91 replies to this topic

[Mustang]

F^^^^ the new skill tree

[Mustang]

you guys talk about change and that's good. but don't change something I've worked to build and I'm comfortable with. I've run a HBK-4J for 2 yrs and I loved it I didn't have ams on it don't want it but under new skill tree I'm forced to go through the ams to reach nodes I need to build it kind of close to what I had. change the maps change the game modes ill learn them but why change the mechs I've built to my specs and needs

[laviticus]

well I see more Bitching pages than i do liking pages.

[Corpse Grinder]

JesterMWO, on 16 May 2017 - 02:29 PM, said:

Totally agree. I think PGI got this change right. Skill points are enough to make your mech the way you want but you can't have everything.

My Centurion 9d, for example, is performing slightly less well in all areas but then so is everyone else's mechs, meaning longer matches and reduced TTK.

So it's ok because everyone's mech is crap now? Sorry, but no. Also, we shouldn't have to sacrifice SP/nodes to get the nodes we want. This is literally a maze that you have to go through to get the nodes you want. I don't know what PGI was smoking when they were looking at a maze on some paper and thought it was a tree, but I REALLY want some of that.

/rant

Now, I do have to say that I am liking the skill tree maze because I can customize my mechs more, but my argument still stands that this is not how a skill tree should be.

[David Sumner]

Vladosteron, on 17 May 2017 - 03:01 AM, said:

Exactly there is your problem. It isn't the new Skill Tree iteration that limits your choices. It's the way you choose to play the game. Take away the premise of being forced to play "the statisticaly best way" and this Skill Tree adds a lot of flavor to YOUR game experience. I will probably never understand this mentality when it comes to games....

What he means, and I agree, is "Play the meta or lose" same as it has always been.

Because ELO doesn't work, PSR doesn't work, the tiers are engineered to force you into the T1 grinder to give the "real" T1s a continuing supply of fresh meat so they keep spending money.

[David Sumner]

DAEDALOS513, on 17 May 2017 - 09:15 AM, said:

I'm seeing a trend here.. most of those with more experience in the game are disliking this change.. while most of those with less experience aren't minding it. Conclusions?

1. Some of us are borderline autistic and don't like change (me)
2. Some of us think the tree as implemented is a huge time waster (me - it needs MAJOR UI rework)
3. Some of us think we're ending up with no real change in the results (me)
4. Anything else that isn't me so I haven't thought of it.

[David Sumner]

Casval Lofbrook, on 17 May 2017 - 12:12 PM, said:

I played my dwf-uv before and after the skill tree patch. After the patch, i found my damage numbers decreased, kills stayed about the same. But do you know what? I had FUN. As in alot of fun. No more worries about getting gaussed to death by two night gyrs. No kodiak chainsaws of unstoppable dakka. It seems to me that alot of this hate is coming from meta cheese players who ruin the game for alot of people. My entire unit seems to love the new skill tree, and so do I. Is it the best? No, it needs work. But now my locusts have the ability to take a lucky gauss hit and keep truckin.

Match1 - Atlas DDC got steam rollered. Oops, forgot to stock new consumables,also new windows version with new install on new PC, forgot to reset all the d***ned controls. Totally my fault. ~200dmg
Match 2 - Archer hmm, extra 200 missiles,700 dmg,2nd to last standing, I burnt all 1500LRMs,not bad
Match 3 - Atlas, got steam rollered, oh,apparently maxed firepower and maxed survival doesn't work if you can't keep up with the team (200 dmg - huh same as when I didn't even have the keys set up right,really????)
Match 4 - Atlas, got steam rollered, 180dmg, well so much for trading survival for mobility.

Notice I've only taken the time to work on 2 mechs?
That cost me about 40 minutes of my (at most) 90 minutes I get to play in a night.
FFS.
1. change SP to CB + 400 XP, make 1 SP = buy a node INACTIVE
2. put option in UI to "buy active" which uses 1SP and 400xp at the same time
3. put option in UI to "buy the tree" (all remaining nodes as inactive nodes) if I have enough SP

[Generic Internetter]

The new skilltree is great, doing away with the awful old system of modules and efficiencies.

I will say though, that it is somewhat over-engineered with all the hexagons and path ways.
Why not just have a simple stack system for each node? Why do i have to skill up through unrelated junk to get the node i want?

Still, better than the old system.

[Leopardo]

all i can say no need to create a node maze - need to have a different node value!!!! like - 1 pont node 2 points node 3 points node 4 points node and on!!!!! no need to confuse the people

[Hoshi Toranaga]

Few things to address, after reading through:

Centurion: I tested with it, since I own this since beta it had immense XP, so if I f**ck up the build I can easily redo. It proved however you can even get mediocre mechs (according to meta) to fun QP mechs.

Atlas: Is about tanking. I mostly use it in CW/FP as an ECM tank. So my DDC has ECM skilled, all armor skilled and moveability so I have all speek tweaks. This thing is durable as hell and even with no skillpoints in weapon tree 4 SRMs and AC/20 still do good damage... of course when you want to make your Atlas into a Kodiak, surprise: You cannot.

Lights not working?
Seriously. My ACH is a darn beast. Yes I had to put a lot into Sensor tree for ECM (which I find an excellent sacrifice, so it is not over OP) and with JumpJet tree I can fly through canyon like goddam superman. Several times I flew over mechs so high they could not shoot me and killed their backs before they could say Uncle.

Of course many people (also mates in TS) try to make mechs into something they are inherently bad at. You cannot make a tank out of a Rifleman, you cannot make a speed machine out of a Stalker no matter how you skill them. But if you tweak towards the mechs advantages it gets real fun.
Also No mech I skill has the same skills, as there is no "one" meta skills. Maybe there will be meta skills for certain builds of a mech... we will see.
But then many people are highly effective with non-meta builds and some suck big time with meta mechs... player skill cannot be skilled in game.

[Whiskey Peddler]

laviticus, on 17 May 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

well I see more Bitching pages than i do liking pages.

That is because certain people have earned the moniker "manchild". Old enough to be considered a man by society by their age, but they act like a petulant child.

[DAEDALOS513]

Whiskey Peddler, on 18 May 2017 - 04:12 AM, said:

That is because certain people have earned the moniker "manchild". Old enough to be considered a man by society by their age, but they act like a petulant child.

Posting an opinion that differs from yours about a game they've invested time and money into makes them a petulant child? Are you starting a regime? Give the book '1984' a read and you'll rethink your comment.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 18 May 2017 - 04:52 AM.

[Hoshi Toranaga]

Honestly I do not want to bash anyone with saying I love it and pointing out my views.
Everybody is entitled to their opinion and since usually more ranting then praise lands on a forum, I wanted to give some praise, since I think PGI fu**cked up many things in the past, but this time listened and did a good job.
Now is it perfect? by no means.
Now can this be improved? Sure.
But is it "I wanna kill myself bad"? No, it is fun and at least somewhat balanced.

Yes especially some mechs and maps need tweaking, as currently especially CW maps cater to some tweaks on Clan mechs (which does not mean IS is unbalanced, it means what I wrote please read it for what it is).

[Whiskey Peddler]

DAEDALOS513, on 18 May 2017 - 04:51 AM, said:

Posting an opinion that differs from yours about a game they've invested time and money into makes them a petulant child? Are you starting a regime? Give the book '1984' a read and you'll rethink your comment.

I can understand disappointment. I really do. I also feel for those that feel "cheated", but my reply was directed solely at those that have responded very salty towards PGI about this skill tree.

I totally agree with a "difference" of opinion of any and all issues, but some people are threatening to leave the game over the skill tree...well...you are an adult and this IS a free country...leave.

So I apologize if my comment was wrongly directed at "all" the opposition of the skill tree rather than those who are overreacting (that was my intended group).

Sorry.

[Koshirou]

Hoshi Toranaga, on 16 May 2017 - 01:58 PM, said:

Yes you need to make sacrifices, but that is good.

Okay.

"Whiners" such as myself do not have a problem with this aspect of the skill tree. They do have a problem with every other aspect of it:
- Time-wasting.
- Confusing and unnecessarily complex.
- Completely throws off balancing.
- Relegates countless mechs to the scrapyard completely (since you no longer even need 3 variants.)
- Terrible UI.
- Does nothing to address most of its stated goals.
- Clutters Mech descriptions with long lists of miniscule bonuses.

But even the choice aspect is badly designed in that it does not present an actual choice for the most part, but plain old forces clearly subpar abilities down your throat in order to get access to the ones you actually want.

The basic idea of having a skill tree was alright, if several years late and at this point in the game's development rather dubious. The actual execution was horrible.

[DAEDALOS513]

Koshirou, on 18 May 2017 - 07:08 AM, said:

- Time-wasting.
- Confusing and unnecessarily complex.
- Completely throws off balancing.
- Relegates countless mechs to the scrapyard completely (since you no longer even need 3 variants.)
- Terrible UI.
- Does nothing to address most of its stated goals.
- Clutters Mech descriptions with long lists of miniscule bonuses.

Everything else has been mentioned but dude, this, has been bothering me something fierce, and I didn't even fully realize it until i read your post.. You are absolutely right and it is a clear sign of how terribly thought out this new system is and needed to be further tested. Every time I attempt to wade into my quirks list, or ''enhancements,'' which at last count the worst offender goes 31 deep, and try to add this quirk to another quirk, trying to make some semblance of sense out of this mess.. it's like a whole other psychological easter-egg-hunt, mini-game..

Hell this long list of info might've been useful in that you could see where you have quirks you're finding you don't actually need or want in battle.. but in many cases you are forced to keep them.. lol

edit: 34 deep now :/

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 18 May 2017 - 10:01 AM.

[Psycho Cop]

Balance is totally out of the flipping window! Wow, how I love the skill tree!

[Inappropriate1]

http://imgur.com/a/dRLKB

[Hoshi Toranaga]

Got to address this:

- Time-wasting.
Bogus, instead of 3 Variants, you need to master one. Takes approx. 1/3rd of the time.
Skilling a mech now, nobody said you need to sit down and skill all 500 (I have about 150), but I see a variant I want to play... take 5min to skill and go. Only mechs I really sat down was dropdecks for CW.

- Confusing and unnecessarily complex.
Go to one of the online builders. This tree is one of the easiest multi-trees in gaming history. But I understand where you are coming from, even WoW had to go from a nice skilltree system with awesome choices to a single cookie cutter system because of ******** players.

- Completely throws off balancing.
Balancing is actually quite good if you play it to the mechs strength. Of course if you want to make a survival mech out of an atlas or a scout out of a Kodiak... you took a wrong turn.
I give you that some mechs are slightly off, but that is expected and they are addressing it in a month.

- Relegates countless mechs to the scrapyard completely (since you no longer even need 3 variants.)
Bogus. Mechs still work, bad chassis are still bad and good chassis are still good. Having more than one variant totally makes sense in many cases, since you hopefully do not have 3 of the same approx builds for each variant...


- Terrible UI.
I give you that it would need improvement such as color coding, it is by no means unusable. Within 3 mechs skilled for testing you can easily find your way around.

Does nothing to address most of its stated goals.
I only see one thing they did not address right, that is the boating issue. Still works flawlessly. Other than that it actually did.

- Clutters Mech descriptions with long lists of miniscule bonuses.
/sarcasm Wow you need to scroll, how bad is that

[102_devill]

Hoshi Toranaga, on 18 May 2017 - 10:58 PM, said:

- Clutters Mech descriptions with long lists of miniscule bonuses.
/sarcasm Wow you need to scroll, how bad is that

I actually agree with this one, as I wrote in my own topic (which is of course drowned by 1000 rant topics)...
It would be just easier if they stuck with global percentages on the list and then when you go into the loadouts, the item popups will reveal the exact number in detail.

For example: they could just say magazine capacity +2 (to reflect your node selection in the skill tree), but when you mouse over a specific ton of ammo in your loadout it will show exactly how much additional ammo you have.

I am sure they will improve this though in time.