37 replies to this topic

[Der Geisterbaer]

LordNothing, on 13 May 2022 - 04:30 PM, said:

the damage is done, so why not go all the way and re-visit the simplification goal?

The problem is that what you consider as "damage" still doesn't affect all players equally under the current implementation. Just because you personally feel the "hurt" that doesn't mean that everybody is going to feel that "hurt" as well. Those who simply want to keep their current mastery levels can retain them simply by "inaction" and even you - as one who obviously has the desire to "fix" their mechs in accordance to the then new maximization possibilities - only have to fix those partial trees that contained orphaned nodes or represent nodes you originally merely chose as "fillers". Additionally the retained nodes of the current implementation still kinda tell you what your original idea / concept behind the player's node selection was and thus allows said player to just fix the discrepancies between old ideas and new potentials whereas a full reset would require to re-analyze the respective loadout and then building up the node setup entirely.

So with what you're asking for they'd have to reset all trees in their entirety and force everybody into the "must fix (now)" situation. => They opted for a version that demands less amounts of developer time (which still is a scarce thing for them) and overall has a lower direct impact on the playerbase in terms of "damage" and part of my "IT-brain" does see the merrits of that choice despite other aspects of my brain are mourning the "lost opportunity".

[LordNothing]

people are still going to leave over this. if the player numbers tank, with it goes match quality and reasonable wait times and potentially the viability of the game remaining online (spends more than it makes = dead).

this thing just isnt ready for prime time yet.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 May 2022 - 05:29 AM.

[Der Geisterbaer]

LordNothing, on 14 May 2022 - 05:26 AM, said:

people are still going to leave over this.

And that's the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" part of it where they'll have to make an (not really) educated guess on how many players can be retained with the overall easier skill tree setup vs. the expected losses of players with the currently planned skill tree update vs. the expected losses with something more aggressive (and in line with your personal preferences).

LordNothing, on 14 May 2022 - 05:26 AM, said:

if the player numbers tank, with it goes match quality and reasonable wait times and potentially the viability of the game remaining online (spends more than it makes = dead).

Which could happen with either implementation as well as if they don't change it at all.

LordNothing, on 14 May 2022 - 05:26 AM, said:

this thing just isnt ready for prime time yet.

Given the overall situation it's unlikely that there will be a time ever again that "this thing" is ready for "prime time" - regardless of whether they opt for "chicken-little" (their current approach) or "big-bang" (your preferred solution).

[MrMadguy]

Only thing, I hope for - is that this change won't break existing skills too much, so I won't have too many problems with setting them up again, like being forced to spend extra resources on respeccing. For me it would be better, if all skill nodes will be simply reset, so I will be able to set them from scratch.

[Meep Meep]

MrMadguy, on 14 May 2022 - 07:34 AM, said:

Only thing, I hope for - is that this change won't break existing skills too much, so I won't have too many problems with setting them up again, like being forced to spend extra resources on respeccing. For me it would be better, if all skill nodes will be simply reset, so I will be able to set them from scratch.

Your mech skill setup will be exactly the same as before. Nothing will change other than how they are presented on the skill node screen. So after the change you can either leave it alone if thats what you want or change it around and optimize it if you want. Hop on the test server and try it out the gains are more than worth a few minutes of changing stuff around. Plus you don't have to click every skill now. Select a skill at the end or middle and it will auto select all skills leading up to it.

[LordNothing]

Der Geisterbaer, on 14 May 2022 - 05:45 AM, said:

And that's the "damned if you do and damned if you don't" part of it where they'll have to make an (not really) educated guess on how many players can be retained with the overall easier skill tree setup vs. the expected losses of players with the currently planned skill tree update vs. the expected losses with something more aggressive (and in line with your personal preferences).



Which could happen with either implementation as well as if they don't change it at all.



Given the overall situation it's unlikely that there will be a time ever again that "this thing" is ready for "prime time" - regardless of whether they opt for "chicken-little" (their current approach) or "big-bang" (your preferred solution).

my preferred solution would be they go back and look at the original goals, cull the nodes by 1/3rd, remove trash nodes no one is going to use and scale large node count skills into fewer higher value nodes. then come up with a less half baked refund system. they said they wouldnt be doing refunds, but ended up refunding orphaned nodes anyway, presumably because it was the easiest solution. if you are going to make the sky fall, at least do it for a reason other than change for changes sake.

there are a number of b solutions that would both be minimally viable and that i would consider acceptable:

opt in for a one-time full node refund per mech. that orphaned node window, make it give me the options "refund orphaned" and "refund all".

another solution would be to let the nodes lay where they are and do no refund at all. that would enable me to fix the mech piecemeal instead of all at once, for mechs that dont have a surplus xp pool. this might be combined with the previous method ("refund orphaned", "refund all", "leave nodes as is"). you could always prevew the results before saving and if you dont like it try one of the others.

a 3rd method would be to use a more systematic approach, count each node type and unlock the same number in top to bottom fashion. this is easy for skills with only one node type per tree, and if you just do those it would greatly reduce the number of orphaned node refunds. for buried nodes, try every possible path through the tree that is reachable and use the one that can replace the most nodes. i expect there to still be orphans but much less of them and mechs would be a lot easier to fix.

they wanted feedback, thats mine.

Edited by LordNothing, 14 May 2022 - 05:00 PM.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 14 May 2022 - 12:15 PM, said:

Your mech skill setup will be exactly the same as before. Nothing will change other than how they are presented on the skill node screen. So after the change you can either leave it alone if thats what you want or change it around and optimize it if you want. Hop on the test server and try it out the gains are more than worth a few minutes of changing stuff around. Plus you don't have to click every skill now. Select a skill at the end or middle and it will auto select all skills leading up to it.

yes, dont change anything, feed the meta players.

[Be Rough With Me Plz]

Meep Meep, on 14 May 2022 - 12:15 PM, said:

Your mech skill setup will be exactly the same as before. Nothing will change other than how they are presented on the skill node screen. So after the change you can either leave it alone if thats what you want or change it around and optimize it if you want.

How much you want to bet that a large portion of the playerbase in the Tier 3-5 range will have no idea about this? I'm willing to bet a lot.

It's entirely likely that if PGI doesn't display an absolutely giant and obnoxious WARNING!!! prompt explicitly stating "Mech skills will remain the same UNTIL YOU OPEN THE SKILL TREE TAB. Once a Mech's Skill Tree tab is opened blah blah blah", then a lot of confusion and frustration will be created.

[MrMadguy]

Meep Meep, on 14 May 2022 - 12:15 PM, said:

Your mech skill setup will be exactly the same as before. Nothing will change other than how they are presented on the skill node screen. So after the change you can either leave it alone if thats what you want or change it around and optimize it if you want. Hop on the test server and try it out the gains are more than worth a few minutes of changing stuff around. Plus you don't have to click every skill now. Select a skill at the end or middle and it will auto select all skills leading up to it.

As I understand, new skill trees will allow more optimal ways to get to some nodes. I.e. some filler nodes will be freed. But this would mean spending extra XP/CB on changing them. Multiple it by number of 'Mechs in your bays and you'll get big headache, that has higher chances to drive players away, than to retain them or bring them back.

Not all players have spare XP to spend. For example for me XP is my current bottleneck. I have dozen of unskilled 'Mechs and no spare GXP. And this is big problem. As it always happen in such games, skill trees are ok when you play 2-3 'Mechs, but they aren't optimized for playing many 'Mechs. I don't want to mess with individual skill nodes, because I would need to keep all unset nodes in mind, if I would do it, so I usually earn enough XP to open 91 skill nodes and then use export/import tool to fill all nodes at once. But this strategy causes big problem. I have to play unskilled 'Mech for a long time. I'm not sure, if it's just illusion or not, but it feels like not only my performance become worse in unskilled 'Mech, because difference isn't actually so big, may be 10%, but matchmaking also becomes intentionally worse for me, like if unskilled 'Mechs would be put into some other MM bucket. Dunno, some sort of smart matchmaking to force paid XP->GXP exchange. So, I prefer to play skilled 'Mechs, earn GXP/GSPs instead, but that obviously takes much longer to do it.

[Meep Meep]

MrMadguy, on 14 May 2022 - 10:50 PM, said:

Multiple it by number of 'Mechs in your bays and you'll get big headache, that has higher chances to drive players away, than to retain them or bring them back.

Not all players have spare XP to spend. For example for me XP is my current bottleneck. I have dozen of unskilled 'Mechs and no spare GXP.

The skill tree is now far more simplified and easy for even a new player to understand since everything is in its own group instead of the mishmash setup of before with skills scattered all over the place and most in non intuitive sequences.

If your mechs are unskilled then you don't have anything to worry about and since the xp and cbill cost of nodes was reduced it will be even easier to fill them out to your liking?

Just not understanding the complaints when this is by far one of the best changes they have even done.

[MrMadguy]

Meep Meep, on 14 May 2022 - 11:01 PM, said:

The skill tree is now far more simplified and easy for even a new player to understand since everything is in its own group instead of the mishmash setup of before with skills scattered all over the place and most in non intuitive sequences.

If your mechs are unskilled then you don't have anything to worry about and since the xp and cbill cost of nodes was reduced it will be even easier to fill them out to your liking?

Just not understanding the complaints when this is by far one of the best changes they have even done.

Again. Some skills were filler skills. I will have to reskill them. I have >100 'Mechs skilled. Reskilling them will be disaster, because I'm low on CBs and XPs already.

[LordNothing]

i forgot to check on the pts, but do you get to keep nodes you previously unlocked, but which are not active? say i bought into the speed tweak, decided that it was bad and moved the nodes elsewhere. those speed tweak nodes would be unlocked and could be reactivated without charge, say if i changed back to a fast build. can i still do that?

[Meep Meep]

MrMadguy, on 15 May 2022 - 04:30 AM, said:

Again. Some skills were filler skills. I will have to reskill them. I have >100 'Mechs skilled. Reskilling them will be disaster, because I'm low on CBs and XPs already.

How many do you actively play though? All 100? The easiest way is to optimize them as you play them. Also not to crap on your specific situation but I'll wager the vast overwhelming majority of the active playerbase has lots of xp already banked on their most played mechs so it won't be an issue. Unfortunately when something like this is changed there are always going to be outliers who fall between the cracks. Sorry if that person is you.

LordNothing, on 15 May 2022 - 06:22 AM, said:

i forgot to check on the pts, but do you get to keep nodes you previously unlocked, but which are not active? say i bought into the speed tweak, decided that it was bad and moved the nodes elsewhere. those speed tweak nodes would be unlocked and could be reactivated without charge, say if i changed back to a fast build. can i still do that?

Any unlocked but not currently used nodes will still be unlocked. Didn't you give the test server a spin to see how the changes worked out?

Edited by Meep Meep, 15 May 2022 - 06:52 AM.

[MrMadguy]

Meep Meep, on 15 May 2022 - 06:51 AM, said:

How many do you actively play though? All 100? The easiest way is to optimize them as you play them. Also not to crap on your specific situation but I'll wager the vast overwhelming majority of the active playerbase has lots of xp already banked on their most played mechs so it won't be an issue. Unfortunately when something like this is changed there are always going to be outliers who fall between the cracks. Sorry if that person is you.

Yeah, I don't play all 'Mech at once. But I still want them to be ready for me to jump in and ride at any moment. At the end I buy them to play them, not for collecting dust. Situation with this game is already bad. It's just stupid to make it even worse.

And... I don't want to download PTS client to test it. But after watching this video I have feeling, that there are more nodes in each category, so even with some filler nodes freed I still won't be able to fit all my desired nodes into 91 points and get all previous bonuses.

[Be Rough With Me Plz]

MrMadguy, on 15 May 2022 - 10:13 AM, said:

Yeah, I don't play all 'Mech at once. But I still want them to be ready for me to jump in and ride at any moment. At the end I buy them to play them, not for collecting dust. Situation with this game is already bad. It's just stupid to make it even worse.

And... I don't want to download PTS client to test it. But after watching this video I have feeling, that there are more nodes in each category, so even with some filler nodes freed I still won't be able to fit all my desired nodes into 91 points and get all previous bonuses.

You didn't have to really download anything. If you ran the repair tool you would have been able to copy a lot of the files over from the main MWO folder and bypassed a significant portion of the 22GB.

Anyway, I only have 79 mechs, but I re-skilled all of them and I needed an average of 8-15 new Skill Points per mech to make new skill trees. I had a few that required around 20-25 new Skill Points, but that's because the mechs in question have 2 or 3 different viable builds I switch between.

Edit: Assuming these are Victories:

• If you do absolutely horrible each match then it may take you 2 matches to get enough XP for 1 SP.
  
• If you do okay, that's 2 matches for 3 SP.
  
• If you do well, that's ~3 SP per match.
  
• If you factor in the 2x multiplier for the first win of the day that could net you 4-6 SP if you do okay-well.
  
• Then we have the Double XP event coming up at the end of month on top of the free Premium Time given for the events and you're looking at, what, 3-5 matches at the most per mech?

I don't have nearly as many mechs as others who have been around as long as I have, but when you break it down (especially with the upcoming Double XP event) the time required per mech isn't as bad as it may seem.



Just be glad PGI had the foresight to keep the current (old) skill tree values for your Mechs until AFTER you decide to open the skill tree tab post-patch. That will make grinding for the XP significantly easier because you're not going to be playing a fresh mech. I've been leveling up 4 mechs without assigning any SP in order to bank them for post-patch and it absolutely sucks as a brawler.

Edited by Be Rough With Me Plz, 15 May 2022 - 03:13 PM.

[LordNothing]

Meep Meep, on 15 May 2022 - 06:51 AM, said:

How many do you actively play though? All 100? The easiest way is to optimize them as you play them. Also not to crap on your specific situation but I'll wager the vast overwhelming majority of the active playerbase has lots of xp already banked on their most played mechs so it won't be an issue. Unfortunately when something like this is changed there are always going to be outliers who fall between the cracks. Sorry if that person is you.



Any unlocked but not currently used nodes will still be unlocked. Didn't you give the test server a spin to see how the changes worked out?

i spent the first day not having enough time to check it out, the second getting the pts to install and run and the third day it was taken down before i could get back on. i had a long list of things i wanted to check out but due to lack of time and various glitches i didnt get it all done.

[MrMadguy]

Be Rough With Me Plz, on 15 May 2022 - 12:22 PM, said:

You didn't have to really download anything. If you ran the repair tool you would have been able to copy a lot of the files over from the main MWO folder and bypassed a significant portion of the 22GB.

Anyway, I only have 79 mechs, but I re-skilled all of them and I needed an average of 8-15 new Skill Points per mech to make new skill trees. I had a few that required around 20-25 new Skill Points, but that's because the mechs in question have 2 or 3 different viable builds I switch between.

Edit: Assuming these are Victories:

• If you do absolutely horrible each match then it may take you 2 matches to get enough XP for 1 SP.
  
• If you do okay, that's 2 matches for 3 SP.
  
• If you do well, that's ~3 SP per match.
  
• If you factor in the 2x multiplier for the first win of the day that could net you 4-6 SP if you do okay-well.
  
• Then we have the Double XP event coming up at the end of month on top of the free Premium Time given for the events and you're looking at, what, 3-5 matches at the most per mech?

I don't have nearly as many mechs as others who have been around as long as I have, but when you break it down (especially with the upcoming Double XP event) the time required per mech isn't as bad as it may seem.









Just be glad PGI had the foresight to keep the current (old) skill tree values for your Mechs until AFTER you decide to open the skill tree tab post-patch. That will make grinding for the XP significantly easier because you're not going to be playing a fresh mech. I've been leveling up 4 mechs without assigning any SP in order to bank them for post-patch and it absolutely sucks as a brawler.

I read suggestion from some player several days ago, that 2x XP should be used to level multiple 'Mechs quickly. I tried to do it. It didn't work, because after several days I managed to earn around 5 SP on each. Problem is - one needs to do well in a first place. And it's impossible with unskilled 'Mech and broken MM.

Yeah, if everything go as expected, I will need to respec 3-5 nodes on each 'Mech. Not so much? But when multiplied by 100 'Mechs - it's 300-500 nodes. Even with XP cost nerfs it's still too much. Just extra problems for already dead game.

I'm completionist. For me if 'Mech lacks even 3-5 points - then it's incomplete. So, I will direct all my resources towards completing it, instead of using them for something more useful. CBs and XPs - are already my bottlenecks. I don't want to be even more bottlenecked.

Edited by MrMadguy, 16 May 2022 - 01:01 AM.

[foamyesque]

This is a you problem.