Dr HaxZaw, on 10 June 2014 - 02:33 AM, said:
LRM Counters:
ECM - Countered by Tag at 750m and NARC
AMS - Countered by mechs like the ROFLPULT or any situation where there are multiple LRM streams incoming
Cover - Have you seen the trajectory on those things? You need some seriously tall cover or you need to get out of vision of all enemy mechs as soon as the LRMs are launched.
Also max range on any ac weapon to get max damage is 720m with an ac2, a gauss is 660m off the top of my head. So these clearly match up to the max damage at 1000m with your LRMs.
Now on to your laughable statement that coring a mech at 800m with a gauss or ERPPC or ERLL requires nothing more than keeping the aimer roughly on the other mech. Do you understand what I mean when I say core someone? As in shoot through the armour on the centre torso, not the left or the right torso or an arm the CENTRE TORSO. Now if I put you in a mech even with advanced zoom and you try and core a mech at 1000m you'll run into a few issues:
1) At 800m your weapons aren't doing their normal amount of damage so the ammo wastage is an issue because you don't get a huge amount of ammo per tonne
2) The travel time of a shot for ERPPCs and the AC weapons is huge so any mech moving at a decent speed (even assaults at range are hard to pick out a section of torso) requires a certain level of skill to judge how much of a lead is needed
3) Good luck hitting a light at 800m and doing significant damage with any of the above weapons
4) You can shoot them and hence and thereforce by the logic of all direct fire weapons they can shoot you, therefore any possible damage you do is counterbalanced by the likelyhood that the other team will return fire.
As you can see from these 4 points none of which apply to LRMs. When I can run an LRM60 stalker with enough ammo to last me the entire game with TAG, there is no counter. I get a person in the group to run a DDC and we have a merry old time not getting shot at.
The number of players I see in a game who struggle to pilot a mech let alone aim and are relying soley upon LRMs to do damage and get kills annoys the crap out of me. Its like the 12 year olds that run around with a grenade launcher in COD because they aren't willing to put in the hard work to be a better player. And we all know where the COD series has ended up.
What's hilarious is your analysis.
Don't get me wrong, you've got some good points there. However, it's still very flawed, and yes, aiming is still about the same, only difference is that unlike LRMs the sniper's shot doesn't scatter and deal almost nothing and completely miss, due to any one factor jumping in.
I'm going to go step by step with your post.
1-Counters to LRMs:
A- ECM: Currently almost everyone is complaining about how OP ECM is (I frankly don't see it, and think NARC should never break through it) still stacks, keeps you stealthed up unless people get within 750 to use tag, or 170 to use BAP. Still a great counter to LRMs, and having even one online can ruin an LRM boat's day, having two stay together will virtually guarantee no LRM effectiveness.
B- Regardless of streams, and like the 2 people that play a roflpult, massed AMS will negate most of the damage, if not flat out remove the entire salvo. Unless you have multiple assault/heavy LRM boats with high tube counts, and even then it's still effective. If you have no ECM on your team, or any brain cells to use cover, then it wouldn't matter if you had all the counters.
C- Hence why we say learn to use cover. Also, not all maps are equal. For example: Caustic Valley, and Alpine peaks are the two best maps for LRMs, river city, Crimson Strait, and Terra Therma on the other hand spell 0 effectiveness for LRM boats.
No other system in the game has that many direct counters, and no system should ever have hard counters, just soft counters to make your mistakes less glaring. You're not supposed to be immune from LRMs, and by god if you are running across open terrain I should hope you get turned into a crater, because that's what's supposed to happen. (the "you" in this case is hypothetical, and not aimed at you personally, English is a funny language like that)
2- Weapon restrictions:
Have you ever played an LRM boat? If you had you wouldn't put this point up. LRM boats sacrifice, mobility, survivability (90% of them have XL engines), and firepower (almost no backup weapons), to try and fit ammo in. What happens 2 seconds after they fire their salvo, locks are gone, and there goes a full 50 missiles down the drain. Or the missiles get close, and AMS just shreds the entire salvo. Every mech should be mounting AMS, if you don't put AMS you are taking a risk, and need to compensate for it (again, a general you, not personal you)
As for aiming and hitting a light. I can fire a 90 missile salvo, and I will guarantee you that 90% of the salvo will miss my Commando. If not more. Not hitting lights at 800 meters is a universal problem, it's their only defense. As for retaliation, let me ask you this.
Would you rather face to BLR-1Ds strapping UAC5+2AC2s? Or one? If the answer is one, that already invalidates your points. When a mech is boating LRMs that's extra tonnage that you don't have to face or worry about shooting. Someone engages you and they receive LRM support? You can easily either close in and put them between you and the LRMs, or use cover to make sure you don't get hit, while having to deal with only 1 target. Once the opponent is down, or lose lock on you. You are free to then find that other mech, (which can't fight in a close up brawl) and kill it alone.
It's a trade off system. The 4 points you've raised are at best weak, and at worst, poorly thought out. I'm not trying to be insulting, but you are going after things that bother you, while apparently not trying to counter them, or adapt to them.
You also criticize LRM boating as not being a "good player", LRM boaters can be great players, if you want to be an elitist, then I won't bother arguing with you. However, I'll show you why your analysis is flawed and wrong.
Every point you complained about has one route, ineffective counter play. That's the pilot's problem, when you are the target, learn how to deal with it, and what works best.
Here are the real problems with LRMs:
1- Fast cycle time
2- Disorienting cockpit shake
3- Minimal damage forcing players to take massive tonnage and space for ammo alone (my BLR-1S has about 2500 LRMs, and can fit up to 3000 if I wanted it to)
4- No incentives to use less ammo (the only time I think R&R might be a good thing)
These are genuine mechanical problems with LRMs that need fixing, not what you pointed out, which can be fixed by simply using ECM, or AMS, or hiding behind a wall.
If LRMs were to do double damage, and take double cycling time, they would be in a much better place than they are now. They are in a great spot right now, but there is still room for improvement. With double-double, the DPS is the same, but they annoying cockpit shake and disorientation factor is brought down to a minimum, it also allows mechs to actually close the distance, if they play their cards right and decide to charge the LRM boat.
The missiles are dealing peanuts in damage, so I bring with me over 11 tons of ammo, to compensate, when I can get similar numbers in my Orion while running a brawler set up with a much bigger engine. LRM boats have no incentive to use their space and tonnage for anything other than ammo.
Those are the things that need fixing, mechanically speaking, LRMs are mostly fine. Counter play for them is good enough, and at some points flat out broken, (stacked ECM, good luck NARCing, or BAPing over that)
EDIT: yes, aiming is just that by the way. You keep your reticle on the enemy in close ranges, or when they are headed for you or stopped. Or you lead the shot in front of them. at 800 meters PPCs deal full damage, and Gauss deals almost full damage, since it extends to 1690.
Edited by IraqiWalker, 10 June 2014 - 03:44 AM.
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