191 replies to this topic

[P H O T O N]

To be consistent can you make the first node in each tree the top left-most node.

[ShootterMcGavin]

Fantastic. Bravo.

[Lepestok]

I express cautious optimism

[raegenhere]

Just wow, those skill tree changes are beyond stupid.

The skill system - done right - could be great way to further increase build variety, give interesting decisions to the players. It's not great in either of those aspects right now, but now you are getting rid of what little was interesting about it.
And we get to keep all the tedious stuff (lots of clicking, multiple useless units that all result in skill points). So worst of both worlds - tedious and pointless.

If you are afraid to change it too much, so that it might add to the game in a meaningful way - you should just get rid of it. Save us all the trouble and just give every assault mech the full armor quirks after 10 matches won or something like that.


Like some others suggested, I'd be in favour of skills having minor drawbacks as well, maybe especially when maxed out. Players can either accecpt the drawbacks or migitate/cancel them with additional skill investment.

Some of the comments here I really don't get. We get to pick more useful skills and can finally skip less useful ones - sound great right? I think that's very short sighted, it's plain boring and power creep as well.
Also don't understand why so many are strongly against a refund or reskilling, and I do have a lot of mechs as well. It's not like you'd have to redo all at once, just take a minute before playing a mech for the first time post patch...

All in all, a step backwards, very disappointing.

[Mark Yore]

yrrot, on 07 April 2022 - 09:44 AM, said:

From what I understand from Matt's comments while he was talking to NGNG, the UI doesn't get a breakdown by source--just some compressed file of total bonuses. Sounds like splitting it out was too much of a can of worms to fit into their update.

But we should keep asking for it, since it'd be super handy to have it shown somehow in the mechlab.

Because the quirks don't change between mech variants, there's no need to calculate it programmatically. You could literally put a tooltip on the mech that pops up when you mouseover, or simply add the text at the beginning of the new colour-coded quirk box.

[Mark Yore]

Voice of Kerensky, on 07 April 2022 - 04:38 PM, said:

1) Sorry for the question, maybe it was said in the dev log, but the language barrier does not allow me to fully understand the spoken language.
The question is: did I understand correctly that skill nodes that are activated on already pumped mechs will simply be exported to the new skill tree in the same amount?
2) Are you returning the UAC Jam Chance in skill tree??? Not the Jam Duration, but the Jam Chance???
In general, the new skill tree looks very interesting. Thank you!

Yes, the skills will be transferred directly, but most people will take the time to optimise their builds to remove skills they don't need but are currently required to move further down the path.
The skills will be exactly the same as the current ones, which means that jam chance won't be added. At a later stage the easiest way to add it would be a single two-tier skill that reduces jam chance AND duration.

[Yondu Udonta]

Lionheart2012, on 07 April 2022 - 08:19 PM, said:

Further, I think that radar deprivation being so difficult to obtain, while target decay is so easy, will lead to the next lurmaggedon. And I know the veteran response, learn to find cover ("git gud scrub"), which is patronizing in the least. I am a veteran, and I do know how to find cover, but target decay will neutralize that cover for a certain amount of time. This is why radar deprivation is a necessary counter. However, I also understand the balance in ensuring that missile weapons need some viability. The old system seemed to have reasonable viability where most could get 60% radar deprivation and investing only 1 sensor range node. But if you wanted 100% radar deprivation, then you would need to invest in another 3 sensor range nodes. I would propose updating the sensor tree as follows:

While I do think that it is outlandish to suggest that lurmageddon would result due to having to invest more nodes for radar deprivation compared to target decay, I mostly agree with OP. Since target decay and radar deprivation are the two main nodes when it comes to viability of lock-ons, they should therefore be almost equally accessible, if not 1:1 accessible.

If anything, the game needs less people dependent on lock-ons, learn to aim.

[Gilfner]

There should be an event that brings back Dragon bowling! Also events with weird sound packs could be fun!

[LordNothing]

looks like they just rearranged the nodes. i assume its still going to be the same 91 nodes. at least it simplifies things a bit i wont have to reallocate for 413 mechs. but it seems like a missed opportunity.

i was kind of hoping for a cull down to 70 nodes. with redundant nodes being reduced in number and the skills being buffed to ccompensate. for example taking each jump jet node down from 5x to 4x but with each node being worth 25% more. also felt like redundant trees should be merged, like jumpjets into mobility. with the ops tree being split up as well (heat related nodes to offensive, moving hill climb into mobility, anything else, like improved gyros, to aux). of course that comes with a lot of respecing mechs and another refund bloodbath.

[minnowzzz]

Buenaventura, on 08 April 2022 - 02:06 AM, said:

While it may not make *you* want to reskill your mechs - you definately should if it is a mech you're going to use again.
Just think of the points in "shock absorption" or "hill climb" you took in order to get more armour and heat containment/cool run on a mech equipped with jump jets that you could use for something else, maybe even mroe armour and/or heat containment/cool run.
That laser node you got for a ppc boat or dakka mech, just to get max velocity? You can use it for something else now, and you should if you don't have any lasers on that mech!
All those range nodes that got your HMG boat a whopping 5m more range? The cooldown and heat nodes along the way to the actually wanted "more ammo" on the same mech?

I'm just tier 4, but at least for the mechs I do intend on playing again, I WILL reskill them.

yeah I know, but there is a difference between having the mech as it was with the old limitations of skill tree to "we changed skill tree, all your mechs are unskilled". If someone did not want to bother changing their mechs it should at least be still viable albeit not fully optimized

[Horseman]

Lionheart2012, on 07 April 2022 - 08:19 PM, said:

So I have seen the Devlog and I have reviewed the screenshots. I agree with the sentiment that more powerful nodes should be more difficult to obtain. However, speed tweak never required all of the acceleration nodes prior to obtaining them, and you would want to balance acceleration with deceleration to ensure you could stop at that corner appropriately. I think it would be better to split speed tweak between the acceleration and deceleration trees, and likely off the 3rd and fourth nodes of those trees.

Further, I think that radar deprivation being so difficult to obtain, while target decay is so easy, will lead to the next lurmaggedon. And I know the veteran response, learn to find cover ("git gud scrub"), which is patronizing in the least. I am a veteran, and I do know how to find cover, but target decay will neutralize that cover for a certain amount of time. This is why radar deprivation is a necessary counter. However, I also understand the balance in ensuring that missile weapons need some viability. The old system seemed to have reasonable viability where most could get 60% radar deprivation and investing only 1 sensor range node. But if you wanted 100% radar deprivation, then you would need to invest in another 3 sensor range nodes. I would propose updating the sensor tree as follows:

You'll be saving a **** ton of skill points by skipping dead nodes and pre-requisites in the tree. Chances are radar derp will become a standard upgrade for just about everyone with the skill points you're saving from irrelevant crap.

[LordNothing]

Tarogato, on 07 April 2022 - 09:57 AM, said:

REDUCE THE NUMBER OF NODES.



"One of the key reasons we wanted to keep the exact same number of nodes is we didn't want to create a process of us refunding, doing some form of conversion on XP and Skills, and everybody having to go back and reskill mechs."

No.

I understand why you don't want to do it. It's a fair reason.

But the main complaint about the Skill Tree ALWAYS has been that it has too many nodes. Addressing THAT problem first should be the #1 primary goal here. If you're only going to half-rework the skill tree like this proposal, than I'd rather you not touch it at all. Rip the bandaid off, you're going to have to yank some hairs to do this properly. It needs fixed, not tickled.

they could probibly do a lot by culling redundant nodes and buffing them proportionately with no other changes. no node type should have more than 5 or 6 levels of depth. you could probibly get it down to 60-70 just doing that. and you could avoid a refund pass if you just convert nodes as close to 1:1 as possible. for each node type you figure out what percentage of those nodes of that type are active, and activate the same percentage of nodes in the new system (rounding up to the next node as needed). no need for any ledgers or refunds. mechs would keep what they have more or less. thats an easy pill to swallow along with the grind reduction. hell of a lot better than resetting all the things, handing out refunds and then letting the players sort it out.

Edited by LordNothing, 08 April 2022 - 10:44 AM.

[LordNothing]

minnowzzz, on 07 April 2022 - 10:07 AM, said:

They said in the video that The Cauldron wanted some nodes to still be locked behind other skills to increase the buy in for those nodes. Seismic, ECM, and speed skills are very powerful

rather than hiding skills behind specific nodes, i think id have required a certain level of buy in to unlock advanced nodes. like if you need to unlock 10 nodes to gain access to the advanced nodes in the tree. you achieve the same buy in, but its a lot less restrictive.

Edited by LordNothing, 08 April 2022 - 10:50 AM.

[Katrina Steiner]

Work is being done on skill tree...again?! Please, for the love of all that is unholy drop some work into FP!

Scorchs need to scorch!

Edited by Katrina Steiner, 08 April 2022 - 11:04 AM.

[johnnyq666]

cazeral, on 08 April 2022 - 02:36 AM, said:

However, an I may have missed this, what happens to the skill points bought but are inactive, i.e. 105/91, what happens to the 14 not in service? Will they be ported over to fill the blanks they previously filled?

same question !

[LordNothing]

problem with things like this is that by the time they open the damn thing up to constructive criticism, its too late to change anything.

Edited by LordNothing, 08 April 2022 - 11:49 AM.

[SoulRcannon]

Considering the scope of what's possible, these changes look great and I look forward to seeing them in the game.

However...

Quick napkin arithmetic suggests that each mech will need 20-30 changed nodes to re-optimise with this new layout. With the new cost in c-bills alone, that's 500k-750k per mech. That adds up quickly over any one player's mech bays; for me, this would amount to around 200-300 million cbills. Let's say playing super casually with the help of event's etc, I get net (after costs of refitting as I go) 10 million per month, that's up to 2 1/2 years of grind.

What I'm getting at here is simple; even if it's staying at 91 skill points, even if the cost of the grind is going down, this is still a lot of grind being added with these changes, and not issuing any form of refund with these changes doesn't help the medicine go down. Please consider the possibility of some form of refund to come with this, for example by splitting the difference of the old cost and the new and issuing something like 10k cbills and 150gxp per node unlocked, per account as these changes go live.

If you were to reconsider "no refunds", it may help alleviate some of the concerns I'm seeing on this thread.

[JOATMON Incorporated]

I am tentatively excited about this. The end product of this looks really good. It allows for a lot more fine tuning on designs in a much more transparent manner. I am very joyful at the proposal!

My main concern is the secondary effects which arise due to the transition. There is notable potential for player annoyance and alienation.

Thankfully the transition wont be bad for me or my close friends. Personally I have a number of mechs that I play that don't have all their skillpoints even filled yet. Also I have other mechs that are already sitting with unused unlocked skills as I adjusted my builds repeatedly. My immediate friends also tend to be in a pretty safe spot regarding this.

Having read a number of the posts here it is quite clear that a number of people, having very large stables of mechs, are naturally concerned about how this will impact the viability of their mechs. Personally I am not a person to go chasing the meta but then again I'm not exactly a highly competitive person. I realize however that a lot of people are and if they believe their finely honed weapon system has become somewhat tarnished because the new change suddenly allows for their competitor enemy to get a small percentage advantage over them in some way.... well I realize that will really bug some people. Being bugged can take some of the fun out of the game.

I would like to suggest a few methods to offset such annoyance....
1. Give players some additional GSP based upon the total number of mechs they own.
2. Assign some bonus SPs to mechs that have already reached 91+ SPs unlocked.
3. (Conditional upon 1 or 2 being utilized as well) VERY Steep discount sale on GSP bundles.
4. (Bonus) Champion Mechs XP bonus changed to 50%, and ALL XP they earn is General, none is mech specific anymore.

[C E Dwyer]

the original and the mess we currently have were put in to be money sinks and time grinds.

This new one just seems to be a rehash of the one that was mooted a few years ago and rejected by the community.

Why have a skill tree at all, mechs already have to be balanced with quirks, why not just lower credits gained, or make weapons more expensive. and get rid of it all together.

A skill tree that is as streamlined as this, isn't going to be of any benefit, it's just going to take money and development time, which could be better spent other ways.

A bad player is always going to be at a disadvantage over a good one. a good player with a no skill tree'd mech will usually defeat a below average player fulled skilled.

This just streamlines the issues between player skill levels, meaning a better player will get maxed out with a full set of Min Max skills, faster, making the skill gap between the two player levels more pronounced.

Also there is the issue of no refunds..this is fine again for the min maxers that never keep sub optimal mechs in their stable.

This severely penalises collectors, this is why there was a refund of skil l points and credits after the current changes.


This newly presented one isn't going to be better for the games health than the old one, or the current one, this change isn't needed, is likely to do far more damage than good.

Change at this stage of the games life I feel is very unwise, and is not going to adress any of the balance issues the game has, and has had for years.

it's just a vanity project, installing a system which was rejected by PGI and most of the community with a different coat of paint.

[LavaDa1shi]

i love this skill tree change i just wish i could get it all refunded