75 replies to this topic

[SamizdatCowboy]

MWO is trending towards artillery battles, where each side has majority lrm boats and a few lights to spot. Right now there is just no adequate defense against this offense (especially considering that terrain does NOT currently block missiles correctly). AMS is just not effective against massive lrm spam.

Spotting is a nice idea, but as currently implemented it's just too overpowered. Either lrms should revert to traditional line of sight weapons, OR

• AMS needs to be more effective, especially when all mechs in a group have it
  
• The missiles-through-mountains bug needs to be fixed
  
• lrm's should not fire so vertically, so terrain is a more effective cover (assumes above bug is fixed)

I think if the above three were applied/tweaked, you could keep spotting and at the same time make lrm's a much more balanced weapon (and lrm boats a less abused config)


just my 2c

Cheers

[Merrik Starchaser]

SamizdatCowboy, on 04 November 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

• AMS needs to be more effective, especially when all mechs in a group have it
  
• The missiles-through-mountains bug needs to be fixed

Do these first and see if missiles still need any adjustment. I doubt they will. I rarely have issues with them even now regardless of my build, but I use ams and always stay on cover.

[Mechsniper]

Lrm's are actually the one thing that about works right. I do agree on the attack angle, and a slight AMS buff. You shouldn't take much damage until AMS is out of ammo, and none in a group. Other weapons need less heat and denerfing to make them balanced. Mechs must die for this game to be fun. But if you spend all day whittling down a lrm boat he will kill you in a minute.

[TerebNeerg]

The thing with fighting LRM heavy teams is you have to have your whole team press forward at once, any loners will get ripped to shreds while everyone is cowering behind a building.

[Duck Hunt]

Stop trying to destory my game.

Thank you

[Quxudica]

Exclusively PuGing, every single match today has been decided entirely based on which team had more LRMs. If one side was sending streams of them I was able to call with 100% certainty which team was going to win. LRMs are simply to spammable, to easy to use for the gunner, and do to much damage for the minimal amount of effort needed to use them.. most of which is on the spotter and not the actual user.

I'll be very happy when real games crop up again instead of two sides playing red-circle quick time events.

[Lefty Lucy]

One of the big problems is that fast light mechs are currently significantly more difficult to hit than they should be. Pre-made teams are taking advantage of this by running two ridiculously fast jenners, then loading up on the LRMs. Send the jenners in and pick apart the enemy team with impunity.

[Sarevos]

Lrms firing straight-forward would be worse... Direct fire lrm20s would be horrifying lmao

[verybad]

As mentioned, they don't need nerfing, some other things need buffing:

AMS Buff slightly.

ECM. Oh it's not in the game yet, but spotters withi range of it aren't going to be able to spot against any targets...LRM units within range of an opposing ECM system won't be able to use any spotters...(Both of these could be nullified by BAP)

I think it's a bit too early to worry about LRMs. Sure they're powerful, but they're not the only thing on the map. They generally take more than one unit firing LRMs at a single target before they get reallly nasty.

They're one of the biggest team wrok supporting weapons in the game, so I'm very against nerfing them. (Plus I like to spot)

Edited by verybad, 04 November 2012 - 03:23 PM.

[Sarevos]

verybad, on 04 November 2012 - 03:22 PM, said:

As mentioned, they don't need nerfing, some other things need buffing:

AMS Buff slightly.

ECM. Oh it's not in the game yet, but spotters withi range of it aren't going to be able to spot against any targets...LRM units within range of an opposing ECM system won't be able to use any spotters...(Both of these could be nullified by BAP)

I think it's a bit too early to worry about LRMs. Sure they're powerful, but they're not the only thing on the map. They generally take more than one unit firing LRMs at a single target before they get reallly nasty.

They're one of the biggest team wrok supporting weapons in the game, so I'm very against nerfing them. (Plus I like to spot)

Its called the Rock paper scissors effect =P we have the rock and papers kicking the crap out of it because scissors are still in R&D

[Quxudica]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 November 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

One of the big problems is that fast light mechs are currently significantly more difficult to hit than they should be. Pre-made teams are taking advantage of this by running two ridiculously fast jenners, then loading up on the LRMs. Send the jenners in and pick apart the enemy team with impunity.

Thats a symptom, not a cause, and honestly lights are only more difficult to kill for people who can't hit anything without it standing still. The issue with LRMs is that they are simply to easy for the person using them and provide a massively inflated benefit for their minimal effort. LRM rain can cripple or kill even an assault in just a few seconds with a light around, even without it being on target 100% of the time. I know, I've done it myself as a spotter, it takes very little to drop enemy mechs with a tag and two + boats. Even if I died and lock was lost, most of the time a significant amount of damage was done before the target moved out of the rain.

Weapon effectiveness should be roughly equal to effort needed to use it, that ratio is off for LRMs (and streaks to a lesser extent). The pilot can be nigh 100% safe while bringing in more fire then even gausscats, with minimal coordination.

To be honest, I really think it may just have been a mistake to even include lock-on weapons. The problem is so intrinsic to the idea of the weapon system that I just don't think it can really be fixed with out overcompensating via nerfs.

[Jman5]

To be perfectly honest, I think they should have nerfed LRMs and other long range weaponry during the initial first week or two of open beta while noobs are getting their bearings. After you introduce some of the electronic warfare gear like ECM, you can bring the damage values up slightly.

[hanitora]

Quote

You shouldn't take much damage until AMS is out of ammo

You don't. Unless it's LRM 15 or LRM 20. Or god forbid, 3 ******* LRM 15s firing at your dumb *** right in the middle of a beautiful open field.

I wish the op left his 2c in his pocket.

[Lefty Lucy]

Quxudica, on 04 November 2012 - 03:27 PM, said:

Thats a symptom, not a cause, and honestly lights are only more difficult to kill for people who can't hit anything without it standing still. The issue with LRMs is that they are simply to easy for the person using them and provide a massively inflated benefit for their minimal effort. LRM rain can cripple or kill even an assault in just a few seconds with a light around, even without it being on target 100% of the time. I know, I've done it myself as a spotter, it takes very little to drop enemy mechs with a tag and two + boats. Even if I died and lock was lost, most of the time a significant amount of damage was done before the target moved out of the rain.

Weapon effectiveness should be roughly equal to effort needed to use it, that ratio is off for LRMs (and streaks to a lesser extent). The pilot can be nigh 100% safe while bringing in more fire then even gausscats, with minimal coordination.

To be honest, I really think it may just have been a mistake to even include lock-on weapons. The problem is so intrinsic to the idea of the weapon system that I just don't think it can really be fixed with out overcompensating via nerfs.

No, I'm referring to the known hit detection issues. Not just people who can't aim.

[Tomman]

LRMs have been a hot button topic for a while.... put simply if your team works together effectively LRMs are a nuisance not OP... I am a Jenner Scout pilot, for a group that RARELY runs LRMs, because any well coordinated team will generally just ignore LRMs and fight in cover.

[Keifomofutu]

ECM

[Shalune]

LRMs are crazy right now but I don't think buffing AMS is the answer. AMS may as well be mandatory on all mechs for how effective it already is.

I was thinking over the LRM problem last night. It's in a weird spot. In pugs LRMs are over the top for how much damage they do, and the inability to coordinate against them. On the flip side, against an organized team LRMs are actually pretty balanced right now as a communicating team can rush down a team stacking LRMs easily, move as a group for bunched AMS, or quickly get to hard cover. So the problem is if you weaken LRMs too much or in the wrong areas it will actually shift the meta game without their ability to force enemies out of cover.

What I realized is that in every other Battletech game I've played LRMs aren't nearly as well guided. Even a stationary target will rarely be hit by every missile in a volley, and sprinting scouts can avoid large portions of them. If we made them behave similarly here it would accomplish a bunch of things at once.

- LRM players' skill cap increased by turning volleys into roughly targeted small AOE (area of effect) damage dealers. A pilot will need to choose their shots better and consider the greater chance for friendly fire.

- This would add a long range inaccurate weapon. Right now there are only 2 weapons in the game that are not incredibly accurate: LBX and SRMs. The ability to do damage over a small area could also be important tactically. Right now it is very difficult to counter a push by a tight group.

- Dramatically increases the importance of targeting hardware (TAG, Artemis and NARC) and thus capable spotters. This increases the LRM player's skill cap further by adding a larger risk vs reward component to direct fire.

[Sandpit]

Couldn't this (like so many other threads) have just been posted in one of the dozens of LRM discussions already in place instead of starting an entirely new thread on an already well-discussed/argued subject? Multiple threads just clutter up the front page

[Quxudica]

Lefty Lucy, on 04 November 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

No, I'm referring to the known hit detection issues. Not just people who can't aim.

My mistake, I assumed you meant knock downs as I have seen that argument many times in regards to lights being somehow "OP" at the moment. Pet peeve I suppose since the argument proves what I thought all a long, knock downs only served as crutches for people that couldn't aim.

Yes the lag shielding is really bad for some odd reason, I had a match earlier where I engaged a Jenner that had no CT on the wireframe, meaning his CT had under 1.0 health left. It took me 6 CT hits with lasers and streaks to kill it and my ping was only 50.

[Sarevos]

Shalune, on 04 November 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

LRMs are crazy right now but I don't think buffing AMS is the answer. AMS may as well be mandatory on all mechs for how effective it already is.

I was thinking over the LRM problem last night. It's in a weird spot. In pugs LRMs are over the top for how much damage they do, and the inability to coordinate against them. On the flip side, against an organized team LRMs are actually pretty balanced right now as a communicating team can rush down a team stacking LRMs easily, move as a group for bunched AMS, or quickly get to hard cover. So the problem is if you weaken LRMs too much or in the wrong areas it will actually shift the meta game without their ability to force enemies out of cover.

What I realized is that in every other Battletech game I've played LRMs aren't nearly as well guided. Even a stationary target will rarely be hit by every missile in a volley, and sprinting scouts can avoid large portions of them. If we made them behave similarly here it would accomplish a bunch of things at once.

- LRM players' skill cap increased by turning volleys into roughly targeted small AOE (area of effect) damage dealers. A pilot will need to choose their shots better and consider the greater chance for friendly fire.

- This would add a long range inaccurate weapon. Right now there are only 2 weapons in the game that are not incredibly accurate: LBX and SRMs. The ability to do damage over a small area could also be important tactically. Right now it is very difficult to counter a push by a tight group.

- Dramatically increases the importance of targeting hardware (TAG, Artemis and NARC) and thus capable spotters. This increases the LRM player's skill cap further by adding a larger risk vs reward component to direct fire.

MW3 and 4 they were pretty monsterous as they traveled very fast and even with warning you had 1 second before you ate the whole wave you just had 3-7 ai who you could use as appropriate meat shields