124 replies to this topic

[Sybreed]

zazz0000, on 18 June 2013 - 09:49 PM, said:

Seems like people are at a stalemate here....

So here's a thought:

Reduce number of rounds per ton of AMS ammo?

A single ton carries you through a match too well, I've never had to toggle AMS off to conserve it.
Maybe like 250/ton? So that sooner or later you can soften up those defenses?

(I actually neither boat LRMs nor have AMS equipped on all of my mechs, so I might be considered "unbiased" )

actually, I think the number of AMS carrying mechs should be restricted. It used to be before..

[Sybreed]

Darren Tyler, on 18 June 2013 - 09:18 PM, said:

Ok, first off, there is absolutely no reason you should be spewing emotion on the forums. You don't talk to people. You have time to think, edit, change your respond before posting it. Even after that there is a little edit button as well. At least try to make yourself seem sane even if you aren't.

And I never said mechs should be specialized, the jumping to conclusions is ridiculous. I don't bring stuff out from real life, I bring it from battletech lore. Battle mechs didn't specialize because of how long it took to change a load out for a specific mission and the cost. Most battle mechs are made to be well rounded for this. Of course there are still boats. (Catapult, jagermech, hunchback)
Omnimechs however are specialized because of how quick it is to change your load out for a mission.


Boating is not the only viable tactic. I use trebutchet, raven, Jenner, and a lot more mechs and don't boat and I am more successful on them than mechs that do boat like jagermech and catapult. Though catapult is really close to how successful I am on my raven.

If we want non canon boating removed, and the ability to boat ridiculous amounts of a weapon that should turn a mech into a molten slag, I think hard point sizes would do very well.

Yeah, the disappointing patch got to me and the same arguments coming over and over also got to me.

But, if you thought I sounded insane, then dude, you never heard insane people talk (it's part of my job, and it's pretty obvious when they stop taking their meds)

Still, my point is that 1 year later, after all the countless warnings we gave PGI, we're still in the same ditch and dare I say we dug it even deeper. Some mechanics felt tacked on at the last minute (hardpoints) and they decided to stick with it, a bit like the 1.4 DHS. They never thought someone would put dual gauss on a Cat, but when they saw it they thought "Why not?" and kept on going. Although, there were several posts about in what things could evolve into if we kept the same system and here we are today....

I think I'm a bit tired of piloting an Atlas and having my RT cored in a single or 2 salvo, either by an AC/40 jager or quad ppc Stalker, or piloting my AC/20 hunchback only to lose my AC/20 in the first 2 minutes by a Gauss/PPC Misery. I used to do very well in all my mechs, but recently all my games have been crap.

Still, you named mechs that aren't really designed to boat anyway. I'm mostly talking about anything over 65 tons sporting several pinpoint dmg weapons that shred anyone to pieces in 1 or 2 salvos.

And, my post about the AMS was created because I just realized just how much AMS makes boating obligatory for any LRM focused mech. I thought about using my recently acquired Quickdraw with its stock weapons, but I don't think I should even bother.

[MustrumRidcully]

That AMS can take out an LRM5 easily and is a lot less effective to deal with 2 LRM20 makes perfect sense.

But it might still be poor game design, because it forces people to boat missiles.

If an AMS instead always took out, say, 33 % of all missiles reaching it, then an LRM 5 would still be useful, 2 LRM20 would still be useful, but the AMS would be useful in both cases, too.

It would also stack better.

If AMS 1 has a 33 % chance to take out a missile, and AMS 2 has a 33 % chance to take out a missile, that amounts to a 55 % chance of intercepting a missile. If you have 4 AMS, it would still be only about a 81 % chance to intercept missiles. Which is good, but even now, an LRM 5 is not completely useless. And even now, the mass of AMS would be quit euseful against a boated number of LRMs.

[DeadlyNerd]

good to see AMS is working as intended.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

ams does what it's supposed to, and that's be poor man's ecm. not everybody can afford a d-dc atlas you know.

[151st Light Horse Regiment]

Wait a minute, a minigun, capable of firing thousands of rounds per minute, CAN SHOOT DOWN 20 MISSILES ALL GROUPED TOGETHER????

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT, QUICK, SOMEONE TELL THE NAVY!

[Skyfaller]

Sybreed, on 18 June 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:

Just played a match today on my Founder's Cat sporting the usual LRM-15 duo and just realized that more than half of my volleys were shot down by 2 AMS.

Around 20 missiles shot down? Is this serious?

How is a, I don't know, Quickdraw, is supposed to use LRMs when a single AMS can shoot down the entire volley, unless PGI wants all Quickdraw pilots to use SRMs only?

For christ' sake, tone down AMS by half at least.

If you knew what you were talking about you'd realize you're very wrong.

AMS shoots down 5 missiles only. That is it.

2 AMS shoot down 10 missiles. This is not a problem if you load more than 1 launcher and fire them together.

If anything, AMS needs to be buffed. It is a complete waste of space as it is. 1.5 tons and 2 slots to prevent a measly 7 damage in random location is just stupid.

[tenderloving]

Pater Mors, on 18 June 2013 - 12:34 PM, said:

You people will complain about anything.

I'm not sure I agree with OP yet, but people like you are 1000X worse. If you aren't going to add to the conversation and help improve the game, go away.

[BlackIronTarkus]

Im sorry, there are many things broken in mechwarrior online but AMS is certainly not one of them. Its far from overpowered, it fill its role wihtout nullifying missiles completly. I believe it is what they actually got right.

AMS is probably the thing they best implimented in this game. From all perspective it is a very well rounded defensive weapon.

This thread shows me how people will cry about everything. I seriusly can't believe people are crying over the AMS, it is perfect as of right now, its worth its weight without being overpowered.

edit: I wish I could downvote topic, this one is truely terrible as it ask for something perfectly fine to be tuned.

Edited by BlackIronTarkus, 19 June 2013 - 04:38 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

OK OP, since you didn't offer a FIX and just Whined, fix it for us...please.

Weapon id="1014" name="Anti_Missile_System

WeaponStats Health="10" slots="1" type="4" projectileclass="" numFiring="1" damage="3.5" heatdamage="0" impulse="0.001"

heat="0.0" cooldown="0.0" ammoType="AMSAmmo" ammoPerShot="1" minRange="0" longRange="90.0" maxRange="200.0"

tons="0.5" duration="-1.0" lifetime="1.0" speed="100" volleydelay="0" maxheight="0" rof="30.0" spread="0.0"

You can at least do that right?

Edited by MaddMaxx, 19 June 2013 - 04:43 AM.

[ExtremeA79]

Sybreed, on 18 June 2013 - 10:22 PM, said:

Yeah, the disappointing patch got to me and the same arguments coming over and over also got to me.

But, if you thought I sounded insane, then dude, you never heard insane people talk (it's part of my job, and it's pretty obvious when they stop taking their meds)

Still, my point is that 1 year later, after all the countless warnings we gave PGI, we're still in the same ditch and dare I say we dug it even deeper. Some mechanics felt tacked on at the last minute (hardpoints) and they decided to stick with it, a bit like the 1.4 DHS. They never thought someone would put dual gauss on a Cat, but when they saw it they thought "Why not?" and kept on going. Although, there were several posts about in what things could evolve into if we kept the same system and here we are today....

I think I'm a bit tired of piloting an Atlas and having my RT cored in a single or 2 salvo, either by an AC/40 jager or quad ppc Stalker, or piloting my AC/20 hunchback only to lose my AC/20 in the first 2 minutes by a Gauss/PPC Misery. I used to do very well in all my mechs, but recently all my games have been crap.

Still, you named mechs that aren't really designed to boat anyway. I'm mostly talking about anything over 65 tons sporting several pinpoint dmg weapons that shred anyone to pieces in 1 or 2 salvos.

And, my post about the AMS was created because I just realized just how much AMS makes boating obligatory for any LRM focused mech. I thought about using my recently acquired Quickdraw with its stock weapons, but I don't think I should even bother.

Sorry if I offended you and I understand the emotional response. I exaggerated on insane. Didn't edit as I went to sleep afterwards.


I agree on the problems of this game. Jager mechs canonically can boat and many pilots do. Especially on DD. Catapults can boat LRM's.
Gamewise I agree with AMS encouraging boating, but its only encouraging LRM boating. LRM boating is not that big of a deal compared to a 6 PPC Stalker. LRM's are balanced now and I haven't seen ridiculous builds with them.

[BigMekkUrDakka]

ill rather see ams lowering my lrm boat damage by 60% then i see myself killing entire enemy team with 1.1 damage per 1240 rounds of lrm ammo, and im not truly boating lrms i have lots of supplementary equipment including namely AMS
actually then i see 3 or 4 ams on enemy team shooting my volleys down i feel somewhat happy that i have good opponents so i will have to use those 2mpl and ssrm for a change if my team wont die in 30 seconds
PS: leave that 6ppc stalker alone already stop putting it in every discussion since its useless build on useless mech anyway

Edited by BigMekkUrDakka, 19 June 2013 - 07:05 AM.

[Screech]

How many stock mechs come with AMS? Guess forcing folks to carry AMS to counter LRM has consequences. Want AMS to be less effective make it less mandatory. Or just whine for nerfs.

[arghmace]

Sybreed, on 18 June 2013 - 03:45 PM, said:

I honestly don't know how it could be coded, because the AMS would have to recognize a LRM 80 volley vs a LRM30 one and there's nothing really that differentiate the 2 besides the number of missiles. Again, I think PGI painted themselves in a corner.

It's very simple, really. Forget about the number of incoming missiles. All AMS needs to do is have a 20% chance of shooting down a single missile. That's it, cannot be hard to code. Just roll a die for every incoming missile.

[arghmace]

Also, if AMS would have a chance of 20% to hit any single incoming missile, the rules of probability tell us that 2 AMS's would shoot down 36% of incoming missiles. 4 AMS's would shoot down 59% and 8 AMS's 83% of incoming missiles. So even everyone having AMS wouldn't completely block LRM's, which would be good.

But anyway the main gain here would be that LRM5 would on average get 4 missiles through against a single AMS and 4xLRM20 would get 64 through. Boating wouldn't make the ratio any better, single launchers would be a valid choice for varied and fun builds.

[Sybreed]

arghmace, on 19 June 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

It's very simple, really. Forget about the number of incoming missiles. All AMS needs to do is have a 20% chance of shooting down a single missile. That's it, cannot be hard to code. Just roll a die for every incoming missile.

eh, that's smart

Skyfaller, on 19 June 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

If you knew what you were talking about you'd realize you're very wrong.

AMS shoots down 5 missiles only. That is it.

2 AMS shoot down 10 missiles. This is not a problem if you load more than 1 launcher and fire them together.

If anything, AMS needs to be buffed. It is a complete waste of space as it is. 1.5 tons and 2 slots to prevent a measly 7 damage in random location is just stupid.

you're wrong, because it depends on where you are located.

In my last game, I was amongst the enemy team and I was firing at a target 500M away. AMS had a lot more time to shoot down the missiles and I saw more than half my salvo get taken out. Like one said, firing all my missiles at once would limit AMS a little.

[Damocles69]

No

[Fate 6]

NinetyProof, on 18 June 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

AMS is fine ... individually.

When you get 2 or 3 mechs that all have AMS? yes, those 2 or 3 mechs trump you cause your only 1. If you had 2 or 3 missile boats against 2 of 3 AMS the boats would win.

Besides, at 30 missiles your not even a boat ... what? you expect free damage? Boat it up or stop complaining.

So what you're saying is that we HAVE to boat missiles? You literally do not want to see balanced builds that include a couple LRM15s? Honestly, one of the most ignorant posts I've ever read on these forums. Free damage? How is the damage free? If you want to talk about free damage, lets have a look at energy weapons. I'm going to complain that I am being forced to boat LRMs, especially since PGI is on a witch hunt for boating weapons now.

[Fate 6]

Sybreed, on 19 June 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

eh, that's smart


you're wrong, because it depends on where you are located.

In my last game, I was amongst the enemy team and I was firing at a target 500M away. AMS had a lot more time to shoot down the missiles and I saw more than half my salvo get taken out. Like one said, firing all my missiles at once would limit AMS a little.

This. And even at only 5 missiles per salvo, that still means a .5 ton system (1.5 with ammo) is trumping my LRM5. Ok, sure, I can live with that if only 1 mech on the enemy team has it. But since EVERY MECH in this game (except the X5 apparently, I never actually noticed) can load up at least 1 AMS, and in some cases 2, we have to consider that. If 8 mechs have AMS it might as well be the same thing as having ECM, except the only solution is to load up more missiles. At that point we end up with huge amounts of missile boating, and if those boats go up against people who don't feel like loading AMS it starts getting stupid.

AMS is like ECM in that it makes balancing LRMs nearly impossible. They either do their intended damage, or they do drastically reduced damage unless they are boated. LRMs have to be buffed assuming the enemy can have a ton of AMS's deployed, but then when there are no AMS's they are OP. It's a broken cycle.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Fate 6, on 19 June 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

This. And even at only 5 missiles per salvo, that still means a .5 ton system (1.5 with ammo) is trumping my LRM5. Ok, sure, I can live with that if only 1 mech on the enemy team has it. But since EVERY MECH in this game (except the X5 apparently, I never actually noticed) can load up at least 1 AMS, and in some cases 2, we have to consider that. If 8 mechs have AMS it might as well be the same thing as having ECM, except the only solution is to load up more missiles. At that point we end up with huge amounts of missile boating, and if those boats go up against people who don't feel like loading AMS it starts getting stupid.

AMS is like ECM in that it makes balancing LRMs nearly impossible. They either do their intended damage, or they do drastically reduced damage unless they are boated. LRMs have to be buffed assuming the enemy can have a ton of AMS's deployed, but then when there are no AMS's they are OP. It's a broken cycle.

Yup it's ECM all over again.

LRM's are impossible to balance right now.

You have to balance them assuming TAG/Artemis/Decay Module/ECM/AMS are all present. You have to balance them for LRM 5's, LRM 10's, LRM 15's, LRM 20's all the way up to LRM 90's.

You have to balance them against Atlas and against Commando's.

It's literally stupid at this point.