283 replies to this topic

[Davers]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

Actually a fair few players knew about this bug for quite a long time and the mechs most effected were light mechs due to the way their hit boxes are placed and how small the mechs in general are.

The mechs most effected were in order of severity

Spider
Commando
Raven
Jenner
Cicada

Every other mech in the game before splash madness patch was implemented did not suffer extreme over damage from missile splash because their hitboxes were so spread out.

Can I see the Dev post that these are the only mechs effected?

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 02:34 PM, said:

They are wrong.

Well, now that you put it that way...

[stjobe]

PaintedWolf, on 24 March 2013 - 02:47 PM, said:

This above is important because if the issue really is that of a bug causing extra-splash damage to some light Mechs then we have a very different discussion. Then we can discuss how to solve this specific bug.

You just don't get it do you?

1. Players reported what they believed was a bug with missile damage, both SRMs and LRMs.
2. The devs investigated and concluded from their own tests that missile damage was indeed broken. They started work on fixing it, and the fix was scheduled for the April 2nd patch.
3. While trying to fix a second bug in the March 19th patch they compounded the missile damage bug and made the game unplayable.
4. They then decided to temporarily cut down splash damage, splash radius, and missile damage to make the game playable again.

The missile code is BROKEN.

Just how badly broken wasn't discovered until this patch. They've kept it in but at reduced values because they haven't got anything to replace it with yet.

They're working on fixing the broken code. Hopefully they'll get it sorted by the April 2nd patch, but until then this is what we have.

Personally, I believe the LRMs and SRMs are closer to where they need to be than they've been in a long time, but perhaps a tad too weak - and I've stated elsewhere how I'd like for them to fix that.

Edited by stjobe, 24 March 2013 - 03:02 PM.

[Lord Perversor]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

I certainly wasn't seeing this happen and I have 700k In my A1 for experience.

a full frontal smash on a cataphract would often knock the front CT to yellow internals and orange damage on a side torso.

180 damage SHOULD remove all of the armour on the front of a cataphract by the way Phract torso on all sections has a maximal armour amount of 208 and no one ever puts all of their armour on the front.

but no I wasn't seeing 400 damage from two head on salvos vs a phract.

Well i guess it was just my imagination all those mech without legs/torsos (but their cockpit and arms still with armor) dying in those days or the simple fact that i was able to blow up a raven /commando /spider legs arms and torsos with just a well placed 2x srm 6 alphas.

Well going to sleep seems the lack of it forced me to see things that wasn't there goota be funny 1st time i suffer from mass alucination.

[valkyrie]

I'm gonna have to disagree with you some on this one, Vass, though I see where you're coming from.

Personally, I'm very glad that seeing a Splatcat within 400m is no longer a death sentence, but at the same time, I do think PGI was a bit overzealous in their missile nerfs. LRMs probably shouldn't have been doing as much damage as they were pre-patch, nor should SRMs, but they need to be doing a bit more than they are now. There has to be a happy medium to be found here.

Really, my primary concern - and pardon me if someone has already pointed this out - is how badly this has affected Mediums. For most 'Mechs in that class, notably the Hunchback -4SP and the Centurions as a whole, SRMs were the best possible weapon given their tonnage, with the downside of reduced range. Most Mediums simply don't have the tonnage to carry multiple heavy ballistics like twin gauss or autocannons, nor do they have the durability and heat sink space/tonnage to act as highly efficient energy snipers like the K2 or PPC Stalker. That leaves them with the ability to either boat smaller energy weapons like medium lasers, or single larger autocannons as on the Hunchback -4G. This would be sort of OK if it weren't for ELO not really doing a great job of matching weight classes in games.

In short, nerfing SRMs may have removed the Splatcat from the field and hurt SRM-boating Stalkers and Atlases, but you can still repurpose those 'Mechs. It's the Mediums - which are almost exclusively close-range brawlers and scouts that use SRMs as their bread and butter - that have been hit hardest.

[PaintedWolf]

stjobe, on 24 March 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

You just don't get it do you?

1. Players reported what they believed was a bug with missile damage, both SRMs and LRMs.
2. The devs investigated and concluded from their own tests that missile damage was indeed broken. They started work on fixing it, and the fix was scheduled for the April 2nd patch.
3. While trying to fix a second bug in the March 19th patch they compounded the missile damage bug and made the game unplayable.
4. They then decided to temporarily cut down splash damage, splash radius, and missile damage to make the game playable again.

The missile code is BROKEN.

Just how badly broken wasn't discovered until this patch. They've kept it in but at reduced values because they haven't got anything to replace it with yet.

They're working on fixing the broken code. Hopefully they'll get it sorted by the April 2nd patch, but until then this is what we have.

Personally, I believe the LRMs and SRMs are closer to where they need to be than they've been in a long time, but perhaps a tad too weak - and I've stated elsewhere how I'd like for them to fix that.

But that is not the reason for the across the board reduction. The reason given for that is the mentioned bug, which could be fixed by simply reducing or eliminating splash damage. Reducing all missile damage by 50% does not follow from a bug that slightly caused extra splash damage to some light Mechs sometimes.

And again, if that much damage is being done, why are some Mechs still surviving up to 6 volleys from the A1?

With a 90 point Alpha, a doubling, tripling or whatever of damage wouldn't just be a little noticeable on videos. It would be very, very noticeable to the point where a single A1 would be able to steamroll an entire team.

Lord Perversor, on 24 March 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Well i guess it was just my imagination all those mech without legs/torsos (but their cockpit and arms still with armor) dying in those days or the simple fact that i was able to blow up a raven /commando /spider legs arms and torsos with just a well placed 2x srm 6 alphas.

Well going to sleep seems the lack of it forced me to see things that wasn't there goota be funny 1st time i suffer from mass alucination.

Okay, so where's the video evidence? There are dozens of Splatcat videos out there.

[Vrekgar]

FrostBear, on 24 March 2013 - 02:24 PM, said:

Sad things happen...live with it boaterpros...finally A1s, srmstalkis, and the rest get smacked around. Love it.
FrostBear

Damocles69, on 24 March 2013 - 02:56 PM, said:

splat cat tear are delicious. im glad they nerfed your noob mech into the ground

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 24 March 2013 - 02:45 PM, said:

Wow. Lets put this in context. How many m1a1 tanks are lost to a howitzer? Sure, it can probably happen. But tanks are usually taken out by DIRECT fire.

Any weapon to be of any use at all has to be capable of damaging or killing. You havent even thought your statement through. We are talking about battlemechs, not infantry armor, or tanks. Mechs are tougher than tanks according to the lore and game this is based off of. Make a logical or well considered argument next time.

Most M1A1 are lost due to small arms fire actually. Unlike the russian equivalent they put the APU outside the chobam on the rear of the turret. An AK can take out an abrams if it hits the rear. Plus in modern war it would be taken out by helicopters or aircraft.

You are EXTREMELY correct that any weapon must be capable of damaging and killing an enemy. Its my biggest gripe with people who claim LRM's are "Support" weapons. They seem to think they should not be capable of killing anyone.

[Sifright]

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

Can I see the Dev post that these are the only mechs effected?




Well, now that you put it that way...

Don't need a dev post.

I knew about the bug long before the devs did.

It was patently obvious when shooting commandos and such with even an srm4 from my jenner that I was hitting every single component for nearly full damage(2.5 damage per missile on every single hitbox/component) because of how tight the hit boxes were.

If the 90 alpha were really splashing on the larger mechs like it did on commandos then you would have seen cockpit kills and leg explosions on mechs a hell of a lot more often than we were pre lrmpocalypse in fact its only during that patch we saw missiles murdering cockpits and legs on mechs due to the splash when they fix a bug related to how splash was calculated making the situation even worse.

[Sifright]

PaintedWolf, on 24 March 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

But that is not the reason for the across the board reduction. The reason given for that is the mentioned bug, which could be fixed by simply reducing or eliminating splash damage. Reducing all missile damage by 50% does not follow from a bug that slightly caused extra splash damage to some light Mechs sometimes.

And again, if that much damage is being done, why are some Mechs still surviving up to 6 volleys from the A1?

With a 90 point Alpha, a doubling, tripling or whatever of damage wouldn't just be a little noticeable on videos. It would be very, very noticeable to the point where a single A1 would be able to steamroll an entire team.



Okay, so where's the video evidence? There are dozens of Splatcat videos out there.

in fairness i've steam rolled entire teams in my A1 before.

It did take nearly 700 rounds(ammo/shots) to do so with pretty much perfect accuracy on my part and ensuring i hit the rear of targets as often as possible.

but yea any one saying SRMS were doing double or triple damage against heavy mechs and assaults pre splash madness are full of crap.

Edited by Sifright, 24 March 2013 - 03:16 PM.

[PaintedWolf]

What bothers me is every time we suggest a way to test or observe this supposed prevalent splash damage there is always some kind of excuse.

1) It doesn't appear on damage charts for X reason.

2) We aren't seeing extra components destroyed for X reason.

3) It doesn't appear on a player's general statistics over 45 matches for X reason.

4) We don't see it appearing on video evidence (where Mechs are surviving 5-6 of these super-double-triple shots) for X,Y,Z reasons.

I mean wow, with so much little observable or measurable effect, you would swear the problem doesn't even exist. But apparently we are dealing with a "Major Bug" that made the game "Unplayable".

[Jungle Rhino]

I like the new missile damage, but they do need to tighten up the spread for SRMs to compensate I feel.

[Davers]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 03:12 PM, said:

Don't need a dev post.

I knew about the bug long before the devs did.

Funny, I don't remember you making posts about this. Just goes to show why every 'nerf/buff' thread is crap. Everyone is saying "Nerf the weapons I don't like, and buff the ones I do" and disguising it as conversation about actual game balance.

[Roland]

I've been using SRM's since the recent hotfix, and I'm not noticing that they are weak by any stretch of the imagination. They are still, clearly, one of the best weapons in the game.

[Sifright]

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 03:19 PM, said:

Funny, I don't remember you making posts about this. Just goes to show why every 'nerf/buff' thread is crap. Everyone is saying "Nerf the weapons I don't like, and buff the ones I do" and disguising it as conversation about actual game balance.

Hahaha, Yea i've been asking for Cat A1/ SRM nerf for a good while so think what you want.

In fact a huge number of scrubs were calling me a noob and telling me to L2P about wanting srms to get a small nerf and wanting the cat to have its torso twist reduced.

[stjobe]

PaintedWolf, on 24 March 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

But that is not the reason for the across the board reduction. The reason given for that is the mentioned bug, which could be fixed by simply reducing or eliminating splash damage. Reducing all missile damage by 50% does not follow from a bug that slightly caused extra splash damage to some light Mechs sometimes.

You're still ignoring facts that have been repeatedly pointed out to you.

The missile code is broken. It's broken in more ways than one, and the first fix they tried - simply removing splash damage - uncovered another piece of broken code: The flight pattern made most missiles hit Center Torso, making LRMs effectively pin-point damage.

This wasn't acceptable, so instead they kept splash damage in and reduced the splash radius, capped splash damage, and reduced direct damage.

Why did they reduce direct damage? Because most missiles are STILL hitting the Center Torso, and without reducing damage boated LRMs would keep one-shotting 'mechs - something the devs for some unfathomable reason doesn't want in their game.

They haven't fixed the missile code, it's still broken - in more ways than one. The only thing they've done is to reduce the impact of the broken code so that LRM boats don't go around killing everything in one or two volleys.

Like it or not, this missile code will be replaced soon; and hopefully we can get LRMs and SRMs that work properly when that new code is in.

[TheSteelRhino]

Vrekgar, on 24 March 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

Most M1A1 are lost due to small arms fire actually. Unlike the russian equivalent they put the APU outside the chobam on the rear of the turret. An AK can take out an abrams if it hits the rear. Plus in modern war it would be taken out by helicopters or aircraft.

You are EXTREMELY correct that any weapon must be capable of damaging and killing an enemy. Its my biggest gripe with people who claim LRM's are "Support" weapons. They seem to think they should not be capable of killing anyone.

Thank. You. That is exactly my point. Lrms should do damage and have the capability of destroying a mech. Nor should they (or srms) be the terror of battlefield. For one thing if the only effective weps are lrms and srms then what is the point of having anything else. Doesn't seem like much of a game then huh? Stalkers and atlases standing back at long range, trollmando's and streak raven harrassing with splat cats trying to close range? Seems like an unfun game. And i pack an srm 6 or two most of the time if ecm wasnt so prevalent in 8 mans i would put in an lrm 10 or 15

The key is balance. Lrms and srms were BROKEN and were never supposed to do that much dmg. The current state is probably. Temporary. Eventually they will rework the splash damage and it will probably change again.

An srm 6 should NOT be doing 90 points of damage. That is 6 gauss rifle hits.

[Sifright]

stjobe, on 24 March 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

You're still ignoring facts that have been repeatedly pointed out to you.

The missile code is broken. It's broken in more ways than one, and the first fix they tried - simply removing splash damage - uncovered another piece of broken code: The flight pattern made most missiles hit Center Torso, making LRMs effectively pin-point damage.

This wasn't acceptable, so instead they kept splash damage in and reduced the splash radius, capped splash damage, and reduced direct damage.

Why did they reduce direct damage? Because most missiles are STILL hitting the Center Torso, and without reducing damage boated LRMs would keep one-shotting 'mechs - something the devs for some unfathomable reason doesn't want in their game.

They haven't fixed the missile code, it's still broken - in more ways than one. The only thing they've done is to reduce the impact of the broken code so that LRM boats don't go around killing everything in one or two volleys.

Like it or not, this missile code will be replaced soon; and hopefully we can get LRMs and SRMs that work properly when that new code is in.

SRMS are unguided so at least half of the reasoning doesn't apply to srms.

If they were worried about SSRMS they could just delink the ammo used by SSRMS and SRMS until they patched it up.

They also mega broke the code just before the hotfix patch making everything worse. If they were that concerned they could have simply reverted to the older missile code and dropped damage a little instead of this mega nerf nonsense.

[Davers]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 03:23 PM, said:

Hahaha, Yea i've been asking for Cat A1/ SRM nerf for a good while so think what you want.

In fact a huge number of scrubs were calling me a noob and telling me to L2P about wanting srms to get a small nerf and wanting the cat to have its torso twist reduced.

You had proof that SRMs weren't working. Yet you didn't mention this? Did you send in support tickets with your findings? Don't bother answering. There is no way to know if you did or not.

You said you wanted SRMs to be nerfed. Now, they got a small nerf and you don't like it. Show me where in this thread you said nerfing the SRMs was a good thing, and a change you have wanted?

[Sifright]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 24 March 2013 - 03:24 PM, said:

Thank. You. That is exactly my point. Lrms should do damage and have the capability of destroying a mech. Nor should they (or srms) be the terror of battlefield. For one thing if the only effective weps are lrms and srms then what is the point of having anything else. Doesn't seem like much of a game then huh? Stalkers and atlases standing back at long range, trollmando's and streak raven harrassing with splat cats trying to close range? Seems like an unfun game. And i pack an srm 6 or two most of the time if ecm wasnt so prevalent in 8 mans i would put in an lrm 10 or 15

The key is balance. Lrms and srms were BROKEN and were never supposed to do that much dmg. The current state is probably. Temporary. Eventually they will rework the splash damage and it will probably change again.

An srm 6 should NOT be doing 90 points of damage. That is 6 gauss rifle hits.

a single srm6 was doing 15 damage to heavy and assault mechs pre splash madness patch. in TT they did what 10?

a single srm6 only did 90 damage to a commando or spider. split across every single component.

[valkyrie]

Sifright, on 24 March 2013 - 03:27 PM, said:

a single srm6 was doing 15 damage to heavy and assault mechs pre splash madness patch. in TT they did what 10?

a single srm6 only did 90 damage to a commando or spider. split across every single component.

SRMs in TT do 2 damage/missile, but they rarely all hit the target, and you have to roll for each individual hit location.

[Sifright]

Davers, on 24 March 2013 - 03:26 PM, said:

You had proof that SRMs weren't working. Yet you didn't mention this? Did you send in support tickets with your findings? Don't bother answering. There is no way to know if you did or not.

You said you wanted SRMs to be nerfed. Now, they got a small nerf and you don't like it. Show me where in this thread you said nerfing the SRMs was a good thing, and a change you have wanted?

This isn't a small nerf, your bias is revealed in calling it such.

Against assault and heavy mechs this is a 40% reduction in damage against a component you were hitting directly.

Splash damage DOES NOT effect the component you hit with your missile only adjacent components.

two months ago a heavy or assault mech DID NOT take extreme bonus damage from splash effect on SRMS.

valkyrie, on 24 March 2013 - 03:30 PM, said:

SRMs in TT do 2 damage/missile, but they rarely all hit the target, and you have to roll for each individual hit location.

........

Small lasers boated on a mech in table top also roll to hit individually and don't all hit the same hit location so i don't see your point to be honest.

SRMS are pilot targeted just like lasers and ballistics if you want them to have random hit locations like LRMS they sure as hell need to be doing a lot more damage than they are right now to be worthwhile.

Edit: unless you are claiming you want every weapon in the game to hit random locations.

Edited by Sifright, 24 March 2013 - 03:32 PM.