103 replies to this topic

[80Bit]

Been playing my long retired Trebuchet 5N since the patch on 5/21. It was nice to be able to actually use LRMs again, though granted they were to effective after the patch. Now we have the post patch, post hotfix LRMS.

As I predicted in my post "The facts about LRMs yesterday, today, and tomorrow" , the hotfix, which pretty much turned off splash damage while leaving damage per missile intact, has put LRMs back into an under-powered state.


The Problem

This became very clear as I played matches this weekend on my Trebuchet 5N and Trebuchet 5J.

My TBT-5N runs 2xLRM15, Artemis, TAG, 5 tons of ammo, and a medium laser. I have to use an XL engine to fit this.

My TBT-5J runs 5 Medium Lasers, 1xSSRM2, 5 Jump Jets, and a lot of heatsinks. This all fits with a standard 270 engine.


In match after match, I found that a "perfect" game with my 5N, that is, one in which I go out of ammo landing as many missiles as can be expected, would leave me at 300-400 damage. But just an "ok" game in my 5J would leave me at a similar damage number, with great 5J games putting me over 500 damage with more kills and assists.

I thought to myself "what the hell!" My 5N, back in the day, was a great performer with 2xLRM15s, but now could not hold a candle to a simple 5 medium laser build. So I took a look at the numbers to see what the issue is.


The Numbers

Two LRM 15s now do a total of 27 damage per salvo. With 5 tons of ammo, you can fire 30 salvos, which takes 127.5 seconds to do. That's 810 potential damage. But the reality of LRMs is that you never get close to that potential damage number. My LRM accuracy is around 45%. Most players are closer to 30%. But for argument sake, I will use the very generous number of 50%. For even the best players, this is as good as it gets, because AMS, cover, and lost locks will always eat a large number of your missiles.

2xLRM15 + Artemis + 5 tons Ammo + TAG = 22 Tons
30 Salvos of 27 Damage over 127.5 seconds X 50% accuracy = 405 damage at 3.2 DPS.

There it is, my TBT-5N needs 22 tons to do 405 damage, at 3.2 DPS, in a "perfect" game. Kind of crappy really. Yes I could lower my speed to get more ammo, or more backup lasers, but that would reduce my survival chances quite a bit, and this is a fine tuned build that was great back in the pre-broke LRM days.


So what about the TBT-5J?

5xMedium Lasers + 8 DHS Heatsinks = 13 Tons
127 seconds of 5 x ML fire is 1050 damage X 80% accuracy = 840 damage at 6.6 DPS.

Now yes, you can't fire the 5xMLs non-stop, and the shorter range is hazardous, so I don't hit that 840 damage number often. But this comparison clearly shows where the major disparity is coming from in my 5N and 5J builds.

The Big But

"BUT 80Bit, Medium Lasers are close range and LRMS are long range OMGWTFBBQ!" Yes I know, and using medium lasers is a whole different game than using LRMS. But the fact remains that there is a huge performance disparity between LRMs at other weapons, in this case, energy weapons. I am a better long range support player than I am a brawler, but try as I might I can't make my 5N perform post hotfix. It does not have to be medium mechs, this disparity exists when you look at Stalkers and Atlases too, and compare the LRMs to ballistic or large energy weapons.


TLRD; A.K.A: The Point

My point is, LRM damage is to low in its current state, period. They will either need to increase the per missile damage, or overhaul the splash mechanic.

Edited by 80Bit, 26 May 2013 - 10:40 AM.

[Reith Dynamis]

This really is just sickening how a whole weapon line is nerfed into the ground. I don't use any lrms below 15 and yet it still is inferior. How would any build that sported lrms 10 or 5 do anything in this game?

[ArmageddonKnight]

Greetings all.

ok so 1st ill point one thing out. i HATE LRM boating. Not becouse i dont like being attacked by them, i just dont like the whole idea behind it. Sitting back attacking wihtout being attacked, and dumb-fireing weapons with little need to aim properly.
BUT
I like LRM's.

odd i know

LRM's are a great tool to use along side other weapons as a bit of long range delayed non direct fire damage. Problem is atm they are only any good when boated, even then they are not as effective as a direct fire boat (since the hotfix).

LRM's have been nerfed becouse pre hotfix the damage a LRM boat could do was to much, a non LRM boating using a single LRM 15 or even up to a LRM 20, was perfectly fine. But no, the balance was done on the bassis of a boat. and becouse of that LRMs are now totaly usless unless heavily boated, and even then they are not very good.

PGI ..for the love of everything, take a ***** hint, BOATING is screing up balance, NOT the weapons themselves.
LRM's, SRMS's, PPC,s LL's ..almost anything thats boated can be OP. You cant go around nerfing each weapon as people start complaining over their damage when they are boated.
You HAVE to fix boating. thats the bloody thing thats causing all this hassle.

You even buffed AMS without even thinking about changing the way i works. making AMS shot X missles down at a static rate makes AMS OP vs LRM 5's and 10's and usless vs a volley of 40+. Change AMS to % base instead ffs.

Honestly, u have the skill to make a game as we have so far but so far as i can tell are completly inept when it comes to balance. How can things that are so glaringly obviose be being ignored or missed by ur balance teams. Fixes that are so simple to work out a child could point them out. And they regularly do on these forums.

AMS .change to % bassed.
Boating - Change the hardpoint system and Heat system.

Those 2-3 changes would balance the game more than any single weapon nerf or buff. Yet you refuse to do it, are u just to lazy to put the work into undoing a system u have already made ? , is it some kind of "we must make this system work" thing going? You can tweek things as much as u like but a bad system base is going to result in a bad system no matter how much tweeking u do. Each of these 'hotfixs' 'weapon balances' is proving this.

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 26 May 2013 - 12:06 PM.

[Hotthedd]

LRMs need missile spread (NOT splash).

LRMs are still extremely powerful for kills (not damage) because they are still mostly hitting the CT, even with torso twists.

[Reith Dynamis]

Really anything boated needs a negative modifier to hit Like convergence when boated beyond 2 lrms launchers or 3 for direct fire weapons outside of lasers. lasers need a modifier to increase heat when boated beyond 3 for large lasers and beyond 4 for medium lasers. PPCs need both penalties.

I know the argument from people that it takes skill out of them game but lets face it, if we don't do this, the game will never be balanced.

Edited by Reith Dynamis, 26 May 2013 - 12:31 PM.

[Reith Dynamis]

Hotthedd, on 26 May 2013 - 12:18 PM, said:

LRMs need missile spread (NOT splash).

LRMs are still extremely powerful for kills (not damage) because they are still mostly hitting the CT, even with torso twists.

why do lrms even with Artemis need to spread? direct fire weapons don't.Yes lets penalize one weapon line without the other despite that amount of tonnage we sacrifice to it; such as artemis, bap, tag.

Now if we're talking about BattleTech or TT you realize all weapons had a accuracy modifier and random hit, not just LRMS! LRMS intentionally spread cause the chance to hit was greater and the chance to use cover in TT was little to none existent! We do not have this in MWO!

amazing how people wish to forget this. And as of right now all lrms could hit the CT but if you see my post, http://mwomercs.com/...19646-390-lrms/ , they do jack unless your an assualt! what your talking about is a bunch of bull


Screw people like you.

Edited by Reith Dynamis, 26 May 2013 - 12:29 PM.

[Hotthedd]

Reith Dynamis, on 26 May 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

why do lrms even with Artemis need to spread? direct fire weapons don't.Yes lets penalize one weapon line without the other despite that amount of tonnage we sacrifice to it; such as artemis, bap, tag.

Now if we're talking about BattleTech or TT you realize all weapons had a accuracy modifier and random hit, not just LRMS! LRMS intentionally spread cause the chance to hit was greater and the chance to use cover in TT was little to none existent! We do not have this in MWO!

amazing how people wish to forget this. And as of right now all lrms could hit the CT but if you see my post, http://mwomercs.com/...19646-390-lrms/ , they do jack unless your an assualt! what your talking about is a bunch of bull


Screw people like you.

If we are talking about TT, all missiles spread. Artemis makes the spread less. Energy and ballistics delivered (with some exceptions) their damage to one spot per shot.

Missiles pack a LOT of damage per ton. Having all of that damage hit one location is not realistic, and is potentially game breaking.

Umadbro?

[Reith Dynamis]

Hotthedd, on 26 May 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

If we are talking about TT, all missiles spread. Artemis makes the spread less. Energy and ballistics delivered (with some exceptions) their damage to one spot per shot.

Missiles pack a LOT of damage per ton. Having all of that damage hit one location is not realistic, and is potentially game breaking.

Umadbro?

First you need to play TT to understand what I'am talking about. Direct Fire weapons delivered all damage to one spot that was random in TT, which you don't wish to address. What we have in MWO that TT doesn't is timed shots IE the ability of a pilot to wait for the opening to fire on a selected area of a mech, which again we don't have and lrms mechs will never reproduce. Give me one feature lrms have befitted from the transition from TT to MWO that they share with direct fire weapons. None, thats right.


And missiles pack a lot of damage per ton? Get the hell out, not in MWO it doesn't. And potentially game breaking? When a lrms 15 is as ravaging as a PPC we will talk again. Am i mad? The fact we can't find anyone more intelligent then you to refute what I'am talking about, you bet your ***.

Edited by Reith Dynamis, 26 May 2013 - 01:23 PM.

[Sybreed]

I swear, there was a point in CB where I could keep the LRM10 on my centurion and it was viable... they were powerful, but not overly deadly. I often did around 450-550 dmg in those matches. Now, if I still had the LRM10, I'd never do over 250 dmg.

[80Bit]

Not sure what boating has to do with the imbalance of LRMs.
Boat Larger Lasers and you do a ton of damage.
Boat PPCs and you do a ton of damage.
Boat AC/20s or Gauss rifles and you do a ton of damage.
Boat SRMs and you do a ton of damage.

Boat LRMs and you do notably less damage.


I don't care about boating, I just want LRMs to be viable ton for ton vs other weapons. Right now, they are not.

[Corvus Antaka]

LRMS should hit hard. track even slower. allow for skill, finesse and speed to dodge even in the open. then it becomes a game of LRM cat and mouse, and adds a new layer to gameplay and team strategy opportunities.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 26 May 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

LRMS should hit hard. track even slower. allow for skill, finesse and speed to dodge even in the open. then it becomes a game of LRM cat and mouse, and adds a new layer to gameplay and team strategy opportunities.

There are so many ways PGI could come at it, this being one of them. But they've added so many weird additions to the game that effect LRM's that it messes it all up.

[Hotthedd]

Reith Dynamis, on 26 May 2013 - 01:20 PM, said:

First you need to play TT to understand what I'am talking about. Direct Fire weapons delivered all damage to one spot that was random in TT, which you don't wish to address. What we have in MWO that TT doesn't is timed shots IE the ability of a pilot to wait for the opening to fire on a selected area of a mech, which again we don't have and lrms mechs will never reproduce. Give me one feature lrms have befitted from the transition from TT to MWO that they share with direct fire weapons. None, thats right.


And missiles pack a lot of damage per ton? Get the hell out, not in MWO it doesn't. And potentially game breaking? When a lrms 15 is as ravaging as a PPC we will talk again. Am i mad? The fact we can't find anyone more intelligent then you to refute what I'am talking about, you bet your ***.

Calm down Skippy.

Direct Fire weapons may have hit a random spot in TT, but they always delivered all of the damage to that spot. I never argued that point.

LRMs have never been able to target a specific part of a mech in TT, or in MW:O, HOWEVER most of the damage always hits the CT in MW:O. This is a problem. Missiles need to spread, not splash.

I am sorry if you feel like your easy mode IWin button is broken.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Hotthedd, on 26 May 2013 - 04:37 PM, said:

Calm down Skippy.

Direct Fire weapons may have hit a random spot in TT, but they always delivered all of the damage to that spot. I never argued that point.

LRMs have never been able to target a specific part of a mech in TT, or in MW:O, HOWEVER most of the damage always hits the CT in MW:O. This is a problem. Missiles need to spread, not splash.

I am sorry if you feel like your easy mode IWin button is broken.

Yeah but if you're going to do spread, you have to up damage.

Because if not you end up with another LBx10 that no one uses.

[Hotthedd]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 26 May 2013 - 04:39 PM, said:

Yeah but if you're going to do spread, you have to up damage.

Because if not you end up with another LBx10 that no one uses.

I have no problem with that.

[Asmudius Heng]

Again I say - they need a philosophy of what LRMs are suppose to BE in this game. Numbers and mechanics etc all come after the design philosophy.

M 2 cents are this.

They either need to be easy to hit sandpaper weapons that constantly grind the enemy into submission and are hard to escape.

Or they are the hammer than punishes the foolish who does not take cover.

I have not played this patch but it seems neither of these are true.

Also as people have said - single LRM packs, and smaller LRMs need to be viable. Right now they force people to boat them to remain marginally effective while punishing those who want it as their long range weapon on a balanced config.

They need to sit down and re imagine how LRMs are suppose to be in all of these situations.

And no, I am not anti-boating - they should not be insta-kill buttons on a boat though, but LRMs have significant drawbacks enough that they are probably one of the easier boats to counter because of minimum range.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Honestly a lot of people have posted good ways to fix/change LRM's.

The problem is, PGI is stubborn, and slow with this stuff.

I don't know why I bother sometimes.

I was sitting trying to build a mech in Smurfy's and it was like "LRM's, broken, SRM's broken, AC2/AC5/LBX10/AC10 not really worth taking, most Pulse Lasers not really worth it. And eventually ended up with some PPC's a Gauss Rifle and some Streaks. Only reason I didn't do an AC/20 is because I didn't want to do all short range and get picked apart.

Asmudius Heng, on 26 May 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

Or they are the hammer than punishes the foolish who does not take cover.

This will never work. The players in this game are way too lazy and revolt when LRM's are doing this.

I'm still beginning to think PGI needs to move away from Tabletop with LRM's. Make them do 3-4 damage to Armor and .25-.5 damage to Internals.

Can't kill people will them. But if they get caught in the open, they are going to lose armor.

[Asmudius Heng]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 26 May 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

Honestly a lot of people have posted good ways to fix/change LRM's.

The problem is, PGI is stubborn, and slow with this stuff.

I don't know why I bother sometimes.

I was sitting trying to build a mech in Smurfy's and it was like "LRM's, broken, SRM's broken, AC2/AC5/LBX10/AC10 not really worth taking, most Pulse Lasers not really worth it. And eventually ended up with some PPC's a Gauss Rifle and some Streaks. Only reason I didn't do an AC/20 is because I didn't want to do all short range and get picked apart.



This will never work. The players in this game are way too lazy and revolt when LRM's are doing this.

I'm still beginning to think PGI needs to move away from Tabletop with LRM's. Make them do 3-4 damage to Armor and .25-.5 damage to Internals.

Can't kill people will them. But if they get caught in the open, they are going to lose armor.

That is probably true. This is the implementation I would prefer, but it requires a much higher sense of awareness from the opposition, and probably punishes brawlers stuck in a brawl that cannot get to the LRMer.

The other option is a much 'softer' implementation but would also work. That same brawler would not get smashed in a salvo, but if he does not do something about his positioning soon he will start to really feel it.

This would have to mean a higher flight speed and a GOOD angle of descent but lower damage in general. Also a higher level of ammo. So the LRMs would be raining down a lot and would be hard, but not impossible to hide from. Still effective, but not the huge punch in the face that it has been before.

I feel this would take some level of skill away though as you dont need to be judicious with your LRMs though which is the downside.

Still doesnt make single racks that much better though and probably makes it worse ...

[Wendigo Vendetta]

Most of the problems we have seen with PGI's implementation can be laid at the feet of PGI's stubborn insistence that the first way they deviated from the cannon MUST be right and cannot be restored to cannon in an attempt to rebalance. How long have the non-cannon splash effects been a problem now? How long have they insisted on keeping it? Not to mention the lingering balance effects of perfect weapon convergence... we will never be rid of the impacts from that one. The "fixes" for their deviations spiral out of control and require more fixes in turn, all of them unevenly applied. How many ammo dependent weapons actually had their capacity per ton doubled along with the doubling of armor? Or for the increased firing speeds and associated increased ammo depletion? Some have been upgraded, yet SRMs are still at TT ammo levels. No focus, no consistency, no clue.

Edited by Wendigo Vendetta, 27 May 2013 - 06:07 AM.

[Nightcrept]

80Bit, on 26 May 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

Not sure what boating has to do with the imbalance of LRMs.
Boat Larger Lasers and you do a ton of damage.  
Boat PPCs and you do a ton of damage.
Boat AC/20s or Gauss rifles and you do a ton of damage.  
Boat SRMs and you do a ton of damage.

Boat LRMs and you do notably less damage.


I don't care about boating, I just want LRMs to be viable ton for ton vs other weapons.  Right now, they are not.

Because as soon as you make Lrms powerful enough to be better in line with the other weapons per ton the ultra boats come out in droves and the player base QQ's.