing the player and rubbing it in the face act.

zero evidence of this period and certainly none in your post

[VanillaG]

Alan Davion, on 01 May 2017 - 03:22 AM, said:

Not according to Russ. The difference is he just wants you to experiment with different builds by buying 2-3 duplicates of the same mech.

The duplicate mechs are the new "I bought modules for all of my mechs so I don't need to swap". Most people will experiment with one mech to try different loadouts and if they find more than 1 that they like they can make the decision to buy a duplicate or just keep paying the XP to swap nodes for different loadouts.

As to the people complaining about how the skill tree is somehow going to make the mechlab worse need to think about the current rule of three. Is having to buy 3 variants better or worse for mech building than just being able to spec out the one mech that really care about?