Naturally we know this discussion won't end anywhere but it's still worth a discussion.
The Unstoppable Puggernaut, on 24 September 2017 - 01:29 AM, said:
I know exactly what you mean but this system is actually near perfect. Imagine you have 50 cars (or however many mechs). You have millions of pounds. Are you going to try modifying yourself or your car collection?
The cars need modifying not the person. The person needs to know how to drive rally cars, race cars, classics with no electronics. That's what makes the driver better in all formats.
The only things missing from ST which PGI dont seem to listen, is a savable templates profile to reduce click by death. Also colour code the upgrades so you know which paths to use quickly. Finally one click to the area you want and then show it the path you want to unlock (like google maps directions divert).
The thing about your analogy is that, if I am good at driving say a Mercedes C180, then one day I decided to buy and drive a BMW X1, I don't suddenly become a beginner driver. I retained some of my driving skills going from car to car. I understand that we as humans we are retaining our skills as mechwarriors as we play different mechs but I'm talking about MWO gamefication of this concept. So following your analogy, a driver would retain driving skills but takes some time to adjust to the nuances of the BMW X1 over the Merc C180. The driver skills would be the mechwarrior skilltree. The car specific skills will be the mech skills, hence 2 different skill trees. Also a BMW X1 is likely to handle quite similarly to a BMW X3, so we have a shorter learning curve to transition between the X1 and X3, hence a mech-general skilltree versus a mech-specific skilltree.
So we end up with 3 skill trees as per my OP.
Exilyth, on 24 September 2017 - 02:37 AM, said:
Once you level up your pilot to the max, what incentive would there be to play mechs other than the FOTM meta?
You can max your mechwarrior skilltree, but you will have the mech-general and mech-specific skilltrees. As I said in my OP, we can keep the current skilltree which is essentially a mech-specific skilltree since every mech we buy variant or not will have this empty skilltree to start with. However what I'm prescribing is a mechwarrior skilltree. This means as we as players continue playing, MWO has a game system that quantifies your player progression, and still keep the mech skilltrees. So you get to keep your incentive to play mechs, FOTM or not.
Although it is kinda odd that the main incentive to play a mech is that you have space to level up into, when it shouldn't be. When you max out your mechwarrior skilltree, you'd have attained Max Level as it were as a player. Level 255, General, Master, whatever you want to call the rank/level system. You could even max out your say Light Mech general skilltree, but you still have the Medium, Heavy and Assault skilltrees. And lastly you still have all the empty mech-specific skilltrees from new mechs you buy.
Appogee, on 24 September 2017 - 03:19 AM, said:
Quite simply, they wanted to extend the time taken to level (aka 'the grind') as a way of encouraging players to stick with the game longer. The longer you stay, the more chance that you will buy more Mechs and more stuff.
It's that simple.
A better question is: "Why is levelling Mechs (ie a piece of machinery) described as a 'skill'? Why isn't it described as 'optimising or enhancing the Mech'?"
And the answer to that is: The same reason we have 'supply caches' and 'keys' instead of 'salvage' and 'techs'. PGI's senior game designers aren't up to anything beyond cutting and pasting generic design concepts from other games, even when they could be taking the tiny step of cutting and pasting from the rich BattleTech lore in what they proclaim to be "A BattleTech Game".
It really is just plain sad.
I completely understand PGI's motivations. But my proposal of having player and mech skilltrees actually extends player grind even more.
Edited by arcana75, 24 September 2017 - 03:57 AM.