261 replies to this topic

[Zephonarch II]

• Skill Tree/ Grind reduction: Yes. Reducing the time it takes to finish it will be better for the game because newer players will be able to build their custom mechs that they buy. It won't be as satisfying when you master a mech after that, but the game is NOT growing anymore.
  
• Remove Torso Heat Spike Mechanic: Yes. Its an annoying mechanic that doesn't make LXLs feel like an upgrade. Imagine a new player realizing that once they lose their LT, their energy-filled RT is totally inefficient at the point because they overheated in the middle of a brawl. They WILL dissipate heat slower if they survive overheating with the heat spike, but the heat spike GUARANTEES they will die once they shutdown.
  
• Heat Management Values Not Representative of Heat Efficiency: I don't care because I've played long enough and know 1.3+ is generally heat efficient enough for controllable heat management. The Heat scale COULD have temperature units applied though... -C/s, F/s, etc. It would be nice it was optional in settings.
  
• Simplify Command Wheel: No. Its already useful enough with 'Enemy spotted', 'sorry', 'thanks'. Players just need to bind it to a key that's convenient so that they can use it to pinpoint who they are focus-firing/ spotting. If they don't use it, then Nascar happened and they couldn't react to anything anyways. If anything, add things like "Lrm/atm boat here", "Sniper here", "I'm very slow (-55km/h)", "I'm very fast (135+km/h)", "CQC brawler here", "Turn CW", "Turn CCW", "COUNTER NASCAR NOW", "We're being flanked", "I lost all my weapons", and "I'm fresh and not cored."
  
• Remove Time of Day Change in Matches (FPS hit): Yes. If it tanks frame rates than remove it. The game isn't optimized well at all and if a feature can't work then remove it.
  
• UI Performance Pass / Scaling?: Yes.

[Sawk]

WOW everyone wants GOD mode code in free game, i was grinding 3 mechs to get one good one, back in the day, you new folks need to grind, that how you learn : ).
Sawk

Edited by Sawk, 21 December 2020 - 02:52 PM.

[PCHunter]

I never noticed the heat spike "bug" until it became a discussion point here. Now I have been victimized several times by this in the past 2 days. It seems pretty unreasonable that a left torso strike can immobilize a mech. Like we couldn't figure that out by the year 3000?!

The skill tree can look like a big job to Russ - didn't I hear him say it would be expensive to fix? However, you can use the existing tree but make the adjustment values higher and black out some of the nodes so you can slide to the next one. Much easier fix. The time of day thing just isn't fair. At my older age with older eyes, River City, Crimson Strait and Caustic Valley are unplayable when the time of day adjustment is in full force. I can barely make them work by adjusting the Video Gamma. Solaris is a joke with all the visual activity crippling FPS. Jus get rid of the flashing lights and shadowy map. Beside, who's going to battle in the middle of a Las Vegas style city? Your typical Mechwarrior would rather valet park his mech and go inside for some frolic. Half the fun would be if you could destroy the building facades and lights, but you can't so what's the point of writing them into the story?

Edited by PCHunter, 22 December 2020 - 02:55 PM.

[PCHunter]

Sawk, on 21 December 2020 - 02:51 PM, said:

WOW everyone wants GOD mode code in free game, i was grinding 3 mechs to get one good one, back in the day, you new folks need to grind, that how you learn : ).
Sawk

There is enough grinding in the game already without having to level every mech in your mechbay. I have 71 and it was a serious grind to 91 them all up. Every time I buy a new mech, I hate having to grind 91 skill points. Thankfully PGI gives you enough chance to earn extra XP through events, etc. or I would have just given up.

[Sawk]

ok secrets will be given

the KEY to making boot loads of cash and stuff you need, is to RUN 1 MECH, have you MASTERED 1 mech, mine is a Timberwolf, full lazer vomit, 2 er large, and 3 med lazers, i never use over ride, the alpha strike is 40+ points, max range is 1200 on the larges, and i have speed 81, i can shot straight, and i have jump jets set to counter lite mechs, and turn mostly faster then they can, ok maybe 60% of them LOL.
THE point is become a master of one mech, something that you strap on, you feel it, just not pilot it.

SAWK PS get the 1 mech, get 1 kill AVG per match, and play it 1 day or 2 days per week : )

[ImperialKnight]

the irony is that a lot of features for mech building are there on Smurfy and Mech Lab. In-game number of X.X/2 is completely worth less.

Mech Lab shows you your actual heat capacity, how many % of that an alpha takes up, and how many alphas you can do consecutively before you go over your heat capacity. e.g. 101% means you will shutdown the moment you alpha from 0% heat.

I have no problem with the grind now. It's fine. People should go and play games like WoW and WoT and see how bad other F2P games forces you to grind. No longer needing 3 variants of the same chasis to master a mech was already a vast improvement to the grind. It more than makes up the cost of the Skill Tree grind

[PCHunter]

If you purchase a mech with MC or cash, as in a Package, it should come with 91 skill points (or whatever the full complement ends up being) so you can skill it up to your liking right away. Buying with CBills, you would need to skill it up the grinding way. It really bothered me on my first cash money purchase of a mech pack that I had to skill up all those new mechs or I could burn up more MCs to do so.

The skill tree is too imposing to beginners; streamlining somewhat makes sense to attract more players. Remember that the game itself is pretty challenging to learn just on piloting, weapon selection/use and map/game type info to absorb. Buying, building and customizing mechs is a whole other challenge. The cleaner we make it for a new player to come up to speed and achieve a comfortable level of play, the better the game will do in attracting and keeping new players.

We who have been with the game for a number a years just sort of accept the way it is. But we have to acknowledge that if we want it to hang around for more years, then we need new blood, features, et al to make that happen. Or we can be happy with playing the same 1000 players week after week until PGI pulls the plug.

Evolve or die.

Edited by PCHunter, 23 December 2020 - 10:46 AM.

[OmgKllL]

As a matter of fact, when a new player buy a new mech he has a lot of handicaps:
-unskilled mech (perform 20% less in the best case scenario)
-loadout caos (he doesn't know what are the best weapons and other stuff)
-he is new so he hasn't mastered the mechanics of the game yet

Results: he will think **** of this game, which is not!!!

Imho the developers should make the game much more "immediate", just take some hints from the fps that are most successful today (all the battle royale, which I hate, and some of the overwatch-like fps).

MWO's mechanics are hard enough to master so other kind of stuff like the skill-tree (and its grinding), the money limit which blocks you in trying new builds and so on are useless and unbelievably anachronistic.

Look at the games which are having a lot of success nowaday: none of them have much skill/weapons/other stuff unavailable from the start.

If you make them a choice and not something you must grind into, you give the players a way to experiment with as many play-styiles as possibile, raising the game's longevity and icreasing the new players influx.

When you have your mechs, with the right build on each one and their skills up top, you can enjoy your matches a lot.
The main OBJ should be get to this ASAP even for new players.

The age of grinding is dead bros...

Edited by OmgKllL, 29 December 2020 - 03:00 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Patchs thats not overwrite the User Profile seetings and the Keyboard and Mech Weapon Group Seetings...its a pain by over 120 mechs to seeing in fight thats the Groups overwrited

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 29 December 2020 - 09:30 AM.

[DAEDALOS513]

Once you skill up a mech chassis, any future purchases of same mech (or won mechs from event) should also be skilled up. Why punish the player for buying (or winning) a duplicate chassis by making them grind all over again?

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 29 December 2020 - 10:06 AM.

[Forgeling]

DAEDALOS513, on 29 December 2020 - 10:06 AM, said:

Once you skill up a mech chassis, any future purchases of same mech (or won mechs from event) should also be skilled up. Why punish the player for buying (or winning) a duplicate chassis by making them grind all over again?

Quote posting to this thread because I feel it's relevant.

Forgeling, on 25 December 2020 - 03:12 PM, said:

In my opinion the ideal implementation of a pilot system for MWO:

First and foremost, move the skill system, as is, onto individual pilots. You still earn GXP the same way but XP is assigned to the currently used pilot instead of the mech itself. A pilot can use any mech they're rated for but just like you can't play with a downed mech, you have to wait for the match to end for the pilot to come home. You use barracks for pilots just like you use mechbays for mechs. A starting player should have 4 barracks to start out. A starting player's first pilot should also have a fully unlocked skill tree so they can practice different styles. Any pilot after the first is less flexible and costs XP every time you change their skills.

For customization I'd say custom body type, chosen at pilot creation; Height, weight, etc. Pilot outfit can be changed in a similar manor to changing a mech's camo. Custom Command wheel voice. Cockpit items could also be assigned to pilots since it would make sense a pilot would bring that sort of stuff with them.

[Gas Guzzler]

In the Mechlab can we separate skill tree bonuses from quirks? Would be a nice quality of life feature.

[StefanAmaris]

DAEDALOS513, on 29 December 2020 - 10:06 AM, said:

Once you skill up a mech chassis, any future purchases of same mech (or won mechs from event) should also be skilled up. Why punish the player for buying (or winning) a duplicate chassis by making them grind all over again?

Because grinding in unskilled Mechs provides other players easy to kill targets.
It also allows to sell GXPs / premium time / XP conversation for cash & microtransactions.

That's the only reason the XP Grind is in MWO.
It doesn't fit the lore (skilling Mechwarriors would fit) and is even a balancing problem (skilled/unskilled state & quirks).

[DAEDALOS513]

StefanAmaris, on 02 January 2021 - 04:33 PM, said:

Because grinding in unskilled Mechs provides other players easy to kill targets.
It also allows to sell GXPs / premium time / XP conversation for cash & microtransactions.

That's the only reason the XP Grind is in MWO.
It doesn't fit the lore (skilling Mechwarriors would fit) and is even a balancing problem (skilled/unskilled state & quirks).

Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear.. what I meant was if you skill up a specific variant of a chassis.. like the JR7-F.. then any future purchases of that specific variant should not have to be skilled up again.. but if you bought the JR7-D, then sure, you have to grind out those nodes. Even if my suggestion was implemented, there will still be plenty of grinding to be had.. without punishing those that wish to purchase or receive as a prize a duplicate mech..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 02 January 2021 - 07:08 PM.

[ArgusCosmos]

Being able to change and customize the UI would be amazing. For instance, the position of the enemy's mech damage read-out is way too far away my line of sight. So, having different options as to where UI and HUD elements such as that would be universally appreciated.

[50 50]

DAEDALOS513, on 02 January 2021 - 07:07 PM, said:

Sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear.. what I meant was if you skill up a specific variant of a chassis.. like the JR7-F.. then any future purchases of that specific variant should not have to be skilled up again.. but if you bought the JR7-D, then sure, you have to grind out those nodes. Even if my suggestion was implemented, there will still be plenty of grinding to be had.. without punishing those that wish to purchase or receive as a prize a duplicate mech..

That's what we had prior to the skill tree change and how some players ended up with oodles of c-bills and XP.
You could skill up a variant and any duplicates were automatically skilled up.
It made some sense and worked to a certain degree because none of the skills were build focused.
If you didn't buy enough modules and particularly when the save time was slooooow it was cumbersome and certainly frustrating for other players in your group if they had to wait for you.

A hybrid solution may be the option now.

There are two ways to reduce the skill tree complexity and grind.

• Massively reduce the number of nodes.
  
• Reduce the mech multiplier. (ie. Having to skill each individual mech)

Massively reducing the number of nodes is self explanatory but what exactly they are, their values and cost to unlock is a big discussion on it's own.


Reducing the mech multiplier is about separating the skills from the mechs and providing a way to easily assign a set of skills to a mech you want to take into battle.
It's a bit like the modules we used to have but as we are dealing with skills, it makes sense to bundle it under the common term of Pilot

For those programmers and database engineers amongst us, I do not believe this would be a difficult leap from what I can determine of the system before and after skill tree change.
Let me explain and if someone has more know how etc, please chime in.

Pre-skill tree change:

- All mechs of a variant were unique in the database because we could have different builds.
- The skill tree was a single shared bit of data that was linked to all mechs of the same variant.

Post skill tree change:

- All mechs of a variant were unique in the database because we could have different builds.
- The skill tree became a unique set of data attached to each individual variant.
- We have a way to export one skill tree build from one mech and apply it to another mech.

This suggests that it may be as simple as changing a skill ID field on the mechs and whether it needs to be unique.

So, it would reason that we might be able to change that back and have one skill tree applied to multiple mechs of the same variant chassis.
However, why not hit a few extra runs by taking that a step further and using the Pilot concept as a way to take a set of skills and apply that to any mech?

This would be closer to bundling the skills under a module and then moving the module from mech to mech in the mechbay but for the love of sanity and being user friendly please make that 1000% easier and more intuitive. Make it a simple selection drag and drop in our mech list and bay with a side by side pilot roster.

But wait, there's more and an incentive for PGI to go down this route.
Treating the skills as a Pilot creates some interesting options for everyone.

• It can be monetized which is primarily interesting to PGI to cover development costs. Pilots, like mechs, can be sold/bought.
  
• The pilots can be more than just a skill tree and have little profile pics, voices, uniforms.
  
• It opens the door to adding characters from the lore as pilots we can use, perhaps even with some unique skills. Would anyone one like Natasha Kerensky for their Black Widow Warhammer?
  
• It would be a very cool way to reward long time community streamers, tournament winners and also provide streamers with cool gifts they can give away.

We could take a single feature in the game and not only improve it but also create new content and a new way to engage/reward community members while making it attractive for PGI as it creates a new revenue option.


How many more points could it hit?

Edited by 50 50, 05 January 2021 - 07:14 PM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

MW Waldorf Statler, on 29 December 2020 - 09:29 AM, said:

Patchs thats not overwrite the User Profile seetings and the Keyboard and Mech Weapon Group Seetings...its a pain by over 120 mechs to seeing in fight thats the Groups overwrited

This is not what is happening by default. I don't say it doesn't happen to you, but it surely doesn't happen to me. I run the client on 3 rigs, where two use the PG launcher and one uses steam, without issue.

[VonBruinwald]

REMOVE DEATH ON A ST-LOSS FOR (IS) XL ENGINES

You want to remove heatspike, fine, I get that, but all you're doing is enlarging the imbalance between the IS-XL and the LFE/cXL without fixing the XL accordingly.

[Big-G]

VonBruinwald, on 07 January 2021 - 09:48 AM, said:

REMOVE DEATH ON A ST-LOSS FOR (IS) XL ENGINES

Small little issue of Battletech Lore...

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 06 January 2021 - 02:27 AM, said:

This is not what is happening by default. I don't say it doesn't happen to you, but it surely doesn't happen to me. I run the client on 3 rigs, where two use the PG launcher and one uses steam, without issue.

Thazs fine for you,by me, after big Patches ,all mech weapons to Group 1, and all MWO Seetings inclusive Video/Mouse/ keyboard Settings to default and all mechhlab mechs have the Default Camo View