775 replies to this topic

[Prezimonto]

Artgathan, on 27 March 2014 - 04:26 AM, said:

Negative. The LRMs that are already "in flight" when the target gets to cover count as direct fire hits - if they'd been PPC/AC shots you would have pegged the target before it reached cover (due to the much higher projectile speed). The only reason the LRMs hit after the target makes it to cover is because LRMs are slow.

I want the game to be skill based as well. LRMs simply require different skills (notably teamwork) than the ones you enjoy (very fine hand/eye coordination). Does this mean that they're not skill based? Nope.

Find me an example of a game where all you do is lob indirect-fire LRMs and get 8 kills / 800 damage and we'll talk. Right now all you've done is show that a weapon used under optimal conditions (Artemis + TAG + Direct LOS) is effective.

I'll say this one last time as well: if you had been carrying 53 tons of AC/PPC weapons and gotten these results no one would have claimed there was a problem.

Take a look at indirect fire weapons in other games, that are EASIER to use than LRM's because they don't require a lock.

A prime example would be the Demoman pipes and mines in TF2. I don't know a single person who would say they're easier to use than a Soldier's rockets, but they're incredibly useful when paired with good tactics and map awareness. And while, yes, they still have an aiming component, they don't have a lock time, or guidance time, both of which are huge issues the player has to learn to compensate for in MWO.

[Mechteric]

Prezimonto, on 27 March 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

Take a look at indirect fire weapons in other games, that are EASIER to use than LRM's because they don't require a lock.

Not only that, but LRMs require constant lock from launch to impact, even MWLL had fire and forget LRMs so this is an interesting mechanic unique to MWO. Obviously they went too far with 175 so we'll have to see if the 160 is enough to make the scale balanced. That said, SSRMs versus AMS are still screwed, and the target decay module probably should be adjusted to account for the new speed.

For the target decay modules currently they are 2.75 seconds and 3.5 seconds (for level 1 and level 2, respectively), maybe that should be brought down to 2.5 seconds and 3.0 seconds or something?

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 27 March 2014 - 05:33 AM.

[Prezimonto]

CapperDeluxe, on 27 March 2014 - 05:30 AM, said:

Not only that, but LRMs require constant lock from launch to impact, even MWLL had fire and forget LRMs so this is an interesting mechanic unique to MWO. Obviously they went too far with 175 so we'll have to see if the 160 is enough to make the scale balanced. That said, SSRMs versus AMS are still screwed, and the target decay module probably should be adjusted to account for the new speed.

For the target decay modules currently they are 2.75 seconds and 3.5 seconds (for level 1 and level 2, respectively), maybe that should be brought down to 2.5 seconds and 3.0 seconds or something?

Hey now, that's another straight nerf for streak builds. It's hard to get those locks on close in fast moving lights, once I have it I really don't like losing it just because they popped over the closest hill while I'm still climbing.

[Jae Hyun Nakamura]

@ShinVector:

Wait...have i seen LRM fire in your vid? How could this be? I thought LRM's were useless, why did ppl use them in this good old days?



Salt

[Mechteric]

Prezimonto, on 27 March 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

Hey now, that's another straight nerf for streak builds. It's hard to get those locks on close in fast moving lights, once I have it I really don't like losing it just because they popped over the closest hill while I'm still climbing.

Isn't the 360 target retention module is a better choice for SSRMs anyway (it works up to 200meters)? Also even without the decay module you get something like 2.0 seconds before the target is lost, and 3.0 seconds is still good.

[Prezimonto]

CapperDeluxe, on 27 March 2014 - 05:49 AM, said:

Isn't the 360 target retention module is a better choice for SSRMs anyway (it works up to 200meters)? Also even without the decay module you get something like 2.0 seconds before the target is lost, and 3.0 seconds is still good.

It's actually a horrible module for steak boats. It retains target information, but you still lose the target lock in the normal time. I wish I had never purchased it, or that I had done some reading before even unlocking it.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 March 2014 - 06:12 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

FupDup, on 26 March 2014 - 09:53 PM, said:

The fastest lights in the game are most of the Commando variants. Their top speed is 171.1 kph.

Let's look at the maths of the old LRM speed. They were 120 meters per second. We need to convert this to kilometers per hour. First, I'll multiply it by 360 to get meters per hour -- the result is 432,000 meters per hour. Now we need to turn meters into kilometers by diving by 1000. This gives us 432 kilometers per hour.

Pre-buff LRMs were faster than the fastest light by 260.9 kph. Those lights were not out-running the missiles, they were out-maneuvering them. That is an important distinction to make. The missiles cover ground faster than any light could ever hope to do. However, the light was able to make sharp enough turns and/or find cover quickly enough to get most/all of the missiles to miss. Those missiles can't turn on a dime, but some mechs can. That is where the missed Lurms came from. Not speed -- maneuverability. Boosting the speed of Lurms, however, helped reduce the likelihood of the missiles getting outmaneuvered.

You may be mostly right on that, however, I've seen plenty of instances where a light is running in a straight line and the missiles just slam into the ground, just behind it, not hitting it.

In that situation, it looks an awful lot like the missiles are being out run, which is why putting a speed boost of say, 200kps for the last 100-200 meters of flight fixes the maneuverability issue and the instances of 'apparently' being outrun.

[Dimento Graven]

Artgathan, on 27 March 2014 - 04:26 AM, said:

Negative. The LRMs that are already "in flight" when the target gets to cover count as direct fire hits - if they'd been PPC/AC shots you would have pegged the target before it reached cover (due to the much higher projectile speed). The only reason the LRMs hit after the target makes it to cover is because LRMs are slow.

I want the game to be skill based as well. LRMs simply require different skills (notably teamwork) than the ones you enjoy (very fine hand/eye coordination). Does this mean that they're not skill based? Nope.

Find me an example of a game where all you do is lob indirect-fire LRMs and get 8 kills / 800 damage and we'll talk. Right now all you've done is show that a weapon used under optimal conditions (Artemis + TAG + Direct LOS) is effective.

I'll say this one last time as well: if you had been carrying 53 tons of AC/PPC weapons and gotten these results no one would have claimed there was a problem.

Again, we disagree, PLENTY of times I've taken a shot with PPC's or even gauss only to have it (queue Maxwell Smart voice) "missed it by that much" when the target happens to duck behind cover, OR WORSE, some various maps and their craptastic geometry bugs where "one way" geometry blocks the shot.

With LRMs and adv. target retention, the missiles in flight have a better than average chance of just continuing to arc over said terrain/building cover and STILL hitting the target. PPC's, Lasers, nor ballistics can do this.

Heck, with adv. target retention and the current flight speed of missiles, I can get AT LEAST one more flight of missiles off AFTER they've ducked behind cover and have reasonable expectation of hitting them. Again, no other weapon system enjoys that luxury.

[wanderer]

LRMs get sand in people's panties for one simple reason.

They become more effective as the target becomes dumber. They also become more effective depending on how many lolrandoms on your enemy team packed AMS and ECM, unlike every other weapon in the game.

I've had 8-kill games with LRMs when they were 120 velocity. Heck, I've had them with every iteration of missile from closed beta to now. In fact, I've had games where when it was 8-mans, I killed every member of the enemy team with an LRM boat.

You want to know what they had in common?

Slow, stupid targets that stood in the open and let me hit them repeatedly. Direct fire in fact hurried those up. If the majority of my hits are IDF, you can halve that maximum in most cases (I believe my best is 5, and I darn well know that at least two of those were merely finishing hits on something my team shot up).

You can revert LRMs to what they were at 120. People will still rack up those numbers, because some PUGs can't pour sand of a boot without printed instructions on the heel- and even then, it's a roll of the dice. The difference will be how far up the ELO charts they get to do an LRM scrubfest. Right now, it's at the point where someone in the first couple of ELO tiers can find plenty of games with easy pickings. Slow them down too much, and they'll stop catching hill humpers or poptarters at all, and we can all go back to ignoring missile hardpoints entirely in real play.

In any case, the higher ELO players will just collectively laugh at you and keep right on coring you instead while giving you 200-damage no-kill games with your 9 tons of LRM ammo- because LRMs are stupid-seeking missiles, and at the top, there's a lot less stupid.

That's why LRMs are so tough to balance. It's not just "point at target, fire, how long does it take to kill".

PGI has put so many variables in that LRM performance literally depends as much on the enemy team as it does yours. You can have two games with the exact same 'Mechs and have the guy with the missiles do wildly different amounts of damage simply based on how much common sense the people you're shooting at had, never mind what guns that put on.

[Dimento Graven]

Wolfways, on 26 March 2014 - 10:31 PM, said:

You do realize that you aren't the only one doing damage right? Getting kills means little, just like doing high damage (which LRM's are meant to do) means little. It's a combined effort to kill the enemy mechs as fast as possible. Your team killed those mechs just as much as you did.

That's exactly my point though. Anyone who IS NOT a LRM carrier has to expose themselves for that 'shared damage', yet it's possible for a LRM carrier to REGULARLY dominate the battlefield and make half the kills.

I'm fairly good with gauss, my favorite 'mech is the Jager FB, and an average good night, with everyone doing reasonable damage, I'm averaging AT BEST, 3 kills per game, and rarely get a 6 kill game.

With my Stalker 5M, an average "good night", with everyone doing 'reasonable damage', I'm averaging 5 kills per game, and regularly get 5 kills games.

That's a fairly significant difference.

Quote

Obviously i was talking about combined kills, but in our best (i.e.most fun) match the two of us were up against seven enemy when our team managed to die almost instantly. We sat on their base so they knew where we were and they all came at us at once. We took out five of them (one barely survived and the other was an LRM boat some distance away) before the game ended due to resources.
In CB i once solo'd five enemy mechs at once in a stock K2. I guess stock mechs are op too?

The point that you're doing your best to avoid here is how RARE it is for that to happen in those other 'mechs, but how often it's happening for me in my LRM boat.

Quote

If you can hit someone with indirect fire they weren't using cover.

Then your experience with LRMs is limited as the effectiveness of cover varies greatly due to many factors:

1. How long the lock was maintained
2. The angle of launch
3. The angle of 'attack' when close to the target
4. The height of the cover

It's possible for me to launch missiles that arc over the cover and still hit the enemy. OF COURSE it's not hitting as well as it could if the target was exposed, BUT, the fact that it hits and does damage, and potentially kills a target is above and beyond anything any other weapon system can do.

Increasing the speed of the LRMs during the entire flight significantly decreases time to get to cover, and thus reduces the effectiveness of cover, especially, as I mention elsewhere with Adv. Target Decay you have the potential of launching and delivering a FULL entire flight of missiles against a target who ducked behind cover before you actually launched that "last" flight.

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Of course it's PGI providing a bad solution, it's what they do

Truth, brother!

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LRM's have always been terrible weapons in MWO. Bad at direct-fire but op at indirect-fire.
I've always said LRM's should be fire-and-forget and the warning should be removed, but make it so they can only fire indirect on targets affected by TAG or NARC.

Not sure about removing the warning, but, the others would be interesting to try.

Quote

Edit: Just thought i'd add this.
After a long break from MWO i've had a few games today. In one i decided to just wander about in the open and i was quickly destroyed by a Stalker LRM boat.
I played normally in the other games and apart from getting hit once by LRM's i forgot they existed.

Well... Enjoy your LRM drought, from where I sit, it's been a torrent...

[Dimento Graven]

wanderer, on 27 March 2014 - 06:51 AM, said:

LRMs get sand in people's panties for one simple reason.

They become more effective as the target becomes dumber. They also become more effective depending on how many lolrandoms on your enemy team packed AMS and ECM, unlike every other weapon in the game.

I've had 8-kill games with LRMs when they were 120 velocity. Heck, I've had them with every iteration of missile from closed beta to now. In fact, I've had games where when it was 8-mans, I killed every member of the enemy team with an LRM boat.

You want to know what they had in common?

Slow, stupid targets that stood in the open and let me hit them repeatedly. Direct fire in fact hurried those up. If the majority of my hits are IDF, you can halve that maximum in most cases (I believe my best is 5, and I darn well know that at least two of those were merely finishing hits on something my team shot up).

You can revert LRMs to what they were at 120. People will still rack up those numbers, because some PUGs can't pour sand of a boot without printed instructions on the heel- and even then, it's a roll of the dice. The difference will be how far up the ELO charts they get to do an LRM scrubfest. Right now, it's at the point where someone in the first couple of ELO tiers can find plenty of games with easy pickings. Slow them down too much, and they'll stop catching hill humpers or poptarters at all, and we can all go back to ignoring missile hardpoints entirely in real play.

In any case, the higher ELO players will just collectively laugh at you and keep right on coring you instead while giving you 200-damage no-kill games with your 9 tons of LRM ammo- because LRMs are stupid-seeking missiles, and at the top, there's a lot less stupid.

That's why LRMs are so tough to balance. It's not just "point at target, fire, how long does it take to kill".

PGI has put so many variables in that LRM performance literally depends as much on the enemy team as it does yours. You can have two games with the exact same 'Mechs and have the guy with the missiles do wildly different amounts of damage simply based on how much common sense the people you're shooting at had, never mind what guns that put on.

It's not that I don't believe you, but, VIDS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

Prior to this my ONE AND ONLY "8 kill game" prior to 12 mans was 7 enemies, and one friendly suiciding by ramming his red core chest into my 'mech (vid available upon request).

So, either some how you're enjoying an ELO loop hole and getting dropped against nothing but noob pugs, OR... I don't even have an "OR".

VIDS DAMNIT!

[wanderer]

*shrugs* I don't have a computer that can do video without dropping my performance to far below acceptable levels. And that's after going through two upgrades.

And as noted- you get your 8-kill rounds on scrub ELO targets. Closed beta? Premade vs. PUG, I spent half the game lobbing missiles at range or catching derps in the water on Forest Colony. One and only one 8-man kill the whole time for me, and I likely stole three of them if not four with good timing and 45 missile shots.

120m era? Bunch of slowbie Trials because MM decided that "even matchups" come from stuffing a team full of newbies. We had 3 players DC on our side. I ended up with four dead Trial Dragons, two random heavies and mediums sitting in Caustic up on the caldera. Barely even got shot at. If I'd been driving my old K2, I'd have likely gotten them in half the time if I didn't run out of ammo first.

Modern postpatch? Best so far has been 5 thanks to massed fire- I tend to pick good targets from experience, and newbie boats then end up firing on my target- and since missiles are more accurate at longer ranges, it means I get fewer kills and more assists since it's easier for more launchers to end up on-target. Things are settling down, but I'm still not the lone missile boat like pre-patch made me- especially since newbies try to go big, and the assault Trial is the Stalker with twice the tubes as my Cataphract (even if I carry a ton more ammo).

I had the 10-assist achievement inside of 5 matches, and the only reason I don't have the 12-assist one is because I usually end up with at least one kill in the process of shooting things. My best so far for assist is a 1 kill-11 assist match, and 8-10 is normal. Case in point.

[Whoops]

101011, on 27 March 2014 - 02:55 AM, said:

No problem. The reason it was a big deal was exactly what you stated, though: PPC's didn't end ECM, ECM couldn't be destroyed, NARCs were canceled out by ECM, and most people prefer firepower over TAG. Missiles were too weak back then for the majority of PUGs to use them, leaving it as a 1-ton ECM counter that had to be held on target versus an all-encompassing bubble of ECM. And no, the low-signal doesn't block friendly 'Mechs on the map, only the enemy.

Thank you for the clarification. One of your statements did stand out to me, however. "Most people prefer firepower over TAG." The way the rewards system is currently, with damage, component destruction, and kills/assists providing the most rewards, I can see why. There is really a small place for spotters in the mix, as they tend to do light damage and at best get spotting assists and the win bonus if your team pulls it out.

I pilot Jenners. Not well, mind you, but that's not a game issue, that's a me thing. My Jenners have TAG, because I'm of the mindset that wins and teamwork > personal damage. As a result, I don't get large payouts.

From everything I've read about LRM evolution in this game, there are a few things that keep popping up in my eyes:

1) Players believe that LRM "skill" is nonexistent. Point and click is the essence of the game, be it from LRMs or from ballistic or laser fire. Does it take less "skill" to fire LRMs at an opponent? Of course it does. This is supposed to be mitigated by the spread of the missiles. From what I've read on the forums, the spread is nonexistent and the missiles are all hitting CTs. If so, this needs to be fixed to where they work as they are supposed to.

On the one hand, you have open maps (Caustic/Alpine) where running across the open terrain in a slow 'Mech can be a death march. Most of the complaints I've read about on the forums vs. the open maps are for the larger, slower brawler builds that if they got to within striking distance would decimate an LRM boat. LRMs are indirect fire weapons, and with a shorter range than many of the weapon systems out there currently in use and a minimum range as well, they're best used when the enemy who has longer range weaponry cannot target the boat directly, or cannot get inside the minimum range. NARC and TAG go a long way towards increasing the damage LRMs contribute, especially considering the number of ECM capable 'Mechs on the field. For the most part, however, these items require the use of a spotter 'Mech to perform the "cower and rain fire" method that boats are currently being accused of. (I am not saying it doesn't happen...I've seen it in matches. But with no spotter 'Mechs, those boats are going to have to risk getting sniped to perform anything at all).

This can be a double edged sword, however. Remember that if a player cannot see an LRM boat because of cover, than the LRM boat cannot see them either! Taking out spotters should be key in any match anyway, not just those where LRMs fly in the hundreds. And from personal experience, I cannot count the number of wasted volleys that players launch in maps like Frozen City, Crimson Straits, or River City where cover/tunnels are plentiful and LRM boats fire just because they can "target" a 'Mech someone else sees. If an LRM boat can't see a 'Mech, then chances are (VOIP and good communication aside) they can't tell if that 'Mech is somewhere their missiles are just going to be wasted upon firing.

2) LRMs are too fast and AMS is useless. As I came back to playing just after the speed upgrade, there's not a lot of personal input I can throw out as far as LRM speed. The devs said it was too fast and they're dialing it back. As for AMS being usless, however...again, I pilot mainly Light 'Mechs in a support role. For matches without 3-4 missile boats, my AMS has kept me alive long enough to get pummeled by the brawlers a lot. And that's just me...carrying one launcher with 1 ton of ammo. For those matches that DO have 3-4 missile boats... well, 3-4 volleys of LRM60 is going to go through just about anyone's armor, AMS or not The system isn't supposed to take out every missile, every time. The same could be said about getting 4 'Mechs worth of PPC/Gauss/AC damage all at once.

3) Cover is useless because of the LRM trajectory. Of everything I've read, I agree with this the most. LRMs should not have super high trajectories. It's not orbital bombardment, it's an arcing flight. Lowering the trajectory would allow more modest cover to provide some relief without breaking the missile's viability against targets that fight in the open. It also would mean LRM boats couldn't stand behind tall cover themselves and simply launch to their hearts content, as the lower trajectory would mean missiles hitting the cover instead of clearing it.

If a weapon system is so powerful that it breaks the gameplay, then yes, it needs to get looked at. If it instead is useless on the battlefield, it needs to get looked at. (Flamers, anyone?) I understand CW is coming, but fixing those systems already in the game before introducing new content would, in my opinion, keep a higher and more loyal consumer base, which makes it easier to develop that new content in the end.

[Whoops]

Wolfways, on 26 March 2014 - 10:31 PM, said:

but make it so they can only fire indirect on targets affected by TAG or NARC.

^ This is a good idea. Don't have a spotter 'Mech? Guess you're going out there.

[ShinVector]

wanderer, on 27 March 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

*shrugs* I don't have a computer that can do video without dropping my performance to far below acceptable levels. And that's after going through two upgrades.

If you ever get the chance. Nvidia shadowplay is good stuff !

Edited by ShinVector, 27 March 2014 - 08:43 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

ShinVector, on 27 March 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

If you ever you get the chance. Nvidia shadowplay is good stuff!

Yep that's what I use, and it's got the smallest foot print and lightest FPS load of any of the more common capture apps.

[Dimento Graven]

wanderer, on 27 March 2014 - 07:37 AM, said:

...

That's nice and all, but I'm talking kills not assists.

A locust with flamer can easily get 12 assists if he keeps accurate track of who he's hit.

We're talking coup de grace, you're game is over type endings.

When you can assist without actually seeing the target that's one thing, when you can get kills... That ups it a notch.

[DocBach]

Cyron Zarva, on 27 March 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

^ This is a good idea. Don't have a spotter 'Mech? Guess you're going out there.

This is kind of the issue - in the game in which this is based on LRM indirect fire is balanced under the principles that it is inherently less accurate, and the spotter needs to maintain complete concentration on the task of spotting; in MWO you can target an enemy while fighting it, and as long as you are still shooting at it you will maintain a lock, meaning you can receive indirect fire from an off-site source.

I'm thinking LRM's in direct fire mode are in a good spot, but something else needs to make indirect fire less easy and rewarding. I'm thinking a nerf to lock on times for targets outside LOS to make spotting a really dedicated task like how it was balanced in the source material, and implementation of new equipment like C3 to increase the ability to spot at the cost of critical space and tonnage.

[Whoops]

I've heard "Ghost lock" and agree with it. There should be a delay as information is relayed from other 'Mechs to the launcher.

[Mystere]

Cyron Zarva, on 27 March 2014 - 09:58 AM, said:

I've heard "Ghost lock" and agree with it. There should be a delay as information is relayed from other 'Mechs to the launcher.

Unless they're using 8080s and communicating at 1200 baud in the 3050s, the delay should be sub-second.