Then give us the full picture. For us in Liao, it was mostly Dragon Slayers with the usual AC/5-PPC configs. Cause if people are howling "NERF!" and we're seeing similar scores from both types, then if one needs a powering down, so does the rest.
Of course, that way lies the circle of endless Nerf, the tenth circle of gaming hell. Was it also Lurmageddon in Marik, Davion, etc?
I think no one in his right mind will say that this pinpoint stuff is ok. We need convergence back.
Its simple. Lower elo players(could be old and new players) don't really have damage specific builds and therefore when it comes to changing their mech around and adding AMS and maybe 3-4 tons ammo. It wont be a problem because they will generally accept being able to change their build to work around the added systems.
High elo players are the ones who run damage specific(i'm talking high DPS) are more reluctant because a change can mean they wont be able to produce the results or at least think their mech wont preform as good if they reduce ammo count, remove a heat sink, downgrade a weapon(ex. Large to med, AC 10 to 5). So generally they don't adapt well. Or try to compensate a little by adding AMS and say 1-2 tons.
That's just a observations, some clarity would be helpful
If I may, you're assuming what Paul means by adapt/adjust to the new environment is to simply apply AMS. There are a number of builds, tactics, movement that proved quite effective without having to change anything on the current set ups a lot of us have. He could also mean that they went out and used lrms themselves, or that they took a light scout mech with tag/ecm/narc.
I spent all Saturday in my Dragon Slayer grinding c-bills and the only issue I encountered that involved LRMs was a UAV that went unnoticed for about 20 seconds. I've played as I always have, just a little closer to the vest, gauging the changes and playing the best way I know how.
LRMs were not a problem before, you could just get away with being in the open for extended periods. At the current speed, they punish you for being so undisciplined. Even after this adjustment, I will still not have issues with LRMs. Sound tactics will always beat the easy button.
Kill the spotter.
Edited by Suicidal Baby, 25 March 2014 - 08:55 AM.
Bishop Steiner, on 24 March 2014 - 02:22 PM, said:
we usually used well placed direct fire, and arty strikes against those formations in HARD. Situational, also, as some locations are better shielded, (though better shielded tends to mean more hard cover to snipe around, then break locks, too), but use of hard cover, and the preponderance of direct fire weapons we could snap shoot, then move with, which far outrange LRMs, most times, left us rather unimpressed with LRMs as the answer. They are a good part of a Order of Battle though.
Nope agreed anyone of the systems needs to be used in conjunction with its force multiplier. We use were using a spotter with tag and NARC to devestating effect after the patch. To be honest I never really used LRM's before that but if I started taking direct fire two things come in mind 1 terrain and two whats my spotter doing and how fast can I get that tag lock and target decay. I actually had a great fight I think with you and MischiefSC? On Alpine yesterday that was a nailbiter, you guys had more direct fire and we had the boat lance, you even had one of ours on your Team and it came down to 2 mechs left.
The direct fire actually had me repositioning and it was the most mobile LRM fight I have had over the last few days and was a lot of fun. We won but barely and I thought we would end up losing for abit.
Any platform is going to be tougher to deal with the more coordinated the members are and the more complimentary its support assets are. Our Raven was our biggest force multiplier. I would recommend folks focus those little buggers as opportunities allow on drops where you see boats, you ignore at your own peril.
LocationStomping around in a giant robot, of course.
Posted 24 March 2014 - 03:02 PM
DocBach, on 24 March 2014 - 02:57 PM, said:
#3 in Rasalhauge started a post on the tournament page with his loadout - LRM-55 Highlander.
I made 14 for Steiner with 2165 points using a BNC-3E Banshee exclusively -- all of my games featured players from the leaderboards, and all of the games we played had several boats involved.
So right now, we're seeing a mix of missile boats and dakka-heavy stuff. I've been seeing LRM boaters, Jagermechs, a mix of classic Victor/Highlander (missile and non) and Stalkers up there with your mentioned Banshees.
I really, REALLY want the hard data, though. Speculation is not enough.
Lower Elo players adapted to the changes much faster than the higher Elo players.
LRM use spiked hugely on the day of the change and has been dropping off slowly as time goes by.
I have no doubts about that. hence the numerous posts I've made pointing out that the high level metahumpers were the ones leading the charge because it caused them to have to adapt their poptarting tactics. That pretty much confirms it though
I get flashbacks from the last MG buff - where they were dangerous as hell to an opponent with exposed armour, even in pairs. That took what, two weeks? for the whiners to get their way and now MGs aren't effective with less than three again.
What this patch did was enable single LRM launchers to be somewhat effective, two was good - which meant I see lots and lots of very BattleTech-like builds out there, not just boat this boat that.
I'm afraid that reducing the LRMs will only get us to where the MG is right now; you have to boat them to be effective.
And that's a bad place for a weapon system to be.
Edit: Just for the record, most my builds are what people call "Frankenmechs", i.e. balanced, BattleTech-like builds with a mix of direct-fire, LRM, and close-range weaponry. I tried a BLR-1S LRM boat yesterday, loaded up with 50 tubes and 1800 missiles - and did a total of 478 damage in two drops. 0 kills, 2 deaths. LRM boating doesn't seem to be my forte
I'm in the same boat. I do balanced builds and always have. Worked for me while piloting in the NBT - continues to work for me now. As always I have my ups and downs in games and when I'm reckless I usually get ruthlessly punished for it by the opposing team.
Go look at the tournament data and please, tell me what was scoring highest.
You've got the info. After all, it scored our top 10 matches.
Please, tell us what chassis scored those #1-#10 rankings. In Liao, the top dogs weren't using LRMs. Heck, I might well be the top guy who used a missile boat the entire time- and placed twenty-fourth in that whole weekend grind. Why not dakka? Because silly me, I wanted to see how far I could push the new missile systems.
If it wasn't LRMs, then you have zero reason to change missile speed, unless you intend to do something roughly equivalent to the whole front-loaded damage-pa-looza that is AC/PPC metaboating. Why'd the lower ELO adjust faster?
Because the higher ELO realized that LRMs really aren't as deadly as the same stuff that killed best before the patch and usage was in the cellar by comparison.
Seriously. You just had a weekend full of tons of data. Show us what topped the charts. Where'd the LRM rank in that? What -really- was performing best?
that's silly indeed.
that's what you get for learning of a misguided, shortsighted gameplay change and immediately trying to exploit it for a tourney.
Paul, if you do monitor these threads please read this.
The problem with LRMs are thier effecitvness as indirect fire compared to direct fire.
You will always face an imbalanced situation when the indirect fire is pretty much as good as the direct fire.
Players can inflict damage without taking return fire nd when done en mass its devestating.
However if you balance it down for indirect fire when you fire with LoS with the risks of return fire its so anemic that no one takes LRMs.
Indirect fire needs to have a worse spread or something so that the damage from a low risk situation is like sand blasting, not a devestating hammer. The hammer is for when a player taks the LoS risk and the grouping should be much tighter then.
You already have code to change missile spread this should be fairly easy to implement ... a way to have indirect useful but make LoS direct fire for LRMs more damaging so people do not take the indirect option every time.
Such a change would allow LRMs to punish the foolish as usual, and help good teamwork players dislodge campers, and shape the battleifled a little with indirect ... but not provide massaive damage with low risk either.
Make the LRMs what they are "Long range" if you want to get into close range battles with a missile system, equip a different missile system. I'm talking make minimum range like 400-500m.
Make the boats gets their targets from teammates and get their defense from teammates. LRM boat should never be an offensive player which least in my little time playing, they seem to do a lot.
I think the two of you are still too generous. LRMs should prob have a minimum range of 560m and a max range of 2000m. Raise speed to 320m/s.
Also, LRM boats shouldn't be able to be attack. They should be restricted to only firing at targets that are firing on them or another teammate.
In case you did not experience the weekend carnage first hand, this video is a great example of the NARC + LRM exploit. Watch as the match opens with a spider downed in 17 seconds by LRMs followed by the rest of the enemy team. Ouch!
_
Dracol, on 24 March 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:
For those who wish not to view the video.. yes the spider dies in 17 seconds, but it took the beating because it ran out into the open in front of 2 lances.
Yea, the spider got what he deserved. His navigational challenged decision ended his game exactly 45 second into the match. He was lucky to enjoy the tranquil 28 seconds before the first LRM impact.
RIP little guy, we barely knew ya!
Spider
TAG to First Missile Impact = 5 seconds
First Missile to Death = 17 seconds
Jager #1
NARC to First Missile Impact = 7 seconds
First Missile to Death = 14 seconds
Jager #2
NARC to First Missile Impact = 8 seconds
First Missile to Death = 5 seconds
Jager #3
NARC to First Missile Impact = 5 seconds
First Missile to Death = 12 seconds
Jager #4
NARC to First Missile Impact = 21 seconds (LRM boats were obviously distracted by Internet pr0n or something)
First Missile to Death = 25 seconds
Stalker
NARC to First Missile Impact = 12 seconds
First Missile to Death = 25 seconds
Commando
TAG to First Missile Impact = 8 seconds (Commando was also hit with NARC 4 seconds later)
First Missile to Death = 11 seconds
There were other Stalkers, Atlas and at least one Hunchback hit with NARC but my review of the video showed the twin missile boats engaging other targets and not focus firing. The short death times above also benefited from pug assists. Once the red team started to fall there was no reason to hold back. However, I did note that a few of the blue team assaults just stopped pushing and waited for the missiles to finish the work. Maybe they got bored?
Lower Elo players adapted to the changes much faster than the higher Elo players.
LRM use spiked hugely on the day of the change and has been dropping off slowly as time goes by.
About the reason why the slight nerf? Had nothing to do with the outcry... it was the monitoring of games and seeing the impact on the various types of gameplay that was observed.
Paul Inouye, on 24 March 2014 - 09:21 AM, said:
Just to let you all know that I've been monitoring the LRM change and their performance on the battlefield. Yes... they are a tad fast... but far from "LRMageddon". Next patch the speed will be reduced by 15m/s. I.e. net change will be from 120 to 160 (instead of 175). I'm also reducing the amount of screenshake caused by LRM explosions slightly. (0.35 instead of 0.4)
It was important to watch the speed impact in gameplay for at least a week to see the actual change in overall gameplay. As you may or may not know, I do have the ability to remotely monitor specific and random games being played. I spent a large portion of my time last week monitoring gameplay of players of all Elo ranges. There were some interesting finds to say the least in terms of how players adapted to the speed change.
It doesn't inspire confidence that you're making those "finds" based on the "monitoring" your doing.
I think it's been pointed out numerous times that the data analysis of PGI in general appears to be questionable.
Even if we take it for granted that you have good ways to collect data (which I don't, since you appear to say you have the ability to remotely monitor specific or random games, and I question how long you actually spent monitoring games and not actually doing other key work we're waiting for), it's in appropriate objective analysis that the data provides basis for proper action.
The length of time you had to collect this data and the way you phrased the findings, certainly make it sound like you put your subjective perception/spin on it, rather then reporting analytical results. Now of course, this is likely partially attributed to your posting style which appears to be unprofessional at times and purposefully aimed at riling up certain segments of the population.
I think LRMs are fine either way, and I believe their usage will lower over time after the sudden desire for folks to try the new change. However, I'd like to see more sharing of data and analysis and the thoughts behind the findings shared in a professional way, especially if we are continued to be used as QA/testing grounds for changes that do not always appear to be incremental.
Locationclimbing Mt Tryhard, one smoldering Meta-Mech corpse at a time
Posted 24 March 2014 - 03:15 PM
Shredhead, on 24 March 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:
*Ad hominem
Think it's you who fails, especially at delivering arguments...
not my pic. Still more valid that his argument. GG, Close.
WM Jeri, on 24 March 2014 - 03:01 PM, said:
Nope agreed anyone of the systems needs to be used in conjunction with its force multiplier. We use were using a spotter with tag and NARC to devestating effect after the patch. To be honest I never really used LRM's before that but if I started taking direct fire two things come in mind 1 terrain and two whats my spotter doing and how fast can I get that tag lock and target decay. I actually had a great fight I think with you and MischiefSC? On Alpine yesterday that was a nailbiter, you guys had more direct fire and we had the boat lance, you even had one of ours on your Team and it came down to 2 mechs left.
The direct fire actually had me repositioning and it was the most mobile LRM fight I have had over the last few days and was a lot of fun. We won but barely and I thought we would end up losing for abit.
Any platform is going to be tougher to deal with the more coordinated the members are and the more complimentary its support assets are. Our Raven was our biggest force multiplier. I would recommend folks focus those little buggers as opportunities allow on drops where you see boats, you ignore at your own peril.
Very true. As always, as the ELP like to say "friendship is firepower".
Eiji Sixfinger, on 24 March 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:
It doesn't inspire confidence that you're making those "finds" based on the "monitoring" your doing.
I think it's been pointed out numerous times that the data analysis of PGI in general appears to be questionable.
Even if we take it for granted that you have good ways to collect data (which I don't, since you appear to say you have the ability to remotely monitor specific or random games, and I question how long you actually spent monitoring games and not actually doing other key work we're waiting for), it's in appropriate objective analysis that the data provides basis for proper action.
The length of time you had to collect this data and the way you phrased the findings, certainly make it sound like you put your subjective perception/spin on it, rather then reporting analytical results. Now of course, this is likely partially attributed to your posting style which appears to be unprofessional at times and purposefully aimed at riling up certain segments of the population.
I think LRMs are fine either way, and I believe their usage will lower over time after the sudden desire for folks to try the new change. However, I'd like to see more sharing of data and analysis and the thoughts behind the findings shared in a professional way, especially if we are continued to be used as QA/testing grounds for changes that do not always appear to be incremental.
^This guy understands stats and data collection
6 days of selective review is NOT reliable data collection. Period
The fact that PGI seems to think it does actually explains a lot though. It also calls into question every decision they've made but at least it helps explain the decisions
#1 sounds very, very strange. One would assume that higher Elo players would be more likely to use "tried and true" powerbuilds like the dreaded poptarts. And, I would *think* that higher Elo folks would be more likely to use cover and other tactics to defeat the newly buffed Lurms than lower Elo folks.
#2, though, sounds pretty normal.
Hardly. The higher ELO players have tweaked their mechs, groups and playing style to the nTH degree. Anything like this that messes with that world throws them into chaos. Those without being wedded to something can make changes and adapt far faster than those who hard highly focused on a particular build, play style and so forth.
Just to let you all know that I've been monitoring the LRM change and their performance on the battlefield. Yes... they are a tad fast... but far from "LRMageddon". Next patch the speed will be reduced by 15m/s. I.e. net change will be from 120 to 160 (instead of 175). I'm also reducing the amount of screenshake caused by LRM explosions slightly. (0.35 instead of 0.4)
It was important to watch the speed impact in gameplay for at least a week to see the actual change in overall gameplay. As you may or may not know, I do have the ability to remotely monitor specific and random games being played. I spent a large portion of my time last week monitoring gameplay of players of all Elo ranges. There were some interesting finds to say the least in terms of how players adapted to the speed change.
Make it 150 and increase the effective range of AMS and you have a deal.
IMO, the screen shake would be fine if missiles worked closer to how they used to.
Paul, in watching the reactions, did you pay attention to the variants and chassis that dropped? Did you notice the variety of which chassis were dropping altered significantly, with DDC's and 3L's becoming a multiple-per-match variant?
Honestly, there wasnt anything wrong with LRM before other then the ECM issues, and NARC should make a significant difference there in itself. My battlemaster LRM boat had over a 2.0 KDR and I didnt even put a target module on it, and I 100% solo pug( prior to patch with speed and narc buff) Effective LRM's sound good, but the maps are to small for that and it MAKES PUGS CAMP SO BAD. 10 minutes of moving around the map brawling, flanking, mid range support fire(yes LRM) has turned into 13 minutes of hide behind rocks and 2 minutes of OMFG MEGA ALPHA BRAWL. Then people exit match.
But you dont need to read this all here, if you even follow your own thread. There are numerous other threads in the feedback section about this.
LocationStomping around in a giant robot, of course.
Posted 24 March 2014 - 03:37 PM
Bishop Steiner, on 24 March 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:
Very true. As always, as the ELP like to say "friendship is firepower".
God I should be banned for going Brony.
I dunno. The brony thread's been around since forever, the pony-haters ended up repeatedly violating the ToS so manytimes they just started nuking any related threads.
But yeah, teamwork is OP, and LRMs are teamwork incarnate. That is, the easiest form of teamwork is a buncha people firing LRMs at a target, hence the most common form of teamwork is the LRM barrage. OP tactic results in QQ, QQ results in LRM downgrading.
18
wanderer, on 24 March 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:
