102 replies to this topic

[Troutmonkey]

Sybreed, on 03 December 2013 - 07:49 PM, said:

are you freaking deaf? They can just buff srms while they try to fix the hit detection bug (and honestly we don't even know if they're trying to fix it), then we can remove the buff again once they deal they're supposed dmg.

Jesus....

Can you read?
While SRMs are broken, they will sometime hit, and sometimes they won't. If you increase the damage sometimes they will register all hits and absolutely wreck a mech. Other times they will do no damage

[Carrioncrows]

The entire Missile, EW, Collisions, and Hitboxes need reworked.

All SRM's should lock.
All missile weapons should have a 50% maximum range, not to be confused with their 100% effective range.



x6 SRM6 A1.

Hold the targeting cursor and you slowly begin to lock up missiles.



You can still fire those missile in their dumbfire mode but only the missles that have acheived lock will track.



If at any time you don't hold the targeting cursor over your target you begin to LOSE lock.

Once you launch the missiles you have to keep the targeting cursor over the target to maintain lock as slipping the cursor off target will cause the missiles to completely lose lock.

Once missiles cross their effective range they begin to lose lock until the missiles hit something or they reach their maximum range.

SRM's should work just like streaks but suffer a penalty to tracking and speed. So it would require skill to line up shots and keep the targeting cursor on the enemy mech instead of fire and forget as we have now.

All missiles should work like this, not just SRMs.

So what does this mean for streaks? Obviously, they track better and only fire once they have achieved a full lock on for that launcher so you will never prematurely launch missiles without a full lock otherwise they work the same.

Want to know more?

Watch this - > http://www.youtube.c...ayer_detailpage

Edited by Carrioncrows, 03 December 2013 - 08:35 PM.

[Flying Blind]

I'm a good shot with SRMs I have been able to make them work more often than most people I know but the honest truth is they are terrible. I have to work my bum off to get 300-ish damage or any kills at all while a guy with a couple AC5 does more damage with half the effort. 3 srm6 should do more damage than 4 ssrm2 yet this just isnt the case. Heck even 3 ssrm2 do more damage than 3srm6 in an average match. Go on, tell me that's ok so I can laugh at you.

Fact is SRMs were only a problem when they had splash damage. As long as splash remains off I don't see why 2.5 damage per srm would be bad.

Something needs to be done to improve SRMs and I really hope it gets done soon.

Honestly even tightening the pattern but leaving their damage the same as now would help

Yes, there are other weapons that need help but none that impact the game so much as SRMs.

[Homeless Bill]

Troutmonkey, on 03 December 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

Can you read?
While SRMs are broken, they will sometime hit, and sometimes they won't. If you increase the damage sometimes they will register all hits and absolutely wreck a mech. Other times they will do no damage

This is where my disagreement with you is. Even against large, immobile 'mechs, SRMs just don't do enough damage. The splash reduction alone was a huge nerf to their power. It went from 2.5 + splash damage with all missiles registering to complete garbage. Putting at back at 2.5 isn't going to make them overpowered, even when they all hit. SRMs are supposed to be a high-risk, high-reward weapon.

They have a hard maximum range of 270m with no falloff, they're the slowest and hardest-to-lead of any weapon, they spread damage unlike the PPC/autocannon combos that dominate the game, AND they do mediocre damage at best right now. How will that ever compete with a long-range (any-range), 30-point alpha that goes to a single component?

They need damage. They will even after HSR is fixed, but particularly now. Again: what's the worst that could happen? Diversity? At competitive levels of play, it's the same **** it's been for months. Giving brawlers a chance isn't going to bring about the end of days.

It would be an effective band-aid for now, it's easy to patch out if it throws balance into the fires like you say it will, it's easy to patch out when HSR fixes go in, it might actually bring some diversity to the game, and there is simply no reason not to give it a shot.

Edited by Homeless Bill, 04 December 2013 - 02:13 AM.

[627]

I'd like to have a... don't know... kind of test server where we could try out different weapon stats like higher srm damage, Narc without tha damage limiter, MGs as "light AC2" instead of a crit seeker...


man, that would be great.

[MustrumRidcully]

627, on 03 December 2013 - 11:36 PM, said:

I'd like to have a... don't know... kind of test server where we could try out different weapon stats like higher srm damage, Narc without tha damage limiter, MGs as "light AC2" instead of a crit seeker...


man, that would be great.

You mean some kind of test server that works for more than 4 hours a week?

Such technology doesn't exist yet. Anywhere.

Startrek Online has now two test servers apparantly constantly running, much tomy surprise. Of course, the guys at Cryptic have an infrastructure they basically build since they made City of Heroes, and are now backed by Perfect World, so it's not a fair comparison. But despite the monetary inflcux ,their balancing still sucks. But then, STO is not a pure PvP title, it's mostly PvE.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 04 December 2013 - 12:10 AM.

[Mycrus]

I want surms back to where they were in closed beta (insane splash dmg)... Long live brawlin!

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Damage per missile is fine, but they are too slow. I'd say up their speed some. Maybe at least take them from 300 m/s to 425m/s at least as fast as a Hellfire missile. WIth a max range or 270 M it would be nice to have an easier time landing more shots on faster mechs.

And what about upping their ammo to 120 missiles per ton or even go up to 180 missiles per ton? Lights gain a benefit here with their tonnage restrictions.



But it would really be nice to see them go ~700m/s like Hydra 70s, and however unlikely, one can dream.

[William Mountbank]

I would like to point out as a side note to earlier posts that SLs do not need a buff. On big mechs they cheaply fill out spare energy slots and let you brawl effectively even when roasting hot, on light mechs with overspeed they let you chop off the legs of all other lights for a measly 2.5-3t investment.
If you think this isn't enough, shave off some armour and load MLs!

[Blurry]

no - next month when they decide to sell missile boats yes. Until then NO.
buy oxide you will?

[Joseph Mallan]

Solis Obscuri, on 03 December 2013 - 07:24 PM, said:

AC/2 just needs to have Ghost Heat turned off. I think SL is still useful for light builds, just not worth the slot on most heavier. MG is actually pretty good, kills fast if you rip off armor with bigger/hotter weapons.

The NARC definitely needs love, and the Flamer... well, I'm not sure what to think, but the fact that I almost never use them probably says something.

if we are fixing ghost heat we should fix it for the AC20, PPCs Large Lasers, ...etc

[John MatriX82]

Homeless Bill, on 03 December 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

That SRMs are bad? Because they are. Since we're clearly not going to get a missile hit registration fix anytime soon, can we please push the damage up to 2.5? Please?

But what about when they finally do fix hit registration? Just turn the damage back down to 2.0 in the same patch or just let SRMs have a week of being overpowered. What, like direct fire alphas haven't had their day in the sun?


It's not. Even on large, stationary 'mechs, SRMs are ****** compared to their direct fire counterparts.


As much as the forums are a bit of a whiny cesspool sometimes, game balance is one thing I'd trust more to people here than whoever is in charge now.

Months of machine guns being bad, while PGI continues to tell us they're just fine. PGI decides making it a crit-seeking weapon will be enough, and the forums disagree. Fast forward a few months, the forums were right, and the machine guns, in addition to being savage crit-seekers, have had their damage more than doubled.

Months of endless poptarting, an unsuccessful attempt to end it with Ghost Heat, and then finally the PPC nerf that players had been begging for.

Also, pulse lasers have always been bad and still are bad. What's the point of having a balance forum when there's so rarely an attempt to balance out underperforming things?

TL;DR: Buff SRMs and pulse lasers. Because they're bad and there's no reason not to. Seriously, it's a number in a text file - why can we not get at least that small courtesy?

Old "pulse" flightpath back in, suddendly getting within 150m from any target allows you to concentrate all the srms into one location (or most of them into it), the spread gets tighter @ 75m and then from 50 to 0m ----> WIN.

The current tube like trajectory literally destroyed them as a main brawling tool, destroying brawling -> poptarts, 4PPC meta, 2PPC+GR meta (after ghost heat), AC5/UAC5+PPC or AC20+PPC meta that there is now.

All of this because they don't want to admit that the current hardpoint system has deeply failed at balacing the game, resulting in SHS not being viable, DHS working @ 1.4x instead of 2x, Ghost heat introduction.

-Ballistics and Energy weapons: specify the number of DYNAMIC critical slots (energy critical slots or ballistic critical slots) that can be used by a certain variant.
Catapult K2? 2 ballistic hardpoints, 10 critical ballistic slots. Best dual ballistic build? -> dual UAC5. Do you want to use an AC 20? Ok, but that thing will eat all the 10 critical slots thus the ballistic hardpoint in the other torso is BLANKED OUT. Boating solved, ghost heat gone.

-Missiles and SRMs: tubes. A section has 3 missile hardpoints and 10 tubes? You can't shoot anything past that single salvo. This means SRM6+SRM4 or SRM6+2xSRM2 or SRM4+SRM4+SRM2. Allow mixing LRMs with SRMs 10 tubes = 10 SRMs max AND 10 LRM max. Boating solved, lrms would hardly go past 50 per salvo as it is now, smaller lrm launchers would be more useful, the system wouldn't have to be balanced for lrm70-80 boats as it is now.

The above would allow better variant variability, chassis variabiliti EG: an HBK 4G would be one of the few mediums AC20-capable. An HBK 4H would be limited to a GR or an AC10 and so on.

[Kekkone]

Agreed. And while youre at it:

-Increase range of SL and SPL
-Increaase speed of MG's and LRM's
-Increase damage threshold of NARC
-Increase damage of MPL
-Decrease spread of LBX

[topgun505]

I agree SRMs should be bumped up ... temporarily. Then brought back down one fixed.

Completely disagree with buffing the AC2, unless you do away with the smoke and fire effect covering the targets screen.

Completely disagree with buffing LRMs (any size) further. They just don't need it.

The SPL? Maybe. I'd say bump it 0.1 damage per change and increment it slowly. Or decrease the beam duration or recycle that amount.

[giganova]

Homeless Bill, on 03 December 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

Months of machine guns being bad, while PGI continues to tell us they're just fine. PGI decides making it a crit-seeking weapon will be enough, and the forums disagree. Fast forward a few months, the forums were right, and the machine guns, in addition to being savage crit-seekers, have had their damage more than doubled.

Good, I'm not the only one who has noticed this trend. Not about the machine guns specifically, but PGI's complete lack of giving a damn.

[3rdworld]

Paul Inouye said:

Aggressive Weapon Balance

That is all.

Edited by 3rdworld, 04 December 2013 - 06:23 AM.

[Wrenchfarm]

But changing a damage value would involve someone opening a spreadsheet and editing a number in a cell.

We can't expect them to work THAT hard. Stop being so entitled.

BTW, want to buy some more premium time? Pay some MC to change your video settings?

[stjobe]

Homeless Bill, on 03 December 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

Months of machine guns being bad, while PGI continues to tell us they're just fine. PGI decides making it a crit-seeking weapon will be enough, and the forums disagree. Fast forward a few months, the forums were right, and the machine guns, in addition to being savage crit-seekers, have had their damage more than doubled.

And they still don't work well unless boated; 4 is a minimum, 6 is preferable. They need to go back and redo the MG as a proper ballistic, burst-fire weapon (they can do it at the same time they make all the ballistics burst-fire; it needs to happen) instead of the thinly veiled energy weapon it's currently implemented as (hitscan, 2x range, bullet f/x wholly unrelated to anything).

While they're at it they can drop this stupid "crit weapon" idea; the MG needs to be a viable armour-damager or ballistic lights will forever be sub-par compared to their energy brethren.

Sorry for ranting, but I've been fighting for a viable MG for ballistic lights since forever and the mere mention of them sets me off these days it seems. As for SRMs, the facepalming stupidity of making the auto-hit SSRM do more damage than the has-to-be-aimed SRM boggles the mind.

I'm all for a damage bump until they dig their thumbs out of the UI2.0 trainwreck and fix SRM hit detection.

[Sprouticus]

I agree, SRM's need some love. Maybe not 2.5, maybe 2.25 followed by a review a month later? (I know, thats not how PGI does things)

Baby steps are best though.

stjobe, on 04 December 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

And they still don't work well unless boated; 4 is a minimum, 6 is preferable. They need to go back and redo the MG as a proper ballistic, burst-fire weapon (they can do it at the same time they make all the ballistics burst-fire; it needs to happen) instead of the thinly veiled energy weapon it's currently implemented as (hitscan, 2x range, bullet f/x wholly unrelated to anything).

While they're at it they can drop this stupid "crit weapon" idea; the MG needs to be a viable armour-damager or ballistic lights will forever be sub-par compared to their energy brethren.

Sorry for ranting, but I've been fighting for a viable MG for ballistic lights since forever and the mere mention of them sets me off these days it seems. As for SRMs, the facepalming stupidity of making the auto-hit SSRM do more damage than the has-to-be-aimed SRM boggles the mind.

I'm all for a damage bump until they dig their thumbs out of the UI2.0 trainwreck and fix SRM hit detection.

This is off topic, but I disagree. even 3 Mg's does decent dmg/crits on my shadowhawk. And like the SL and ML, you just don't use 1 of them. They are boated. That's how the game works with smaller weapons. If 1 mg or 1 sl was useful, then 6 would be insane.

[NuclearPanda]

Going to post this again, as usual like I have been for MONTHS now.

Dear PGI: If you're not going to fix SRMs, specifically hit detection with them, at least make them shoot puppies and rainbows at our opponents so then they would be fun to look at or use.





Also, Niko..... WHERE IS MAH DOGEPHRACT AS PROMISED!?