35 replies to this topic

[MrMainiac]

My personal opinion, missile damage should be the same as TT. LRM damage being 1/missile and SRM damage being 2/missile. Also splash damage should be removed and LRM missile pattern should have a wider spread.

Opinions?

Edited by MrMainiac, 07 April 2013 - 03:18 PM.

[Deathlike]

Right now in their current state. No.

When they make sure streaks+LRMs don't explicitly target the CT 100% of the time, then ask for the buffs.

[Tyr4nt]

Yes, there are so many variables that make LRM's pretty much pointless right now.

1. having most or all of your LRM's shot down by a lance of AMS equipped mechs combined with the low damage makes it so even if any of your LRMS get through the damage is minimal.

2. having 10 ton(LRM20) system that has the same weight as 2x LLAS but having to carry ammo AND doing less damage is unbalanced. 2x LLAS do 18 damage over time while a single LRM20 salvo will only do 14
max assuming none get shot down and all of them hit which is extremely unlikely. It's simply more beneficial to carry 2x LLAS over an LRM20 and the same is true for the smaller equivalents.

This also doesn't take into account the challenges associated with the terrain as well as ECM.

The nerf wasn't as detrimental to SRM's in my opinion given the damage to weight ratio and heat output in a 1v1 brawl especially on mechs with lower tonnage.

For example, an SRM6 equipped with Artemis ways 4 tons and deals 9 damage compared to a LLAS that weighs 1 ton more and generates twice as much heat. Considering laser boats require more heat sinks and lack space, the SRM's are still coveted by light and medium mech pilots. They still have to contend with AMS but its not as bad in a 1v1 scenario where opposing lights have been baited and if you're in a 1v2+ scenario in close proximity you're already in trouble, AMS just makes the situation worse.

I would also consider nerfing AMS as an option. Missiles should not be shot down by AMS if they are dumb fired and perhaps AMS should only be a personal defense system. Only shooting down LRMs and SSRM's that are locked on to you and not be extended to teammates near the inbound missiles trajectory. Then perhaps the missile nerf wouldn't be as bad as it is.

Personally I already primarily piloted sniper builds and brawlers but with the current state of the game I have no interest really in carrying LRM's because of the damage nerf combined with AMS. A real problem is if you're piloting an exclusive LRM boat like an A1 Cat or AWS-8R to try and overload AMS countermeasures, you're carrying nothing but LRM's and if the opposing lance is sticking together and has a lot of AMS, you're practically useless to your team as well as defenseless in close quarters. Which leads into another disadvantage of boating LRM's which is the minimum 180 distance to arm.

There are just a lot of variables that make LRM's high risk and more often than not are a liability compared to other weapon systems.

Personally I like the teamwork aspect of AMS and I would rather see the damage rebuffed to encourage moving with your lance equipped with AMS while still letting LRM's that manage to not get shot down/evaded/blocked do acceptable damage.

EDIT:

I just wanted to add the obvious caveat when I'm talking about boating LRMs in an A1/AWS-8R trying to overload AMS, it's operating under the assumption that you're in a pug lonewolfing where you may or may not be the only LRM boat. If you happen to have another LRM boat in your lance raining even more salvos, the better off it is for the both of you. However, that's not something you can rely on if you're jumping into a random game solo.

Edited by Tyr4nt, 07 April 2013 - 08:03 AM.

[Durant Carlyle]

1. That lance of AMS 'Mechs has already given up tonnage better used for offensive weaponry so they can shoot down a few of your missiles.

Yes, just a FEW of them. One AMS isn't shooting down a huge number of your missiles. Each AMS only shoots down a few, and each AMS can only engage one volley at a time. AMS doesn't need further nerfs there.

Also, very often AMS doesn't have a chance to shoot at SRMs due to the short ranges involved. Since SRMs are the only missiles you should be dumb-firing, AMS doesn't need further nerfs there either.

AMS shouldn't be nerfed just because teams are "boating" AMS. They're just countering LRMs. If nobody on the opposing team has LRMs, they have given up that tonnage for nothing. Risk versus reward.

2. LRMs were never designed to be a primary damage-dealing weapon. They are meant for long-range support only. 'Mechs like the Catapult and Archer that have LRMs as their primary weapon were designed to be long-range support 'Mechs.

[RoboPatton]

Add one more vote-able topic for splash damage please. I want to see what the average player thinks of it.

[MuadXDib]

I think the fix is somewhere between where it was and what it is for sure. Probably higher damage and no splash.

[skill gap]

MrMainiac, on 06 April 2013 - 08:39 PM, said:

My personal opinion, missile damage should be the same as TT. LRM damage being 1/missile and SRM damage being 2/missile. Also splash damage should be removed and LRM missile pattern should have a wider spread.

Opinions?

Deathlike, on 06 April 2013 - 09:05 PM, said:

Right now in their current state. No.

When they make sure streaks+LRMs don't explicitly target the CT 100% of the time, then ask for the buffs.

I agree with both 100%.

[Ratiborus]

At least all missiles should be reverted to their state before patch that enabled splash damage. With 1dmg/missile, no splash damage and even wider spread range LRMs will be just slighty better than now - i.e. a little more than useless. Nuff said.

[MrMainiac]

My point on the wider spread is to eliminate the missiles from 100% targeting the CT. Have it so the missile spread would spread out to the arms on impact. Of course artemis and tag would tighten the cluster, but not at a heavy ammount

Example:

I fire 2 LRM15's at a target. 5 missiles should hit each arm, 6 onto each side torso and the final 8 on the center torso. If I add TAG to the shot, then bring it to 4 missiles hitting each arm, 7 to each side torso, and 8 on the center torso. Then finally add artemis to the shot, bring it to 2 missiles hitting each arm, 8 to each side torso, and 10 to the center totso.

We still need to give a bonus for equipping TAG and Artemis, and I think this seems fair in my opinion.

Comments?

Edited by MrMainiac, 08 April 2013 - 08:06 AM.

[Tyr4nt]

Durant Carlyle, on 07 April 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

1. That lance of AMS 'Mechs has already given up tonnage better used for offensive weaponry so they can shoot down a few of your missiles.

Yes, just a FEW of them. One AMS isn't shooting down a huge number of your missiles. Each AMS only shoots down a few, and each AMS can only engage one volley at a time. AMS doesn't need further nerfs there.

Also, very often AMS doesn't have a chance to shoot at SRMs due to the short ranges involved. Since SRMs are the only missiles you should be dumb-firing, AMS doesn't need further nerfs there either.

AMS shouldn't be nerfed just because teams are "boating" AMS. They're just countering LRMs. If nobody on the opposing team has LRMs, they have given up that tonnage for nothing. Risk versus reward.

2. LRMs were never designed to be a primary damage-dealing weapon. They are meant for long-range support only. 'Mechs like the Catapult and Archer that have LRMs as their primary weapon were designed to be long-range support 'Mechs.

Even if your argument that LRM's weren't meant to be a primary weapon were true, and it's not, that doesn't invalidate the point that for the weight of an LRM 20 WITH AMMO you could take 2x LLAS with heatsinks and do 4 more damage every time compared to LRM20 even if none of your missiles were shot down, the 2x LLAS STILL do more damage.

As for them not being a primary weapon, tell that to an AWS-8R or CPLT-A1. For the sake of the argument lets put a mix of SRM's and LRM's on the A1, are you really going to tell me the SRM's are the primary weapon? of course not. Your LRM's would be your primary weapon and your SRM's would be your back up so you can still engage when the enemy closes distance and you're in a brawl in that situation though if you're not fighting alone you'd want to find oppertunity to duck behind terrain and create distance between you and your target again. In the case of the 8R it only has a couple energy hard points so again LRM's are going to be it's primary weapon system with lasers as the back ups and maybe some SRM's. The only counter argument to that would be if the 8R was boating SRM's with lasers.

I'm sorry but LRM's ARE a primary weapon and they shouldn't be dismissed especially with the flexibility of Mechwarrior when it comes to builds, an LRM boat SHOULD be a viable build if the chassis allows it otherwise the 8R and especially the A1 are being forced into hybrid builds or SRM boats. Basically according to your argument the A1 is not meant to be an LRM boat and it only has 2 build options either a splatcat or an LRM/SRM hybrid. Taking it as a hybrid build, again you'd be better served taking a different mech that can load something other than LRMs because of the damage output to weight ratio.

Regarding AMS, again it's impact is felt even more after the missile nerf and it's hard countering a portion of a weapons systems effectiveness that already does less damage compared to ballistics and lasers. Also, there is a case for LRM's being dumb fired: hitting a stationary target with out alerting them. When you dumb fire they get no missile alert which means if you're firing from the side or behind unless they turn, they won't know your missiles are coming. Why wouldn't you dumb fire LRM's at a stationary target rather than alerting them and risking they're going to dive into cover? It's perfectly valid to dumb fire LRMs otherwise they wouldn't have the capability to if they weren't meant to. That's like saying they should only be treated as SLRMs and you're totally pigeonholing them and artificially limiting their capability.

@MrMainiac, I would agree on missile spread which I think is crtical.

Having a higher percentage targeting the left and right torso based on the LRM with the arms, cockpit and CT taking a small percentage each unless of course the target twists to use an arm as a shield obviously the damage would shift from the left and right torso to the arm. In the case of an LRM5 having so few missiles, I would scale the spread down since a single salvo only has 5 missiles. Make the left and right torso still be the primary targets on a direct hit sending 2 missiles at each and the 5th to the CT. We're still talking about splitting the damage rather than having it all hit a single critical area. I wouldn't increase or decrease the spread of the damage based on the presence of Artmeis. I would leave Artemis strictly as a buff to tighten up groups of dumb fired missiles whether they be LRM or SRM.

I also want to be clear that when I'm talking about rebuffing LRM's I'm not necessarily saying to put them back to what they were at before. I just want the damage to weight ratio to scale more evenly than it does currently. I would implement spread and buff the LRM20 to approximately 24 damage, the LRM 15 to 20.5, the LRM10 to 17 and the LRM5 to 13.5. This is keeping the current LRM damage scale, all we're doing is adding +10 across the board to account for the tonnage of the weapons with a few tons of the required ammo along with undefined the variables.

P.S. I apollogize for the length of my posts, and here I am just making longer lol

[MrMainiac]

Tyr4nt, on 09 April 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

I also want to be clear that when I'm talking about rebuffing LRM's I'm not necessarily saying to put them back to what they were at before. I just want the damage to weight ratio to scale more evenly than it does currently. I would implement spread and buff the LRM20 to approximately 24 damage, the LRM 15 to 20.5, the LRM10 to 17 and the LRM5 to 13.5. This is keeping the current LRM damage scale, all we're doing is adding +10 across the board to account for the tonnage of the weapons with a few tons of the required ammo along with undefined the variables.

P.S. I apollogize for the length of my posts, and here I am just making longer lol

I don't quite agree to the damage increase, mainly because the LRM's should do the same damage per missile, not vary based on size. Plus then I could boat LRM5's and destroy anything.

An old LRM boat build back in the days of closed beta was to take a catapult A1 and pack it with 6 LRM5's and chain fire them. Back then this was great because you saved weight compared to 2 LRM15's and the missiles had a rocking impact so the constant stream of missiles would rock your opponent, throwing their ballistic weapons off accuracy.

If I took that build with the damage you're wanting to use for LRM5's, I'd be able to alpha strike ding 81dmg, 2.7dmg per missile. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's extreme.

[Dimitry Matveyev]

I'd like to see LRM and SRM damage buffed. The damage before well known patch and fix was OK. As an inderect fire support (if we talk about LRM) missiles are easy to avoid all the damage (AMS, ECM, terrain, your high speed, missiles without Art low speed and long flight time). But if missiles hit - they should be deadly.
Also, I'd like the missile speed to be increased. C'mon - modern cars go faster .
"CT only lock" issue. I think it would be great, if missiles would target not a mech itself, but an area, where it is standing or where it will be, when missiles will hit the ground. So missiles will hit random parts of the mech, if the mech is smaller than the missiles landing area - more chence for missiles to miss. And I'd like to see Artemis not changing missile flight pattern (making it look "cooler", but totaly unrealistic), but to calculate more precisely the area of landing.
What else? I'd like to see missiles launched more like in real life - not all at once.

- from 3:30. Maybe not exactly at this rate, maybe faster (like in MW3)


- GRAD system, first 30 seconds. 3-4 times faster than this I would like.

Edited by Dimitry Matveyev, 09 April 2013 - 01:42 PM.

[Tyr4nt]

MrMainiac, on 09 April 2013 - 12:46 PM, said:

I don't quite agree to the damage increase, mainly because the LRM's should do the same damage per missile, not vary based on size. Plus then I could boat LRM5's and destroy anything.

An old LRM boat build back in the days of closed beta was to take a catapult A1 and pack it with 6 LRM5's and chain fire them. Back then this was great because you saved weight compared to 2 LRM15's and the missiles had a rocking impact so the constant stream of missiles would rock your opponent, throwing their ballistic weapons off accuracy.

If I took that build with the damage you're wanting to use for LRM5's, I'd be able to alpha strike ding 81dmg, 2.7dmg per missile. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's extreme.

It's not based on the size of the missiles per se, but the number of missiles being fired per salvo. The missiles of an LRM 20 vs an LRM 5 are the same size, the LRM 20 is simply firing 15 more of them. Also keep in mind that I'm talking about doing this in conjunction with spreading the damage over the target not with the current system of targeting primarily the CT. Additionally in your example, that's 81 THEORTICAL damage assuming every missiles hits every time. Let's say they spread that out to where 1 missile hits the LT and RT, 1 hits the CT, and 1 each hits the arms that 2.7 becomes 0.54. Multiplied by a 6 salvo alphastrike each are of the mechs torso and arms are only taking a theoretical 3.24 points of damage again assuming that a portion of the the missiles don't miss/aren't shot down. Compared to how right now right now an A1 rocking LRM5's is sending a theoretical 21 points of damage exclusively at the CT.

We're talking about rebuffing LRM's AND spreading the damage more evenly over the target and reducing the overall damage on the CT, yes you're doing more damage but it's still less than pre nerf and as well as less on a single part of the mech unless they twist and take it in the arm. Yes the current damage is still catastrophic if it gets through but only because I would consider the targeting of the LRM's "broken". The current system is less broken because of the nerf but, I think heart of the real problem before was a combination of the damage and the targeting. The targeting is still a fundamental problem. I would much rather see the damage rebuffed to a degree and spread more evenly and not have nearly as many missiles hitting the CT.

[MrMainiac]

Tyr4nt, on 09 April 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

It's not based on the size of the missiles per se, but the number of missiles being fired per salvo. The missiles of an LRM 20 vs an LRM 5 are the same size, the LRM 20 is simply firing 15 more of them. Also keep in mind that I'm talking about doing this in conjunction with spreading the damage over the target not with the current system of targeting primarily the CT. Additionally in your example, that's 81 THEORTICAL damage assuming every missiles hits every time. Let's say they spread that out to where 1 missile hits the LT and RT, 1 hits the CT, and 1 each hits the arms that 2.7 becomes 0.54. Multiplied by a 6 salvo alphastrike each are of the mechs torso and arms are only taking a theoretical 3.24 points of damage again assuming that a portion of the the missiles don't miss/aren't shot down. Compared to how right now right now an A1 rocking LRM5's is sending a theoretical 21 points of damage exclusively at the CT.

I don't know if you caught what I meant by damage per missile. You said a LRM5 should do 13.5 damage. If you split that up between the 5 missiles it shoots, that totals out to be 2.7 damage for each missile. You also stated that LRM10's should do 17 damage. That totals out to 1.7 damage for each missile.

What makes this and issue is a LRM5 weighs 2 tons, and a LRM10 weighs 5 tons. I could take 2 LRM5's and not only do more damage but save 1 ton for other things on your mech like ammo. Plus, if I use the same ammo between each missile launcher, shouldn't it do the same damage no matter what launcher I use?

I previously stated we should increase damage per missile to give missiles a buff so they're still damaging if they hit, but isn't taking a pair of AC20's to the mech.

[Dragoon20005]

sorry if i am butting in

but i think the reason why some want a missile buff while other need a missile nerf is because of the Awesome-8R mech

that 80 ton ***** can carry up to 4 racks of LRM20 and what make it worse is when you see a full lance full of Awesomes raining LRM onto every mech they spot.

not even a Atlas could bear that much damage let alone other mechs

IMO the Awesome 8R should be banned or removed completely or limit the number of missile racks it could mount

[Karl Streiger]

MrMainiac, on 06 April 2013 - 08:39 PM, said:

My personal opinion, missile damage should be the same as TT. LRM damage being 1/missile and SRM damage being 2/missile. Also splash damage should be removed and LRM missile pattern should have a wider spread.

Opinions?

SRM are fine - they do virtually 2,38 dmg when 2 hit zones are hit.
SSRM damage has to reduced to 1.3 per point damage (with splash damage as it is)

LRM should be increased to 1.1 dmg at point (actually they deal with splash damage 0.98)

Edited by Karl Streiger, 10 April 2013 - 03:39 AM.

[Ey3cD34Dppl]

2 damage/missle for SRMs.
1 damage/missle for LRMs.

No splash damage.

Improved damage distribution on the target.

THAN it would be balanced.

Just my 2 cents.

[Karl Streiger]

Ey3cD34Dppl, on 10 April 2013 - 03:02 AM, said:

Improved damage distribution on the target.

As far as i have understand the splash damage problematic - that was exactly the reason to create splash damage.

So if you want that your missiles hit all over the target...you have to increase the splash damage. For example radius of 4m.
So maybe 4 or even 5 zones were hit.
That will make them extremly powerfull vs light mechs but on the other hand huge mechs with big hitboxes will be more immune against missile fire.

I dunno if I'm right or completly wrong but.
1 hitzone is hit: LRM do 1 dmg per missile
2 hitzone are hit (as it is actual) 0.7dmg at point + 0.28 dmg to the next zone

if you increase the radius of the splash damage you have to decrease the damage at point or the damage at splash
for example you expect that a lrm hit 2 zones. You can reduce damage at point to 0.6 with both other zones got 0.24 dmg.
Or you stay to 0.7 dmg on hit and both other zones got 0.15dmg.

However based on the accuracy of LRM - the base damage for LRM should be increased to 1.5

[Dein Idol]

I'm pretty happy with the damage right now. Got one Catapult ("x LRM15) and the dmage I'm dealing is quite OK. The majority of the time I can be in quite save cover and shooting on the enemies. With an Atlas I'm dealing more damage and killing more but for sure taking more shoots.
With my Hunchbacks I'm dealing similiar damage as with the Catapult but on short range, so dying much more often.

I think it is fine that a LRM is making a bit less damage per ton compared to other long range weapons. You have the benefit of staying in (partly) cover and "just" need to aim in a square and fire.

And I still hate it getting hit by LRM's. First you get this missle warning. Most of the time you just look or try to get in cover or whatever. That is helping the enemy as well.

If it would require more skills to make this damage, it would be OK to increase it for me.

[Nebelfeuer]

Dragoon20005, on 09 April 2013 - 06:51 PM, said:

sorry if i am butting in

but i think the reason why some want a missile buff while other need a missile nerf is because of the Awesome-8R mech

that 80 ton ***** can carry up to 4 racks of LRM20 and what make it worse is when you see a full lance full of Awesomes raining LRM onto every mech they spot.

not even a Atlas could bear that much damage let alone other mechs

IMO the Awesome 8R should be banned or removed completely or limit the number of missile racks it could mount

which could be said for all boating builds. It would be way easier to balance if gauss and AC20 were limited to one per mech , ppc, LL, LRM15/20, SRM6 /4, AC10, uac5 to two per mech and the rest to max four per mech. If light mechs additinally would be limited to around the dmg of 2-3 MLasers (10-15dmg/shot instead of 20-30 we have now) we would have a much better game. The loadouts would be much more versatile and at the same time prevent massive alpha to one location. Unfortunately this is not going to happen because a lot of people like their one-button-wonder mechs.

Concerning the LRMs: they do feel weak now compared to other weapons concerning dmg but they still do a great job at keeping oponents in looking for cover put them under stress due with they income warning and bring the option of doing at least some dmg with indirect fire. So it is still a great weapon to bring to the battlefield. I´d try a speedincrease(which will lead to more hits hopefullly) before playing with dmg and splash value again. Another dmg spread model would not be a bad idea though(what again could also be said for boating other weapons aswell - where is the skill involved when when all my boated weapons hit the same spott and do massive dmg there? Maybe firing multiple weapon at once - say 0,3 sec tolerance- should always result in some spread while the alternative of chainfiring them gives skilled people the option to focus as they wish).

SRMs are fine right now in my opinion.