94 replies to this topic

[Voidcrafter]

Suki, on 22 March 2013 - 02:45 AM, said:

What skill takes "sitting on your lazy back" more 1000m away from the fight sniping?
You don't have to wait locking the target, You don't have to wait missiles to hit, You dont have to hold all the time the target fo missiles to hit, - Point-and-Click.
What skill takes getting close to the target, stopping right there, "sitting on your lazy back" lunching full salvos of SRMs coring even an Atlas in 2-3 hits? - Point-and-Click.

I neither snipe, nor go splatcatting stuff, cause those two(or the second atleast) are almost as worse as LRM boating, with the differece that require some effort to hit a moving target and putting you OUT OF COVER(and so - in some danger) if you actually want to hit something.
Wanna talk about the pro-stuff?
Try taking down STALKER/Atlass/AWESOME/any sort of heavy/med/light mech with a *normal* ballistics(UAC5/AC5/AC2/AC10/LBX10) and 4xMed Lasers, while everyone went on the boating madness.
But while you're LRMing the crap from people, who get spotted from your teammates, how much do you care which body part are you hitting, or if the oponent have an XL engine, or trying to guess where he has stored the ammo(based on your knowledge of mech weapon slots/speed/etc), so you can fight by the most efficient way?
So you're boating and concidering everyone is?
The devs idea is generally that every mech variant should have it's role in the game, which now is neglated by the LRMs, the insanely large maps with too small teams for them, and the boating.
You can't convince me that LRMs require any skill, cause I played with them.
As with any weapon in the game.
The ballistics are those weapons, especially if you want to do things right and efficient way, and the useful ones are weighting just about your LRM20(which cause lotta pain) - AC5/UAC5, or way more - AC10,LBX10, Gauss, AC20, and are with less damage/ammo weight than your beloved LRMs.
Ooh have I mentioned that LRMs are supose to be a SUPPORT weapon, and the others I named above should be not?
Talking about skill huh?
Try playing more than 200 games with a versatile build and then we could have a discussion.

Edited by Voidcrafter, 22 March 2013 - 04:40 AM.

[Yankee77]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 21 March 2013 - 10:42 PM, said:

Lol, I was on River City in my 6 LL Stalker, started getting LRMs fired at me by two different mechs as soon as I hit the water, walked all the way across, watching "Incoming missiles" the whole way, I took a good 10-15 flights, and my armor was yellow at the end.

-no AMS btw

And I dueled a Stalker to death at 400M with my 2xPPC/LRM10/LRM15 (with artemis and TAG), and my LRMs sure ripped that guy to shreads. I had yellow armor while I cored him.

Yes, my PPCs helped, but without LRMs I'd never have won that fight, and they got the kill.

Methinks you got lucky, with people losing locks or hitting terrain, because I sure as heck saw LRMs tear apart people last night (my own LRMs, and my own mech for that matter).

[Grayseven]

Ilwrath, on 22 March 2013 - 04:19 AM, said:

I mean that its pointless to take one LRM battery because they hit like wet noodles. To get any effect at all you need to boat them.

LRM's was not very useful while launched behind a hill. 3-400 m with los was how you used them. Pretty much the same as those direct fire weapons.

One LRM battery should hit like wet noodles. It's just one weapon, not the Hammer of God...

And stop thinking about one mech. If 8 mechs each have a LRM15 on average, that's 120 missiles per launch. That is still a terrifying amount of damage.

Too many people think about weapons systems as if it were a one on one match. It isn't. It's a mix of mech types and load outs. LRM's are in a pretty good spot right now compared to other weapons. What it does is different from every other weapon out there and when used properly it is still a very deadly weapons system.

People are now just mad that they can't boat 6 large LRM racks and rack up 1500 points of damage and 6 kills in a match. Now they actually have to play as part of a team and fulfill a useful role.

[SgtKinCaiD]

The nerf was needed but LRM/SRM were correct before the patch.
Why didn't they put it back like before the patch ?

[Sheraf]

XIRUSPHERE, on 21 March 2013 - 10:24 PM, said:

The weapon is still viable and still fills the role of suppression and support. People don't melt anymore and that's fine, but when used well it still dishes out plenty of hurt.

Suppression? Suppressing weapon that doesn't hurt, they will just tank some and take you out for wasting their time. Try suppressing AC20 cat or Gauss kitty

Edited by Sheraf, 22 March 2013 - 04:51 AM.

[Yankee77]

And really people, all this LRM hate about "take no skills" and "should be support weapons" is ridiculous.

LRMs DO take skills. Not as much as direct fire, but there's more to LRMs than just sitting back and spamming a fire group, at least if you want to be effective with LRMs. Sure, LRMs take no skills against unskilled players who stay out of the open, but in the competitive arena it takes skill to use LRMs effectively.

I use mine as a secondary weapon, to be used when a proper indirect fire target is spotted, or as a medium-range direct-fire weapon (and let me tell you, brawling with LRMs is a skill in itself, as I see whenever someone adopts a "balanced" build like mine). In the end the results with just 3 tons of ammo and 25 tubes are quite impressive, when you use them right.

And regardless, any "ease of use" of LRMs is negated by how LRMs are the easiest weapon to defend against.

As for LRMs being a support weapon, I find that this is mostly used as an excuse for "LRMs should suck" or "I shouldn't be punished for ignoring the INCOMING MISSILES warning". LRMs are _Weapons_, and they're designed to kill. If you let yourself get hit repeatedly, you should die an early death. Mechs with LRMs should be just as dangerous as mechs packing the equivalent in PPCs or ballistics.

Sure, they should be stripping armor more than just coring the CT, but it shouldn't be to the point you can just ignore the rain and come out of it with your armor still yellow. If you walk in the rain, you should come out of it with gaps in your armor, and STAYING in the rain then should kill you.

Which, to be fair, is not far from where LRMs are right now (maybe a slight buff would clinch it).

[Yankee77]

Grayseven, on 22 March 2013 - 04:41 AM, said:

One LRM battery should hit like wet noodles. It's just one weapon, not the Hammer of God...

And stop thinking about one mech. If 8 mechs each have a LRM15 on average, that's 120 missiles per launch. That is still a terrifying amount of damage.

Too many people think about weapons systems as if it were a one on one match. It isn't. It's a mix of mech types and load outs. LRM's are in a pretty good spot right now compared to other weapons. What it does is different from every other weapon out there and when used properly it is still a very deadly weapons system.

People are now just mad that they can't boat 6 large LRM racks and rack up 1500 points of damage and 6 kills in a match. Now they actually have to play as part of a team and fulfill a useful role.

That's a good point about having missiles spread throughout the team. It's a favourite team build of mine, and it's been put to good use in 8-mans (plus it helps prevent anyone being made useless because the enemy uses cover, or has heavy ECM).

But a single LRM launcher should NOT hit like a wet noodle. It should hit with the strength of an equivalent weapon. An LRM 15 should be as feared and effective as a PPC. Nobody shrugs off PPC hits, same should be with LRM 15s. Sure, the LRM damage should be somewhat spread out and not as pinpoint, but it should never be to the point where people can ignore an LRM 15 (just like they wouldn't ignore a PPC nailing them).

[Sifright]

Jacmac, on 21 March 2013 - 09:46 PM, said:

I know you're mad, but just imagine how you will feel when 3rd person, strafing, MC ammo mechs are blasting your support mech to bits.

hahahaha

So cruel D:

[ssm]

Every time I try to emphatise with nerfbatted lrm boaters, to my mind comes match on Frozen City when our 3 D-DC Atlases, instead of utilising their size, armour and ECM cover to help rest of the team casualy stood on the hills around the ridge lobbing their relatively puny 3X15 LRMs at targets spotted by us.

Sorry guys, balance of LRMs comes at the point where D-DC sporting 3x15 LRMs is sub-optimal, under-powered and laughed upon build.

And we are pretty close to it now.

[Suki]

K0M3D14N, on 22 March 2013 - 04:20 AM, said:

...no. If you're supporting friendly 'Mechs that are involved in a brawl, you have to be able to not hit them, lead your target, and target their vulnerable spots. Maybe I wasn't clear on that.

You're talking about pro snipers, a very small part of the playerbase.
I'm talking about more or less experienced LRM boats, fighting 200-500m distance.
Hope you don't think that only snipers have to care about not making some friendly fire.
Good LRM boat need to be extremely careful course many brawlers are using enemy mechs as a cover.

[Suki]

K0M3D14N, on 22 March 2013 - 03:08 AM, said:

Have you ever tried sniping a target in the middle of a brawl, avoiding teammates, finding the correct lead, and managing to hit the specific areas of a 'Mech that have been stripped by friendlies in said brawl at 1000m? I'm willing to bet that you haven't.

LRMs are more of a 'point and click' interface than PPCs will ever be.

tried and used and was pretty succesfull, no fun at all for me.
It's no fun using LRMs 1000m distance.
I bet You never tried to use LRM boat properly if you think it's noskill.

The real fun for me is brawl-almostbrawl distance even using LR< boat knowing of dangers of 180m.

[Chrithu]

I originally wanted to start my own thread about it. Then again I thought we have as allways already five threads on the topic on page one so I might aswell hijack one of those.

Instead of arguing/flaming/trolling/QQing about how LRMs/SRMs/SSRMs are overpowered or underpowered let's instead discuss where they should be to be balanced among the whole line up of weapons.

I'd like to do so by answering a few questions.

What is the Role of LRMs?

In my view LRMs are supposed to be a long range fire support weapon to fire at targets from cover or with direct line of sight from safer distances. In my view this means they are NOT meant to kill a target on their own by pinpoint damage to certain mech components instead they spread their damage over the whole target to soften up armor all over.

In turn this means that mechs solely relying on LRMs (aka boats) like for instance the LRM Catapult A1 or the C1 are quite limited to a role of focusing their fire on the same mechs as their team because they are likely to lose a direct 1 on 1 to another type of mech because of lacking pinpoint damage. Which is OK in the grand scheme of being a team based game.

We all know though that this role is harder to fulfill in PUG matches but that should not be what the game is balanced around because that imbalances the team situation. Just an example: Even in the times during closed beta, where LRMs were "underpowered" a team of a dedicated co working spotter + LRM boat allways was dangerous and those situations became more and more imbalanced every time the LRMs got buffed.

Here I'd also like to remind everyone that "Role Warfare" is part of this game's design. This also includes that balance does NOT mean every possible mech loadout should be equally able to kill any other loadout.


Through what mechanics can LRMs be tailored to that role?

In my opinion PGI allways had the right ideas about that: A flight path that ensures a certain spread in hit locations on a mech combined with splash damage. What went wrong is mainly that currently the flight path is too tight leading to bigger mechs being mainly hit on the CT by a majority of missiles and of course the messed up splash damage system.

Both things need to change. The flight path should be adjusted so that a heavy mech hit by LRMs is hit across all of it's torso and arms, which in turn leads to more missiles missing smallest targets like spider and commando. But then again the small fast mechs being harder to hit is also a problem for any other weapon so in my view this would be perfectly fine and in balance.

The Splash damage needs to be changed so that all damage done within the splash radius adds up to the weapon damage. For those that understand such stuff: What I am talking about is the complete weapon damage is ditributed in a gaussian way across the splash radius with most damage being done close to center (the hit location) and succesively less being done the further away from the center it is.

What does that mean in hard facts and numbers? How much damage per Missile should LRMs do?

In my opinion they are in weight and ammo consumption closest comparable to the autocannons. In fact LRMs in this comparison are lighter and thus can carry more ammo. SO let's see that means the damage potential of LRM 5 should be the same as a AC/5, LRM 10 same as AC/10 and so on you see what I am getting at.

Thus naturally the damage value that comes to mind first is 1 point of damage per missile. Now of course you will say what about AMS, cover, misses due to spread/flight path, ECM, Splash Damage.

Let's take a look:

• AMS: It's very effective vs the small volleys of LRM 5 and even LRM 10. Becomes less effective the more LRMs are shot. In my view this truely allows for an additional damage per missile of 0.05 to compensate and help maintaining LRM validity.
  
• Cover. Same problem for all other weapons too. In fact due to target retention modules this is less a problem for LRMs than for any other weapon. Thus I see no reason to change damage because of it.
  
• Misses due to spread/flight path. This is in fact another point that in my view allows for another 0.2 damage per missile to be added for compensation to maintain validity.
  
• Splash Damage. As I said in the first two questions this is part of their role thus does not yield anyincrease in damage per missile.
  
• ECM: This is a dangerous part. If you'd want to make up for ECM through damage you automatically overpower LRM in non-ECM situations. Thus here I also clearly say no to any damage change to LRM. Instead it should be made easier to break the ECM cover by a change to NARC and the stacking mechanic of ECM.

This leaves us at 1.25 damage per missile.

For Splash radius it's hard to call a number. As with the missile spread I'd say make heavies the revolving point and make it so that a hit to the center of any component alo damages a direct neighbouring component. So hit to arm center hits side torso, hit to side torso hits also arm and center torso and so on.

Sidenote: The mindful reader will have noticed that in the picture I am painting hits to legs by LRMs are quite rare. I do not think this is a problem. Again their role is not that of a pinpoint component killer and they fly in ballistic curves allways coming in an angle from above, thus they do not necessarily need to hit the legs that much.

TL;DR on LRMs:

In my view the role of LRMs is that of a long range fire support weapon that softens up targets and supports the team from a distance. This is achieved through missile spread/flight path and splash damage. In hard numbers this means that LRMs should do about 1.25 damage per missile and the splash radius should be set so that a heavy mech hit in one component's center is also hit in the neighbouring components. In conclusion they should yield about the same damage potential as Autocannons.

So much on LRMs now for SRM and SSRM which is the easier part:

What is the role of SRM and SSRM?

Their role in my view clearly is to be a brawling weapon that cracks open the armor all over the body of a mech for the crit seekers. In addition SSRM are the anti light mech weapon of choice. In combination with Artemis SRMs are even meant to be pretty much pinpoint component hitters.

Through what mechanics can SRMs be tailored to that role?

In my opinion the flight paths of SRM, SRM + A and SSRM are already what they need to be for their roles. As with LRMs splash damage mechanic needs to be changed in the same way. The weapon damage is gaussian distributed across the splash radius. But other than with LRMs the Splash radius should be tighter. Similar to LRM I'd balance it to heavies so that a hit to a component's center keeps most of the damage to that component.

What does that mean in hard facts and numbers? How much damage per Missile should SRMs do?
In my view they were on the right track. Per weight, slot consumption and heat production they are closest to the lasers. So the old value of 2.5 per missile made a lot of sense. Again there is a list of counters: Misses due to spread, ECM, AMS, Splash damage. Let's view each of them on their own again:

• Misses due to spread. With Artemis they can be significantly reduced and in my view misses are then more caused by aiming short comings similar to other ballistic weapons, thus I would not add any damage for compensation.
  
• ECM. Only a problem for SSRM. In my view the same as with LRM is true here. This should not be compensated for with damage because it imbalances the weapon in non-ECM situations. But there are a few alternatives I'd favor. Dumbfire mode for SSRM. Tag working for one self also within ECM bubble.
  
• AMS. As far as I could observe AMS is pretty much useless vs SRMs and SSRMs, thus I see no reason for additional damage.
  
• Splash Damage. As suggested in the role definitaion SRMs shoud operate with a tighter splash radius making them more pinpointers, thus I also see no reason for additional damage.

So in conclusion we stick with 2.5 damage per missile for SRMs.

TL;DR for SRMs

In my view their role is that of Armor breakers in brawls and SRMs are light mech killers. Flight path and spread already fit that role pretty good. Splash damage should change in same way as for LRMs with a tighter splash radius. Damage per missile should be 2.5. To deal with ECM SSRM should get dumbfire mode or Tag should work for one self also within the ECM bubble.


Sorry for that long read. But I felt it would be much more constructive if we'd discuss about those question instead of arguing about wether LRMs/SRMs are underpowered or not right now in the TEMPORARY state.

[Suki]

Voidcrafter, on 22 March 2013 - 04:38 AM, said:

You can't convince me that LRMs require any skill, cause I played with them.

So what? You think only Your Highness opinion is true here cause you just "played with them"? Don't want to disapoint but you're not the only one player here.

[Specterr]

People think that balanced would mean no complaints about it, but that's not really realistic for a game forum where 90% of the people just come on here to complain and push their own agenda. When I see 50% of people saying the LRMS are great, and 50% of people saying the LRMS suck...that to me sounds like the right balance.

[Vhetra]

Charlie Brumfield, on 21 March 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

So I like playing a fire support mech. I loved LRM before the last patch and though they were perfect. Last patch they got a bit buggy and everyone was using them. So i jump in MWO to run a match or two and find out theres a hot fix. Ok sweet LRMs will be back to prepatch effectiveness there won't be a ton of crappy support pilots out there and i can go back to playing the second line fire support role i enjoy playing. .. Come to find out my DDC w/ 3xlrm15 now has a firepower rating of 40... yes that's right 40. Well that sucks I'll run my new Jag A then with 4xlrm15. It has a fire power rating of 49.

I hit 4 mechs in that match with 2 or 3 salvos each. I did 40 damage. all shots were within 300m with tag. Not arty on the jag yet. I think the nerf was a bit much.

And no i don't care to debate the use of lrms with all the brawler splatcat and atlas drivers. Yall like to bump oilys and blow a load of alpha strike in a mechs face, i prefer to rain explosives on their head from hundreds of meters away. both are valid play styles. unfortunately now i have to go join the bump oilys crowd to be effective.

I ran my 3LRM15(With Arty) DDC right after the patch and had a damn blast. I don't know what you're complaining about. I still melted mech's faces with my salvos and ended up top damage for my team. Granted, my team may have just been a standard do-nothing PUG group, but the evidence for the sake of this argument was clear: LRMs aren't under-powered.

[random51]

It doesn't matter what "role" you think a weapon or mech should be when the reward system makes no role distinctions. I don't know why people theorycraft about stuff that isn't even in the game to try to defend a position.

Edited by random51, 22 March 2013 - 06:55 AM.

[Chrithu]

random51, on 22 March 2013 - 06:54 AM, said:

It doesn't matter what "role" you think a weapon or mech should be when the reward system makes no role distinctions. I don't know why people theorycraft about stuff that isn't even in the game to try to defend a position.

So basically you are saying PGI should balance the game around the broken reward system?

I don't think that is a better idea than balancing around their idea of role warfare.

[Voidcrafter]

Thontor, on 22 March 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

LRMs seemed fine to me when I tested them as someone who generally isnt a LRM user... Launching solo.

You turned an ATLAS D-DC into LRM boat and proudly posted a screenshot of it?
Your twisted boating minds can't stop to amaze me, really... Look what you've done to this poor guy, are you happy now?
People like you mate should seriously stay away from feeling "alright" with the LRM, that's the thing I feared the most durring all those LRM "adjustments".
Weither on my team or on the enemy one - I dislike LRM boating both ways for insane number of reasons.
And yea - it's contagious - when someone, generally playing with other weapons, realize how easy it is to score numbers of damage without putting himself to any serious danger at all, that person could easily start seeing no reason in playing with different loadout.
That. Shouldn't. Happen.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

nerf bat? so you're implying that 6-900 damage a game and 3-6 kills with 2 lrm 15's is working as intended? lmao, It used to be worse in closed beta until they fixed them the first time.

devs originally intended them to be group support, not bread and butter I win button. Trust me, they work much better if you mix other weapons in besides more missiles.

Edited by Battlecruiser, 22 March 2013 - 07:15 AM.

[MN03]

Battlecruiser, on 22 March 2013 - 07:14 AM, said:

nerf bat? so you're implying that 6-900 damage a game and 3-6 kills with 2 lrm 15's is working as intended? lmao, It used to be worse in closed beta until they fixed them the first time.

devs originally intended them to be group support, not bread and butter I win button. Trust me, they work much better if you mix other weapons in besides more missiles.

I doubt you are using LRM only, I cant get that amount of damage with my 4xlrm15 and 5xML. And yes, I'm always the top dmg dealer (or second best) *brag brag*. 900dmg is pretty much impossible with LRMs (even 600 is difficult).