66 replies to this topic

[pencilboom]

1 positive point that I could take before the LRM hotfix: there was actually less PPC boats and poptarts.

[StandingCow]

People also have to adjust their game, which is always painful. We have lived with pathetic LRMs long enough now that people forgot about AMS and using cover, because it just wasn't worth it for a long time. Missiles were slow as hell, easy to hide from, and didn't do much damage.

So, now when the damage was increased, before they fixed splash damage... all the sudden, instead of adjusting their playstyle and loadouts, people called LRMs OP... which, yes, they sort of were because of the splash damage issues and high arc... but they wouldn't have been nearly as bad if people were used to powerful LRMs.

That's one of the issues I have with how PGI balances weapons, they swing from one extreme to the other, players generally don't like change, so these constant huge changes **** people off and they over-react, then in turn PGI over-reacts in their balancing. The other half of the issue, in my opinion, is that PGI may be balancing via statistics instead of through actually playing the game... statistics often do not tell the whole truth, but they are a good tool.

Edited by StandingCow, 24 May 2013 - 11:04 PM.

[jeffsw6]

I'm fine with change if they learn how to make those changes more quickly.

I think it would be better if they made incremental changes from week to week instead of trying to get a lot of complex things right in a big patch that makes the first weapon-balance adjustments in a month, and screw it up pretty badly.

We can hope that they will use the public test server, which is supposed to be available soon, for the purpose of incremental weapon balancing.

[StandingCow]

jeffsw6, on 24 May 2013 - 11:18 PM, said:

I'm fine with change if they learn how to make those changes more quickly.

I think it would be better if they made incremental changes from week to week instead of trying to get a lot of complex things right in a big patch that makes the first weapon-balance adjustments in a month, and screw it up pretty badly.

We can hope that they will use the public test server, which is supposed to be available soon, for the purpose of incremental weapon balancing.

Yea, I think that public test server is something that will help them (and in turn us) immensely.

[Lykaon]

jeffsw6, on 24 May 2013 - 10:45 PM, said:

The flight paths are not fixed. LRMs will still path over buildings twice as tall as an Atlas and strike mechs standing right against those buildings, etc. Good luck finding cover on ... any map, period.

This wasn't even happening before the hotfix so I doubt it's actually happening now.

I was slipping locks while piloting a Highlander with ease when I had cover that was only slightly taller than my Mech BEFORE the hotfix and my Highlander doesn't break 55 KPH ground speed.

No line of sight = no Lock on, No Lock on = missed volley of LRMs.

I am really wondering if the splash mechanic is even needed at all.If each missile had sufficent damage to be effective why splash?Seems to me like the splash mechanic is a headache that can be removed in favor of simple damage increases with no splash.

But then again I'm not a programer so what do I know.

[jeffsw6]

Lykaon, on 24 May 2013 - 11:27 PM, said:

This wasn't even happening before the hotfix so I doubt it's actually happening now.

It is happening now. It's because of spotting bonuses and modified flight-arc. It's still happening post-hotfix and they are either going to admit it soon and make another adjustment in June, or they won't, and we'll be stuck with LRMs that cannot be avoided permanently. That would be terrible.

Lykaon, on 24 May 2013 - 11:27 PM, said:

I am really wondering if the splash mechanic is even needed at all.If each missile had sufficent damage to be effective why splash?Seems to me like the splash mechanic is a headache that can be removed in favor of simple damage increases with no splash.

I don't understand why they want the splash damage so bad, either. I think it's unnecessary, and clearly they are having a very hard time getting it right.

If anything should have splash damage it is SRMs, so they can still hurt you if you fire them point-blank at an opponent, or do a small amount of damage to an enemy's leg if you miss him and hit the ground next to him, a rock beside him, etc.

[Karenai]

Diablobo, on 24 May 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Do you have a source for the splash still being here? I thought they got rid of it completely. I would be even more upset if they left it. Splash damage is for Quake rocket launchers, not Battletech missiles.

http://mwomercs.com/...21#entry2382921

Paul:

"
Yesterday, 11:06 PM
Rabble rabble rabble!!

Splash damage was reduced from 1.8m to 0.05m. That's 180cm to 5cm.

CT is taking more damage than the rest of your components why? Because the CT is the largest part of a BattleMech. It's going to take the most hits out of a volley of missiles. The missiles are not told to target any part of a Mech, they're told to get into position and follow that path from start to finish. If your target turns their torso 90 degrees from incoming missiles, they're going to lose an arm before they get cored."

[Ralgas]

NachoFoot, on 24 May 2013 - 10:38 PM, said:

Splash damage should spread to the areas that the missiles did not hit. That's why its splash damage and not direct damage.

I believe splash damage was concentrating on the same area it hit (which was most often the CT).

Which was the problem due to missiles mostly targeting the torso, ct was copping it from the full volley. It's been a day and a half since the fix, and there are that many variables to dmg including

Artemis
Los (is this still a bug for inderct fire atm?)
Tag
Range
Cover
What the target is doing........
Theres a thread i read a lil bit ago where someone was claiming he was 1shotting blackjacks. Turns out one twistedto far and ate a salvo in his rear armor corectly getting cored. Give it time yet

[YueFei]

Lykaon, on 24 May 2013 - 11:27 PM, said:

This wasn't even happening before the hotfix so I doubt it's actually happening now.

I was slipping locks while piloting a Highlander with ease when I had cover that was only slightly taller than my Mech BEFORE the hotfix and my Highlander doesn't break 55 KPH ground speed.

No line of sight = no Lock on, No Lock on = missed volley of LRMs.

No, you misunderstand. This is why people are having vastly different experiences with the current LRMs. If the LRM user has a direct line-of-sight to you, and is not relying on a spotter for his shots, the LRMs he fires will go on their traditional flight arc, which you can take cover from.

However, if he does NOT have line of sight, and instead is relying on the targetting from a spotter, his missiles will take a very high diving arc, which will fly over most cover to strike you. This high diving flight arc has already been stated to be a bug, which was supposed to be fixed today. Breaking the LOS of the LRM launcher is easy, but it's not so easy to break the LOS of a sneaky spotter. In many cases, breaking the LOS of the spotter just takes you into the LOS of the snipers. =P

[Victor Morson]

The most tragic thing about the LRMs being broken again is the awesome game pacing we had - strategic movement between cover points - is completely dead along with them. It was a way, way more strategic game with them functioning.

As it stands you can run along in the open jumping away all day with no repercussions. You'd be dead in seconds if you tried that yesterday.

Edited by Victor Morson, 25 May 2013 - 12:48 AM.

[Diablobo]

Splash damage was reduced from 1.8m to 0.05m. That's 180cm to 5cm.

CT is taking more damage than the rest of your components why? Because the CT is the largest part of a BattleMech. It's going to take the most hits out of a volley of missiles. The missiles are not told to target any part of a Mech, they're told to get into position and follow that path from start to finish. If your target turns their torso 90 degrees from incoming missiles, they're going to lose an arm before they get cored."


Ok, that is like explaining the chemical composition of urine. They need to explain why they are p\ssing on us, not what the urine is made of.

Edited by Diablobo, 25 May 2013 - 01:21 AM.

[Thorqemada]

Well, LRM hater win again, LRM usage is way down, its again Alpha-Assault-Online...

[StandingCow]

I will throw this in as well... and I know people hate it... but yes, this is still beta (ducks). Hear me out.... PGI is still putting a lot of features into this game... some of those features really change the meta of the game.

Until the game is closer to feature complete (yea I know it is never REALLY complete) and they have most of what they want in the game for launch, they can never truly balance it.

So, what I would say the key is, is patience... and not just from the community, from PGI as well as far as balancing changes go. We will get a true taste of how good/bad PGI is at balancing weapons once the game launches.

[Livewyr]

Something to keep in mind:

Even though LRMs had their damage cut, they had their speed increased dramatically.
LRMs aren't as potent when they hit, as they used to be, but now they can hit more often, and they don't need to be boated to do it.

I've seen every missile change since their range was 640..Including their very first huge nerf: (Needing to maintain LoS/Lock for the missiles to track targets..)

This is the best they've been. They don't need to be boated, they aren't aerial hunter-killers, but they do enough that you should be concerned and probably bring AMS to work together. They do wonderfully at flushing enemy from behind cover; without torching him in 2-3 salvos.

Edited by Livewyr, 25 May 2013 - 02:32 AM.

[OneEyed Jack]

Livewyr, on 25 May 2013 - 02:32 AM, said:

Something to keep in mind:

Even though LRMs had their damage cut, they had their speed increased dramatically.
LRMs aren't as potent when they hit, as they used to be, but now they can hit more often, and they don't need to be boated to do it.

I've seen every missile change since their range was 640..Including their very first huge nerf: (Needing to maintain LoS/Lock for the missiles to track targets..)

This is the best they've been. They don't need to be boated, they aren't aerial hunter-killers, but they do enough that you should be concerned and probably bring AMS to work together. They do wonderfully at flushing enemy from behind cover; without torching him in 2-3 salvos.

That's simply not enough to justify their weight/heat/ammo. They are still the only weapon that not only takes enough time in flight for a stationary target to run for cover after they've launched, but gives a warning to that target that they'e coming, so he knows to move. On top of that they are at least partially countered by both AMS and ECM.

All that for a harassment weapon? No thanks.

Now, I'm not attached enough to LRMs to be freaking out about it, since my play-style is more in-your-face, but I do think it's an issue. I like having useful LRMs in the game, and I feel they are an important part of the overall dynamic.

A brief history of recent LRM changes:

Spoiler

Before the flight pattern changes LRMs were in a pretty good place. They were maybe a little OP, but between the use of cover, AMS and ECM, they weren't terrible. Then they changed the flight pattern and CT coring went insane. It was decided that this was due to splash damage adding up to more damage than had been intended, so they proposed removing splash, but then figured out that they were still hitting CT and doing squat to the rest of the mech, so they lowered damage... a lot... and kept splash.

Now, at this point, pretty much everyone knew they were under-powered. People stopped packing them, but they also stopped trying to counter them, because the damage was low enough that it just wasn't worth the effort. Sure, you'd take cover, eventually, if they were firing at you, but almost everyone stopped packing AMS and even ECM usage dropped off a bit. This was with 0.7 damage per missile and full-size splash. That splash was estimated to increase damage by roughly half. For those that can't manage the math, that means roughly 1.05 damage per missile. And it was weak.

Then in the recent patch they increased damage, but forgot to drop the splash size as planned, and we had a couple days of 0.9 + splash (or 1.35 per missile). The first day, missiles were doing a LOT of damage. But then people remembered how to take cover (admittedly a little harder now) and, more importantly, remembered to equip AMS. AMS got a huuuge buff. After that, missiles were still very effective, but that was due more to the CT coring, and not so much the actual damage numbers.

So now we have an essentially non-existent splash, meaning the missiles are pretty much doing exactly the damage they are listed at, which is good (I think absolutely necessary for balance purposes), but that damage is more than 10% below the estimated pre-patch damage, which was already bad and is now worse.

TL;DR Version
Missiles are doing less damage than pre-patch, and they sucked pre-patch.

I'm not sure how the Devs were working the math that made this change make sense, but they must have been drunk at the time. The damage should have been put at 1.0/missile minimum, which is still slightly below pre-patch numbers, but the new arc and higher speed might have been enough to make them worthwhile to carry and worth respecting when they fired at you. I think 1.1-1.2 is more likely where they need to be, but 1.0 would have kept the damage roughly the same while trying out the other changes. Bear in mind that the speed increase is largely eaten up by the higher arc, so they aren't actually reaching the target as much faster as the numbers would suggest.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 25 May 2013 - 04:11 AM.

[Sheraf]

jeffsw6, on 24 May 2013 - 10:45 PM, said:

The flight paths are not fixed. LRMs will still path over buildings twice as tall as an Atlas and strike mechs standing right against those buildings, etc. Good luck finding cover on ... any map, period.

I took cover even in the open, you just need to be far enough, to make them lose lock, and watch their missile miss you Need help on cover finding? add me, I'll help when I'm on.

[Pando]

I was enjoying playing again, for once in over 2 months. There are so many things I'm sick of. I won't go there. Does anyone remember how LRM's were in closed beta? They weren't the be-all end-all, they were decent. On-par with other weapon systems. People used them.

I feel like open beta hurt the game just as much as it helped it. I'm aware we've come along way since closed beta, there is no denying that. I'm tired of dropping with a Catapult C1(f) decked with an enhanced stock load-out then being called useless and a waste of space because I chose to run with two LRM launchers.

[Sheraf]

Pando, on 25 May 2013 - 04:21 AM, said:

I was enjoying playing again, for once in over 2 months. There are so many things I'm sick of. I won't go there. Does anyone remember how LRM's were in closed beta? They weren't the be-all end-all, they were decent. On-par with other weapon systems. People used them.

I feel like open beta hurt the game just as much as it helped it. I'm aware we've come along way since closed beta, there is no denying that. I'm tired of dropping with a Catapult C1(f) decked with an enhanced stock load-out then being called useless and a waste of space because I chose to run with two LRM launchers.

My Stalker has 2 LRM 10 launcher, and I don't think it is useless with stock load out
The missile could use another increase in damage to 1 then we are set

[Pando]

Sheraf, on 25 May 2013 - 04:26 AM, said:

My Stalker has 2 LRM 10 launcher, and I don't think it is useless with stock load out
The missile could use another increase in damage to 1 then we are set

Your stock stalker probably also has 2 large lasers 2 medium lasers 2 and two srm6s in addition to 2 lrm10s. My stock loadout is modified to 2 20 launchers, 2 medium 2 small, jumpjets and bap. See the big difference?

Edited by Pando, 25 May 2013 - 04:29 AM.

[Sheraf]

Pando, on 25 May 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

Your stock stalker probably also has 2 large lasers 2 medium lasers 2 and two srm6s in addition to 2 lrm10s. My stock loadout is modified to 2 20 launchers, 2 medium 2 small, jumpjets and bap. See the big difference?

I think C1 would better go with dual LRM 15+artemis, and 4 medium lasers, or you can try to fit a pair of large laser and 2 medium. Doesn't C1 have 2 missile hardpoints only?

Edited by Sheraf, 25 May 2013 - 04:32 AM.