167 replies to this topic

[YCSLiesmith]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 09 April 2015 - 09:11 AM, said:

• LRMs are a purely tactical weapon.

thats... thats true of all weapons.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

YCSLiesmith, on 09 April 2015 - 09:12 AM, said:

thats... thats true of all weapons.

I guess I should clarify.

LRMs are all about altering enemy tactics based on your tactics over the course of a match, as opposed to, for instance, a direct-fire barrage aimed at just killing someone now.

Note: Sometimes, English just doesn't cut it for communicating my points. Pity I don't know any other languages for doing so, huh? Not that I'm sure it would help....

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 09 April 2015 - 09:17 AM.

[pattonesque]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 09 April 2015 - 09:16 AM, said:

I guess I should clarify.

LRMs are all about altering enemy tactics based on your tactics over the course of a match, as opposed to, for instance, a direct-fire barrage aimed at just killing someone now.

Note: Sometimes, English just doesn't cut it for communicating my points. Pity I don't know any other languages for doing so, huh? Not that I'm sure it would help....

a direct-fire barrage aimed at killing someone now also alters enemy tactics, usually more effectively than lurms

lurms can force you to move or you'll be hit by them

direct fire weapons force you to move after you've been hit by them

[Tiamat of the Sea]

pattonesque, on 09 April 2015 - 09:23 AM, said:

a direct-fire barrage aimed at killing someone now also alters enemy tactics, usually more effectively than lurms

lurms can force you to move or you'll be hit by them

direct fire weapons force you to move after you've been hit by them

This is exactly what my note is saying. I'm trying to communicate something here, and it's just sort of getting lost, I guess.

Meh. Most important thing is in the last paragraph of my first post here anyways.

[Stealth Fox]

Tim East, on 09 April 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

I actually really enjoy the lack of matchmaking in CW. It lets me get an accurate assessment of my skill in comparison to other players of the mode without having to wonder if my team was dumped on me (or I them) and carrying was expected to occur somewhere. There is something refreshing about simply fighting without suspecting that the game wanted you to carry harder. I suppose this would bug me less if it told me after the match whether I was expected to win or not so I know if my Elo went up or down.

I meant more.. balancing drop decks in CW, have a battle Value total you can spend on your mechs instead of using Weight. Storm Crows rippen it up and unstoppable? Well they had a High Battle Value in the TT .. it makes sense to give them that in MWO, Fire Starters the go to hunter killer mech for IS? give it a high BV. Do wonders for balance rather then "lets add or take away weight on a drop ship" that don't do ****..

[Void Angel]

Barkem Squirrel, on 07 April 2015 - 10:18 PM, said:

Just think how fast you can get target lock in a battlemaster with target info gathering, BAP, Artemis, TAG, and the Command console. You will be hitting them before they even get a lock, if you are lucky maybe hitting them with 3 vollies before they return fire or start to run a way.

Stuff that speeds up detailed target info doesn't speed up locks, though - those are pure brawler/fire support information modules and gear.

[Chef Kerensky]

Void Angel, on 09 April 2015 - 02:57 PM, said:

Name and shame policies prevent certain kinds of sophistry and useless debate. It's impossible to verify name-and-shame violations like this one, and even if we had a recording of some kind, we still wouldn't know if this was standard practice for that player, or just a bad day. People already babble so much about their invisible Elo numbers, or how "bad" someone "obviously" is to disagree with them. I've had people jump all over my alleged level of skill for using vanilla WoW tactics as an example (they were wrong, too,) or claim to have "seen you perform in Mech X recently,so now I think you're just bad" (possibly a bald-faced lie, since I hadn't played the 'mech in the timeframe cited.) So I think the name-and-shame policy fulfills the useful function of limiting flame wars and smear campaigns. Sure, we're still arguing on the internet, but at least we have to do it in the realm of ideas rather than engaging directly in personal attacks, anecdotal accounts, and the odd cherry-picked video.

When I first joined the game and read the Name and Shame entry in ToS, I thought "wow, these guys are carebears; is it a Canada thing?" I'd never heard of such a thing before. But the more I think about it - and the more violations I see - the more I've decided it's probably a good thing.

I understand the concept and the reason it's done, but I think it's too strongly policed. Back on topic,

InRev, on 09 April 2015 - 07:17 AM, said:

Disagreement =/= trolling.

Also, hello, I'm a Marik, and I think LRMs are a worthless weapon in public matches at mid to high Elo, let alone in CW or tournament play.

Where do I fit into your schema?

The NKVA guys have presented walls of evidence that has been harvested at all levels of play that show why LRMs, with their unfocused damage, their need to maintain face-time for locks, their minimum range, and their ease in dodging, compare poorly to direct fire. If you think this is trolling, you reeeeeeally should take a look at the CW forum to see what it looks like when they are actually trolling. If anything, they are showing an incredible amount of restraint, perhaps more than you even deserve.

Also, defending LRMs and saying "THEY'RE OK GAIZ!!! I HAVE CHERRY PICKED SCREENSHOTS AND ANECDOTES!!!" will only ensure that they never receive the necessary fixes that they require in order to be viable weapons, thus permanently condemning them to the trash-heap. LRMs need a lot of changes to make them work at higher levels. Please stop insisting they're viable because the more people do that, the less likely it will be that they actually are fixed and made viable.

I really don't want to see an MWO where LRMs are a viable weapon because regardless of whether they're bad or good they don't require any skill to use. Can you imagine a meta where Streaks and LRMs are king? The game would be unplayable.

If MWO had a single player component I would enjoy LRMs being viable; from a conceptual point of view a giant robot shooting a million missiles at another giant robot is very cool. In the context of a multiplayer game it's a weapon that damages other players without any real effort or skill on your part. Kinda like streaks.

There was a period of time about a year back where LRM velocity and tracking received strong buffs. This occurred at the same time that the 60 LRM stalker was made a trial mech. The game was rendered completely unplayable - everyone sat at the spawn on every map and held down the mouse button on enemies they weren't actually looking at. This is how the game was played. It wasn't fun.

[Void Angel]

I'd like to see LRMs be much faster, but not lock on. You could still target them from behind hills and such, but they wouldn't do the whole MW2+ homing bees thing. This is of course a pipe dream at present, but possibly it may happen in the future when more resources are available.

I partially disagree with the "no skill" accusation, however. Properly employed LRMs do require skill in the form of positioning and map knowledge - same as direct-fire weapons. All those people who just sit back behind everything and play "lock-on box warrior" are doing it wrong. So there is skill that should be applied to LRM usage, even if many LurmWarriors don't actually... use it. Similar to how so many players using direct-fire weapons don't torso twist much.

That being said, I think the problem with LRMs is inadequate counterplay on the part of the targeted player - particularly in the PuG environment. In random matches, you can bring AMS and possibly ECM, but other than that you kinda just... hope. Does your team have enough ECM to stop indirect fire? Hope so, or it's a bad day. Do you have team assets willing/able/observant enough to keep spotters off your back? Hope so. Does not your entire team consider UAVs to be Somebody Else's Problem? Hope so... Did the puggles vaccinate their dang 'mechs with AMS like thinking humans? Hope so, but probably not. The only active counterplay you really have is to hide behind cover, potentially ceding vast portions of the map to the enemy team. Thankfully, LRMs don't do enough damage (focused and overall) to really be worthwhile against skilled players, even when skillfully employed. If LRMs go back to doing enough damage (particularly with a high enough missile speed) to be viable as weapons in their own right, they'll be unstoppable - you know, again.

Combine this with the amazing variability in how LRM-friendly the maps are -from Caustic Valley easy mode to Crimson Strait's air raid shelter - and you have a weapon system that's nearly impossible to balance, which brings it to its current state of high-level nonpresence. I'm increasingly sure that LRMs will need a mechanics overhaul like the one I described in order to be both balanced and viable.