31 replies to this topic

[Alan Davion]

Andi Nagasia, on 16 August 2017 - 04:33 PM, said:

cant really support a Unique Still Tree for each mech,

but having a single Special Tree at the end that has 12 unique Skills for that Chass could be interesting,

Really the only thing that should be unique for many mechs is the weapons tree. Not every variant of a mech is going to have all 3 types of weapons on them.

Commando Death's Knell. Only Energy Weapons.

Catapult A1. Only Missile Weapons.

These mechs are just the two quickest examples I could come up with, and they have to waste a fair bit of skill points because of the generic weapons skill tree they got saddled with cause PGI did a lazy job implementing the whole skill tree system period.

[Burke IV]

Its also unfair to mechs that require nodes in jumpjets.

[JediPanther]

Most of the skill tree can be made to fit any 'universal' load out you want for a chassis. My catapults minus Jester and A1 have very nearly identical 'lrm skill tree' build. My lights have a 'light mech tree' which focuses on speed and mobility forgoing firepower.

Only a select few mechs did I just randomly try and build the tree along of some thing like eh what if I try ac 2 on locust or some other what-if build.

[Vxheous]

Burke IV, on 16 August 2017 - 06:04 PM, said:

Its also unfair to mechs that require nodes in jumpjets.

You don't need to use nodes in jumpjets, the jumpjets function just fine without (aside from assault jumpjets)

[Pjwned]

Black Fish, on 16 August 2017 - 01:38 PM, said:

But ask yourself this - when was the last time your significantly change a specific mech's loadout?

The answer is almost never, because it's such a pain in the *** to swap back to another loadout, and as a result even before the skill tree I would only significantly change my mech's loadout as a more or less permanent change.

It could be more convenient to significantly change loadouts in a number of ways, especially if we could load up saved mech lab & skill tree builds in-game which should happen, but honestly I don't really have that much of a problem with the skill tree encouraging players a bit to have duplicate mechs if they want to have the same mech with different builds.

If we could easily load up builds in the mech lab & skill tree but still need to pay the XP costs for reactivating an unlocked skill node then that would be fine with me.

Burke IV, on 16 August 2017 - 06:04 PM, said:

Its also unfair to mechs that require nodes in jumpjets.

That's a problem with jumpjets being bad, not the skill tree.

Jumpjets should be decent without nodes and better without, not decent with nodes and garbage without, which is an absolutely pathetic way of handling it.

[Mawai]

Khobai, on 16 August 2017 - 01:55 PM, said:

they shouldve had a unique skill tree for each mech

and incorporated each mechs quirks into its skill tree

Seriously?

As nice as such a level of customization represented by this suggestion might have been, I can only assume that the suggestion is sarcastic since PGI has never had and probably never will have the manpower required to create custom skill trees and then try to balance the resulting mess. Besides it isn't necessary.

I made the suggestion ages ago that PGI should create a quirk tree which would contain player selectable quirks and then assign quirk points (like skill points) to underperforming mechs. This accomplishes several goals ... puts the choice in the player's hand and enables greater customization rather than making quirked mechs favour only the quirked types of builds ... it also lets PGI balance the mechs by simply assigning quirk points rather than having to make a lot of xml edits to customize quirks to specific mechs reducing both the development work and the chance for errors ... finally the quirk tree could contain a wider range of quirk options than currently available.

[Vxheous]

Pjwned, on 16 August 2017 - 06:34 PM, said:

The answer is almost never, because it's such a pain in the *** to swap back to another loadout, and as a result even before the skill tree I would only significantly change my mech's loadout as a more or less permanent change.

It could be more convenient to significantly change loadouts in a number of ways, especially if we could load up saved mech lab & skill tree builds in-game which should happen, but honestly I don't really have that much of a problem with the skill tree encouraging players a bit to have duplicate mechs if they want to have the same mech with different builds.

If we could easily load up builds in the mech lab & skill tree but still need to pay the XP costs for reactivating an unlocked skill node then that would be fine with me.



That's a problem with jumpjets being bad, not the skill tree.

Jumpjets should be decent without nodes and better without, not decent with nodes and garbage without, which is an absolutely pathetic way of handling it.

Jumpjets are decent without nodes and better with (again, except for Mk I jumpjets)

[Mawai]

As for the OP's question ...

I have changed builds a few times ... however, I haven't run into that many issues. Most of the choices are generic even in the weapon tree. Things like range, reduced heat, reduced cooldown, turning, accel/decel, twist help any build. There are a few leaves at the ends of the branches that are only useful for some builds - the specific laser, missile and ballistic options for example.

However, I found that switching between a laser and ballistic builds might require swapping a half a dozen skills more or less depending on how essential I thought it was to get every one of the special boxes. The only tree that is a real issue is the jump jet one if you decide not to put jump jets on a rebuild ... however, in my opinion, any mech that can have jump jets should have at least one or two so even then the jump jet skills aren't totally wasted.

Overall, I found that some mechs seemed to benefit more from the manueverability/utility trees while some of the others I invested a lot more in firepower. I didn't find survival very useful since in most cases the extra armor/structure amounts to one hit from a PPC.

On the other hand, going from an energy build to a dual gauss build might require a bit more tinkering since generic heat related skills are less useful ... on the other hand, you will probably get stuck with some anyway just because of the way the skill tree is laid out and they would help with secondary weapons. (jagermech might be one example that can run energy vs dual gauss ... on the other hand, I have a few Jager variants and can skill one as a dual gauss build and another for energy getting around this need to respec to refit a build).

[Khobai]

Quote

As nice as such a level of customization represented by this suggestion might have been, I can only assume that the suggestion is sarcastic since PGI has never had and probably never will have the manpower required to create custom skill trees and then try to balance the resulting mess. Besides it isn't necessary.

it is necessary since mechs are way too similar and theres nothing to really differentiate similar mechs

most mechs are either just the same or outright inferior to other mechs

Edited by Khobai, 16 August 2017 - 08:14 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Khobai, on 16 August 2017 - 01:55 PM, said:

they shouldve had a unique skill tree for each mech

and incorporated each mechs quirks into its skill tree

If "diversity" you mean skills different from every other mech, then yes.

Actually getting people to play around the skills and experiment with lots of combination, I doubt it. People can always find the best min-max setup, to the point of boringness. And people would ******* copy it like you wouldn't believe cause it's the best way of putting skills together. People already share mech builds, whose to say that they don't share skill builds?

I'm not pretending that skill tree is perfect -- no it could have been done better. But really having different possible skill sets for different mechs just further complicates stuff than actually encourage skill build diversity. I do believe that the system can be already as diverse as it can be -- by diverse, meaning can be built many different ways.

The free requisition of already bought nodes would help better for the cause, because people don't need to be as mindful of how they play around the skill tree. They can just buy nodes, and then turn it off and on a their leisure. They won't get too attached at a single setup just so they could save money.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 16 August 2017 - 09:58 PM.

[MechaBattler]

I put a RAC5 on my Firestarter Ember. Significant enough for ya?

Edited by MechaBattler, 16 August 2017 - 10:52 PM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

I don't really have issues with the diversity because I do often have mechs speced out quite differently from one another. However I am not a fan of the way the tree works.

Like you said, you should just be able to unlock 91 point to master the mech then use the points however you want, when ever you want with any more cost associated with it. As it stands now I respeced probably 20+ mechs to some degree or another and it really is annoying to have to deactivate maybe 20-25 nodes, buy 20-25 different nodes with 800 XP and 45k C-bill per node, spec that build. Test that build, then perhaps deactivate the new set of 20-25 nodes and have to rebuy the original 20-25 because I perferred the other build. I mean why do I have to keep re-buying things over and over after I have acquired my initial 91 points? I know PGI want the Skill Tree to be a C-bill sink but it is all a bit too much.