15 replies to this topic

[Bloodright58]

With the recent "Bug" to LRMs it really showed how different the game can be when a person actually has to keep the targeting reticle in the target lock. I found the game to be quite enjoyable with the lack of nonstop rain in the matches.

I am not completely opposed to LRMs but the change brought to light an issue with the game. I believe that targeting with LRMs should be slightly more difficult than that current method. Right now, IMO it takes very little skill to use LRMs. Find the red box.. start your missle storm when the little red circles turn red.. so easy, a caveman can do it.

Granted LRMs are not effective in every map and there are counters to LRMs as well, but there are also plenty of items that boost effectiveness for LRMs, not counting well coordinated groups.

items against LRMs:
ECM (everyone loves to cite this)
AMS (moderately effective, ammo dependant)
terrain
Radar derp
Requires a spotter

Items that assist LRMs:
Teamwork (good spotters)
UAV
TAG
NARC
BAP
Radar Decay mod
Clan Targeting computer

I am not requesting a complete nerf destroying change to LRMs to make them ineffectual, i am requesting a balance between what happened this week and the prior settings.

[Sarlic]

Revert the damage back to 1.5(?) and let this bug leave it as it is. Make it harder and what more skillfull. And we have already enough countermeasures to LRM fire.

Thats what i would do. Because honestly: you dont see many missiles around nowdays... Nobody bothers to carry a rack or so.

Edit: Previous year or two people whined about LRM was OP. Shortly when the damage was increased. Now nobody bothers with them no more.

Edited by Sarlic, 18 March 2015 - 01:10 PM.

[Aiden Skye]

If so then up that damage and bring back the slash damage. I really hate to see an entire class of weapons just get shunned like they are right now

Edited by W A R K H A N, 18 March 2015 - 03:14 PM.

[Bloodright58]

W A R K H A N, on 18 March 2015 - 01:09 PM, said:

If so then up that damage and bring back the slash damage. I really haste to see an entire class of weapons just get shunned like they are right now

I wasn't in the game in the earlier versions, but i take it you meant Splash damage? if so, i wouldn't see anything wrong with that since they are a missile spread. i know on the tabletop it was fairly random on how many missile struck your target. (artemis improved this)

[cSand]

Add more buildings to maps!

[MikeBend]

Seriously, i only found out that something was wrong with LRMs today, on the forums. I have been playing for the last couple of days, and half of my mechs have an occasional lrm10 or 15. I didnt even notice a change.

[Ragtag soldier]

you can't balance it, it will always be complained about. the ability to slap snipers poking their heads out after they're "behind cover" will always cause the worst players to cry endlessly. may as well fix the lock times, buff the damage and tell everyone to go screw.

[zagibu]

They should just track the cursor, and only act like current LRMs on narced targets.

[JaxRiot]

I don't think LRMs are any easier than ECM sniping, I do it all of the time on my Raven. ECM is complete armor. The enemy cant even target you and unless they see you with their own eyes they probably aren't even sure where you are. I don't even need a target lock and if they want to kill me they have to chase me down plus I don't show up on the map. Im like an assassin ninja taking pot shots at weak back armor undetected.

Edit-

I just wanted to point out that all of the Items you listed against LRMs are exactly why competitive units don't take LRMs into CW. Because LRMs can be shut down so easily by those exact things

And as for the Teamwork (good spotters), if it was that effective the competitive units would be using those tactics. But even with 'good spotters', its still not enough to counter the things that can shut down LRMs. Which is another reason you don't see them use LRMs.

I would also like to point out that all of the items that work against LRMs are present both in Pugs and in CW, but good luck finding 'good spotters' in pugs.

Cheers

Jax

Edited by JaxRiot, 18 March 2015 - 02:59 PM.

[Novakaine]

Bloodright58, on 18 March 2015 - 01:04 PM, said:

With the recent "Bug" to LRMs it really showed how different the game can be when a person actually has to keep the targeting reticle in the target lock. I found the game to be quite enjoyable with the lack of nonstop rain in the matches.

I am not completely opposed to LRMs but the change brought to light an issue with the game. I believe that targeting with LRMs should be slightly more difficult than that current method. Right now, IMO it takes very little skill to use LRMs. Find the red box.. start your missle storm when the little red circles turn red.. so easy, a caveman can do it.

Granted LRMs are not effective in every map and there are counters to LRMs as well, but there are also plenty of items that boost effectiveness for LRMs, not counting well coordinated groups.

items against LRMs:
ECM (everyone loves to cite this)
AMS (moderately effective, ammo dependant)
terrain
Radar derp
Requires a spotter

Items that assist LRMs:
Teamwork (good spotters)
UAV
TAG
NARC
BAP
Radar Decay mod
Clan Targeting computer

I am not requesting a complete nerf destroying change to LRMs to make them ineffectual, i am requesting a balance between what happened this week and the prior settings.

Sounds like a nerf to me.
Enough is Enough.

[Ragtag soldier]

JaxRiot, on 18 March 2015 - 02:48 PM, said:

I don't think LRMs are any easier than ECM sniping, I do it all of the time on my Raven. ECM is complete armor. The enemy cant even target you and unless they see you with their own eyes they probably aren't even sure where you are. I don't even need a target lock and if they want to kill me they have to chase me down plus I don't show up on the map. Im like an assassin ninja taking pot shots at weak back armor undetected.

you're also that **** splashing me for like a point of armor from across the map. cut that **** out, it's irritating and it makes the stupid teammates grab cover and stay there the whole match.

[stjobe]

Bloodright58, on 18 March 2015 - 01:12 PM, said:

I wasn't in the game in the earlier versions, but i take it you meant Splash damage? if so, i wouldn't see anything wrong with that since they are a missile spread. i know on the tabletop it was fairly random on how many missile struck your target. (artemis improved this)

Missile spread is different from splash damage.

Missile spread means the missiles arrive in formation, different individual missiles potentially hitting different parts of your target, e.g. 1 missile to the arm, 2 to the side torso, 2 to the center torso, 1 to the head. Each missile only hits one location.

Splash damage means each missile has the potential to hit several different parts of the target. E.g. one missile hits the arm, and also splashes damage to the side torso. Two missiles hit the side torso and splashes damage to the arm and center torso. Two missiles hit the center torso and splash damage to both side torsos, both legs, and the head.

We had splash damage. It was bugged beyond belief.

Not only was the splash radius eight meters so any hit was guaranteed to generate a sphere as large as a Commando, but each missile did its full damage to every location it hit - sometimes several times on each location. SRMs did up to 19 damage - each. Not bad for something that at the time was supposed to do 2 damage.

Here's the fun part, and why I keep saying that the missile code is broken: They tried to fix it. They couldn't. When they removed splash damage, they broke missile spread so the majority of missiles hit the same location - most of the time the CT.

What they ended up doing was reducing the splash radius to 10 cm and leave it.

And as far as I know, that's the code we have running today, two years later.

[Bloodright58]

stjobe, on 18 March 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

Missile spread is different from splash damage.

Missile spread means the missiles arrive in formation, different individual missiles potentially hitting different parts of your target, e.g. 1 missile to the arm, 2 to the side torso, 2 to the center torso, 1 to the head. Each missile only hits one location.

Splash damage means each missile has the potential to hit several different parts of the target. E.g. one missile hits the arm, and also splashes damage to the side torso. Two missiles hit the side torso and splashes damage to the arm and center torso. Two missiles hit the center torso and splash damage to both side torsos, both legs, and the head.

We had splash damage. It was bugged beyond belief.

Not only was the splash radius eight meters so any hit was guaranteed to generate a sphere as large as a Commando, but each missile did its full damage to every location it hit - sometimes several times on each location. SRMs did up to 19 damage - each. Not bad for something that at the time was supposed to do 2 damage.

Here's the fun part, and why I keep saying that the missile code is broken: They tried to fix it. They couldn't. When they removed splash damage, they broke missile spread so the majority of missiles hit the same location - most of the time the CT.

What they ended up doing was reducing the splash radius to 10 cm and leave it.

And as far as I know, that's the code we have running today, two years later.

Thanks for explaining the issues they had with this. That would be terrible.

[Aiden Skye]

Bloodright58, on 18 March 2015 - 01:12 PM, said:

I wasn't in the game in the earlier versions, but i take it you meant Splash damage? if so, i wouldn't see anything wrong with that since they are a missile spread. i know on the tabletop it was fairly random on how many missile struck your target. (artemis improved this)

Yes...writing this from iPhone. Spell check is silly! LRMs have had lots of damage nerfs and their spash damage has been completely removed. ECM is now more rampant than ever and we now have radardep.

[stjobe]

Bloodright58, on 18 March 2015 - 03:21 PM, said:

Thanks for explaining the issues they had with this. That would be terrible.

You're welcome, and it was indeed terrible.

If you ever feel bored, do a bit of googling with the keyword 'site:mwomercs.com' for things like "SRM damage" "LRMageddon" (we have had at least three incidents dubbed LRMageddon, when a change to LRMs made them so overpowered they had to put out hotfixes), or just "missiles".

It's going on three years now with broken missiles, both of the SRM and LRM variety.

W A R K H A N, on 18 March 2015 - 03:24 PM, said:

LRMs have had lots of damage nerfs and their spash damage has been completely removed.

Minor nitpick here, but as you can see from my post above (and corroborate with a simple search on these forums), we still have splash damage. It's just set to a very, very small radius around the missile so that it almost never comes into play.

But it is still there, because removing it completely breaks the missile code in other, equally bad ways.

[oldradagast]

Sarlic, on 18 March 2015 - 01:06 PM, said:

Revert the damage back to 1.5(?) and let this bug leave it as it is. Make it harder and what more skillfull. And we have already enough countermeasures to LRM fire.

Thats what i would do. Because honestly: you dont see many missiles around nowdays... Nobody bothers to carry a rack or so.

Edit: Previous year or two people whined about LRM was OP. Shortly when the damage was increased. Now nobody bothers with them no more.

Leaving the bug would have made them all but useless against distant targets... which is the only time LRM's are remotely viable. You could up the damage to 5 per missile and would be meaningless if you can't actually get or hold a lock thanks to this bug.

Nobody uses LRM's because they are mostly useless, easily avoided, and spray damage everywhere. You CAN make them somewhat viable, but the argument could always be made that a direct-fire platform would have been more useful to the team.