99 replies to this topic

[Tahribator]

I've been trying out light mechs lately(especially Spiders) and I am shocked how one-sided the battles are.

If you've never played in lights before, you probably weren't bothered by SSRM's save for some occasional Raven flock or Trollmando(3xSSRM's). SSRM's do negligibe damage to heavies considering their armor. You're probably more worried about AC20's, Gauss and LRM's. Which are fine, nothing game breaking(except the current LRMs).

I see light mechs as requiring fast reflexes, fast thinking and relying on speed and manueverability to defeat your enemies. With mechs like Spiders, you don't even need to kill something or do damage, just keeping 2-3 mechs busy chasing you is enough to win your team time to clean up the rest. Lights are very fragile however, every laser scratch hurts and taking any AC or missile damage is completely murderous.

Most weapons in this game require good aim to be effective; lasers are instant hits but need to be held on one location to be effective, ballistics and PPC's give instant burst damage but require careful aim, LRM's require nothing other than basic windows mouse skills but can be defeated by speed, positioning, getting in minimum range and can be softened by AMS.

SSRM's completely negate every single advantage of lights.


SSRM's;

• Cannot be avoided, too fast
  
• Can be shot at incredible angles
  
• Always hit
  
• Huge range for a "short range" missile
  
• Offer reliable and murderious DPS for lights

While every other weapon need some kind of "skill factor"; be that good aim, overcoming limitations(LRM), timings and so on, SSRM's require absolutely nothing while doing comparable DPS to bigger weapons.


The point is, if you're in a non-ECM capable light and there is a mech with SSRM in the area, you're completely shutdown. You might as well quit. Before you can manage to go out of range, you'll probably be stripped of armor, lost a few limbs and already out of game. Even if we factor out the current borked splash damage, they single handedly make every non-ECM light variant obsolete.

Even ECM variants are not safe, other ECM lights who use Streaks for their sole damaging weapon completely destroy them; leaving Raven 3L and COM2D as the sole "long term viable" light mechs. A fight against a light mech with streaks with a non-streak light is straight up suicide.

I understand why PGI kept Streaks overpowered, for a long time bad netcode and resulting lagshield prevented lights from being shot effectively, making them nearly invulnerable. SSRM's were seen as hardcounter for lights, a non-optimal solution for the problem.

Now, with the netcode improving; what I want from PGI is some love for light gameplay. If SSRM's can be made somewhat avoidable, I believe every single light variant will become more viable and Ravens will get in-line with other lights.

Here are some quick suggestions for a possible solution(every one of them different, not stacking with each other);

• Introduce a more limited "cone of fire", SSRM's can only hit mechs in that cone in front of center torso. This will require fast tracking on the firing guy's part, reintroducing that "skill" factor. If the target gets out of cone, SSRM will stop tracking. So it's not fire and forget but semi-active targeting.
  
• Make SSRM's targetable by AMS. So, if you can manage to put a range (say 60m) between you and the enemy, AMS will shoot the missiles down.
  
• Lower SSRM missile manueverability, so that it won't track after abrupt course changes(target jumpjetting out of view, turning hard etc)

I hope some of you guys feel the same.


TL;DR: See the title.

Edited by Tahribator, 20 March 2013 - 10:22 AM.

[DegeneratePervert]

the SSRMs need to be there so Heavies have an easier time getting a bead on light mechs, since SSRMs are the premier anti-light weapon. Or, at least they were, until ECM arrived and the only streaks you ever saw were on Cravens and Trollmandos.

Also, they are doing too much damage right now, and will be fixed in an upcoming patch.

[Tice Daurus]

You do know that Streak SRM's are a part of the Battletech Universe, and no matter what you posted here, the DEV's are not going to remove them from the game?

And they may or may not need fiddling with?

[TungstenWall]

DegeneratePervert, on 20 March 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

the SSRMs need to be there so Heavies have an easier time getting a bead on light mechs, since SSRMs are the premier anti-light weapon. Or, at least they were, until ECM arrived and the only streaks you ever saw were on Cravens and Trollmandos.

Also, they are doing too much damage right now, and will be fixed in an upcoming patch.

This ^

There is an issue with splash damage that allows streaks to do farm more damage than intended. Commandos can take around 3x intended damage from Missiles, i think average is 1.5x damage. (dumb or guided).


However, in the situation that streaks still are too powerful, id suggest:

SSRMs- Have their old ability to miss (due to large turning radius, not 'derp' into the ground).
SSRMs + Artemis- Current SSRM effect.

2-3 tons may not sound like a lot, but for a Commando pilot, you can't afford to waste more than .5tons. Im sure the same goes for ravens if they wish to keep decent speed.
Heavier mechs can still use the SSRM (no Artemis) effectively because in theory, they shoot the missiles in the light's direction, and not 80-100degrees off.

[PANZERBUNNY]

This is the best newb post EVER!

"poor lights"

/facepalm

[Mawai]

This is a known issue ... and has been since closed beta.

SSRMs used to always hit center torso (front or back depending on facing) ... they changed this as far as I know so that although they target the torso they can hit other sections if the contact them first.

SSRMs do splash damage ... which means they can do up to 15 damage/missile ... I think something like 12.9 average in some cases was reported against a commando but it is generally higher than the nominal 2.5 they were supposed to do. They are supposed to take out splash damage in a future patch.

It is still hard to hit fast mechs with lasers even with state rewind ... not as hard as previously but still not easy. As a result, the auto-hit feature of SSRMs is still extremely useful.

ECM has been hiding a lot of these issues ... with too much ECM on the field ... LRMs and SSRMs can be useless (except on an ECM mech). With this patch there is far less ECM being fielded both because folks are bored with the 4 mechs that can carry it and because there are a lot of folks leveling Jaegers .... as a result ALL of the pre-existing balance issues with missiles are evident again ... (at least that is my theory) .

In any case, I hope PGI will fix missiles and then fix ECM ... since both need to be corrected for the game to function well.

[Sheraf]

To me light gameplay does not belong to the front line, where light mechs face Assualt mechs head on and win. Light game play involve relaying information, and flanking enemies

[Skyscream Sapphire]

Streaks may be part of the Battletech universe, but their MW:O implementation is unique. Further more, so is the ECM implementation. It is the stacking of the two that has really killed the light game. If you aren't taking a Craven-3L or a Trollmando, you might as well alt+F4 if, or rather when, you run into one.

[One Medic Army]

Just going to point out that in tabletop SSRMs weren't a weapon that was any more likely to hit than normal SRMs.
The only advantage they had was in not using up ammo or generating heat unless they hit, and in always hitting with both missiles (barring AMS).
The current implementation stems from the lock-on mechanic being far easier than actually hitting with a projectile weapon, splash damage absolutely pummeling small mechs, and lock maintaining even after firing.

Hopefully the splash removal will mean that SSRMs aren't both easier to use vs lights than a medium laser and more damaging.

Edited by One Medic Army, 20 March 2013 - 10:40 AM.

[BoydofZINJ]

All i heard was... bla bla bla Streaks are OP and have no counter.

Sure they do!

1. They have limited range.

2. If the enemy 'mech is under ECM (in other words if you have ECM around their streak mechs) they can not fire.

3. Streaks only fire two SRMs, sometimes AMS works on them.

4. Its only two SRMs... fire on the enemy 'mech with more firepower.

[DJSpaceCowboy]

5 pages and all I have to say to invalidate all of that is

USE HILLS

SSRMS ARE HARD AS HELL TO LOCK ONTO OTHER LIGHTS

[Xandergod]

My question to the OP is what is he doing within steak range in that spider? Is he like most other mechs, nipping at the heels of larger mechs?

On my A1 I carry SSRMs for this specific reason.

[Sheraf]

DJSpaceCowboy, on 20 March 2013 - 10:41 AM, said:

5 pages and all I have to say to invalidate all of that is

USE HILLS

SSRMS ARE HARD AS HELL TO LOCK ONTO OTHER LIGHTS

Especially when they just stay behind your mech, or use your allied as cover for SSRM.

[Gregore]

OP, welcome to 6 months ago.

[Xandergod]

One Medic Army, on 20 March 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

Just going to point out that in tabletop SSRMs weren't a weapon that was any more likely to hit than normal SRMs.
The only advantage they had was in not using up ammo or generating heat unless they hit, and in always hitting with both missiles (barring AMS).
The current implementation stems from the lock-on mechanic being far easier than actually hitting with a projectile weapon, splash damage absolutely pummeling small mechs, and lock maintaining even after firing.

Hopefully the splash removal will mean that SSRMs aren't both easier to use vs lights than a medium laser and more damaging.

How much damage is that med. laser really doing to a light mech? One that's running circles around you at 80+kph.
My point is heck yes the ssrm should be easier to use and do more damage then a med. laser.

[Stoicblitzer]

Tahribator, on 20 March 2013 - 10:21 AM, said:

I've been trying out light mechs lately(especially Spiders) and I am shocked how one-sided the battles are.
...
The point is, if you're in a non-ECM capable light and there is a mech with SSRM in the area, you're completely shutdown. You might as well quit. Before you can manage to go out of range, you'll probably be stripped of armor, lost a few limbs and already out of game. Even if we factor out the current borked splash damage, they single handedly make every non-ECM light variant obsolete.

[zverofaust]

No, Streaks are not destroying Light gameplay. Light gameplay is being destroyed by the larger meta balancing issues present in MWO, and Streaks are just one symptom of that system. A system that favours close-range skirmishers and juggernauts, snipers and LRM boats over brawlers, shooters and scouts.

[and zero]

Without the splash damage bug they are still a serious issue for light vs. light. In an equal fight between 2 full health lights (say a raven vs. a jenner or cicada-which is really just a light-even if you are a very good shot that raven still has a guaranteed 10 damage on you every few seconds. And since the raven/commando are just as fast as the other lights you can't even run away. Anyone saying this situation is not generally a death sentence for the light without streaks obviously has not been on the losing end. Also, if you are having trouble locking streaks I am not surprised that you need to use them.

Here is an idea i suggested for streaks that no one really noticed Not saying its a great idea. just one of the many options that would fix the issue.

http://mwomercs.com/...96#entry2068896

Edited by and zero, 20 March 2013 - 10:53 AM.

[chewie]

ALL missiles need to be tweaked on damage rate.

Right now, its too high now that they have fixed splash damage.

Armour values were doubled due to people dying too quick to accurate shots from Gauss rifles and AC20's (2 hit kills when hitting the head). But the model for the lrms/srms wasn't doing enough damage, so they were doubled. No other weapon has had its stock BT damage value increased like that.



Bring the missiles back down closer to what they should be, and things will even out a bit.

LRM's do 1.8 each. Make them 1.4 or there about's.
SRM's do 2.5 each. Make them do 2 as they should be.

[DamnCatte]

If you're just getting into this, I'm afraid you're a little behind the ball. The light mech scene has been dominated for a long time by the EC+SSRM Ravens and commandos for quite a while now. I agree with you on some points, but as streaks have always been there, and lights have always been fragile, I dont think much is going to change.

Just wait until we get them big Clan SSRM 20s.