Angry Kittens in a Mech, on 19 May 2014 - 07:32 PM, said:
Good first post.
I personally miss some of the thinking person's shooter elements that used to be in; like a reason to play the objective (it used to pay more to win assault by base capture; now it is not only harder to do but pays nothing at all and so people stopped playing to the objective). It's my hope some of these will come back in once PGI gets over this current hurdle with the Clan Mechs and Community Warfare.
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And to others:
Many elements in the game do require some thought. However, People are upset about LRMs because recently LRMs got buffed to travel faster and the actual 'thought' required to run them before has completely departed from the game. It's not the fact that they sit behind the front lines firing that is a problem. In fact that's almost never been a problem. They make huge sacrifices to carry their weapons and their ammunition is nearly worthless. The problem is that LRMs are so worthless by themselves they have to be packed on in large amounts, and fired at insanely rapid speeds to have a hope that half of them might actually hit their target..partially, if at all.
This leads us to the real problem. This constant spam from multiple players firing about a dozen launchers annoys, immobilizes, blinds, and essentially stalemates the entire game. There's no time to move. The missiles are pathetically weak but the thought of the constant non-stop spam makes players too afraid to advance and fight.
In the long run, it stalls the game and makes players feel absolutely powerless.
The only things wrong with missiles? Too little damage when they hit; making LRMs feel worthless to the user so the player has to pack in lots more of them. They fire too frequently; making them a great weapon for endless spam to keep enemies away, while also making the target feel completely powerless and alienating the 'target' into wanting to just give up.
The latter part makes a new player who is the recipient of the missiles discouraged to the point of quitting due to the obvious imbalance caused by the frequency of LRM fire.
Truth be told, the DPS of LRMs is surprisingly effective despite being so pathetically weak compared to most weapons. It's the frequency that is the problem. Why is it a problem? The lack of time. Players need time to react, time to go from cover to cover, time to move, to engage, to flank.
In real life, when artillery comes down you have between 30 seconds to 2 minutes before it comes down again.
Even up against a heavy MG emplacement, the MG eventually stops firing due to overheat (doesn't happen much in MWO; lasts maybe 2 seconds) or reloading (...there's never a pause to reload when the users chain fire, because the time between reloads per individual launcher is much too short).
Maintaining the DPS by condensing two salvos into one solves the problem in the form of both a nerf and a buff that in reality does nothing but
remove the spam. In removing the spam, we could even reduce the LRM count to 120 missiles per ton (as it's supposed to be in the first place), which combined with slower reload speeds will make boating LRMs less attractive in a tactical light. (Even with several LRM-15s chain fired, at 8.5 seconds to reload each launcher and the enemy fires 4 LRM-15s one at a time.. 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5.. there's exactly 7 seconds for you to reposition to new cover, to begin a flank, to rush the enemy, to sneak behind the enemy, to sharp shoot the enemy, to call for help, whatever you need to do to deal with the threat).
Double damage, double heat, double reload time, cut missiles per ton of ammunition 120 [having 'so many' will not be as needed since players will be more tactful with their firing patterns]. (LRMs weren't that much smaller than SRMs, it's 120 missiles for LRMs and 100 missiles for SRMs) o.O;
Edited by Koniving, 19 May 2014 - 09:04 PM.
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