673 replies to this topic

[Asterisk]

I've run a few drops, and will continue to test these values.  The initial impression is that they're really, really light, in particular given that their damage is now sub-tabletop damage, and armor is double tabletop--and not "double heatsink" double, but "mathematical double."   Those two conditions intersect and makes it feel a little bit like we're throwing rolled up socks at enemy mechs.

It's a good step in the right direction, though.  I like the decrease to splash, and the tighter splash radius.  That feels good. I think adding s'more damage back into the missiles would put us right in that sweet spot we were in before the "everything is a tactical nuke"  thing we were seeing in the latest patch.

One thing that doesn't feel right though, are the 80mph missiles.  Those suckers really need to travel a good deal faster.

Edited by Asterisk, 22 March 2013 - 04:45 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

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.

I want a new forum user title for Hayishi: Spreadsheet Warrior Extraordinaire.

[The Mech behind you]

after a dozen matches and some runs through testing ground my feelings about the hotfix are:

- SSRMs: Feels like they're in place now. But they aim for CT now
- SRMs: I'm not sure about them yet. Might be ok, might need a slight increase in damage
- LRMs: They might need a slight increase, but on the other hand they aim for CT now. If that get fixed and they spread over the mech again the damage could get boosted to 1.0 - 1.2

- Jager Cockpits: I don't own a Jager but from spectating I didn't see any serious damaged cockpits yet. They get damaged but I haven't seen any Cockpits losing its armor completely

Edited by Norman Kosh, 22 March 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[Taco30]

Played quite a few matches after the patch. I think it was a good fix. I'm not getting slaughtered by LRM boats any more, and my srms are doing more reasonable damage. Good job

[Xipe Totec]

I like the feel of them, but they are currently too high a risk to run in a PUG match due to ECM.

Light support feels more like what they should be, funnelling opponents and such, but the role is much better served with AC2s at present.

If you're going to punch light, you can't be frozen out of interacting with anyone in the bubble.

[Chavette]

Its perfect as it is, don't change it or I will commit seppuku!

[Demosthones]

LRMs and SSRM feel great after the hotfix. SRM got nerfed too much. The fact that the pilot must line up and hit the other mech and not just lock on and fire should be taken into account.

This gives a huge leg up to fire support and sniper builds over the srm brawler builds and that is a paradigm shift in the balance of MWO. It will have a big impact on mech compositions for 8 mans and 4 mans. PLEASE RAISE THE DMG PER MISSLE FOR SRM! You can leave the lrm and ssrm alone as they feel like they should now.

Thanks

Edited by Demosthones, 22 March 2013 - 05:05 AM.

[MechWarrior131925]

Ravingdork, on 21 March 2013 - 09:11 PM, said:

As a medium brawler who often pilots and HBK-4SP, I can honestly say I HATE this NERF. Since this nerf my 4 medium laser/2 SRM 6 build hasn't been able to kill much of anything. I went from being a viable threat able to trash light mechs, threaten medium mechs, and hurt heavy mechs to "oh, I died again."

Instead of a medium brawler, I feel like a light support.

It does NOT FEEL good.

I am getting a completely different experience with my Hunchie 4sp. Now I can actually bring it out without dying in the first 2 minutes from LRM fire. Took it out of the junkyard after the hotfix and have consistently dealt 400 damage and 1-2 kills per match. Not too say that its still not vulnerable but at least I stay in the battle. The other day I took it out to try it before the hotfix and died from 1 LRM volley. With this hotfix I am able to run medium mechs now and don't have to rely on running a heavy or assualt without ecm and hiding behind everything I can or an ecm mech.

Great Job on this change! LRM's are intended as a support system, and if used properly will still benefit your team. They aren't there to completely devastate a team but work with your team to help deal damage and soften them up. We just don't have to worry about 4 LRM boats sitting back pinning the enemy team down until they are all destroyed.

Going back to the Hunchbacks, I missed using them. They have a nice combo of speed and power but were utterly useless to me. Some may have had better luck than me with them during the LRM reign, but with my style of fighting I did not find them useful.

Edit- I forgot to give my input on the SRMs and SSRMs. I am ok with the reduced damage. Took out my Atlas with SRM6, Raven with SSRM and Hunchie with SRM6 and felt very balanced. Didn't rely on those missles to destroy the enemy but was added support to soften them up while I used my other weapons to destroy them.

Edited by Maximum Destruction, 22 March 2013 - 05:17 AM.

[Divine Decoy]

grayson marik, on 21 March 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

They have such a thing. unfortunately, noone from the devs told the testers that something with LRMS was changed, so they all tested the new map to death, but noone ever took LRMS ^^ and so the bug slipped through.

wait, so Tourmiline (which is great for PPCs, AC2s and LRMS btw) was tested to death and NO ONE brought LRMS!!! A map that is perfect for LRMS, and no one brought LRMS? did you guys atleast bring SRMS and notice the leg issue being fixed or how weak SSRMS are on your scout mechs?

[Aim-Bot]

Game feels balanced and i dont fear missiles as much as b4 in my brawler without ecm .

[Thorqemada]

grayson marik, on 21 March 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

They have such a thing. unfortunately, noone from the devs told the testers that something with LRMS was changed, so they all tested the new map to death, but noone ever took LRMS ^^ and so the bug slipped through.

This can not really be true !?!?

[Clownwarlord]

OK after some test runs on the new missile setup ...

lrms are ok nothing special you can take them if you want them sort of thing, and then with ECM out there sort of pointless again due to unable to do a serious punish for leaving cover or ECM (I am not looking for anything seriors but a 35 launch all hit a jager and do only 2% when it hits is sort of off in my opinion).

srms are now completely useless much like someone's reference to another gaming useless shot gun due to their spread and lack of punch

But hey this is my opinion, and all you non-missile fans are probably loving it.

[WhupAzz]

So my testing so far reveals that in an LRM only Catapult i can not manage to break 300 damage in a round and the heat generated from just 1 volley of 50 LRM's is crazy for the damage caused and ammo used.

Stat for the last 3 matches is around 2500 missiles fired with about 700 damage and 2 kills both of which were near death mechs in same match ... I carry 7 tons of ammo and if i fired all my missiles and everything hit i couldn't even break 1000 damage which is the worst damage per ton of any weapon that requires ammo.

People just charge at you and even avoid cover because it will take longer to kill you if they use it.

Edited by WhupAzz, 22 March 2013 - 05:41 AM.

[Clownwarlord]

What is more interesting is they read in their statement of the hot patch that they are going to nurf the missiles more on April 2.

[CobaltSixty]

My own two cents from playing several rounds since the hotfix; I dig the idea behind the changes (holy crap 4.0m of splash was crazy), but they're a bit too heavy-handed in this mechwarrior's opinion.

LRMs are the guided artillery of the game, and as stated in the OP there needs to be some balance between pinpoint damage not being too high and their splash not being overwhelming. Turning their splash radius down to 1.8m = good, turning down the damage from 1.8 -> 0.7 is too much. 0.9-1.2 would be a good sweet spot with the new splash radius and even 30% scaling on secondary components.

SRMs are basically buckshot missiles. As they are completely unguided and because a greater proportion of a volley misses at anything but point-blank range they deserve equal-to or better effective damage than LRMs, not worse. Turning their splash radius back up to 1.8 or 2.0 with the new damage/scalings would be a good idea, OR boosting damage to ~2.1 and changing their scalings to 50% on secondary components with a splash radius of 1.4-1.6 would work as well.

SSRMs should have some qualities of both in terms of their damage mechanics. Either equivalent damage to SRMs with equivalent splash radius and scalings to LRMs (given the changes mentioned above), OR they get their own stats. Perhaps 1.5 damage, 1.5m radius and 40% scaling? One could say that the space devoted to the addition of guidance on the SRM affects the payload/fragmentation slightly, if fluff is a concern.

I get why people who are familiar with tabletop would be gushing over this, but a video game is not a TT game. The granularity with which we can maneuver in-game is what the dice-rolls to simulate "chance" in TT are for. MWO draws heavily on that IP (mostly because it is so well developed), but the nod to balance and gameplay must always take precedence to sticking to stats that work in a 2D environment.

[Dmitri Valenov]

Of course you realize Paul that all of the people that will freak out aren't the ones who actually pay attention to patch and hotfix notes. I expect the general forums will be filled with an incredible amount of "OMG WTF HAPPENED TO MY MISSILE DAMAGE RAWR!" soon enough.

Thank you for the info and, as a missile user, I support this plan.

[Forestal]

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

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS MESSAGE:
This is a TEMPORARY fix to quell the damage done by missiles at this time. We are fully investigating the damage model AND focusing on the grouping of missiles and will update as soon as we can on how any changes will be managed/implemented.

Dear PGI,

We fully accept that the Devs can be quite inept at communications and truly appreciate their continued efforts to engage us-- so here's a tip: "THE MOST IMPORTANT PART" of the message should come right at the top/start, NOT at the bottom of your message....

I mean, can you imagine the forum outrage you are in for come next patch/hotfix-- now that you see at least half your replies are sighs of relief, coupled with plans/projects to "min-max" future builds based on this TEMPORARY hotfix?

Cos it doesn't seem like these are the "XYZ is OP-ed? Meh, I'll just adapt and have fun while they tweak it..." kind of players...

Edited by Forestal, 22 March 2013 - 06:10 AM.

[Crockdaddy]

Rebas Kradd, on 21 March 2013 - 03:41 PM, said:

I reject this explanation. The presence of any splash damage whatsoever is P2W.

Your trolling right?

[Specterr]

I like the changes, I think they got the "feel" of the damage right, hopefully when they re-tweak it later they can retain it.

Right now LRMs can't be ignored but they are not an instant death sentence anymore. They are great for soften up targets and providing indirect support to other mechs, and as far as I am concerned that is exactly what they should be there for.

SRM's damage also feels bang on, it takes a bit of the sting out of the splatcats and Raven-3L which is fine by me. I drive a Raven-3L but I actually prefer lasers to streaks, before I pretty much had to have 2xSSRM2 to remain competitive against other Ravens but since the last patch I've dropped a streak launcher in favour of more laser damage and its been fine.

Edited by Specterr, 22 March 2013 - 06:10 AM.

[Forestal]

grayson marik, on 21 March 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

They have such a thing. unfortunately, noone from the devs told the testers that something with LRMS was changed, so they all tested the new map to death, but noone ever took LRMS ^^ and so the bug slipped through.

LOL-- so even the Devs/testers considered LRMS to be lame support weapons? No wonder they were so quick to come up with the hotfix....

So I guess the super-beta testers (having the same composition as the open-beta players) were testing the new map for the legendary/imaginary "Arena/Deathmatch" Game Mode? It's the only conceivable reason why no one brought LRMS to their game...

Urgh, I wish I never heard about this-- now I just feel like giving beta-testing a miss, and coming back in 6 months to see what MWO has turned into.