637 replies to this topic

[Bloodright58]

I love how folks come into the topic, complain that it is active again, and never read why. Then they proceed to drop the same recycled **** comments about how a player doesn't know what they are doing, and they should take cover, ECM, blah blah blah. I guess I should have started a new topic cause nobody bother to read beyond the last comment.


For those that did provide constructive criticism, thank you.

[Sjorpha]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

So what do we have available to help 'enhance' missile effectiveness?
UAV
NARC
TAG
BAP
Artemis
LRM Range
LRM Cool down
360 target retention (Debatable)
Adv. Sensor Range

So there's at least EIGHT techs that can be added to a 'mech to ENHANCE missile effectiveness.

8 > 5, forever.

You forgot advanced target decay, which the most important module to enhance LRMs. 360 target retention on the other hand never comes into play with LRMs at all because you have to keep the reticule roughly on target to keep lock.

In any case I think LRMs are in a good place balance wise, except that the largest launchers are way too weak because of the spread.

[Apnu]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 10:40 AM, said:

YOU my friend, SERIOUSLY need to learn how to count...

Tech to help "counter" missiles:
AMS - It can be helpful but for the most part it's very limited, doesn't completely shield you from missiles, even with the range/speed modules attached.
ECM - Again, helpful but again something that's limited to a select few chassis and can be countered with enemy ECM, disrupted with TAG and BAP, and UAV (talking just the tech now, we're not even talking about PPC fire disruption)
Radar Dep - Yep, works good as long as you can find cover out of sight of ALL enemies AND the missiles are launched far enough away to allow you to get to that cover, but, it does work very well.

That's pretty much it when it comes to "tech to help" counter missiles.

So when it comes to that, we've got what? About 5 pieces of tech to help counter missile effectiveness.

So what do we have available to help 'enhance' missile effectiveness?
UAV
NARC
TAG
BAP
Artemis
LRM Range
LRM Cool down
360 target retention (Debatable)
Adv. Sensor Range

So there's at least EIGHT techs that can be added to a 'mech to ENHANCE missile effectiveness.

8 > 5, forever.

I didn't say tech alone. Terrain (AKA cover), speed (to out run missiles and find cover fast), dependency on fellow team members to hit 'r' and more. Those aren't tech but they do counter LRMs. I use speed and terrain to mitigate LRMs all the time.

You sir, can't read.

[Evan20k]

There's nothing wrong with LRMs. The problem is with ****** map design like Caustic Valley and Alpine Peaks that cause getting NARC'd to be a near death experience if you're lucky.

[Dimento Graven]

Apnu, on 10 March 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

I didn't say tech alone. Terrain (AKA cover), speed (to out run missiles and find cover fast), dependency on fellow team members to hit 'r' and more. Those aren't tech but they do counter LRMs. I use speed and terrain to mitigate LRMs all the time.

You sir, can't read.

Ahh, but you miss a very important point, maybe intentionally...

The point being:

Terrain, target speed, speed of travel of the fired round, all non-tech mitigating factors, are NOT specific to LRMs. ALL weapons suffer a majority of these, if not ALL of these issues, so discussing these as if they were problems unique to LRMs is disingenuous at best.

As far as 'relying on team members to press 'r'' as an issue, yes, that's specific to LRMs, but then again, at that point LRM users aren't relying on their own skill, but the skills of their team members.

I too, a 99% of the time sniper (currently I used to be a MAJOR LRM boater), wish my teammates would TARGET what they are firing at, but for different reasons.

If you target what your firing at:

1. It lights the target up on all your team mate's HUD, allowing them some potential to understand that an enemy may be near them.
2. It allows YOU to see what's damaged on the enemy, MAYBE you could show some skill and fire at the VERY RED left torso, left leg, gauss wielding right arm, on that enemy 'mech instead of practicing your stupid unskilled "spray and pray" methodology of battle.
3. Increases the potential for focused fire. I want to shoot at the mechs with SOLID doritos...

Anyway, missiles are near the bottom of the 'difficulty' meter when it comes to usability.

"Put little circle in big square, wait for big circle, pull trigger."

The only weapons EASIER to use "well" in this game are:

Machine guns
Flamers
Lasers
Streaks

Anything that requires a charge mechanism, or has an obtusely slow rate of travel requiring extra leading, is actually more difficult than LRMs, to utilize them "well".

Trust me, this comes from vast experience using ALL weapons, including LRMs.

Sjorpha, on 10 March 2015 - 10:57 AM, said:

...

In any case I think LRMs are in a good place balance wise, except that the largest launchers are way too weak because of the spread.

Agreed, they neither need to be nerfed nor enhanced.

For the most part they fit in "well" in this game.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 March 2015 - 11:18 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

There are two problems with LRMs:

1. Indirect fire
This wouldn't be that much of a problem if it came from one mech only (except a sick LRM-only-boat like some Stalkers). However, the ease of indirect fire makes ganging up on one target really easy and deadly. If it doesn't kill you, it softens you up so that you are as good as dead.
If there is no high cover available or cannot disengage from a fight...you are royally screwed

2. ECM
Either LRMs are godlike, like above, or worthless, thanks to ECM. TAG doesn't help much thanks to the sluggish target mechanism.


As some already said, I think indirect fire should only be possible on TAGed or NARCed targets. However, then the direct fire potential of LRMs need to be increased or the weapon system is dead in the water.

[DivideByZer0]

Kilo 40, on 27 October 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

From Russ's twitter...

"So anyone else getting pounded by LRM's?"

"I like them having their place but I wish there was maybe 10% less LRM's per match"

Welcome back to the game balance rollercoaster... maybe if beam weapons weren't so over-nerfed LRM wouldn't be such a problem. In the past, when game performance suffers, LRM usage goes up. I've never had a problem with LRM really, it's the damn spotters, and not being able to hit them because of garbage hit-reg.

Or not being able to move out of LOS because my mech can't step over random small obstacles on the ground.

*edit* 3 years into the game, we shouldn't be seeing huge game balance tweaks like this and quirks etc. Very bad form, rampant game balance changes have killed other games in the past.

Bush Hopper, on 10 March 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

There are two problems with LRMs:

1. Indirect fire
This wouldn't be that much of a problem if it came from one mech only (except a sick LRM-only-boat like some Stalkers). However, the ease of indirect fire makes ganging up on one target really easy and deadly. If it doesn't kill you, it softens you up so that you are as good as dead.
If there is no high cover available or cannot disengage from a fight...you are royally screwed

2. ECM
Either LRMs are godlike, like above, or worthless, thanks to ECM. TAG doesn't help much thanks to the sluggish target mechanism.


As some already said, I think indirect fire should only be possible on TAGed or NARCed targets. However, then the direct fire potential of LRMs need to be increased or the weapon system is dead in the water.

Then PGI should make targeting harder/take longer with indirect targets, similar to an ECM mech. Boom. Problem solved. *drops mic*

Edited by DivideByZer0, 10 March 2015 - 11:44 AM.

[LordNothing]

require line of sight unless tag/narc/uav.

maybe artemis would allow indirect lock at 1/3 missile range, extendable to 1/2 with bap, but might come at the cost of no dumbfire and/or a longer lock time.

Edited by LordNothing, 10 March 2015 - 11:51 AM.

[GeneralArmchair]

Tag/narc/c3 was never a prerequisite for indirect fire. It just makes the indirect fire more effective. According to TT rules, even a lowly infantry squad can spot for an indirect lrm strike regardless of the presence of ecm.

[Dimento Graven]

Bush Hopper, on 10 March 2015 - 11:33 AM, said:

There are two problems with LRMs:

1. Indirect fire
This wouldn't be that much of a problem if it came from one mech only (except a sick LRM-only-boat like some Stalkers). However, the ease of indirect fire makes ganging up on one target really easy and deadly. If it doesn't kill you, it softens you up so that you are as good as dead.
If there is no high cover available or cannot disengage from a fight...you are royally screwed

The gang up issue doesn't typically occur in the solo only queue, and if/when it does, it's usually during a known period of predictable LRM increase, namely during challenges and contests.

In the group queue you can run into LRM centric teams, BUT, it's not typically a significant problem until the enemy groups start dropping 3 or more Stalker-eque LRM boats with a skilled spotter/NARC'er. Even then, it's generally NOT normal to run into teams like that consistently (again except for the aforementioned challenge/contest periods).

Quote

2. ECM
Either LRMs are godlike, like above, or worthless, thanks to ECM. TAG doesn't help much thanks to the sluggish target mechanism.

This probably tells us ECM is fine where it's at too. As you're statement is specific to the extremes, the 'average' experience probably falls within the range of those extremes.

Quote

As some already said, I think indirect fire should only be possible on TAGed or NARCed targets. However, then the direct fire potential of LRMs need to be increased or the weapon system is dead in the water.

In my mind LRMs are fine as is, HOWEVER, during challenge/contest periods they should PROBABLY be scored A LOT differently due to the general dependence on team members for true effectiveness. To be more specific, I mean that LRM damage/kills from 'indirect fire', what we can realistically call 'assisted mode', should be scored very differently from LRM damage/kills from 'non-assisted' mode, where the LRM boat used his own targeting/UAV information to score the damage/kill.

Enhancing the scoring methodology MIGHT curtail some of the explosion of LRM boats during challenge/contest periods.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 March 2015 - 12:16 PM.

[Apnu]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Ahh, but you miss a very important point, maybe intentionally...

The point being:

Terrain, target speed, speed of travel of the fired round, all non-tech mitigating factors, are NOT specific to LRMs. ALL weapons suffer a majority of these, if not ALL of these issues, so discussing these as if they were problems unique to LRMs is disingenuous at best.

They are still counters. I never said they were specifically unique to LRMs. But taken with the list of specific LRM counters, there's no other weapon system in the game with as many counters as LRMs. Thus, beating the LRM rain is trivial to do.

I run LRMs, there's skill involved to use them and be a factor in the game besides just killing the noobs wandering alone out in the open.

There's a group of players here, so opposed to LRMs they seem to refuse to hit 'r' and feed intel in the team for fear of giving away "their" kill to some lazy goober. But that denies the team valuable intel of what mechs are where. Its really bad on maps like Canyons where LOS is hard to come by. All too often (running LRMs or not) I've seen some team member dueling something in one of the canyons but they never hit 'r' and we have no idea what they're fighting. Is it a light mech knife fight? Is it a 3-1 fight? Is it a duel against a solo assault? We have no idea. Refusing to hit 'r' when you're banging away at a target is performing info war against your own team. That, I'd also count, is a counter to LRMs. I've had players in chat tell me they refuse to target enemy mechs because they don't want their kills stolen.

[Greenjulius]

Evan20k, on 10 March 2015 - 11:12 AM, said:

There's nothing wrong with LRMs. The problem is with ****** map design like Caustic Valley and Alpine Peaks that cause getting NARC'd to be a near death experience if you're lucky.

I think this is a better path to go down than blaming LRMs. Caustic is a terribly designed map that has almost non-existent cover around the caldera. When I drop in a LRM boat and get Caustic, I know I'm going to have at least a decent round. Alpine is a bit different... There IS cover, but the distances that are usually involved encourage ERPPC/Gauss/LRM/ERLL spam. It's the worst map in the game. Very little thought put into the layout.

Edited by Greenjulius, 10 March 2015 - 12:24 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Apnu, on 10 March 2015 - 12:16 PM, said:

They are still counters. I never said they were specifically unique to LRMs. But taken with the list of specific LRM counters, there's no other weapon system in the game with as many counters as LRMs. Thus, beating the LRM rain is trivial to do.

Trivial? Tell that to anyone running a slow 'mech in a map with lots of open area like Caustic, Alpine Peaks, Tourmaline Desert, Forest Colony (night/day), just to name some of the more notoriously open maps.

I can assure you, even then, maps with LOTS of cover a "skilled" pilot won't have much issue with scoring a crap ton of damage and kills with LRMs.

Quote

I run LRMs, there's skill involved to use them and be a factor in the game besides just killing the noobs wandering alone out in the open.

LRMs are by far, much easier to do "well" with than say, gauss, LBX AC's, or AC10/AC20's.

I know, I was so bored with LRMs I switched gauss in a pique of annoyance when PGI/IGP knuckled under to the cry babies and put the charge mechanism on it (I wanted to get so good with the gauss that people cried for ANOTHER nerf).

Quote

There's a group of players here, so opposed to LRMs they seem to refuse to hit 'r' and feed intel in the team for fear of giving away "their" kill to some lazy goober. But that denies the team valuable intel of what mechs are where. Its really bad on maps like Canyons where LOS is hard to come by. All too often (running LRMs or not) I've seen some team member dueling something in one of the canyons but they never hit 'r' and we have no idea what they're fighting. Is it a light mech knife fight? Is it a 3-1 fight? Is it a duel against a solo assault? We have no idea. Refusing to hit 'r' when you're banging away at a target is performing info war against your own team. That, I'd also count, is a counter to LRMs. I've had players in chat tell me they refuse to target enemy mechs because they don't want their kills stolen.

And now we're back to me telling you that the necessity of having OTHERS target for you is NOT a skill of your own, in fact you are relying on the skill of your team mates to target, and keep targeted that enemy 'mech you wish to lob missiles on. If your team mates are "skilled", they'll target the enemy 'mechs they're fighting and be able to keep them targeted so that you can just put the little circle in the big square, wait for the big circle, and push the "MOAR MISSILES" button.

There's some skilled involved in doing that, but you don't own all of it, nor even a majority of it.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 March 2015 - 12:35 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Greenjulius, on 10 March 2015 - 12:24 PM, said:

I think this is a better path to go down than blaming LRMs. Caustic is a terribly designed map that has almost non-existent cover around the caldera. When I drop in a LRM boat and get Caustic, I know I'm going to have at least a decent round. Alpine is a bit different... There IS cover, but the distances that are usually involved encourage ERPPC/Gauss/LRM/ERLL spam. It's the worst map in the game. Very little thought put into the layout.

I disagree that Caustic is a 'terribly designed map' as you say.

That's a myopic and frankly, ignorant, point of view on map creation.

The fact is that some maps are better suited to making certain weapons more desirable/easier to use.

Variety is the spice of life, and when practiced in map making, keeps the game from getting stale.

The unfortunate aspect of the various types of maps available and this game's MATCH MAKING system is that the players have ZERO control over what maps they land on. This is a whole other subject that I find annoying, but to keep it short and to not derail the thread, allowing users to control what maps they drop on MIGHT help in avoiding so much PLAYER frustration with the game.

[Apnu]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

And now we're back to me telling you that the necessity of having OTHERS target for you is NOT a skill of your own, in fact you are relying on the skill of your team mates to target, and keep targeted that enemy 'mech you wish to lob missiles on. If your team mates are "skilled", they'll target the enemy 'mechs they're fighting and be able to keep them targeted so that you can just put the little circle in the big square, wait for the big circle, and push the "MOAR MISSILES" button.

There's some skilled involved in doing that, but you don't own all of it, nor even a majority of it.

Putting a lot of words in my mouth I never said. While ignoring other points I made because you have a vendetta against LRMs. They must really kick your butt on the battlefield.

[Dimento Graven]

Apnu, on 10 March 2015 - 01:08 PM, said:

Putting a lot of words in my mouth I never said. While ignoring other points I made because you have a vendetta against LRMs. They must really kick your butt on the battlefield.

I don't believe I put any words in your mouth, I've responded to your points, if I missed some salient one you want a response to, repost it, and I'll do my best.

I have no vendetta against LRMs. Go re-read my posts and you'll find multiple posts where I state unequivocally:

1. LRMs are fine as is, there is no need to NERF, nor BUFF them at this time.

2. The ONLY times that we REALLY have problems with LRMs is during the challenge/contest periods when the population of LRM boats/LRM equipped 'mechs (is a Hunchie a LRM boat?) increases dramatically.

Occasionally LRMs do hit me hard on the battlefield, yes, not often, but it's DEFINITELY noticeable when it happens. Getting NARC'd/TAG'd by skilled spotter, or getting stuck in the wrong spot while under an enemy UAV happens to all of us. When it happens it doesn't mean LRMs are broken, but, the LRM user IS definitely having an easier time using his LRMs than just about anyone else, using most other weapons...

[Weeny Machine]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 12:15 PM, said:

The gang up issue doesn't typically occur in the solo only queue, and if/when it does, it's usually during a known period of predictable LRM increase, namely during challenges and contests.
In the group queue you can run into LRM centric teams, BUT, it's not typically a significant problem until the enemy groups start dropping 3 or more Stalker-eque LRM boats with a skilled spotter/NARC'er.  Even then, it's generally NOT normal to run into teams like that consistently (again except for the aforementioned challenge/contest periods).
This probably tells us ECM is fine where it's at too.  As you're statement is specific to the extremes, the 'average' experience probably falls within the range of those extremes.
In my mind LRMs are fine as is, HOWEVER, during challenge/contest periods they should PROBABLY be scored A LOT differently due to the general dependence on team members for true effectiveness.  To be more specific, I mean that LRM damage/kills from 'indirect fire', what we can realistically call 'assisted mode', should be scored very differently from LRM damage/kills from 'non-assisted' mode, where the LRM boat used his own targeting/UAV information to score the damage/kill.
Enhancing the scoring methodology MIGHT curtail some of the explosion of LRM boats during challenge/contest periods.

Ganging up is also an issue in solo queue. There are often 2+ LRM boats

[Dimento Graven]

Bush Hopper, on 10 March 2015 - 01:23 PM, said:

Ganging up is also an issue in solo queue. There are often 2+ LRM boats

I didn't say it did NOT happen I said it doesn't typically occur in the solo queue.

Yes, while the solo queue can see multiple LRM boats dropping on one side, due to the uncoordinated nature of the solo queue, 'focus firing' a single target doesn't happen all that often. It can still happen yes, sometimes by accident, sometimes by intent. After all, it requires knowledge to know what the "incoming missiles" symbol looks like on the HUD, and it requires a minor modicum of skill to press R a few times to target that particular 'mech, and again, put the little circle in the big square, wait for the big circle, press the fire button.

But again, perhaps at the elo range I'm in, there's not normally a "lot" of LRM boats during non-challenge/contest days, maybe 2 missile boats at most, and even then being focused fired by those two missile boats doesn't often happen.

If you're experiencing something different, perhaps there's an elo range where LRM boating is more prevalent...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 10 March 2015 - 01:29 PM.

[Weeny Machine]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 01:28 PM, said:

I didn't say it did NOT happen I said it doesn't typically occur in the solo queue.
Yes, while the solo queue can see multiple LRM boats dropping on one side, due to the uncoordinated nature of the solo queue, 'focus firing' a single target doesn't happen all that often.  It can still happen yes, sometimes by accident, sometimes by intent.  After all, it requires knowledge to know what the "incoming missiles" symbol looks like on the HUD, and it requires a minor modicum of skill to press R a few times to target that particular 'mech, and again, put the little circle in the big square, wait for the big circle, press the fire button.
But again, perhaps at the elo range I'm in, there's not normally a "lot" of LRM boats during non-challenge/contest days, maybe 2 missile boats at most, and even then being focused fired by those two missile boats doesn't often happen.
If you're experiencing something different, perhaps there's an elo range where LRM boating is more prevalent...

First of all you seem to regard LRM boats in a kind of vacuum. Actually even 1 LRM boat is enough to gang up on someone - the same moment it targets an enemy which is engaged with another mech. Most likel people hate LRM boats for that and its surpressing power. They force often people to keep their heads down or to help another teammate or force you to disengage. Anyway, as I said in the previous post: the baseline idea is not bad for LRMs. However, they lack versatility and are often (in PUGlandia) either extremely good or extremely bad. Maybe PGI will introduce Thunder ammo - then LRM boats would have a new strategic meaning. I'd love it. However, Swarm ammo would bring the complain level on an all time high :)About your ELO comment...do you feel threatened or something that you need to wave your epeen in my direction?Actually your comment about LRM and skill make you look...very low ELO. What you describe is someone who fires LRMs on 900m, with zero awareness nor any positioning skills. I can assure you there are people who know how to use LRM boats quite more efficient than "press R a few times to target that particular 'mech, and again, put the little circle in the big square, wait for the big circle, press the fire button".Edit: Sorry, for the bad structuring. The forum has its quirks...

Edited by Bush Hopper, 10 March 2015 - 02:15 PM.

[Apnu]

Dimento Graven, on 10 March 2015 - 01:18 PM, said:

I don't believe I put any words in your mouth, I've responded to your points, if I missed some salient one you want a response to, repost it, and I'll do my best.

I have no vendetta against LRMs. Go re-read my posts and you'll find multiple posts where I state unequivocally:

1. LRMs are fine as is, there is no need to NERF, nor BUFF them at this time.

2. The ONLY times that we REALLY have problems with LRMs is during the challenge/contest periods when the population of LRM boats/LRM equipped 'mechs (is a Hunchie a LRM boat?) increases dramatically.

Occasionally LRMs do hit me hard on the battlefield, yes, not often, but it's DEFINITELY noticeable when it happens. Getting NARC'd/TAG'd by skilled spotter, or getting stuck in the wrong spot while under an enemy UAV happens to all of us. When it happens it doesn't mean LRMs are broken, but, the LRM user IS definitely having an easier time using his LRMs than just about anyone else, using most other weapons...

You are putting words in my mouth because you think I'm for LRM nerfs. Totally wrong. I am saying not to nerf because they already have more counters in the game than any other weapon system. I am saying LRMs are fine. I am saying LRM mitigation is trivial to do given these counters.

But to put a fine point on it, I like to say 'LRMs are easy to use, difficult to master' sure any noob can grab LRMs and use them and contribute something to the team. But to be effective at them and both throw 50% into the dirt, that takes skill.

I don't disagree with your points, but you are confused if you think I am a LRM hater. I'm not, like LRMs where they are. What I amy tired of is the endless parade of whiners. To them I say: Buck up kiddos, if you're dying to LRMs a lot, that's on you, not the LRMs.

On edit: in the three challenges I've completed I've taken the following mechs. Challenge 1: HBK-4J. Challenge 2: HBK-4G. Challenge 3: HBK-4J and G in rotation. When I was in the G I was eating LRM boats for lunch, I had no problems getting points. I wasn't under ECM and I didn't pack AMS. Just speed, position and opportunity. That and an AC20 was all I needed.

Edited by Apnu, 10 March 2015 - 02:28 PM.