128 replies to this topic

[Lex Peregrine]

@ Tesunie:
Yea I get a little frustrated too sometimes, no problem

Actually I like the current LRM speed, and not in favour of reducing back to old values, dont see that as a solution and dont understand why the speed increase caused such increase in lrm usage.

Hey I just remembered something, would be nice if lasers were able to destroy incoming missiles, well placed shot might hit a few, especially chain fired mediums.

@lockwoodx:

you frustrated right now? why dont you get it out of your chest?

Edited by Lex Peregrine, 22 April 2014 - 09:50 AM.

[Barkem Squirrel]

We know that when a change to LRM's comes out, the rain shall fall.

Everyone will test them for a bit. We also know that some people will always run LRM boats due to preference or Low fps.

We also know some people will pull out the Catapult from time to time to fire LRMs.



Also we have to look at some gameplay changes, Turrets. How many time when you are down 4 mechs do you start to fall back to get under cover of the LRM turrets and use the laser turrets for protection from lights. Many of these times LRM boats are the ones falling back, and make the game very interesting. Do we win by kills or kill'em all. Then I am seeing more ambush setups developing on assault.

Then there are the games where someone is still TAGing or NARCing and the LRM boats focus on that target, and within 20 seconds it is dead. I can say the same after last night with a Victor on HPG manifold, that I caught out in the open infront of just me at 300 - 220 meters away with 2x LRM 5's/artemis, 2x LRM 15s/artemis and tag. If I had my jager S with two AC 5's and two Ac 2's, I still would have put him down in the same amount of time or less.

Lasers, AC's, PPC's, SRM's and LRMs are our basic types. Each has a time to target, time on target and range limitations. That is where different weapon systems can be balanced. PPC's hit for 10 unless it is over the normal range, but how many will hit from an LRM 10 and there is no extended range. There is a trade off for using LRM's, but you can fire indirect and know you might get some damage in, but not all. Then there is ECM and a BAP counter, TAG counter, NARC counter, AMS to reduce the number of missiles, and the missile warnings. I thought this last patch was only going to increase effectiveness of LRMs 5-10% and by what I am seeing, the lower end is correct except for my LRM 20's. Not sure why, but it may be due to people making them miss and that I do not run many mechs with LRM 20's.

Some where we forgot, how to use cover and I am seeing people use that again, but for those who likes to run out into the open, well use two AMS with a few tons of ammo, it might help.

With LRM boats I will take on two or three other mechs just to tie them up and prevent maneuver. That may be the issue with a lot of people, LRM boats can be a terrain denial weapon. I did this two days ago on terra therma, against a Wang, victor and a banshee trying to flank. I had to watch one pug walk past me and up to them, and die, a second walk up to them and die. All I did was back off and draw them to me, and like magic I had open shots at them. First to go was the wang, due to mobility and the AC 20. Then the Victor since he was just there in the open. The Banshee had the presence of mind to back off, but due to where he was backing up the hill, he could not hide. Now I am looking at the backs of the remaining 6 members of the other team and the nice LRM stalker finally made it over to me and we just LRMed into the the other team, that drew our four other members out of the caldera in a charge. It was a nice mop up for them and no one charged the Stalker or battlemaster throwing up the LRMs.

[Grendel408]

Lex Peregrine, on 21 April 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

<INITIAL POST REDACTED FOR SPACE>

Umm... I'm just gonna go out on a limb that you've been around MWO for quite some time, being a Founder, and purchasing the Phoenix package... so you should be well aware of the changes that have transpired since Closed Beta began to now? Every time a weapon gets balanced... it's the flavor of the month... it changes the meta builds around... and people test it to determine it's usefulness for themselves. When was the last time you played a 12man drop? LRMs, ECM... it's common use there, and spreading more into the "pug" matches because people can find it useful. Just because you're in a big Mech thundering down a street Crimson Strait or trudging along the desert in Tourmaline... there's cover... there's ways to avoid enemy contact, enemy fire, and generally keeping your rear covered... but it's also about team play too... There are strategies to use to counter LRMs, just as much as ECM, poptarts... etc. Just find the tactic and employ it. Do you think just because you're in a Mech you don't need cover because you're a walking tank? Even vehicles today in the military utilize cover and tactics to avoid contact until they have an advantage... that's strategy... employing tactics to your benefit while putting the enemy at the disadvantaged end of the stick... use your carrot wisely, MechWarrior.

[Tesunie]

Grendel408, on 22 April 2014 - 11:21 AM, said:

Umm... I'm just gonna go out on a limb that you've been around MWO for quite some time, being a Founder, and purchasing the Phoenix package... so you should be well aware of the changes that have transpired since Closed Beta began to now? Every time a weapon gets balanced... it's the flavor of the month... it changes the meta builds around... and people test it to determine it's usefulness for themselves. When was the last time you played a 12man drop? LRMs, ECM... it's common use there, and spreading more into the "pug" matches because people can find it useful. Just because you're in a big Mech thundering down a street Crimson Strait or trudging along the desert in Tourmaline... there's cover... there's ways to avoid enemy contact, enemy fire, and generally keeping your rear covered... but it's also about team play too... There are strategies to use to counter LRMs, just as much as ECM, poptarts... etc. Just find the tactic and employ it. Do you think just because you're in a Mech you don't need cover because you're a walking tank? Even vehicles today in the military utilize cover and tactics to avoid contact until they have an advantage... that's strategy... employing tactics to your benefit while putting the enemy at the disadvantaged end of the stick... use your carrot wisely, MechWarrior.

Read the more recent pages. I think the original poster has drastically reconsidered what he thinks could be done with LRMs... (Page 2 and 3 have some great concepts and discussion.)

[Lex Peregrine]

Yep, I read people's opinions and sugestions and changed my view somewhat.

Still think LRMs are OP, but agree its not so much because of their stats, but because of the way they are used, mostly by indirect fire. Game is not fun at all when there's half a dozen guys firing lrms from behind cover at you and you have a hard time fighting back or getting behind cover in time to survive. Agree with proposed solution of increasing missile spread when firing indirectly.

[Solis Obscuri]

Vermaxx, on 21 April 2014 - 01:16 PM, said:

Then you are playing different hours, which leads to different playstyles or different country players act differently. I can say that literally every match I've been in recently has a noticeable flock of LRM fire coming from both teams.

I think there's a lot of false positives from the turret campers. You see a huge number of LRMs flying out at the match start and assume the other team has at least four LRM boats, then by the end realize the other team had just had one stock CPLT-C1 and the rest was from the base turrets they were camping on.

[Thunder Child]

Solis Obscuri, on 22 April 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

I think there's a lot of false positives from the turret campers. You see a huge number of LRMs flying out at the match start and assume the other team has at least four LRM boats, then by the end realize the other team had just had one stock CPLT-C1 and the rest was from the base turrets they were camping on.

I know I've been caught out like this on numerous occasions. The "OMG, Missile Spam..... oh.... wait.... it's just those damned turrets."

Peregrine, I noticed that in the Edit you've said that an LRM mech shouldn't be able to lock on outside of 500m, even with LoS? I'd like to just point out that the reason they CAN lock on at that range, is due to your mechs internal sensors, not because of the weapon itself. And, if you were to reduce the effective range of LRMs in such a manner, the game would rapidly devolve back into the poptarting hillhumping sniper Meta, because the only weapons that would be useful (again) would be the smaller ACs and PPCs, with the occasional Brave Soul running ER Larges and hoping the don't get focused for the 1.5 secs they need to hold the beam. As it is, the Maximum Range of LRMs is quite often reduced to 750m (the range of a TAG) due to ECM. I actually had a brilliant match in a Dual PPC/Dual Uac AS7-DDC because I was just fast enough to stay outside of the 750m mark (it was on Tourmaline), and dodge the dumb-fired volleys that came at me. But this isn't an "ECM OP" thread, so I'll get back on topic.
LRMs are a meant to be a Long Range weapon. But even with their current speed, without the ability to lock, having insane Trigonometry skills, or stupid opponents, you will NEVER deliberately catch someone with dumb-fired LRMs. They are just too easy to avoid.
So no. Nerfing the range of the lock is a bad idea. In fact you'll probably find that, with the exception of Indirect Fire Spam, the times that you DO get killed by a LoS Boat, it's either because you are charging him across open ground, or because he has stepped out from cover 300m away, and giving you no chance to dodge the missiles.

[ShinVector]

Lex Peregrine, on 22 April 2014 - 12:49 PM, said:

Yep, I read people's opinions and sugestions and changed my view somewhat.

Still think LRMs are OP, but agree its not so much because of their stats, but because of the way they are used, mostly by indirect fire. Game is not fun at all when there's half a dozen guys firing lrms from behind cover at you and you have a hard time fighting back or getting behind cover in time to survive. Agree with proposed solution of increasing missile spread when firing indirectly.

Or remove the free indirect fire capability forcing LRM boats to show themselves.
No need to refer to poptarts..
It is short range brawlers non-ecm brawler that suffers most from LRM spamming...

In anyway case... They have to find a way to dissuade people from boating LRMs...

Hopefully 3/3/3/3 setup will create big problems for LRM super-boating assaults... We will see...

[Lex Peregrine]

Yes well, my ideia about nerfing long range lock can be edited to the following:

Direct fire: Allow lock at any range, but missiles loosing tracking ability after 500m, unless they have artemis, clan tech, or target is taged/narcer; What happens if last conditions are not met, is the missiles track the target for the first 500m, then head for its last known position, or as they go up in their arc they compensate for target movement, then as they go down they accelerate for last known or predicted position.

Indirect fire: No lock unless there is a spotter applying tag/narc, seeing the target on the radar is not enough, narc or tag must be used. I think this at least is reasonable and realistic.

So as I said, I can agree my direct fire nerf can be an unreasonable sugestion, though it would give bigger importance to the use of artemis and team-work, while the indirect fire sugestion along with the proposed wider spread is more reasonable.

[Karl Streiger]

Can live with that - it wouldn't change anything for me - seldom use LRMs with LOS beyond 500m

The TAG = Semi GUided LRM - developed in 3060 by ConCaps - is right.
Alternative the Scout can achieve a lock with its own missles - and this signal can be used by indirect LRM fire.

for example the Raven uses a LRM5 and locks on a target 180m away (and fires his missiles)..... a LRM boat can use that lock for indirect fire (like he will do with TAG and NARC

[Lex Peregrine]

Karl Streiger, on 23 April 2014 - 03:39 AM, said:

Can live with that - it wouldn't change anything for me - seldom use LRMs with LOS beyond 500m

The TAG = Semi GUided LRM - developed in 3060 by ConCaps - is right.
Alternative the Scout can achieve a lock with its own missles - and this signal can be used by indirect LRM fire.

for example the Raven uses a LRM5 and locks on a target 180m away (and fires his missiles)..... a LRM boat can use that lock for indirect fire (like he will do with TAG and NARC

That seems to be a good idea to make use of the command console module or something that does nothing yet. Relaying target info, if a team has a mech with a command module, any spotter will automatically give target info to lrm boats, unless command mech is being disrupted by ecm. It may be an ideia for a different thread, but this makes some sense, no radar contact sharing unless a mech in the team has a command console.

[dr bongstorm]

are lrms balanced? yes. do i like them? no. can they feel unbalanced in this very unforgiving game with random team make ups? yes.

i just can't help but feel like older, casual players that maybe are not that great at video games take them because they don't have the hand eye coordination to score good hits with direct fire weapons.

movement, positioning, interpreting the intel the game is giving you to get shots on target and on the right component is hard. waiting for a red triangle to appear and holding a reticule over it while hitting fire is easy. that is reality. lrm's are training wheels.

Edited by dr bongstorm, 23 April 2014 - 06:31 AM.

[Revorn]

One you tryed to Tag an 150 km/h Ecm shielded Ligth to get a Lock and hold the Lock till your Missles are incoming, you know the aim needed for LRMing. But wait.....hitting a Light with LRMs is useless anyway, besides it stands still.

Go Play LRMs for yourself, to see how much Locks you can get without LOS and Selftagging. And see how much missles you are getting over, before you get cored by Focusfireing Enemys because your Tag is so stealthy. Well the experience may varry with each Game / Player, but i rarely get Locks without Tagging myself.

LRMing can be a hard Job.

Edited by Revorn, 23 April 2014 - 07:13 AM.

[Voivode]

I love all the threads that complain "LRMs are OP" and from the same people who post that we get "AMS isn't worth the tonnage and crit slots"

[Lex Peregrine]

Voivode, on 23 April 2014 - 07:33 AM, said:

I love all the threads that complain "LRMs are OP" and from the same people who post that we get "AMS isn't worth the tonnage and crit slots"

Yea, AMS sucks!

[Jun Watarase]

Im confident that LRMs themselves are pretty balanced atm.

Its people boating them.

Any nerfs to LRMs individually will make them underpowered individually.

There is one underlying problem with LRMs btw that has to be taken into account : Large LRM launchers are a terrible idea because most mechs dont have anywhere enough missle tubes and larger LRM launchers have larger spread.

This is a problem when you can choose to take 2x LRM-10s and have much tighter spread and faster cycle times than a single LRM-20. It's also a problem when assaults like the Atlas are stuck with 10 tube lauchers because of "artistic" reasons. It doesnt allow them to use the canon LRM-20 effectively at all.

Standardize cycle times, standardize spread. This means a LRM-20 is going to be better than 2x LRM-10s....which is good, because it gives missle mechs a definate edge (more tubes). Standardize tubes so that firing 1x LRM-20 and 2x-LRM-10 out of a 20 tube launcher has the same firing rate (all 20 missles are fired at once), this gives players some flexibility. Also LRMs need to have hit % that is not based on target size. Right now a larger target gets hit by more missles, because thats theres a larger target area. That makes assaults super squishy against LRMs and light mechs pretty much invulnerable.

Indirect fire is OK now...on an individual basis. A LRM-10 seems to do on average 1% damage to most mechs. That's really not that much, and in games where i have dumped 300+ LRMs on targets that have (mostly) not been blocked, each LRM averaged less than .5 damage, because of misses or AMS. Was i doing enough damage to hurt them though? Definately, but only for sustained fire. And that damage was spread out all over the place, instead of the typical 40 point alphas to the CT.

Now when you have someone boating 60 LRMs at once, or focused fire, then it gets ridiculous because everything melts. But probably the only way to prevent boating is to not allow it. Just no. Nobody cares about ghost heat when you are hiding behind a hill and can cooldown, or chain firing to avoid ghost heat.

And dont allow premades to play against randoms either, because thats half the problem. Multiple LRM boats, ECM spotter with TAG, focused fire, is always going to be a problem, especially when randoms have no to little ECM. Other premades would be able to take countermeasures because they get to setup lances before the game, randoms never will.

Oh and the whole chainfiring thing for infinite cockpit shake? It's stupid. There is no reason why chain firing should give you an advantage over focused missle strikes. Maybe let AMS shoot down more missles if they come in chain fired volleys or something? Its just silly how chainfiring LRMs can stunlock someone so they cant shoot back.

Pretty sure none of the above will get added into MWO though. PGI tends not to read, or take suggestions.

[Tesunie]

ShinVector, on 23 April 2014 - 02:04 AM, said:

Or remove the free indirect fire capability forcing LRM boats to show themselves.
No need to refer to poptarts..
It is short range brawlers non-ecm brawler that suffers most from LRM spamming...

In anyway case... They have to find a way to dissuade people from boating LRMs...

Hopefully 3/3/3/3 setup will create big problems for LRM super-boating assaults... We will see...

If you remove LRM indirect fire mechanics (which is part of BT lore and other previous games, but MWO is different and can be different) then I want my LRMs to be as good as direct fire weapons for damage, recycle times, ammo consumption, and basic ability to kill targets. I'd like to see them get a 60% hit rate then (and then watch the real OP remarks come about) and probably have the SSRM guidance systems on them (aim for a bone/joint). Then, I'd like for them to move much much faster, so that I can actually hit targets more reliably at long ranges, seen as they are called LONG range missiles. They can then move straight, instead of in the forward arch, which would make shooting them without locks more effective and easier...

I think making indirect fire have more spread would be an easier/better solution over removing indirect fire from the system. It would reward TAG and NARC by reducing the spread back to direct line of sight standards. You would be rewarded more for shooting LRMs with direct line of sight as well (they become more effective).

3/3/3/3 will probably solve a lot of the problems people are actively complaining about, and then they will find something else to complain about that 3/3/3/3 brought out... but that would probably be a different topic/conversation and not needed to be brought in detail here. (Basically, fix one bug, another one comes out. Fix one problem, and that fix produces more problems. Apparently, like my car!)

[Lex Peregrine]

Tesunie, on 23 April 2014 - 11:12 AM, said:

If you remove LRM indirect fire mechanics (which is part of BT lore and other previous games, but MWO is different and can be different) then I want my LRMs to be as good as direct fire weapons for damage, recycle times, ammo consumption, and basic ability to kill targets. I'd like to see them get a 60% hit rate then (and then watch the real OP remarks come about) and probably have the SSRM guidance systems on them (aim for a bone/joint). Then, I'd like for them to move much much faster, so that I can actually hit targets more reliably at long ranges, seen as they are called LONG range missiles. They can then move straight, instead of in the forward arch, which would make shooting them without locks more effective and easier...

I think making indirect fire have more spread would be an easier/better solution over removing indirect fire from the system. It would reward TAG and NARC by reducing the spread back to direct line of sight standards. You would be rewarded more for shooting LRMs with direct line of sight as well (they become more effective).

3/3/3/3 will probably solve a lot of the problems people are actively complaining about, and then they will find something else to complain about that 3/3/3/3 brought out... but that would probably be a different topic/conversation and not needed to be brought in detail here. (Basically, fix one bug, another one comes out. Fix one problem, and that fix produces more problems. Apparently, like my car!)

Lol!

Yea I agree removing indirect fire completely is not a good option, my preference is to only allow it when a tag or narc is in use though, that would result probably in fewer lrm parties in open games, while promoting the use of tag and narc in team games. Another option as I said is the use of command console module, that allows target info to be relayed, so a far-away boat can use a team mate's lock to target his missiles, but doesnt get tag or narc's other bonuses.

[Solis Obscuri]

Lex Peregrine, on 23 April 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

Lol!

Yea I agree removing indirect fire completely is not a good option, my preference is to only allow it when a tag or narc is in use though, that would result probably in fewer lrm parties in open games, while promoting the use of tag and narc in team games. Another option as I said is the use of command console module, that allows target info to be relayed, so a far-away boat can use a team mate's lock to target his missiles, but doesnt get tag or narc's other bonuses.

Right now LRMs are trading fairly poor direct-fire performance and a stiff min-range penalty for having very good indirect-fire capabilities. They're in a reasonable spot in terms of being useful to bring most of the time, but not game-breaking unless very organized teams of boats/spotters go up against much less-organized pugs without AMS, ECM, or decent fire-suppression/sniper capabilities of their own. If LRM indirect-fire gets hit too hard, their direct-fire capabilities will have to be improved dramatically - which touches off the whole balance see-saw again.

If any adjustments are to be made, I prefer the simpler solution of just increasing LRM spreads by about 30-40% in indirect-fire mode, then letting Narc or TAG bring the spread back into the normal scatter. That doesn't marry LRM use to spotters who may or may not be equipped with TAG/Narc in pug matches, but also somewhat reduces the effectiveness of hucking LRMs at random targets beyond visual range, and makes TAG/Narc that much more essential to bring along if you do plan on scouting/spotting. We know that spreads can already be varied based on having LoS since that's already how Artemis works, so I think this would be pretty simple to implement, and I think it would add some interesting depth to the indirect-fire equation.

[Tesunie]

Lex Peregrine, on 23 April 2014 - 11:33 AM, said:

Lol!

Yea I agree removing indirect fire completely is not a good option, my preference is to only allow it when a tag or narc is in use though, that would result probably in fewer lrm parties in open games, while promoting the use of tag and narc in team games. Another option as I said is the use of command console module, that allows target info to be relayed, so a far-away boat can use a team mate's lock to target his missiles, but doesnt get tag or narc's other bonuses.

What you are talking about would be a C3 computer... by the way, PGI gave us all a downgraded C3 computer in all our mechs, FOR FREE! So...

If anything, remove data/target sharing and add in C3 computers into the game. Then have C3 computers give target sharing data. However, by doing this data becomes less important, information warefare becomes almost nonexistent, and either everyone would slap in a C3, or no one would. Having no C3 would also hinder PUG play dramatically, though not so much for premade teams/competitive teams...

With every action, there are reactions. For every fix, you have to consider the alternative repercussions that effect other aspects of the game.