I think it's illustrative to understand the actual problem at work here.
People have always cried about LRMs, either because they are, somehow, not as 'manly' as taking other weapons, or because they feel they shouldn't be threatened by them. This has led to a series of nerfs that have placed the weapon so far down the scale of effective weapons that few people actually use them in established Units.
But, the real problem here is that people don't understand that Battletech, from which MWO is drawn and is intended to depict, was designed for lance-level combat. Typically, a lance would be composed of a light, a medium, a heavy, and an assault, with variations within that setup as tonnage was swapped around or changed. Two such lances could fight very well in a typical map with a good deal of fire passing between them.
Take a look at a 'typical' Battletech combat matchup, circa 3050:
Lance 1: VLK-QD Valkyrie, CN9-D Centurian, TDR-7M Thunderbolt, AS7-K Atlas.
Lance 2: PNT-10K Panther, SHD-5M Shadowhawk, CRD-5M Crusader, STK-5M Stalker.
In this matchup, we have a mix of mechs and weapons, with the total amount of firepower being able to be put on a target:
Lance 1: 1xLRM20, 1xLRM15, 2xLRM10, 1xGR, 3xERLL, 1xLB10-XAC, 4xML, 1xMPL, 1xSSRM2.
Lance 2: 1xLRM20, 2xLRM15, 2xLRM10, 1xERPPC, 1xERLL, 1xUAC/5, 2xSRM6, 1xSRM4, 3xSSRM2, 6xML.
As you can see, quite a lot of firepower, and more than a few LRMs. However, the map size tended to diffuse the firepower, though any single mech that got into position to receive concentrated firepower from the entire opposing force was often destroyed outright. Battles, therefore, were often drawn-out things until the forces got close enough to make hitting a certainty and enough weapons could be brought to bear to quickly kill mechs.
When you took the above and expanded into a -company- of 12 mechs per side, the firepower skyrocketed to triple what was above. That was more than enough to devastate any single battlemech in an eyeblink if the entire enemy force fired on it. This made such battles almost certainly only fought on maps that were much larger, and thus separated the combat lances by distance by forcing them to disperse or risk being enveloped or objectives being lost. A force that remained concentrated often lost due to those factors. If the battle happened on the same size map as the lance-level combat, the result was a battle that was short and generally had several mechs falling each round. This was because company-level combat was not what the basic level of play was designed for.
It also illustrates that a typical force (not even one with units designed for the role) had a good number of LRMs simply because of the number of units involved.
Now, we come to MWO. -EVERY- battle is a company-sized fight, but only a few are done on maps that weren't designed at a time when MWO's fights were lance-level or so in size. So, of course we're going to see a lot of firepower in a very concentrated space, especially when the reasons to separate a force (defend and obtain different objectives, avoid hidden flanking forces, ect) have been additionally removed from the game in any real way.
But the fact is that we are fighting in a game environment set up for lance-level fights in company-sized forces.
People who complain about the number of LRMs coming at them do not realize the amount of direct-fire weapons also being put against them, because they rarely see those coming at them. They are just hit, and that's that. LRMs are very visual weapons, and people panic rather than realize this is what happens when twelve enemy battlemechs are moving in on you. They also don't see their own LRMs raining down on the enemy in a similar fashion because that's someone else, so not nearly as important as themselves.
So. What we see in MWO with regards to LRMs are -exactly- what -should- be the case if MWO is even remotely approaching what it should be...a representation of Battletech in computer simulation.
Also, in almost every case, people die not to the LRM fire on them, but from the direct-fire they are taking but don't see because the LRMs are what they are focusing on. LRMs sand-blast armor and mechs, but the real damage is done because a Gauss or Autocannon round is putting holes in at the same time, or because the target fails to take countermeasures against the LRMs (of which there are vastly more than any other weapon in the game).
As to screen shake, ballistic weapons do far more of this, yet no one is calling for the removal of these for exactly the same reasons. Why? Because people want to keep that for the weapons they use, and remove it for weapons that are hitting them. A Clan Direwolf packing six UACs can bounce-lock a target far worse than any LRM barrage, so why aren't these weapons also a problem if the issue is shake? Obviously, therefore, it isn't a problem but only an excuse to push a different agenda.
LRMs face the greatest obstacles and penalties to be used effectively than any weapon in the game. They are the only weapon system that can be rendered completely unusable by the target at the ranges they are meant to be used at, can be ignored at typical combat ranges due to a minimum range that is the longest in the game, and can even have a successful hit be mitigated by a system every mech can mount. Finally, any hit will not concentrate on one location but spread across a target, diffusing the actual damage done. Against this is the ability to be fired indirectly and the general ability to cause a target to be disoriented. That is, if anything, the mark of a weapon system already too disadvantaged.
LRMs do not need a nerf. Indeed, they require improvement if anything else. There are not 'too many' LRMs on the battlefield, but too many battlemechs for the size of maps and the combat conditions. The number of LRMs is exactly what a force of battlemechs that size would bring to any fight.
What needs to happen, if the size of the teams will not be adjusted back down to 4 apiece, is to expand the maps and objectives so that so much firepower isn't concentrated so close without risking the loss of objectives. If not, then people need to wake up and face the fact that this is what a battle involving twenty-four heavily-armed battlemechs in a small area is like.
A final note. Try standing alone in full view of all 12 enemy battlemechs and see if it is their LRMs that kill you. I think you'll find they probably don't even reach you before you are dead to the number of gauss rifles, PPCs, lasers, and autocannon shells that do. Don't tell me there are too many LRMs on the battlefield without also telling me there are too many of every other weapon on the battlefield too.
My two cents.
Edited by Jakob Knight, 28 October 2014 - 03:55 PM.
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kazlaton, on 28 October 2014 - 02:10 PM, said:
This topic is locked
