This is exactly what's wrong with the game- its not the Devs, its the whiners.
And the devs listen to the whiners. Indirect fire (lrm) is a nice tactical addition that makes all mechwarrior games special in comparison to just some shooter. The way lrm are getting nerfed out of the game mwo mostly consists of assaults (as, hgn, st) and some jaegers with ppc/ac that play a shooter. you could've stayed with counterstrike for that. so please accept that a weaponsystem that weighs 11 tons (lrm 20), needs ammunition, needs a spotter, needs a long time to impact, can be countered (ecm, ams), blares out a warning, etc. should be COMPARABLE in total damage to other top of the notch weapon systems. The difference for lrm being a supporter is that they shouldn't do damage to just one part. I can't believe that it took 1 month to produce some patch just to hot"fix" it again and screw lrm all over again. To quote Margret Thather: I want my money back.
As to this set of 10 matches I was firing at mostly med-assault with a focus on a heavy or assault that wandered out, but I was going after hunchies and cents as well. I tend to fire an experimental volley in chain fire (If I can remember to do so) if it connects ill send more as long as they havent moved to deep cover.
I generally only shoot at lights when they are harassing nearby teammates or if the have critted legs (or if they show a tendency to stop a lot or jump straight up or down as this increases your chances a lot)
And the devs listen to the whiners. Indirect fire (lrm) is a nice tactical addition that makes all mechwarrior games special in comparison to just some shooter. The way lrm are getting nerfed out of the game mwo mostly consists of assaults (as, hgn, st) and some jaegers with ppc/ac that play a shooter.
The devs have already dealt with this. You see - LRMs do exactly what they should.
Real fire support comes from consumables, you see.
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To quote Margret Thather: I want my money back.
But... you see... this is perfectly balanced.
Before, support was useless because everyone was making use of those legs and engines in battlemechs. The devs have fixed that with the current weapon balance, which makes consumable support a valid option for driving hostile mechs out of cover and into your sights for your one-shot kill of triumph and burst of adrenaline.
I will make one more try, because it's apparent we are talking in parallel here:
Fact 1: The op's gamestyle, grants him and his team 4 out of 6 victories
Fact 2: The op is in the top 1-2 damage dealers 5 out of 6 times
Fact 3: The op is finishing 4 out of 6 matches with their mech unscathed
And now for the funny part, all that is not enough. What the op wants, is to keep those LRM attributes AND do core damage, instead of mere damage dealt.
This is what I don't understand. You guys want all the LRM benefits and all the direct fire weapon benefits wrapped into one. And that would make a balanced weapon for you.
Am I right ?
Aim64C, on 03 June 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:
Negative.
There are numerous instances of literally no damage registering to an enemy mech being hit by over 100 missiles from two separate firing mechs.
We have direct visual confirmation - an 80% missile hit rate is a conservative estimate. That's 72 points of damage that should be distributed across those mechs... somewhere - much of it probable in the torso regions (so easily 15 points of damage to each of the torsos - 1.5 PPCs for comparison).
Whatever damage is showing at the end is not the damage that is being applied in the game.
And you know this because... How do you know that the damage you don't see on the mechs is applied in the end statistics ? And vice versa ?
If you are sure about what you describe, that is not intended, and it should be fixed. There's a big difference between a bug and flawed mechanic. If you see missiles hit and apply no damage that's a bug, and I am all for fixing it.
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You are insane.
You would form an opinion from those videos, alone - without your own experience?
Go play as a Catapult in a C4. Then tell me missiles are balanced and where they should be. Your curiosity should be intrigued by such a video - not a determination being made... especially if you have no experience playing the role.
I am not using my own experiences because 1) I have no problem with how missiles work, 2) what would my experiences tell you ? I could be a hundred times better or worse player than you, how would the assessment of my experience help you ?
I use your own experience so we can base our views on the same facts - which I described above.
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This is where you're not understanding, in the slightest, what I am saying.
You are support.
Your JOB is the support of your allies. As a support player - every time one of your team-mates dies, you should be thinking about what you could have done better. True - sometimes, it was just a bad situation that was beyond ability for you to do anything about. Other times - your buddy had a brain fart. Either way - your job is the assistance and protection of your allies.
How can you do that if they all get killed?
How are you supposed to intervene to help them -not- die if it takes 3-5x longer for you to accumulate effective damage on a target?
Exactly. So what you mean by support is rain death from above, just like you would with an "ultra powered gauss, ppc, ac20 build". But you want to do that by standing 500m away from the brawl. Without any chance of the enemy players switching to you and without any detriment to your targeting because they are hoping around brawling with your mates. Ok, Is that what you are telling me, because that is what I am hearing.
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The fact that they have negligible travel time?
The fact that they give no warning?
The fact that -most- of them have no minimum range?
The fact that several of them can reach out beyond 1000 meters?
The fact that they are unaffected by ECM, AMS, and if you can see a mech - it's not going to run behind cover before your salvo hits?
You forget though to mention the other facts that work against them.
The fact you are just as exposed - by definition - as your target. The fact that when you are in the "minimum" range every shot the opponent takes is usually a hit. The fact that beyond 800m there is a rather severe damage falloff, and that's for the ERPPC, ER Laser, Gauss and AC/2, the rest are worse, or simply, short range only. The fact the beyond 500-600m it's almost impossible to land a hit on a moving target - especially if you are moving too. The fact that your target can also torso twist and thus your precious damage is spread.The fact that direct fire weapons do not need ECM, AMS etc to counter, because all you need is to actually pilot the mech.
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So... what you're saying is this:
If you want to kill something... use an AC10/20, PPC, Gauss Rifle, Laser bank, etc. You'll easily deal over 40 points of damage to a single armor section (assuming you know what you're doing) in a 10 second time-frame.
If you want to deal damage - play LRMs, where after 10 seconds have elapsed, you've managed to get one salvo on target (with a second on the way - assuming lock was held and the mech is not sprinting for cover) and deal 10 points of damage or so to the main 3 armor sections of concern (the torsos).
Hell - some mech designs can put 80 points of damage into that armor section before your 2nd salvo hits.
What's the point? What effect are you -really- contributing to the battle?
You're just there... scoring points, stealing kills (basically).
Just what do you think support is supposed to do?
That is exactly what I am saying, although again, you tend to keep the parts you like and discard the ones you don't:
If you want to deal location specific damage, while being exposed, while having to evade fire while trying to keep your aim (not that I believe that aiming takes a whole lot skill, it's the fact that it severely restricts your possible maneuvering) on your target, which is also torso twisting thus negating your omg 80 point alpha to some extent, the fact that that 80 point alpha can only realistically be done once or twice per brawl - if at all yes, use direct fire weapons.
If you want to simply keep track of the target, instead of actually aiming, if you want to engage without actually committing to the fight, if you want to have the ability to select which ever target is in your range instead of the target that is in your firing arc, and still do comparable (or as your videos show, superior) damage with the tradeoff of it not being localized, then use LRMs.
I will say it again, the effect you contribute is steady fire that softens up targets so that localized damage others do gets to the internals faster. How you think that is useless, is beyond me.
That's what I am saying 4 posts now. But all you can deduct is that direct fire weapons do what you want LRMs to be able to do. Forget about the rest of the features, they are nuances since you don't get epeen kills.
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Please, enlighten me on all the times an LRM player has actually supported your game in the past two weeks.
I remember one time in my Jenner. There was another C4 pilot on my team - he and I were on this Cataphract in Forest Colony out by where "kappa" normally spawns.
Several volleys of at least 30 missiles, each, slammed into this thing as I'm dancing around him. He's doing a good job of torso-twisting and keeping me from hitting the parts I want - but I distinctly recall at least four salvos out of several making -very- good connection.
Just... how many salvos should it take? The amount of damage he was doing was completely negligible. I would have killed that cataphract in about the same amount of time whether he helped, or not.
By the way - I out-damaged that C4 in my Jenner - yet the amount of damage it -should- have done by what I was seeing and by what the math says... should have been comparable to the amount of damage that I ended up with during the match - just in that cataphract (I often run about the 300 range for my Jenner - which is higher than it should be - I'm wasting too many of my laser shots on parts that don't matter).
So let's see, a light mech and a support role heavy mech, defeat a heavy mech. Is that what you are telling me happened ? Why should the Jenner that is risking his neck and actually doing a whole lot more than acquiring lock and chain firing do less damage than the C4 ? And you did kill him right ? I mean what would be a better outcome ? The jenner approaching and standing on a heap of scrap metal left by the first two salvos the C4 let lose ? Please enlighten as to how that engagement would have been more balanced. As to whether you could solo kill him in the same amount of time, I simply do not believe you nor anyone else would, I am sorry.
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Nothing that I can't do better with my Jenner. For comparison - within 10 seconds, I can deal 60 points of damage with my Jenner (to a single point if I'm close enough) using 6 tons of equipment and some supporting heatsinks (we'll say 12 tons, total). I can just about match... even out-pace my DPS in my Catapult with my Jenner using a fraction of the tonnage and in a chassis that can move nearly twice as fast.
Why don't I out-DPS it? Because, interestingly enough, when you apply 20 points of damage to the same general area of a mech consistently every 3 seconds or so, it tends to die pretty damned fast - and you have to find something else to shoot at that, preferably, can't shoot back.
Here we go again. In order to do that with the Jenner, either you or your target must be standing still in range of 270m. Either way, either of you is doing something wrong, or simply your target is engaged with someone else, which brings a third mech into the equation. Btw, since you are engaging in a Jenner, your target transmits your position and data to all of this team. Why should your Jenner do less damage than our Catapult that rains missiles on that same target from 500m+ away with no direct threat to it ? Would that be balanced ? Just because the Catapult has devoted more tonnage to it's weapon system ?
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My survivability is a testament to my experience and, on occasion, the lack of skill or oganization of my opponents. It's rarely ever because of the weapon system I am using (please, tell me how my selection of weapon is keeping me safe from my enemy's weapon selection). If I'm among the first to go - it's because I was foolish and opened myself up far too much.
Don't fool yourself. Your survivalability is ALWAYS a testament to your experience, your teammates' and your opponents'. If you suck, your teammates suck or your opponents are skilled and organized, you are going to get stomped over no matter your loadout, mech, map, etc etc. When I 4 man with buddies, the first thing we do is dispatch someone to harass or take out the LRM boat while the other three wolfpack some poor guy. Guess why we don't stay all four on one, ignoring the LRMs, even though we squeeze AMS everywhere we can.
Volthorne, on 03 June 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:
I would LOVE to hear the reasoning behind this. Please, tell me why indirect-fire weapons shouldn't be killing things, or making people run for cover. If a Demoman in TF2 start bouncing grenades around a corner you sure as hell run away (oh look, indirect-fire weapons being scary!). If I drop a claymore in <insert generic FPS here> and someone runs by and gets blown the hell up, that's ALSO indirect-fire in the form of traps. Or how about HALO? Grenades get kills all the time, or was there a patch recently that made them into spitballs? *goes to check the Fails of the Weak from this weekend* Nope, grenades are STILL killing people, and they count as indirect-fire.
Because this is a mechwarrior game, not the other games you mention. The weapons you mention have nothing to do with LRMs even remotely. If we get anti-mech mines or grenades, I would expect them to work as you describe - more or less.
Unless of course you want all the games you play to have weapons that feel and behave exactly the same way with just a couple of name changes.
Dimstog, I see a lot of talking coming out the wrong end of your body and strawmen everywhere. Thank you for proving exactly why LRMs are in the situation they are currently: because of people like you.
The devs have already dealt with this. You see - LRMs do exactly what they should.
Real fire support comes from consumables, you see.
But... you see... this is perfectly balanced.
Before, support was useless because everyone was making use of those legs and engines in battlemechs. The devs have fixed that with the current weapon balance, which makes consumable support a valid option for driving hostile mechs out of cover and into your sights for your one-shot kill of triumph and burst of adrenaline.
Be proud, warrior!
You're wrong. Neither do lrm exactly what they should nor are they perfectly balanced with other weapons. Maybe they were balanced (though surely not "perfectly") right after the patch on may 21st. But the hot"fix" ruined it again. BUT don't get me wrong. I know that the missile spread was still wrong after the patch on may 21st and I agree that something had to be done, only it should've been the introduction of a fixes missile spread instead of a nerf or lrm in general.
Im going to toss my few views on this matter after reading all the posts. Like or dont its up to you.
a) Artemis works as intended, but has weird effect most of the time:
* With artemis my typical Stalker build is LRM5, 10, 15 and 20 and alot of LRM ammo (1470 I think or so) and 4 ML's
Results: damage to to be stable around 200-300 but never over 350 on PUG game, due as I understand AMS counters you alot more effiently.
* Rip out the artemis and change LRM5 to LRM10 and the rest stays the same.
Results: My damage is now never under 250 and goes sometimes over 500. The damage varies alot.
Conclusion Artemis isnt worth atm due it doesnt do what is says or there is some weird bug how artemis and enemies AMS works, second thing that removing artemis does is that you get about 1-1.5 kills more per every 5 games more due the LRM hit "wider area"
The job of "good old support" has dimished while now you get kills that you didnt get before. In my book I try to run with the lights that cap and "scout" to help em out little bit. And the game gets older to find these wounded enemies and simply toss few LRM barrages to finish them off.
c) Firing sequence (did I type that right) seems to have greater impact than I thought. Ergo I always toss LRM5+LRM10 (or twin LRM10's) then after maybe a second blow LRM15+20 after And seems to have impact and alot, dont know why its it AMS's or what, but in damage wise this seems to work.
I think the big fallacy in this "evidence" is that people say "I routinely do 700+ damage. Every game? "Well, no sometimes i get swarmed by lights or the enemy pushes well"
OK, so you do 700+ damage when your team wins? Of course you do! At some point, the losing team goes into a death spiral and the last bits of damage people accrue is only, to be fair, stat padding. Whoever has the best angle or range on the last poor ******* on the losing side will have the highest stats.
When the enemy team just rolls in one-by-one, the same thing applies. Whoever has the range will get the licks.
You guys who routinely score 700+ damage with LRM boats, surely you are skilled players? I mean, any old fart couldn't jump into the same LRM build and score 700+ damage per match, right? Are you as skilled with a poptart sniper build? I'd like to see what you can accomplish with a poptart sniper build, or a brawler build...
I'm a fairly green player, I like to run a 3x UAC5 build, with which i would "routinely" score ~600 damage (if we win), routinely score ~200 damage (if we lose), less if i derp up. If i were to jump into an LRM boat, i would probably score around 100 - 200 win or lose. If you ask a player like me, then, I would say that LRM sucks. If i jump into a sniper PPC build, i would probably score 400 - 500, and say that PPC builds are great!
What i'm getting to is that LRM builds are not as straightforward to master as a direct fire equivalent. But how do you prove that neither is OP, nor UP?
The whole point is that, IF you can get out of the way of the lights and fasties then you doing something right. I can tell you that LRM Boating Stalker is bit more reading the game from moment 1 to the end, because dodging those lil fasties and still getting that decent damage done isnt as easy you might think.
Sometimes you see that everyone is moving in big group towards target a or what ever and moving with em nearly impossible while LRM'ing due you need to flank and get distance (best at 500m's I think) to get best aims and not to loose every LRM salvo just because someone lost LOS.
I can tell you that LRM'ing isnt as fast paced or tricky as some medium pilotting, but have it ups and downs.
You're wrong. Neither do lrm exactly what they should nor are they perfectly balanced with other weapons. Maybe they were balanced (though surely not "perfectly") right after the patch on may 21st. But the hot"fix" ruined it again. BUT don't get me wrong. I know that the missile spread was still wrong after the patch on may 21st and I agree that something had to be done, only it should've been the introduction of a fixes missile spread instead of a nerf or lrm in general.
He was being sarcastic on purpose. Reductio ad absurdum (google it).
You're wrong. Neither do lrm exactly what they should nor are they perfectly balanced with other weapons. Maybe they were balanced (though surely not "perfectly") right after the patch on may 21st. But the hot"fix" ruined it again. BUT don't get me wrong. I know that the missile spread was still wrong after the patch on may 21st and I agree that something had to be done, only it should've been the introduction of a fixes missile spread instead of a nerf or lrm in general.
I was merely giving the developers' perspective on things.
Why have support mechs that can compete with the incentive to either flat-out purchase consumable items or 'pay for the convenience' of XP conversion?
Why have scout mechs that provide more information to the team? Just put in a consumable that fills the role.
my mistake, read your thread in a hurry should have regarded the smiley and the consumables... I'm just so tired of this dispute about lrm being op or balanced because at least until today that wasn't the fact. Now I'm trying today's patch and we'll see (probably some whiners again due to the dmg-update)...
This is what I don't understand. You guys want all the LRM benefits and all the direct fire weapon benefits wrapped into one. And that would make a balanced weapon for you.
Am I right ?
No.
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And you know this because... How do you know that the damage you don't see on the mechs is applied in the end statistics ? And vice versa ?
If you are sure about what you describe, that is not intended, and it should be fixed. There's a big difference between a bug and flawed mechanic. If you see missiles hit and apply no damage that's a bug, and I am all for fixing it.
I am not using my own experiences because 1) I have no problem with how missiles work, 2) what would my experiences tell you ? I could be a hundred times better or worse player than you, how would the assessment of my experience help you ?
I use your own experience so we can base our views on the same facts - which I described above.
I tell you the water is cold. You insist the water is hot, yet tell me that you only need to rely upon seeing me stick my foot in the water.
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Exactly. So what you mean by support is rain death from above, just like you would with an "ultra powered gauss, ppc, ac20 build". But you want to do that by standing 500m away from the brawl. Without any chance of the enemy players switching to you and without any detriment to your targeting because they are hoping around brawling with your mates. Ok, Is that what you are telling me, because that is what I am hearing.
You're not comprehending.
The reason I bring up these other builds is because they are a factor in the game. They are "brawlers" that can chew through multiple opponents in rapid succession.
Your JOB as fire-support is to support your team. The real world isn't where you can sit back and fire missiles into the enemy. There's a thing called cover that they like to sit behind. The game tends to move in surges. Once the surge begins - you need to be ready to deal with it. If you can't - you're useless. If LRMs are build around "slowly applying damage" - then you are useless before the surge (because you can't hit anything) and you're useless when the surge begins - because mechs drop and drop fast.
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You forget though to mention the other facts that work against them.
The fact you are just as exposed - by definition - as your target. The fact that when you are in the "minimum" range every shot the opponent takes is usually a hit. The fact that beyond 800m there is a rather severe damage falloff, and that's for the ERPPC, ER Laser, Gauss and AC/2, the rest are worse, or simply, short range only. The fact the beyond 500-600m it's almost impossible to land a hit on a moving target - especially if you are moving too. The fact that your target can also torso twist and thus your precious damage is spread.The fact that direct fire weapons do not need ECM, AMS etc to counter, because all you need is to actually pilot the mech.
And the same does not apply for LRMs?
In general practice - the only direct fire weapons you actively -respond- to are lasers. At extreme ranges, you can twitch-defend against some ballistics - but most of your piloting to avoid fire is just preemptive piloting. You're making it difficult to predict where to shoot to hit you - not actually dodging fire.
LRM tracking is a little better than it used to be, it seems - but I would regularly dodge TAGed ALRMs in my C4 while staring down an LRM awesome.
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That is exactly what I am saying, although again, you tend to keep the parts you like and discard the ones you don't:
If you want to deal location specific damage, while being exposed, while having to evade fire while trying to keep your aim (not that I believe that aiming takes a whole lot skill, it's the fact that it severely restricts your possible maneuvering) on your target, which is also torso twisting thus negating your omg 80 point alpha to some extent, the fact that that 80 point alpha can only realistically be done once or twice per brawl - if at all yes, use direct fire weapons.
If you want to simply keep track of the target, instead of actually aiming, if you want to engage without actually committing to the fight, if you want to have the ability to select which ever target is in your range instead of the target that is in your firing arc, and still do comparable (or as your videos show, superior) damage with the tradeoff of it not being localized, then use LRMs.
All you look at is the end of damage statistics and draw a conclusion. You're not really looking at the gameplay. At the fact that 6 salvos connected with that Jeagermech that was also being shot at by my team... and it finally died due to center torso destruction while still having considerable armor on its side torsos. 6 salvos of 40 missiles. 240 missiles - 216 points of damage - roughly half of my end-of-match score. And he was damaged before I began engaging him.
Half of my score came from the attempt to kill one mech, and it took something in the neighborhood of 40 seconds with support from my team.
And you call that "superior?"
Then, the Jeagermech right after it took a single salvo from my mech about the same time as one of my team twitch-shot the **** out of it - and a second follow-on shot dropped it. It was exposed to fire for maybe 6 seconds.
Where that guy was when we were dealing with the first jeager, I don't know. But you want me to support my team... when it takes me several times as long to assist in dealing with the same target... when I could just choose a jeager and drop the thing in a few moments (in an instant if I'm paired with another heavy hitter).
We can sit and babble all day about theoretical application of weapons - the facts of reality are right there.
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I will say it again, the effect you contribute is steady fire that softens up targets so that localized damage others do gets to the internals faster. How you think that is useless, is beyond me.
Because it's not real. Tell me of all the instances where you've had your LRM pilot drop missiles onto a target for you so that it would be easier to move in and kill it. How many games have consisted of effective LRM "softening."
They don't exist against anything other than static targets. In the real world - it's a moving engagement. A hunchback is in tight on one of your mediums and you need to help offset its killing potential by cracking its armor. You don't have too many recycles of its weapon to accomplish the goal. Which means you can't sit there and rain 6 salvos on it and do nothing. If we're dealing with competent pilots on the whole.
Or you've got an Atlas spearheading the surge that's trying to blow through your line. Your job as fire support (in this case, direct or indirect) is to crack it. You can't rain 15 salvos into the thing. Your team doesn't have time.
You don't need to be doing the same concentrated damage as an AC20 - but you need to be able to turn the tables for mechs on your team that don't have the ability to crack armor in a reasonable amount of time.
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That's what I am saying 4 posts now. But all you can deduct is that direct fire weapons do what you want LRMs to be able to do. Forget about the rest of the features, they are nuances since you don't get epeen kills.
Yep. I -really- care about making kills.
Damned little guys - always in my way - taking the kills that should be mine!
*rolls eyes*
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So let's see, a light mech and a support role heavy mech, defeat a heavy mech. Is that what you are telling me happened ? Why should the Jenner that is risking his neck and actually doing a whole lot more than acquiring lock and chain firing do less damage than the C4 ? And you did kill him right ? I mean what would be a better outcome ? The jenner approaching and standing on a heap of scrap metal left by the first two salvos the C4 let lose ? Please enlighten as to how that engagement would have been more balanced. As to whether you could solo kill him in the same amount of time, I simply do not believe you nor anyone else would, I am sorry.
I'm actually having difficulty making sense of your argument, here. I don't think you understood my own statement.
What support was I really offering to my team. At what point during that engagement did you see my salvos making it easier for my team to kill him?
Sure - I ultimately got the kill - but that's hardly what matters. You seem to be focused heavily on the fact that I did a lot of damage and got two kills, largely by happenstance (the Catapult had exposed internals and still took 5 salvos while largely stationary).
The kills in support roles are largely collateral kills. You're not really there for the kill - you're just firing in support to collectively drop something - and, oh look - you got the kill.
It's not like playing a Jenner where you're clipping a torso section or simply going straight for the CT. Your goal is to make a kill or neutralizing shot (though not necessarily over your team).
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Here we go again. In order to do that with the Jenner, either you or your target must be standing still in range of 270m. Either way, either of you is doing something wrong, or simply your target is engaged with someone else, which brings a third mech into the equation. Btw, since you are engaging in a Jenner, your target transmits your position and data to all of this team. Why should your Jenner do less damage than our Catapult that rains missiles on that same target from 500m+ away with no direct threat to it ? Would that be balanced ? Just because the Catapult has devoted more tonnage to it's weapon system ?
I'm far from the best Jenner pilot - but I have an accuracy rating with my medium lasers of 95% and an average damage of 2.86 damage per hit. Room for improvement, to be certain - but not bad.
That's a run of mine with a Jenner. Not one of my best. Not one of my worst. The 'meta' has changed a bit - PPCs and Gauss have take on an entirely different meaning to my Jenner.
But it's not really difficult to have a decent run in a Jenner. Average damage is 295.03 per drop, and average a little over one kill per drop.
By comparison, my average damage in my C4 is 343.67 per drop, and a little under one kill per drop.
My C1 (which I played far more of after statistics were collected) averages 355.38 damage per drop with an average of about 0.9 kills per drop.
Dimstog, I see a lot of talking coming out the wrong end of your body and strawmen everywhere. Thank you for proving exactly why LRMs are in the situation they are currently: because of people like you.
Dude, we are having a surprisingly civilized discussion here. Either spare us the one sentence profound philosophy of yours, or learn to talk, it will help you in life.
Aim64C, on 04 June 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:
That's a run of mine with a Jenner. Not one of my best. Not one of my worst. The 'meta' has changed a bit - PPCs and Gauss have take on an entirely different meaning to my Jenner.
But it's not really difficult to have a decent run in a Jenner. Average damage is 295.03 per drop, and average a little over one kill per drop.
By comparison, my average damage in my C4 is 343.67 per drop, and a little under one kill per drop.
My C1 (which I played far more of after statistics were collected) averages 355.38 damage per drop with an average of about 0.9 kills per drop.
My statistics disagree with your assertions.
Mate, you are still not getting what I am saying. But, I'll try to make this move forward a bit.
What exactly do you want changed ?
You do understand, that based on your own experiences which you admirably take the time to present to us - honestly, no sarcasm - any change for the better in the LRMs would make you, personally, in all the matches you videoed, lord of the hill, king of the battlefield. From what you have shown us, in all your videos (yes, I watched the ones in your other thread as well), apart from the ones you have been steamrolled as a team, you are doing fine. More than fine actually. So you do understand that making the platform better would simply make you overpowered in relation to your teammates - again with the general assumption that the matchfinder matches players with more or less equal skill.
Even the statistics you give at the end of this post, show that. Your C4 is doing better than your Jenner. And you want your C4 to become even better ? I don't get it. It can't be about kills because you made fun of me when I mentioned kills. So, 343.67 better than 295.03, C4 is better than Jenner, right ? That tells me.... buff Jenners.
Also I don't understand why you keep comparing what your Jenner does with what your Catapult does. They are totally different mechs with totally different playstyles with totally different roles - that last one could be argued though the way the game is setup right now. How could they possibly be able to do the same thing or end up with the same statistics ?
Personally I find the LRMs to be about right sort of.
In the present meta of 1/50 players equipping AMS and 1/12 having ECM, and 1/2 walking around in the open saying shoot me please. LRMs are slightly overpowered.
In a meta of 1/4 players equipping AMS and 1/8 having ECM, and 1/4 walking around in the open saying shoot me please. (I suspect this in a week or two). I think they will again be SLIGHTLY underpowered.
If they fix the hit registration. bug which randomly seems to nullify 20% of volleys, and the damage dealt bug/bugs which reduce damage from hits by 15%. Then they might be balanced or might be overpowered again.
None of these situations is having them be bad, and none is having them be OMG DEATH IS FALLING FROM THE SKY.
also they are probably slightly OP vs assaults, and absurdly weak vs lights, this appears to be caused by some of the bugs so it is difficult to say how balance will be if they get fixed. I suspect once all bugs are fixed damage will need reduced back to 1 per missile. http://mwomercs.com/...-damagescreens/ this is a more recent and up to date thread on this same topic by same person but with newer better data.
Mate, you are still not getting what I am saying. But, I'll try to make this move forward a bit.
What exactly do you want changed ?
Actually - if I had my way - missiles would be completely reworked from the ground up. Old battletech and hollyweird ideas of missile behavior would be tossed out the window, and the MWO application would be adapted from real-world missile behavior.
To do all of it justice, I'd really have to create a whole new post with more details and with some better made graphical representations. Some ideas have been dropped - other ideas have been worked in.
One of the plagues of LRM balance since the beginning has been a lack of consistency. Raise damage and mediums get blown to pieces in a heartbeat. Lower damage, and you may as well not take the things because they're only marginally useful against heavies and the mediums you can hit. Decrease swarm diameter and you're auto-coring assaults and disintegrating medium torsos. Increase homing to improve performance against lights - and mediums are again one of the hardest hit victims.
I'm honestly convinced that, without some considerable revisions to the mechanics, LRMs will be impossible to really balance because of the way they work in the game (which is flying in a coherent mass of explosion). One chassis or another will end up on a substantially shorter end of the stick than the others - most likely assaults (with their larger center torsos, much lower maneuverability, and relatively minor increase in armor potential compared to the percentage jump from mediums to heavies despite the potential for solid mobility/maneuverability).
Nothing you do to the metrics of the swarms, nothing you do to the tracking ability of missiles, nothing you do to the damage of missiles can really change this.
So, you take a card from real-world missiles:
This one is really interesting:
The LRM in MechWarrior has a range (and probable size) comparable to the Javelin man-portable missile system:
But that's a little more like an Arrow IV artillery missile in terms of what it does - so we need to take clues from another class of missile:
That's strategic fire support used to "soften enemies up" for invasion.
But that's getting a little unfair. Missiles dominate today's battlefield because they are extremely efficient and offer one-shot-one-kill potential... which is not very balanced for gameplay. For the answer, we need to increase the challenge - which is a challenge missiles have adapted to:
Multiple challenges exist in defeating aerial threats using missiles. One of them being the ability to put a missile into the target - when you think about the distances involved - they are stupidly extreme. Just getting the missile -close- to the target is a challenge. Which is why missiles don't usually hit their target. They explode to create a cone of shrapnel.
Considering that a 'mech is a sort of goofy target to resolve using microwave bands (complex telemetry and returns) and the fact that you need a relatively affordable yet effective system to engage mechs with, and cones of shrapnel are like sandblasting a mech... it's also probably not worthwhile to have a missile designed to home in on the center torso of a mech and blow it right the hell up in one shot (well, actually, it would... but we'll call Lostech on that one).
So, we do the sensible thing, and volley-fire standard shaped charges and reduce tracking resolution.
Missiles should behave according to realistic kinematics - the launch, thrust (accelerate), and coast (decelerate through atmosphere) into their target (unless it is really close). So long as missiles have the kinetic energy - they continue to attempt to make course corrections that put them on an intercept with the target (note: they do not "chase" a target):
Obviously, however, if they have lost too much kinetic energy to reach the target - they do not, and hit the ground.
Missile kinematics should be balanced so that, assuming the target is on a level playing field, the LRMs will have just enough kinetic energy to deliver them to a region of space roughly 20 meters above the point 1000 meters away with a velocity of roughly 150 meters per second (for InnerSphere, at least). Elevation differences would alter viable engagement range - slightly extending it for targets below the launch vehicle, shortening it considerably for targets above the launch vehicle. Maneuvering at extreme distances would, also, negatively impact effective range.
It is worth noting that, to fit with gameplay - some of the simulation may have to be arbitrary. Gravity forces applied to missiles may have to be considerably higher to make missile flight times more acceptable (would require more thrust to accelerate which gives higher velocities), as could "target velocity at target" settings (dropping it would reduce kinetic energy requirements, reduce plausible range, and increase flight time).
However - Missiles should behave according to a realistic guidance algorithm using a form of proportional navigation:
Surface-to-Surface algorithms differ slightly from air-to-air, because of the differences in practicable target maneuvering - but you get the picture.
"Aim, you're scaring me... you want missiles to essentially auto-hit stuff?"
Not exactly. Remember - that's been established as arbitrarily difficult to accomplish.
Instead, we volley-fire missiles in rapid tandem succession and have them guide along a general intercept course. Where most missiles would activate a 'terminal guidance' phase that homes them in specifically on the target - our swarm spreads out over a cone of unguided trajectories. The specifics of those metrics would have to be adjusted - as could things like desired approach angle, whether or not the system attempts to compensate for terrain (and to what degree), etc.
Basically, the missiles would 'shotgun' over a cone that is larger than even assault mechs. Smaller mechs would take fewer missiles, larger mechs would take more missiles - but the effect could be made to be fairly consistent in terms of proportional damage across most weight classes, disregarding target evasion skill. Tandem volley fire is used for two reasons - first, because simultaneous launching of missiles in close proximity is not realistic. Fluid dynamics precludes such systems from functioning (as the missiles would create a low pressure zone between them which would cause the missiles to clump together and knock into each other). Some chassis would be able to get away with firing 2 or 3 missiles from their mounts simultaneously - but that should be mostly restricted to those that are designed with fire support as a primary role (some arbitration is allowed here).
AMS effectiveness would be improved, as would receiving pilot damage control.
Per-missile damage would have to be play-tested considerably. I imagine you could bump it up to about 2.0 per missile under that system (if the scatter cone is working as it should) and still be hard-hitting enough to be worth the investment - but not so powerful as to be unmanageable.
The key thing to remember here is that the missiles actually stop guiding at their terminal range, and simply scatter along a randomly defined vector assigned by probability (one could even tweak the probability of missiles selecting given vectors - so you could decrease probability of missiles selecting a given range of vectors if necessary). Current missiles guide through to impact - which is just a recipie for bad in a game like this.
TAG can tighten the vector probability (as can NARC - which should also enable fire-and-forget functionality for LRMs - why the hell would anyone carry a NARC when it is inferior to TAG and takes up stupid amounts of space and weight?). Artemis, I'm thinking, should enable a more direct-fire mode when LOS is present. Missiles will assume a far less ballistic arc (reducing their effective range) and take a direct gravity-compensated PN guidance to the target (identical to air-to-air) with a similar vector probability cone (scatter cone - I just like how my use of terms evolves over the course of a discussion).
TAG and Artemis should not stack bonuses.
This would compound across a number of these ideas:
Though those concepts have evolved a bit, as well.
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You do understand, that based on your own experiences which you admirably take the time to present to us - honestly, no sarcasm - any change for the better in the LRMs would make you, personally, in all the matches you videoed, lord of the hill, king of the battlefield. From what you have shown us, in all your videos (yes, I watched the ones in your other thread as well), apart from the ones you have been steamrolled as a team, you are doing fine. More than fine actually. So you do understand that making the platform better would simply make you overpowered in relation to your teammates - again with the general assumption that the matchfinder matches players with more or less equal skill.
Considering my W/L ratio in most of my designs is considerably above 1.0 - I don't think I've settled into my ELO, yet (that... and the K/D ratio). Though I might have to join team games rather than simply running PUGs before my ELO would become accurate.
Because unless something changes in PUGs... I don't think there's much help for them:
I mean... I suppose I could mount all flamers on the thing. I already kind of throw my piloting to the side (though, to be honest, I was used to the Jenner, there, and don't have my proficiencies unlocked - so I don't think I did too terribly bad for my first two drops... spare for the time I learned just how fast I can hit my heat limit, and I spent a few seconds walking into a wall like an *****).
I'm looking forward to building a dual-gauss assault with proper backup weapons (because I refuse to compromise to do such a thing in a heavy chassis)... once that becomes viable in the mech lineup. I'd like to get some practice in with long range shots (as it's the area I'm lacking in).
Anyway - the point is that those catapults are my original builds. I've played them since the start of MWO and have tuned them to my play-style which attempts to squeeze good performance and effectiveness out of them. I don't believe I'm the best pilot out there (despite the chip I carry on my shoulder) - or anything close... but the only thing that really gives me challenges in PUG matches are when we have a teamed group run through (and teamwork trumps build, ELO, etc) - I still fare better than most of the people on my team... but structured teams are a bit of a different beast - and I hold no delusions that my strategic play style would be forced to make some radical changes (in most of my chassis) to adjust.
You seem to be forgetting the main problem, here. Missile damage is demonstrably inconsistent - occasionally not registering damage anywhere near what it should if we take the missile damage numbers into account. I don't feel "robbed" of anything by these glitches - other than consistency that can be used to determine game balance and to play the game.
I knew about how many salvos it took to crack a cataphract, atlas, etc before they implemented splash. With the way things are, currently - you may splash a Jeager in 4 volleys... or you may pump 6+ volleys into the thing and have hardly anything happen.
So, that really needs to be addressed before we start discussing whether or not they do enough damage... because, right now, they appear to do damage that's anywhere from half to a quarter-again what they are stated to. And you can't balance around that.
Though I have to say that firing 6 volleys into a heavy in order to crack it is too much (at 40 missiles/volley).
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Even the statistics you give at the end of this post, show that. Your C4 is doing better than your Jenner. And you want your C4 to become even better ? I don't get it. It can't be about kills because you made fun of me when I mentioned kills. So, 343.67 better than 295.03, C4 is better than Jenner, right ? That tells me.... buff Jenners.
The Catapult is a fire support distributed damage mech. The Jenner is a direct fire skirmisher with point-and-rake damage dealing (though most of my rakes don't contribute much to my damage average).
The difference in average damage between my Jenner and my fire support mech is roughly 50 points.... or one 40 missile volley (give or take) or 2-3 taps of my right mouse button in my Jenner.
Which mech would you want to encounter me in?
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Also I don't understand why you keep comparing what your Jenner does with what your Catapult does. They are totally different mechs with totally different playstyles with totally different roles - that last one could be argued though the way the game is setup right now. How could they possibly be able to do the same thing or end up with the same statistics ?
You're telling me that the 50 point difference in average damage (distributed) advantage is at all comparable to the lower, but more precise damage capability of a mech with half the tonnage, nearly twice the speed, and no ammunition restrictions?
Granted - that could just mean I ******* suck with the C4... but I find that somewhat doubtful. Perhaps not the best or most effective... but at least slightly below average, am I.
Take whatever damage I've got and cut it to about 70% and divide that by 3 (along the three torsos those salvos will damage). that's how comparably effective I am.
I'm not saying that needs to be the same as the Jenner. I'm saying that whatever the hell it does - it needs to be consistent, and enough to knock armor off of a mech within a useful amount of time for your alies. That means your damage does need to be somewhat higher - because you're getting a few points for dealing damage to an arm that no one will ever shoot at (and a few for each leg, and the other arm... and maybe a few more for each torso section).
You could rack up a stupidly high amount of damage if you had a "sonic boom" weapon that did 1 point of damage to all hostile mechs' armor sections on the map. But would you be effective?
Maybe if you get to recycle the weapon 80 times. Not that your allies who encounter the enemy when you've only had a chance to mash the button 5 times are really going to feel the 315 points of damage you've made make much of a difference.
That's the flaw with your view of fire support. It's not about damage numbers at the end of the round - it's about what kind of difference you can make on the field for your team. Sure - you have to balance the needs of the fire support role with the needs of the hapless mech on the receiving end to make the game enjoyable - but that's where teamwork comes into play.
You want to draw your enemies out from under their fire support's umbrella. You want to harass their fire support or keep it pinned while you ravage their brawling line.
This game should never embrace the notion of: "Bring the player, not the class." At least when it comes to game balancing aspects. It's supposed to be a squad based game with an emphasis on teamwork. That's what the weapon and role balance needs to be decided around (outside of damage application consistency).
... And I've spent a long *** time on this post....
Since you want to try a 2 Gauss build but not on a heavy I will suggest my ER Boom Bug design. (I hope you are a very good shot, oh and um BRAVE!!!!! {read incredibly stupid})
Btw my much simpler solution is have missiles lock onto different components of the enemy mech, then spread slightly as they get near the enemy mech, (instead of all targeting CT and spreading from there) This should provide a fairly good spread across the enemy mech no matter what its size. (or target each volley from each launcher at a seperate component if each missile take too much processing time)
Before that though as you mentioned they NEED to fix the bugs before it can be balanced, if damage is random and hit detection is wonky its very hard to do the fine tweaking to balance and spread.
My god Aim, I think you are overthinking this a bit. I will blatantly avoid commenting on your theory and practical stuff, which is admittedly an excellent piece of research and a very interesting read, thank you for that.
I will also avoid commenting on your suggestions, since although even more admirable, I really doubt PGI would ever rework the whole missile mechanic - nor should they, I think.
I will just keep this:
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One of the plagues of LRM balance since the beginning has been a lack of consistency. Raise damage and mediums get blown to pieces in a heartbeat. Lower damage, and you may as well not take the things because they're only marginally useful against heavies and the mediums you can hit. Decrease swarm diameter and you're auto-coring assaults and disintegrating medium torsos. Increase homing to improve performance against lights - and mediums are again one of the hardest hit victims.
I think the main problem is not LRM balance, but chassis balance. Just as you can't balance PPC when some loadouts carry 1 PPC and some other loadout carries 6 PPCs. You can't balance the difference between the two, with a blanket nerf or buff to the PPC. In exactly the same fashion, you can't balance LRMs when you have one platform shooting 30 missiles at a target and another shooting 60 or 80.
So maybe before trying to balance LRMs, PGI should prioritize balancing the loadouts and then the weapons themselves.
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You seem to be forgetting the main problem, here. Missile damage is demonstrably inconsistent - occasionally not registering damage anywhere near what it should if we take the missile damage numbers into account. I don't feel "robbed" of anything by these glitches - other than consistency that can be used to determine game balance and to play the game.
I won't argue that, but from what we can gather, this doesn't have to do with LRMs per se, but with netcode, hit detection, hit boxes, etc etc. We can't buff or nerf missiles because the engine doesn't register the hits. Once those problems are fixed, then we can talk about LRMs themselves.
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The difference in average damage between my Jenner and my fire support mech is roughly 50 points.... or one 40 missile volley (give or take) or 2-3 taps of my right mouse button in my Jenner.
Which mech would you want to encounter me in?
Ehm, that totally depends on what Mech I am in, I can't answer that tbh.
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You're telling me that the 50 point difference in average damage (distributed) advantage is at all comparable to the lower, but more precise damage capability of a mech with half the tonnage, nearly twice the speed, and no ammunition restrictions?
Granted - that could just mean I ******* suck with the C4... but I find that somewhat doubtful. Perhaps not the best or most effective... but at least slightly below average, am I.
Take whatever damage I've got and cut it to about 70% and divide that by 3 (along the three torsos those salvos will damage). that's how comparably effective I am.
From what I can tell, PGI is trying very hard to make all mechs equal when it comes to damage output. I personally do not agree with this, I find it funny - if not ridiculous - that a light can mount 6 ml or 1 erppc, and at the end of the match do as much damage as an assault because of the speed invulnerability - as opposed to staying power of the heavier chassis. So, in that sense, yes, I find it logical. Not to my personal taste, but I believe it's a design decision, something that has nothing to do with LRMs altogether.
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That's the flaw with your view of fire support. It's not about damage numbers at the end of the round - it's about what kind of difference you can make on the field for your team. Sure - you have to balance the needs of the fire support role with the needs of the hapless mech on the receiving end to make the game enjoyable - but that's where teamwork comes into play.
You want to draw your enemies out from under their fire support's umbrella. You want to harass their fire support or keep it pinned while you ravage their brawling line.
This game should never embrace the notion of: "Bring the player, not the class." At least when it comes to game balancing aspects. It's supposed to be a squad based game with an emphasis on teamwork. That's what the weapon and role balance needs to be decided around (outside of damage application consistency).
But you see, it's not a flaw in my view of fire support. In fact, I am altogether agreeing with you that the game should be "play as your class dictates". However, PGI's view in this matter is quite opposite. No matter what you or I think, it's their game and our only choice is to play it or not. It's also every other player's choice. You can see that in every pug, where you have at least one or two lights sticking behind the assaults so that they can "circle of death" as soon as they make contact instead of actually trying to find the enemy. Why they choose a light mech for that, is beyond me.
What's more, you have to take into account that if your proposed changes were miraculously put in effect, no one would play how you or I would play. What we would have would be another LRM apocalypse. In that sense, I do understand why PGI is sticking to their game philosophy. What's funny is that in 8 vs 8 games, it actually is a lot more efficient to use roles per chassis instead of raw damage output. I expect that to be even more accentuated with CW and 12 v 12. So hopefully, maybe some weapon systems will be balanced towards that kind of gameplay in the (near ?) future.
But right now, where pugging and 4man premades are the rule - well, the only option - I don't think we need a more efficient LRM support platform. It would in effect immediately seize to be "support" and become "FOTM cheezy roflestomp loadout".
PS I've lost the quote where you say that "overall damage doesn't necessarily help your team because it doesn't help bring opponents down as fast as concentrated damage".
Ofc I understand that. What I am arguing is that with the tools PGI is giving you to evaluate your performance in the match (C-Bills and XP), overall damage is equal to lesser but concetrated damage. That's one point view.
Another one, as far as I am concerned, is that there are weapon systems that do more and spread damage and systems that do less and concentrated damage. It's up to the player to decide what he wants to do and choose the respective system. I am opposed to changing every weapon system in doing the same thing, then just giving it a different name and different visual effect.
i don't know if the mini patch changed anything or if my connection just got better, but missiles seam to be more effective in the past few days.
as of now:
--SRM:
still need HSR - most light mechs reliably shrug off more direct hits than the front armor of an atlas.
6xSRM6 will reliably 2 shot or better rear armor of any mech that is caught by surprise (even a pristine atlas) - i think this is where it should be.
--LRM:
very close to where they need to be in my opinion. still a little on the weak side, but an increase of 0.1-0.2 damage per missile should have them about perfect.
something still needs to be done about the ECM umbrella - there are just too many counters to LRM right now, the tag, narc, and bap effects on ECM help, but most mechs that pug won't bother with those if they don't use streaks or LRM themselves because there is no guarantee that there will be LRM on your team and that it won't be wasted tonnage.
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Sephlock, on 03 June 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:
The job of "good old support" has dimished while now you get kills that you didnt get before. In my book I try to run with the lights that cap and "scout" to help em out little bit. And the game gets older to find these wounded enemies and simply toss few LRM barrages to finish them off.
