33 replies to this topic

[-Halcyon-]

This has been talked about 1 million times, so here's discussion #1,000,001 about it because it's not getting any better.

I don't understand why any mech can simply target someone without any supporting modules or equipment (like C3) and share that targeting information with the rest of the team.
The team can then use this information to collectively dump LRMs on that target.

This is bs and needs to change.
There is only one piece of equipment that should allow this, and that's the TAG laser. Just looking at someone in your cockpit shouldn't give the rest of your team the ability to magically land all their precision guided missiles on target with no LoS and no personal targeting information.

I'm just sick and tired of going up against one mech solo and then all of a sudden 50 missiles come from off screen launched by mechs *I* can't even see.
If you fight one mech alone, you're really fighting their entire team except they can fire on you and you can't hit anyone except the mech in front of you.

Please, someone explain to me how this is fair and balanced gameplay, because I'm just not seeing it.

*The constructive part of my post*
Instead of just complaining, I'm going to offer some suggestions.

- Remove native shared target mechanics. If you can't see anything with your own mech, you shouldn't know where the entire other team is (exception: C3, UAV, TAG (only if LRMs are equipped)

- Add a C3 module/equipment. If light scouts (or anyone) wants to share recon info like where the other team is, they should have it equipped. If they choose not to equip it, then they have to use their Mk 1 eyeballs like everyone else

- The TAG should be the only equipment that allows shared LRM tracking. If you don't have it equipped, then your teammates shouldn't be able to hit mechs with LRMs that they can't see or target themselves

Half of the game should be recon and information gathering, and the way it is now that whole aspect of the game is being thrown away which leaves just arena style arcade brawling.
If they don't want to give us bigger maps or persistent maps fine, but jeez can we deepen the gameplay just a little bit with simple changes like these?

Edited by Halcyon201, 05 October 2014 - 07:40 AM.

[wwiiogre]

Yep, allowing C3 target sharing across a whole company with no tonnage cost, crit cost has made information warfare impossible and also made pgi give stealth to ecm with no tonnage, heat or crit slot cost.

Would be a better game without target sharing, but LRM's would need a redo.

Chris

[Snowcrow]

I agree 100%.

[-Halcyon-]

bump

[Duncan Jr Fischer]

I agree, but why exactly are you dumping NARC off the equation?

[terrycloth]

In practice, tag is useless. It needs to be 'sticky' somehow. Maybe the person who has the tag locks on to the target and it automatically tracks and tags as long as you have line of sight.

As it is now, requiring a tag lock would make indirect fire impossible because the painting is so sporadic.

Also, by BT rules, you don't need any extra equipment to call down LRMs. In real life it's the same way, unless you count walkie talkies.

[EgoSlayer]

And for the #1,000,002nd time, we don't have C3. In TT units can share location information just like MWO, and you can indirect fire without C3. It's a more difficult shot, but it's still possible. C3 allows targets to fire using the range modifier of the closest unit, which translated to MWO would mean when someone is 90M away from an ememy mech and you fire your ML from 600m away at that same enemy it still would do full damage using the range of 90M.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 05 October 2014 - 11:56 AM.

[Mercules]

We don't have C3 target sharing. C3 is a complex system that calculates fire from a mech by using other mechs in the C3 net's data. It affects direct fire weapons as well.

What we have is what is common to every Battlemech of the era. ANY unit could call in indirect fire, even infantry.

[Farix]

terrycloth, on 05 October 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Also, by BT rules, you don't need any extra equipment to call down LRMs. In real life it's the same way, unless you count walkie talkies.

Mercules, on 05 October 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

What we have is what is common to every Battlemech of the era. ANY unit could call in indirect fire, even infantry.

But indirect fire is not precise. If you call for fire onto a position, it is the position that receives the fire, not a specific unit, or in this case a mech. If the mech moves from the position before the missile strike gets there, well, it should be a miss. However, under the current system, 100% of the LRMs will track the mech as it moves so long as a "target lock" is maintained regardless of whether the attacking mech as line of sight or not.

What I would suggest is that a lock cannot be achieved unless the LRM carrier has direct line of sight on the target or a spotter with specialized equipment has tagged/narced the target. While an LRM carrier can still indirect fire its LRMs onto a position, LRMs will not track a specific target. Hitting a moving target when you don't have line of sight with LRM should be extremely difficult.

Edited by Farix, 05 October 2014 - 11:56 AM.

[Tezcatli]

I think a rework of how LRMs do damage and to some degree how they function needs to be changed.

Personally I think they need to give LRMs more damage per missile. Which goes quite against the TT. But control the damage by adding a greater scatter effect. And have no splash whatsoever. So things like BAP, Artemis, Tag, and Narc create a tightening effect. But also whether a target is direct locked or piggybacked off another person's lock could effect it. Also make it so the approach of the LRMs is effected by tag/narc/direct lock. So those that aren't will hit cover more often. In this way the destructive potential of an LRM boat can be higher, but only when organized with a spotter/Narc, unless they put themselves directly in line of sight. Which will make lighter LRM mechs like the Trebuchet more viable.

And then I would make it so ECM increase lock on time for mechs within the umbrella, instead of flat out not locking on, but also cause missiles to scatter more.

[Rhaegor]

Agreed. Implement C3 and get rid of this shared targeting for free.

[-Halcyon-]

Duncan Jr Fischer, on 05 October 2014 - 10:21 AM, said:

I agree, but why exactly are you dumping NARC off the equation?

I forgot about NARCs.
Add them to the exception list too. Totally valid, risky, but rewarding tactic.

[-Halcyon-]

EgoSlayer, on 05 October 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

And for the #1,000,002nd time, we don't have C3. In TT units can share location information just like MWO, and you can indirect fire without C3. It's a more difficult shot, but it's still possible. C3 allows targets to fire using the range modifier of the closest unit, which translated to MWO would mean when someone is 90M away from an ememy mech and you fire your ML from 600m away at that same enemy it still would do full damage using the range of 90M.

It should be a more difficult shot, but it isn't in MWO. All missiles land precisely on the targeted mech, regardless of whether he moved since the missiles were fired.

[EgoSlayer]

Halcyon201, on 05 October 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

It should be a more difficult shot, but it isn't in MWO. All missiles land precisely on the targeted mech, regardless of whether he moved since the missiles were fired.

No they don't. If that was true most peoples missile hit rates would be in the ~80th percentile, rather than sub 50th percentile. Indirect fire you can't tell if there are obstacles blocking the path, or if the target is in cover. Many shots are 100% miss rate on the full salvo, so it is in fact harder to fire indirectly and hit than it is with direct fire.

[ATM87]

Allow target info sharing but no lock without line of sight.
Make Narc allow indirect fire while active.
Make Tag decrease the amount of time for a lock.
Put in C3 if people want to indirect fire with LRMS
Increase LRM flight speed so that in the instances where you have line of sight, the weapons are useful.

Bam. Fixed.

[El Bandito]

Halcyon201, on 05 October 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

Just looking at someone in your cockpit shouldn't give the rest of your team the ability to magically land all their precision guided missiles on target with no LoS and no personal targeting information.

Precision guided eh? That's why the LRMs have the worst hit % out of all the weapons, huh?

Edited by El Bandito, 05 October 2014 - 04:00 PM.

[ColonelMetus]

i agree with the OP

[Zerberus]

People are constantly harping on PGI that this game is "SOOOOOO far away from tabletop"

But that apparently doesn`T stop them from (or others, don`t know, don`t care) complaining about BT rules being implemented almost 1:1

ANY unit in BT can call in indirect LRM fire.

In tabletop, you roll, and you either hit or you dont. The target has absolutely zero say in the matter. C3 just makes it much easier to hit. No flight path considerations, because terrain height is wholly irrelevant.

Wheras in MWO, the target gets a warning that missile are coming half a turn before they hit (no warning in tt), therefore has a chance to react (read avoid), further decreasing the probability of scoring a hit beyond that of "how well can I visualilze the general area to determine whether firinbg even makes sense"

We can take that out completely,and implement C3 and tag as necessities, for alI care both, fine.

But then an ALRM fired from 999 m away spotted by a raven w/tag 50 meters away gets both the Artemis LOS grouping and lock bonus as well as the TAG bonus, becasue C3 shares all info as if you yourself were sitting in the closest mech, and since the closest mech is using TAG he obviously has LOS, which improves Artemis grouping significantly.

Are you really sure you want all missiles raining down on you to be that tightly grouped, considering that 99% of players are still too Damage-horny to mount AMS, "because it doesn'`t do damage to enemy mechs"?

Your funeral, not mine,

Edited by Zerberus, 05 October 2014 - 04:13 PM.

[Davegt27]

Quote

I don't understand why any mech can simply target someone without any supporting modules or equipment (like C3) and share that targeting information with the rest of the team.
The team can then use this information to collectively dump LRMs on that target.

This is bs and needs to change.

enough with the crying already

its called data link perfectly valid hell you have a cell phone

communications have been a part of warfare for ever

[-Halcyon-]

EgoSlayer, on 05 October 2014 - 03:56 PM, said:

No they don't. If that was true most peoples missile hit rates would be in the ~80th percentile, rather than sub 50th percentile. Indirect fire you can't tell if there are obstacles blocking the path, or if the target is in cover. Many shots are 100% miss rate on the full salvo, so it is in fact harder to fire indirectly and hit than it is with direct fire.

El Bandito, on 05 October 2014 - 03:59 PM, said:

Precision guided eh? That's why the LRMs have the worst hit % out of all the weapons, huh?

If just one mech sees you and maintains LoS every missile will hit me whether I'm moving or not.
I've seen it. That's what happens. You can bring up % numbers all you want, doesn't change the fact of what happens in game.
And who cares if missiles have a low hit percentage; when you have 60 LRMS incoming it doesn't really matter.

Again, to simplify, if the LRM shooter doesn't have LoS his missiles shouldn't track the target. Period!
The only exceptions are TAG and NARC. That's it!

Zerberus, on 05 October 2014 - 04:11 PM, said:

People are constantly harping on PGI that this game is "SOOOOOO far away from tabletop"

But that apparently doesn`T stop them from (or others, don`t know, don`t care) complaining about BT rules being implemented almost 1:1

ANY unit in BT can call in indirect LRM fire.

In tabletop, you roll, and you either hit or you dont. The target has absolutely zero say in the matter. C3 just makes it much easier to hit. No flight path considerations, because terrain height is wholly irrelevant.

Wheras in MWO, the target gets a warning that missile are coming half a turn before they hit (no warning in tt), therefore has a chance to react (read avoid), further decreasing the probability of scoring a hit beyond that of "how well can I visualilze the general area to determine whether firinbg even makes sense"

We can take that out completely,and implement C3 and tag as necessities, for alI care both, fine.

But then an ALRM fired from 999 m away spotted by a raven w/tag 50 meters away gets both the Artemis LOS grouping and lock bonus as well as the TAG bonus, becasue C3 shares all info as if you yourself were sitting in the closest mech, and since the closest mech is using TAG he obviously has LOS, which improves Artemis grouping significantly.

Are you really sure you want all missiles raining down on you to be that tightly grouped, considering that 99% of players are still too Damage-horny to mount AMS, "because it doesn'`t do damage to enemy mechs"?

Your funeral, not mine,

I didn't even talk about TT in my original post. Board games do not transition 100% effectively into video games.
I don't care what the rules are of TT, I never brought them up and I don't really know what they are anyway.

From an online game play balance perspective, the way things are now are unbalanced.

Davegt27, on 05 October 2014 - 04:27 PM, said:

enough with the crying already

its called data link perfectly valid hell you have a cell phone

communications have been a part of warfare for ever

Enough with telling players what they can talk about. I can bring up bad mechanics if I want to.
And cell phone? Lol what does my real world cell phone have to do with a video game mechanic?

I agree. Communications are a part of warfare. It's a shame that MWO dumbed it down to almost nothing.