23 replies to this topic

[Johnny Reb]

I guess, they wanted to try reduced spread first for srms, LRM's I thought were good on Monday, maybe to make them un "useless" which I feel they weren't. I am no longer a special snowflake with my lrms.

[aniviron]

Shakespeare, on 04 June 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

My guess is that they wanted to see HSR's effect on SRM users before adjusting the damage further.
And don't shoot me, but I'm ok with that! It's been really hard to tell what kind of effective damage I've been getting with SRM systems when it was the ONLY weapon that still had a firing delay.

And they DID adjust the spread down a bit more.

Let's just see how it goes, yeah? A lot of us got used to SRM being the king of midweight weaponry, and that was kinda absurd (like, blowing all the limbs off a commando absurd). It did need to be brought down, and with HSR in and the spread reduced, we can really see how much we should expect out of SRM racks.

Just get out there and start trying to kill things. If your 4SP or SRM-equipped heavy/assault can't get any decent output from SRM, then yeah, a little adjustment might be needed, since several mechs, particularly lights and mediums, depend on SRM for something they can snapshoot with a little punch.

But c'mon, you can't tell me that the insane numbers we all used to post with Triple-6 DDCs was reasonable.

If the balancing in this game were done in a sane, scientific way, I would say: this was done correctly, you should only implement one change at a time and tweak as needed. This is how the scientific method works, it means adjusting only one variable so you can see how components of every system interact.

But the balancing in this game has not been done like that. The six changes to LRMs a couple patches ago say all they need to. What worries me is that this seems to imply that PGI think this means SRM damage is just fine and is where it should be, and that is absolutely not the case. SRMs, a dumbfire weapon with 15% of the effective range of an LRM and comparable heat generation plus significantly smaller numbers of missiles per volley are doing only 36% more damage per missile.

Your point about how they should not one-hit commandos is correct. But then again, they were only one-hitting them when the splash damage was so messed up that they were doing 16-27dmg/missile, accounting for splash. The splash radius has been reduced to effectively nothing in the last few patches, and so this no longer happens, and we are back to hitting for 1.5. It is very very difficult to hit a light pilot who is discourteous enough to not run in a straight line anyway, and when you do hit the spread means you are hitting with only a few missiles for almost no damage. I don't even bother firing srms at anything under 45 tons unless it is shut down.

Right now, there are only two weapons in this game doing less damage than they do in tabletop; the mg and srm. Everything else at least does the same amount, most things do quite a bit more. I don't see any particular reason the srm (and mg, poor mg) should be singled out to be less useful. The SRM even takes an additional hit, as every other weapon is effective out to its actual max range, but SRMs are still pitiful at 270m, and only really shine at 100m or closer, 37% of their intended range. To compare, it would be the same as if a Gauss rifle had arbitrarily had its range reduced to 244m, maxing out at 733.

[sarkun]

I'm with the "wait for the results of HSR" crowd - the HSR turned to be a pretty much game changer - it has thrown our existing weapon balance out of whack. Now that it's implemented for all weapons, we need to bring it back in. SRMs will be buffed - I think that they might do it on the 18th - with the Quickdraw release.

[xengk]

Shakespeare, on 04 June 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

My guess is that they wanted to see HSR's effect on SRM users before adjusting the damage further.

Yes, the last time they change missile damage AND flight path in the same patch, the forum exploded.
So now they are balancing thing one step at a time.
This way is better.