1 reply to this topic

[LordNothing]

i think trial mechs as they are currently implemented are bad for npe. first off they cant be leveled, which puts new players at a huge disadvantage. also there is nothing for new players to learn from them. i think a redux is in order.

trial mechs are issued as rewards for completing training and cadet tree. they go into your inventory and you own them. however the engine and all the weapons, most equipment and upgrades are locked. but you are allowed to re-allocate armor, or add additional ammo or heat sinks, and level the mech to 91 nodes.

extending the concept you can actually teach new players how to build mechs. simply by whats locked and unlocked. one might unlock the engine only on an ammo starved or hot build to educate new players about engine types. you might leave a hardpoint unlocked to let players experiment with other weapons. perhaps include little tip bubbles in the mechlab to help explain what the mech is trying to teach. i will call these tutorial mechs.

they could earn a new tutorial mech at each level of the cadet tree. leveling might require a certain number of drops in all possible configurations of the current tutorial mech to level up. it would culminate in a first mech tutorial when you select one of your trials and receive the standard version of that chasses. it would also walk you through how to buy mechs and get more bays. when i started playing i didnt even know you could buy mechs with cbills.

other more competitive trials may be earned by completing the tutorial and periodically released by pgi. as well as additional trials periodically being made available. perhaps also have an fp deck building tutorial which might reward a full competitive deck upon completion.

[VonBruinwald]

I think it would be far simpler to allow players to refit trial mechs for free. That way they can experiment at their leisure without breaking the bank.

Leave the skill tree-locked but allow trial mechs to earn HXP (variant, not mech, specific XP) as an incentive to purchase the mech, if somebody is going to grind 91SP with a trial mech they should really buy it.

Both of these features are already in the game to an extent, so adapting them shouldn't be too difficult.


We also need a "Stock Loadout" button that returns mechs to their default config.