155 replies to this topic

[FlameDragon]

Honestly as someone who runs a narc raven, LRMS are not as common as some might think, or my match maker doesn't like me. In order to bring LRMAGEHDDON upon my targets I usually have to bring a couple buddies. A lot of Pugs wont focus their lrms either. But as the saying goes "when it rains it poors" and boy is it a *****! Running a dedicated LRM lance with narc raven is simply Pinpoint meta counter. Making Victors and 3Ds whine about LRMS being over powered fills my heart with joy. And the LRM lance weakness is a lightlance of jenners and an ecm Raven . TO every rock there is a paper and every paper a scizzor, Dont like LRMs? grab some friends and run ecm lights.

[Thunder Child]

I noticed quite a few LRM hurricanes for a few days after the Clans dropped, but it seems to have abated, in exchange for Pogo-Wolves with Dual PPC + Gauss, and ECM Foxes with Dual PPCs. I still see LRM Atlai.... those make me laugh. But yeah, not seeing the LRM issue, at least in terms of quantity, unless I'm narcing in a Premade LRM Lance. In other news, has anyone found that Clan LRMs seem to favour legs? Every mech I've run in thats been peppered by them seems to take an inordinate amount of damage to the legs. Either Legs, or Arms, but rarely Torso.

[Dago Red]

Mystere, on 27 June 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

Hmm. So you want the game to balance ECM distribution.

Should the game also balance by LRM, SRM, SSRM, AC20, CUltra-AC20, Gauss, PPC, ERPPC, CERPPC, and by all other weapons, modules, and whatever else that exists in the game?

Hmm I would say that of those listed weapon and their related mechanics the current ECM implementation is the only one that needs to be shived in the kidney's repeatedly and left in a ditch to die.

Can be worked around but is still bad and should feel bad.


More on topic.

It's no fun fighting in the rain but it is generally preventable. Given the forecast of clan based heavy showers for at least the next few weeks it would be wise to pack your umbrella's

Edited by Dago Red, 28 June 2014 - 05:28 AM.

[GreZZo]

I don't know witch game are you playing, but after the clan invasion, for the "normal" people this game are really boring, especially if you are a new player:
If you are really new, you die by lrm boat, always.
If you have a little bit of experience, spend the most part of the game, hide yourself by lrms, play only 4 or 5 minutes in one metch, before a shiny clan mech with 70 alpha strike oneshot you.
And these are the example if you haven't a corp yet, if you play in a corp is f***ing worst. You can't force people to play in 2 single meta game: LRM-Narc lance, or EMC-Counter light lance, in this case the game lose all the tactics, lose all the funny stuff and lose all the other mech that are useless to this 2 metas.
And for the last: someone can explain how is physically possible for a mech load 1000 missiles? There's no space to contain that volume of missiles. Because if my mech can contain such a number of missiles, certainly can contain 1000 gauss ammo since they are much smaller.

[Drasari]

And the fix is easy, AMS, ECM, and COVER. Stading out in the open and getting tooled is normal no matter the wep type.

As well I also contest that there are not as many LRM boats as peopel think, people just have 2x LRM 5/10's on a lot of builds now.

Edited by Drasari, 28 June 2014 - 05:20 AM.

[Colby Boucher]

The biggest issue, IMO, is that LRMs will never be in a place where everyone will be happy with them. It just isn't a weapon system which lends itself well to a real time game where people are, generally, more interested in skill-based play. (that's not to say LRMs don't take skill, just not in the traditional reflex based sense)

If LRMs become near line-of-sight weapons, they will lose their game-intended use, a weapon which can arc over cover but needs a scout to be effective.

If they become too powerful in their intended role, they are an absolute pain to be shot by and create a buttonne of counters and counter-counters (where the game stands now)

I think that the only real solution is to give them a firing arc shallow enough that they can only crest over "light" cover, and then add mech-mounted artillery (that exists, right?) to replace the original role of LRMs. Think about it. Instead of heat-seeking missiles moving over cover, you could have a slow moving artillery shell which massively punishes people who try to stay behind cover for too long, negating the jump sniping issue somewhat.

[GreZZo]

Drasari, on 28 June 2014 - 05:18 AM, said:

And the fix is easy, AMS, ECM, and COVER. Stading out in the open and getting tooled is normal no matter the wep type.

As well I also contest that there are not as many LRM boats as peopel think, people just have 2x LRM 5/10's on a lot of builds now.

This is not a solution, this is like use a pian killer with a broken leg. You don't feel pain, but the leg is still broken.
I told to you, force people to play a specific meta subtract the funny part at the game.

[wanderer]

Arrow IV arty missiles should have already been added.

Sadly, I don't think PGI could make their indirect-mode work properly, and I'm not even sure they'd get arcing shots from mortars properly done either.

[wanderer]

GreZZo, on 28 June 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

This is not a solution, this is like use a pian killer with a broken leg. You don't feel pain, but the leg is still broken.
I told to you, force people to play a specific meta subtract the funny part at the game.

If the meta was LRM/counter LRM, I'd agree with you. PGI is quite happy to maintain the real meta- jump snipers - with players that laugh at your missile troubles. Because they've gotten good enough to stay out of the rain, without ECM or AMS. Good players look at LRM whinging as "this is a player who doesn't know what they're doing yet".

And they're right.

Quite simply, if you're being owned by LRM fire, you'd be owned three times as hard by a decent pack of Cataphract/Timber Wolf/Victors who'd get a good giggle at you trying to LRM them whilst hopping up and down behind cover.

[ztac]

I don't know just how many AMS systems you need to be effective but I know 5 will not cut it, we had 5 in a match today (on 3 mechs) and the missiles were still getting through. We were also in cover (low hill) but they just flew over the top and came down on us. Our ECM (we actually had one) was countered by a jammer.... all this was happening with no TAG or Narc as far as we knew.

The thing is that with LRM able to cut down any advancing mechs has really stifled the game into a peek and shoot or die model.(really not much fun, maybe we can have an assault mode with very limited LRM? after all not much assaulting actually goes on , more camping I guess ).

Surely the makers (PGI) know that computer games are not the same as board games.... and certainly an action game will never translate well. Why they never set out a story board for their weapons i'll never know. you simply can not use charts from a boardgame or the ideas contained therein , by all means use it as a rough guide but not base a computer game on them.

[Lynx7725]

ztac, on 29 June 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

I don't know just how many AMS systems you need to be effective but I know 5 will not cut it, we had 5 in a match today (on 3 mechs) and the missiles were still getting through. We were also in cover (low hill) but they just flew over the top and came down on us. Our ECM (we actually had one) was countered by a jammer.... all this was happening with no TAG or Narc as far as we knew.

How much damage were you actually taking?

I'm asking because 5 AMS would cut the density of any single LRM attack down tremendously. Each missile does 1.1 damage but rocks you like a boat -- you can't differentiate 100 damage from 1 damage from shake. If you aren't really taking damage, I have to break this to you: You've been suckered by the LRM boat into staying locked in one position.

More accurately, you've been suckered by the LRM boat and the spotter that has direct LOS to you, because if the rain is still coming down on you for an extended period, he's got a lock on you through another player. Since your group is paralysed by LRM fear, you aren't clearing the spotter out, and the two of them are merrily just raining chaff on you through your AMS cover, and locking you in place not through damage but through your own fear.

That fundamentally is why at higher skill level, LRMs don't work as well. The more experienced pilots learnt how to overcome the fear and to know the limit to which they can tank LRM damage while moving from cover to cover to close the distance. They are good because they have overcame that fear and won't be shaken by LRM fire.

What I do, as a LRM specialist, is to exploit that fear. I lock you into place, I disperse force concentration, I deny passage. And if the target can overcome that fear, then the damage effect is limited. LRMs are fundamentally a psychological weapon at the moment.

ztac, on 29 June 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

The thing is that with LRM able to cut down any advancing mechs has really stifled the game into a peek and shoot or die model.(really not much fun, maybe we can have an assault mode with very limited LRM? after all not much assaulting actually goes on , more camping I guess ).

Look at it the other way. MWO is a game about mobility. If one team can constrain the mobility of the other team, then they basically will have a big advantage.

[KamikazeRat]

(tl:dr whole tread)

i always see 2 sides to this arguement

1. l2p

2. but it sucks

camp 1 says: it's the way the game is, figure out how to play with it like it is.

camp 2 says: why is it this way, its not how it should be.

thus an agreement will never be made

personally im a little more on the side of camp 2, but thats mostly just carryover from every other BT/MW game. LRMs just don't have the same "fire support" feel that they should have. and im not really sure how to make them do that, so i resign myself to camp 1's arguement, of just deal with it and hide behind the big rock or duck behind the DDC.

[Mystere]

KamikazeRat, on 29 June 2014 - 07:53 AM, said:

(tl:dr whole tread)

i always see 2 sides to this arguement

1. l2p

2. but it sucks

camp 1 says: it's the way the game is, figure out how to play with it like it is.

camp 2 says: why is it this way, its not how it should be.

thus an agreement will never be made

personally im a little more on the side of camp 2, but thats mostly just carryover from every other BT/MW game. LRMs just don't have the same "fire support" feel that they should have. and im not really sure how to make them do that, so i resign myself to camp 1's arguement, of just deal with it and hide behind the big rock or duck behind the DDC.

One of the errors that people make in MWO is assuming that "fire support" is not supposed to be deadly.

In the real world, massed artillery barrages are also called "fire support", and we all know how nasty those are.

[KamikazeRat]

Mystere, on 29 June 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

One of the errors that people make in MWO is assuming that "fire support" is not supposed to be deadly.

In the real world, massed artillery barrages are also called "fire support", and we all know how nasty those are.

hmm, valid point, but the feel of LRMs is just off compared to how they have felt in games of the past. i still can't put my finger on it so until someone else figures out a better idea, i just do the best i can and kick myself when i get lurm'd to death

[Mizore]

Well... the problem with lurmed to death is, that LRMs are so weak, that it takes several hundreds of lurms and of course also a long time to take you down.
Because of this you get the impression, that there are lurms everywhere and only lurms and nothing else, BUT:
If there are many many PPCs and Gauss, that's no problem, because you die very quickly after few hits, so they don't get on your nerves.
There is a reason why people have to store lurm ammo like stupid, because they don't do much damage!

Well, at least this would be some kind of psychological answer to this phenomenon...

[wanderer]

KamikazeRat, on 29 June 2014 - 08:24 AM, said:

hmm, valid point, but the feel of LRMs is just off compared to how they have felt in games of the past. i still can't put my finger on it so until someone else figures out a better idea, i just do the best i can and kick myself when i get lurm'd to death

That's because the actual damage a single given LRM salvo delivers really isn't all that much- but 3-4 average 30-launchers or more can deliver enough small bites to turn into huge gouges.

I wouldn't have a problem in the world with LRMs getting more punch per missile- and a slower ROF to compensate. It'd get rid of the LRM-5 chainfire stun effect, for starters. They tweaking LRM damage/reload times in beta, and it'd be good to look at again.