69 replies to this topic

[gooddragon2]

Because I'm accustomed to the skill system, ghost heat, and non-lore accuracy stuff.

I've seen some threads on here about how ghost heat is bad, how the skill system isn't nice, and how things should be closer to the lore. I'm just not feeling it though, and probably because I never knew it. Maybe things are bad in competitive? I only play quick play so I don't know for sure.

[Bombast]

The skill tree is a colossal nightmare for players with huge quantities of pre-skill tree mechs, ghost heat is poorly explained, and the competitive scene is basically dominated by a very, very, VERY specific play style.

But QP is actually ok. Everything is kind of 'spread thin' enough to where nothing is really that bad.

[Khobai]

the skill tree isnt really a nightmare IMO. its more like a lengthy chore. its time consuming to click on all the hexes. but its practically the same skill loadout for every mech so its just replicating that for all my mechs. all that really changes from mech to mech is the weapon tree. I still dont get why we need six different types of XP though.

ghost heat on the other hand is a !@#$ing nightmare. now they have weapons that arnt even related combined together in the same ghost heat group. soon large and medium lasers will probably be linked too. and any time you wanna build something in mechlab youre going to have to consult the ghost heat table.

Edited by Khobai, 26 October 2017 - 02:19 PM.

[spottiedogman]

Have to agree with Bombast here, it is a total nightmare imho! I simply do not skill mechs and play very little now due to that one change.

[Snazzy Dragon]

Skill forest is full of dead trees and the ones that live aren't all that pretty. For new players they may as well pour gasoline on themselves and run around with a torch inside, with how easy it is to completely burn yourself in terms of c bills, xp, time, and frustrations of bringing a suboptimal build with a suboptimal tree loayout (if any) against players that have much longer time and investment than you do as a new player.

Ghost heat is poorly explained and inconsistent. Ghost heat on 3 cERLL? No big deal. Ghost heat on 2 AC/20s? Fiery inferno of regret and sorrow. Makes it unintuitive for the uninitiated

Comp scene has 2 playstyles, and one of them is only there because light vultures are a requirement in most cases.. I'm sure if they weren't light pick rate would be somewhere below 1%

I don't care about lore accuracy too terribly much considering this is a real time, first person shooter, where the mechs are "balanced" in a 12v12 environment where OP clan mechs doesn't work too well for the health of the game (wonder what that's like? )

[Burke IV]

The tree of woe has also driven me from the game.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Skill tree was a fine change... I've played plenty of RPG's and various other games that are a bigger nightmare than this skill tree, I swear, those of you complaining about it, have barely touched RPG game sin your life or something... cry harder.

My biggest complaint is lore issues, lack of a convergence system [or a cone of fire mechanic of some description], and just the feel of this game being to little "Battletec" and too much "Generic FPS shooter."

I still play from time to time, but I used to play much, much more than I have... granted, I've been playing for nearly 5 years... so... maybe I'm just burnt out.

[gooddragon2]

Bombast, on 26 October 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

The skill tree is a colossal nightmare for players with huge quantities of pre-skill tree mechs, ghost heat is poorly explained, and the competitive scene is basically dominated by a very, very, VERY specific play style.

But QP is actually ok. Everything is kind of 'spread thin' enough to where nothing is really that bad.

Snazzy Dragon, on 26 October 2017 - 02:52 PM, said:

Skill forest is full of dead trees and the ones that live aren't all that pretty. For new players they may as well pour gasoline on themselves and run around with a torch inside, with how easy it is to completely burn yourself in terms of c bills, xp, time, and frustrations of bringing a suboptimal build with a suboptimal tree loayout (if any) against players that have much longer time and investment than you do as a new player.

Comp scene has 2 playstyles, and one of them is only there because light vultures are a requirement in most cases.. I'm sure if they weren't light pick rate would be somewhere below 1%

I didn't play ladder in Dota 2 and I don't play competitive in mwo. I just like when I get 3-5 kills in a match and think I'm top of the heap (rather than somehow getting -1k damage in competitive or something).

I did initially make a mistake with my first account gooddragon1, but I found moltenmetal's youtube videos helpful in picking the snv-1 6 cerllas build. I also got a light mech yesterday based on forum advice: adder b with d left arm, 6 cmedpulse, 1 light active probe for some reason, and all the heat sinks I could manage on it. It's performing pretty well even without being fully skilled out (and I can always choose to just stick 2 cerllas on it if I want).

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 26 October 2017 - 02:11 PM, said:

the skill tree isnt really a nightmare IMO. its more like a lengthy chore. its time consuming to click on all the hexes. but its practically the same skill loadout for every mech so its just replicating that for all my mechs. all that really changes from mech to mech is the weapon tree. I still dont get why we need six different types of XP though.

ghost heat on the other hand is a !@#$ing nightmare. now they have weapons that arnt even related combined together in the same ghost heat group. soon large and medium lasers will probably be linked too. and any time you wanna build something in mechlab youre going to have to consult the ghost heat table.

Considering I look at repetitive and lengthy paperwork as both a chore and a nightmare, the skill tree is the same as far as I am concerned. Ewwwww!

As such, I just don't bother with the skill tree these days.

Edited by Mystere, 26 October 2017 - 04:51 PM.

[Mystere]

Snazzy Dragon, on 26 October 2017 - 02:52 PM, said:

Skill forest is full of dead trees and the ones that live aren't all that pretty. For new players they may as well pour gasoline on themselves and run around with a torch inside, with how easy it is to completely burn yourself in terms of c bills, xp, time, and frustrations of bringing a suboptimal build with a suboptimal tree loayout (if any) against players that have much longer time and investment than you do as a new player.

Ghost heat is poorly explained and inconsistent. Ghost heat on 3 cERLL? No big deal. Ghost heat on 2 AC/20s? Fiery inferno of regret and sorrow. Makes it unintuitive for the uninitiated

Comp scene has 2 playstyles, and one of them is only there because light vultures are a requirement in most cases.. I'm sure if they weren't light pick rate would be somewhere below 1%

I don't care about lore accuracy too terribly much considering this is a real time, first person shooter, where the mechs are "balanced" in a 12v12 environment where OP clan mechs doesn't work too well for the health of the game (wonder what that's like? )

I was with you until the last part. What a shame.

[KodiakGW]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 26 October 2017 - 03:57 PM, said:

Skill tree was a fine change... I've played plenty of RPG's and various other games that are a bigger nightmare than this skill tree, I swear, those of you complaining about it, have barely touched RPG game sin your life or something... cry harder.

Ultimate Online
Guild Wars
World of Warcraft
Defiance (which is what they should have made it like)
Dungeons and Dragons Online
Age of Conan
...just to name a few.

And since when is this an RPG game? According to the first page of the game manual...
“A tactical, 'Mech-based online shooter set in the rich BattleTech Universe”

ONLINE SHOOTER

The RPG element of it is player born by those that form teams/join factions and play it out as such.

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 26 October 2017 - 03:57 PM, said:

I still play from time to time, but I used to play much, much more than I have... granted, I've been playing for nearly 5 years... so... maybe I'm just burnt out.

But, but...you just said it was a fine change! Shouldn’t have that made you want to play the game more? I mean, from all the posts you make anytime someone dares to question it, the Skill Web was the best change ‘evah!!!!

Yep, year over year numbers dropping. But, what did you say in another thread?

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 23 September 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

Ever think, that maybe, just Maybe, MWO has run it's course? The game's been out since 2012 man, it's had 5 years of continual play... you REALLY think the game's not going to bleed players? And at times en-masse?

So, game has run it’s course..even though MW5 just got a write up that should bring players back or gain interest from ones who never played before, like OP. Yet, player numbers are still dropping.

If you think MWO has run it’s course, and are playing less, than maybe you should be the one to stop crying every time someone calls into question something that many have said is the reason why they are playing less.

[Mr Snrub]

spottiedogman, on 26 October 2017 - 02:15 PM, said:

Have to agree with Bombast here, it is a total nightmare imho! I simply do not skill mechs and play very little now due to that one change.

I would maybe understand if you stopped playing because you don't like the change (not really), but not skilling your mech because you don't like the skilltree is completely mad.

[Mystere]

Mr Snrub, on 27 October 2017 - 05:51 AM, said:

I would maybe understand if you stopped playing because you don't like the change (not really), but not skilling your mech because you don't like the skilltree is completely mad.

It's not "mad", it's a challenge.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Bombast, on 26 October 2017 - 01:48 PM, said:

The skill tree is a colossal nightmare for players with huge quantities of pre-skill tree mechs,

Mostly b/c all it really is a giant nerf that lets you buy back a fraction of what was nerfed, rather than an actual conduit for customization.

[jss78]

I never had a problem with the skill tree.

The first time going through it took a while to go through all the choices, and how all the old modules etc. are implemented there.

After doing the skills on several 'mechs, it becomes very quick. Basically some variation on how much you take in each tree, depending on the 'mech's purpose. I do the skilling one 'mech at a time, whenever I play them. I still have many without skills assigned.

I'd argue it's a bigger nightmare to the new player, who's facing this immense number of choices, and doesn't understand the game mechanics that well to begin with.

[Trenchbird]

My biggest problem with the skill tree is the incessant whining about it.

Seriously, if you stopped playing it because of the skill tree, just cut your freaking losses already and leave. It's not going away. Best you'll get is limited change, and definitely not back to the ******, "Always straight upgrade" method we used to have.

Edited by Catten Hart, 27 October 2017 - 10:34 AM.

[Bud Crue]

As I see it there are two BIG problems with the skills tree and several ancillary ones. The fact that the skills tree is better than the old mastery path plus modules plus 3 mech model does not make it “good”, but merely better than what was.

As to the big problems:
1) It’s percentage based. That in effect forces you to min/max only those attributes that will actually demonstrate some significant effect and encourages you to ignore all others. The average player will not notice a 1% change of any value, they might notice 5% they will notice 10%. To get to those higher percentages you are forced to take a few percentages of a bunch of other stuff that is useless because you simply cannot notice the effect. Thus, you end up taking the same optimized paths for nearly every mech and ignore everything else to the extent possible. As a result the “tree” becomes an awful lot like the straight line path we had before.

2) What it does to the NPE. There is no in game description of what the tree is, how it works, why it is there, what the individual values do in a relative sense, etc. The mythical “new player” is left to his/her own devices to try and figure out this mess. As they incrementally “skill” out a mech, and PGI changes weapons values (or worse directly nerfs the mech) as part of their new monthly “balance pass” (read: cbill sink) the NPE is forced to redo and thus extend the grind and waste cbills and XP trying to compensate for PGI’s latest kick in the teeth. After a few occurances of this, the NPE becomes the former-NPE.

The ancillary downsides are just as well known: the burden and total enthusiasm killing effect the tree has on existing players trying to get their collection updated, and then when PGI does a “balance pass” knowing that half their mechs (or more) now need to be adjusted by a few or dozens of nodes; and thus eventually killing their enthusiasm for bothering with buying more mechs. The effect that the min/maxing the tree has on exceptional mechs or weapons, which enhances any existing performance gap that the community rushes to exploit, which PGI responds to, by yet another -often misguided or misapplied- balance pass which stil further reduces enthusiasm (and often fails to address the actual problem of the exceptional mech or weapon). The stupidity of keeping the three mech-packs in a system than no longer has a three mech requirment.

There’s a lot more. So yeah, its better than the old system but that sure aint sayin much.

[KodiakGW]

Catten Hart, on 27 October 2017 - 10:32 AM, said:

My biggest problem with the skill tree is the incessant whining about it.

My biggest problem is the incessant whining against anybody showing opposition to it and offering ideas trying to change it for the better. Which may bring back some of the players that specifically said they left because of it. I, and a lot of other made very good suggestions back before implementation that would have cut the hurt. But, we were shot down by one like you wanting “change for change’s sake.” Let’s face it. Most of you already admitted that you were the “cheapskates” that were swapping modules, and got the extra cheapskate bonus of not having to buy three mechs. Congrats.

But, you know, the HUGE increase in player base since it was implemented shows you and the pro Skill Web forum warriors MUST BE RIGHT.

NOT. 24.6% loss since January according to another thread. Most of that since it was implemented. Congrats on that.

[Kanil]

KodiakGW, on 27 October 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

NOT. 24.6% loss since January according to another thread. Most of that since it was implemented. Congrats on that.

Because literally the only reason anyone might quit is entirely due to the skill tree?

[Shifty McSwift]

There's a phrase for that... Gah.. Um.. Correlation does not imply causation.. Yeah that one, it's also a logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc.