27 replies to this topic

[TELEFORCE]

Today was the first time I've played against a force with the functional "Long Tom" artillery since the hotfix, and it was just not fun at all.

The first drop, my 'mech (a fully armored Warhammer) was gutted from behind by splash, dead in one hit. The subsequent drops saw each of my 'mechs losing arms, legs, and torsos (a Marauder, Archer, and Wolfhound). This went on the entire match and many players on my team disconnected because of it. It was a very bad gaming experience.

There's no way the Long Tom artillery should be this powerful. It isn't even this powerful on table top, where it does 25 points of damage to all units within a 30-meter radius, then less to units out to 60 meters. The splash damage could only one-shot-kill a unit only if they were very unlucky.

Even at its current 50 points of damage, I think there's something wrong with it. Is the splash dealing 50 points of damage to each location?!

Here is my suggestion. The artillery splash damage needs to be changed so that it doesn't do so much damage to each location. They should be doing 50 (or 25 points of damage, per my second sentence) at most to each 'mech caught in the target radius. Also, reduce the damage of the Long Tom to 25 points. I think it should be a little more powerful than normal artillery, but not much. Plus it brings it in line with established BattleTech table top damage values.

Right now, it's more like a freaking naval autocannon orbital bombardment.

Edited by TELEFORCE, 05 June 2016 - 04:15 PM.

[AnTi90d]

If you aren't with a group that has a good drop caller and listens to that guy, you're totally screwed when Tom comes to town. Hell, even if you get the Tom for your side, if you're versus a group with a good drop caller, you're also screwed, as they'll gladly run Tom straight into wherever your most tonnage lies.

I've had more fun pugging versus a Kcom 12 man than fighting Tom. At least you can shoot back at another mechwarrior.

I'd just like to see the Tom entirely removed and replaced with something less powerful. Forumites have been suggesting other Scouting buffs since the first Tom started spawn camping mechwarriors. All we need is for the planets to align and PGI to realize that a large amount of FP's population won't even drop on an Invasion with an active Tom.. and some won't even set foot into FP until it has been removed.

I mean, if you win with the Tom on your side, you get a crap Cbill payout, because he went and killed half of the enemy team, so there's less for you to shoot at; less enemy mechs to shoot at equals fewer space dollars to be earned.

Is there anyone in all of FP that actually likes Tom?.. approves of Tom's existence?.. wants Tom to be a permanent FP feature?..

[feeWAIVER]

Still waiting on the "Long Tom is fine, just Scout better" crowd to chime in.. but apparently they're all too busy in Quickplay.

[Ruslan Savelyev]

Posted about this issue a week or so ago in this thread...

http://mwomercs.com/...super-long-tom/

Responding again here because I believe that the current iteration of the Long Tom is a mistake, and the more attention that is called to it, the better.

[Willard Phule]

I agree, the Long Tom simply isn't fair. ESPECIALLY when you end up on a team that can't muster the initiative to actually go through the gate and get the job done.

It sucks when 10 of the 12 guys on your team just cluster up together, stand still, zoom in and wait for LRM targets.....only to get plowed under by the Long Tom.

Perhaps they could make a mechanic that increases/decreases the damage from Long Tom based on the average Tier level of the enemy. If the enemy team consists primarily of Tier 5s, then maybe it should be lowered to what you'd get from an LRM 20.

[Ace Selin]

Long Tom is like Russian Roulette, not something you want to play.

[-Desicus]

Had an Allied Long Tom on a match earlier today, it killed more friendlies than it killed enemies. literally.

the other team didn't drive it into us. we had to time our pushes around the long tom drop and a few of the pushes last longer than the Long tom timer. it would be nice if there was a 20 second period after it activated that the drop commander could option out of firing it. like when you are swarmed by lights, or when you are in the middle of a push. and allow it when the enemy seems to be conveniently grouped for a tom.

[Rushin Roulette]

Ace Selin, on 07 June 2016 - 07:48 AM, said:

Long Tom is like Russian Roulette, not something you want to play.

Whaa? What are you talking about... Oh, the one with the "a" in the name, not the one rushing in like a madman.... my bad.

The biggest problem with playing in a PUG is that so few seem to actually know how the mechanic works and carry on grouping up... or even better are bunched up just outside the gate trying to LRM/ERLL the enemies on the other side... and then get surprised because LT hits the biggest group once the timer bar reaches full.

If you see the timer bar fill up. Spread any slow movers far apart (100 meters minimum... 300 meters is better though) and send any light mechs at full speed in a tight group somewhere else (preferably through the middle of the enemy blob). That way you can take advantage of the LT which would normally be hitting your team and use it to heavily damage (if not destroy) the opponents instead.
The usual problem is however mainly the Tunnelvision of some players who are fully concentrated on hitting those 5 pixels at extreme range that they dont see the timer and carry on standing close to the other tunnel visioning pixelaimers while everyone else is trying to get past them without getting their backs cored in the process.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

Rushin Roulette, on 09 June 2016 - 12:29 AM, said:

If you see the timer bar fill up. Spread any slow movers far apart (100 meters minimum... 300 meters is better though) and send any light mechs at full speed in a tight group somewhere else (preferably through the middle of the enemy blob). That way you can take advantage of the LT which would normally be hitting your team and use it to heavily damage (if not destroy) the opponents instead.

Obviously good idea but...

.. is it that what the long tom "feature" is about? how to exploid the utterly ******** AI to the maximum?

Let's face it, the ONLY thing the long tom has going for it is it visiual "impact" it does look pretty darn cool.

It hits to often
it hits way to hard
It is operated by monkeys
It utterly destroys any proper gameplay any other then "lets exploid the potato AI".
It is contraproductive towards the 2-3 lane chokepoint mapdesign. (yeah, long tom fail + chokepoint LOL design maps fail = uberfail)
It destroys earning for both teams.
It drives everyone, attacker and defender from any planet as soon as intel reaches 90%, because we need less games played on CW.. err FP... err Long tom overlord warfare.

I honesty do not comprehend how the current long tom artillery mechanic got a pass from PGI, then again, i've played thousand of CW matches, never ever seen any dev around.

Long tom in a nutshell is a visually impressive gameplay/mechanic fail. no more, no less.
Either disable or massive rework needs to be done.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

feeWAIVER, on 05 June 2016 - 06:55 PM, said:

Still waiting on the "Long Tom is fine, just Scout better" crowd to chime in.. but apparently they're all too busy in Quickplay.

Long Tom is fine, just Scout better.

On a serious note: I don't mind long tom to be powerful, but IMHO it shoots too often, and - in result - practically makes all the game revolving around avoiding or 'exploiting' long toms falling more than around actual fighting. Toms should be scary, but because of the spam they become tedious way too soon. IMHO, it would be better for them to shoot every second satelite pass, not on each and every one. Plus, maybe 1 second more of the smoke, so it will be less penalising to slow assaults that often have no chance to clear out of the way.

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 10 June 2016 - 03:04 AM.

[DivBy0]

[Long Tom] is a Game Killer and the greatest Game Design Error I have seen in the last 35 year of gaming. It has murdered the "Event" and drove many players (and whole small Units) out of Faction War (Mercs [Long Tom] War). It has killed several hundred (thousands?) of possible new player on their first drop in FW (Event!). They will never come back!

[Long Tom] have killed the fun and most of my motivation to play FW at all. Even to know that such a complete stupid thing exist let me feel bad playing the FW game mode. Besides the training times of my unit i used to drop with other pugs in FW... still not happen anymore. The are no games and when there is a fight going on you have terrible wait times... and then some player scouts for [Long Tom] and the Invasion Mode is dead again.

And it seems the last patch unnerfed [Long Tom]. Great idea of PGI to nuke the small player base into oblivion :-(
A single! A-Bomb in the full 30 minutes of the game would have been worked out. But 15 A-Bombs.... "Game Over"

Edited by draiocht, 09 July 2016 - 10:35 AM.
edited out vulgarity

[Appogee]

Ain't no such thing as a Short Tom.

So you're going to just have to deal with the Long Tom.

Oh, and scout more.

feeWAIVER, on 05 June 2016 - 06:55 PM, said:

Still waiting on the "Long Tom is fine, just Scout better" crowd to chime in..

You're welcome.

[DivBy0]

No, the player must not deal with [Long Tom]. They can decide not ot play against it and do anything else. Exactly that is what they do. Many of them have also decided not to play the unbalanced Skill Crow Mode (and Yes... I know how to kill Skill Crows. I must have killed hundreds of them. But the Tier 4/5 IS pugs can not handle them). The player have decided to play Quick Play instead Merc Wars with [Long Tom] (working title is FW) and when they get bored of it, they play another game. Problem solved for them :-(
I hope some of them come back when PGI fix the greatest problems. But I fear many are lost :-(
But it seems that PGI is not willing to fix the Phase 3 problems. They will not get rid of this stupid [Long Tom] (in fact they have unnerfed it with the last patch) and replace it with something else and it seems that they are not going to reduce the scout tonnage or do anything else to balanced this scouting mini game a little bit. There are many other problems who need to be solved (to many fractions, pointless to be a loyalist, no enough game modes, map design in FW, strange objecives in FW....) too.

I love MWO and many things a really great in this game but maybe it is time for me to take a break too (I know... only few will miss me... maybe Xsolla)

Appogee, on 10 June 2016 - 04:39 AM, said:

Ain't no such thing as a Short Tom.

So you're going to just have to deal with the Long Tom.

Oh, and scout more.


You're welcome.

Edited by draiocht, 09 July 2016 - 10:34 AM.
edited out vulgarity

[Flyingleanpocket]

Willard Phule, on 06 June 2016 - 02:35 AM, said:

I agree, the Long Tom simply isn't fair. ESPECIALLY when you end up on a team that can't muster the initiative to actually go through the gate and get the job done.

It sucks when 10 of the 12 guys on your team just cluster up together, stand still, zoom in and wait for LRM targets.....only to get plowed under by the Long Tom.

This is wrong. You want to make stupidity like this as miserable as possible, to disincentivize cowardice. So if 10 idiots cant muster the balls to press W and choose to stand huddled around whining about holding locks they all deserve to get instagibbed by long tom

[Dreammirror]

I would change it to Arrow-IV tag designated rounds. Keep the timer and damage, but required a tag lock from you or a teammate when it comes in or it misses. Damage is high but hits one enemy mech. My 2 cents.

[Baulven]

I would just suggest lowering it to 25-30 damage splashed in 5 of increments on mechs within 100m and decreasing by 5 every 25 meters. Long Tom in TH was powerful but not wreck entire groups in one shot powerful.

[Ace Selin]

Appogee, on 10 June 2016 - 04:39 AM, said:

Ain't no such thing as a Short Tom.

So you're going to just have to deal with the Long Tom.

Oh, and scout more.


You're welcome.

Lawl are you dense or simply want to kill off FW? Serious question.

Because LongTom is driving players from the game mode, hundreds and hundreds of players and if you think FW doesn't need them at all then you are seriously deluded or want the mode to fail.

Edited by Ace Selin, 10 June 2016 - 10:06 PM.

[Willard Phule]

Seems to me the solution is pretty simple. Pay attention.

If the new players in your faction can't win the Long Tom for your invasion team, don't join the invasion. If the scouts blow it, then let the other guys keep their planet.

Pretty simple. If you can't get the job done, don't bother to try.

[DivBy0]

Your pretty simple "solution" is don´t play FW, right?
Very simple but not very pretty, but it seems half of the former player from phase 2 invented this "pretty simple solution" too :-(

Willard Phule, on 11 June 2016 - 02:19 AM, said:

Seems to me the solution is pretty simple. Pay attention.

If the new players in your faction can't win the Long Tom for your invasion team, don't join the invasion. If the scouts blow it, then let the other guys keep their planet.

Pretty simple. If you can't get the job done, don't bother to try.

[TELEFORCE]

I haven't played FP since I made this topic. I'm still pretty frustrated by that experience.