129 replies to this topic

[aniviron]

Solahma, on 16 April 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

two words: Splat Cat

As Cico mentioned, when SRMs register correctly even in their current state, they do plenty of damage and feel balanced. However nudging the flight speed to 325 or 350 m/s might help in general.

IMO, the spread is fine. I can live with the spread. It scales well with Artemis and is not very complicated.

EDIT: you're not scared of the splat cat anymore because of good reasons. Mainly because of all the SRM nerfing over the past year. Bumping up stats quickly is just going to end up in a real SRMeggedon again.

Not sure why the specter of the splatcat always comes up in SRM discussions. If one mech breaks a weapon system, then maybe there is a problem with the mech, not the weapon. It'd be like saying, "Oh gosh guys, the Stalker can mount six ER PPCs, we need a nerf stat for that 60 damage pinpoint alpha at 810m!"

Sure, both of those are valid, legal builds. Both achieved some measure of success at one point. And they're both incredibly niche builds that you didn't see particularly often even during their heyday. Both had range issues. Both had heat problems. The splatcat had pretty severe ammo problems. Both were relatively subject to getting disarmed easily.

So what's changed, for both builds? The PPC stalker has gotten ghost heat, heat increases, and a projectile change. The splatcat has gotten ghost heat, projectile changes, and a severe reduction in damage. More to the point though, since nothing exists in a vacuum: The maps got (much) bigger, and are only increasing in playable size. Long range autocannons, large lasers, and PPCs are very much in vogue, meaning engagements typically start at about 800m for many mechs, and it's rare for shooting to very first break out at under 500m.

When the splatcat walked the earth, it was doing much more damage, the biggest map was caustic valley, and PPCs and autocannons 5 and under were garbage. There was no HSR, so putting damage where you wanted it was a gamble at best. So yeah, the game has changed. It's time to let go of the knee-jerk reactions against making SRMs playable because one mech can run six of them.

Hell, I saw a splatcat last night, on terra therma. After taking a pounding at 500m and running for cover, it overheated and died with under 200 damage. The absolutely gorgeous dynamic weapon hardpoints for the catapult made disarming it that much easier, too. Anyone who still thinks the splatcat is a reason to leave an entire half of the missile arsenal crippled is living in the past.

[Deathlike]

aniviron, on 16 April 2014 - 05:52 PM, said:

Hell, I saw a splatcat last night, on terra therma. After taking a pounding at 500m and running for cover, it overheated and died with under 200 damage. The absolutely gorgeous dynamic weapon hardpoints for the catapult made disarming it that much easier, too. Anyone who still thinks the splatcat is a reason to leave an entire half of the missile arsenal crippled is living in the past.

Does Paul know that?



http://mwomercs.com/...general-update/

Paul @ 7/11/13 said:

What about SRMs?!?! Buff them to 2.5!!!

Nuh uh. 2.5 SRM damage causes the same effect as the previous LRM-aggedon. While funny to test, the 6-SRM6 Catapult will decimate any Assault class Mech in 3 volleys. The third volley doesn’t even have to be a full volley, 2 volleys following up with a medium laser will probably kill most builds in the game. So what am I going to do about this? Well let me explain an issue…

Many of you have cited hit detection errors. We’re seeing this as well. While it happens across almost all Mechs, it’s most noticeable with small Mech chassis. Bumping damage is going to help deal a small amount more damage to small Mechs, but the larger Mechs are going to be destroyed VERY quickly. We are investigating the root cause of these detection errors but it’s a deep problem. We need to find out if it’s in HSR (host state rewind) or is it in the simulation running on the server etc etc. Once found we will be pouring heavy resources on to the problem to fix it ASAP. However, I can tell you this, it’s going to take a while to find due to its complexity.

That being said, here’s an opportunity for you to decide your fate when dealing with SRMs. In this feedback thread (http://mwomercs.com/...-hit-detection/), there is a poll. You can vote to bump SRM damage up to 2.0, not this patch but next, or leave damage as is until hit detection is fixed. Keep in mind, this bump in damage is going to be a fairly big world of hurt for larger Mechs. NOTE: Cut off for voting will be Sunday 11:59PM PST.

Edited by Deathlike, 16 April 2014 - 06:06 PM.

[Mister Blastman]

So this is strange...

I'm running a SRM Stalker and am noticing 4x SRM 4s going straight through Atlai. No explosions. They just fly right through them.

WTF?

[Deathlike]

Mister Blastman, on 16 April 2014 - 06:12 PM, said:

So this is strange...

I'm running a SRM Stalker and am noticing 4x SRM 4s going straight through Atlai. No explosions. They just fly right through them.

WTF?

It's working as intended™.

But really, if it's going through the mech, it's probably because the server didn't think you "deserved" to hit the Atlas. You may need to try lag shooting....

Edited by Deathlike, 16 April 2014 - 06:24 PM.

[FerretGR]

WAHHH SPLATCAT you babies. It was a gimpy mech that was easy to deal with before everyone had 3xUAC5s strapped to everything. Stop being wimps. Let SRM carriers be viable again.

[Solahma]

FerretGR, on 16 April 2014 - 06:31 PM, said:

WAHHH SPLATCAT you babies....Let SRM carriers be viable again.

Difference between making something work/viable and doing too much at once. I want them to work well just like most other people, and they are taking their sweet time improving them. However, I do not agree that a huge buff to speed AND damage is a smart idea. At least large increases like 500 m/s and 2.5 damage. Maybe 400 m/s and 2.25 damage to start or something smaller to test the waters. After their "improvements" to hit-registration by the end of the month I would expect them to start messing with the numbers again, but ONLY when the hit-registration is noticeably better. To change the speeds or damage before then would just be asking for trouble in the end. Maybe speed IS a huge factor. Maybe damage is a bigger factor. We don't really know because we can't hit mechs with it consistently at the moment!

Believe me, I would prefer to see SRM as a dominant brawl weapon and have a good advantage over other close-range weapons. It would certainly spice things up as far as mech build options.

[Mister Blastman]

I'd rather see them go over the top with SRMs all in one patch. **** it. DO IT LIVE!

[Solahma]

Mister Blastman, on 16 April 2014 - 07:03 PM, said:

I'd rather see them go over the top with SRMs all in one patch. **** it. DO IT LIVE!

[Mister Blastman]

Solahma, on 16 April 2014 - 07:19 PM, said:

Roll your eyes all you want. The truth is, it'd do this game a lot of good.

[ShinVector]

Almighty Cico, on 16 April 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

Ohhh no more damage for srms, about srms, Griffin today damaged me so hard with srms, with only 3 of asrm6, hos shots was registering good, barely got rid of him, what im saying that when srms register all of them, they smoke you very good, damage of srms is in perfect place!

You realise that SRMs are at the default TT value of 2.0 while SSRMs are at 2.5 right ?
Difference is one is catered for noobs and the other isn't.... Go figure.

[FerretGR]

Solahma, on 16 April 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

Difference between making something work/viable and doing too much at once.

Not if doing "too much at once" is what ends up making something work/viable. In reality there is no difference: you don't know if this will overpower SRMs any more than anyone else does: it'll require testing. It'll likely be something like the recent change with LRMs, where the extreme tweak simply made them work/viable.

That said, the babies got their way there too in the end, didn't they?

[aniviron]

Deathlike, on 16 April 2014 - 06:04 PM, said:

Does Paul know that?



http://mwomercs.com/...general-update/

I wasn't naming names, but I do kind of think Paul needs to see that. Believe me, I remember that thread- he and Russ keep bringing up the splatcat, but honestly, once the crazy splash issue had been dealt with, it wasn't even the best close range build. The ac40 jags and boomcats were/are better.

It takes a surprising amount of skill to get into 270m (realistically about 200 for SRMs, ideally 100) with enough health left to be combat effective on most maps. If you're running a longer ranged build with llas, ppcs, or small autocannons, you either let someone get close without shooting them, you wandered into a place you shouldn't have been, or your opponent took the time to flank and ambush. In all three of those situations, you deserve to lose, plain and simple. Right now, SRMs have the drawbacks of short range, high heat, large spread, and slow shots, and to make up for that they get nothing. I can't say it enough: if you're letting someone who literally cannot deal damage outside of 270m in that close to you, you probably had it coming. I remember the days of the splatcat with fondness; I'd take a HBK-4P and weave in and out at about 350m, and it was free kills.

[Deathlike]

aniviron, on 16 April 2014 - 07:35 PM, said:

I wasn't naming names, but I do kind of think Paul needs to see that. Believe me, I remember that thread- he and Russ keep bringing up the splatcat, but honestly, once the crazy splash issue had been dealt with, it wasn't even the best close range build. The ac40 jags and boomcats were/are better.

Well... some of us still remember his original Coolant proposal (2 C-bill modules vs 1 MC module for the same cooling power). This and the 19 SHS K2 in its infamy...

Edited by Deathlike, 16 April 2014 - 07:58 PM.

[Flying Blind]

Splat cats were not a real problem. Ever. Sure, once in a while one would surprise you and tear half your mech off before you knew what happened but mostly they got focused down long before they were a threat.

Honestly, if pgi is so scared of them abusing SRMs then just remove the A1 variant from the game and be done with it.

The real srm threat is 3x srm6 Griffins going 106.9 or faster, CN9-D's @132, SRM22 shawks, and assault brawlers that can mount 3 srm6 like the DDC.
Wouldn't it be nice to see all these and so many other mechs become good again and gain battlefield diversity? Wouldn't it be nice to have brawling be strong again? Wouldn't it be nice to see a medium me h and think "gotta look out for that one"? Remember how much fun the weekend we got the free Centurions was? All that brawling happened because people chose to put down their long range meta mechs for a bit to try out the free new toy. Russ got flooded with thank you tweets for the brawling weekend, wouldn't it be great if SRMs were good enough people would put down their long range builds in favor of SRMs builds (not everyone just enough to make brawling happen again?)

[InRev]

Mister Blastman, on 16 April 2014 - 07:03 PM, said:

I'd rather see them go over the top with SRMs all in one patch. **** it. DO IT LIVE!

NO FUN ALLOWED! You will snipe and you will LOVE IT!

[Nicholas Carlyle]

In the end, my results of playing with SRM's were meh.

It wasn't so much the hit registration that bothered me. It was kind of hard to tell, since I was playing a medium and always on the move.

I think my problem in the end was...even when I saw them hit...they didn't do enough to make it worth all the drawbacks.

270 max range is a MAJOR draw back in today's game. And SRM's do not really match up with other weapons very well.

I won't be using them, not because of HSR. But because there is no BOOM factor for me getting up close and putting myself in harms way.

[Silentium]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 17 April 2014 - 04:41 AM, said:

...snip
It wasn't so much the hit registration that bothered me. It was kind of hard to tell, since I was playing a medium and always on the move.

I think my problem in the end was...even when I saw them hit...they didn't do enough to make it worth all the drawbacks.
...snip

This has been my experience as well. I dusted off the 4SP and have been taking it out all week (even before the patch in anticipation). The boom is still missing, but it has generally been pretty rewarding. In the end, I'll probably keep driving it regardless of SRM issues because it is challenging in the current environment; it helps that every now and then all 12 missiles connect, and mechs fly apart like a confetti bomb.

[Bagheera]

People need to stop acting like buffing SRMs is going to bring back the "splat cat."

A: Who cares? SRM A1's were highly over-rated even WITH exponential splash damage.

B: It was the splash damage DUMMY! Not going to explain this again, if you don't know what I am talking about just go read, I don't know, any thread about SRMs of any length over the last year. Splash damage used to be very, very broken. Those were the closed beta Splat Cat days of yore. Those are never coming back. Ever. As already mentioned in this thread a single SRM6 could rack up substantially more damage than it was supposed to - thus magnifiying the power of anything that boated SRMs.

[ShinVector]

Bagheera, on 17 April 2014 - 06:29 AM, said:

People need to stop acting like buffing SRMs is going to bring back the "splat cat."

A: Who cares? SRM A1's were highly over-rated even WITH exponential splash damage.

B: It was the splash damage DUMMY! Not going to explain this again, if you don't know what I am talking about just go read, I don't know, any thread about SRMs of any length over the last year. Splash damage used to be very, very broken. Those were the closed beta Splat Cat days of yore. Those are never coming back. Ever. As already mentioned in this thread a single SRM6 could rack up substantially more damage than it was supposed to - thus magnifiying the power of anything that boated SRMs.

Honest back then with the Splash... The Streak Cat super deadly as well... Only 1-2 Alphas to kill lights.. Hiaz....

[Bagheera]

Honestly, with the Splash and prior to engine limitations, the 4SP was where it was at. All that broken damage ... 115kph ... hunchback twist ...

Nevermind the aws-8r was actually good in those days too.

Edited by Bagheera, 17 April 2014 - 06:38 AM.