245 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

(accidental double post)

Edited by Appogee, 21 March 2014 - 01:08 AM.

[KharnZor]

Green Mamba, on 20 March 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

Game Is doomed ...Too many White Knighters Rushing to Slurp on PGI

Game is doomed ...Too many randoms rushing to slurp the recycled cake.
LRM's are now ok. get over it

[CCC Dober]

To add something to the discussion (rather than spit and bile), I'd like you guys to look back and realize how fragile game balance actually is. A single parameter can be tweaked and turn any weapon into a force of nature or relegate it to the shelves. Gauss and LRMs are just recent examples: the former got a firing delay, the latter got a speed bump.

Looking further back myself, I've been in the mektek closed beta for a long time and what we are witnessing (here in MWO) from time to time was almost a daily occurrence back then. Thankfully behind closed doors and with little to no impact on the outside. Mektek went through a lot of iterations to get weapons right. The more experience we got during this process, the more it became clear that botching even a single parameter on any weapon could totally waste game balance. Like upping the ammo on machine guns which elevated them from the weakest to one of the deadliest weapons if boated in sufficient numbers. Or the damage spread on Artemis missiles which made a single launcher more efficient than several normal launcher. One parameter to rule them all.

My takeaway was that each weapons category needs least one benchmark weapon against which new or existing weapons in the same category have to compete. Each weapons category should be able to counter the others. To extrapolate this on MWO, it would be nice to get this kind of stability and some cornerstones in each weapons category. It would also go a long way to help with balance efforts and to prevent cheese of the week/month from happening in the first place.

[wanderer]

Quote

Does (or could) TAG perhaps work with this degree of precision?

Actually, it does. Missile clusters "center" on a TAG'd location, but resume normal targeting when/if they're no longer homing in on a painted target- and the impact pattern is still a spread in any case. While spread still occurs, you're altering at least somewhat where the brunt of missiles go.

As for LRM use pre-patch?

It'd be a pyramid that narrows as ELO rating increases. Virtually zero at the top, rarely just below that, somewhat at the mid and bottom tiers. Quite simply, a weapon has to be efficient to be useful against higher skill players- LRMs were not.

Honestly, they're still not AS efficient, but being MORE efficient and "new" means more people are putting them on the field. Since LRMs benefit from more people using them at once, they're also more "efficient" then they would be otherwise.

[wanderer]

Quote

Realistically? The 3F© is far and away the worst Champion ‘Mech released, and I’m actually one of those who likes the notion of Champs. It makes very literally every mistake an LRM player could make short of not taking their crucial support equipment. The thing bakes itself with every salvo it fires because Ghost Heat, it’s horrifyingly slow, that rear armor thing you mentioned, AND IT’S AN XL STALKER FOR MORGAN’S SAKE. How the hell is this travesty a ‘community favorite’?

It literally requires rewiring your piloting skills to work with.

It's weapon groupings and heat sinkage mean chain fire is the only sustained fire option. It's utterly horrid for group fire and only gets to really lay down damage on a long-term target lock, firing an LRM 15 cycle on chainfire for a continual annoyance rain.

The XL engine and weak rear armor demand it moves in the middle of a pack or dies and seeks cover whenever possible.

That being said, it's actually good at what it does- it just doesn't do anything that feels normal for an LRM boat. It's a "cowardly" boat that should never peek it's fat nose out from behind a hill unless it has friends distracting for it. Overwhelming AMS means it has to cool down after a few salvos and all it really manages is chip damage.

[AlmightyAeng]

KharnZor, on 21 March 2014 - 01:29 AM, said:

Game is doomed ...Too many randoms rushing to slurp the recycled cake.
LRM's are now ok. get over it

If I'm "Whiteknighting" for the current LRM change, but I've "Black-knighted" and trashed PGI's idiotic decisions concerning other aspects of gameplay for the past 2 years, does that make me a "Grey Knight" or a "Yin-Yang Samurai" ?

Edited by Ghost Badger, 21 March 2014 - 06:27 AM.