Responding to l33tworks:
Quote
LRMS are definitely OP in their current state. There is no doubt about it. I don't mean from a single LRMs users perspective, I know they don't feel like it, I mean their effectiveness as a whole against the enemy team in normal pug matches is insanely higher than any other weapon by at least a factor of 5.
No they're not. There is only one piece of equipment that is disproportionally effective to it's tonnage and impact on a game and that's ECM with AMS being a close second. A 'single' LRM launcher in this game is just about useless due to those 2 OP items I mention. You now MUST have at lest 20 tubes to be effective, and preferably more than 30. ECM and AMS create the very problem they are trying to combat: LRMspam.
Quote
On the receiving end nothing else ends up being as devastating to matches as LRMS. Its VERY rare that if you make a "mistake" and show up on someones radar for a a short while you will be hit so hard with direct fire weapons your game is close to over, especially when moving, If you do get hit, even with the worst sniper builds you end up with maybe 94% health on your average mech and you can continue your process.
The 'effectiveness' you cite is psychological, not factual. Real elite players know this I fear more that echoing clang or a dual gauss hitting on or near me more than most other weapons, The Incoming Missile warning on the other hand... meh. I know what cover is and how to use it and normally am not far from it unless I'm pushing my luck. It is far from very rare to get hit at 800m and take catastrophic damage from a double gauss or Triple PPC. I have both killed and been killed in this manner many times in 2 volleys. Earlier this week, I was getting hit from an double Gauss that I could not find. 2 shots to my side torso, with only 20% of my health gone, I was dead. Never found out where I was being shot from as I was behind a ridge and never did figure out how the only double Gauss that I could find got me when he was on the other side of the ridge. on the other hand, I've stripped targets down to 15% of health and they killed me because the missiles just wouldn't give me criticals on a CT and his one last ML of his. Percentage means diddly if you know where/how to shoot.
Quote
But One wrong move and and a few LRMs volleys smack you to pieces down to ~80% in seconds by the time you get back into cover. An the whole time you cannot shoot back or even see where you are going or tell what is going on. This never happens with direct fire weapons
Three things instantly obvious.
1. You're too far from cover. Stop pretending you're superman.
2. That damage is spread over your entire mech and probably no area is beyond a light orange in color, so it's not like you're in serious danger outside of being hit by a direct fire alpha strike.
3. You need to play more matches and see that this happens quite regularly from DF weapons, and faster with more concentration to a few body parts, not all, making it much more serious damage.
Also, nobody owes you the right to face your attacker. It's indirect fire for a reason. It has it's advantages (aka you can't see me but I can shoot you.) and it's disadvantages (I'm a slow weapon, easily dodged or parried with cover and cannot be precise)
Quote
If there are multiple clan enemy mechs the ammount of LRMaggedon that will come your way will be insane. Even in a DDC with ECM, LRMS are the biggest devastators. Personally I like stay close to the front lines in Atlases, so some little mech will narc me and my game is over. Millions of LRMS so much that even the ones that continue to rain down on the corpse after the mech dies are enough to kill it one more time over.
I believe we found the crux of the problem here. You want to blunder along in an atlas and feel invincible. LRMs are tailor made for destroying big slow mechs that like to lumber along in the open, unable to get back to cover, and too big to take cover behind many objects. DDCs are my favorite thing to take out in the game with my little speedy medium LRMboats. It's like a PTboat sinking a battleship. When I see them on the battlefield, I call them out as priority targets, get my tag on them and start busting them up, because in a brawl they ARE that dangerous, but they are also that flawed.
So now we established the real cause of the "stop using LRMs" meme you have going on. Solution? Faster, smaller, more functional mechs and quit trying to be Big Mech On Campus. Too many of us are just waiting for lumbering arrogant targets for the easy kill and stat padding.
Quote
There is no hiding that will save 90% of the time. And thats the problem with all the LRM fanboys that say 'only idiots get killed by LRMS" or use "cover etc"
Horsecrap. I do it in a Victor all the time as well as my Orions. Idiots, the unlucky and unwise get killed by LRMs. This is proven time and time again, even in your own words in a later post that good players know how to counter LRMs. The question is, why aren't you if these good players are doing it? I'd be mimicking them in a heartbeat. As a matter of fact, I do.
Quote
LRMs have affected the gameplay of people so much that everyone has to stick to walls and cover like scared mice and only ever get blips of an enemy. Yea LRMS feel like they suck when you are using them but thats because everyone is terrified of exposing themselves so we spend 14 minutes of a match looking at your teammates wondering who will decide to end themselves and walk the plank next by going into the waters.
Any combat game you're not taking full advantage of cover and damage prevention is a broken game or on 'easy'. If you are not scared of getting killed by the enemy, you're either not playing seriously enough or feeling entitled to some sort of immunity from good play by the enemy. We are not AIs here. We do not ignore bad pilots or easy kills like a computer would. If this is too tactical for you because you can't charge in and button mash your enemy to death because you have the biggest mech with most guns... I'm sorry, I don't have sympathy.
Quote
Thats because the comp players have very high precision builds that quickly come out of cover, strike hard and quickly go back into cover. The perfect counter to LRMS IF you can pull of or want to pull of that style of gameplay just like its the perfect counter to any weapon. Its the most successful playstyle cos of the fact it exposes you the least ammount of time and delivers the biggest damage
Then why are you not doing this if this is what you see working? I try to learn how to do this. My major limitation is my computer unable to get above 15fps, so I stick with LRMs and play 'alligator' waiting for the unaware and assisting those who can do better than me. BTW, this also undermines your entire reasoning for why LRMs need to be nerfed more, but it doesn't undermine mine because these elite players are obviously not threatened by an entire weapon system and they should be.
Quote
The comp players are certainly not brawlers or any other type of mech they suffer to LRMS
Actually these competitive players are some of the best brawlers in the game. I've watched players that won their faction leader boards, guys I've seen in the team tourney and let me tell you, they are GOOD brawlers as well as good poptarters. Heck, even the much noted anti-LRM guru Shinvector is a consummate brawler but not a very good LRMpilot (sorry, but it's true. know your strength

).
Quote
Using comp players to balance weapons that need to work in the general community is madness. Do you realise what you are saying? You want LRMs to be BUFFED?
Absolutely I know what I'm saying. Do you understand what you're saying and why? LRMs, till they become viable in tournament level competition are not equal or balanced. Till that time I see it happening, there needs to be minor buffs. Of course one of the biggest things I'd rather see is ECM affect direct fire weaponry by scrambling the targetting computer reticle taking away precision shooting at any ECM protected mech. (as PGI has stated how it works, to me, this is not only reasonable, but should be done on principle)
Elites don't fear LRMs because they are easy to counter.
Quote
PUG matches would be almost nothing but LRMS. Are you saying you want to the game to became even more of a camp and snipe and precision poptart fest that it is is? Just because LRMS dont work well in comps doesnt mean they are underpowered. Many weapons other than the meta dont work well in comps, well because of the playstyle these guys take. Personally I don't find that playstyle fun for a game like mechwarrior
I have no problem with 'camping' because it's smart fighting. LRMs counter poptarts and discourage open field battles. I know this because I do this with LRMs all the time. If you want open field napoleonic era warfare, MWO is not the right place. We're more in line with World of Tanks (with un-nerfed artillery) than we are Virtua Fighter button mash fests as some seem to want this game to become. "Many" other weapons don't work in comps? Well, I don't see many AC2s, 20s, LB10x, Streaks, SLs, SPLs or LLs, this is true, but so what? I see zero LRMs. Then again, we have not had a post clan solo or team tourny yet.
As for most people wanting to get into a dirty brawl.... I don't. I do know a small minority of people who do love your style of adrenaline fueled play. Most would rather use cover, and survive to one degree or another. If you want to charge into an open field to brawl with another guy, we'll be happy to cash in your chips. Let's be real here. Nobody has the same play style. You don't want to camp and shoot from cover, fine. I do. If you manage to get inside my cover and range, you got your brawl, but I'm not going to let you do that willingly... and you might regret charging me. Who knows? I am a tasty tasty porkchop that has lured many a pitbull to their doom.