507 replies to this topic

[Xandre Blackheart]

I'm just sad that there's nothing reliable to counter poptarting now. Poptarting is a cover negation tactic just like LRM's were. Now there's only one viable cover negation technique.

Maybe they should make PPC's kill jump jets as well as ecm.

[PeekaBoo I C Ju]

Well, LRM's suck again...and with all the upcoming nerfs being talked about, I think this game is gonna get quite boring.....I am starting to lose Faith PGI....I won't come on here and *** at your toes, But I am unhappy with the direction MWO is going That is All.

[PeekaBoo I C Ju]

Relaed, on 25 May 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

You're playing the fool mate, they make wide swings to break up the monotony of the game and force you to do something different, in the hopes you won't go play something else.

All they are doing Is making me invest massive hours into SkyRim, at least in that game, something fun doesn't get borked by the devs listening to whiners....and it is happening just like i said....If 1 weapon was the problem, then a single nerf would have balanced the whole game, now that they have started nerfing, the cycle will never end...because something else will stand out..and then that will get nerfed, then the next weapon of preference...and so on, until every weapon is boring and useless....what we are wintenessing is MWO Pacolypse, the beginning of the end for MWO

[Thorqemada]

Thontor, on 25 May 2013 - 05:50 AM, said:

heh, no


i'm getting about 40% accuracy with LRMs... and that's including volleys that completely miss the target and hit cover

Yeah, i dont boat them but i have read that some boats get up to a 40% Efficiency - though this is still only 8 of 20 Missiles of a LRM20 Hit.

Edited by Thorqemada, 26 May 2013 - 02:34 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Thontor, on 26 May 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

i carry 2 LRM15 launchers, I dont know how much of a boat that is.

and like i said, that's including volleys that completely miss their target due to lost lock, target behind cover, or target die before they get there, or whatever.

it doesnt mean only 12/30 missiles hit

With 40% Efficiency the LRM20 does the damage of a theoretical LRM8.

2 LRM5, obviously you never fight someone with AMS...

[Koniving]

My issues with the LRMs is that now the wavy flight patterns are gone. Artemis doesn't spin missiles. They're just bullets that go forward, up, and down.

I noticed something else. The farther away the target is, the higher the missiles go. 750 meters and up, missiles always come straight down at steep 80 to 90 degree angles. Cover doesn't matter if you're far away. Targets at less than 200 meters, though LRMs seem to behave like SRMs.

[Wintersdark]

I loved the Artemis spin, but I'll happily forsake it for missiles that work properly.

Without splash damage messing things up inconsistently it should be much easier to tune the actual damage done. Baby steps from here on out, though - +0.1 damage first, bring them up to TT values.

Currently, they are a bit weak but definitely better than they were before the patch. They're probably the most balanced now that they've been since the start of open beta, even given that they are a bit underpowered.

Missile balancing has been a hard road. Between the various bugs causing unpredictable results, and LRM's capabilities for indirect fire, it's a narrow margin between being crappy and raining unavoidable death from afar. Because they can fire indirectly, it's easy for them to ramp up in ways other weapons can't. Someone lights you up, and despite being out of everyone else's line of sight 6 Mechs each launch 30 LRM's at you.

As bad as PC's have been, only Mechs able to see you can fire at you, so you can at least escape them.

So, take it easy, folks. LRM's are coming along; pgi doesn't hate them, it's just a much more complicated balancing act than most realise.

[hoverstorm]

Maybe we could up the damage of the missiles 0.1 dmg per missile per patch, and see how it behaves. Or, we could lower the AMS dmg, to allow more missiles through a large herd of AMS mechs. Or missiles/tonnage could be decreased to reflect the fact that they are of better quality missiles.

At any point, the missiles are definitely getting more balanced, but feels a little "soft" as compared to other types of direct fire weapon. A tiny little buff would be much appreciated.

Edited by Eirikr Sim, 26 May 2013 - 10:07 PM.

[vettie]

Airborne Thunder, on 25 May 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

Yes the game is still in BETA but don't forget they are still charging us real money for their product in the meantime. Big things could take a while to fix but small things (like not messing up on a patch and leaving the Founders Tag box out of the mechlab) could be fixed pretty quickly. The BETA shield is only so big.

Uh, no one forces you to spend ANY money. If you do, it is up to you and you know it IS BETA and subject to change. I spend and I am happy. That is the BETA shield, be careful if you spend real money, pretty simple...

AS far as LRMs, I have been a LRM user since closed BETA when my machine would only run at about 5 to 7fps. Only way I could play WAS using LRMs. I have seen ALL the changes from then until now. Even with the intro of Artemis and pre May 24 patch, I have only seen an increase of about 4% in Missile accuracy. I am not claiming to be any kind of expert on LRMs by any stretch, i am merely stating that I DO use them, but they are not my main focus weapon. I normally run medium mechs.

Now, that being said, I dont run LRM boats exclusively, or even most of the time. The MAY 21 patch caught me in process of completing the basics pilot skills on 2 different Stalkers. Equipped with 2 ALRM15s each. Not so much a 'boat'. My Catapult C1 also carries 2 ALRM15s but ti is designed to be a missile carrier/launcher (as are most Stalkers). These are the only 'LRM Boats' I really use.

I was happy to see the patch correct the flight path, especially the last inflight correction. I dont feel the damage is where it should be and this would include the splash damage. Again, my opinion.

[Jungle Rhino]

I intensely dislike the new feel of missles.

1. I used to have to actually find a position to launch missles from to clear terrain in front of me. Now I can sit anywhere and launch anytime. It takes no thought or effort on my behalf.

2. Likewise the missles used on only hit the target if they were in the open or at least somewhat exposed. Now they hit practically all the time, this is most prevalent on maps like Caustic, or Alpine, where there is literally nowhere to hide. Again I now launch any time I have a lock and there is a pretty good chance I will hit the target. It takes no thought or effort on my behalf.

3. On the receiving end, it is impossible to see the missles coming in as they literally drop on your head - this removes any ability for a pilot under fire to roll damage as you basically have to guess when they are going to hit you.

4. The artemis bug is completely masking the true balance point of LRMs. Once that is fixed I think people are going to be shocked as LRMs just will not work very well without LoS.

Overall, I would like to see them doing a little more damage (just set it to 1 for goodness sake) but revert to the older flight paths that actually required some skill (mobility) on behalf of the firer and gave the target the opportunity again with some skill, to mitigate the damage.

The current flightpath model has turned LRMs into a 'n00btube' type weapon system. There is no need to think, maneuvure, or engage any sort of low cunning to get results. It takes lighter, faster LRM mechs who used to be able to benfit from superior positioning out of the equation as you are always simply better off with MORE LRMs.

LRMs are now more boring than they have ever been.

[Fiona Marshe]

Wintersdark, on 26 May 2013 - 12:52 PM, said:

I loved the Artemis spin, but I'll happily forsake it for missiles that work properly.

Are your missiles spinning? My Artemis-15s are just clustering like a bucketful of arrows and still not doing much.

[Wintersdark]

Fiona Marshe, on 29 May 2013 - 12:34 AM, said:

Are your missiles spinning? My Artemis-15s are just clustering like a bucketful of arrows and still not doing much.

no, hence the past tense "loved". I really loved the spin, but I'm fine with losing it in favour of missiles that path and spread damage correctly.

[Dude42]

All you guys saying missile damage should be set to 1. Don't forget that they doubled armor from TT because of pinpoint weaponry, since missiles are not pinpoint their damage should be doubled as well. (1.8-2.0) From what I understand, this is the damage level missiles where at prior to splash being introduced anyway and most everyone was happy. Why not just set it back like it was when it was working well?

Edit:Also, just because you don't personally like the idea of missiles does not give you the right to demand that they be useless. Missiles are 1/3rd of this games available weaponry. Why would you want to destroy 1/3rd of this game? Why not just go find another game that lets you fly around and snipe people if that's what you're in to?

Edited by Dude42, 29 May 2013 - 03:54 AM.

[ElLocoMarko]

I finally patched and played. I'm in PUG matches so there isn't really any spotting help. On the occasion where I can take advantage of teammates who hold targets the LRM does drop from straight above... I see what people are saying about a advantageously funky flight path.

But seeing as I got into this patch a week late, it seems that pilots have remembered their AMS and some tactical piloting.
Per game damage for dual LRM15 or dual LRM20 is 150-300 with 300 being very rare. I prefer to be in the top 1-2 spots for a win on my team with 400+ damage so I probably won't be running LRM unless it gets another buff.

Observations
I played 40 games where I split them between AC20 brawler Cataphracts and LRM Catapults.
The LRM mechs were very low achievers. Damage and kills were anemic. The LRM mechs were not finishers. If the game comes down to a one-on-one with anything the LRM mech loses badly (even quad SSRM2, dual LRM15 + BAP). The win ratio was still OK. I had more than a few incidents where my LRM stirred up bloodlust which I could use to draw an enemy brawler into my a friendly kill zone. I'm chalking the wins up to enemy bloodlust and movement suppression because it certainly wasn't killing or damaging... or destroying components... The payout screen was pretty sad on most wins.

AMS is knocking a pretty good hole in 30-40 LRMs. I have a feeling that a single LRM5 or LRM10 is almost useless against a single mech with AMS.

And (as expected), the training grounds tell you nothing about in-game damage. Six LRM5 killed a commando in 1 volley and an atlas in 3. 90 LRM's cannot kill an atlas without an ammo explosion. In game, I never killed an assault mech regardless of how long it let me shoot it.

Overall, I might mount some LRM on an Atlas for range but it is not "primary weapon" material because ton-for-ton it is weak.

Edited by ElLocoMarko, 29 May 2013 - 09:03 AM.

[BlackDrakon]

So, SRMS are still worthless and no response on a fix from PGI? DO U WANT US TO POPTART FOR LIFE!?!?!?

[Dude42]

BlackDrakon, on 29 May 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

So, SRMS are still worthless and no response on a fix from PGI? DO U WANT US TO POPTART FOR LIFE!?!?!?

I think the devs like poptarting. It would explain so much.

[BlackDrakon]

I cant brawl with Streaks, I cant Skirmish with Streaks, SRMS were just fine (needed a little more punch though) but the grouping were fine, wanted more group, use artemis, but it was fine, now they just suck..... Any news from PGI? nothing.....

[E_Crow]

deforce, on 21 May 2013 - 03:47 PM, said:

have you ever played a game where they "released" it and it was this broken. then for the next 8 months to a year release a patch to fix something and in that patch they break 2 new things. So every patch is literally just fixing what they broke in the previous patch.

This has to be the stupidest post i have ever read. They "released" it? Seriously dude? It's still in beta. thought you might have figured out that much by now.....
Yes LRM's are overpowered, yes they need to fix that.
ITS A ***ING BETA PEOPLE!!
Calm down.

[Empyrus]

Current Long Range Missiles don't feel very good.
Most importantly they don't LOOK good. Where did the cool spiraling flight path go?

The current arc is so high it takes forever for the missiles to land, and make them rather easy to avoid, by moving to cover to break lock.

I think they should be a bit faster at very least, or perhaps more powerful.

But first, make them spiral again.

SRMs? No comment. Don't have any mechs equipped with them at the moment.

SSRMs? Boring but practical.

[Victor Morson]

OK, I've given these a fair shake, I'll throw my POV in:

* The new AMS is a bit OP for the missiles current state. I'd either lower AMS or raise the chance for it destroy less missiles per cluster. Just a touch, though.

* Damage is almost solid. .1 more would effectively make it about exactly on track with my expectations.

* The new flight time is very good. The biggest "unforseen consequence" is that if a target pops behind cover, you are far more likely to still have lock when the missiles reach them, more than simply having the missiles travel fast enough to hit dodging 'mechs.

* The firing angle feels spot on. Cover is useful, but low cover is not; missiles do a great job of tracking over high objects or terrain in their path, including ones closer to the person firing. Good work.

* To run an even remotely effective LRM mech outright requires Artemis. We badly need the NARC bonuses to work with Artemis before any other buffs to it are considered, because with it offering no advantage (unlike TAG) it is really even worse than the MG, Flamer or even Artillery Strikes. It benefits nobody.

On one final note:

* I reported this to tech support, but I'm unsure if anyone else is seeing it: LRMs will sometimes bring a 'mech very, very crit and then refuse to do more internal damage; they'll still impact the armor and show the red flash, but even when hitting a CT dead center, simply will not do enough damage to drop it. i.e. I had a Highlander at 300m just staring at me the other day with an exposed dark red CT, LT, and orange RT and I put almost 10 salvos from 30 LRMs into it.. it simply would not die. I suspect this is just a freak bug that's fairly uncommon, but I wanted to bring it up because it'd be easy to miss (Seriously, one guy with a small laser joining the fight would have ended it - you'd never notice this at all in a big battle.)

Edited by Victor Morson, 13 June 2013 - 06:34 PM.