85 replies to this topic

[Foxwalker]

Have recently come back to the game and note that the cost to level your mech is pretty high. Even with Primium time it takes some time to accumulate necessary SP. To add insult to injury, it also costs C-Bills too? Just seems wrong.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Use your legacy SP first. All old points were converted. Cbill expense can somewhat be justified from the old module costs. It's also a one-time unlock for any node. Just know that it's locked per mech not variant now so choose wisely. If you sell a mech, you lose all those points you unlocked.

[tutzdes]

Foxwalker, on 02 November 2018 - 01:13 PM, said:

Have recently come back to the game and note that the cost to level your mech is pretty high. Even with Primium time it takes some time to accumulate necessary SP. To add insult to injury, it also costs C-Bills too? Just seems wrong.

It is MUCH cheaper and better than the old system with modules and three variant leveling.

[Koniving]

tutzdes, on 02 November 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

It is MUCH cheaper and better than the old system with modules and three variant leveling.

Only if you actually acquired said modules; if you dropped the modules it cost you nothing but skill points.

And you could reuse said modules.

[tutzdes]

Koniving, on 02 November 2018 - 01:48 PM, said:

Only if you actually acquired said modules; if you dropped the modules it cost you nothing but skill points.

And you could reuse said modules.

You still need to buy 2 mechs you don't need and play those. That's much worse, then paying for SPs.

[Foxwalker]

Cool thanks for the answers. Still seems to take a great deal more time to level though. It could be my imgination.

[Nameless King]

Foxwalker, on 02 November 2018 - 02:30 PM, said:

Cool thanks for the answers. Still seems to take a great deal more time to level though. It could be my imgination.

It does take awhile. This is not a good system for new players.

[Jay Leon Hart]

In case you want some tips & tricks for the Skill Tree, try here

[Mochyn Pupur]

tutzdes, on 02 November 2018 - 02:04 PM, said:

You still need to buy 2 mechs you don't need and play those. That's much worse, then paying for SPs.

Actually, you only need the 1 mech to master the SP . . . what PGI is doing is keeping to the model of "buy" three mechs as a package. Also, if you buy a second mech of exactly the same version/model, the extra skill points you used to be able to transfer to the newest one, have to be built up from scratch, i.e. no transference of EXP from one mech to another even if identical . . . yet another way PGI is punishing the long term players.

So little to say that MWO is worth while any more.

Established players and units have been decimated.

Clips of blatant cheating e.g. aimbots being sent in and lo and behold, the same people are still playing.

If you have CBills to play with, go ahead and use them; as a game with any shelf life left in it - hang on to your RL money.

[Shifty McSwift]

The old method was far more expensive, but you did end up owning more mechs, which could also mean more mechbays if you weren't selling the ones you were just skilling up to get the 3 mech mastery upgrades, modules were a crappy c-bill sink too, as you could move them around, but the idea is you eventually become rich enough in cbills to buy extras that you don't really need and serve no real extra purpose in purchase.

Overall it was a costly, annoying and pretty messy process, the skill tree is much "cleaner" albeit perhaps annoying to start, and for new players much cheaper to set up a build (unless they need to reskill repeatedly), but the skill tree certainly isn't perfect, I liked it because it seemed like a good platform for the idea of mech/player "skills", which there would be further changes to, but it has stayed mostly the same in its layout and setup, which is unfortunate.

[Asym]

Foxwalker, on 02 November 2018 - 02:30 PM, said:

Cool thanks for the answers. Still seems to take a great deal more time to level though. It could be my imagination.

No, it's not your imagination..... It's designed that way....so you spend money completing a less than combat ready vehicle.....you won or paid for !!! Now, how stupid is that? You receive a less than combat ready mech you have to take into combat...........to what, pay for what you bought????

It's one of the reasons I just about don't play very much anymore.........a complete waste of time. Hundreds of matches without "spending money" for PT and, even then, hundreds of games to actually finish..... I have several un-skilled mechs that i received as gifts or awards or bought that I'll never master.......to what end?

As the saying goes: Stupid is as stupid does....... And, PGI has lost a lot of revenue to the new skill tree and especially, to masters of new mechs...

[Ruccus]

Asym, on 03 November 2018 - 04:43 AM, said:

No, it's not your imagination..... It's designed that way....so you spend money completing a less than combat ready vehicle.....you won or paid for !!! Now, how stupid is that? You receive a less than combat ready mech you have to take into combat...........to what, pay for what you bought????

It's one of the reasons I just about don't play very much anymore.........a complete waste of time. Hundreds of matches without "spending money" for PT and, even then, hundreds of games to actually finish..... I have several un-skilled mechs that i received as gifts or awards or bought that I'll never master.......to what end?

As the saying goes: Stupid is as stupid does....... And, PGI has lost a lot of revenue to the new skill tree and especially, to masters of new mechs...

Using the old system I think it took longer to make the mech decently battle ready. The single most transformative achievement in the old leveling system was 'Double Basics'. It significantly improved your cooling and agility in battle allowing you to outlast and outmaneuver a non-double basic mech. That was a 'haves versus have-nots' level where a mech at that level had a significant advantage over a mech that didn't. To get that you had to basic three mechs and elite the mech you were trying to finish (then if I remember correctly you had to elite the other two mechs if you wanted the main mech 'mastered' to get speed tweak and an extra module slot).

With the new system you can go right down the operations tree from the start and get 3 cool run and 3 heat containment nodes with 11 nodes, and all five of each with 20 nodes. 20 nodes should be around a dozen or so decent matches. Or if you want increased mobility you can zip straight down the mobility tree, getting a previously master class skill in speed tweak for 21 nodes.

For Radar Depreciation it took 6 million c-bills for the module but now you can get 60% radar depreciation for 9 skill nodes and then be in a position to add half a seismic sensor module for one more node. That's basically like getting a hybrid radar derp/seismic module (which didn't exist in the old system and required you to master most mechs to get a second module slot if you wanted both derp and seismic) for 10 nodes.

In my opinion the new system is better because it's a hill rather than stairs. After every few matches you'll have enough XP to improve your mech to a point that it's noticeable. Gradually it'll improve more and more and will allow you to adjust your builds based on its new performance. It also allows you to tailor your mech to your needs. If you're happy with a cold build, ignore the operations tree and go straight down firepower or survival from the start, or immediately go down the mobility tree to get speed tweak. That's something you couldn't do with the old system, you just went up the same tree everyone else did.

[thievingmagpi]

It's pretty silly. Not as bad as other games with grind but it's still very punishing for new players.

It also means that other game modes (FP, Solaris) are pretty much locked out to new players. I've got a fair amount of cbills, gxp, mechs etc but if I want to set something up for Solaris, there's still a lot of grinding I need to do. It's a huge barrier entry. Does not make it appealing to play not just for new players, but for everyone.

Edited by thievingmagpi, 03 November 2018 - 05:25 PM.

[FupDup]

tutzdes, on 02 November 2018 - 02:04 PM, said:

You still need to buy 2 mechs you don't need and play those. That's much worse, then paying for SPs.

In the old system, if you added up all the XP of getting those 3 mechs skilled up and then divided that value by 3, your average XP per mech would be a lot lower than the new system.

Edited by FupDup, 03 November 2018 - 01:10 PM.

[MrXanthios]

Matches should give more xp and losing shouldn't penalize you if you had a good performance.

[LordNothing]

i havent had to level mechs since skill trees. you would think id be out of gxp by now. nope.

and frankly thats the only reason im still around. if i had to grind all those new mechs i bought since then id have given up long ago. its probably a huge reason we have no new player retention and are loosing the once we have. leveling is not mechwarrior.

Edited by LordNothing, 04 November 2018 - 10:33 AM.

[Mumuharra]

First I was really happy about the new skill tree and that I only have to master the variant I love.
It very often seemed to be a pain in the *** to master 3 variants.
But you know what?
Very often they became one of my favourites and it was very challenging to adapt to new play stiles and load outs I otherwise never would have used.
Right now I can’t decide what was the best.
Rule of 3 or skilltree.

Edited by Mumuharra, 04 November 2018 - 12:42 PM.

[Tiewolf]

tutzdes, on 02 November 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

It is MUCH cheaper and better than the old system with modules and three variant leveling.

I doubt that

1. You could sell at least 2 mechs and equipment if you didn`t want to keep em after leveling. If you take that into account it was cheaper for lower then X tonnage mechs. (too lazy to do the math where the cut off point for the initial price lies)
2. If you want more then 1 mech of the same variant it is waaay more expensive now.
3. The XP grind is much harder now.
4. You have to play longer with inferior mechs now. Before you could "cheapskate" and swap modules if you couldn`t afford them immediately.
5. So much irritating clicking to skill up a mech.

Allmost the only benefits of the new system are that it is cheaper for expensive mechs to level 1 mech and that you do not need at least 2 free mech bays extra to level one mech.

All PGI did with the new system is to increase the grind to horrific levels and slow down the progression for newer players that didn`t own 100+ modules before the change. The skill tree system has its benefits but over all it is just terrible.

Edited by Tiewolf, 04 November 2018 - 01:59 PM.

[Prototelis]

It's easier for new players only in the regard that skilling more than two mechs with only the starter mechbays under the old system suuuuuuuuucked.

[Shifty McSwift]

Tiewolf, on 04 November 2018 - 01:43 PM, said:

I doubt that

1. You could sell at least 2 mechs and equipment if you didn`t want to keep em after leveling. If you take that into account it was cheaper for lower then X tonnage mechs. (too lazy to do the math where the cut off point for the inital price lies)
2. If you want more then 1 mech of the same variant it is waaay more expensive now.
3. The XP grind is much harder now.
4. You have to play longer with inferior mechs. Before you could "cheapskate" and swap modules if you couldn`t afford them immediately.
5. So much irritating clicking to skill up a mech.

All PGI did with the new system is to increase the grind to horrific levels and slow down the progression for newer players that didn`t own 100+ modules before the change. The skill tree system has its benefits but over all it is just terrible.

The critical point there is that it is much cheaper for a new player to skill out their first mech or three than it was previously. I would think noobs would come first over hamsters in terms of who needs those c-bills the most.