775 replies to this topic

[Solis Obscuri]

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.

The speed is fine at 175m/s. That actually made LRMs somewhat viable for direct-fire.

The shake does need to decrease on chain-fired LRMs, as well as on SSRMs.

I'd also recommend normalizing the spread a bit more across all launcher types, LRM-15 and LRM-20 racks spread damage around about right but LRM-10 and LRM-5 racks concentrate almost all of it in the CT.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 25 March 2014 - 08:26 AM.

[Fut]

Rebas Kradd, on 24 March 2014 - 12:32 PM, said:

Shredhead, on 24 March 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

Sorry Mr Paine, but I have to disagree. LRMs as they are now severely punish and discourage mediums, heavies and especially brawlers of all weight classes.

LRMs promote mediums. Their speed is a direct answer to the LRM rain and gives teams a surgical strike option against LRM boats. My Centurion doesn't even need AMS.

Can't agree with you more Rebas!

[Orbit Rain]

Paul,

I like that there are changes, ongoing, to keep it interesting. Last patch, Ida' thought just the NARC change would be good, the lrm speed is def' a buff I like, even going down from 175 to 160. How it plays vs the ppc/ac meta in twelves, don't know yet. I'm sure low elo adapted quicker, because they're more used to facing lrm barrages. Higher elo don't face them as much, and are better at using cover in the first place, so the buff, even to 175 shouldn't be/wasn't that big a deal. The NARC is really what should be killing the meta builds anyway. I imagine the speed decrease was needed in part because it was turning out that target-decay wasn't really needed anymore.

...and lack of 2-12 groups is killing your population ; )

Orbit

[wanderer]

Quote

Laughable. Sheer damage output is better than any other weapon, so is sustained DPS. Exception is AC spam, which is broken even more due to redacted recycle rates.

This fails to take effective damage into account.

100 damage from an AC is enough to core a heavy.

100 damage from lasers will likely seriously mess up the torso, but may not even penetrate given spread.

100 damage from LRMs will end up painting the 'Mech yellow. Heck, I've seen 'Mechs missiled to death exclusively- they end up flayed to death more than cored, with immense amounts of damage wasted on non-lethal locations.

Streak or LRM damage will rack up big numbers- with far less effect.

[crashlogic]

sad sad sad. don't adjust the game because players whine, let them work around the new weapons capabilities. What we see here is not really that the lrm were too fast, but rather that players simply don't want to, or can't adjust to a small change. But serious this patch is days old, its way to early, i think, to be making a change. I mean if you are going to fix something, fix srms.

[ChewBaka]

Antarus, on 24 March 2014 - 10:18 AM, said:

Despite the abundance of LRMs, there are definitely ways around it. It has done wonders to drive players to fight around cover. However, even with all of the LRM boats, and some stand out BLR pilots in the tourney, it seems pretty clear that they were not the primary killer in high ELO's this weekend. I don't think you need the official stats to figure out what those are.

Except...what cover? In maps like Alpine Peaks, LRM boats have it all their own way.

Nerfing the speed a by little isn't enough. Alpine Peaks needs to be completely taken off the map rotation until they figure out how to allow those of us who readied brawlers to change our loadouts.

[DocBach]

Rebas Kradd, on 25 March 2014 - 08:09 AM, said:

Paul,

Why are you walking around with a signature pic saying "Minister of Misinformation"?

Are you mocking our frustration over PGI's poor communication and constant position changes?

Hold over from way early closed beta when everyone playing had an NDA and nobody could say what was really happening in the game, Paul loved to troll players on the PGI TS.

[Charons Little Helper]

VXJaeger, on 24 March 2014 - 02:04 PM, said:

Where the **** you are gonna find 4-5 AMS in PUG game? Just had one, and only me and ONE other had AMS in their mechs.
So **** this and your holy conclution.

Yes - because 1.5 tons on its own should totally cancel out the bulk of a weapon system which likely weighs 25+ tons and requires an active action.

[AlmightyAeng]

Charons Little Helper, on 25 March 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

Yes - because 1.5 tons on its own should totally cancel out the bulk of a weapon system which likely weighs 25+ tons and requires an active action.

I can't tell if this is a response to the other poster's AMS gripes...or if this is a ninja ECM post

[Rebas Kradd]

DocBach, on 25 March 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

Hold over from way early closed beta when everyone playing had an NDA and nobody could say what was really happening in the game, Paul loved to troll players on the PGI TS.

And people who weren't around for Closed Beta are supposed to appreciate that...how?

[Reza Malin]

Kjudoon, on 24 March 2014 - 10:14 AM, said:

I will dial back my feelings and just say I am severely disappointed we did not give the LRM buff more than 5 days before it was decided to do this. Why didn't we wait 2-3 weeks so we could see if the community would actually adapt?

Will AMS's buff be dialed back or will it continue to chew up even more LRMs SRMs and Streaks than it did before because of more time given to do damage? (I believe 5-6 will now be average per volley compared to 4-5) and SRMs are still even more usless thanks to that defensive buff since they are also shot up by AMS.

Again, I'm severely disappointed at backing away from something that was encouraging smarter play more viable options in PUGs and 12mans.

I can see that the poptart community is breathing a huge sigh of relief because they will remain uncontested kings of the battlefield.

Encouraging smarter play? More viable options in PUGs? I am not sure what games you have been playing but they can't have been the same as mine.

Unless of course, by smarter play, you actually mean half the team hiding while the other half tries to fight? Oh oh, maybe you mean the way an assault mech, or anything else slow, gets completely melted if it tries to fight anywhere outside of an alleyway between 2 large skyscrapers? Oh no wait, i got it, you mean like when that lone ECM Cicada holds up whole lances of people because its spotting for LRMageddon and has to be hunted down while everyone takes damage?

"But wait, we cant leave cover, the missiles are too fast!" "But wait the cicada is spotting us for the missiles, we need to kill it!" "But we cant target it it has ECM!" "But we need to kill it!" "Sucks i'm in an assault!" "You are pretty out of options then." "Imma just sit here behind this rock."


The LRM buff changed the way every PUG match plays out. Like a substantial alteration in everything. No one weapon type should ever have that much effect unless its been overpowered. The only thing the speed of these missiles is encouraging is more people to use LRM's. If anything the speed should be reduced further to like 140-150. I see the point about poptarts, but poptarts are far easier to get round than LRMs. Its a pretty weak excuse really, for what is blatantly a person railing that his new OP toy is getting reduced, albeit not by much.

Just hope when it all goes 3/3/3/3, most assault/heavy mechs arent LRM boats like they are now. How crap will that be. Goodbye serious brawling basically.

[DocBach]

Fade Akira, on 25 March 2014 - 10:15 AM, said:

Encouraging smarter play? More viable options in PUGs? I am not sure what games you have been playing but they can't have been the same as mine.

Unless of course, by smarter play, you actually mean half the team hiding while the other half tries to fight? Oh oh, maybe you mean the way an assault mech, or anything else slow, gets completely melted if it tries to fight anywhere outside of an alleyway between 2 large skyscrapers? Oh no wait, i got it, you mean like when that lone ECM Cicada holds up whole lances of people because its spotting for LRMageddon and has to be hunted down while everyone takes damage?

"But wait, we cant leave cover, the missiles are too fast!" "But wait the cicada is spotting us for the missiles, we need to kill it!" "But we cant target it it has ECM!" "But we need to kill it!" "Sucks i'm in an assault!" "You are pretty out of options then." "Imma just sit here behind this rock."


The LRM buff changed the way every PUG match plays out. Like a substantial alteration in everything. No one weapon type should ever have that much effect unless its been overpowered. The only thing the speed of these missiles is encouraging is more people to use LRM's. If anything the speed should be reduced further to like 140-150. I see the point about poptarts, but poptarts are far easier to get round than LRMs. Its a pretty weak excuse really, for what is blatantly a person railing that his new OP toy is getting reduced, albeit not by much.

Just hope when it all goes 3/3/3/3, most assault/heavy mechs arent LRM boats like they are now. How crap will that be. Goodbye serious brawling basically.

Pretty good summation on why this is bad.

I'd think, though a dedicated VOIP for pug matches could work to help it - both between coordination of spotters and LRM boats and the team trying to give accurate locations of that ECM Cicada, and instant detailed movement and flanking commands to get around the LRM bulwark.

It's pretty difficult to play pug-herder when under effective enemy fire when you have to type out detailed messages.

[Snowcrow]

Thanks for the update. Appreciate it.

[Deathlike]

DocBach, on 25 March 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

Hold over from way early closed beta when everyone playing had an NDA and nobody could say what was really happening in the game, Paul loved to troll players on the PGI TS.

So you're saying that there was motivation behind Goons <3 Paul?

You've enlightened me. Please continue.

[Steinar Bergstol]

I'm not at all surprised by the revelation that the so-called pros in the high ELO brackets were the ones having trouble adapting to the change and being unwilling to alter their pet über-builds in order to deal with LRMs being useful. In the brackets my incompetent self frequents it hasn't been much of a problem. The majority of people were already sporting AMS for the most part (I have rarely seen a game where I did _not_ constantly hear the buzzing of AMS fire all around me, even before the buff). LRMs have caused no more problems for me after the buff than before, and feel no more a threat than the long range AC/Gauss/PPC snipers do. Why do the low ELO players adapt? Because fewer of them are hidebound and obsessed with what they consider the "correct" meta of the game.

As for reducing screen shake, I'm all for it. In fact, reduce screen shake across the board for other weapons as well. It's close to a stun-lock situation in many cases when you're being hit repeatedly by fast fire. In fact, I'd say screenshake should only occur when you're being hit by a _significant_ amount of damage at the same time, in other words, only from big, slow ROF weapons.

[Reza Malin]

DocBach, on 25 March 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

Pretty good summation on why this is bad.

I'd think, though a dedicated VOIP for pug matches could work to help it - both between coordination of spotters and LRM boats and the team trying to give accurate locations of that ECM Cicada, and instant detailed movement and flanking commands to get around the LRM bulwark.

It's pretty difficult to play pug-herder when under effective enemy fire when you have to type out detailed messages.

Exactly Doc. I have been fairly outspoken in some threads about my hatred for the LRM changes, and all these gripes are aimed at PUG matches and the effect on them in particular. In a well organised team with voice chat, then it would be nowhere near as much of a problem. If i was dropping with battle buddies all the time, i wouldn't give a shit about LRMs anywhere near as much. but this game isn't one that i want to dedicate that much effort and time too so i only run as a PUG.

This is my frustration. In a PUG match the LRM boaters are the one eyed men in the kingdom of the blind. I might as well just strip all my assault mechs down.

[Mazzyplz]

ShinVector, on 25 March 2014 - 01:03 AM, said:

Isn't he that famous Cbillionaire...

no that's voidsinger

[wintersborn]

The reasoning and data used for this nerf seems to be the reason no one thinks PGI has a clue how to balance let alone develop a game.

Make the amount of shake based on the salvo size, that makes sense but keep the speed and increase the range.

Were is the ECM that prevents targeting of energy weapons ?
Where is the AMS system that shoots down AC rounds?
Where is the equipment needed to make a AC or Energy weapon worth using (TAG, Artemis, NARC, BAP) ?

I honestly think PGI's buddies got their meta butts handed to them in this tourney and so they gave in to the protected ones cries.

[Mazzyplz]

DocBach, on 24 March 2014 - 10:51 AM, said:

Would you say getting cover is an easy button, or sitting behind cover lobbing LRM's is the easy button?

hes talking about people taking away his easy button, can't you tell?

[Lilferret]

The LRM's are a bit fast. I love LRMs and I think they should be modified, but not Nered. Perhaps with the speed increase a damage reduction should have happened. Let them hit the faster targets but do a little less damage.

Something needs changing and it isn't just 15kps