40 replies to this topic

[Carrioncrows]

Kaeb Odellas, on 19 March 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

I don't support outright removing indirect fire. I'd be fine with seeing it nerfed, though. Higher spread and lock on time, anyone?

You can read the thread and realize I suggested no such thing as outright removing indirect fire.

[Vanguard319]

If anything, I'd lower the duration of NARC pods, since they can't be knocked off anymore. Keep them useful, but keep them from being an instant win button.

[Xenok]

I have not read the whole thread as it just agrued back and forth. I did not see this point.

THe indirect fire of LRMs is what makes them unique. Remove that feature and you may as well remove the weapon as there would be little reason for it. You are effectively making them a really big LBX cannon. We will get an LBX20 soon enough. Do not need to turn missiels into the same thing.

Reduce the cabin shake dramatically, flatten the flight path dramatically and leave the speed up. They need to tweek the LRMs with smaller tweeks rather than huge leaps until they fine tune them to be very punishing for bad postioning but not overpowered for bad positioning. Mkaing them a LBX10 with the ability to fire at tagged targets behind a hill is not much different from an LBX, if you want that just remove missiles all together.

[Carrioncrows]

Xenok, on 19 March 2014 - 06:13 PM, said:

I have not read the whole thread as it just agrued back and forth. I did not see this point.

THe indirect fire of LRMs is what makes them unique. Remove that feature and you may as well remove the weapon as there would be little reason for it. You are effectively making them a really big LBX cannon. We will get an LBX20 soon enough. Do not need to turn missiels into the same thing.

Reduce the cabin shake dramatically, flatten the flight path dramatically and leave the speed up. They need to tweek the LRMs with smaller tweeks rather than huge leaps until they fine tune them to be very punishing for bad postioning but not overpowered for bad positioning. Mkaing them a LBX10 with the ability to fire at tagged targets behind a hill is not much different from an LBX, if you want that just remove missiles all together.

Would help if you read my OP.

I'll repeat it,

Remove the ability for LRM's to indirect fire UNLESS that target is being hit by Tag, Narc or UAV.

Do that and you can speed up LRM's, crank up their damage and tracking.

Edited by Carrioncrows, 19 March 2014 - 10:35 PM.

[CaptainDeez]

Remove the minimum fire range and it's a

DEAL...

[Livewyr]

This must be a joke or something.

Direct fire capability: shoot your slower missiles at the PPC mech who just shot you and is now behind cover. Yeah.. I'd totally use LRMs...

Indirect fire capability: "Hope one of your friendly mechs isn't engaged in combat so he can put a tag laser on a mech." (or) "Hope he used his 1-time-use UAV and that it doesn't get shot down." (or) "Hope he went up to kiss the enemy with that heavy/low ammo pure missile support dedicated weapon slot occupant."

Surely, you jest.

LRMs are designed to be indirect weapons that are IMPROVED by NARC and such, not to be "turned on" by NARC.
Taking away the indirect fire capability (except in these special, and uncommon circumstances) really would just put the PPC/AC back at "Undisputed at long range."

Jesus Box (ECM) and AMS weren't good enough for you?

[Speedy Pinky]

The problem is not the speed ... its the masses there come.

You will killed in seconds when you run from Cover to Cover.
If LRMs Ammo where reduced from 180/t to 90/T or less

They must think when they shoot or he is empty in 2 min.
AND there should hit like SSRMs not all in Center Torso.

Now its unplayable as Brawler or Light Pilot ...
They with the most LRMs wins ... thats sooooo boring.

Edited by Speedy Pinky, 20 March 2014 - 04:21 AM.

[Livewyr]

Speedy Pinky, on 20 March 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:

The problem is not the speed ... its the masses there come.

You will killed in seconds when you run from Cover to Cover.
If LRMs Ammo where reduced from 180/t to 90/T or less

They must think when they shoot or he is empty in 2 min.
AND there should hit like SSRMs not all in Center Torso.

Now its unplayable as Brawler or Light Pilot ...
They with the most LRMs wins ... thats sooooo boring.

Two things I would change:

Massively increased spread from boating missiles. (Every five tubes above 40 earns a 30% increase in the spread..or more.)
Slow down the rate of fire of LRMs...and PPCs, and Gauss, and LL/ERLL....

[Gyrok]

LRM boats should not be able to lock onto an ally mech's target. That is what the C3 targeting computer is for...in fact, no mech should be able to see other mech's targets unless a UAV, NARC, or TAG is being used.

That solves a plethora of problems encountered in MWO, and gives light mechs a purpose...

[Roland]

Xenok, on 19 March 2014 - 06:13 PM, said:

I have not read the whole thread as it just agrued back and forth. I did not see this point.

THe indirect fire of LRMs is what makes them unique. Remove that feature and you may as well remove the weapon as there would be little reason for it. You are effectively making them a really big LBX cannon. We will get an LBX20 soon enough. Do not need to turn missiels into the same thing.

No, not really, because they track their target.

What I would recommend is that they track their target after you fire them, regardless of whether you continue to hold that lock... But that you need to see them to get the lock initially. Similar to how they worked in MW4.

[Ken Moore]

Hey Carrion, do you actually use LRM's? I have run LRM mechs forever and while this new flight speed is pretty nasty actual Indirect fire is still difficult, especially with PuGs!! Between lost locks from team mates not holding them, trying to hit pop up shooters, or even hitting the hill/building in front of me I have wasted shots on plenty of targets.
As a light Mech pilot I have helped LRM mechs waste shots by moving behind cover when they are fired at me EVEN DIRECTLY.

Anyone ever run a LRM Mech where the enemy had LOTS of ECM? I have and it sucks! Your team can't get a lock on anything so you can't shoot anything so your down to a couple of lasers when the other team hunts you down.

SilverStar you can not dead-fire LRM's indirectly. When you shoot them without any lock they go to where you put the crosshairs.
If you crank up the speed of the missiles then you just have a slow AC that tries to track you but can be dodged.

The way this game is right now it is all about killing. Even the new achievements are about kills and assists. You say light mechs should drop weapons for Narc and Tag and should spend C-bills on UAV's.... this is great idea for 12 vs 12 group fights but for PuGs matches most Scout Mech players want the kills.

So Trollocostic wants to put all the LRM ammo in the same slot as the weapon... makes sense but then why would that only apply to LRM's????? If your going to do it for one then do it for all. Oh wait, that means AC 20 and Gauss would have almost no ammo available.

Speedy Pinky thinks we should cut the ammo in half... again if we do it for one lets do it across all the ammo weapons. That way while I am standing in the open to fire my LRM's, because no one on my team has Tag or Narc, hopefully I wont get burned down by guys with quad AC2 or AC5. Oh wait that means PPC's and Lasers are the only decent weapons left.

[Sinthrow]

I don't know if this was talked about, but I believe in the a couple of the clan mech loadouts was listed a targeting computer. do you think that might has something to do with the weapons over all buff? do you think they may remove the built in no weight c3 that we all enjoy right now?
Just saying.
maybe it is something to think about.

[zolop]

Gyrok, on 20 March 2014 - 06:10 AM, said:

LRM boats should not be able to lock onto an ally mech's target. That is what the C3 targeting computer is for...in fact, no mech should be able to see other mech's targets unless a UAV, NARC, or TAG is being used.

That solves a plethora of problems encountered in MWO, and gives light mechs a purpose...

Livewyr, on 20 March 2014 - 04:00 AM, said:

...

LRMs are designed to be indirect weapons that are IMPROVED by NARC and such, not to be "turned on" by NARC.
Taking away the indirect fire capability (except in these special, and uncommon circumstances) really would just put the PPC/AC back at "Undisputed at long range."

Jesus Box (ECM) and AMS weren't good enough for you?

Agree with both of these points, maybe have a C3 module for (but not insanely expensive to buy like the other moduls, 1.5 mil for adv sensors?!? thats half the cost of a light mech and adv sensors is only a module!) the pilot able to buy for their mech or have mech installed permanent (for the raven 3L for example) into the mech?

Until then LRMs should remain have a basic indirect fire capability without the NARC/TAG.. ECM can be really effective if used well to deny enemy indirect LRM fire, just stick near those mechs or buy a mech with ECM capability. Its a shame PGI still limits group sizes to play as a team. A coordinated group of more than 5-12 with a few ECM Mechs can almost totally deny indirect LRM fire from the enemy. But hey it was PGI's decision to remove the hardcore que and larger group sizes.

Edited by zolop, 20 March 2014 - 12:05 PM.

[General Taskeen]

This what I've been saying since the very beginning CarrionCrows.

What you just said is exactly how targeting and LRMs have worked since always in MechWarrior games. Bonus, ECM never blocked missiles from firing in line of sight.

how it should be:

• LRMs should be able to very (indirectly), which is defined as a target your Mech view can NOT see in your line of sight only with the aid of NARC and TAG
  
• LRMs should NOT be blocked from firing at a Mech that they can see, even if said Mech is under ECM
  
• ECM should block LRM's ability to fire over obstacles, except for TAG at long range

They made it totally backwards in MWO, and turned targeting/ecm/lrm's on its head in comparison to previous games that had it working how it should. Those games even drew from Battle Tech for inspiration. We don't have actual information warfare in this game.




There is another issue to go along with this, which is that many maps are very small (difficult for a typical light mech, with its role flanking to spot with gear like tag/narc). And the ones that are big, have very little cover...

Edited by General Taskeen, 20 March 2014 - 01:58 PM.

[Mizore]

Carrioncrows, on 18 March 2014 - 03:24 PM, said:

LRM's should not be able to lock on and fire at targets indirectly....Unless the target is hit with a NARC, UAV or being hit with a TAG.

Then you can tweak LRM Speed, Dmg and Spread and crank it up.

This solves all issues with LRM including LRM5 and 10 being useless unless you boat them.

It also creates something we have wanted from the beginning. "ROLE WARFARE"

Now there would be a point to lights outside of slapping the biggest engine and biggest guns on it.

That's just my opinion!
And when they have done that, they also can bring ECM to a state it originally should have been in.

Edited by Mizore, 21 March 2014 - 06:30 AM.

[General Taskeen]

Livewyr, on 20 March 2014 - 04:00 AM, said:

LRMs are designed to be indirect weapons that are IMPROVED by NARC and such, not to be "turned on" by NARC.
Taking away the indirect fire capability (except in these special, and uncommon circumstances) really would just put the PPC/AC back at "Undisputed at long range."

No, I assure you he is not jesting.

His idea is merely based on 10+ years of Mech Warriors games and Battle Tech that had targeting being what he just described in MW2, MW3, MW4, MW:LL.

And NARC most definitely was for turning on indirect fire for LRM's, that is what they are designed for, which is why ECM counters it (but does not block direct fire). That's how it has been balanced in MW since time immemorial.

TAG - literally a tool for guiding a missile to a target, such as with semi-guided LRM's later on
NARC - literally a tool which attaches a beacon to a target with a "LRM's come to this location signal" (also allowed close range tracking with SRM's as in "SRM's come to this location signal" the same as LRMs).

Again, I remind people of the powerful direct fire LRM's (they were very fast) in MW2, they were certainly damaging, but they were very fast to be on par with other long range weaponry.

Also my video below demostrating how lrm's work with indirect fire, but only with NARC or TAG (in the case of my video, I have narc on my own mech) so the dual purpose nature of LRMs still exist. LL also heavily borrowed this idea from previous games.



(starts at 5:41 and 9:30 mark for example)


And in those games if you came across a Mech that was out in the open and had ECM, and you could see it from your cockpit, then you could lock onto it and still fire your LRM's in direct fire mode. It created that classic paper-rock-scissors that occurs with TAG/ECM/NARC. And yes I agree ECM is a "jesus" magic box, only because PGI reversed exactly all of how these items functioned in previous games... balance in MWO has always been described as bandaids upon bandaids. I'm sure Carrion agrees to, even if this change were to occur, that LRM's should still be able to fire at a Mech in LOS even with ECM present (thus only ECM's ability for a lock to take a little longer as a slight bonus, and its mega bonus for blocking tools that allow indirect fire).


@Carrion, your title is a bit misleading though. It says "remove indirect fire" but as it shows in your post you meant remove "all targeting" allowing indirect, but keep indirect for TAG/NARC. It should be more like "Fix Indirect Fire" or "More Complex Indirect Fire" or whatever...

Edited by General Taskeen, 20 March 2014 - 02:30 PM.

[Carrioncrows]

General Taskeen, on 20 March 2014 - 02:21 PM, said:

@Carrion, your title is a bit misleading though. It says "remove indirect fire" but as it shows in your post you meant remove "all targeting" allowing indirect, but keep indirect for TAG/NARC. It should be more like "Fix Indirect Fire" or "More Complex Indirect Fire" or whatever...

Yeah, but that was the attention-getter. Make people go "What.....? what is this fool talking about....Ok, that makes sense."

[MadFJohn]

just so you know this is based off TT and in TT you can indirect fire. this before C3 was around. C3 just made it simpler. so no it should not be removed.

second the ammo should be set back to what it relay was ,and the SRM and LRM ammo was set up as racks not a ammo genarik. so if you whant to have a LRM 5 and a LRM 10 you wood to need to carry a ton of LRM 5 ammo and a ton of LRM 10 ammo

[Livewyr]

HUGE EDIT:
Just re-read the BT rules (again)
It says firing indirectly with a spotter can be done.

The issue of Lock-On is a derivative of moving from a turn-based game, to a real time game where your target presumably never sits still.

That said, I've always been an advocate of increasing the spread of LRMs in indirect (unaided) fire.

-----------------------------
(Also, your Cougar demo doesn't really apply here- there was nothing to give him LOS/locks, so he had to do it himself with a NARC.. which he'd have to do in MWO as well... we don't get to lock through terrain either.)

Edited by Livewyr, 21 March 2014 - 04:21 AM.

[Mechteric]

I definitely think Indirect fire for LRMs is one of the more interesting things about MWO, since it wasn't really in any other previous Mechwarrior game (not counting TAG/Narc here). I would only recommend that perhaps when indirect fire is used that the spread of the LRMs is increased a bit, so you have less chance to hit with most of the missiles, and they spread damage around more.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 21 March 2014 - 05:06 AM.