383 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Elli, you are making much to much sense for this forum. Keep it up and I am going to have to fiend you or something equally punishing!

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 March 2014 - 10:26 AM, said:

Elli, you are making much to much sense for this forum. Keep it up and I am going to have to fiend you or something equally punishing!

You should see me when I'm nonsense.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Elli Gujar, on 06 March 2014 - 10:10 AM, said:

I would like to note that I appreciate this post mostly because it indicates someone at PGI is paying attention to the thread to some degree (and hopefully has read most of it, since a lot of interesting and worth-considering arguments have been made when people weren't name-calling).

Also, I'm kind of bemused that Willard liked my first post in this topic so much, considering he was -very- angry earlier. Not that I think less of him because of it in any way (if you want to be angry, Willard, you have the right to be angry), it's just an interesting thing.

The reason she came and looked was because I reported [someone] twice.

They aren't reading it otherwise.

Edited by miSs, 06 March 2014 - 10:39 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 06 March 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

The reason she came and looked was because I reported [someone] twice.

They aren't reading it otherwise.

Awwww do you tell lil kids the Easter Bunny isn't real as well?

[Abivard]

LRM speed is much to low!

I have been saying that for over a year.

Why does the have your cake and eat it too syndrome seem to be so prevalent with the LRM Question?

In exchange for being the only weapon that CAN fire indirectly it has hard counters, why does this seem so UNFAIR to people?
ECM is not going away, so trying to balance weapons under the premises that PGI will do away with ECM is counterproductive.

Simply claiming that the most experienced players rarely get killed by indirect LRM fire does not make that fact that they have an indirect fire ability moot, and that is one of my major problems with some of the posters here.

LRM's can go from nothing but a minor nuisance weapon to LRMAGGEDDON. The act is to balance them between those two extremes, and face it, that is not so simple as some think.

The major faults I find with LRM's today is:

the ability of fast mechs to outrun them.

The overly long flight times.

The ability of concentrated friendly AMS to massively degrade a salvo.

The fact that LRM's in MWO are really MRM's, let me explain what I mean by that. originally, LRM's had the longest range of any weapon system, but in MWO all other weapons have had their ranges doubled if not tripled , except for missiles! True damage will fall off, but not to such an extant that it makes much difference in practice.


There is skill involved with LRM's, a lot more than most folk think. and In skilled hands LRM's can become overwhelming, and the less experienced the target pilot the worse it gets. of course the inverse is also true, A mediocre LRM pilot will not do anything to an experienced pilot.

This is also part of the balance, and it just might be that LRM's are a weapon that can never be 'balanced' between hi and low levels of play.

For example, newbies using Gauss.. need i say more!

Solution,
Start with an increase to both missile speed and range. do not fiddle with AMS at this point.

extend missile range to 1300M
Set missile speed to perhaps 160mps?

The faster missile speed will certainly mean More missiles get through the AMS just by virtue of shorter engagement times.
But this may not be such a bad thing after all.

The longer range can help to counter poptarts and long long range snipers. The faster speed should also improve the dumbfire accuracy of the LRM's as well, right now it takes an extreme amount of skill and a bit of luck to hit targets with dumbfire. (never should dumbfire hope to hit any moving target beyond 300M) .

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Fut, on 06 March 2014 - 10:09 AM, said:

I think you're getting stuck on the word "Balance". You're really missing the point of the the variables for LRM.

Trying to think of a way to word things in a way that you may comprehend.

- ECM and AMS should un-balance LRMs for the worse. That is the whole point of those 2 pieces of equipment.
- TAG/ARTEMIS/NARC should un-blanace LRMs for the better. That is the whole point of those 3 pieces of equipment.
- LRMs with no other variables should be fairly comparable to their direct fire counter-parts (LRM5 and ML, LRM10 and AC10..etc).

- LRMs are in a fairly decent place at the moment. Some minor tweaking, like the speed increase, will put them in an even better place, considering that Uber-AMS and Chaff are on their way.

Hope that helps.

Here is the problem Fut....

It would be one thing if ECM was ALWAYS present, and everyone who had LRM's took TAG, and we always knew how many AMS would be present.

But we don't.

So once again, if someone takes a single LRM20 into a match...is it balanced?

Maybe if no ECM and no AMS is in the match.

But if ECM is in the match, a single LRM 20 is suddenly not balanced, because it basically becomes unusable unless you mounted TAG.

Except someone with a single LRM launcher shouldn't really need to take TAG to make their single launcher useful. It's pretty silly.

You can't balance with so many different variables in play.

[Abivard]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 06 March 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

The reason she came and looked was because I reported [someone] twice.

They aren't reading it otherwise.

I see, so I should start reporting you hunh?

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Abivard, I cannot help but notice that you have not directly addressed my post earlier in any way. Is this indicative that you did not read it, or are you choosing not to respond to it?

As far as the assertion about indirect fire-

Because LRMs were (originally) balanced with indirect fire as a part of their inherent structure, and the current function of them and the mechanics around them adds new punishments to them. Which is not something they needed, either from a game balance perspective or from a player perspective.

If ECM preventing target locks was intended as a hard counter to LRMs because indirect fire was too strong, then something needed to be changed about LRM indirect fire.

Edited by Elli Gujar, 06 March 2014 - 10:45 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Abivard, on 06 March 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

I see, so I should start reporting you hunh?

Sure go for it. I think you'll find there is a pretty stark difference between what I said and you calling me a lead eater.

Instead, why don't you respond to Elli.

[Joseph Mallan]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 06 March 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

Here is the problem Fut....

It would be one thing if ECM was ALWAYS present, and everyone who had LRM's took TAG, and we always knew how many AMS would be present.

But we don't.

So once again, if someone takes a single LRM20 into a match...is it balanced?

Maybe if no ECM and no AMS is in the match.

But if ECM is in the match, a single LRM 20 is suddenly not balanced, because it basically becomes unusable unless you mounted TAG.

Except someone with a single LRM launcher shouldn't really need to take TAG to make their single launcher useful. It's pretty silly.

You can't balance with so many different variables in play.

This line of thinking is only true if all the enemy lump up within 90m of the ECM though Nick. And I have to put out there that it is a combat game and in combat you don't know exactly what your enemy will have. You don't know how skilled they will be. I know its a game and all, but it is a combat game. That being said we should never assume our enemy is as good as we are. If you think that you have taken your first step towards defeat.

[Abivard]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 06 March 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

Here is the problem Fut....

It would be one thing if ECM was ALWAYS present, and everyone who had LRM's took TAG, and we always knew how many AMS would be present.

But we don't.

So once again, if someone takes a single LRM20 into a match...is it balanced?

Maybe if no ECM and no AMS is in the match.

But if ECM is in the match, a single LRM 20 is suddenly not balanced, because it basically becomes unusable unless you mounted TAG.

Except someone with a single LRM launcher shouldn't really need to take TAG to make their single launcher useful. It's pretty silly.

You can't balance with so many different variables in play.

What is impossible to one, can be easy for another. What I keep hearing is nothing can be done until ECM is removed.
And what so many others keep replying is it doesn't really matter about ECM being there or not, it can still be balanced.

Now what is meant by balance... some think that means for a weapon to be balanced it must be equal to all other weapons..neither nay better nor any worse. Some seem to think it means it has to perform the same no matter what other variables are in the match. neither is really correct, especially in the case of LRM's

Here balance needs to be between hi and low end matches as well with the various variables that may or may not be in the game.

Right now paul has said they are looking at LRM speed increases, and I would like them to also consider range increases as well. What they have said time and again is ECM is not going away and is not being considered for ANY CHANGES.

This means ECM must be accounted by the way it performs now, not the way we wish it should.

Let us deal with the reality and not our wannabes,.

[Joseph Mallan]

Speed increases may be a good thing, Ranges have already been increased by 40+%, That isn't really needed, It would be nice but we already have way more range than is used in Universe.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 March 2014 - 10:57 AM.

[Abivard]

Elli Gujar, on 06 March 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

Abivard, I cannot help but notice that you have not directly addressed my post earlier in any way. Is this indicative that you did not read it, or are you choosing not to respond to it?

I thought I did address your points in the post a couple above.....I did not quote you directly.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 March 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Speed increases may be a good thing, Ranges have already been increased by 40+%, That isn't really needed, It would be nice but we already have way more range than is used in Universe.

We have way more range on everything excepting SRMs (and autocannons have even more way more range than anything else- twice as much as lasers and more than three times as much as LRMs, which is part of the problem with trying to make LRMs stay in their original niche here). Which, now that it's mentioned, is another change I don't really understand, but oh well.

For the sake of clarity, Abi, I would like to mention that I was hoping to see your response to my ACs/LRMs post (and now also my LRM/indirect fire post), not my ECM post, because, as I said, that's all the discussion I really wanted to have on that already.

I should also mention (again) that I agree that LRMs should be faster (though at this point I don't think anyone's arguing against that?)

Edited by Elli Gujar, 06 March 2014 - 11:04 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I have Agreed with others that Ballistic range is over the top at 3x and should be brought back in line with the 2x Lasers got. Even though I like being able to shoot you at 1000+ meters. But that's just my old training at work.

[Abivard]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 March 2014 - 10:56 AM, said:

Speed increases may be a good thing, Ranges have already been increased by 40+%, That isn't really needed, It would be nice but we already have way more range than is used in Universe.

As far as I am aware, the LRM from TT outranged all other weapons, in MWO it outranges only a few weapons, among AC's only the AC20 has a shorter range.

LRM's may have had 40% increase, but ballistics received 200% range bonus and energy has 100% bonus.

let us get everything out in the open shall we.

[Willard Phule]

Elli Gujar, on 06 March 2014 - 10:58 AM, said:

We have way more range on everything excepting SRMs (and autocannons have even more way more range than anything else- twice as much as lasers and more than three times as much as LRMs, which is part of the problem with trying to make LRMs stay in their original niche here). Which, now that it's mentioned, is another change I don't really understand, but oh well.

For the sake of clarity, Abi, I would like to mention that I was hoping to see your response to my ACs/LRMs post (and now also my LRM/indirect fire post), not my ECM post, because, as I said, that's all the discussion I really wanted to have on that already.

I should also mention (again) that I agree that LRMs should be faster (though at this point I don't think anyone's arguing against that?)

First off, I get mad for no reason at all...part of being a grumpy old man.

Second, I really think if they sped up the LRMs but didn't change the turn radius or tracking, you'd see a whole different dynamic...to the better.

Third, they seriously increased the ranges for EVERYTHING but missiles....by that, I mean that an AC round can travel way past it's effective range and still do a little damage. Same for energy weapons. But missiles.....they travel to the end of their range and self destruct. Sort of lopsided when you consider how their damage is scattered and how much teamwork is necessary to make them effective sometimes.

Fourth, I really think the overall effect of ECM needs to be looked at again. The way it is right now, it's effectively an electronic umbrella that everyone can hide under. If they don't want to re-work the mechanics, then perhaps allowing it on more chassis than right now. I know that I, for one, would mount it on just about everything...and if we already had coverage for our LRM boats, I'd be running around on counter all the time. In fact, that's pretty much why I have BAP on all my close range fighters.

Done for now. Making a couch for the basement.

[Joseph Mallan]

Abivard, on 06 March 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

As far as I am aware, the LRM from TT outranged all other weapons, in MWO it outranges only a few weapons, among AC's only the AC20 has a shorter range.

LRM's may have had 40% increase, but ballistics received 200% range bonus and energy has 100% bonus.

let us get everything out in the open shall we.

AC2 Gauss and Clan ERPPC were the range macDaddies. Then LRMs

As to open I want the ranges cut back for ACs as I stated above.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 06 March 2014 - 11:11 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 March 2014 - 11:10 AM, said:

AC2 Gauss and Clan ERPPC were the range macDaddies. Then LRMs

As to open I want the ranges cut back for ACs as I stated above.

Oh, what was that Clan 'mech? the one with 6 Clan UAC2s? I think it was 6....can't remember right now. I think it was the Kraken. Viscious.

[DocBach]

Kraken had ten Ultra AC2s and 4 machine guns.

Also had a variant with 8 LRM-15's.

Edited by DocBach, 06 March 2014 - 11:17 AM.