51 replies to this topic

[kazlaton]

Roadkill, on 24 November 2014 - 09:26 AM, said:

Appears that my results are pretty much exactly the opposite of yours. /shrug

Contrary to popular opinion, LRMs are not "easy mode" and require a significant amount of skill to use well. I happen to be a pretty good LRM support pilot, particularly in a mobile Mech where I can reposition strategically to best support my team.

That's interesting. Out of curiosity, were you playing in the solo que, or in groups? I spent the vast majority of my time in groups, but did do some solo when no one else was around. And I agree fully with you about the LRMs.

Edited by kazlaton, 24 November 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[Quxudica]

kazlaton, on 23 November 2014 - 09:27 PM, said:

After finishing the challenge, I went back to check out my stats. Since I spent about half the matches in a LRM boat, and the other half in direct fire (lasers and UACs) I figured it would be interesting to compare the stats. These were my stats, your mileage may vary.

total matches 61
LRM matches: 27
LRM matches that qualified: 9
9/27=.3333 = 33.3% percent chance that bringing a LRM boat will result in a qualifying match.
Direct fire matches: 34
DF matches that qualified: 15
15/34=.4411 = 44.1% chace that bringing direct fire will result in a qualifying match.

So that means LRMs are only 75.6% as effective as direct fire. (.3333/.4411=75.56).
And that number would have been lower, but for 11 of those matches I had a dedicated spotter (narc Raven).

Did anyone else do something similar? What were your results?

TL/DR
LRMs are weak, and there was some math.

Indirect Fire, if it exists at all, should require TAG or NARC.

[kazlaton]

Krivvan, on 24 November 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

The majority of more experienced players have already known for quite a while that Direct Fire weapons have a far higher potential than LRMs. Hence why you don't see LRMs in comp matches.

I agree. I see it myself. But I still enjoy playing them for fun and variety, and I don't like to change my play style too much for the challenges. I normally don't keep track of the numbers for any given mech, but the fact that the score card showed you an itemized list for each match made me curious what the final results were.

[Brody319]

kazlaton, on 24 November 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

No, you misunderstood. 34 matches in a direct fire mech. 27 matches in a LRM boat. Of those 27, 11 of those matches had a spotter.

okay correction:
16 LRM matches compared to 34 Direct fire matches. invalid data since you didn't have the same sized testing pool for both.

[Bhael Fire]

Didn't have any problem with LRMs during the challenge. I heard lots of people whining about LRMs though.

[kazlaton]

Brody319, on 24 November 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

okay correction:
16 LRM matches compared to 34 Direct fire matches. invalid data since you didn't have the same sized testing pool for both.

1. You don't seem to get it. I took out the LRM boat 27 times. 27 =/= 16.
2. I never planned it to be even, which is why I said "about half".
3. It isn't a scientific study, hence why I said "These are my stats, your mileage may vary".

[Roadkill]

kazlaton, on 24 November 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

That's interesting. Out of curiosity, were you playing in the solo que, or in groups? I spent the vast majority of my time in groups, but did do some solo when no one else was around. And I agree fully with you about the LRMs.

Both. I estimate roughly 50/50, but wouldn't swear to it. I got more of my points while in the group queue, mostly due to a really good streak on Saturday night when my lance went 9-1 (8 points). I was doing my missile support thing for those games, so that may have skewed my results due to the synergy with my lancemates.

[kazlaton]

Bhael Fire, on 24 November 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Didn't have any problem with LRMs during the challenge. I heard lots of people whining about LRMs though.

Yeah, so many posts on the forums about it. But I didn't really see many more LRMs than usual. An increase, yes, but not so much. And they did get me a few times (I put myself in a bad spot) but it really didn't seem bad.

[Necromonger Commander]

Yes, of course it is easier to get a kill with direct fire, the problem is escaping after the kill. LRM boats stay at a safe distance. Probably the best combination is an Atlas with 3 LRM15s and an AC20 and 4 ML for when someone comes looking for where all those missiles are coming from.

Another factor that invalidates your data. Many people brought missile boats for the above reasons. This softened up targets for the lights. Lights with 4 MGs cleaned up in this event..

[Roadkill]

kazlaton, on 24 November 2014 - 11:47 AM, said:

Yeah, so many posts on the forums about it. But I didn't really see many more LRMs than usual. An increase, yes, but not so much. And they did get me a few times (I put myself in a bad spot) but it really didn't seem bad.

Agreed. Might have been a few more, but nothing out of control.

WAY more people whining about LRM boats, though. Almost as if they don't realize that most Clan Mechs might as well carry 1-2 LRMs since they have the slots and the tonnage available. It definitely means that more people are firing LRMs, but they're not individually firing as many as boats would be firing.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Roadkill, on 24 November 2014 - 09:36 AM, said:

Yep, just further proof that the root of all the missile balance issues is that ECM is vastly overpowered.

Before ECM was introduced, missiles were reasonable. Yeah, I know, there were a ton of things going on like hit reg, etc, but they were pretty well balanced.

ECM comes in... missiles are dead. Suck horribly. Completely useless. So they buff missiles (overbuff them horribly at one point), spend a couple of years trying to fine tune the balance, finally get it to a reasonable point again...

... and then they buff BAP. Suddenly, missiles seem too powerful again. But the real problem is the same one that has always been there - ECM is too powerful and completely distorts missile balance. Even a minor tweak to ECM causes wild swings in missile balance

PGI - the problem is and always has been your implementation of ECM, which combines 3 different technologies from the board game.

See I found missiles reasonable only with the old implementation of ECM and way over powered now that BAP is nullifying the ability of ECM mechs to provide a close in screen against LRMs. I mean to be blunt at 180m range, there is no way a ECM mech is covering an entire team throughout an entire battle so there were still plenty of opportunity for LRMs to do their work, however now they are just overpowering at times because all you see is your ECM mechs with a big fat X through their ECM indicators. ECM is virtually worthless now unless your using it in sniper mode which is a shame because ECM screening actually had become an important team role prior to the BAP change.

Honestly it amazes me that in a game where everyone complains about the lack of role warfare that when those roles exist, people complain and make them disappear. Honestly the BAP change pretty much removed 3 roles. ECM Screener, LRM Spotter and Scout. Screening is now useless which means TAG and NARC aren't all that important any more plus since even the briefest exposure shows up as a bright red arrow because ECM can't screen anymore, there is no need to actually scout.

[Marmon Rzohr]

RiggsIron, on 23 November 2014 - 10:17 PM, said:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHaaaaaa....

Yeah maths. As if the exact same players were all on both teams in the exact mechs for all those fights. On the same maps.

My anecdotal evidence of getting opened up by 3-4 LRM boats in 80% of matches challenges your blanket "lrms are weak lol' statement.

And the fact that 95% of matches everyone has to hide under cover because of MASSIVE lrm fire doesnt affect the battle at all right?

...cause they are weak see.

If anything LRMs are less than 75% as effective as direct fire weapons.

Yes, you can get good games with them, and yes, they influence the flow of the battle, but it's very hard to carry yourself or your team with LRMs unless you are playing vs inexperienced players.

Challenges like these are all about consistent performance that allows you to get the numbers is as few battles as possible and LRMs are the second most inconsistent weapon in the game (the first being SSRMs).

[-Wulf-]

Hummm, your math is flawed by the simple fact you never set a control parameter, without your control (created using controlled conditions... Cant be duplicated within the relm of random drops) Here are the main reasons you cant duplicate.

You cant run the same map in random drop you will always get some variation. (IE Caustic valley twice in 10 games then not again for 15 games)

You will most always be thrown against other pilots.. (IE Joker is pitted against you by the Match Maker 7 times then 5 times as a teammate.)

There it is... Conditions are too random to actually base this comparison.

[Roadkill]

Viktor Drake, on 24 November 2014 - 11:56 AM, said:

ECM is virtually worthless now unless your using it in sniper mode which is a shame because ECM screening actually had become an important team role prior to the BAP change.

I don't think we're actually disagreeing, we're just coming at it differently.

If ECM weren't so powerful, missiles wouldn't have had to be tweaked back and forth so often trying to find a balance. When they did finally find a balance, missiles were actually too powerful but were being counteracted by overpowered ECM.

Now that BAP's range is double that of ECM, missiles seem powerful again because ECM has been pretty well neutered. So no doubt they'll make another tweak to some other system (but not their precious ECM) which will appear to re-balance things for a while until someone finds the new hole.

The thing is, none of this tweaking for the last 2 years would have been necessary if they hadn't made ECM so overpowered in the first place.

[-Wulf-]

I can carry in my Kintaro 18 fairly well but I am a experienced pilot. However it is conditional and circumstance dictates if any mech indirect fire or direct fire can carry.

Edited by Falkwulf, 24 November 2014 - 12:12 PM.

[Brody319]

kazlaton, on 24 November 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

1. You don't seem to get it. I took out the LRM boat 27 times. 27 =/= 16.
2. I never planned it to be even, which is why I said "about half".
3. It isn't a scientific study, hence why I said "These are my stats, your mileage may vary".

1. you said you took out a spotter 11 matches, Spotters do not count towards LRMs or direct fire, they are a different role all together.

I was saying that LRMs are not underpowered, a single lrm launcher is underpowered, but not LRMs as a whole. When you begin boating them and become more overpowered. 3 LRM boats with a single decent spotter can destroy a lance very quickly. I don't want a Single LRM launcher to be buffed because then you also buff the Boats which destroy mechs way to fast.

[terrycloth]

Let's see. I got 2 points in my SCR-D (LRM) out of 5 drops with it, 1 in my SCR-PRIME (direct) out of 7 drops with it, and 2 in my STK-5M (both) out of 2 drops in it. 0 in my STK-3F, CPLT-K2, RVN-4X, KFX-S (all direct) out of 9 drops. 0 in my CPLT-C1 (LRM) out of 2 drops.

So, overall, it you count the 5M as LRM, 4 points out of 9 with LRMs, 1 point out of 16 with direct fire.

Oh, and one of matches I didn't score for in my stalker 3F I got the 'Seriously!' achievement for most damage with no kills. Sigh. I had a lot of good matches that didn't score.

[AlphaToaster]

I find it's much harder to carry in a LRM boat. It's almost as if, dropping into a match in a LRM boat where I win, the team was going to win anyway. But I also notice that if I sit back, especially in solo queue, my team loses, period. If I push, then even if I die, more often than not, the team wins.

It takes brawlers, scouts/spotters, and people who push for LRM boats to do well. They can't do it all on their own without some really great positioning, battlefield awareness, and an enemy team that just refuses to push.

[STEF_]

Dmg spreading weapons aren't good for killing.

Moreover lrma are quite terribad with that slow speed.

I find easier to get assist scratching with er-ll, and then I can use er-ll to deliver serious dmg too.

[kazlaton]

Brody319, on 24 November 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

1. you said you took out a spotter 11 matches, Spotters do not count towards LRMs or direct fire, they are a different role all together.

Ah, Ok, source of confusion understood now. I was not spotting, I had a friend in a spotter mech with me for those 11 matches. I was still in the LRM boat.