19 replies to this topic

[Blockpirat]

Greetings, Mechwarriors!

Some people hate the new Skill Tree, others love it - but why?

Which factors influence our enjoyment of this new aspect of Mechwarrior Online?

Please answer this short questionnaire to help us find out!

https://goo.gl/forms/ez2F0xvvkRXQrDF52 (Survey closed - click link for results + see below)

To prevent misuse and multiple entries, a Google login is required. No email adresses are being collected.

I am also posting this on /r/OutreachHPG.

EDIT:

The Survey has been active for 30 hours, with almost 500 responses. Since activity has been winding down, I've decided to close the survey and publish the results.

Here are the visualisations auto-generated by Google (please be aware that the year 2016 was duplicated by mistake - this is only an issue in the diagram, not in the raw data):
https://docs.google....g/viewanalytics

And here, especially for our spreadsheet warriors, is the raw data. I am looking forward to any conclusions one might draw from it:
https://docs.google....t#gid=345765850

EDIT:

For some reason Google doesn't show the descriptions for the 1 to 5 scales:

Question 1 asked people to rate the Skill Tree from very bad to very good (1 to 5)

The Mech build question ranged from "casual, unconventional, fun- or lore-oriented" (1) to "optimized, min-maxed, competitive" (5)

Edited by Blockpirat, 18 May 2017 - 10:35 AM.

[sycocys]

Why? Mostly because its just a confusing way to get the same level of power buffing the game had before it, and will make balancing attempts even worse.

[GabrielSun]

I think it would be fine if they let you go upward as well as downward. It only saves a few points here and there, but it would go a long way to making this nebulous and much fantasized-about plethora of builds. Right now if you want something specific you need to spend x number of points to get it, then you're done.

[Khobai]

you really dont need a survey to know everyone thinks its garbage

[Blockpirat]

Khobai, on 17 May 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

you really dont need a survey to know everyone thinks its garbage

Actually, according to the first 30+ entries not everyone has that opinion.

I can fully understand you from a personal point of view (just look at my signature and you'll know what I personally think of the new Skill Tree), but what I am trying to accomplish here is getting a big dataset and finding patterns within it.

The big question is: WHY do some people hate the new tree with a passion, WHY do others passionately defend it? Does it have to do with number of Mechs owned? Money spent? Playstyle? Unit membership? Tier?

So this is all about analysing scientifically what kinds of players like/dislike the Skill Tree.

[Ced Riggs]

Khobai, on 17 May 2017 - 06:28 AM, said:

you really dont need a survey to know everyone thinks its garbage

- posted from my echo chamber

[SirSoggyDog]

But not everyone thinks it's garbage. I for one, much prefer the skill tree to the old modules and old mech skills. Now do I wish it was a bit easier to elite a mech, and do I wish that the skills didn't have such a significant impact? Yes I do. The skill tree needs a lot of work, and quirks will still be necessary, and Civil War is going to have a huge effect on balance, but I do think this is a change in the right direction.

[sycocys]

I don't hate it, I just think it was a total waste of everyone's time to replace a crappy system with the same crappy system that has an ugly dress on it.

[Husker Dude]

sycocys, on 17 May 2017 - 07:19 AM, said:

I don't hate it, I just think it was a total waste of everyone's time to replace a crappy system with the same crappy system that has an ugly dress on it.

I think the bigger problem with the new system is how complex it is. On one hand, it does introduce a pretty deep level of customization that opens many possibilities and can be rewarding for players who really want to dig into it, but up front it's going to be extremely daunting to a large portion of the player base who already struggled with building a viable mech, between bad weapon loadouts and armor allocation.
To add in on top of that a 236-node skill system which they'll have to carefully plan out a path, I think it's going to add another huge barrier for less experience or more casual players to contend with. It's something I am surprised they went with, if they're trying to grow the player base.

This leaves aside any questions of balance (I'm surprised that Clan mechs can now claim all manner of energy duration/heat generation bonuses, sure it will come at the expense of either mobility or durability, but those are skills that were nerfed across both factions' tech), it wouldn't be hard to re-quirk IS mechs above what's available to them in the skill tree, but it's immediately a boost to Clan tech.

[sycocys]

I would say that the biggest problem is though that there's no zero sum style balance in it. Its a pure buff system that does absolutely nothing to promote balance or role warfare.

They really needed to incorporate a large chunk of the game balance into this from the get go, not use the "placeholder" methodology and never actually improve anything. Really just completely blown potential.

-- Basically the tree should have been designed so that selections "buffed" laterally (with bonuses countered by sacrifices) not continue the buff only unbalanced game. They should have set the baseline at X, then used the tree to allow people to differentiate/focus on roles that all ended up with roughly the same power level at the end.

Edited by sycocys, 17 May 2017 - 10:09 AM.

[Christophe Ivanov]

PGI should have taken the Mechs we already mastered and converted them to the new format and gave us a one month time to accept the converted mechs to the new skill or to let us tweak them to be close if not better than before. It should however NOT be WORSE than before. Take for example my battle with an Atlas which by now everyone knows is borked to Super strength level way beyond my DW UV which after maxing it out to 91 feels LESS than what it was before the skill change. Shooting at the Atlas from 40 feet away 4 times with 2 UAC 10's and 4 ERL beamers at it's torso with no kill while he cores me with 2 shots to me which I should remind you was only lightly damaged before I engaged him.

I also feel the biggest problem with the DW series is NO ECM OR AMS! WHY? The 100 ton mech is slow to begin with and is now worse than before. So it really needs the ECM and AMS capabilities. I keep hearing it should be called the DW-C version correct?
I understand this new skill system is a hit and miss and needs more work. But asking us to re-skill our already mastered mechs wit the new one is like a slap in the face which it should have been PGI that could have done that during the conversion.
As someone who does real world testing for customers, I am pretty sure had they done this, a lot of tempers and tension would have been avoided had they done the work more thoroughly.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I'm liking the skill tree myself. Most responses ingame say they like it, generally at least a 4 to 1 ratio of likers to dislikers.

The reason I like it is because the old system had gotten stale, but this new system allows much deeper mech customization. There are only so many ways you could min max a mech in the old system. Now you have multiple nodes all with small percentages that can be tweaked to the pilot's exact likings. Its perfect. Also mechs such as the Atlas, Victor, Dragon, and some others now actually are useful in game and devastating people in solo queue due to the armor boosts. Many mechs lost offensive quirks, but the defensive ones were not touched, changing the IS meta to revolve around mechs that had high defensive quirks rather than offensive. Also jump jets on assaults are finally useful again after years. I also never have to swap around modules on my mechs ever again. Lastly I never have to buy 2 extra variants I dislike just to elite one.

There's just so many different things in this patch that I love, its brought a breath of fresh air into the stale repetition we had.

[Kaethir]

Christophe Ivanov, on 17 May 2017 - 10:23 AM, said:

I also feel the biggest problem with the DW series is NO ECM OR AMS! WHY? The 100 ton mech is slow to begin with and is now worse than before. So it really needs the ECM and AMS capabilities. I keep hearing it should be called the DW-C version correct?

Point of order... there is a non-UV omnipod with AMS on it. I have it on one of my DWF's.

[MechaBattler]

I think some people find it to be a chore so they whine and complain they don't want to do it. And for other people it's having to lose performance here or there depending on their choices. They want to be as maneuverable as the next guy without any trade offs.

And some people probably only bothered to elite their mechs, not unlocking master module, and never bought modules. So they only get about 57 HSP for their mech. Then have to shell out around 1.4 million to finish mastering it. Even though they didn't bother with modules.

[Blockpirat]

Thanks to everyone who has participated!

The Survey has been active for 30 hours, with almost 500 responses. Since activity has been winding down, I've decided to close the survey and publish the results.

Here are the visualisations auto-generated by Google (please be aware that the year 2016 was duplicated by mistake - this is only an issue in the diagram, not in the raw data):
https://docs.google....g/viewanalytics


And here, especially for our spreadsheet warriors, is the raw data. I am looking forward to any conclusions one might draw from it:
https://docs.google....t#gid=345765850

[Mister Blastman]

I love how 46% of the players are Tier 1. Now, I realize this is a poll, not a population sample, but Tier 1 should comprise at most 2 - 5% of the population if the damn system were designed right.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 18 May 2017 - 10:53 AM.

[Blockpirat]

Mister Blastman, on 18 May 2017 - 10:53 AM, said:

I love how 46% of the players are Tier 1. Now, I realize this is a poll, not a population sample, but Tier 1 should comprise at most 2 - 5% of the population if the damn system were designed right.

We have to consider that very casual and/or bad players are less likely to frequent the Forums. Thus they are under-represented in this survey.
Still, this looks like there's a trend for most players to eventually end up in Tier 1.

[FireStoat]

with the survey being closed, a person can't see what "1, 2, 3, 4" were originally to understand the choices people made. All I could see was how many picked between the numbers, not what the question represented.

[AnTi90d]

Feel free to use this image in your post, if you want.

Some people just read threads and wouldn't bother clicking to an outside link to see the data for themselves.

https://imgtc.com/i/9MxRMsu.png

[Malrock]

AnTi90d, on 18 May 2017 - 11:05 AM, said:

Feel free to use this image in your post, if you want.

Some people just read threads and wouldn't bother clicking to an outside link to see the data for themselves.

https://imgtc.com/i/9MxRMsu.png

appreciate the image. That makes it real clear that 25% of the people actually like the skill tree while the other 75% don't with a solid 53% actively disliking it.