358 replies to this topic

[Fut]

Thontor, on 22 March 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

I think the damage is nearly perfect... I would probably tweak their velocity though, to decrease travel time.

Yeah, I think I'd be happy with something like that. A little less travel time would help quite a bit - especially if the damage is on the "low-end" of the spectrum.
You say that their damage is "nearly" perfect. Is it safe to assume that you'd increase it ever-so-slightly?

If that's what you mean, I think I'd be quite happy with them - and I would hope that most people would agree.
We all know that their current state isn't going to be permanent, so I guess we can only hope that PGI doesn't over do the tweaks resulting in crazy "LRMs of Doom" again.

[Kraven Kor]

Well, the real trick is going to be making 1 LRM-5 at least "not stupid" to fit as a support weapon, while having 5x LRM-20 racks not equate to one-click death for any that wander into your field of fire.

[Praehotec8]

The issue I have is that if they're for softening armor, then only a few missles should be able to do it. Otherwise why should any mech run one LRM10 for long-distance effect. Yet, if they are balanced for this, then any mech carrying 100, is going to tear up anything at range.

If they are weak so that multiple are needed for effect, then A.) they aren't fun for anyone to run (even boating) and B.) only boats will be even marginally effective with them.

Plus, why bring a support mech unable to kill when you can just add another brawler that can kill and if it doesn't kill, still weakens armor? <----- THIS is why LRMs need to be effective in some fashion.

Edited by Praehotec8, 22 March 2013 - 08:06 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

Fut, on 22 March 2013 - 06:29 AM, said:

You know what would be great?
If the Devs piped up regarding LRMs, and let us all know if they are supposed to be a "Support Weapon" or just a "Weapon" like everything else. That would help curb a lot of these arguments.

Agreed.

My 2 cents.... I think that LRM should be able to function as both roles, giving the user a choice. All of this would be reliant on how the user plays:

• Support - The pilot does not have los and immune to return fire. He is typically at a distance as well. In this state LRM function as support mode; the flight pattern is loose and spread out, blanketing the area of the intended target.
  
• Aggressive - The pilot must equip Artemis and maintain los with his intended target. Maintaining los, makes the user vulnerable to return fire. In aggressive mode, LRM have the tight helix formation allowing for focused damage to CT.

Basically if the LRM pilot plays cautiously and hides behind cover he will only pepper damage on multiple locations. If he takes a risk and maintain los to his target, the LRM barrage will be focused thus more damaging.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 22 March 2013 - 08:28 AM.

[Fut]

StalaggtIKE, on 22 March 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Agreed.

My 2 cents.... I think that LRM should be able to function as both roles, giving the user a choice. All of this would be reliant on how the user plays:

• Support - The pilot does not have los and immune to return fire. He is typically at a distance as well. In this state LRM function as support mode; the flight pattern is loose and spread out, blanketing the area of the intended target.
  
• Aggressive - The pilot must equip Artemis and maintain los with his intended target. Maintaining los, makes the user vulnerable to return fire. In aggressive mode, LRM have the tight helix formation allowing for focused damage to CT.

Basically if the LRM pilot plays cautiously and hides behind cover he will only pepper damage on multiple locations. If he takes a risk and maintain los to his target, the LRM barrage will be focused thus more damaging.

This is exactly how I want to see LRMs!
The problem is tweaking the numbers for them to allow for this...

[Kraven Kor]

Fut, on 22 March 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

This is exactly how I want to see LRMs!
The problem is tweaking the numbers for them to allow for this...

Pretty much.

[stjobe]

Fut, on 22 March 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

In your opinion, Thontor, are LRMs proper in their current state, or could they use a small tweak still? If a tweak is needed, in your opinion, what would the tweak be?

While I'm not Thontor, I'll give my view as well:
* Remove splash damage entirely, missile spread should take care of that
* Fix missile spread so it's an even spread on a 'mech sized target's upper torso
* Make Artemis / TAG / Narc, LoS tighten the spread one "notch" each, so that using one tightens it a bit, and two makes it as tight as it can get - but still not point-damage.
* Increase their damage so it matches the current level with no Art/TAG/Narc/LoS.

Then you have a weapon that can be fired left-handed and still do some worthwhile damage, while allowing spread-tightening equipment (Artemis), having help (TAG/Narc) or placing yourself at risk (TAG/LoS) to increase that damage.

Edited by stjobe, 22 March 2013 - 08:41 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

Fut, on 22 March 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

This is exactly how I want to see LRMs!
The problem is tweaking the numbers for them to allow for this...

I believed LRM where the closest to being perfect after the 1.2.197 patch (05/03/2013). Artemis required los and through this a few volleys were effective. At this point only a few changes were necessary:

• LOS required throughout LRM flight to maintain "helix" formation
  
• Less ammo per tonnage
  
• Minimal nerf in damage if necessary (from 1.8 -> 1.7).

Here's a post with some details, on the ammo change, I posted a while back.

Quote

They have recently received a couple of changes within the last couple of patches. The changes include:

• A tighter and uniform Artemis flight pattern
  
• Artemis requiring los in order to function

Together, these two changes allows a LRM user to cause focused damage to a target. A LRM user can score efficient kills, as long as the user has los with his intended target. This requires him to take a risk; the intended target or his allies would see the LRM user and can return fire (lasers, ballistics or LRM). This achieves a balance between risk vs reward, which is ultimately the goal.



The Problem
Currently missiles come in 180 to the ton. This exessive ammo allows for one to spam missiles from behind cover. When fired indirectly the missile will blanketing their intended target. This spreaded damage will not result in a kill without a lot of missiles. The problem therefore is the excessive amount of missiles granted per tonnage that allows for LRM spam. For an inexperienced player this constant barrage of missile fire can feel entrapping with no way out.

The Fix
The goal is balance risk vs reward. If a pilot takes a larger risk, he has the potential of a larger reward. I propose the following changes:

• Decrease ammo count per tonnage (ex 180/ton -> 130/ton)
  
• Only if necessary, a slight nerf in damage (ex 1.8 -> 1.7)

This results in less missiles to spam. This coerces the LRM user to actively make a decision, either to be agressive and take risks or passively function as a support player. As support he will not have enough missiles to blanket the enemy to death. If he wants to actively eliminate players efficiently, he would have to invest in Artemis as well as maintain los to his intended target. By doing so, risks retaliation from the enemy. This maintains a balance of risk vs reward.



Math Breakdown
This compares a LRM user of today compared to one after my proposed changes:

Keep in mind that typically all missiles in a full volley do not make it to their target so the potential damage is going to be typically less. That being said, I think is would be a fair trade-off in limiting the dominance presented by LRM spam.

Note: 130 is just a number I pulled out of an Atlas' ***. So don't get too caught up on the number. But seriously, I feel tweaking ammo count could be key into finding a compromise.

Mind you it wasn't the most favorable suggestion; LRM haters felt it kept them too useful, while LRM boaters felt it made them useless. However I felt it was fair.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 22 March 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[INSEkT L0GIC]

hammerreborn, on 21 March 2013 - 04:30 PM, said:

So it takes 2 salvoes of 100 LRMs to kill people? Please, someone get me my fainting chair

Nope. It takes about 120-130-ish LRMs to kill people in upgraded mechs, not 200. He should have been able to take the phract out with 1-2 more salvos of LRM20. Chain fire ftw.

It takes 60-100 LRMS to down a trial mechs / stock mech, depending on the model.

I did a lot of Testing Grounds LRM & SRM kills I posted in the response to the hotfix thread, where this OP should have gone.

Edited by INSEkT L0GIC, 22 March 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[hammerreborn]

StalaggtIKE, on 22 March 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Agreed.

My 2 cents.... I think that LRM should be able to function as both roles, giving the user a choice. All of this would be reliant on how the user plays:

• Support - The pilot does not have los and immune to return fire. He is typically at a distance as well. In this state LRM function as support mode; the flight pattern is loose and spread out, blanketing the area of the intended target.
  
• Aggressive - The pilot must equip Artemis and maintain los with his intended target. Maintaining los, makes the user vulnerable to return fire. In aggressive mode, LRM have the tight helix formation allowing for focused damage to CT.

Basically if the LRM pilot plays cautiously and hides behind cover he will only pepper damage on multiple locations. If he takes a risk and maintain los to his target, the LRM barrage will be focused thus more damaging.

Thats...uhhh....exactly how it works now? What does this post even mean?

Person who has artemis:

1) Hides behind cover: does not get artemis bonus, the flight pattern is spread out (compared to direct/TAG aimed missiles), and is at a distance by default, and won't be rained on because he's behind cover unless an enemy sees him.

2) Is not behind cover and is in direct LOS: gets artemis bonus (and TAG bonus if equipped with TAG), the flight pattern is thinner, has a 75% better tracking, and faster lock.

[MadPanda]

Roland, on 22 March 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

Is this seriously even what you want?
I mean, do you honestly want to play a game where you could just obliterate his mech, despite the fact that you essentially did nothing besides hold your aiming reticle generally in his direction, and pull the trigger?

You and everybody else seems to missing, or just ignoring, the fact that the situation in the clip was a so called "perfect situation". I was at optimal range with clear line of sight and on top of that he was walking straight towards me. I don't need to tell anyone who has played with LRM's about how much damage you lose when the targets are walking differently, for example horizontally from your location. Not to mention the slowness of LRM's gives people plenty of time to take cover when you start increasing the distance from 300m and up.

Everybody is just saying "omg guided missiles that travel 1000m, sooo easymode". They are nothing but trolls or newbs who don't know better. Or then they refer to a situation where some other newb walked middle of nowhere without any cover and they shelled him with LRM's and then say "that was sooooo easy", well yes it was easy to own this complete newbie, congrats, LRM's must be OP because no way you could have shelled him with lasers and ballistics when he is sticking out in the open like a dumb duck, right? No, its the LRM's that can only do that *roll eyes*.

Getting back to the situation on the clip; yes I do fully expect to blow him out of that game. Now some troll is gonna quickly again say "oh you just want one click kill button", in a perfect situation like that yes its a one click kill button. But anyone who plays this game knows things aren't perfect most of the times. Not to mention especially that the build is complete joke, and nobody would run that even if it "one shots" mechs. You move slow like a snail, you have low armor and you can fire those volleys only about 10 times before you run out of ammo, so taking a shot at some long range target and then losing lock means you just wasted 10% of your ammo into nothing. You need to get into those "perfect situations" first which means manouvering, but hey remember you move at snails speed so good luck with that. If you plan on rolling with that build and it would destroy a mech when all missiles hit in a perfect situation, only a completel ignorant noob would call that "easymode". You got no clue what you are talking about if you think running that joke LRM boat build is "easymode".

And just to iterate in an attempt to cut back the trolling; above I'm talking about the 5xLRM20 joke build. No way would one or two LRM20's have same effects of wiping mechs out with couple of volleys.

[Valore]

I'd like to point out something.


First, I'll make it clear, LRMs were broken, and clearly should have been fixed. I think the fix was just about right, maybe a little bit too much.

However, people just oversimplifying things are stupid.

Taking 100 LRMs to the face like that SHOULD kill you.

A boat sacrifices a lot to load that much weaponry onto his mech. This is the one key thing everyone forgets. They keep saying 'You're not supposed to be able to one shot people anyway', but don't remember that he's in a mech that dies screaming and wetting itself if a 3L, which he outweights by almost 3 times, shows up and says 'boo'.

If people want to min/max, I say they should be allowed to, as long as the pitfalls of doing so are there to counterbalance the benefits they gain from doing so.

I'd say for an LRM boat, the risks are there. Why are we catering to people who want to be willfully tactically stupid, walking out into the open?

What the hell is the use of the LRM boat as an area denial weapon to prevent people blatantly approaching you through open ground, if it doesn't do that?

Imagine a WWII shooter, where we had bunkers and machine gun emplacements. People walk up to it and get machinegunned down. If these same cretins got upset and complained that MGs should be nerfed because of that, they'd be rightfully laughed out of the discussion.

Why are LRMs somehow different?

Edited by Valore, 22 March 2013 - 09:17 AM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Cebi, on 21 March 2013 - 04:25 PM, said:

So LRMs are a support weapon then?

"Support weapon" doesn't mean anything.

[Hawks]

MadPanda, on 22 March 2013 - 09:10 AM, said:

You and everybody else seems to missing, or just ignoring, the fact that the situation in the clip was a so called "perfect situation". I was at optimal range with clear line of sight and on top of that he was walking straight towards me. I don't need to tell anyone who has played with LRM's about how much damage you lose when the targets are walking differently, for example horizontally from your location. Not to mention the slowness of LRM's gives people plenty of time to take cover when you start increasing the distance from 300m and up.

Yep, in a perfect situation you very nearly cored, in a single alpha strike, one of the more heavily armoured mechs in the game. Please list all of the other builds of which the same would be true. I'm pretty sure even a Splatcat at its worst wasn't able to do that (I could be wrong). A Stalker PPC boat wouldn't do that. A Boomcat wouldn't do that. A Gausscat certainly wouldn't do that. Even in a so-called 'perfect situation'.

[Mavairo]

MadPanda, on 22 March 2013 - 06:32 AM, said:

And from a card game point of view as I'm on a stalker and he is on a cataphract, I outweight him by 15tons so I'm a Full House and he is a Flush so I should crush him without any contest. Nothing wrong there from a poker card game point of view, working as intented. Nothing to see here, move along, thanks!

So every time I have popped a Fatlas solo, in my Dragon I should have been crushed, no contest because he had 40 tons on me?

Wow.

See how many strikes it takes you with 6 ppcs to get the same result sometime. You nearly killed him, in one trigger pull.

For me to do the same I'd have to aim -right for his head-. And all you did was wait abit, and pull a trigger. Not only did you Core him and damage his internal structure so badly that a single LL would have popped him, you did serious damage to his STs, and damaged his arms and face.

By the way had you had artemis on there, with LRM15s it's actually quite possible you would have cored him. Whine less play more.

Edited by Mavairo, 22 March 2013 - 09:36 AM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Mavairo, on 22 March 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

So every time I have popped a Fatlas solo, in my Dragon I should have been crushed, no contest because he had 40 tons on me?

Wow.

Well, yeah. But not necessarily because of the tonnage difference

[Catalinasgrace]

Ok, I have played most types of mechs here as I have 27 bays. I have had LRM's and SRM's along with lasers and ballistics... Anyone saying LRMs are just about right now is full of it. Anyone saying they are in their roll now is full of it... Why not just be honest and say you want Mechbrawler and you don't want to have to worry about having to take cover??? That is after all what you want, right? LRMs are NOT the end all be all target and kill people make them out to be... Something is seriously wrong now just as it was seriously wrong the past couple of days. Other people have tested what I say out as well and I'm right... I fired over 1000 LRMs at a targets in the open with tag and did less than 300 damage. A team mate was hitting a single target in the open with basically a LRM 70 and in three volleys did 33 damage... Ok lets say they are suppose to soften a target with a LRM 20 x2 Cat... Hitting them with 6-10 volleys of missiles shouldn't kill them or at least take an arm off? Lets go a little further, a stalker LRM boat with a setup of an LRM 60-80 shouldn't be able to kill a target? The math does not add up no matter how you look at it... People are once again NOT afraid of LRMs at all and AMS is a waste of tonage. Heck I was in a match in a Cat with 3 ML and 2 LRM 20s and I bet I took 400-500 LRMs to the face. Lasers and ballistics were what ended up killing me... So just be honest and say you don't want to have to deal with LRMs... I really only have 2 questions here for PGI. First how was this actually tested to "feel right" and second why wasn't there just a roll back to what they were before instead of a temp fix that is just a broke as they were when they could single shot a mech? I don't know exactly what is off here but there is most certainly something broke. Also to the people that are going to come in here and say "Oh look another one of these". If you don't like it don't read and don't post, your smart little kiddy troll I'm entitled my opinion is more important response is worse than people posting.

[Mavairo]

Royalewithcheese, on 22 March 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

Well, yeah. But not necessarily because of the tonnage difference

After a while, instead of just screaming like a japanese school girl that ran across a tentacle monster, you start thinking about ''where their head hit boxes are, and how fast you can pull a snap shot while dodging back through the buildings"

[StalaggtIKE]

hammerreborn, on 22 March 2013 - 09:01 AM, said:

Thats...uhhh....exactly how it works now? What does this post even mean?

Person who has artemis:

1) Hides behind cover: does not get artemis bonus, the flight pattern is spread out (compared to direct/TAG aimed missiles), and is at a distance by default, and won't be rained on because he's behind cover unless an enemy sees him.

2) Is not behind cover and is in direct LOS: gets artemis bonus (and TAG bonus if equipped with TAG), the flight pattern is thinner, has a 75% better tracking, and faster lock.

I am aware on how they work. It's the result that I'm more concerned with. Prior to the 15/03/2013 patch, the results were generally equal for both aggressive and support players. With the majority of the success from boating and lobbing them shamefully from behind cover. IMO, this should not be the case. Taking a bigger risk should result in a larger reward, while little risk should result in little reward. Currently the results are even further incongruous. Boating missiles is now the only way to be successful with them.

[Koujo]

I dealt 600+ damage with two LRM10s on my treb last match I played it. Impossible you say? Not really. Tag + Artemis + keeping direct line of sight on your target to make sure your missiles actually hit what you're locked onto and it's not hard to do. Yes it takes effort and you actually might take damage in the process unlike hiding behind a ridge and relying on others to get locks for you and then hoping they don't lose those locks before your missiles hit. Could only imagine what I could do with two LRM20s.

I wouldn't be opposed to a small and I mean SMALL increase to missile damage but it's no where as bad as all these drama queens are making it out to be.