70 replies to this topic

[DaManiac]

I'm sure many people like me, followed the skill tree development and were encouraging of the concept, however after implementation, we realised that the overall fun level of the game has taken a hit. I personally believe this could be a make or break for MWO. I would like to continue with MWO, however I will not support the game in it's current state.

This poll hopefully will show what us Mechwarriors really think of it and hopefully the devs will take note.

Please do not crowd this post will debates and long opinions, also please spread the word and get people who you meet in game to vote on this here.

Update: Addressing comments regarding neutrality of the poll.

There have been comments that this poll is biased, regarding the wording of the 3rd question and the lack of "no change required" option for the 2nd question.

I have addressed the wording issues of the 3rd question, however as people have already voted, it would be unfair to change the options at this point of time.

However, it should be pointed out that currently the polls show almost half are very unhappy and a fifth wanting to leave as a result of the changes, this suggests that not making any changes is not a feasible option. Furthermore, there would have been very few people who would have chosen that option. Lastly, the main aim of this poll is to highlight discontent with the current implementation, which I believe it has achieved its aim quite clearly and I do hope that the devs will read this closely.

Edited by DaManiac, 23 May 2017 - 05:47 AM.

[HooverGKMMC]

re: "Simplification of tree by reduction in number of nodes" - I think the number of nodes is fine, but I really think that the "firepower" tree should be split out, with "heat management" either being it's own tree, or being simplified under "operations" and there being separate trees for energy, missile, and ballistic weapons.

[Trev Firestorm]

Exact values may need tweaking but they handled ECM changes pretty well, not exactly how I'd have gone about it but it works. Choices feel somewhat meaningful on the trees, though there are a few instances where there is a little too much all-or-nothing going on. Radar dep should move to a flat value equal to target decay or max out at 80-90% instead of 100 for balance.

[Kusunoki Masashige]

PGI wrecks the game again. i have not seem many positive changes in this game in the last few years. Im sad to say i will be walking away from this game if they keep this skill tree trash.

[Hoshi Toranaga]

You need to answer the last question, which are only suggestions, to complete the poll. They are also suggestive answers of things prolly you want to see.
Since I do not want the choices of the last question I cannot vote, but I am very happy.
However above things render the poll useless.

[Nightmare1]

I'm pretty happy with it as it is. I just think it needs some minor tweaks.

A couple of things about your polls though:

1) Your questions are leading, particularly the "salvageable" comment. That's really a poor poll construction and you let your bias show through very clearly.

2) Your comment about incorporating skills into Mech skills has already been done. PGI even provided and easy-to-understand example comparing the Blackjack and the Phoenix Hawk. The Phoenix had agility quirks that the BJ didn't. Even though the quirks themselves are gone, their stat effects were migrated into the Phoenix's base stats. In the end, the Phoenix still has the same stats that it had while quirked, so this poll question is misleading and redundant.

Edit: Something else to consider regarding the economics of the new Skill Tree (re-posted from a Steam thread):

This is no different from the previous system. Any "rich MechWarrior" could turn his XP into GXP and then just unlock all the old skills on his three Mechs. This is actually cheaper now.

Look at it this way:

New system:
C-Bills required to Master 91 nodes = 4,095,000
XP required to Master 91 nodes = 72,800

Old system:
XP required to Master 13 nodes = 57,250
XP required to Basic two other Mechs so that you could Master one Mech = 28,500
Total XP required to Master one Mech = 85,750
MC required if using all GXP = 3,430 (if not done on a GXP Conversion sale)
*Note: This does not include the cost of purchasing three Mechs. That would probably be in the ballpark of 30 million C-bills though, not including costs to outfit them.

Now for the numbers: https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

Under the old system, at a cost of 25 GXP per 1 MC (not during GXP conversion sale) it would cost you $22 or about 9 hours to Master one Mech, depending on whether you did a straight MC/GXP conversion or if you ground it all out. Under the new system, it will require about 4 hours to grind it all out, or $15 to do it with an MC/GXP conversion (not during GXP conversion sale).

The new system helps the poorer players by cutting their grind times down by a half and halving the MC cost for GXP conversion. That's without even taking the cost of purchasing three Mechs into consideration, which is something you had to do under the old tree.

In terms of economics, this new tree is substantially better than the old one.

Edited by Nightmare1, 20 May 2017 - 09:20 AM.

[EldrenOfTheMist]

The Skill Tree is Great. It does shatter Meta. Which is why people are screaming Bloody Murder. But that always happens when the Meta is changed. And by the way. there are quite a few people online who are loving it. So it's not every one who is screaming. They are just the loudest.

Edited by EldrenOfTheMist, 19 May 2017 - 12:57 PM.

[Kusunoki Masashige]

EldrenOfTheMist, on 19 May 2017 - 12:56 PM, said:

The Skill Tree is Great. It does shatter Meta. Which is why people are screaming Bloody Murder. But that always happens when the Meta is changed. And by the way. there are quite a few people online who are loving it. So it's not every one who is screaming. They are just the loudest.

i dont play meta and the skill tree is trash many hours playing my mechs and now none and i mean none of them are remotely like they were. My spider( fav mech) is now trash.

I can deal with clan meta easy enough but this bookkeeping crap is a joke. one guy called it click-tech.. a very apt description

[Canislupus]

Nightmare1, on 19 May 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

New system:
C-Bills required to Master 91 nodes = 4,095,000
XP required to Master 91 nodes = 72,800

I think you are wrong with this point of view, because you only need to unlock 91 when you already know what you need. thanks to a missing real respec, where you can get your skillpoints back, you need to unlock much more till you find a suitable build.
For Example i tried different builds and wasted SP and Cbills till i quit mwo today (3mill cbills to unlock new skillpoints)
this is my humble oppinion and as i said bevor i quit mwo till the tree is overhauled or a real respec is made possibly. I played some matches Mechwarrior Living Legends and i had more fun than the last months in mwo.

[EldrenOfTheMist]

Also guys. please look at all 3 Polls that are here. More people post to the other 2 then the top one. So you can't accurately judge how people feel about the Skill tree unless you look at all 3 polls.

[Nightmare1]

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

I think you are wrong with this point of view, because you only need to unlock 91 when you already know what you need. thanks to a missing real respec, where you can get your skillpoints back, you need to unlock much more till you find a suitable build.

Even then, allowing for 10 or 15 wasted nodes, you would still spend vastly less time and resources than under the old tree. Even if you doubled it to 182 nodes, you would still only be using up 2/3 of the time if you were grinding it.

Hands down, this is substantially better than the old tree in terms of economics.

As far as "suitable builds" who on earth would be so foolish as to haphazardly unlock random nodes? There are all kinds of guides and tutorials to help people. Only a complete yahoo would fritter away resources trying to guess their way into a good build.

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:04 PM, said:

For Example i tried different builds and wasted SP and Cbills till i quit mwo today (3mill cbills to unlock new skillpoints)
this is my humble oppinion and as i said bevor i quit mwo till the tree is overhauled or a real respec is made possibly. I played some matches Mechwarrior Living Legends and i had more fun than the last months in mwo.

It sounds like you weren't very careful or thoughtful in how you approached your leveling.

As for respec, that's already in game and it's very easy to do for very little cost.

[Canislupus]

well not careful enough? sure thing.
i spend some hours to think about it bevor i spend one sp. but without a good feedback what a node really does i had to go to field tests and only there in can "feel" the performance. and for the respec. since when means respec deactivation? a respec is a complete reset with getting the invested points back to set them anew. do you ever played a mmo or an rpg next to mwo? since diablo2 you could try some builds and make them undone when you think it was a bad one.

[Nightmare1]

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:32 PM, said:

well not careful enough? sure thing.

Okay.

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:32 PM, said:

i spend some hours to think about it bevor i spend one sp.

...and you still wasted all that SP?

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:32 PM, said:

but without a good feedback what a node really does i had to go to field tests and only there in can "feel" the performance. and for the respec.

No, the nodes are pretty clear with their tool tips. I mean, 10% fall protection is 10% fall protection. A 1% range bonus is a 1% range bonus. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to estimate how those percentages will impact your Mech.

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:32 PM, said:

since when means respec deactivation? a respec is a complete reset with getting the invested points back to set them anew. do you ever played a mmo or an rpg next to mwo? since diablo2 you could try some builds and make them undone when you think it was a bad one.

A couple of things:

1) "Respec" basically just means to re-specialize. It doesn't entail any sort of free refund.

2) Diablo was, last I checked, a game you purchase and not a free to play game. It makes more sense to have a free respec in a game that you pay for up front than it does in a free to play game.

3) An example of a free to play MMO with a respec compared to MWO would be Star Trek Online. In that game, subscribers get a free Respec token at the end of a certain time frame (I forget if it's monthly or quarterly). They have to pay for extra tokens they may use inside that time frame. Players who don't subscribe and play for free have to pay a Respec fee of $5. MWO, by comparison, let's you do it all for free with a minuscule amount of grinding, making it the better system. To put it in perspective, you could pay $5 to Respec in STO, or spend 19 days grinding Dilithium to do it (Dilithium is a form of currency in STO). In MWO, it only takes about four hours to grind enough resources for all 91 nodes if you are buying them for the first time. MWO's respec is cheaper than purchasing for the first time, so grinding for a respec actually requires much less than 4 hours.

Edited by Nightmare1, 19 May 2017 - 01:44 PM.

[Draslin Darkforge]

I have been extremely frustrated by this patch. I don't mind the skill tree all that much, but what I do mind is that (as we predicted on several occasions), mechs that were previously top tier are now even more overpowered relative to the pool.

This NEVER should have come prior to the civil war patch. Now, IS units are behind on firepower by an even bigger delta. I went from playing 8-10 games per day (you can find me on the leaderboard) to playing 1-2 before deciding to give it up.

Very unhappy with this patch. I don't think I'll be dumping any more money into this game until this nonsense gets worked out.

[Canislupus]

Buddy you wont understand my point are you? it is not the point that you have to pay, btw in diablo2 it cost a huge amount in gold in the beginning, the point is that you did not get the sp back. when you respec the nod is deactivated, but remained unlocked and so the sp is wasted. when i want to do something else i had to buy another sp to unlock the next node. this is doublefined. but for me its ok when you have still fun on it. as i said i quit already and will not return until this abomination will be fixed.
i have only time to play in the late hours and wasting almost playtime of 3 days is too much to bear for myself.

Edited by Canislupus, 19 May 2017 - 01:59 PM.

[Lightfoot]

120 active nodes if everything you actually need is buried under 10 mostly useless abilities. There is no real ability to tweak a Skill config here, you just end up having to pick 3-4 and burrow to the bottom.

[Nightmare1]

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

Buddy you wont understand my point are you? it is not the point that you have to pay, btw in diablo2 it cost a huge amount in gold in the beginning, the point is that you did not get the sp back. when you respec the nod is deactivated, but remained unlocked and so the sp is wasted.

It's kind of hard to screw up so badly that you need to respec 91 nodes. Most of the time, you'll only need to respec a half dozen or less.

That being said, PGI can always add in a respec option for all 91 nodes later on. Lack of such a feature is hardly enough grounds to condemn the entire skill tree.

Canislupus, on 19 May 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

when i want to do something else i had to buy another sp to unlock the next node. this is doublefined. but for me its ok when you have still fun on it. as i said i quit already and will not return until this abomination will be fixed.
i have only time to play in the late hours and wasting almost playtime of 3 days is too much to bear for myself.

"Abomination" is kind of a stretch, don't you think? According to you, your biggest complaint is that you can't figure out how to use it, so you're spending lots of time and overspending your resources. That indicates a lack of understanding. You haven't properly educated yourself or consulted the guides, so you're floundering about, getting mad, rage posting, and then quitting.

Frankly, I don't think the likes of you will be missed around here.

[Agent 0range]

the skill tree and engine decouple is great it changes the game and make more mechs viable rather than a tiny pool of mechs, Add in energy rebalance and Civil war and people have plenty of new stuff to play with to enjoy making mechs,

Most complaint are I cant make my mech like it was, but no one can! instead they should be looking to see if it is better or worse than similiar weight mechs and how they can use the skill tree to improve on its specific role in a team.

Edited by Agent 0range, 19 May 2017 - 02:27 PM.

[Timicon]

The new tree is pretty sweet. I'm happy with it.

[Eternal Rage]

loving it!
way better than before
finally my mechs are specialized in what they should be able to do!

and People who cant make their favorite mechs feel the same like before.. wtf? mechs are even better now across the board

dont get me even started on GOD TIER BLR-2C..

Edited by Eternal Rage, 19 May 2017 - 02:44 PM.