261 replies to this topic

[Elizander]

One way of making the skill tree not so crappy to go through is by not putting all the useful nodes too far out. Putting both ECM nodes so far out is just intentionally making things miserable for players when the tree can have 1 ECM node accessible with the first 2-3 points and have the second one reached after 14 points. The same goes for Radar Derp; it doesn't need to be at the bottom of the tree. It won't kill to have one node of it accessible within the first 2-3 points.

This goes for all the other skill trees.

• You need 12 points before you get the first nodes for Enhanced UAC/RAC and Magazine Capacity. Why can't you let the player access this within the first 5 points?
  
• You need 12 points before you get a node of Missile Rack and High Explosives. Why can't players get this within the first 5 points? Why are there 3 types of nodes for missiles while everything else just has 1 or 2?
  
• You need 7 points before you reach a node of Laser Duration. Again, should be accessible within the first 5 points.
  
• You need 4 points to reach the first armor node in the armor tree. Why can't the tree start off with 2 armor and 2 structure nodes? The player still has to get the other 8 down the tree.
  
• Why can't the mech operations tree start with cool run and put the quick ignition node where the middle cool run node is?

You get the idea. Players need to fill the tree to get what they need anyway. There's no need to put all the decent nodes so far down. If I need to get 2, 3, 4, or 5 of this important node, it won't kill you to let players access 1 node early in the tree. The progression of the trees and how they are designed is really bad in terms of encouraging players to fill it up over a long grind. PGI doesn't even sell SP directly and mech XP even with Premium Time sucks for players that keep losing which makes the entire process quite miserable for newbies and even more miserable for veterans who know how bad it is to have an unskilled mech.

I also had another idea to reduce the grind and add a progression curve to it to maintain player interest, but I posted it in the New Player thread for some reason.

Edited by Elizander, 29 November 2020 - 06:27 AM.

[Elizander]

One more thing regarding the skill tree that I was thinking about years ago to address the issue that percentage bonuses don't have any significant effect on low stat mechs such as in the case for assault mechs and the agility tree.

From what I recall, big assault mechs tend to have agility stats around 10 while the smaller ones might have 15 and the exceptionally fast ones might have 20. Heavies have around 20ish and lights are in the 30s. I could be wrong, but just pulling this out of memory. The issue with assaults and agility nodes is that when you have a base stat of 10, there is no way a 20% bonus will get you to what you want which is around 15 or more. 20% of 10 is 2, so your low stat of 10 becomes 20 for the cost of over 30+ SP. That's not worth it.

This is particularly horrible for stats like Anchor Turn, Kinetic Burst and Hard Break. What I suggest is adding a fixed amount bonus to the node along with a percentage bonus and the game applies whichever is higher. This means mechs with high stats still benefit from percentage bonuses if that's better for them, while mechs with low stats will benefit more from fixed stat amounts. Here's an example for 100 ton mechs (adjust per weight category or tonnage like with other nodes):

• Anchor Turn - +6% turn rate or +0.75 turn rate, whichever is higher.
  
• Hard Break - +3.5% mech deceleration or +0.75 mech deceleration, whichever is higher.
  
• Kinetic Burst - +3.5% mech acceleration or +0.75 mech acceleration, whichever is higher.

So a slow mech with base turning stat of 10 would gain either the 30% turn rate bonus which is 3 points or gain 6 turn rate points with full Anchor Turn. Since 6 is higher than 3, the mech gains 4.5 points of turn rate. A mech with 20 turn rate would gain 6 points of turn rate. This reduces the discrepancy of gains from 3 vs 6 to 4.5 vs 6 for a mech with double the base stats of the other. Of course this has to be measured to what players would consider 'worth it' in terms of agility so this can be supplemented with slight increases to base stats of mechs that are way too low, but even without touching mech base stats, this skill tree system will already be much better for mechs with super low base stats.

The same can be done for undesirable trees like Jump Jets.

Edited by Elizander, 30 November 2020 - 11:44 AM.

[Kodan Black]

You get more benefit multiplying percentages against bigger numbers so naturally that leads to heavy and assaults in armor tree and med and lights in mobility (not always, but mostly). I think that putting points into mobility for big mechs and armor for light mechs shouldn't make sense. That isn't what you are for. I don't want an assault running 110kph because it means he has no armor or weapons just like a light with armor on par with a heavy means they are likely slow. Different weights have roles and trying to make all mech weights viable at everything is a really bad goal to shoot for.

[Forgeling]

For mechs with no JJs the JJ skill tree can be just two dozen hill climb nodes.

[Elizander]

Kodan Black, on 01 December 2020 - 11:34 AM, said:

You get more benefit multiplying percentages against bigger numbers so naturally that leads to heavy and assaults in armor tree and med and lights in mobility (not always, but mostly). I think that putting points into mobility for big mechs and armor for light mechs shouldn't make sense. That isn't what you are for. I don't want an assault running 110kph because it means he has no armor or weapons just like a light with armor on par with a heavy means they are likely slow. Different weights have roles and trying to make all mech weights viable at everything is a really bad goal to shoot for.

You're completely blowing it out of proportion. I already listed the numbers down. Assaults with 15 and 20 mobility stats already exist. The proposed numbers will just get sluggish mechs that are at 10 stats to 14-15 instead of 12. Your example of 110KPH and being good in all areas isn't even remotely within the scope of what I wrote down. Agile mechs have stats up to 30 points and there is absolutely no way mechs with 10 stats will jump to 30 points with this system. This also did not include Speed Tweak so that wouldn't be affected. The focus was purely on the stats I've listed. I did not propose that lights get +1 armor per node.

[toncrell]

im going to just comment on the skill tree part of this, and be as kind as i can be

1.xp 59,239

2.gsp 39,6471

3 cb 176,697,132

4. All of my mechs are slotted 91 skill points


What do all those numbers mean? well thats the time I played learning to be good at this game, and im not bragging.

i have 156 mechs and bays, and played from the very start of the game as a founder. This game is not an easy game, you


need to put your time in playing it ! THEN, the skill point will make more sence to you as to wich ones you will pick and not pick

and you'll see the benifit of having them, and not having them based on the mech and your playing style. a Assult mech can't

do what a fast mech can and vice versa, and thats why we need skill points and why you need to develope your skill by playing

the game then the grind will make sence to you. The old skill grind helped you to see that quicker then this one, but believe me

this tree is better. There is no game genie for this game you just have to play it, and realize that you need others around you to

survive, after all its a team sport. In your deffence when i started we had a lot more peps playing so the play skill were learned

much faster. So play more, learn what mistakes your making or what the mech build needs to be more effective in play and the

grind will go by very fast. As they say in racing you need to earn the right to be fast,or in other words you need to learn the skills

to be good. Its no diffrent here.

[Drunk Canuck]

Hey Daeron, here's my take as someone who has been playing MWO since open beta, and really want to play it more often, but it's hard to want to play something I don't enjoy as much as I used to. So let's dig in and I'll share my thoughts and feelings on the direction that I'd like to see things shift.

Skill Tree and Grind Reduction:

1. Boost both non-premium and premium time C-Bill rewards for players by 25%. My rationale is that, especially for more casual players or newer players, it can really be hard to grind up the funds you need for new Mech's.

2. Get rid of the any C-Bill or MC costs for skilling chassis as well as simplify the skill point menu system so that it is more user friendly. Maybe even just have a singular unified skill point system and roll Historic XP into the GSP system or something.

3. Make XP for each Mech variant universal across every Mech you have of the same variant. XP should not be locked to each individual Mech. I don't know when that was changed but that was never the case with the old Pilot Skills and frankly it should never have been dropped.

4. Simplify the Skill Tree. I do think it has potential, but there's a lot of skills that are absolutely pointless that can be dropped entirely unless they are going to add some sort of serious benefit to choosing them. Survivability and anything that improves your weapons are still the most beneficial skills because most of the other skills really are useless.

Make the Skill Tree more linear, and have mobility based skills scale with engine size + quirks. This invariably does two things, brings a significant buff to the light Mech class that has been significantly impacted by the rescale (unless PGI is intent on scaling them back down) and it also makes bigger Mech's that have big fixed engines like the Shadowcat, Executioner, Ice Ferret, Gargoyle and Black Lanner more agile like they are supposed to be. Ideally, the engine threshold for mobility bonuses could be scaled using some sort of multiplier based on the weight of the Mech and the engine. A lot of the Clan Mech's that most need mobility improvements have fixed engines (aside from the Kodiak and Mad Cat MK 2). The whole skill tree I imagine would be daunting for new players and it feels like a complete PITA for us veterans. When choices don't feel like they matter, it's hard to want to take them and that's what's really been the biggest failure of the whole system.

Torso Heat Spike Mechanic:

Yes, this mechanic is bad and punishing for players of all skill levels.

Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency:

I think this whole system needs a retool because it feels like even if you pack 30 double heatsinks into a Mech, it's not THAT much more efficient than one that has half as many.

No comments on the Command Wheel

Time of Day:

Really, this would be fine if the framerate tanking issue got fixed. I'd be fine with maps just having their time of day randomized and fixed. Or have maps that are day or night based on the server clock, that'd be fun.

UI Performance Pass/Scaling

Oh gosh, I was hammering on about scaling issues 4 years ago. The game is absolutely awful for anyone running 3440x1440 resolution on an ultrawide screen, the font is just so ridiculously small. Even now I'm using a 2560x1440 screen and it's not AS bad, but it could be better to have proper scaling as well as the ability to increase the scale of the UI in the game itself when needed.

[Zordicron]

Certain buttons in the UI on the front end, like mechlab or the store are WAY to small.

Skill tree:
I hate it, and always have. Maybe because I remember how the old stuff was, and it feels like "grinding to get what we had before" or something.
The firepower tree requires most of a mechs nodes to get minimal benefit, IMO.

There is an entire tree dedicated to fixing the mobility issues created by doing the Desynch backwards. back in the day when players wanted the desynch they wanted twist/turn(not speed or accel!) set at fixed value of the highest engine rating to allow big mechs to tank some damage without haveing to put a STD 375 engine in to do it. you guys did the opposite. Fix the desynch, and the entire mobility tree minus speed tweek is pointless.



You know what would make a lot more sense? If the skill tree was for.... the pilot? you know, the player? Why not let the grindy part of it be player stat boosts that apply to whatever they are in. that way there is no grinding new chassis, and you guys could actually balance the chassis with quirks without haveing to consider all the possibility between zero nodes and 91. Sucks to the existing "by variant" version. Put the skill tree on the player.

THEN...
If you want to have some customizable mech stuff...
Allow players to buy weapon system specific quirks with mech XP. i know sometimes I don;t like stock weapons on a mech, but I like those weapons on a different chassis. For instance, some people like LRM's on the hunchie SP to offset the short ranged laser loadout they put on. Others like to double down on brawly hunchie and put SRM on it. Let players pick which quirk they like based on how they like to play the mech. Limit the number you can put on.

Here's another one, when a player decides to add ferro armor on the mech, give the mech a +armor quirk to go with it. The tiny tonnage that is freed up by Ferro has always been pretty meh to try to work in. Let players get that tiny tonnage, but then also some extra armor quirk at the cost of all those slots.

[Mechwarrior Victor Strong]

I sincerely love this game, but the tank-on-legs simply doesn't portray the agility of the humanoid robot platform. I want features that differentiate the giant robot from just another tank.

Arm movement:
These mechs have shoulders for a reason. The arms should raise to fire. I barely touch my Warhammer anymore because the PPC blasts always hit the freakin hillside! Raise those arms!!! Even if it has to be limited to feet planted, target locked and in line-of-sight. Or put it on a toggle, like the missile launcher covers...it just needs to happen.

Side-step:
Why shouldn't the mech take a step to the side if not moving forward? That would make maneuvering more natural and convenient. Plus the ability to move laterally without having to change the entire mech's facing would allow us to keep a target lock, dodge incoming fire (maybe), and pull off cowardly duck-around-the-corner moves with assault mechs. Who doesn't want that? And then there's Solaris City where everybody is getting in everybody else's way. A quick step to the side would solve so many problems.

Melee:
I know, its unpopular. But I fell in love with this game when it was called BattleDroids.
If melee can't be done, at least put in Death from Above! I've done it. It's freakin hard to pull off! And all I got for it was shot to pieces. Didn't even scratch the other guy's paint. A successful DFA attack should be rewarded.
Along similar lines, it wouldn't require much alteration to enable a Charge/Tackle/Push attack. It isn't often, but occasionally it would be a game changer if you could push an opponent out from behind cover or over a cliff.

Knockdown:
Any mech taking withering fire should be staggered or knocked over. The skills for gyro stabilizing are a nod in that direction, but the actual mech never seems to be affected. It seems reasonable that a few heavy shots could at least crank the target's torso to the side. To have a mech stumble would be good. To have a mech fall and stand back up would be better. To face-plant a Piranha would be justice.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Mechwarrior Victor Strong, on 03 December 2020 - 08:21 PM, said:

I sincerely love this game, but the tank-on-legs simply doesn't portray the agility of the humanoid robot platform. I want features that differentiate the giant robot from just another tank.

Arm movement:
These mechs have shoulders for a reason. The arms should raise to fire. I barely touch my Warhammer anymore because the PPC blasts always hit the freakin hillside! Raise those arms!!! Even if it has to be limited to feet planted, target locked and in line-of-sight. Or put it on a toggle, like the missile launcher covers...it just needs to happen.

Side-step:
Why shouldn't the mech take a step to the side if not moving forward? That would make maneuvering more natural and convenient. Plus the ability to move laterally without having to change the entire mech's facing would allow us to keep a target lock, dodge incoming fire (maybe), and pull off cowardly duck-around-the-corner moves with assault mechs. Who doesn't want that? And then there's Solaris City where everybody is getting in everybody else's way. A quick step to the side would solve so many problems.

Melee:
I know, its unpopular. But I fell in love with this game when it was called BattleDroids.
If melee can't be done, at least put in Death from Above! I've done it. It's freakin hard to pull off! And all I got for it was shot to pieces. Didn't even scratch the other guy's paint. A successful DFA attack should be rewarded.
Along similar lines, it wouldn't require much alteration to enable a Charge/Tackle/Push attack. It isn't often, but occasionally it would be a game changer if you could push an opponent out from behind cover or over a cliff.

Knockdown:
Any mech taking withering fire should be staggered or knocked over. The skills for gyro stabilizing are a nod in that direction, but the actual mech never seems to be affected. It seems reasonable that a few heavy shots could at least crank the target's torso to the side. To have a mech stumble would be good. To have a mech fall and stand back up would be better. To face-plant a Piranha would be justice.

iK for Legs/Feets ,Knock Down was once in Game ,and brings massive problems with Rubber banding,and Collisons systems ,and after loosing the old Technical Staff Crew after the Transverse Disaster and loosing many talented Guys 2015/16, no People here thats can handle the old Enigma Cry3 Engine ...look to the Terrible Animations and the terrible Climb System...thats here not RELIC or DICE

and Melee ?we you will control it?here the Mech not only a single Hitzone.im hit the arm?the right Shoulder from Mech 1 or the left shoulder from Mech 2Melee with 11 Hitzones by each Mech a Pain for Calculationg and Collisions Models ..Glitches and many Problems and a big Difference between a abstract Strategic Game with Rounds like BT and a FPS.

In FPS Games Melee most One Kill Animations and a Death Sequence and in Medival Games and sword Fighting Games, you not have Many othe Weapons and Functions to control with Keyboard and Mouse

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 04 December 2020 - 03:39 AM.

[yrrot]

In game event menu:

• Completed events look no different than unfinished events on the main event table. Can we move completed events out of the active events tab when the reward is claimed?
  
• If we can't remove them from the list, can we mark them as claimed?

It feels like this will be annoying to navigate with a large number of events (advent...). Probably be good to make the UI for events as clean and new player friendly as possible.

[Akillius]

Daeron your serious and want features and improvements?

Lower the volume on the starting MWO Portal client
MWO is the only game I mute when I start it because of how loud Nvidia to login screen.

Speaking of Mute...
Keep people on block list Muted the next time I log into the game.
No one would let their daughter play this game because the freaks are all un-muted on login!!!

Remove the word Solaris from all the Mecwarrior Online branding, titles, Steam page, etc.
Its confusing for a failed "feature". (except the MC farmers freeloading 45k MC)

Separate Teams from Solo QuickPlay again.
OR make optional (like some Opt-In for solo+team, because optout bad for NPE.)

Banking premium time............ let us the players control it again.
And if there needs to be a minimum to bank or unbank then no worries lets do that!!!
Currently its just confusing to NPE and a real -issue- for old players.


EDIT:
Mech +5% CBills and XP Cockpit items... Never give away for free!!!
Its the only reason to buy those 3 MechPacks!
Make those buffs (if owned) added to all mechs and Stack buff by number owned.
Its a hassle swapping them all the time and makes all other cockpit items useless.
A Major poor quality of gaming issue for those who bought MWO's Ultimate mechpacks.

Edited by Akillius, 05 December 2020 - 04:01 PM.

[Mycroft000]

I genuinely don't like that I'm even saying this, but the old skill tree was simpler and better. I wanted to like the new one, but it's just not fun to deal with. If I want to deal with that much number crunching, that's what tabletop is for.

[Jay Sovereign]

I'd like to start by saying:

• DO NOT reduce or remove Friendly Fire
  
  • ​This is what makes MWO what it is. Friendly Fire shall not be reduced or removed.
• DO NOT reduce or remove the Skill Tree
  
  • ​I have included more in-depth thoughts on the Skill Tree below.
• DO NOT reduce or remove Air/Artillery Strikes
  
  • ​Sure, sometimes we get rekt by strikes but that's what it's all about! It's fun! We need teamwork to be aware of strikes!

SKILL TREE

• I love the skill tree and think it has really enhanced the capabilities of mechs and the experience in general.
  
• I don't think it should be called 'skills,' though. Enhancements, upgrades, or something like that would be a better name.
  
• I think the skill tree could be made even better by reducing the cost of everything across the board and disconnecting some dissimilar nodes. If dissimilar nodes are disconnected, make the less popular/less useful nodes more powerful.

HEAT MECHANICS & VALUES

• We don't have to completely remove the torso heat spike mechanic, but definitely reduce it.
  
• Heat values seen in 'Mech Stats' are simply useless and don't tell you anything. Yes, they need to be reworked.
  
• Remove ghost heat OR fully explain to the player (in-game) how this mechanic is working and affecting us.

TIME OF DAY

Time of day change should be removed for quickplay but not for Faction Play, as the time of day changing really enhances the feel of a long seige battle with waves of mechs.

REVAMP NIGHT VISION AND HEAT VISION

They're more of a hinderance than a help at this point.

Edited by Jay Sovereign, 27 December 2020 - 11:22 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Quote

Equipment

• Superchargers: An idea of how it could function would be something similar to 'Over Boost' in Armored Core!
  
  • Turbo boost horizontally and as you are boosting your fuel decreases.
    
  • You stop when you release the button or your fuel is empty.
    
  • Has a long cooldown time. Can risk blowing up your mech, possibly.
    
  • Perhaps a mech would require jump jets to use it?
• Shields held in the hands of a mech or attached somewhere to the body for added protection.
  
• Flashlights attachment equipment. May or may not occupy an energy hardpoint. When a button is pressed, you will turn on your mech's flashlight. I'm getting sick of night/heat vision because you are not able to see far away if at all sometimes. They have their pros and cons. At least with an equipable flashlight, you can turn it on and a smaller area in front of you will be illuminated but you can still see the whole environment naturally. The drawback is that enemies can obviously see you running around with a floodlight on your mech.

Thats Batteltech and in a Handfull Mechs you can use MASC ..not Gundam ,not Amored Core not Front Mission and all only by a Cew thats have many Experience with Games ,and newer with the Crewless MWO Engine...
Today we can happy when Eg7 not close the Studio in the next Months

and PGI has no technical Crew for his old MWO Engine ,and not become a Crew for it ..so no IK and Knock Down come back or other unrealistic Features comes.

Melee is unrealistic today,Shilds not in BT (and we will you control the Shildarm? how many key you will have for functions, thats you in the heat of Battle never use ? use you Shild/melee and in this Time 4 Guys penetrate you Back.,and all the Problems with the hitzones ...5 Guys in melee and 6 Guyxs by Shooting ,which projectile hit which Hitzone?
which Hitzone by Melee covers other hitzones (for example the left Arm the left Torso) and all calculated by the Server ...SLIDESHOW!

and we not have Animators for the hell of Animations, not the Crew for the Engine..look to the terrible Animations from the Mechs ! thats a Little better as MWLL ,and the dancing Toewalking Direwolf the lights ...sliding over the Terrain.

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 07 December 2020 - 03:00 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Daeron Katz, on 16 November 2020 - 01:10 PM, said:

• Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency

How about just better metrics in general. Firepower doesn't even take into account DPS of weapons and is just the raw alpha damage of a mech......

Having general metrics are fine but they have to be aggregated in ways that make sense and most of these don't make sense or simply have large gaps that make them worthless and actually misleading.

Firepower should take into account DPS weapons as well as your alpha
Armor should probably be renamed survivability and take into account what engine you use and your internals.
Speed is nice, but should probably either have manueverability included either in it or as a separate metric that includes (torso twist range/speed/turn speed/etc/etc).
Heat Efficiency should probably be heat efficacy and taken into account both dissipation and capacity.

Daeron Katz, on 16 November 2020 - 01:10 PM, said:

In this thread, lets discuss ideas for updating or adding to our current monetization model in MechWarrior Online, such as:

• Skill Tree / Grind Reduction

Just remove it, replace it with some sort of basic camo unlock as you "level" up your mech or make it completely free. Performance based leveling is just bad for any arena based combat game. The addition of skill tree also added what, 3 different currencies? Get that out of here.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 07 December 2020 - 10:28 AM.

[The Blood God]

Daeron Katz, on 16 November 2020 - 01:10 PM, said:

In this thread, lets discuss ideas for updating or adding to our current monetization model in MechWarrior Online, such as:

• Skill Tree / Grind Reduction- just increase exp and c-bill earnings- i could live with 91 GSP for 750 mc
  
• 
  
• Remove Torso Heat Spike Mechanic- yes please do the spike is totally unnecessary
  
• 
  
• Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency- id prefer to see cap/dissipation stat instead of rating
  
• Simplify Command Wheel- double tap r for target spotted
  
• 
  
• Remove Time of Day Change in Matches (FPS hit) yeah dont change it just pick one and go
  
• 
  
• UI Performance Pass / Scaling? mines ok

[D3dl3g]

2.5yr player here.

• Skill Tree:- keep it or dont, im not fussed... what i would like to see is a 'Group' button for those that want all the nodes in any given skill 'Cool down', 'Range', 'Armour' etc etc. (how come pretty much everything but MASC has a skill tree node/3 nodes?)

• Grind:- yep, far too grindy for new players, maybe have different costs attached to tiers, T5 Cheap, T1 not so much. i personally think being able to skill a mech in 6 hours feels about right not too grindy, not too quick, without CBill quirks and with a decent run of wins.

• Heat spike on torso loss needs to go, its not accurate to physics... yes, your capicity drops but you shouldnt suddently overheat. Dont fully understand why it was implemented in the first place. I'd also like to see more meaningful heat management values. Cap/Diss, Alpha heat %, Heat Spike % (if applicable to build) in MechLab.

i, personally, dont think double tapping R would be a solution, i regularly spam R to find the target i want/is being called out. i dont mind command wheel unless by some mistake you end up as commander, then theres just too much going on, but i dont have a suggestion how to simplify that particular aspect.

• If ToD hits FPS, kill it.

My UI Stutters when entering mechlab and switching between tabs, i feel it should be smoother... Allow Group Chat to be active when searching. Allow changing of FP Deck when in lobby waiting for group to populate.

• Scaling is too big in 1080, acceptable in 2k... miniscule in 4k... it needs to be tied to a screen size % rather than a pixel count. 2k, for me, seems to be scaled about right. (although i play in 1080, because im a pauper and cant afford a decent enough laptop)

[3RoyalStar1]

Keep skill tree how it is but make it cheaper

[Iridium Fallout]

It would be interesting to mute the mic on dead players... after all, the dead don't speak... (well...not in our own dimension...)