606 replies to this topic

[Heeden]

Jakob Knight, on 15 August 2014 - 07:21 PM, said:

I will, however, propose the following. If people truely don't want LRMs to be able to fire indirectly, then it follows they need to be converted into direct-fire weapons comparable to those they will be facing. That means removal of minimum range, missile speed upgraded to that of autocannon rounds, and damage converted to pinpoint damage. If these are not all acceptable changes, then there is something wrong with the proposals to remove the weapon as an indirect fire weapon, as all of the restrictions on minimum range, slow projectile speed, and spread damage are the direct result of counterbalancing their indirect fire ability.

What you're asking for there is to convert LRMs to auto-cannons. You can do that yourself by taking auto-cannons. If direct-fired LRMs need a buff it shouldn't be a straight copy of existing weapons, which would make them pointless.

Slow projectile speed is a counter for the lock-on mechanic. Spread damage is a counter for them having high damage-per-shot-per-ton, at long range (no weapons system comes close to being able to put down 20+ damage at 1000m with only 10 tons).

Further to this LRMs have more time-to-hit and spread as a counter for them being indirect-fire weapons. The main problem seems to be that victims find the penalties are not great enough for the advantages, whilst users say the drawbacks are too great, particularly if you're using them as a direct fire weapon. Cue a bunch of l2hide/l2aim arguments ad nauseum.

To be honest I think LRMs need 2 firing modes, indirect would be similar to the current system but less manoeuvrable and more spread out. Direct-fire mode would be tighter than now (or at least balanced so that the larger missile sizes are tighter, possibly have 5s loser) and also have the advantage of flying in a straight line from the firer to the target, cutting flight time somewhat (perhaps a further boost to speed could be appropriate, depending on how nimble the rockets are)

kamiko kross, on 16 August 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

I think it's pointless trying to discuss this. I can see the pro lrms point, but they can't/won't see mine. Blinkers surgically grafted on methinks.

LRM fans are very protective of their pet-weapons, I think it's because there's a fine line between them being dominant and being useless.

[occusoj]

Quote

If the players I face when I play lrms are so bad, how come they only come out to play when I load up on lrms?

Nah they are here all the time.
Its the same people that run straight up a DW or play mediums that try facehugging my DDC.
Its those lights that stop moving to aim and catch an AC20, people firing SRMs at 400m.
You know that heavy that goes off alone to rambo the entire enemy team? Yep, thats one of them too.
Its that part of the underhive that drives LRM boating DDCs. Those wonderful teammates that fire all the lazors at an enemy - through their own team, run infront of firing lines and block chockepoints.

Normally they get walked over if their team doesnt do an extraordinary job saving them.

[Col Jaime Wolf]

has 40+ mechs and at any given time i never have more then 2 lrm boats. atm i have 1 the orion VA with 4 LRM 10's tag and mpl.

i think a small handful of my mechs have an lrm as a secondary weapon wait.... yup exactly 1 has a balanced build with all weapon types (the "crappy" orion with a LL,ML ac10 LRM15 and srm 6,4 and a tag)

if lrms were more effective i would probably have more then 1 lrm boat.

lrms are either super effective or super crap. no other weapon system is like this.

lrms are effective against bads, useless against goods.

and all my missile pults cry from the scrap heap.

my PB is still hiding in the closet and wont come out because it cant brawl and it isn't very good at support.

PS my HM cant jump and was never a missile boat.

PSS my fang/flame are the red headed step children of heros and just plain suck.

[Kjudoon]

Quote

LRM fans are very protective of their pet-weapons, I think it's because there's a fine line between them being dominant and being useless.

The same can be said for brawlers and their desired fighting style, and the poptarts, and the spider pilots.... we all have our 'pets' in this game. Just no thing is so maligned and under assault as LRMs are.

The more I've dropped in Derptown for the Tourny, I've been seeing strikingly clear that the problem is that AMS and ECM can be 'boated' on a team scale just as much as LRMs with far more impressive results. I've watched a veritable forcefield occur above teams as 14-16AMS chatter away. I've seen 7ECM teams roll through and then slap themselves on the back on how 'good' they are and how bad LRM spam is. I've also watched so many mechs just blot out the sun with LRMs because every clan mech in the game is packing 20-30 LRMs.

Where the truth lies is that because the counters are so overpowered to LRMs, and the ability to boat is so easy AND necessary, it creates the issue. So I've also been experimenting and seeing if a single LRM10 can be of use in a game. Conclusion... VERY situational, and only as a distraction. In all fairness, If I can catch a lone isolated mech with 1-2 AMS defending, I can do some damage, but nothing better than what an LB2-5x could do... Generally, I use it to go after targets I don't have LOS on and are longer range or need to coerce them to move out from cover. Again, highly situational and barely... BARELY worth the tonnage. But I do because I love LRMs and I'm fairly competent with them.

The fix for both boating LRMs and the out of control counters is easy.

1. Make LRM tube limits HARD limits. If you can only fit 6 missiles on the hard point, that's all that will fire no matter how big a launcher you put there. No more 6/6/6/2 chains because the LRM20 just fires on through. You only have maybe 10 mechs in total that can mount more than 25-30 tubes which is a reasonable amount.If you can only mount 10-20 LRMs on a typical mech, suddenly AMS is brought back into line. Only mechs like the Stalkers, Awesomes, Griffins, Catapults would be able to be 40-50-60 LRM platforms and only select ones. That's also only some of the chassis, not all of them.

2. Since the real fix for AMS is outside PGI's power, or it's so fundamentally broken it'd require a total rewrite, the quick fix is simple: AMS only targets missiles aimed AT the mech they're mounted on. Now it's back to knocking down 4-8-12 missiles which would be a significant reduction in damage from a single source. No other weapon has to suffer this, so I think it's quite reasonable that this would be fair. With the overcharge of AMS, hey! you're doing even more. AMS should never be looked at as a force field like too many want.

IMNSHO... this restores a lot more balance to the game.

It's Tourney/Challenge weekend. MWO is at it's worst play and behavior.

Mellifluer, on 16 August 2014 - 02:58 PM, said:

PSS my fang/flame are the red headed step children of heros and just plain suck.

PGI needs to bring back piloting for slips and falls, as well as collision. The Dragon would have new life in it overnight.

[Sandpit]

Couldn't this entire thread just been included in one of the other "petitions" for nerfing LRMs?
just asking....

[kongman]

[Wolfways]

kamiko kross, on 16 August 2014 - 12:37 PM, said:

If the players I face when I play lrms are so bad, how come they only come out to play when I load up on lrms? Where do they go when I play direct fire?

It's the same players obviously, but LRM's kill bad players easier than other weapons do. Therefore it looks like LRM's are OP but they aren't. You could argue that LRM's are OP vs. new/bad players but not that LRM's are OP in general.
If you're facing good players you will have much easier time killing them with direct-fire weapons over LRM's. I'm not even a good player, i consider myself average (at least until i read the forums ), but i continually face opponents who are hard to hit with LRM's and are easier to kill with other weapons.
I evade LRM's so easily nearly every match that i rarely remember they exist until i see them flying through the sky, or i'm using them myself (which i do because they are one of my favourite weapons, even if they are hard to use).

The majority of people with blinkers on are the ones who just refuse to accept that they may not be as good at this game as they think they are.
I was playing my RVN-3L recently. I suck in lights, i know that, and my ELO in them must be very low, but the players i'm in matches with talk like they are MWO gods while piloting some of the worst builds i've ever seen or just copying "meta" builds and thinking they are great at everything. Also, if we lose it's never their fault (Hint: There's a kind of domino effect in MWO. The first team to lose a couple of mechs usually loses the match. If you're one of the first on your team to die it more than likely is your fault that your team loses.)

[Wolfways]

Heeden, on 16 August 2014 - 02:30 PM, said:

(no weapons system comes close to being able to put down 20+ damage at 1000m with only 10 tons).

Umm...neither do LRM's unless your target is DC'd in the open and you get incredibly lucky with an LRM20 shot. i.e. it never happens.

[HellAvenger]

wow got ***** by LRM in pugs... pug match = no guarantee ecm = lrm fest

Edited by HellAvenger, 16 August 2014 - 06:27 PM.

[Heeden]

Wolfways, on 16 August 2014 - 05:59 PM, said:

Umm...neither do LRM's unless your target is DC'd in the open and you get incredibly lucky with an LRM20 shot. i.e. it never happens.

So with a DC'd or immobile target what damage would you do with an LRM20 without getting lucky?

Edited by Heeden, 16 August 2014 - 07:06 PM.

[Aim64C]

Heeden, on 16 August 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

So with a DC'd or immobile target what damage would you do with an LRM20 without getting lucky?

About 16 out of the 20 missiles - or 17.6 points of damage.

Kind of depends upon the size of your target and its hitboxes, though. Something with a massive center torso will get cored more quickly while something with a relatively even distribution of hitbox surface (presented to the direction of fire) will take forever and a day to down (because you are effectively having to chew through three torso sections simultaneously).

[Wolfways]

HellAvenger, on 16 August 2014 - 06:27 PM, said:

wow got ***** by LRM in pugs... pug match = no guarantee ecm = lrm fest

Opinion created by competency level. No other weapon depends so much on the ability of the target.

I could just as easily say pug match = guaranteed terrain = no LRM fest.

On the other hand, i have been getting hit by LRM's lately. Has there been a change I'm unaware of since the speed nerf?

[Nik Reaper]

I'll go with the opinion I heard on the WarRoom , just make it so that you only get indirect locks on targets that are being tag-ed , narc-ed , or you spot them you'r self... boom much less passive play and much more exposure , much more so in solo que as you can't be sure someone will bring narc/tag , or if you bring narc/tag you can't be sure some one will bring LRMs .

[Edustaja]

Nik Reaper, on 16 August 2014 - 08:44 PM, said:

I'll go with the opinion I heard on the WarRoom , just make it so that you only get indirect locks on targets that are being tag-ed , narc-ed , or you spot them you'r self... boom much less passive play and much more exposure , much more so in solo que as you can't be sure someone will bring narc/tag , or if you bring narc/tag you can't be sure some one will bring LRMs .

Yep. I'd like them to do more when you are in visual range and a lot less when you're not. That way you can start removing the ECM effects from lrm fire etc. I'd make them home in as long as you have your reticule on the target and if not then they'd lose the lock. I'd also make them faster.

[Wolfways]

Indirect:
Indirect only on TAG, NARC, UAV. Bigger spread AOE, high arc.

General:
Increase speed to 300ms, increase cooldown of all launchers by 30%, increase missile damage by 30% (reduces spam but keeps the same dps and makes them more viable for direct-fire), reduce impulse shake/blur, remove incoming missile warning to make LRM's actually viable at long range, lower arc for direct-fire.

[Exzander]

Wolfways, on 16 August 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

Indirect:
Indirect only on TAG, NARC, UAV. Bigger spread AOE, high arc.

General:
Increase speed to 300ms, increase cooldown of all launchers by 30%, increase missile damage by 30% (reduces spam but keeps the same dps and makes them more viable for direct-fire), reduce impulse shake/blur, remove incoming missile warning to make LRM's actually viable at long range, lower arc for direct-fire.

No. Never do that. The Incoming missile siren has ALWAYS been in Mechwarrior, removing it would be a horrid idea.

[Nyaruk0]

Fk lurms, buff IS ERLL's, LL's, LPL's range(including alpha-effective range) and a bit of a damage, and nerf ghostheat.
Problem sorted.

Wolfways, on 16 August 2014 - 09:05 PM, said:

Indirect:
Indirect only on TAG, NARC, UAV. Bigger spread AOE, high arc.

General:
Increase speed to 300ms, increase cooldown of all launchers by 30%, increase missile damage by 30% (reduces spam but keeps the same dps and makes them more viable for direct-fire), reduce impulse shake/blur, remove incoming missile warning to make LRM's actually viable at long range, lower arc for direct-fire.

But cut off 90 metres close range for CLRM's as IS LRM's are.

Edited by Nyaruk0, 18 August 2014 - 06:33 PM.

[Kjudoon]

So reverse like 5 months of weapon balance patches. Nope... you don't want much.

[Zordicron]

Remove indirect fire, cept for tag and narc, spose UAV too. For sure, would reduce LRM boat population, and open doors to make LRM play closer to previous MW titles and less like automated turret mode.

Also, reduce screenshake on clan LRM, with no min range, the boats can stream a stunlock on you at 50M. It is the most disturbing thing right now out of any of it.

[Joseph Mallan]

Eldagore, on 18 August 2014 - 06:55 PM, said:

Remove indirect fire, cept for tag and narc, spose UAV too. For sure, would reduce LRM boat population, and open doors to make LRM play closer to previous MW titles and less like automated turret mode.

Also, reduce screenshake on clan LRM, with no min range, the boats can stream a stunlock on you at 50M. It is the most disturbing thing right now out of any of it.

Sorry but that is how LRMs were often used, With one caveat. The Spotter could not fire any weapons while spotting. Much more risk involved, I know.