New Skill Tree - Thoughts

lol exactly. they are too self-centered and largely oblivious to realize that the more we "hold locks" for them, the more we are in the enemies field of view and fighting or getting shot while they do nothing. they simply don't get it.

 

On the other hand why would you not keep them locked when picking where to shoot?

 

Interesting thread by the balance person Chris Lowrey:

https://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/251952-early-post-skill-tree-balance/

TLDR:
Most improved mechs

Dragon

• 4th Greatest improvement in Win / Loss ratio. (30% increase)
• 3rd Highest Avg. Damage Improvement over all 'Mechs. (+69.35 average damage)
• 2nd Highest improvement in Kill / Death Ratio. (38% increase)

• Commando
  • 3rd Greatest improvement in Win / Loss ratio. (33% Increase)
  • Highest improvement in Avg. Damage for Light 'Mechs. (+56.95 average damage)

• Panther
  • Greatest improvement in Win / Loss ratio. (63% increase)

• Gargoyle
  • Highest improvement in Kill / Death Ratio (42% increase)

• Warhawk
  • Highest Avg. Damage Improvement over all 'Mechs. (+70.34 average damage)

• Raven
  • 2nd Greatest improvement in Win / Loss ratio. (58% increase)

• Nova
  • 2nd Highest Avg. Damage Improvement over all 'Mechs (+69.58 average damage)

• Grasshopper
  • 3rd Highest improvement in Kill /Death Ratio ( 20% increase)

• Wolverine
  • 4th Highest Avg. Damage Improvement over every 'Mech. (+65.79 average damage)

June balance incoming:

• Night Gyr

• Marauder IIC

• King Crab

• Firestarter

• Black Knight

It doesn't say what type of balance... but that Nova was already good.

 

Obviously most people will. However, I'll be picking targets based on my priorities, or that of the caller. Which may not be the best target for LRMs. Honestly, no one running LRMs should ever have to say "get loks guise". People who hit R will hit R, those that don't, won't. Lurmers should simply assess how well the team uses R, and adjust their tactics accordingly. It's the ones who refuse to do that who are the real deadweight of the team.

 

I'd like to disagree with Solahma. Don't trust me too much though, I'm just a puny Tier 3 player, far from being as good as the most active members of mechspecs.com .

Some mechs are well-rounded anyway. They're famous, popular and effective. And they don't need anything specific from the Skill Tree, just a bit of everything relevant.

And then there are strange/quirky/niche/weird ones. They have very protruding and obvious strong and weak sides. For example, huge CT hitbox + slow twist, all weapons in arms; but speedy, jumpy, tanky, good arm shielding or ability to zombie.

Specific loadouts can add to this a lot too: splat + SLas slow heavy/assault brawler, splat + LB-X or very hot one.

According to official statistic, Dragon, Gargoyle, Warhawk, Nova benefited from Skill Tree a lot. And they're great examples of weird mechs with strong pros and strong cons.

 

Which is better, though? Building a mech and adding (however incremental) bonuses that you can use, or taking a mech with specific quirks and kitting it out to benefit from the quirks? Which is more balanced?

 

In other words, the ratio of max equippable nodes to all nodes is too big. The only difference between maxed tree is a couple of left out nodes. Is it what you mean?

 

I know there are still quirks. But my point was that for many mech chassis, there were one or two "good" ones that were only good because they had massive quirks (50% PPC velocity? YES PLEASE!). And it meant that 1 or 2 mechs in a particular chassis line were unloved because their quirks weren't "worth it" to play that particular variant. At least with the new system, barring those mechs that were quirked to the gills to be able to compete, most mechs are viable because you can skill them up however you like. You don't have to choose a mech for its quirks any more.

I don't know. I like the feel of gradual improvement that the current system brings. But I do agree that there needs to be an easier UI. Templates would be nice, as would the ability to click a starting node, and draaaag your cursor to the end node, which would select all the nodes in the line

 

I have to say I like it as it it. I just can't see why people would want to go back to where you had to get a "block" of 8.5k xp or 21.5k xp for an upgrade. I hated the grind for those.

 

I can respect your approach to this, but I was specifically talking about the skill tree in-general. The topic you're discussing seems to include all changes made this patch. There was tech change, skill tree, quirk changes, and the engine-desync. So, we're seeing PGI's listed "winners" in the context of ALL these changes. But was it because they benefit the most from the Skill Tree? that's nearly impossible to say, as almost every mech was affected by the quirk changes and engine desync too.

So it really has nothing to do with the skill tree or the choices, but rather what the state of mechs are after such a "reset" in meta balance. Who are the winners in regards to quirks? Lower weight chassis in a weight class seem to have benefited the most from the engine desync, combine those and you will probably see Dragons and Gargoyles as pretty favorable chassis on paper before even considering the Skill Tree.