29 replies to this topic

[InvictusLee]

What if we buff trial mechs with crazy ammounts of armor and structure and meta load outs for a new accounts up to say, their first 28 matches, after which the buffs fall off and we encourage our new pilots to come to the forums for mech advice?

On that topic, what if we had an in game internet browser that will allow players to reach the forums without having to alt tab much like the way EVE online does things?

Im just spitballing. Throw your noob friendly ideads together in this thread and lets see what we get?

[R Valentine]

I'd rather they just gave them a decent, full skill load out and had more trial mechs with good builds. Having no skills on them is brutal.

[Kargush]

November11th, on 05 February 2018 - 01:55 PM, said:

On that topic, what if we had an in game internet browser that will allow players to reach the forums without having to alt tab much like the way EVE online does things?

Steam. No, seriously. Use the overlay. It has a browser.

[InvictusLee]

Kargush, on 05 February 2018 - 01:58 PM, said:

Steam. No, seriously. Use the overlay. It has a browser.

we have a winner ladies and gents!

[JediPanther]

Give them 20 or 40 skill points limit to use on trial mechs with no cost including unlimited re spec. Trials are so under gunned compared to a bought and skilled mech. Let them customize the weapon load out at least with weapons from other variants of the trial mech. Half the game's fun is just making mixed builds or doing super durpy builds just to see what happens.

[cougurt]

they need to come with up-to-date loadouts for starters, and actually be rotated on a regular basis. i would also agree with giving them some skill points (maybe even the full 91) to play with, free of any c-bill, XP and respec costs. and finally, allow trial mechs to earn XP like they used to.

[InvictusLee]

Bump

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Kiran Yagami, on 05 February 2018 - 01:58 PM, said:

I'd rather they just gave them a decent, full skill load out and had more trial mechs with good builds. Having no skills on them is brutal.

I've been suggesting exactly that every time it's come up since Skill Tree dropped. It doesn't have to be anything fancy- just a good generic set of skill nodes (say, Ops plus Survival plus Mobility) that applies to nearly any build you could think to put on a trial, so as to soften the learning curve as much as possible. Slap a big disclaimer warning new players that the skill tree will have to be built out for every 'Mech they buy, this is just an example for you to try out, yadda yadda...

The gap between unskilled and skilled 'Mechs was always significant, but with Skill Tree bringing in armor and former module bonuses as well, it's really more of a chasm now. It results in trials that drive like they're 10 tons heavier, soak damage like they're 10 tons lighter, and on top of that run ~20% hotter. That's stupid. It's always been stupid, but it's pants-on-head stupid since Skill Tree.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Basically just give the new players actually good trial mechs and have them each preskilled up too rather than just a build.

Like really, look at the current IS trial mediums, I'm tired of seeing LRM Kintaros in scouting and Phawks getting one shotted.

[InvictusLee]

Bump.
Bruh if we had meta battlemasters as slightly armor buffed trial mechs, newbs would love this game!

[dario03]

Kiran Yagami, on 05 February 2018 - 01:58 PM, said:

I'd rather they just gave them a decent, full skill load out and had more trial mechs with good builds. Having no skills on them is brutal.

They should do this for bought mechs too. Fully skilled from a choice of a few presets and then you can use sp/xp/cbills to change the skills to your preference. So new mechs are probably not skilled exactly how you want them but neither are they just flat out weaker.

[InvictusLee]

Bump. Keep those ideas comming!

[Christof Romulus]

At the risk of eating a lot of hate - I'm going to have to disagree.

First let me touch up on the point about the loadouts of the Trial mechs - Those are community builds. PGI came to the community and asked us to vote on every meta build in order to create Trial mechs that could stand a chance in a fight against our Wing-Zero Custom mechs. If the meta has changed since those builds have been introduced, then perhaps we could reach out to the community manager and see if we can do another loadout vote like last time to get them more up-to-date. The only issue here is, as the meta shifts then the trial mechs will need to constantly be upkept.

As for the Skill system - that is a perk of mech ownership. Simple as that. Mechwarrior Online needs money to run, and people who aren't paying Piranha games aren't helping that. When a player plays the game for the first few times, either they will like it enough to keep playing, and perhaps drop more money into the game (the dream) or they won't like it enough to pay and will continue to grind but eventually will pay because they find the grind intolerable (the reality), or they will stop playing (the harsh reality).

Giving access to the skill system for Trial mechs, while it would improve new player experience, would also detract from transitioning from using the trial mechs to mech ownership. Having any number of skillpoints in a Trial mech would mean that when you PURCHASE YOUR FIRST MECH you will have a weapon loadout that is default to the mech (often times trash), and if it's Inner Sphere it runs the risk of needing HEAVY upgrades to make it competitive (DHS, ENDO, LFE) and on top of that you have no skillpoints spent what-so-ever.

This would create a new gulf for a new player to the game, where they may even feel that they're victim of a bait-and-switch where they were promised these semi-meta mechs with moderate performance, but once they bought a mech of their very own to customize they suddenly are drastically under-performing and now have to dump even more time and money to bring it up to snuff. (C-bills ESPECIALLY, since you have to pay to use the skill tree as well as for those weapon and tech upgrades that I mentioned earlier).

I feel that this would just be even more of a detriment than the current system.

[Relishcakes]

November11th, on 05 February 2018 - 01:55 PM, said:

What if we buff trial mechs with crazy ammounts of armor and structure and meta load outs for a new accounts up to say, their first 28 matches, after which the buffs fall off and we encourage our new pilots to come to the forums for mech advice?

On that topic, what if we had an in game internet browser that will allow players to reach the forums without having to alt tab much like the way EVE online does things?

Im just spitballing. Throw your noob friendly ideads together in this thread and lets see what we get?

Update their loadouts at least. I've seen some of those trial mechs not change in....EVER.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

The argument that putting full skill trees on trials would somehow harm PGI's bottom line is pure fantasy. Since the skill tree can be filled out with cbills and XP, that is something completely accessible to free-to-play folks anyway- requiring new players to buy their own 'Mechs before using the skill tree bonuses doesn't benefit PGI at all. Cbills can be purchased for real world money, but XP can't, so you cannot just outright buy your way around the skill tree grind anyway... but you can make it quicker if you purchase, for real world money, a means of increasing your XP gain. Like, for example, premium time... or Champion 'Mechs. Fleshing out the skill trees on trials would make new players more likely to buy them, not less. "Here, see- all this could be yours much faster if you buy this 'Mech for a small fee!"

It is also worth mentioning that driving trial 'Mechs boosts your GXP gain, so that's also something players can already do for free- you just don't get the 'Mech XP unless you buy the Champion for yourself.

Trials with full skill trees are just the next logical step beyond trials with customized builds. People buy their own 'Mechs because they want to put their own builds on those 'Mechs, and they'd still buy their own 'Mechs with fully skilled up trials because those skill builds wouldn't be customized to their individual desires either. People do buy Champions still, and so far as I'm aware they don't generally just leave the stock equipment on them. The reward for purchasing a 'Mech is customization, one way or the other (that and the "privilege" of grinding out cbills and XP to get the thing in fighting trim). Full skill trees would just give newbies a better idea of what the 'Mech they've dropped in is actually capable of, rather than only what it is like to play it fresh off the market... which is really not a representative gameplay experience.

And... where would the bait-and-switch be? Is it bait-and-switch to have trials with fully customized loadouts, when the cbill version of the same variant has a different loadout? No? Then why would it be bait-and-switch to have a sample skill tree? Especially if there were a disclaimer included with it, just like there already is for every trial 'Mech. "You can play around with this in 'Mechlab, but you can't actually customize this 'Mech unless you buy it." Sound familiar? No bait and switch there.

Edited by WrathOfDeadguy, 07 February 2018 - 04:28 PM.

[Khobai]

what if we deleted trial mechs

[Chortles]

Regarding to the topic of skill trees for trial mechs, I think that they should have a complete skill tree and consumables to improve their usefulness against player owned custom mechs. However, they shouldn't able to be customized similar to their equipment. Their entire loadout should be fixed and only be used as a sample of what the mech can do. Full customization should still be limited to player owned mechs.

[whiskeyblue]

I would also like to see improvements made for new people.. I'm a noob with maybe three months of play under my belt.. I have a pretty fresh memory of learning just how bad the trial dire wolf really is. Frankly, if i wasnt so impressed with the community, and had such fond memories of Mech Warrior II , i probably would have quit. You folks are the best though. It never ceases to amaze me how awesome this community is, but thats not going to make people hang around unless they hav enough games in to figure it out for themselves, and they wont hang around long enough if the mechs are fighting against them.. Since i joined, I've bought the supernova collectors pack AND the Blood Asp collectors bundle: not to mention the catapult, the King Crab and the Summoner ( gotta have my summoner ).. So yeah, give folks the right reason and they wont just stick around, theyll contribute to the game to keep it going.. I love the ideas proposed here. I just hope they implement them ( yeah, its a me too cheerleading thing but hey, the more voices, the better the chances )..
WB

[ROSS-128]

Khobai, on 07 February 2018 - 04:31 PM, said:

what if we deleted trial mechs

The problem with that is you need to start with at least one mech to earn CBills in.

It's less of a problem than it used to be since the tutorial starts you off with a couple mil now, but that basically won't get you anything with DHS.

Which means ironically, trials' greatest drawback is that many are traps with SHS... but their greatest utility is they're the only way for a new player to get DHS.

If we wanted to get rid of trial mechs completely we'd probably have to start new players off with closer to 10M. ~2-4M is for the mech, 1.5M for the mandatory DHS upgrade, 1M for Endo, about 3M for the LFE, the rest going to fix the weapons.

And Kerensky help them if they blow it on a trash build, because a battlemech loses something like 50% of its value when it walks off the lot.

Would probably be better to just have trials that don't suck.

Ooooooor, a PvE mode where new players can earn CBills and get over the initial learning curve in a controlled environment.

[PocketYoda]

Trial mechs are garbage, they do not sell mechs at all, if any of you actually had tried a trial mech in the last three years you'd know this..

Garbage load outs, garbage setups and never rotated out.. No wonder so many new players quit.

Edited by Samial, 07 February 2018 - 09:41 PM.