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I won't talk about balance, at least not directly. I'll instead tell you what I feel about LRMs as a weapon in general.
LRMs can be hard countered if you have what it takes (Brains, ECM, Cover, in order of utility) but when you don't (guess what, I rarely do) they are annoying as hell to fight against. Even if it's entirely your fault, getting crushed by missile rain just makes you feel bad.
The cockpit shake jars you and disorients you to an extent. Sometimes you panic and make the wrong decisions because of the constant, noisy, irritating damage coming your way, and your friendly neighborhood BB getting all sarcastic up in yo cockpit with her warnings. Maybe it's the feeling of not being able to shoot back, or maybe it's the butt-clenching "Oh **** I need to go hide" rush. Maybe it's because all the other team had to do to cripple and/or is waiting for a few circles to converge and clicking. Whatever the reason, LRMs make me cringe.
Against sniper weapons cover is much easier to use due to there being no indirect fire. When you're pegged by close range weapons you know where, who and what hit you and you can almost always fight back. You have to get caught out to be helplessly gutted by brawlers. They can't just click and damage you. They have to actually fight you, face to face or near enough, and I think we can all agree that dealing high damage as an average brawler overall takes more skill than dealing high damage as an average lurmboat.
Position, aim, and focus are the key requisites for good brawling more so than for lurmboating. As an LRM user, positioning is relatively (repeat, relatively) less important. Aim is not a factor. Focus is infinitely easier because often the fight isn't in your face, allowing you to cherry pick targets and coordinate for locks, tag and narc. This also means that you spend much of the game facing relatively low threat unless your enemies manage to break through your meatshield line and get to you, in which case I'm sorry, but I won't pity you.
There. I've established that I think close combat and direct fire combat require more skill than using LRMs, and that both roles are less one-sided.
I think the problem is in the extreme nature of the weapon's mechanics. This means that LRM boat loadouts are technically all or nothing gambles that rely on the other team's composition to succeed. So let's look at the factors in this gamble, or in other words the counters to LRMs.
It's like this. Either you have a hard counter for it, or your counter is nigh on ineffective.
Cover is worth little unless you've the calm and the awareness to use it, and even then it limits you to a style of gameplay I find cringeworthy wherein you have to hide and peek until you've enough of your team ready to dilute their target focus and enable a push.
While few ECM-capable mechs exist, often either side has at least one of them. ECM is a good counter to LRMs and can be relied upon in premades or in coordinated (i.e. miracle) pubs., but it puts the onus on the ECM bearer to selflessly hoist his umbrella of benevolence above his teammates. When it happens, it's like magic. But it happens rarely. ECM is a very potent thing, and has a complex set of counters and vulnerabilities that bring entirely different and confusing issues that I dare not try to get my humble mind around.
AMS are, I believe, widely accepted as ineffective unless used in large number, and hence are unreliable. Many builds that do use AMS use it only as an afterthought, or as a nifty plug for a 1.5 ton gap.
And the only remaining counter I mentioned, the fabled virtue of "intelligence", is a mysterious and fickle thing that comes and goes like the wind. Clearly unreliable.
So. I believe that the problem with LRMs, the source of their hateful wellspring, is not the fact that LRMs are outright overpowered, but that the way they work itself is aggravating to those on the receiving end and requires relatively (repeat again, relatively) less skill from the gracious givers of missile goodness. There are of course exceptions, but that's all they are. Exceptions.
As a bit of an anticlimax, I won't suggest any way to improve the Mechwarrior LRM experience. I'll leave that to you lot, because frankly I don't know how.
What I will say, though, is how to beat LRMs as a pugger. The obvious idea is to get in close. The fatal flaw is that you die trying because lurms get to you before you get to the lurmcrawlers. Solution? Bum rush. Hiding under LRM pressure puts you at a disadvantage where you're either split up or tripping all over each other scrambling for cover and getting gradually chipped away. Instead, coordinate a push. When your entire team is outside cover, it may sound like a lurmboat's target lock paradise, but it isn't. More targets means less lurms per target unless you're fighting a well coordinated premade. An what's more, while you're out of cover, you'll be barreling across the map straight toward their faces. They will pelt you while you get there, but they sure as hell won't be so cocky once you get within range. Rush them down. Flank them, get them in a pincer attack, backstab them with a lance from behind.
The idea is to not cower in fear of damage from LRMs, because if you do then the game devolves to long range whack-a-mole focus firing, which is something LRMs excel at. They will separate you, they will rain hell on you one by one, and you will cry and rage and be ashamed.
It's dangerous to go alone. Take teammates with you.
TLDR;
-Lurms aren't really OP, they're just annoying as hell.
-^Because of the above, you shouldn't let them get to you. Shrug it off.
-Since the technical counters (ECM, AMS, Cover) are either extreme or ineffective, you can't rely on them.
-Hence you must bum rush
-And bum rush well, with your teammates, together with all your glorious bum-power
-Be brave. Don't let them focus fire you down.
-Damn, I sound like a smart*** selfhelp book.
Edited by Egomane, 04 May 2014 - 01:56 AM.
