194 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 01 June 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

My tentative conclusion is that LRM damage needs to go up a goodly bit,

What...?!

An indirect fire weapon, with guided munitions, which never requires you to even get near the enemy, that scores >250 points on average, and you want the damage to go up...?

[Aim64C]

Appogee, on 02 June 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

What...?!

An indirect fire weapon, with guided munitions, which never requires you to even get near the enemy, that scores >250 points on average, and you want the damage to go up...?

I think you'll find some of the videos I'm uploading to be quite revealing.

Sure - my Catapult can out-damage my Jenner. But it can't out-kill it. My Jenner is into the internals of an opponent before my catapult can turn the armor of an opponent orange.

It's kind of silly, when you figure that the incredibly scary 40 missile barrage only deals 10 points of damage (or less, usually) to your torso sections. Ouch. You just got hammered by a few scattered medium lasers. Only need to repeat that about ten times before you see the consequences.

Remember that we get shot at by LRMs, as well. I've gotten away with stupid stunts that I shouldn't have because I was able to eat 160 missiles over 30 seconds or so and walk away with only a few minor bruises. Compared to when I stray too close to an AC 2/5 Jeager for a few seconds and I come out with internals ripped open and am barely staving off a limp.

These aren't just chance happenings I'm talking about. It's relatively consistent (well, spare for me walking around to eat LRMs - plenty of other fools take up that role voluntarily). A close brush with autocannons is nearly fatal before you even know what the hell is going on. You can set a picnic under a shower of LRMs. Bring a few of the buffed AMS, and you can weather a pretty decent storm.

[Wispsy]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 02 June 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

Then I pose the question, why are LRM's the only weapons that require extra systems to function properly?

On top of the massive weight requirements from the systems themselves/ammo.

They've also got the harshest minimum, a max lower than a lot of weapons and two systems dedicated to stopping them. And lets throw in a missile warning.

And lets suppose you are correct and we HAVE to tag Artemis and TAG to be viable, does that means LRM's without them are underpowered?

What would be the point in having TAG and Artemis in the game if they did nothing to missiles...and if missiles where to be balanced around not having TAG and Artemis then missiles would be OP If they were used and they cost a single ton, the same amount as ammo. The LRM20 is 10 tons. This is why it has other factors balancing it. The Gauss is 15 tons for only 15 damage and will explode causing massive damage if pretty much hit with anything at all ever. The AC20 is 14 tons and has only a range of 270m with very small amounts of ammo. Different weapons have different advantages and disadvantages. LRMs weigh less for more damage but hit less unless you invest in some added targeting for a couple of tons then they become very accurate.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Sephlock, on 02 June 2013 - 12:39 AM, said:

Actually I'd wager that Slas and SPLAS could work out better than LRMs on the right build, and MAYBE LBX if you played cautiously and didn't give a **** about winning, just maxxing your damage numbers.

I know from experience that the SL is very powerful in a fast mech, unless your enemy has SSRMs. The problem, of course, is that with the BAP-ECM change, everyone who can take SSRMs now does take SSRMs, so the SL is rendered much less useable than it has been up to now.

[Bobdolemite]

Id quote some things but a lot has been posted since I went to sleep lol!

To clarify a few things:

I chose not to include TAG or Artemis so that this sample would reflect the base damage that LRMS can do without being modified by some other factor other than player/enemy skill and whats happening in the match. (planned to do 10 matches with TAG and Artemis separately and together just for reference and will do so if I have the time before the patch)

I went with 80 since the idea was packing as many LRMS in as possible to create a "worst case scenario" LRM boat - IE you may encounter more but certainly not in any balanced sense IMO 80 is the most u can pack and hope to actually do anything

A 80 LRM stalker is NOTmy cup of tea though I do like LRMS - My favorite setups are 2 x LRM 15 + 2 x LRM 10 with 1080-1200ish ammo - and I typically did around 500 DPS and 2 kills per match back when they worked (pre LRMAGEDDON) - there were always other weapons involved usually ML or some combination with larger weapons, mostly for light defense.

As to the sample size it is extremely small. hoped it would act as a typical snapshot. With sample sizes this small there is greater chance that short term quirks like the teams I was playing would affect the results. In the future I can hope to try a larger size say 20-30 though my time is limited *DOH* - I would imagine given a larger sample size my damage average would be lower most likely substantially so especially if I include matches where I get rolled.

A more accurate estimate of the sample size would be 13 matches (all queued in a row) and I wish now that for posterity I had included screenshots of those matches (It had all somehow made sense in my mind at the time, didnt want to confuse the results with less than all ammo fired) that and screening multiple times was not possible for me since I didnt have a fancy screenshot capture proggy (this would make getting accurate ammo and loadout information for each match difficult - I have since rectified this and future posts will have more proof)

As to mediums with LRMS and other non boat builds, you can get a general idea of their damage potential by dividing down the salvo numbers but im guessing this still only tells half the story. Using 2 x LRM 10 or 2 x LRM 15 is like using nothing at all especially against a smart enemy who uses cover. Factor in AMS and ECM + spread differences in salvo size between 30 and 80 and you quickly notice that their effectiveness drops off as you stop boating them leaving you with a conundrum. Boat and gimp yourself in tonnage / BV or run less and risk being completely negated in terms of usefulness.

Forgot some info about my stalker as well, ill update the main post:

Stalker 3F Fully Mastered (2x basic and elite) - No Modules - No Bap

Im sure I missed something but this post is getting long *retreats back to his cave*

Edited by Bobdolemite, 02 June 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Wispsy, on 02 June 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

What would be the point in having TAG and Artemis in the game if they did nothing to missiles...and if missiles where to be balanced around not having TAG and Artemis then missiles would be OP If they were used and they cost a single ton, the same amount as ammo. The LRM20 is 10 tons. This is why it has other factors balancing it. The Gauss is 15 tons for only 15 damage and will explode causing massive damage if pretty much hit with anything at all ever. The AC20 is 14 tons and has only a range of 270m with very small amounts of ammo. Different weapons have different advantages and disadvantages. LRMs weigh less for more damage but hit less unless you invest in some added targeting for a couple of tons then they become very accurate.

So you are trying to say an LRM 20 with Artemis, 2 tons of Ammo, TAG and Adv. Target Decay (You cannot really LRM without it) are anywhere near equivalent of a Gauss or AC/20? And we both know the AC/20 is still good beyond 270m.

Also neither of those weapons have a warning, major travel time, AMS or ECM to deal with. They also do not have the strictest minimum range of 180m.

The funny thing is Wispy, is I know if I used LRM's against you, I'd never touch you no matter how good I am. You can try to declare otherwise. But you would eat any LRM mech for breakfast.

[Wispsy]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 02 June 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

So you are trying to say an LRM 20 with Artemis, 2 tons of Ammo, TAG and Adv. Target Decay (You cannot really LRM without it) are anywhere near equivalent of a Gauss or AC/20? And we both know the AC/20 is still good beyond 270m.

Also neither of those weapons have a warning, major travel time, AMS or ECM to deal with. They also do not have the strictest minimum range of 180m.

The funny thing is Wispy, is I know if I used LRM's against you, I'd never touch you no matter how good I am. You can try to declare otherwise. But you would eat any LRM mech for breakfast.

Well yes because you have no Gauss or AC20 Ammo so you will do nothing with those weapons compared to the 2tons you already have for 20? shots of your lrm20.

ECM is cancelled by TAG or somebody near them having BAP, if you used TAG then ECM is a non factor. Therefore having TAG can help you outside of having LRMs as well, allows you to target mechs under ECM cover and is great for encouraging focus fire in solo drops. Also if you have TAG and Decay you do not need another one for every extra launcher, one ton/slot to upgrade all of the lockon missile launchers you wish to equip.

This last bit is true. However this has been true since the very start. During all of the times LRMs were broken and OP there were still ways to easily dodge them in a light mech taking no real damage at all whilst remaining in the open. I am not even joking, during the Artemis implementation which headshotted everybody it was almost impossible for an LRM mech to hit a light mech moving right. On top of that every map has decent cover and you have the speed to make it out of los no matter where. The time when LRMs really did once get bad for light mechs was I think when they introduced TAG and people just ran around in 8man teams with 2 scouts and 4+ LRM boats coring an Atlas in under 5 seconds from multiple directions and if a light was caught with TAG and had LRMs coming from more then 2 directions it was impossible to dodge them no matter what you did. Also at this time when LRMs reacquired lock they turned crazy angles and basically acted like SSRMs so skilled LRM users could easily slaughter lights by losing lock then reacquiring it just before the missiles hit the ground and giving them literally no way to escape.
That being said, I imagine if you take an AC20 or a Gauss against me you would also not hit me very much, unless I stand still. I am not that bad at 1v1.

And whilst it is not a hard limit of 90m PPCs also do reduced damage close, so if you happen to get face to face with that weapon it will not do anything either, to balance its damage and tonnage and heat and range. I am not saying balance is perfect but not everything can be balanced in the same ways else all the weapons would basically be the same weapon.

Also I am not saying LRMs are great right now, but having a full LRM boat without putting on TAG or Artemis is asking for low numbers, that is how it is designed!


Edit: Wispsy. Wispy is somebody else entirely.

Edited by Wispsy, 02 June 2013 - 10:37 AM.

[Skyfaller]

Bobdolemite, on 01 June 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

So I got tired of a lot of the baseless claims about weapon balance, which weapons are OP and which weapons are under-rated etc. Decided to go ahead and arm up a true blue LRM boat with as many launchers and ammo as I could carry (while still maintaining a semblance of standard for heat) and just see how well I could do. Ended up with a very slow - very hot Stalker 3F armed with 4 x LRM 20 and 1440 ammo. No TAG or Artemis to complicate things.

On 5/27/2013 I queued 10 matches (PUG Only) and fired all ammo in each match. An honest no BS attempt was made on my part to land every missile I could, and sometimes I was still firing at the end of the longer matches (didnt just spam all my ammo at one time). Since these are not videos you will have to take my word for it (but I swear to its authenticity and lack of bias)

...............

Let the numbers speak for themselves. Do take into consideration though that this is 80 missiles per salvo, many more than you are likely to see in a given match. Back in its heyday my largest salvo was 60 and tended to stray toward 45 in more balanced builds. This is a worst case scenario mech. I may decide to do the same thing this weekend for TAG and Artemis both separately and combined if people are interested. If not ill busy myself just playing =) - Enjoy

You're doing it wrong. Way wrong.

My stalker 5s uses 4 LRM15s with artemis and 1080 ammo. Runs 4 medium lasers and 1 tag. 2AMS as well. BAP+sensor rangex2+target decay x2 modules. Mastered mech.

The LRMs routinely do over 700 damage in a decent match. Decent being I position myself 300m behind my team and only fire when I know my team is brawling with a target (lock is kept) or i have LOS+TAG on someone that is in the open, inside 500m and distracted shooting someone else. I fire only when i know the lrms have a good chance of hitting target.

LRM are really just 'MRM's' thanks to the missile warning system. The warning kills any long range fire aspect of it.

Damage wise the missiles are fine.

No artemis = you fail as lrm boat. No tag = you fail as LRM boat.

[Bobdolemite]

I thought with the amount of ammo I chose originally (1440 - 8 tons) that a build with Artemis and TAG + 4 x LRM 20 would be impossible. Turns out I was wrong.... kind of. Its a rather horrendous build as far as speed and armor is concerned and ill need to test it first to make sure its not just a heat wagon. But the this is it (preliminary):

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b9cace0533631ba

it also has advanced target decay and sensor range module, the only thing I couldnt fit was a BAP (I could sacrifice 1.5 more tons of armor but its probably not very realistic)

Got some family ish to take care of, but after that going to field this thing for the "fully buffed" LRM test. Worried about the 44 kph though, going to be a task to stick with team. Ill take a few of the tidbits I learned from this and hopefully the next data is more complete. (TAG and Artemis separately to follow if I have time/patience)

[Appogee]

Skyfaller, on 02 June 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

The LRMs routinely do over 700 damage in a decent match.

700! And people want to increase their damage, even though they're an indirect fire guided munition?!

(Granted you are shooting from 300m which puts you much closer to the fight than most LRM spammers, which at least should give other Mechs a chance to shoot back at you.)

[Ningyo]

Saying that Tag is a counter for ECM shows you have probably never played with LRMs. TAG is only useful against large slow mechs that stay in the open, or smaller mechs not moving in the open. Maybe 0.5% of the players are good enough to hold tag on a fast moving mech and even those lose it the instant they enter cover. Also if an enemy with ECM has you inside their bubble TAG will not even let you target outside that bubble no matter what.

So while yes TAG does nullify ECM in maybe 20% of situations still the only true counter to ECM for an LRM boat is having a different mech with ECM on counter mode stay under 180m from the enemy mech.

Now In general I do believe TAG is worth the 1ton/ 1 slot it does help, but saying it nullifies ECM is a total joke.

Present usefulness of LRMs vs multiple target types:

Vs. Mechs moving over 110 kph 95% useless (almost no missiles will hit even if you hold target)
Vs. Snipers that move in and out of cover 95% useless (you will almost always lose target so volley will crash into ground)
Vs. Brawlers targeting you 90% useless (you will get 0-1 salvos before they get inside minimum range in almost all cases)

Vs. Slow Brawlers fighting other mechs in proper range Good
Vs. Missile Boats just as effective as they are
Vs. Large slow moving targets that stay out of cover Good, though still worse than the PPC/Gauss
Vs. Large stopped targets with no ECM/AMS that stay out of cover and are not shutdown Extremely good (actually near as good as PPC/Gauss)

Vs. any target with ECM nearly useless
Vs. any target with at least 1 AMS nearby for ever 20 missiles fired 30% less effective
Vs any target with at least 1 AMS nearby for every 10 missiles fired useless

This leaves these as being not best at everything, and only even good at a few things. When used properly though you can often go for only the Good targets, but if they become more common most of these will go away due to smarter playing, or more AMS/ECM. So right now they are only Semi-viable because near everyone ignores you.

[Aim64C]

Skyfaller, on 02 June 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

You're doing it wrong. Way wrong.

Kind of depends, really.

Anyone who dies is doing it wrong. At least, at the time.

Quote

My stalker 5s uses 4 LRM15s with artemis and 1080 ammo. Runs 4 medium lasers and 1 tag. 2AMS as well. BAP+sensor rangex2+target decay x2 modules. Mastered mech.

The LRMs routinely do over 700 damage in a decent match.

Yeah - back when they did 1.8 points of damage.

You have to be dealing with a team devoid of neurons to get that kind of score in the current LRM loadouts.

Quote

Decent being I position myself 300m behind my team and only fire when I know my team is brawling with a target (lock is kept) or i have LOS+TAG on someone that is in the open, inside 500m and distracted shooting someone else. I fire only when i know the lrms have a good chance of hitting target.

That's nice and all.

So, what is your team doing while you're getting all of this damage? At 60 rounds per salvo, you're looking at 12 good shots per match to get the kind of damage you're talking about. That's a lot of golden opportunities that are hard to come by.

Quote

Damage wise the missiles are fine.

You see... damage doesn't tell the full story.

http://mwomercs.com/...lrm-chronicles/

You'll see there are plenty of times in there where I sink 40 missile salvos into mechs that... well... barely felt it. There was one particular match on Frozen City where I'm sinking salvo after salvo into Atlasses... only to have them just kind of brush it off like it was a bad fart. Sure - I wasn't always in the best position... but it's hardly an isolated incident. There's a particular Jager on Caustic (and later, a cataphract) that I was visibly sinking shots into... but I'm just scraping the paint off of their armor.

Sure - I top the damage charts a lot... but what the hell does that mean when they can all waltz right up and plow through my team?

That's what fire support mechs are for - to -support- mechs that are in direct confrontations.

You may disagree with my interpretation - but the fact remains that "getting kills," "doing damage," and "being effective" are three different things in this game.

[PhoenixFire55]

Bobdolemite, on 01 June 2013 - 03:54 PM, said:

Let the numbers speak for themselves.

I think I met you about a week ago in a match on Alpine and you were raining on my Hunchie for 2 minutes with other mechs shooting me as well. I think LRMs are broken hard right now, for me to survive that rain so long is kinda stupid.

I'd say missile damage should be greatly increased but ...
When you run a lot of missiles (aka x4 LRM 15s etc.) their spread should be horrible, so like 30% of your missiles hit the target, reason for that is simple - lots of missiles in the air can't stay in such tight airspace. But that 30% should hit and hit hard but again ... different parts of your mech with equal probability. Remaining 70% can still hit a wide area around targeted mech damaging each and everyone who is lucky enough to be close to mech been targeted. On the other hand, if you run one LRM10-15 etc. missiles spread should be very little (few missiles in the air).

Last thing is that tag/narc/artemis should be fixed in terms of their stacking/not stacking. They all should improve accuracy (aka decrease spread) but it should be within reason, not so if you got all of em with you all your missiles hit CT.

[Volthorne]

Skyfaller, on 02 June 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

No artemis = you fail as lrm boat. No tag = you fail as LRM boat.

And why should I be forced to take an extra 3+ tonnes of equipment to make ONE weapon system work? Let me put this in perspective: if you HAD to take an extra ballistic weapon (which weighed one ton and took up one crit - and it NEEDS to go in the same section as the weapon) to make your AC/20 or Gauss remotely effective, would that be fair? I think not. How about lasers? If you were forced to take an MLas equivalent to make your LLas or PPC remotely effective, would THAT be fair? Why should LRM users be penalized beyond reasonable expectations UNLESS we bring "optional" equipment that apparently isn't optional?

[Aim64C]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 June 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

I think I met you about a week ago in a match on Alpine and you were raining on my Hunchie for 2 minutes with other mechs shooting me as well. I think LRMs are broken hard right now, for me to survive that rain so long is kinda stupid.

It's a bit hit and miss.

http://mwomercs.com/...lrm-chronicles/

That's a video record of a few of my games playing as a C4. I'm topping the damage charts frequently - but it's arguable that I'm not really being all that -effective- in the game... and there doesn't appear to really be a mechanic where you are effective as an LRM fire support mech.

That said - we do need to be careful with how -much- damage is given to LRMs. Part of the issue, too, is that AMS has returned with a vengeance. 3 AMS will reduce my 40 missile swarm to an annoying trickle in short order.

There are also other issues - such as tracking of moving targets (where I have to wonder if damage is registering at all, even though the visuals display a hit).

Buffing damage too high will cause all kinds of problems - especially since viable firing positions have been greatly expanded with the improved trajectory.

Quote

I'd say missile damage should be greatly increased but ...
When you run a lot of missiles (aka x4 LRM 15s etc.) their spread should be horrible, so like 30% of your missiles hit the target, reason for that is simple - lots of missiles in the air can't stay in such tight airspace. But that 30% should hit and hit hard but again ... different parts of your mech with equal probability. Remaining 70% can still hit a wide area around targeted mech damaging each and everyone who is lucky enough to be close to mech been targeted. On the other hand, if you run one LRM10-15 etc. missiles spread should be very little (few missiles in the air).

Last thing is that tag/narc/artemis should be fixed in terms of their stacking/not stacking. They all should improve accuracy (aka decrease spread) but it should be within reason, not so if you got all of em with you all your missiles hit CT.

I worked on LRMs through this topic, a long, long time ago (in a galaxy far away) http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2146883

I've improved the presentation idea since then - and could probably stand to completely repackage it along with my information warfare proposals... but you know... I can be a bit of a sloth.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

How about this, to all the people claiming 700+ damage with just LRM's, fraps a match doing that and show the rest of us how it's done.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Steel Claws, on 01 June 2013 - 04:47 PM, said:

I am going to assume a few things and say that you were at the back of the map firing salvos at long range at anything you could lock on. Of course you missed. You will almost always miss at ranges of greater than 400 meters because the targets will either break lock or get into cover. Firing at long range is a waste of ammo and ineffectiive. I don't load that many missiles (55 with 900 reloads) and I got 4 kills and 4 assists with 500ish points yesterday on Canyon (with all it's cover) yesterday by doing what I normally do - get within 400 meters before shooting. I always have backup weapons - not having them is asking to die.

Secondly the stalker only has missile slots with 6 and 10 holes so to get an LRM 20 out you have to fire in a long chain. This also decreases the likelyhood of a hit because the extra time between launch start and launch finished. You can loose lock half way through the salvo. The Catapult C4 does better with just it's 2 LRM 20s for this reason. It fires all forty in one big salvo.

If the point of this post is to say that missiles are ineffective, I think I'd have to call BS based on my own experiences.

This is how I've always played LRMs, mostly in my founder's cat. Haven't tried recently, so I don't have much to say about what needs to be adjusted right now, but they do need adjustment.

Part of the "issue" with LRM "balance" is the fact that the 1000m effective range is really misleading... they aren't actually effective at 1000m. People who play them that way end up taking way too much ammo, and running them on mechs that are just too slow to get the most out of their tonnange.

There isn't any game-mechanic adjustment I can think of that would encourage people to use LRMs intelligently. Maybe if it just listed their maximum effective range as 500m, and then said that they were capable of traveling 1000m, people would start to realize that they work drastically better as mid-range weapons than they do as long-range weapons (and I think that's a good thing).

Edited by Warrax the Chaos Warrior, 02 June 2013 - 12:18 PM.

[Sephlock]

Appogee, on 02 June 2013 - 08:50 AM, said:

What...?!

An indirect fire weapon, with guided munitions, which never requires you to even get near the enemy, that scores >250 points on average, and you want the damage to go up...?

They're guided in the sense that they tend to hit your enemy if you stand in the open and stare at them. As opposed to the hitscan or near hitscan weapons that are its rivals...

Skyfaller, on 02 June 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

The LRMs routinely do over 700 damage in a decent match. Decent being I position myself 300m behind my team and only fire when I know my team is brawling with a target (lock is kept) or i have LOS+TAG on someone that is in the open, inside 500m and distracted shooting someone else. I fire only when i know the lrms have a good chance of hitting target.

Are you a dev? Are you the guy who was piloting that infamous 3 second jenner?

[LonestarrSB]

LRM's are fine. They do decent dmg with little actual effort required. You went 9/10 games doing over 300 damage by standing at probably near max range with no threat to yourself a lot of the time and did plenty of damage.

What you also fail hard at realizing is you also won 8 of those 10 matches. Are you trying to make it so just because you boated easy mode weapons you should be doing 800 damage a game? You did PLENTY of damage and that is without Tag or Artemis!

LRM's are nearly balanced to where they need to be. How can you fail to see that just because you aren't topping the end game stats at the end by pointing for a couple seconds and clicking once.

-Edit-
Try using LRM's like they are used best...to soften up a target for when you get close with real weapons. Stop being a coward in the back of the map complaining you can't wipe out the team with just a few clicks.

Edited by LonestarrSB, 02 June 2013 - 12:26 PM.

[Sephlock]

^ And that's what it comes down to. The argument against LRMs is ******** whining and false assumptions.