I really wish that PGI would COMPLETELY remove the all the "Sensors" nodes from the skill tree, BUT add the node's perks to the various Targeting Computers. For example, the TC Mk1 would have 1 nodes worth of sensor range, target decay, target info gather, etc. The Mk2 would have 2 nodes worth..... IMO, that would make players invest some tonnage and help to balance the OP-ness of some mechs/builds. It would also give the TCs some use, other than an afterthought if you some extra weight. Just my $0.02.
I can see Reinforced Casing on a select few mechs. A Charger "Number Seven" has a -90% crit chance receiving. Taking nodes in Reinforced Casing could theoretically reduce that chance to ZERO... meaning structure is just as good as armor. But that's a pretty rare case.
You'd think they have an upper limit on how high that can go, to prevent things like -100% crit chance receiving. But then again, that would be an interesting build, entirely uncrittable.. hmmm..
I'm an old player and don't think I will care about the size of the skill tree. I have a lot of mechs and won't worry about skilling them till I actually want to use them. Just the fewer clicks and not having to waste sp will be worth it in my opinion. You will actually be able to get speed tweak on some mechs where you couldn't before, due to being a hot build and needing the heat nodes.
Returning player here, my last round being in early 2016. Been reading up on the developments since then and (whilst very glad that MWO it is still around) have only just finished reading up on the big Skill Tree rehash that took place in 2017 and now picked up on the latest changes here. You can imagine my surprise when none of my Mechs were skilled anymore and i was in a search as to why! Off the bat, one of the many vocal issues at the time was the amount of clicks to go through to reskill but it appears only now this was tackled - but really 5 years later? An interesting impact of the 2017 rejig/patch was the decoupling of the engine to agility - seemed that the version of the skill tree now allows you to fix some of the issues associated with it from back then. The clear benefit in this new tree is ridding the previous situation of having to skill up unecessary items to get to the one you wanted. Yes, it makes for a bigger skill tree but that is just inherent to the game IMHO and all previous efforts to condense it were just mistaken. All that is left for me to figure out now is why i dropped to a Tier 5 from being mid Teir 1 when i last logged in! :)
I agree with your points about torso pitch; any mech that can't bend over at the waist to shoot a Flea should be buffed until it can. But for the JJ nodes, they're still important for certain high mobility builds like the Spider. You don't have to take them, but if you do it fundamentally changes how you play the 'mech.
To clarify: I think that maximizing the one thing that your 'mech is supposed to do is the point of the skill tree. So with the Marauder, the point of that build is to bring three RAC2s to the fight. So maximize the function and utility of those weapons - hence no need for cooldown as the point isn't to help the four medium lasers, but to keep those RAC2s on the field. Therefor, all the cooldown nodes are better spend elsewhere. With the standard Spider, the point of that 'mech is (normally) to be a hard-to-hit harasser. You normally only bring two lasers to the fight, so do you want to waste a bunch of nodes on just those two relatively weak weapons, or do you want to maximize your survival and maneuverability? I know Phil doesn't seem to find much use in the JJ nodes, but that doesn't mean there isn't a use. Same could be said for builds of the Mist Lynx, Vulcan, Arctic Cheetah, Javelin and a few others.
still think they should have cut it back to 50-60 nodes. limit each attribute to a smaller number of more effective nodes, eliminate things that can just be baked back into mech stats. there are a lot of things im not even going to touch anymore. i like that you dont have to dig through as much crap anymore, but this did little to simplify the process.
This'll probably bring me back to the game, but it only partially fixes a huge issue I had with skill tree: time vs reward. The cost of skill points is just still so massive compared to what you gain from them, and the amount of time you have to spend farming for the credits just to max out a mech is massive. It takes resources away from experimenting with builds and time away from playing something for fun. Really turned the game into an early warframe-like grind for me.
Yeah, I think this is going to let me play with some options that I didn't have before bc I was sinking so many nodes into getting the "key" skills on each mech... really looking forward to the patch!
It's better than it was, but it's still way too bulky and granular. First, it's all basically linear anyway, so get rid of the branches and make sliders or counters for the skills and save a lot of space as other people suggested. Put the 'side skills' on determined intervals. Secondly, I'm worried that in this new tree, all skill builds become hyperfocused on 'the correct stat'. There are too many skill points to have to actually make hard choices. I think it would make it more interesting if the nodes were stronger individually, and every extra node in a tree would cost 1 more SP. This would also balance the inherent way that cooldown/heat reduction and radar deprivation nodes become more powerful as you get more of them. Finally, there are still too many stats, and everything looks the same. It's overwhelming. I think it would be easier to comprehend if each mech had some 'focus skills' based on their weight class/chassis/variant/role in lore. This could either give a higher max level in that skill, and/or some base levels. It gives the mech identity - similar to quirks - and gives some reference points in the tree. If anything, it gives another way to balance over-/underperforming mechs.
Phil, for a light Mech without ECM radar deprivation is very importend, LRM spam is very dangerous. I'm a light pilot and nearly all my light Mechs have 100% radar deprivation and in my option it's not to strong.
I know I'm late to the proverbial game with this video, but as a returning player after over a decade gone, I find this new system utterly perplexing. More versatile, to be certain. But counter-intuitive and punishing for those with a stable of mechs that you now have to go out and re-earn XP on in order to unlock those skills. The return we got doesn't even come close to replacing our previous investment. And it seems they put you in a Catch-22: you need to go play each mech in order to earn XP to unlock Skill Points, but until you allocate SP you're a limp noodle with armor made out of papier-mâché and will likely die many horrible deaths until you can earn those points back. I didn't realize how it worked, so I dumped all those points into Gausezilla (not a bad choice, but still...) I was thinking once you had those points, they were universally shared across your mechs and all you were doing was allocating from that same general pool for each mech. But as I understand it now, you need to earn all that XP/SP back for each variant. And it apparently doesn't matter how often you played each variant in the past, you start from scratch with every variant. So once your supply of converted GSP gets used up (and you can burn through 500 GSP very quickly on just a handful of mechs), now you have to go play every one in your roster to re-earn that XP again. Very discouraging, but it is what it is. Looks like it's time for ol' man Tim to start grinding away again. LOL
Thanks for the vid. I think we need value/count changes next. Radar dep reduced, underused buffed. Total number of nodes or the value should allow for deeper specialization. If i want an assault to turn fast, that % based node gives like nothing noticable. Sensors range doesnt provide enough vs base 800m or what we have. With Information-warfare quirks per mech and weightclass, these would be more useful. You could go crazy and give each tree around 91 nodes to only push one thing? Lol 91% cooldown anyone ;)
So many things inherently wrong with the game, and i am glad you touched on some of them, like Torso Pitch, Yaw and Speed. Same with Speed Tweak. All these things NEED to be changed on a chassis or even whole class basis (Heavy and Assaults are still too slow). At least you can now (finally) be more precise with the skills. The old tree is an abomination.
Hot take: cooling increases and heat generation should be removed entirely. Extremely few mech builds don't care about heat at all. The more universal something is the less it should be a customizable option. Easier to balance everything if heat gen and cooling was a simple constant outside of quirks for less fortunate mechs. Keeping heat capacity as an option makes sense in this context because its not a thoughtless free performance upgrade; the player still has to know when to take advantage of that extra capacity to fire some more without endangering himself.
I like the idea of backing down the maximum so you can quick mechs for certain bits. That said, even with the original tree it seemed odd that you could max out certain categories. I know you're supposed to suspend reality as a sci-fi video game, but to me it was never really a tree. You didn't have to make choices of how you wanted to sensors or jump jets to perform differently, you could pick them all at the expense of other categories. This model really encourages boat builds and discourages good mixed builds.
seriously what would be nice is 1. as has been mentioned many times before: Trialmechs need to be skillable OR have a dedicated skillbuild 2. let us LAB skillbuilds before purchasing skillnodes to get a feel if said skillbuild is what we are looking fore ... imho this makes most sense when it comes to navigating the mech with mobility skillnodes ...
#2 You can test drive the skill nodes before buying already! Just apply your nodes and then go into testing grounds to see how it drives. Its nice to see how the nodes affect mobility, range, heat gen etc before purchasing. TLDR: this is an option currently.
@@NoGutsNoGalaxy Hi. I'm an old player looking to reinstall. I kinda remember the initial skill tree when PGI brought it out. Does this new variation allow the saving of templates with selections already made? e.g. If I have energy-only mechs, can I assign points to the light, medium, heavy and assault mechs from a template called Laser Vomit for instance?
i have been reading that there are elite skills if you have multiple mechs of the same family skilled up? is this still the case with the new skill tree or is this functionality now deprecated?
I expect that your old "Saved Skill Tree Profile" will not work anymore. Not a big thing, but something to remember. Rather than the long left-right scroll I wish the menu buttons only display those nodes. For example, selecting "Firepower" only shows the firepower nodes.
The nodes you would now never take need to be substantially buffed. Reinforced Casing should actually be a valid deterrent to MG boats who would otherwise delete your arsenal in a few seconds.
reactive and reflective armor should NOT be a skillnote ... a actual armorchoice instead of ferro fibrious yes .. in fact i would love them to bring things like heavy armor and triple strength myomer for some dedicated get in heavy or assaultbrawlers ...
@@mattjohnson8585 because of lore time line, balancing and overloading players. As it stands now MWO is way too complicated for the average PC player. That is a good and bad thing at the same time, more players bring more revenue but more toxic players ruin the game experience. Getting to the sweet spot is difficult.
This just allows more min-maxing. Get all the benefits cheaper than before. No sacrifices. Easy decisions. I would rather there be no skill tree but I never really had a problem with what PGI came up with and I liked that sometimes you had to make hard choices and pay the price to get the best stuff. I felt like I was in the minority and all the BT/MW fans left MWO to the FPS crowd so I left too. I check in periodically but nothing that I have seen in the last 1 1/2 years has made me want to play the game again. I am glad MWO existed because without it we would probably not have gotten HBS Battletech and MW5: Mercenaries. That is how I justify all the money I spent on MWO as not being a total waste.
So I left when the new skill tree Bullshit came around. Let's see what the "new new" skill tree has to offer, or if it is as bs as the old new skill tree.
I really wish that PGI would COMPLETELY remove the all the "Sensors" nodes from the skill tree, BUT add the node's perks to the various Targeting Computers. For example, the TC Mk1 would have 1 nodes worth of sensor range, target decay, target info gather, etc. The Mk2 would have 2 nodes worth.....
IMO, that would make players invest some tonnage and help to balance the OP-ness of some mechs/builds. It would also give the TCs some use, other than an afterthought if you some extra weight.
Just my $0.02.
I can see Reinforced Casing on a select few mechs. A Charger "Number Seven" has a -90% crit chance receiving. Taking nodes in Reinforced Casing could theoretically reduce that chance to ZERO... meaning structure is just as good as armor.
But that's a pretty rare case.
You'd think they have an upper limit on how high that can go, to prevent things like -100% crit chance receiving. But then again, that would be an interesting build, entirely uncrittable.. hmmm..
I'm an old player and don't think I will care about the size of the skill tree. I have a lot of mechs and won't worry about skilling them till I actually want to use them. Just the fewer clicks and not having to waste sp will be worth it in my opinion. You will actually be able to get speed tweak on some mechs where you couldn't before, due to being a hot build and needing the heat nodes.
Returning player here, my last round being in early 2016. Been reading up on the developments since then and (whilst very glad that MWO it is still around) have only just finished reading up on the big Skill Tree rehash that took place in 2017 and now picked up on the latest changes here. You can imagine my surprise when none of my Mechs were skilled anymore and i was in a search as to why! Off the bat, one of the many vocal issues at the time was the amount of clicks to go through to reskill but it appears only now this was tackled - but really 5 years later? An interesting impact of the 2017 rejig/patch was the decoupling of the engine to agility - seemed that the version of the skill tree now allows you to fix some of the issues associated with it from back then. The clear benefit in this new tree is ridding the previous situation of having to skill up unecessary items to get to the one you wanted. Yes, it makes for a bigger skill tree but that is just inherent to the game IMHO and all previous efforts to condense it were just mistaken.
All that is left for me to figure out now is why i dropped to a Tier 5 from being mid Teir 1 when i last logged in! :)
I agree with your points about torso pitch; any mech that can't bend over at the waist to shoot a Flea should be buffed until it can. But for the JJ nodes, they're still important for certain high mobility builds like the Spider. You don't have to take them, but if you do it fundamentally changes how you play the 'mech.
To clarify: I think that maximizing the one thing that your 'mech is supposed to do is the point of the skill tree. So with the Marauder, the point of that build is to bring three RAC2s to the fight. So maximize the function and utility of those weapons - hence no need for cooldown as the point isn't to help the four medium lasers, but to keep those RAC2s on the field. Therefor, all the cooldown nodes are better spend elsewhere. With the standard Spider, the point of that 'mech is (normally) to be a hard-to-hit harasser. You normally only bring two lasers to the fight, so do you want to waste a bunch of nodes on just those two relatively weak weapons, or do you want to maximize your survival and maneuverability? I know Phil doesn't seem to find much use in the JJ nodes, but that doesn't mean there isn't a use. Same could be said for builds of the Mist Lynx, Vulcan, Arctic Cheetah, Javelin and a few others.
still think they should have cut it back to 50-60 nodes. limit each attribute to a smaller number of more effective nodes, eliminate things that can just be baked back into mech stats. there are a lot of things im not even going to touch anymore. i like that you dont have to dig through as much crap anymore, but this did little to simplify the process.
Looking forward to these changes. Still work to do, layout could be better, but this is a huge improvement.
I like the direction, but with each tree being one perk, these really ought to just be bars or tickers. It would save a lot of space!
Good to see you excited about a change in MWO
This'll probably bring me back to the game, but it only partially fixes a huge issue I had with skill tree: time vs reward. The cost of skill points is just still so massive compared to what you gain from them, and the amount of time you have to spend farming for the credits just to max out a mech is massive. It takes resources away from experimenting with builds and time away from playing something for fun. Really turned the game into an early warframe-like grind for me.
Looked for this yesterday when I saw that the PTS was a separate download, thanks for being quick.
01:45 i actually made a noise of satisfaction lol
Wow it's literally the skill tree I proposed back when skill tree was first floated. Good.
So excited about not wasting points on unneeded nodes. This looks really cool.
Yeah, I think this is going to let me play with some options that I didn't have before bc I was sinking so many nodes into getting the "key" skills on each mech... really looking forward to the patch!
It's better than it was, but it's still way too bulky and granular.
First, it's all basically linear anyway, so get rid of the branches and make sliders or counters for the skills and save a lot of space as other people suggested. Put the 'side skills' on determined intervals.
Secondly, I'm worried that in this new tree, all skill builds become hyperfocused on 'the correct stat'. There are too many skill points to have to actually make hard choices. I think it would make it more interesting if the nodes were stronger individually, and every extra node in a tree would cost 1 more SP. This would also balance the inherent way that cooldown/heat reduction and radar deprivation nodes become more powerful as you get more of them.
Finally, there are still too many stats, and everything looks the same. It's overwhelming. I think it would be easier to comprehend if each mech had some 'focus skills' based on their weight class/chassis/variant/role in lore. This could either give a higher max level in that skill, and/or some base levels. It gives the mech identity - similar to quirks - and gives some reference points in the tree. If anything, it gives another way to balance over-/underperforming mechs.
Phil, for a light Mech without ECM radar deprivation is very importend, LRM spam is very dangerous. I'm a light pilot and nearly all my light Mechs have 100% radar deprivation and in my option it's not to strong.
I know I'm late to the proverbial game with this video, but as a returning player after over a decade gone, I find this new system utterly perplexing. More versatile, to be certain. But counter-intuitive and punishing for those with a stable of mechs that you now have to go out and re-earn XP on in order to unlock those skills. The return we got doesn't even come close to replacing our previous investment. And it seems they put you in a Catch-22: you need to go play each mech in order to earn XP to unlock Skill Points, but until you allocate SP you're a limp noodle with armor made out of papier-mâché and will likely die many horrible deaths until you can earn those points back. I didn't realize how it worked, so I dumped all those points into Gausezilla (not a bad choice, but still...) I was thinking once you had those points, they were universally shared across your mechs and all you were doing was allocating from that same general pool for each mech. But as I understand it now, you need to earn all that XP/SP back for each variant. And it apparently doesn't matter how often you played each variant in the past, you start from scratch with every variant. So once your supply of converted GSP gets used up (and you can burn through 500 GSP very quickly on just a handful of mechs), now you have to go play every one in your roster to re-earn that XP again. Very discouraging, but it is what it is. Looks like it's time for ol' man Tim to start grinding away again. LOL
Could have saved nodes when you selected radar dep on the Arctic Wolf and Marauder (one node each time).
Thanks for the vid.
I think we need value/count changes next.
Radar dep reduced, underused buffed. Total number of nodes or the value should allow for deeper specialization.
If i want an assault to turn fast, that % based node gives like nothing noticable.
Sensors range doesnt provide enough vs base 800m or what we have. With Information-warfare quirks per mech and weightclass, these would be more useful.
You could go crazy and give each tree around 91 nodes to only push one thing? Lol 91% cooldown anyone ;)
So many things inherently wrong with the game, and i am glad you touched on some of them, like Torso Pitch, Yaw and Speed. Same with Speed Tweak. All these things NEED to be changed on a chassis or even whole class basis (Heavy and Assaults are still too slow).
At least you can now (finally) be more precise with the skills. The old tree is an abomination.
They need to add the AMS to the ammo nodes.
Just get laser ams and ignore the ammo completely.
Hot take: cooling increases and heat generation should be removed entirely. Extremely few mech builds don't care about heat at all. The more universal something is the less it should be a customizable option. Easier to balance everything if heat gen and cooling was a simple constant outside of quirks for less fortunate mechs. Keeping heat capacity as an option makes sense in this context because its not a thoughtless free performance upgrade; the player still has to know when to take advantage of that extra capacity to fire some more without endangering himself.
1:40 Oh thank god.
I don't even play anymore and this is satisfying to me.
o7
Welcome back
I like the idea of backing down the maximum so you can quick mechs for certain bits. That said, even with the original tree it seemed odd that you could max out certain categories.
I know you're supposed to suspend reality as a sci-fi video game, but to me it was never really a tree. You didn't have to make choices of how you wanted to sensors or jump jets to perform differently, you could pick them all at the expense of other categories. This model really encourages boat builds and discourages good mixed builds.
seriously what would be nice is
1. as has been mentioned many times before: Trialmechs need to be skillable OR have a dedicated skillbuild
2. let us LAB skillbuilds before purchasing skillnodes to get a feel if said skillbuild is what we are looking fore ... imho this makes most sense when it comes to navigating the mech with mobility skillnodes ...
#2
You can test drive the skill nodes before buying already! Just apply your nodes and then go into testing grounds to see how it drives. Its nice to see how the nodes affect mobility, range, heat gen etc before purchasing.
TLDR: this is an option currently.
So now you might have a reason to take skills you would never think of taking before
This allows for better specialization for builds and gives more variety to the capabilities of the mechs
Yup and it’s easier to use even for new players
@@NoGutsNoGalaxy Hi. I'm an old player looking to reinstall. I kinda remember the initial skill tree when PGI brought it out. Does this new variation allow the saving of templates with selections already made? e.g. If I have energy-only mechs, can I assign points to the light, medium, heavy and assault mechs from a template called Laser Vomit for instance?
Radar Dep still needs to be fixed. Too hard to run LRM's with the amount of ECM people play as is.
Lol
2:40 Phil, is there any benefit to having Radar Dep and the ECM skills together? I see people doing this and have always thought it's one or the other
I've recently started to add ONE node of radar derp when I have ECM, but that is it!
i have been reading that there are elite skills if you have multiple mechs of the same family skilled up? is this still the case with the new skill tree or is this functionality now deprecated?
So happy about this
im excited for this
Are there any trees that are considered universally important or worthless?
I expect that your old "Saved Skill Tree Profile" will not work anymore. Not a big thing, but something to remember.
Rather than the long left-right scroll I wish the menu buttons only display those nodes. For example, selecting "Firepower" only shows the firepower nodes.
power keep on creeping.
Min maxxing is one way to do it.
PGI has jut more 4 years of rights on MWO right ?? it will end ?
The nodes you would now never take need to be substantially buffed. Reinforced Casing should actually be a valid deterrent to MG boats who would otherwise delete your arsenal in a few seconds.
I am back from 4 year and im kinda so lose on this skill trees
did not explain them all and what they do
I wouldn't mind seeing them dump the 'useless' skills and replacing them with something more lore-friendly, like reactive armor or some such.
reactive and reflective armor should NOT be a skillnote ... a actual armorchoice instead of ferro fibrious yes ..
in fact i would love them to bring things like heavy armor and triple strength myomer for some dedicated get in heavy or assaultbrawlers ...
@@MrTBSC That would work, too. I've always wondered why they weren't included somewhere from the start.
@@mattjohnson8585 because of lore time line, balancing and overloading players. As it stands now MWO is way too complicated for the average PC player. That is a good and bad thing at the same time, more players bring more revenue but more toxic players ruin the game experience. Getting to the sweet spot is difficult.
This just allows more min-maxing. Get all the benefits cheaper than before. No sacrifices. Easy decisions. I would rather there be no skill tree but I never really had a problem with what PGI came up with and I liked that sometimes you had to make hard choices and pay the price to get the best stuff. I felt like I was in the minority and all the BT/MW fans left MWO to the FPS crowd so I left too. I check in periodically but nothing that I have seen in the last 1 1/2 years has made me want to play the game again. I am glad MWO existed because without it we would probably not have gotten HBS Battletech and MW5: Mercenaries. That is how I justify all the money I spent on MWO as not being a total waste.
LOL 200,000 MC 🤤
Hmm. So how is this a "tree"?
I remember when the current tree was being showcased.. I hate changes.
Who the hell is this guy?
*squints*
Oh. You got shaved.
Will we get SP refund when new skill tree come?
no
they said any nodes you bought will still be there
They finally took some of the stupid out of the skill tree.
So I left when the new skill tree Bullshit came around. Let's see what the "new new" skill tree has to offer, or if it is as bs as the old new skill tree.