191 replies to this topic

[w0qj]

Actually I smell an opportunity to revamp the fixed 91-Skill-Node system as we know it:
(Pls note MWO cannot reduce the 91 skill node number, given the amount of resources available).

1) 5x Shock Absorbance skill nodes ==> change to +2% Flanking Damage (hit enemy from side/behind)
7x Hard Brake skill nodes ==> Start ECM/ECCM warefare!

2) Current 'padded' nodes can be cut in half, freeing even more skill nodes for new unique mech skills!
15x Range skill nodes ==> 7x Ranged skill nodes (frees up 8 skill nodes)
16x Cooldown nodes ==> 8x Cooldown nodes (frees up 8 skill nodes)
14x Heat Gen nodes ==> 7x Heat gen nodes (frees up 7 skill nodes)
25x Jump Jet skill tree ==> I think this can be reduced to 12x skill nodes (frees up 13 skill nodes).

Therefore above frees up 22 to 35 skill nodes for entirely new skills that is open to imagination!
(Specialist skills for Light/Medium/Heavy/Assault mechs, anyone?)

SPNKRGrenth, on 09 April 2022 - 05:57 AM, said:

My biggest hope with the skill tree rework, is that they massively reduce skill node counts, and rebalance accordingly. One of the biggest reasons why so many people jumped ship and never came back when the new skill tree was first added, was just how many clicks it took to do a mech.

Instead of 91 active skill nodes, balance for 20-30 active skill nodes instead. Instead of having 5-15 skill nodes for each main stat increase, have 1-3 skill nodes. Lesser nodes that only have 2 nodes as it is, could be combined into a single set of combo nodes to stay worth it. Example being just having 2 "missile mastery" skill nodes, instead of 6 missile related skill nodes for single stats.

This would make it way quicker to skill a mech, look far cleaner and straightforward visually, and make each skill node feel more rewarding to earn and activate as well. It would confuse new players far less, and not annoy old players nearly as much. Just maybe, it could even convince players who left years ago, to come back and give it another shot.

Edited by w0qj, 09 April 2022 - 06:56 AM.

[Sare204]

This is a good simple solution to the spiderweb we currently have!
One extra request would be to separate mech chassis quirks from skill point quirks.
even a simple horizontal line between the two sets would work, along with a tooltip popup that shows the total value (chassis 10% + skill 15%) when hovered over.

[Znail]

Clay Endfield, on 08 April 2022 - 07:04 PM, said:

Couldn't be more wrong in regards to your mech = c-bills assumption. I have 211 mechs and 5 million C-bills. A fat chunk of my clan mechs still need engines. A number of my mechs need overhauls due to Cauldron changes. I only ever buy mechs/engines during sales. The most C-bills I've ever built up to was 47 million, and that was in anticipation of a Holiday sale; and that 47 mill disappeared in a matter of minutes once the sale went live.

I never have enough C-bills for skilling mechs.

But you should not really just consider the total cost of the new skills for your mechs as only mechs you actually play matters and when you play a mech you get C-Bills for that match. This change is only really a problem if you only want to play each mech once a year and no more. If you play the same mech a few times then that will have paid for that mech's new skills.

What should happen now is that there should be stacking special events until this patch hits as the big risk is that people will take a break while waiting. And if people gets some funds and XP stored up then the change wont hurt.

[ghost1e]

Znail, on 09 April 2022 - 10:43 AM, said:

But you should not really just consider the total cost of the new skills for your mechs as only mechs you actually play matters and when you play a mech you get C-Bills for that match. This change is only really a problem if you only want to play each mech once a year and no more. If you play the same mech a few times then that will have paid for that mech's new skills.

What should happen now is that there should be stacking special events until this patch hits as the big risk is that people will take a break while waiting. And if people gets some funds and XP stored up then the change wont hurt.

okay so here's my view on this:
if I played a mech enough to unlock 91 skill nodes and master it under the current system, I see no point for me to have to grind it out more just because PGI made a change. it's basically the same as saying "oh, you know, the hours of grind you put into this? guess what, they're worthless now."

[LordNothing]

Lockheed_, on 09 April 2022 - 09:19 AM, said:

I'm not a fan of the way quirks are gonna be displayed.
too much clutter, feels over designed at the cost of getting a quick overview.
keep the list like it is currently, just color code the quirks and have one line to separate the chassis quirks from the skill tree quirks.

id think id have done a tabbed system. you have the first tab for combined bonuses, followed by quirks, skills, equipment boosts, and item bonuses. if you wanted to see what the base quirks for the mech are you can tab to quirks, but the combined tab would be the default.

each tab presents a list of bonuses and their values, they are color coded by type (more color codes than current, i think they said they were adding more) and sorted by color. that way you don't waste so much space with formatting.

[ghost1e]

Bowelhacker, on 08 April 2022 - 09:53 PM, said:

You should probably take that 1% label off your name then, povvo.

I'm really bad at this game and I still have 1.5 billion c bills laying in a big pool for me to dive into.

well, and I'm arguably pretty decent at this game, yet I still don't have more than 20mil CBs...
there aren't only people here who've played the game for over half a decade

[VaMPHuNT]

SoulRcannon, on 08 April 2022 - 05:17 PM, said:

It feels like I'm the one you jumped on in response to some of the less complimentary things being said on this thread, which is strange because what I put out there was also a response to some of these posts. I want more people to be happy about these changes. I'd be mostly OK getting on with the new grind (I'm not flush with cbills, it would be a grind). But not everyone is happy with it. I just wanted to provide broader context, some perspective as to possibly why there might be some unhappiness, and proffer a suggestion to help more people be happy with the changes.

Didn't mean to make you feel like I was jumping onto you as the source of doom and gloom, your post just provided a very solid basis I could use to try and outline a number of the benefits to the new skills layout and lead into the potential good things those changes mean.

I fully understand why people are wanting skill points/cbills to be refunded, I just don't see why it's such a big deal when, no matter what they did with the skill trees, something would have changed, and this is the most simple way they could have done it from what I can see.

Long story short, all of our existing skilled mechs will continue to perform as they always have if we don't make any changes. We only need to make changes if we absolutely want to min/max the stats and performance, and as has been stated several times, just do two or three drops with a given chassis and, outside of what's required to get enough mech-specific XP (Which I haven't even had to consider looking at since I came back to the game the last couple of times since I've got a decent pool of GSP to pull from, so I'm not sure what that actually looks/feels like), you should be able to cover costs to reskill that chassis no problem.

[Gilfner]

Hey, can you go ahead and change the skill tree costs? Right now, I'm not making changes because I know they are going to go down in cost.

Edited by Gilfner, 09 April 2022 - 12:04 PM.

[ghost1e]

VaMPHuNT, on 09 April 2022 - 11:56 AM, said:

Didn't mean to make you feel like I was jumping onto you as the source of doom and gloom, your post just provided a very solid basis I could use to try and outline a number of the benefits to the new skills layout and lead into the potential good things those changes mean.

I fully understand why people are wanting skill points/cbills to be refunded, I just don't see why it's such a big deal when, no matter what they did with the skill trees, something would have changed, and this is the most simple way they could have done it from what I can see.

Long story short, all of our existing skilled mechs will continue to perform as they always have if we don't make any changes. We only need to make changes if we absolutely want to min/max the stats and performance, and as has been stated several times, just do two or three drops with a given chassis and, outside of what's required to get enough mech-specific XP (Which I haven't even had to consider looking at since I came back to the game the last couple of times since I've got a decent pool of GSP to pull from, so I'm not sure what that actually looks/feels like), you should be able to cover costs to reskill that chassis no problem.

I agree with you on every front, this is the simplest system.

BUT

our mechs won't perform the same. everything else will now be stronger, so our mechs - without changing anything - will perform worse.
and yes, it's just 3-4 matches per mech, but with loading & waiting times, that's around half an hour minimum per mech. for anyone with over 50 mechs, this is not feasible.

[ghost1e]

VaMPHuNT, on 08 April 2022 - 03:16 PM, said:

Regular basis meaning dropping five or six plus times in a row with the mech because you actually like it? Have you factored into the equation that, on average, a winning match with a hero, with premium, and doing half-decent will net you 400-500k cbills with a single drop?

I only play with premium time, and with at least 5-10% CB boost from cockpit items, often 35-40%. My average CB per match is ~300k only.

VaMPHuNT, on 08 April 2022 - 03:16 PM, said:

If anybody here who has 200+ mechs can legit tell me that they play every single one of their mechs every single day, for more than just one or two drops, then please feel free to call me out on it. But I'm also willing to bet that the majority of those players who do have more than 200-300 mechs, they've also probably got at least 100m+ cbills sitting around with nothing better to do.

I have over 330 mechs, I need to have ~100 of them ready and skilled for comp play. Now, even though I don't have any CBs, I have enough GSP to be fine, but it is something worth noting.

[13Tradesman]

Altogether, I think this is a huge step in right direction, thank you for taking the time to work on this update PGI. I can't tell you how many times I wished I had another couple skill points for something but because of the current skill tree setup it ended up really becoming a no-go. I'm sure we will all still need to do some re-skilling on a whole bunch of mechs, but that is not really a big deal.

The Devlog was good too, it conveyed the key points of the update clearly without beating around the bush. I look forward to the next one. Thank you.

Edit: The event queue certainly looks to be interesting, seems like a great way to test concepts/variables in real-time to see what people really like or dislike.

Edited by 13Tradesman, 09 April 2022 - 12:57 PM.

[KursedVixen]

I would like to see quirks seperated somehow by base chassis quirks and quirks added by the skill tree because i have to constantly as it is switch between the store page and my mechlab to see the base chassis quirks.

This is a nice step forward though.

i hope the event que won't be the only place your doing events.

Edited by KursedVixen, 09 April 2022 - 01:04 PM.

[Znail]

TheUltimateGhost, on 09 April 2022 - 11:34 AM, said:

okay so here's my view on this:
if I played a mech enough to unlock 91 skill nodes and master it under the current system, I see no point for me to have to grind it out more just because PGI made a change. it's basically the same as saying "oh, you know, the hours of grind you put into this? guess what, they're worthless now."

They wont be worthless for sure. There will be some filler nodes that you will want to lose asap, but that's just a few, for most mechs 0-10 nodesto get an OK build. What people seem to be looking at is not that, but how much to the optimal build, but the gains from the OK build to the perfect one will be minimal.

But here is the real bottom line, do you want them not to improve the skill tree because it will cause you extra work or do you want the change?

[Clay Endfield]

Znail, on 09 April 2022 - 10:43 AM, said:

But you should not really just consider the total cost of the new skills for your mechs as only mechs you actually play matters and when you play a mech you get C-Bills for that match. This change is only really a problem if you only want to play each mech once a year and no more. If you play the same mech a few times then that will have paid for that mech's new skills.

What should happen now is that there should be stacking special events until this patch hits as the big risk is that people will take a break while waiting. And if people gets some funds and XP stored up then the change wont hurt.

I do play all my mechs; you guys assume everyone plays the way you play. I play 1 match in my Raven-3L, and next match, I'm playing a Cataphract-4x; after that, my Annihilator-1A wants some time in the sun; then my Whammy-IIC, then my Rifleman-5D; so on and so forth.

Unless I'm trying to skill up a specific mech, I'm bouncing between my mechs willy-nilly. From my perspective, playing the same 20 mechs over and over again is boring. And playing 30 odd matches in succession in the same mech just to grind out skill points is the EPITOME of boring. Which is why I'm so opposed to the idea of reworking the skill tree without a refund.

That, and I did pay real $ for some of my GSP; seeing that investment wasted by development choice makes me a bit irate. Had I a choice before, I would never have wasted my monetary investment on useless fluff. From where I'm sitting, PGI has basically said "Thanks for the patronage, sucker!"

[KursedVixen]

Znail, on 09 April 2022 - 01:29 PM, said:

They wont be worthless for sure. There will be some filler nodes that you will want to lose asap, but that's just a few, for most mechs 0-10 nodesto get an OK build. What people seem to be looking at is not that, but how much to the optimal build, but the gains from the OK build to the perfect one will be minimal.

But here is the real bottom line, do you want them not to improve the skill tree because it will cause you extra work or do you want the change?

thankfully, since they will not be getting rit of what you've already got most of the mechs you use alot will have a bunch of extra EXP to buy more points for respecing if at all. I don't see this as a problem it does make me kinda anxious for when i will be respecing some of my mechs

[KursedVixen]

cazeral, on 09 April 2022 - 01:35 AM, said:

Only real benefit I'm seeing Time/C-Bills/XP wise, is for a new chassis. In every other situation, where the new skills apply and you paid for one of the gatekeeping nodes, you loose.

To optimise your distribution, you will relegate those gatekeeping nodes to the has been bin, then if you want to make any changes on the ported lines, you will have to buy the vacant spots to then reclaim what was already yours.

The more I look at it. Although time consuming on reskilling chassis, the fairest thing to do would have been a full refund of nodes (even if to just a single pot to make it easier to code) and allow players to rethink and rebuild without what may prove to be chassis loads of messed up, ported trees worth of earning SP all over again.

This in now very much a half-a-job approach PGI have become well known for.

their not resetting expierince are they? You know mechs still gain experience points ever after you finish the skill nodes... mechs you used a lot will likely have extra exp to spend... and their reducing the cost of skill points so...

Edited by KursedVixen, 09 April 2022 - 01:49 PM.

[Ghoja]

Just a quick message to all those who are complaining about not seeing the skill bonuses separate from quirks....

If you want to see what your mech looks like stock:
1- Go to skills
2- Click the top node in each section to strip the skills, DON'T save
3- Go back to loadout and bring up mech stats.
4- Go back to skills and revert changes to put your skills back.

This new layout will make that more click heavy, but I like the separation in the new layout.

Also:
Right now you can also skill your mech in the skill tree (including over 91), go back to loadout and test run it before actually purchasing the skills (Can't purchase if over 91 obviously but can still see how it'd run in testing grounds). Same goes for weapon loadouts and such, can test run with skills before buying/saving the loadout.

If you aren't taking advantage of the above, minus the overskill, then you probably should.

Honestly, I would have probably buried the laser duration some as well, but overall, I like what I'm seeing.

Also, those who are griping about the no refund, in the video, they stated that the purchases of the nodes will carry over to the new layout. You do NOT have to rebuy every node. You might have a couple to get if you depending on which way you went through the current tree, but most likely, you'll have what you need (and some you'll do away with.)

Edited by Ghoja, 09 April 2022 - 02:01 PM.

[KursedVixen]

Ghoja, on 09 April 2022 - 01:58 PM, said:

Just a quick message to all those who are complaining about not seeing the skill bonuses separate from quirks....

If you want to see what your mech looks like stock:
1- Go to skills
2- Click the top node in each section to strip the skills, DON'T save
3- Go back to loadout and bring up mech stats.
4- Go back to skills and revert changes to put your skills back.

This new layout will make that more click heavy, but I like the separation in the new layout.

Also:
Right now you can also skill your mech in the skill tree (including over 91), go back to loadout and test run it before actually purchasing the skills (Can't purchase if over 91 obviously but can still see how it'd run in testing grounds). Same goes for weapon loadouts and such, can test run with skills before buying/saving the loadout.



Also your method still requires clicking back and forth..

If you aren't taking advantage of the above, minus the overskill, then you probably should.

Honestly, I would have probably buried the laser duration some as well, but overall, I like what I'm seeing.

Also, those who are griping about the no refund, in the video, they stated that the purchases of the nodes will carry over to the new layout. You do NOT have to rebuy every node. You might have a couple to get if you depending on which way you went through the current tree, but most likely, you'll have what you need (and some you'll do away with.)

it seems we'll keep our current expierince too and if you play those mechs reguarlly they'll have plenty of extra EXP points to reskill with.

Also your method still requires switching tabs instead of just looking at the quirks list.

Edited by KursedVixen, 09 April 2022 - 02:39 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

Ghoja, on 09 April 2022 - 01:58 PM, said:

Just a quick message to all those who are complaining about not seeing the skill bonuses separate from quirks....

If you want to see what your mech looks like stock:
1- Go to skills
2- Click the top node in each section to strip the skills, DON'T save
3- Go back to loadout and bring up mech stats.
4- Go back to skills and revert changes to put your skills back.

This new layout will make that more click heavy, but I like the separation in the new layout.

Also:
Right now you can also skill your mech in the skill tree (including over 91), go back to loadout and test run it before actually purchasing the skills (Can't purchase if over 91 obviously but can still see how it'd run in testing grounds). Same goes for weapon loadouts and such, can test run with skills before buying/saving the loadout.

If you aren't taking advantage of the above, minus the overskill, then you probably should.

Honestly, I would have probably buried the laser duration some as well, but overall, I like what I'm seeing.

Also, those who are griping about the no refund, in the video, they stated that the purchases of the nodes will carry over to the new layout. You do NOT have to rebuy every node. You might have a couple to get if you depending on which way you went through the current tree, but most likely, you'll have what you need (and some you'll do away with.)

As functional as your method is, it still sounds more click-heavy and labor intensive than just finding the same chassis in the in-game store and looking through the quirks there, which is what most people have been doing, anyway.

[mytilus edulis]

VaMPHuNT, on 08 April 2022 - 03:16 PM, said:

So, for everybody who is all doom and gloom about not getting any skill points or cbills refunded, and having to reskill their mechs, and this and that and the other, and whatever else they can think of... just exactly how many of your 200, 300, 400+ mechs to you actually play on a regular basis?

Regular basis meaning dropping five or six plus times in a row with the mech because you actually like it? Have you factored into the equation that, on average, a winning match with a hero, with premium, and doing half-decent will net you 400-500k cbills with a single drop?

Out of the 102 mechs I currently have in my bay, I have 41 fully elited mechs, probably within 5-10 partially skilled mechs, and the rest have zero skills invested (Because I just don't play them, at all. Looking at my lights and most of my mediums).

Of those 41 elited mechs, 15-20 of them are mechs I no longer enjoy playing or only use in FW or comp. I can practically count, on two hands, the number of mechs I'm instantly going to be re-skilling as needed once the new trees drop, and I've got to say, I love what I'm going to be able to do with them. I've never once considered taking Radar Dep or Speed Tweak on anything due to the massive skill cost investment which would take away from the firepower or survivability of my heavies and assaults.

With these new trees, I'll pretty much have Radar Dep as a staple on them all, with the ECM nodes stapled to any mechs I have that use ECM. Total cost to reskill using the math above? 5-10m cbills upfront. Just do two drops with each mech you want to re-skill and as long as you do half-decent you'll have covered your costs right there outside of any skill point investment from XP, HXP, GXP, or GSP.

If anybody here who has 200+ mechs can legit tell me that they play every single one of their mechs every single day, for more than just one or two drops, then please feel free to call me out on it. But I'm also willing to bet that the majority of those players who do have more than 200-300 mechs, they've also probably got at least 100m+ cbills sitting around with nothing better to do.

Instead of looking at this as all doom and gloom and "Oh no, I have to spend cbills and XP to reskill my mechs", why not flip that coin over and look at it from the other side?

1) We just got a brand new chassis (The Crusader) announced, the first actual new chassis in three years
2) This skill tree redesign is something that was suggested or brought up years ago, and should have been changed then
3) These are simply the first steps on the path that I hopefully see as an example of great thing to come for MWO

Even if I didn't mind this process, that's still 65-108 more clicks per mech than I'd want to do

Edited by mytilus edulis, 09 April 2022 - 10:20 PM.