383 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Sandpit, on 26 February 2014 - 06:12 PM, said:

I'm just curious about something

For all those saying LRMs are rare, why is it we have threads talking about how LRMs are ruling the battlefield?

The same reason that we have this thread.

Also, what Lyoto said.

[Haji1096]

SuckyJack, on 26 February 2014 - 12:36 PM, said:

The problem with LRMs is how MWO has handled Range Compression.

In the TT LRMs were a means to provide high amounts of damage at a range that is nearly unmatched. The only weapon that beat their range was the AC/2 which has a low Damage/Tonnage ratio. To be marked against this strength LRMs spread their damage, have a high cost in Tonnage and Crits as well as require ammo.

MWO comes along and doubles the max range of all Energy Weapons and triples the max range of all Ballistic Weapons. These weapons get linear damage decay past their TT Max Range to deal 0 damage past their MWO Max Range. The TT Max Range got renamed Optimum Range.

LRM Max Range has remained unchanged.

Where does this leave the game? We have long range engagements with ERLLs, ERPPCs, AC/5s and AC/2s that are tagging damage out at or beyond LRM range. LRM Boats, mechs that specialized themselves to unload their payload at extreme ranges and used that range as a safety net are instead forced into the danger zone where high damage direct fire weapons can actually hit them.

Extreme Range Sniping becomes a problem due to the nature of pin point damage, film grain is used to obscure mechs at longer range, fluffed as the lower resolution on the screens that display the world around us and make the game look a lot uglier.

What can be done? Many things. Ballistics can get only Double their max TT Range (or Optimum Range) with Linear Decay and Energy could get non-linear decay to make the weapons more different. Or you could double the LRM range and apply a 1% missile death rate per 2% past optimum range they travel so only 50% of the volley will land. Gives larger launchers like the LRM20 a purpose.

Then again I've found out time and time again that my views are "On An Island" and to be dismissed without consideration. So take it all with a grain of salt.

Love the ideas in this post. I would like to see a system where a user could alter the characteristics of their LRMS: Imagine if you could sacrifice damage per missile to increase the range, sacrifice range for flight angle, or sacrifice linear velocity for ability to track fast moving targets. Users should be able to blind fire to spot on the ground, either designated by a TAG laser, or a location chosen on a map.

IMO, LRMs are trash weapons. Even under the right circumstances (Open map, teammates holding locks, NO ECM on enemy team), you can get high damage scores, but even then your damage is spread out. LRMS should be scary. Every time I waltz into the open, I should be worried about them. When I'm hiding behind a building to jump snipe, I should be worried about them.

When I die to LRMs, my assumption is that I made a colossally stupid mistake in my positioning. Its amusing.

[Sandpit]

Lyoto Machida, on 26 February 2014 - 06:20 PM, said:

Because people play in different ELO brackets?

ding ding ding!!!
because people have different experiences in this game.

so all the commentary of "I never see LRMs"
"LRMs are useless, taht's why you don't see them often"

are nowhere near conclusive of anything.

[Khobai]

Quote

For all those saying LRMs are rare, why is it we have threads talking about how LRMs are ruling the battlefield?

LRMs dont rule the battlefield. PPCs and ACs do. LRMs are worse than direct fire weapons in almost every way.

LRMs:
-do spread damage instead of pinpoint damage
-still do worse damage even with TAG and Artemis combined
-take up more tonnage/crits than PPCs and use ammo
-have worse min range than PPCs and lower optimal range (LRMs suck past 600m)
-require holding a lock and LoS instead of just being able to snapfire (no snapfire is a huge downside)
-can be hard countered by ecm, soft countered by ams, give a warning, and can be dodged outright
-have worse heat efficiency because they have lower accuracy and spread damage like crazy.

The ONLY advantage of LRMs is being able to fire indirectly. Which requires multiple mechs coordinating to pull off. And despite requiring multiple mechs it still isnt more powerful than a single mech with PPCs/ACs.

LRMs are massively underpowered compared to direct fire weapons. ECM should not hard counter LRMs. Artemis and TAG should buff LRMs way more to justify the added tonnage/crits slots. LRMs also need faster travel time and you should only get an LRM warning if you have AMS equipped (which makes sense since AMS has a special radar for tracking missiles).

Edited by Khobai, 26 February 2014 - 08:10 PM.

[mekabuser]

i dont get it.. raise their speed 10 percent.. See what happens?
I think we can all agree, this aggressive tweaking has never happened.
Based on pgis ability to test and balance , i predict the clan/is dynamic is going to be actually broken.. Not just "seem" to be which is what 20percent of the playerbase will think even if it was PERFECT.

If the devs were smart they would give 2,3 hundred guys in the top 20 percent of elo a month to work out the kinks in the test server. Not 2 hours.
actually , if they were REALLY smart, they should farm out as much of the development as possible to the playerbase..
I really suspect they dont know what they are doing in conjunction with alot of other albatrosses around their necks.

[Felicitatem Parco]

mekabuser, on 26 February 2014 - 07:58 PM, said:

If the devs were smart they would give 2,3 hundred guys in the top 20 percent of elo a month to work out the kinks in the test server. Not 2 hours.

So, the people who are most likely to continuously exploit the game's balance failings are the people you would entrust to balance the game? Sounds a little shifty...

Edited by Prosperity Park, 26 February 2014 - 08:05 PM.

[Kjudoon]

Excellent post, Sandpit.

So... a better balance, other than making sure Lights cannot 'outrun' missiles anymore would be to:

1. AMS targets only missiles fired at that mech.
2. Make missiles 'fire and forget', so they do not lose locks, or at least offer that module.
3. TAG is no longer thwarted by EMS inside of 180m or slows TAG assisted lock.
4. Have it that every missile hit unless something is done deliberately to counter the ability of a missile to hit (AMS/ECM/good piloting) So if you're standing there looking stupid with nothing to prevent it, you eat the full barrage.

If you did even 2 of those 5 things (Including increased speed) it might be a good trade off. Yes, I know that all of those together would make this "LRMwarrior Online" in a heartbeat. That is why I put them all out there, so maybe more than one item would be considered.

[wanderer]

topgun505, on 26 February 2014 - 01:43 PM, said:

You opened the door.

Bear in mind though that in TT not all missiles in a volley would hit their intended target. Even if it was a perfect shot with a target out in the open and not moving a majority of a volley could still miss even though the rack 'hit' the target.

In MWO, assuming terrain doesnt get in the way, the majority of volley usually hits a target unless it is running blazingly fast. So you have to take those differences into consideration as well.

I am likely one of the most common users of LRMs you're gonna meet, to the point that the -2X Cataphract is actually my best 'Mech statwise. Yes, and I don't even use the ballistic mount.

I deliver roughly (a bit less actually) 25% of my launched payload to target, and that's with Artemis and TAG when applicable. By comparison, more like a third+ of my ballistic/AC fire registers as hits (then again, I'm frequently hosing down hills to keep people's head's down) and over 60% of my beam weapon shots land to at least some extent. Even taking what in TT would be a 50% hit rate with launches, I should be getting closer to 40% of my missiles to target (Artemis in TT basically means an average of 8 in 10 missiles to-target, halved for assuming 50% of the shots miss entirely).

Honestly, I'd love to see LRMs go to the "multi-stage" concept for IS launchers.

For the first 180m, make LRMs a "first-stage" boost. Their speed matches SRMs (300) but deal no damage as they're not armed yet. At 180m, they arm, slow down gradually to normal speed (currently 120) over the next 60m or so and move as normal from there from 240->1000m. Clan LRMs would fire in a wider pattern, have no speed boost (though they might have a slight overall speed buff, say to 150 or so), and be armed from 0m - but not narrow down into a focused cluster until they clear 180m, even with Artemis/TAG/NARC. That is, they'd be "single-stage" missiles, while IS LRMs are "dual-stage". Clan LRM launches would resemble the old "jellyfish" pattern missiles used in some earlier MWO builds.

[wanderer]

Bront, on 26 February 2014 - 02:41 PM, said:

2) Penalize boating. The ability to boat LRMs means any fix that helps issue number 1 breaks the super-large LRM boats. I can't think of a cannon mech that could launch more than 40 missiles. The LRMPocolypse comes from mechs boating 50 or more of the launchers.

Hello, I'm the Viking. I start production in 3059, and mount 70 Artemis-guided LRM tubes, stock. Yes, those are machine gun knees, because I'm just that cool.



This is my little Steiner cousin, the Salamander. He only has 60 tubes, but that's cause he weighs in at 10 less tons overall. He may be smaller, but he was born in 3055.

Livewyr, on 26 February 2014 - 03:32 PM, said:

We already have the issue where DHS is a requirement to be competitive- which can be solved but hasn't.
We don't want missiles to go the same route.

DHS are a requirement because double heat sinks are the standard post-3050. Single heat sinks were a throwback piece of technology that was slapped in 'Mechs simply because they'd bombed every factory capable of producing the proper heat sinks for a 'Mech into radioactive debris. Battletech is full of cases where make-do technology replaces cutting-edge production- rather than being a steady march upwards, tech levels rose and fell and rose again and diverged depending on the region producing the war machinery.



This is the Hawkwolf, first produced in 3076. Yes, 3076. It uses armor and engines that are lower-tech than the standard stuff in MWO and single heat sinks- yet mounts CASE and some of the top-notch multiple-missile launchers that are amidst the cutting edge tech for IS missile tech in the 3070's.

Only puts 40 LRMs in the air, though. Darn. But it's a perfect example of the schizo mixes of tech that are a hallmark of the Battletech universe. While not optimized, they exist in plenty.

Edited by wanderer, 26 February 2014 - 08:44 PM.

[Sam Slade]

SIMPLE: Increase their speed on the climb and the descent... give them a bit of loft.

[Kjudoon]

They already nerfed boating. It's called Ghost Heat.

[Thorqemada]

I play around at times with a Mech that has 1 Artemis-LRM15 and it has insane 22% accuracy.
AMS and whatever else makes sane LRM setups pretty much useless and they could take LRM as well away from the game it would not matter currently.

Edited by Thorqemada, 26 February 2014 - 08:55 PM.

[CrashieJ]

I still want to be able to outrun LRMS with a big enough engine.

I'm a Locust only going 167.3kph, getting hit with LRMs that I should be able to run away from

A lot of things need to be balanced first with Engines and the inrtoduction of MASC being higher on the list

[Abivard]

Antonio, on 26 February 2014 - 04:05 PM, said:

The reason why LRM speed decreasing the effect of AMS is relevant is that it makes that 1.5 tons even more useless compared to ECM. I think they should try increasing LRM speed until it reaches within about 150-100m of the target and then slows down. This way AMS will still work and the flight time will be shorter.

Did you know that while every mech can equip AMS, there are only 4 mech variants that can equip ECM?

I think you must not have known that or else you would not have posted what you posted.

Why are you even bringing ECM into this? It has not a thing to do with LRM speed or fast mechs avoiding LRM's, or even AMS which is something that will need adjustment with the LRM speed increase.

In Fact, about the only thing that isn't relative to this discussion is ECM!

Go beat that horse somewhere else please, The 'ECM is the root of all evil' diatribe is getting to be real old.

Why is it used so often as reason not to do any balance on anything else?

[Johnny Reb]

Aym, on 26 February 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

If speeding them up disadvantages them against AMS, would lowering their health help balance it? Seems like that stuff should be the kind of aggressive tweaking we've heard about.

Or increase ams range? Seems like easy things that dont happen!

[Punkass]

Paul doesn't want to increase LRM speed because they'll overpower AMS? Increase the rate of fire for AMS then... oh wait, that's a smart solution and we can't have those.

[Relic1701]

LRMs go faster, AMS range increased.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Relic1701, on 26 February 2014 - 11:21 PM, said:

LRMs go faster, AMS range increased.

Increase the AMS damage, not range. The protective multi-mech AMS cloud doesn't need to get bigger.

[Rubidiy]

I see no reason for increasing LRM speed.

If you're not using Artemis, BAP, TAG, adv.target decay, adv.sensor range, you're doing it wrong. Standing still in a slow LRM boat 800m away from your target is a wrong way to play LRM boat. If you don't put an effort into it, you don't recieve a result. That's it. If you're a noob who only locks and shoots LRMs regardless of range and target's movements, you won't hit it. Be mobile, be selective, be patient, be aware of enemy movement and you'll be able to deal a lot of damage.
Increasing LRM speed will benefit only to noobs, who cann't play LRM boat. In hands of a good pilot, they will become OP. Greatest weapon balancing blunders were made by PGI while tweaking LRMs. Now they're completely fine. Buff LRMs and pug matches will become another LRM apocalypse. Just mention, that LRMs are going to be buffed, and people will start using them.

[EarlGrey83]

I think increasing the speed of LRM is actually the only way to start balancing them.

At the moment, LRM are not hard to balance because of the many mechanics influencing them.
It´s the simple fact that LRM always hit a slow mech (due to their homing) but don´t hit fast mechs.

Speeding them up, to get a more consistent damage curve on all mechs has to be done.

Next step, real balancing.