673 replies to this topic

[Spooky01]

Just goes to show you guys work your butts off to get a solution. Many thanks from someone who was rained upon with LRM's.

[Terradoss]

Nacon, on 21 March 2013 - 04:58 PM, said:

However, please increase the ammo supply per ton to make up for this loss of damage effect.

I'm about on board with this suggestion. The reduction in damage at first really irritated me, but having done as much testing as I can reasonably do in live fire environments since the hotfix went in, I've changed my tune a bit.

What I think a lot of people are missing is that LRM's are no longer "ineffective" but their role has shifted somewhat. Before, an LRM boat was essentially a gigantic, stationary, very low-risk-for-reward alphaboat. I had an awesome-8r who's missile volley would alpha at just shy of 100 points (base). I don't care what universe you live in, that's excessive.

Post hotfix each volley does less damage. Much less. What I have found however is that LRM "boats" now function very well in the role of sustained (still very low risk) support damage. Which the more I think about it, is really where they should be. Previously getting caught by more than one volley of LRMs was pretty much curtains for most mechs. That's really unforgiving. Unnecessarily so. This isnt really possible anymore, but as a damage source thats often coming from very long distances and also often in a very sustained fashion, its still both helpful and considerable.

I do however agree with the above statement that an increase in ammunition per tonne (for LRMs) would be reasonable at this point. The changes push boats towards a sustained damage support role and they need to carry enough ammunition to be effective at this.

The group who takes the largest hit from this particular change (and this is a result I am definitely not happy about) are those people who run mechs that previously utilised LRM's but weren't "boating". With the new setup, the damage on LRM's is simply to low for the to be utilised in any configuration other than stacked LRM boats. There's no point to running a single LRM launcher on anything anymore. You are far better off loading up with ballistic or energy weapons in terms of DPS per weight. This particular change really bugs me. It has essentially removed the dynamic use of LRM's in terms of specific mech loadouts. I am disappointed by this.

Some form of solution involving a scaling decline in the amount of damage per missile launchers or missiles launched or SOMETHING would go a long way to rectifying this, but as it stands I strongly believe that in an attempt to tone down LRM boating, alternative uses of LRM's have been drastically over-penalised.


TL;DR - LRM boats cant alpha very well anymore. They're still great sustained damage but need more ammo.
Changing LRM boats has unfairly disadvantaged LRM use for people who don't "boat"

Edited by Terradoss, 22 March 2013 - 02:31 AM.

[King Arthur IV]

me rilky the term spreadsheetwarrior. will be my new title at work. ssw.

[Tyren Dian]

Rahjan Tyrian, on 22 March 2013 - 12:39 AM, said:

WTF
Why can not you accept the values ​​from the board game that is so difficult?
Is there any compelling reason not to do it?
LRM 1 rocket / 1dmg
SRM 1 rocket / 2dmg

Likewise for energy weapons

This. Splash from LRMs should be 1,3m, SRMs 1,8m due to the fact the warhead of SRMs are "way bigger"...

[Tigerchen]

LRMs and SRMs are great now. They do damage but they don't kill you in one volley. And the f**** annoying lowskilled splatcats are tolerable with this changes. I think its the best hotfix PGI ever made. Well done o7. (no sarcasm)

Edited by Tigerchen, 22 March 2013 - 02:42 AM.

[Karenai]

Unless you have only missle slots on you mech like A1 Cata, LRMs are not worth the weight right now.
Better to equip bigger guns, more heatsinks, more ammo or even a bigger engine.
You would need insane ammounts of LRM ammo to make up for its lackluster performance.

Just ran into 3 LRM boats. 2 catas with 2x15LRM, TAG and lasers+Stalker. With my 2 Large laser Atlas.
Was open, had lost my UACs to brawlers. Running 48km/h in a straight line. From 750m on they tagged me and fired away. LRMs hitting me the whole time.
Got both Catas and opened the Stalker, switched to annother brawler, finished him, LRMs from the Stalker hitting me from behind. Then my "fast" teammates arrived and killed the bleeding Stalker.

You can "rush" several LRM boats dead on with a 300 engine Atlas and kill them with 2 large lasers...and I have the WORST aim ever.

Edited by Karenai, 22 March 2013 - 03:08 AM.

[TheGreatNoNo]

My Jenner F just went WAY up in value. But now I have to figure out a working setup for my Cent AL and my 4SP, maybe I will shelve my 4SP until this get sorted out.

LRMs went from OMGWTFBBQ to "Looks like a light rain today" when your enemy is using two LRM 20s, talk about going from one extreme to the other lol.

Edited by Lost One, 22 March 2013 - 02:49 AM.

[Hayashi]

Paul Inouye, on 21 March 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

But Paul, you said you'd REMOVE splash damage!!!! I know I did, but here's the kicker and yet another part of the mystery of missile damage. We tried removing splash damage and it did exactly what you think it was going to do. Pinpoint on target damage. Cool right? Yes... but... Doing this exposed a problem with the grouping/clustering of missiles. We now have a high percentage of any incoming missile targeting the CT. This is BAD.

I told you so.

Paul Inouye, on 21 March 2013 - 02:46 PM, said:

To make the missile explosions/damage feel like they should and to keep the damage spread across a Mech, we kept the above mentioned splash damage work along with the following damage changes to missiles: LRMs drop from 1.8 damage per missile to 0.7 damage per missile. SRMs drop from 2.5 damage per missile to 1.5 damage per missile. DO NOT HIT REPLY TO FREAKOUT YET! It is at these levels that missile combat falls back to a level that we AND the community felt was right for a long period of time before the badness appeared. I'm going to ask you to help us test these values by FEEL. Not by playing SpreadsheetWarrior.

The power of mathematics should not be underestimated. In short, since we've seen numbers like 2600 before the patch (of which about 1000 is direct damage), this damage nerf will reduce LRM damage to 1011 damage for a good launcher before the splash damage reduction. Previously they used to add 1x damage, but since you're nerfing it to 0-0.4x, this is a 80% reduction in it. {(0.2*1600) + 1000)/2600 = 50% ish. So we'll start seeing good LRM pilots doing from 500 to 1000 damage per game after the patch, based on the calcs. The poorer players who were just abusing the mechanics but can't aim for squat will start seeing numbers closer to 200-300 damage per game. In my opinion, this is too low. Strangely, the numbers that would make this work (300-500 for bad players and 750-1400 for good players) happen to be the TT values of 1 per LRM and 2 per SRM. Hmm...

Time to head ingame and see whether SpreadSheetWarrior is a good reflection of reality, but I doubt my calcs are off. With the damage of Streaks and LRMs nerfed like this Lights will once again be very hard to kill, so I'll predict the 3Ls come back in force shortly.

Edited by Hayashi, 22 March 2013 - 02:58 AM.

[WhupAzz]

Missile hardpoints on a JM6-A are now useless so its back to the twin AC/20 and ML build.

Hotfix is good ...... for brawlers now they don't have to care about LRM's and can just charge at you from anywhere and win.

[RAGE PRO]

This is not fix, it should call this total overnerf. With my 60 lrms i make ~4% damage of the stalker. ADD: Now we can remove from all mechs AMS, and warning about missle incoming.

Edited by RAGE PRO, 22 March 2013 - 03:14 AM.

[Kmieciu]

Hayashi, on 22 March 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

I told you so.



The power of mathematics should not be underestimated. In short, since we've seen numbers like 2600 before the patch (of which about 1000 is direct damage), this damage nerf will reduce LRM damage to 1011 damage for a good launcher before the splash damage reduction. Previously they used to add 1x damage, but since you're nerfing it to 0-0.4x, this is a 80% reduction in it. {(0.2*1600) + 1000)/2600 = 50% ish. So we'll start seeing good LRM pilots doing from 500 to 1000 damage per game after the patch, based on the calcs. The poorer players who were just abusing the mechanics but can't aim for squat will start seeing numbers closer to 200-300 damage per game. In my opinion, this is too low. Strangely, the numbers that would make this work (300-500 for bad players and 750-1400 for good players) happen to be the TT values of 1 per LRM and 2 per SRM. Hmm...

Time to head ingame and see whether SpreadSheetWarrior is a good reflection of reality, but I doubt my calcs are off. With the damage of Streaks and LRMs nerfed like this Lights will once again be very hard to kill, so I'll predict the 3Ls come back in force shortly.

If a Boomcat (BoomJag) has roughly the same Alpha and DPS as a post-fix Splatcat it does not take a SpreadSheetWarrior to figure out which one is going to rule the battlefield. Ceteris paribus Pinpoint > Spread.
I wonder if pinpoint damage and HSR will shift the brawling from SRM6 to medium (pulse?) lasers....

Will Jenner F rule the light class again?

Edited by Kmieciu, 22 March 2013 - 03:05 AM.

[Hayashi]

Kmieciu, on 22 March 2013 - 03:04 AM, said:

Will Jenner F rule the light class again?

In terms of firepower they now have the most, but they lack ECM, which has power not only in denying missiles but also making it hard for others to spot your team (setting up ambushes and such). And 3 MPLAS on a good RVN-3L pilot can still do almost as well as 4 MPLAS on the JR7-F. On a 1-1 the F will win because of its jump jets. On a team, the 3L is still the best because of ECM.

[Clownwarlord]

Well like I figured the lrms where going to get not only a splash fix but because of the issues and complaints a nurfing I hope it isn't to bad but wont know until I can get back on. If you read any of my posts I was totally for fixing the issue just not nurfing the lrms, and this reads as fixed the splash issue but now we nurf them with the:

LRMs drop from 1.8 damage per missile to 0.7 damage per missile.
SRMs drop from 2.5 damage per missile to 1.5 damage per missile.

[CG Oglethorpe Kerensky]

This feels right.

LRM boating raining death on anyone who broke cover is over. I really enjoyed playing matches last night having the ability to leave cover and not get insta-popped.

[Laynx]

It feels right,
I have an LRM boat with 50 missiles per barrage as well as an atlas with 35LRM per barrage. I did spread sheet a little bit but more importantly in the game i feel like i am supporting and suppressing the enemies not OMG annhilation. Further more I am getting damage values from 300- 900 with multiple kills post patch now. LRM's are an important part of forcing people to think tactically, you cant just charge the hill and expect to win, nor can you expect to sit on the hill and rain hell and brimstone down on everyone and get insta-kills. Mechs are supposed to be big lumbering beasts that take focus fire and teamwork to kill. By the same token LRM boats are supposed to be protected by the team as they are often the main reason the enemy cant maneuver around to get the advantage.

Support?
We are the support, son!

[POWR]

Thanks for the detailed update and quick solution to the problem as well as letting us know that you're looking into a better version for the future

[loliza]

Zyrusticae, on 21 March 2013 - 08:46 PM, said:

FYI, most other weapons DID NOT get a damage boost to "compensate" for double armor. In fact, the whole point of double armor was to slow down the rate at which mechs get cored since everything fires three times faster. With splash, LRMs and SRMs are now far closer to the original TT versions in terms of raw damage output than ever before.

My biggest beef with the way LRMs were even before the Jagermech patch is simply that they are NOT supposed to be so incredibly effective when boated. They are supposed to be support weapons, weapons you use to deal easy damage to targets without having to aim while you close the distance, or to soften up targets from a distance while your teammates (who, I may remind you, are actually exposing themselves to the enemy) finish them off. Pre-Jagermech LRMs simply did too much damage, to the point where too many players would boat LRMs and nothing but LRMs because they could rely on them to finish off enemies before they could get within minimum range. Thank goodness that isn't the case anymore. SRMs were similarly OP, especially for their weight (nothing else could output as much damage per ton as pre-Jagermech SRMs).

Now that the damage is toned down, they can start making other tweaks like changing missile formations, increasing missile speed, and so on, changes that are really badly needed to make sure that missile weapons are useful in a large enough number of situations, as opposed to the LRMs and SRMs of the past that were ridiculously all-or-nothing: either your entire LRM barrage smacks the enemy dead in the core or they all miss; either you're shotgunning your SRMs directly into your enemy's chassis or they're spreading out across the whole thing - that's ****-poor gameplay, and is something that really needs to be addressed in full. LRMs should be able to actually land upon targets downrange, SRMs should be able to hit with decent accuracy all the way down to 270m, while NOT doing so much damage that getting hit by them spells utter doom for whoever is in the firing line.

For now, missile weapons are probably going to see a period of non-use while PGI continues to figure out what to do next with them. That's a far better situation than the game being LRMWarrior Online, with the occasional splatcat ruining your day.

i agree lrm-warrior online was getting old real fast and so ws the raven hitbox streak thing these things were taken care of fine but why mess with the ordinary srm, yes they deal most dmg tonnage wise but also has horrible ammo consumption and they SPREAD you cant land srms in the same spot over and over like you can with ballistics or energy weapons, now srms are low dmg lbx-10s and the mechgods know we needed another useless weapon in the shotgun category....

[VagGR]

what ppl seem to forget is that missiles were ALREADY bugged and doing more damage than they should. so complaining now that they were over nerfed makes no sense. they need balancing and were to be balanced at Apr 2nd. now this bug came up with last patch and everyone is freaking out.....FORGET what u knew and what u were used to with missles latest bug aside the were to be fixed anyway...so take a step back and relax

maybe this needs to a topic of its own

edit: and to provide some actual feedback..training grouds, stationary stock mechs, single lrm15 with artemis

commando 450m - took 3 salvos to destroy

cicada 450m - took 5 salvos to destroy

catapult 750m - took 5 salvos to destroy

in all 3 cases CT took the most dmg.

missiles may not be at a perfect state but this FEELS like they are on the right path...

Edited by VagGR, 22 March 2013 - 04:52 AM.

[Kmieciu]

Hayashi, on 22 March 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

In terms of firepower they now have the most, but they lack ECM, which has power not only in denying missiles but also making it hard for others to spot your team (setting up ambushes and such). And 3 MPLAS on a good RVN-3L pilot can still do almost as well as 4 MPLAS on the JR7-F. On a 1-1 the F will win because of its jump jets. On a team, the 3L is still the best because of ECM.

I prefer the 2xSL+4xML JR7-F: 3.5 / 7 DPS compared to 2.62 / 6.40 DPS when using 4xMPL. More range, more versatility.

[ulziel]

While I understand this in a full salvo of a C1 Cat your doing only 28 damage and that's if you hit your target. Tag, Artemis and beams is what I run but as we all know some times I wont hit if a ECm mech comes in close. I also have the decay and lock on timer you have effectivly taken the most favorite mech I like for competitive and noncompetitive matches.
While I understand that this hotfix is needed I dont think that dropping the damage from 1.8-> 0.7 is fair or supportive for the people who like LRMS. Please have some transparency for what happining the LRM's were scaled down back and sideways making it annyoing to use the one weapon now used for one to two mechs in a match vs a beam or ballistic mech.
I get it but am really not happy at all with this "Hot Fix" patch.