373 replies to this topic

[AssaultPig]

Cost is pretty irrelevant as a balance mechanic; we see this with engines/modules/weapons, it's certainly true with strikes as well.

Strikes should:

1) Take longer to arrive once called.
2) Provide more warning (audio proximity alert, minimap icon, something.)
3) Have a bigger radius.

They should be used for getting large groups of mechs to split up and move around, and for that to work there needs to be sufficient warning that they're coming. As it is they're basically just used as direct damage weapons, which is the stupid part.

[Joseph Mallan]

Quote

Anyone that is a proponent of how arty/air works at this moment is a meta player and very selfish since it currently is out of balance for a skill based simulation style game and is only in the game because of Paulanomics and money grubbing by PGI.

I have never been accused of this before and the thought that I am now tickles me. I have used exactly 1 Arty strikes, hit my Team mates and was requested to leave the good toys for the big boys.

I drive an Atlas and a Battlemaster, I have been hit with 3 Arty/Air and walked away. It hurt like Hel and should have. Leave arty how it is till I cry for mercy.

In other words leave it alone, I'm not dying to this weapon.

[AlmightyAeng]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

I have never been accused of this before and the thought that I am now tickles me. I have used exactly 1 Arty strikes, hit my Team mates and was requested to leave the good toys for the big boys.

I drive an Atlas and a Battlemaster, I have been hit with 3 Arty/Air and walked away. It hurt like Hel and should have. Leave arty how it is till I cry for mercy.

In other words leave it alone, I'm not dying to this weapon.

Lol, Joe? Meta? Joe is MANY things. Meta isn't generally one of them

[Blalok]

Pjwned, on 06 November 2014 - 09:07 AM, said:

If that actually works that's interesting, shouldn't really need to do that to not get cockpit gibbed though, especially considering how counter-intuitive that is.

L.
O.
L.

Death is raining from above, and looking down is counter-intuitive? Must be too young to have heard the phrase 'duck and cover'.

[SharpCookie]

Changes I am heavily in favor of in the following order.

-Hold on target for 2-3 seconds to call airstrike. No more running around, spot enemy group, press a button, run away, and profit.
-Increase time until strike by 2-3 seconds.
-Increase the cost to 60k.
-Lower damage by 10.
-Remove from game.

Edited by SharpCookie, 06 November 2014 - 01:42 PM.

[McMurl]

just for the record, we were on forest colony snow, our team deathballed their team and was exiting the tunnel at the exit at the top of the map. we were in that mini-city thing just outside the exit in slow mechs. some of us were damaged, yes. i saw very little combat as i was in a slow AS7-S. i got headshotted and was instantly taken out. i watched other mechs fall from the strikes afterwards too.

[Charronn]

They are cheap shots and should be nerfed.Either that or you should be limited to one or the other,not both.

[Xtrekker]

grievoussmaug, on 06 November 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

just for the record, we were on forest colony snow, our team deathballed their team and was exiting the tunnel at the exit at the top of the map. we were in that mini-city thing just outside the exit in slow mechs. some of us were damaged, yes. i saw very little combat as i was in a slow AS7-S. i got headshotted and was instantly taken out. i watched other mechs fall from the strikes afterwards too.

Sounds kind of cool actually. Push the team through the tunnel and nuke them at the exit.

Also, I'm not sure I've ever paid attention to the "mini-city". When I get in there I always feel like I'm running around crates.

[Mystere]

grievoussmaug, on 06 November 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

just for the record, we were on forest colony snow, our team deathballed their team and was exiting the tunnel at the exit at the top of the map. we were in that mini-city thing just outside the exit in slow mechs. some of us were damaged, yes. i saw very little combat as i was in a slow AS7-S. i got headshotted and was instantly taken out. i watched other mechs fall from the strikes afterwards too.

So, let me get this straight. You and some of your team mates in a deathball were killed by an artillery strike in one game. And on that one basis, on that one single instance, you call for nerfs?

Charronn, on 06 November 2014 - 02:14 PM, said:

They are cheap shots and should be nerfed.Either that or you should be limited to one or the other,not both.

Players are already limited to either one artillery strike or one air strike.

Edited by Mystere, 06 November 2014 - 02:24 PM.

[InspectorG]

Danghen Woolf, on 06 November 2014 - 09:50 AM, said:

I want to know why 11 mechs were stacked on a Cap point...

They were young, they needed the money.

[InspectorG]

SharpCookie, on 06 November 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

Changes I am heavily in favor of in the following order.

-Hold on target for 2-3 seconds to call airstrike. No more running around, spot enemy group, press a button, run away, and profit.
-Increase time until strike by 2-3 seconds.
-Increase the cost to 60k.
-Lower damage by 10.
-Remove from game.

Better yet:

-No increased time to strike but a nice loud sonic boom overhead as the plane flies by.

-Increase the cost to 100k, may be a good idea.

-Keep the damage the same. SHOULD have slight chance to instakill. If you get arty'd late game after you are all beat up...kudos to the skill of the guy who dropped it. He has a bright future in warfare games.

-Dont remove from game. This is a war game. If you dont like the proposition of a non-respawn-death during a match, i recommend MarioKart. You can die many times in MarioKart and still cross the finish line.

OMG!!!!!

I simply CANNOT WAIT until Arrow iv mechs land.

Mechs that are their own arty-launchers!

Minefields. MINEFIELDS!!!!!!!!


SWEET SWEET QQ. Tasty like Unicorn tears. Heaven will shake from all the cries for salvation when this day comes!

[Variant1]

the problem is not the amount of dmg those strikes do its the fact is you point and smoke suddenly appears instantaneously. What should be changed is that when you use the arty/air strike module it should be a projectile that goes to where you're looking at, and only when it lands it should activate the timer on the strike.

[Walluh]

..Were you all cored? I cannot think of any way three arty's could kill 11 mechs. At all.

[aniviron]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 November 2014 - 04:51 AM, said:

Well in combat a normal spacing of 15-20 feet was a norm, for Mechs I could see 50-70 Meters. This is so things like IEDs (or plain old mines from my day) would not wipe out to many troops.

As for you being on a cap point... risks you have to take.

At the present level of power Arty has only killed me twice since it's release onto the battlefield. And I am in a stock engine Atlas. Arty should be powerful, but maybe should cost more per use.

See, this is where the problem with arty and airstrikes comes in.

In an assault, it's totally fine. In all my play time in Awesomes and Victors, I have only ever died once to artillery, and that was a headshot. Assaults are tough, you can get hit with a couple shells and it's no big deal, "Ohh nooo, I twisted and took some arm damage and am at 95% now." Heavies and assaults don't care about arty that much, because getting hit with a stray shell or three isn't necessarily a game-ending experience.

However, if you're in a light or medium, and you do get hit, the game is done. It's finished. It's not fun even slightly. The tally of games where I've been combat-killed in a light or medium with arty (Takes off one or more legs, side torsi, crits CT, or just outright kills) are so high I've lost count. It's not fun, it's not good gameplay.

The thing is, the queue has been sitting at ~70%+ heavies/assaults since forever, with the only recent exception being the short period following whatever new clan mech is out. So 70% of the players see artillery, shrug, and say it's only a few percent of their health, no big deal, whatever.

But the rest of us who play lighter mechs aren't having fun with artillery. Mediums get it especially badly, as they're generally not any faster than the heavies, but have far less armor. Lights can usually avoid the smoke, but if you don't, the game is over; it's arbitrary and unfun.

[EekaBlitzer]

The time for the arrival of Air/Art strikes needs to be significantly increased, with the duration and possibly area also increased to compensate. Considering how long a LRM takes to travel 1000m, how on earth can these stikes hit their target in a shorter time ?
They currently simply add a means for face-rolling players to increase their damage with no skill input.
I play MWO for the Mech vrs Mech combat, not to repeatedly spammed with this consumable. As to those who say 'keep moving' , the incoming time is so short that if the strike is out of your line of sight, their is no real chance to avoid it.

[Rando Slim]

*sigh over the weekend I was literally one-shotted in the head in a JENNER, moving 150 kph while I was in mid air. Total bullshit.

Im pretty sure arty strikes actually did 15 damage per shell when I started a year and a half ago. But 35 damage is just ridiculous, by my count that means theres what, 20 other more moderate numbers you could have picked? Look 25 damage would still hurt plenty bad enough for arty to do its job. That's still stronger than ac/20s. Lots of others have made these points but let me reiterate some of the good ones:

1: this is an arena shooter that's outcomes should be determined by skill, arty in its current form requires almost none of that
2: It makes comp matches bloody awful to play in
3: nobody ******* bothers to arty moving targets, and they always put that **** right behind you so you cant see it if you are in the PUG queue and no one can call it out for you
4: The fact it has unlimited range is stupid unless they change the mechanics of it to work like how Nikolai Kabrinsky described on page 3 (basically that only mechs with a command console/targeting computer/dedicated spotting ability be able to call it in).
5: the team cooldown on it needs to be way, way longer as it is the only way we can effectively limit them to say 4-6 per side per match.
6: In its current form you basically have to carry it if you are even halfway serious.
7: No, in fact it doesn't always make sense to be constantly moving, or have all you elite players forgotten all the times you snap out on people to stay in cover? So yes there are times you really cant do anything about it since after all, what I'm supposed to move to where enemy lrm boats can lock me? **** that.

But don't worry OP, you can start all the threads and polls you want, PGI wont listen and all the super l33t players who never actually play in the PUG queue and have people on teamspeak to call it out for them will keep bashing you and telling you its fine, but rest assured you are absolutely correct, it IS NOT FINE.

Arty has its place, but that place needs to be a little more moderate. 20-30 points per shell and a team cooldown of at least two minutes between arty strikes would be a great start.
Whats hilarious to me is that its blatantly obvious there is no argument here, people like the OP and myself and the others in the nerf arty camp are completely correct, so stop standing in the way of progress. No one in the pro arty camp has made even one good argument for why they nshould keep it as is, not one. You know why? Because there isn't one and its painfully obvious.

Edited by Scrotacus 42, 06 November 2014 - 04:20 PM.

[Urdnot Mau]

TwentyOne, on 05 November 2014 - 08:19 PM, said:

Arty and air strike should not be in the game. They should not exist. It is ridiculous that there is a 0 ton no drawback item that is so incredibly powerful.

Yes, and whoever designed this POS is a miserable ******* !



Also, on the nerf topic :

Increase the cooldown would make things a lot better. Seing consecutives strikes suck the fun away from any game.
There's something else that they could do that would make strikes feel less bad: Let players warn their team mates via mini-map that there's a red smoke of death coming out of the floor

[Lazor Sharp]

I will chime in on this issue again..... I HATE THE DAMN THINGS....!!!!!!!!!!!! This is NOT Strike Warrior Online!!!!!!!!!!! They need to be removed from the game entirely, or nerf batted into uselessness......!!! I have been head shotted several times. Several times i have had more over all damage from strikes, than from normal fire.... And 9 times out of 10, I was by myself, or only had 1 other team mate close to me, no death ball, or rarely in a death ball. I have been killed with out me ever getting to fire a shot, within the first 2 minuets......
Several times, I have been striked when I was the last one left, and they had 4-5 heavy's/assaults + left. (why waste a consumable at that point , unless you are afraid of me?) I have been spam striked 3-5 times within 2 minuets or so, many many times................ in other words, ZERO FUN............

This feature, IS THE MOST Aggravating, Frustrating, and PISS ME OFF thing in the game at this point. I do not like using consumables, so this to me, is just a CHEAP SHOT, to those really playing MWO and shooting ppl, by those ppl playing Strike Warrior Online, who probably can't score a shot, or make a kill other wise, or more interested in padding their scores/cbills/win at all costs, than anything else....

.......................................................................CHEAP SHOT CRAP...........................................................

Edited by Lazor Sharp, 06 November 2014 - 09:30 PM.

[Telmasa]

Per a post on the front page - "to hammer a point":

aniviron, on 05 November 2014 - 08:19 PM, said:

Ah, got it, so the team should be spread out and moving while on a cap point? And because spreading out is such a great idea in MWO?
I mean, even trying to basecap in assault is a terrible idea. Every single team that tries just gets 3-4 strikes rained on them, ggclothes.
It's also a super awful system for lights and mediums. In fact, I just alt-f4'd out of a match because I was moving around the back of my team at 90kph, not clustered, moving quickly, and a random shell from the line of an airstrike drops down and takes off one arm and puts both legs into deep orange. Game over, no warning, done. I left because that's not fun, that's awful gameplay.

TwentyOne, on 05 November 2014 - 08:19 PM, said:

Arty and air strike should not be in the game. They should not exist. It is ridiculous that there is a 0 ton no drawback item that is so incredibly powerful. If you are in an IS assault 95% of the time you cant get away from the arty no matter what you do!

aniviron, on 05 November 2014 - 08:56 PM, said:

OP's suggestion doesn't do anything to prevent artillery from being effective against people huddled up like that. Though it tends to be my experience that teams huddled up behind one piece of cover are about to be surrounded by a larger death ball in an arc and killed anyway. The fact that the artillery comes in under five seconds is patently ridiculous- having a ten or even fifteen second period between smoke and strike would have the same effect of breaking up blobs, or halving the damage would encourage moving without completly ending the game for any lights or mediums who catch a stray shell, as well as preventing instakill headshots.
And no, the smoke isn't always visible on cap. Did you know you can place it on the very tip top of the antenna where nobody will see it unless they're intentionally looking up for UAVs/birdwatching? But the shells still land exactly on the cap point. There are all sorts of situations on maps like this where you can effectively hide the smoke and then boom, 400 easy damage, gotta inflate those tournament scores.

Troutmonkey, on 05 November 2014 - 09:19 PM, said:

Your maths doesn't include acceleration, and seeing as Assaults and many other mechs are spotted while stationary (why call arty on a moving target?) his argument is valid.
If a strike is placed in front of you as you're moving it's even worse as you have to overcome deceleration, then acceleration and to top it off you'll probably want to be going in reverse so as not to expose your rear. and The delay between smoke and the strike is simply too short. Sure you could run through the smoke, probably out of cover and into enemy fire, and you'll probably be hit be the strike anyway.

AC, on 05 November 2014 - 09:48 PM, said:

I don't think they need a nerf, I just think there needs to be a limit to how many can be dropped in one game. I was in a game recently where there was an arty strike every 10 seconds it seemed. It was flipping ridiculous. All it was is bombs falling from the sky. I thought this was suppose to be a game where the results were based on skill, not how many arty strikes a team can spam.
I understand they are useful to break up teams that are camping, or capping. But there needs to be some limits....

Mellifluer, on 05 November 2014 - 11:53 PM, said:

i would be happy to trade strikes for real long toms and arrow IV's on my mech. oh so happy.

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 06 November 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

They don't need to be nerfed or buffed.
They need to be completely redesigned.
It makes absolutely zero sense to let any mech in the game be equipped with some sort of artillery / airstrike TAG with unlimited range and instant delivery at zero range, capable of doing that much damage. It's just not balanced, it's not fun. I was thrilled when they announced artillery and airstrike untill I realized it would do absolutely NOTHING for the role warfare they promised.

KraftySOT, on 06 November 2014 - 10:01 AM, said:

Nerf Red Smoke?!
Of course in BTech it wasnt nearly that accurate, and it took anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds to hit. Which is still insanely fast by artillery standards.

Mindwipe, on 06 November 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

The whole move thing is a pretty bad counter to a one button, across the board weapon. I drive lights so if I see the smoke, it's easy enough to avoid sure, but I've been hammered MANY times by dodging around cover only to walk into a barrage already going off and lost huge chunks of my Mech.
The purpose of strikes is fine, but they need better warning. If they're not going to put in an audible cue, perhaps have the mini map flash out like a siesmic sensor reading where the strike is centered. It leaves some issues such as where is an airstrike coming from but that gives reason to look up for the aerospace fighter right? Leave their purpose in deathball scattering but try to limit their use as a weapon. Of course to me that would mean leaving their damage high as they need to be a threat if you choose to ignore the warnings.

Gauvan, on 06 November 2014 - 10:41 AM, said:

One thing that bugs me currently is that a nearly dead mech can drop a revenge strike that hits after they are dead. I think that’s kind of derpy. Killing a mech should, I feel, cancel any queued strikes from that mech.
I think the current frequency of strikes allowed in solo queue matches is too high--I’d be happy to see them have a longer cooldown or to put a cap on the total number allowed per team per match.

aniviron, on 06 November 2014 - 03:44 PM, said:

But the rest of us who play lighter mechs aren't having fun with artillery. Mediums get it especially badly, as they're generally not any faster than the heavies, but have far less armor. Lights can usually avoid the smoke, but if you don't, the game is over; it's arbitrary and unfun.

EekaBlitzer, on 06 November 2014 - 03:50 PM, said:

The time for the arrival of Air/Art strikes needs to be significantly increased, with the duration and possibly area also increased to compensate. Considering how long a LRM takes to travel 1000m, how on earth can these stikes hit their target in a shorter time ?
They currently simply add a means for face-rolling players to increase their damage with no skill input.
I play MWO for the Mech vrs Mech combat, not to repeatedly spammed with this consumable. As to those who say 'keep moving' , the incoming time is so short that if the strike is out of your line of sight, their is no real chance to avoid it.

Scrotacus 42, on 06 November 2014 - 04:15 PM, said:

*sigh over the weekend I was literally one-shotted in the head in a JENNER, moving 150 kph while I was in mid air. Total bullshit.
Im pretty sure arty strikes actually did 15 damage per shell when I started a year and a half ago. But 35 damage is just ridiculous, by my count that means theres what, 20 other more moderate numbers you could have picked? Look 25 damage would still hurt plenty bad enough for arty to do its job. That's still stronger than ac/20s. Lots of others have made these points but let me reiterate some of the good ones:
1: this is an arena shooter that's outcomes should be determined by skill, arty in its current form requires almost none of that
2: It makes comp matches bloody awful to play in
3: nobody bothers to arty moving targets, and they always put that right behind you so you cant see it if you are in the PUG queue and no one can call it out for you
4: The fact it has unlimited range is stupid unless they change the mechanics of it to work like how Nikolai Kabrinsky described on page 3 (basically that only mechs with a command console/targeting computer/dedicated spotting ability be able to call it in).
5: the team cooldown on it needs to be way, way longer as it is the only way we can effectively limit them to say 4-6 per side per match.
6: In its current form you basically have to carry it if you are even halfway serious.
7: No, in fact it doesn't always make sense to be constantly moving, or have all you elite players forgotten all the times you snap out on people to stay in cover? So yes there are times you really cant do anything about it since after all, what I'm supposed to move to where enemy lrm boats can lock me? Forget that.
Arty has its place, but that place needs to be a little more moderate. 20-30 points per shell and a team cooldown of at least two minutes between arty strikes would be a great start.

Instead of adding my own personally spun rant, I'll simply add this quote, since it says everything else I wanted to add:

wwiiogre, on 06 November 2014 - 11:15 AM, said:

The OP is absolutely correct as is the first response to this topic. They are over powered and two in a row can kill any mech since they always hit your head. Always and two shots to the head is usually enough to drop any mech.

They are also part of pay to win. Note the mc arty/air are more powerful, not by much but just enough that two can head kill any mech.

I also was recently arty/air spammed and in a 100% health Atlas was taken to 60% in an air, then an arty strike that both came over the top of a ridge. Meaning I was not in line of sight, did not see the smoke and then they hit the area. I was not lrming from that area and had not even peaked over yet, nor were any of my teammates visible or lrming either.

Arty needs to be exactly in line with table top. In that they hit only in a 30 meter radius and only do damage to legs and must be directed by tag during the shot. Meaning, you must have tag to use, you must hold tag onto ground during time of flight of arty.

Air on the other hand once again should also be similar to table top. Which it currently is. But you need to pick which aero mech strike is attacking and the package should list which weapons are being used by your strike. Such that if the aero mech you picked has lasers, then they stream in a straight line and as they are currently time on target will spread across a mech.

It is currently way overpowered, is basically pay to win and cheating such that it takes almost no skill and can give you immense damage output and kills for less than most weapons cost.

The cost for both of these modules needs to be tripled or put in line with other module costs and made a non consumable and you have to put it in a mech or weapon module slot and still only get a single shot from it during a game. Which means you cannot use some of the other cool modules and have to make choices.

Choices are good, spamming low priced massive damage bonuses is lame in a skill based game.

Anyone that is a proponent of how arty/air works at this moment is a meta player and very selfish since it currently is out of balance for a skill based simulation style game and is only in the game because of Paulanomics and money grubbing by PGI.

Chris

WarHippy, on 06 November 2014 - 12:06 PM, said:

Aardvark.

Arsehat.
Nothing in your reply was reasoned or constructive, purely derogatory in manner. Why anybody felt the urge to "like" your reply is completely beyond me.

The fact that your attitude is shared by other artillery users, says something about you and others who use it and are now trying to defend its (ab)use.

Mystere, on 06 November 2014 - 09:38 AM, said:

And i am not. I want to keep that threat of instant death, no matter how small the probaility.

Then uninstall this game and go play Call of Duty. That's where that kind of gameplay belongs. NOT HERE.
I have gotten into MWO specifically to get away from that kind of gameplay.
And I know that I am not alone.



To wrap up:
Objectively, this seems like the best middle ground approach to me:

AssaultPig, on 06 November 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

Cost is pretty irrelevant as a balance mechanic; we see this with engines/modules/weapons, it's certainly true with strikes as well.
Strikes should:
1) Take longer to arrive once called.
2) Provide more warning (audio proximity alert, minimap icon, something.)
3) Have a bigger radius.
They should be used for getting large groups of mechs to split up and move around, and for that to work there needs to be sufficient warning that they're coming. As it is they're basically just used as direct damage weapons, which is the stupid part.

[Mystere]

Telmasa, on 06 November 2014 - 07:21 PM, said:

Then uninstall this game and go play Call of Duty. That's where that kind of gameplay belongs. NOT HERE.
I have gotten into MWO specifically to get away from that kind of gameplay.
And I know that I am not alone.

Why don't you go uninstall MWO and go back to COD. Or better yet, go play My Little Pony. Anyone who thinks artillery strikes should just tickle their target deserve to be in that game.

Edited by Mystere, 06 November 2014 - 07:29 PM.