Now as a random thing of interest... I had very little trouble dealing damage with LRMs beyond 500 meters. But between 250 and 180 they seemed to be foam darts.
So what was the Clan minimum range that they decided for LRMs? It was supposed to be 75 meters right? Or did they seriously make it 'drop' damage gradually from 270 meters and under?
So if I can have my Steak Missile Range increased to above 500 meters they will start doing damage? Cool.
There's a world of difference between "a" bad patch and every patch being bad in some way or another.
Anyone but the most rabid of haters can forgive a bad patch once in a while; we all know **** happens. But when the good patches are the ones that are few and far between, and when missiles once again get broken - it seems to happen every time they change something in the code, be it related to missiles or not - for the umpteenth time, it's not a question of "a bad patch".
It's a systemic error with their QA, and it's an issue with the missile code being fundamentally broken. AFAIK we're still running with the same broken missile code that they can't patch splash damage out of - you know the one that they tried to remove splash damage from, but that led to 50%+ of the missiles going CT? (this was about a year ago, I'm sure some of the older hands here do remember).
They need to step up their QA, and they need to go back and rewrite the missile code from scratch; it's blatantly obvious to anyone that's been here for more than a few patches that neither are up to par.
I understand, not knowing exactly who or what their QA is, I'd just assume it's 1 person and he isn't as thorough as some of you. These guys are a lot smaller than the Call of Duty guys who take 1 month to fix the Javelin Death Fire bug. That was a real LRMaggeddon.
Throughout the day on May 20th after the patch, there were increasing reports of greatly impacted missile performance. This was surprising as no missile changes have been implemented in several patches. Even at this time we are not 100% certain what is causing the bug however there was some work implemented to support the upcoming Clan LRM's. It was expected these changes would not have any impact on the game after patch, obviously this seems to be our culprit. We will look into this issue first thing tomorrow and if a problem is found we will release a hotfix as quickly as possible. Sorry for the disturbance in your regular play style and enjoyment.
More info tomorrow as soon as we have it.
Russ, our "regular" playstyle is...
2 PPCs + 2 Autocannon 5s on a mech for maximum pinpoint damage, since everything else is penalized/nerfed/disadvantaged.
Yes, SRMs are broken into dust right now, being four times less effective than they were a year ago when a month ago they were sixty percent less effective than a year ago... we still wouldn't be using them but they aren't even worth their tonnage at the moment.
Do the right thing. Don't just release a hotfix. Completely remove host-state-rewind on missiles alone. It has been a failure on them. Then, revert SRM flightpaths back to how they were in closed beta (the tight spread -> wider -> back to tighter pattern), put splash damage back in and set the damage to 2.5 (of course, leave splash off on Streaks and LRMs).
Do this... and you'll have a very happy community. You might even start earning some purchases.
Last night was epic fail of the highest order.
Edited by Mister Blastman, 21 May 2014 - 06:52 AM.
Two options: Either he's lying and hoping we're not smarter than he is, which was a terrible move; or he's clueless about what changes really went live, which is a terrible admission.
Either way if the man had any credibility left, it's gone now.
Dear PGI, please read this. It's a much better idea than "scaling" missiles and apparently not going to cause the bugs you're experiencing!
Quax1102, on 21 May 2014 - 02:40 AM, said:
That's exactly what they talked about last time I remeber. Scaling them down to zero damage instead of lowering min range. However, they would have ****** up the current game either way, so basically it doesn't matter.
That's a serious problem. I'd prefer a hard 75 meter minimum range, or a freaking intelligent design. Using LRMs as a brawling weapon was common practice. But, LRMs were NOT fast firing, could NOT spam, and only had 120 missiles per ton instead of 180.
A much better solution is not having missiles fire so fast and instead making them a more tactical weapon instead of a 'hold button to win' weapon.
Random examples: Double cooldown, double damage, double heat. Maintains DPS and HPS, cuts back on the spam (LRM 20 fires a second time at 9.5 seconds, LRM 15 at 8.5 seconds, LRM 10 at 7.5 seconds, LRM 5 at 6.5 seconds). (LRM 5 would then deal 11 damage. LRM 20 fired would then be 44 damage. Heat doubled on all. 120 missiles instead of 180 per ton.)
Currently LRM-5s do more damage than StreakSRM-2, and fires at 3.25 seconds (the StreakSRM-2 fires every 3.5 seconds). Why would you ever bother with a streak, especially when Clan LRM-5 is 1 ton?
But if it takes longer to reload LRMs, streaks would obviously be better for close range fighting even with 0 minimum range on Clan LRMs.
Fun, isn't it? Truth be told, in the long run it'd be a step into making LRMs much more tactical and less "spammy."
Something said in the past.
Spoiler
Double LRM damage + double LRM cooldown (reload) time.
LRM 5? Current: Reload time 3.25 seconds, 5.5 damage (Faster firing rate than a Streak fires + MOAR damage = Clan LRM-5 replaces Clan Streaks!!!!). New: reload time 6.5 seconds, 11 damage. (Ain't nothing replacing Clan Streaks now!)
LRM 10? Current: Reload time 3.75 seconds, 11 damage. New: reload time 7.5 seconds, 22 damage.
LRM 15? Current: Reload time 4.25 seconds, 16.5 damage. New: reload time 8.5 seconds, 33 damage.
LRM 20? Current: Reload time 4.75 seconds, 22 damage. New: reload time 9.5 seconds, 44 damage.
Pros:
Maintains DPS so that LRMs do not lose effectiveness.
Removes SPAM.
Makes LRMs into a more strategic weapon.
Makes LRMs feel powerful instead of pathetic.
Poptarts when hit by even partial LRM fire will be absolutely devastated, preventing them from camping in one spot for very obvious reasons. This will cause the flow of the game to continue flowing rather than come to a sudden halt.
Significantly improves the new player experience by quickly teaching them that LRMs are dangerous, rather than slowly making them feel helpless from the constant torrential rain that they can't escape from (one of the largest elements turning off new players and causing them to quit early).
Engages the LRM-user by making LRMs more interesting to use.
Increases the skill level from "drink coffee and hold button" to "Should I fire? Will they hit if I do? Okay now that I fired I need to relocate before they find me."
Is quick and deadly when it hits instead of 'endless pelting and dizzy spells'.
Players will find much more value in single or dual LRM-launchers which will significantly reduce LRM boats in the long run.
Makes boating identical heavy LRM weapons a bad idea, "Wow, this reload time takes forever. Maybe I should mix it up with large and small LRMs to have better reload times."
Players are more likely to back up LRMs with other weapons to effectively defend themselves. "Okay, so I fired, but then I was unable to fight or keep enemies from rushing me and died quickly. Maybe I should bring SRMs or Streaks, or a PPC or some lasers to back up my LRMs."
LRM users will spend less time camping.
A dumbfired LRM salvo will be absolutely devastating when and if it hits. This makes the difficult task of hitting ECM mechs with dumbfired missiles completely worth it and rewarding!
When an LRM boat carrying two LRM-15s fires, there will be 8.5 seconds to rush from cover to cover to get closer or to kill it.
Solves the potential 12 LRM-5 paradox that a certain Clan mech's hardpoint bodypart mix and matching would cause.
Cons:
Boating LRMs is about equal to suicide, sure you'll fry one target but it takes 3 to 6 seconds for the average player to kill most heavy/assault class LRM boats.
Unable to fire LRMs again for between 6.5 and 9.5 seconds, assuming you can hit at all when that time comes. While this will obviously turn people off from boating
LRMs may become a "light mech thing," but this means fewer streaks and SRMs on lights.
The inevitable reduction of LRM boats means fewer easy kills in the field, making pugstomps more difficult to achieve.
LRM users would have to think.
Fewer people would complain about everything wrong with MWO (c'mon this is a bad thing; its hilarious to read them).
Turrets, while more devastating when they attack, will be much easier to rush and destroy due to reload times.
LRMs are in a great place now (ignoring the current bug). Very useful. But unlike the days of old, the missiles travel fast, target decay maintains locks, and missiles hit very often with great detection now that everyone is chain firing.
However, because of all that, the rapid firing rates we've had to make up for the lack of all the above are no longer necessary and while the DPS of missiles is highly effective, the 'spam' is beyond annoying and makes players on the receiving end who are standing in cover and still being pelted feel completely helpless. So the idea is what if we doubled the cooldown (making it take twice as long to reload and shoot again) but also doubled the damage (to maintain the DPS and its effectiveness).
This engages players more. So instead of sitting in a corner reading celebrity gossip while holding down the "fire" button for LRMs until the match is over, missing is much more detrimental to them due to the increased time to reload and fire again. This increases the tactical element as instead of a "hold button" mechanic to grind for cbills, it is now about finding the perfect position to fire from and relocating after the fact before the enemies rush you. The combination of firepower and firing rarity also increases the value of missiles to the point that a player may actually make a request "LRM (Target) C?"
Better engagement means better player retainment. It also means more communication and reliance on others or themselves to fire at enemies, acquire escorts, make friends in matches, the list goes on. It also means that dedicating 100% to "boating" missiles is no longer a feasible option as that means being helpless when a rush starts. So they will bring other weapons to defend themselves and boat less.
In the long run, it'd also increase the value of spotter gear. Meanwhile, mixed builds that have 1 or 2 missile racks might use SRMs or Streaks for close range combat and long range energy weapons or they may go the other route and use close range energy/ballistic weapons and long range missiles as the individual launchers will have increased in value and battle significance.
Now, someone had an interesting thing about this.
Spoiler
Quote
In that case I'll just chain fire my LRMs so I can have a heavy hitter (33 damage) that is always available to fire. The BLR-1S, and AWS-8R with Quad ALRM15 is great example.
Mkay, so you chain fired. At maximum rate...
0 seconds: LRM-15-1.
0.5 seconds: LRM-15-2.
1 second: LRM-15-3.
1.5 seconds: LRM-15-4.
8.5 seconds: LRM-15-1 has finished reloading and is ready to fire.
9 seconds: LRM-15-2 has finished reloading and is ready to fire.
9.5 seconds: LRM-15-3 has finished reloading and is ready to fire.
10 seconds: LRM-15-4 has finished reloading and is ready to fire.
So here, there's a 7 second window to rush.
Now you can space out your missiles more, but you won't be quite as deadly as firing them all at once.
And if you want to make that window to rush you very small, you have to space out your LRMs to maybe 2 or 3 seconds apart to have perfect rotations between launchers firing and reloading.
This creates windows of 2 to 3 seconds of much weaker damage.
Lights, locks gained and broken, etc., can all occur in this time.
You can still be rushed.
Which means you still have to actively think, actively play, and be tactically engaged with the game instead of going to bed with a weight placed on the LRM fire button.
To note something else. In TT, LRMs did 1 damage to 1 point of armor. Atlas had 304 points of armor.
1:1 ratio.
In MMWO, LRMs do 1.1 damage to 2 (double the armor), Atlas has 608 armor.
1.1:2 ratio; reduced is 0.55:1 (ever wondered why LRMs felt so weak?)
This adjustment brings LRMs to 2.2.
1.1:1 ratio.
If 2.2 damage per missile turns out to be too much it can be scaled back to 2 for a 1:1 ratio.
This means we aren't doing anything overpowered.
Long term, SRM and Streak once SRM hit registration is reliable.
Spoiler
If SRMs ever become reliable, a similar thing can be done to them.
SRMs in TT are 2 damage to 1 point of armor, Atlas has 304 points of armor.
Establishing our 1:1 scale.
SRMs in MWO are 2 damage to 2 points of armor. Atlas has 608 points of armor.
0.5:1 scale.
SRMs doing 4 damage per missile, but having double the reload time will bring them in line with a 1:1 scale and allow SRM-2s to be worth something.
Streaks may or may not get the same treatment once SRMs become worth while. Damage at 4 per missile.
You know what amazes me most, is how unreasonable, pretentious, and just effing straight up childish half the people on this board are, with your smug little responses and personal digs at the developers who you don't even know, and also at other players who actually have a level head
I honestly think the internet is the only place where these people can have that little tiny bit of satisfaction in their life. It is almost sad. It's like some kind of douche-cultivating farm in here half the time.
get over it, mistakes are made and not as often as the the hyperbole forum-bandwagon would have you believe. You want an example of a real train-wreck? Talk to fans of the X series
You guys wanna know what is actually one of the big problems is with this game? It's whiney, self-entitled, pretentious forum base which is the public representation of the community, and makes all the many decent folks who play this game look bad. Believe me, there is a reputation for MWO community being mostly a bunch of ****** and every day I'm here I see the cold hard evidence
the world does not revolve around you, **** happens, get over it
See you on the battlefield, those of you who actually do more than just forum-complain (once missile are fixed, anyways )
PGI, you done messed up but thanks for acknowledging and hopefully it is fixed soon. I for one have learned in my life to "deal with it"
CSAND OUT
As I've said elswhere, accepting games as broken by default is not a sustainable point of view. That road ends with having to pay for patches and updates.
As I've said elswhere, accepting games as broken by default is not a sustainable point of view. That road ends with having to pay for patches and updates.
It is not "broken by default" and there wasn't anything in my post even saying that would be acceptable
It was an error in a patch. It sucks, yes, but it's not the end of days
Understand that your opinion, if you choose to break the trend around here, does not equal fact, nor should it be the opinion of everyone else.
After all, I really wonder what they will break in the way of fixing the current bug. Any bets? Movement code would be a new thing to break for example .. like you cannot move faster than the "one-legged" maximum. But let's see .. PGI sure will over-deliver on communitiy expactacions
Some possible ideas:
1) Random changes in movement arch-types for mechs. So, a light now counts as an assault, assaults now count as lights... maybe my beloved Awesome will somehow end up with the movement profile of a Locust!
2) Random speed changes, both in turning and movement itself
3) Permanent arm lock, forever...
As for missiles, yes, it looks like they somehow added in the Clan missile code and messed up IS missiles completely in the process. I shudder to think how this is possible. I've written a few little fan-games in a language close to C, and even I didn't mess things up like that... and I'm one guy doing this in his free time for no income.
Also, if Clan weapons are going to scale like this in actual game play - in other words, if we're all basically playing with Clan missiles right now - don't even bother continuing down this path since they are useless.
It was an error in a patch. It sucks, yes, but it's not the end of days
Understand that your opinion, if you choose to break the trend around here, does not equal fact, nor should it be the opinion of everyone else.
That's where we disagree, cSand. Despite what you imply, I am not the only person who thinks the game IS broken by default, and those of us who hold that view are not all rabid nutters with an entitlement complex. Furthermore, many people are choosing to vent not because they feel hard done by, but because they love the IP and watching what is being done to it by PGI is hugely depressing.
My guess to the cause is that the missile code was looking for some values in the xml config files that are not there and instead of not executing if they are not there, they are using fall back values instead. It would explain why this did not show up on dev systems, because they have the values, and would explain Paul's comment of nothing changed in the xml configs. It will interesting to see how they fix it.
Well yes, it does. Being understaffed and probably stretched too thin often leads to this. Understandable, but still no excuse.
Kilo 40, on 21 May 2014 - 12:25 AM, said:
all I play is missile boats, so now I just wait a day or two until they fix it. No big deal.
Good job for those who pointed it out, but I have to say, now that it's been pointed out and acknowledged there isn't a need for all the wailing, hyperventilating, and pearl clutching that's going on.
some of you really need to grow up.
The first 2 1/2 sentences are fine and kinda level-headed. Should've left it at that. But a snarky remark in a condescending tone - I hope that's not your definition of grown-up. You missed your own mark there.
People will complain and rage regardless. That's nothing such an unnecessary statement is going to change.
Kmieciu, on 21 May 2014 - 12:29 AM, said:
It would be so much better if they scraped the explosion code altogether. There is really no need for any "splash damage" effects in MWO. This neither Quake nor Crysis. MWO missiles are armor piercing, not anti-personel. A missile should deal damage to a single hitbox. If a missile hits the ground, it should deal 0 damage. Simple as that.
If a SRM hits the cockpit it should deal 2 points of damage TO THE COCKPIT. Not 5% to the cockpit, 95% to the center torso, because the cockpit hitbox is so small. This would make SRM hit detection as easy to predict as ballistics. It would both take the load off the servers, and improve close range brawling.
I tend to agree. If that splash damage comes at the price of significantly increased server load or greater chance of bugs. After all LRMs already spread out their damage. At least they're supposed to.
All in all I think they need to step up their quality standards and balancing/tweaking development pace. Things like this, especially if it has even remotely to do with bad quality code or missing documentation, shouldn't happen.
Apart from that a bit more out-of-the-box thinking also wouldn't hurt. Continuously firing autocannons? An overhauled heat generation/dissipation system? Maps and game-modes more geared towards different roles? Dare to be bold..
That's where we disagree, cSand. Despite what you imply, I am not the only person who thinks the game IS broken by default, and those of us who hold that view are not all rabid nutters with an entitlement complex. Furthermore, many people are choosing to vent not because they feel hard done by, but because they love the IP and watching what is being done to it by PGI is hugely depressing.
That's fine, and I respect that. We have a difference of opinion about this game - no big deal. As an aside, I think there are certainly many problems with this game, but they are generally outshone by how much fun I've had playing it regularly over the last couple of years.
There is a big difference between you and the handful of people like you, and the vast majority who actually are "rabid nutters"
MY post, was not directed at you or those others who can wear big boy pants and act like an adult, even on the internet
Gotta say it again - I work for an IT-company and I am aware of arising problems and uncertainties - but even here the "Patch, Hotfix, Patch, Hotfix, Patch, Hotfix" - pattern does not seem professional to our customers
At least, not at the rate they are hotfixing and patching. If you look at Warframe you'll see they patch bascially every Wednesday and then release between 1-3 hotfixes THAT DAY to fix any issues that come up. Their hotfix release is a matter of hours not days/weeks.
Every Game I have played to date has released a bad patch. There is always something that gets through no matter how well you test something. And some of these games did it months to years after release. Don't act like this is the first game this has happened to.
Nope it's not....but unlike other games it doesn't happen veryyy single time they release a fluff patch.
You know what amazes me most, is how unreasonable, pretentious, and just effing straight up childish half the people on this board are, with your smug little responses and personal digs at the developers who you don't even know, and also at other players who actually have a level head
I honestly think the internet is the only place where these people can have that little tiny bit of satisfaction in their life. It is almost sad. It's like some kind of douche-cultivating farm in here half the time.
get over it, mistakes are made and not as often as the the hyperbole forum-bandwagon would have you believe. You want an example of a real train-wreck? Talk to fans of the X series
You guys wanna know what is actually one of the big problems is with this game? It's whiney, self-entitled, pretentious forum base which is the public representation of the community, and makes all the many decent folks who play this game look bad. Believe me, there is a reputation for MWO community being mostly a bunch of ****** and every day I'm here I see the cold hard evidence
the world does not revolve around you, **** happens, get over it
See you on the battlefield, those of you who actually do more than just forum-complain (once missile are fixed, anyways )
PGI, you done messed up but thanks for acknowledging and hopefully it is fixed soon. I for one have learned in my life to "deal with it"
CSAND OUT
Not crying sir, I just look at how much money this player base ( well not all) have invested in hoping that this game will shine, unfortunately putting lipstick on a pig doesn't make it any prettier. If forum raging is the only thing they understand in order to get a message across then that is what ppl will do.
Thanks for the clarification of the issue PGI. Look forward to the patch. And thanks for all that you do to allow us to play a FREE game. That is very fun even when it is messed up a little
Imagine, if they had just put every IS weapon on the same cooldown and kept their original heat values and the original heatsink values, they could have then modified clan weapons to fire X% faster/slower at X% more heat with Y% more range or whatever.
Boys and girls, this is why we don't do sloppy coding/developing. It WILL come back to bite you in the ass when you try to build on it later.
13
This topic is locked
Koniving, on 20 May 2014 - 11:11 PM, said:
)
