122 replies to this topic

[Mystere]

So two maps out of 20 are extremely LRM-friendly. That's not reason enough to remove or completely alter them.

[Kroete]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

I was looking at a different thread about LRM spread yesterday, and decided to make an answer I was going to give to a comment a thread of it's own, because it explains why we get things like the dumb spread mechanic that makes LRM20s bad weapons in the first place. Also, why weapon nerfs and buffs sometimes have more to do with atrocious map design than the weapons themselves being sub-par or over-powered:




Polar Highlands is broken, it isn't the fault of LRMs. It's like PGI doesn't even play their own damn game. Why the hell they would make a map with basically no cover high enough to block incoming LRMS just blows my mind and frustrates me to no end. The hard counter for LRMs, even if you are NARCed, is simply to put tall cover between you and the enemy missile boat, and they are rendered completely useless. You get NARCed on Polar Highlands, and you are a dead man walking. No discussion. You get targeted by a light missile spotter there: again, you are just dead. No counter possible. Get targeted by a light LRM boat like an Oxide on Polar? Yet again, you are dead and can do nothing at all about it.

If i see people crying and moaning about lrms, i dont see ams that often.
You say, there is no counter against lrms, but there is one ...

Until i see more then 8+ ams on every match, i only see metawhores and tryhards that prever crying and moaning over taking the 1.5 tons counter for lrms.

No ams, no whine!


Edit:
I missed the hardcounter magic jesus against lrms and a lot of new mechs that have ecm (one archer, one bear and not to miss the phx). But for sure its better to cry and whine then taking ams.
Poor little metawhores and tryhards get killed by a lousy weapon.

Edit2:
You know that ams shoot down missiles?
NARC = Slow moving missile

Edited by Kroete, 26 June 2016 - 06:50 AM.

[Mystere]

Kroete, on 26 June 2016 - 06:41 AM, said:

If i see people crying and moaning about lrms, i dont see ams that often.
You say, there is no counter against lrms, but there is one ...

Until i see more then 8+ ams on every match, i only see metawhores and tryhards that prever crying and moaning over taking the 1.5 tons counter for lrms.

No ams, no whine!

^^^ This! ^^^

[Bulletsponge0]

Malachy Karrde, on 26 June 2016 - 05:12 AM, said:

this works with any mech, even a dire wolf. There is plenty of cover on polar. It's not nearly as flat as it looks.

Plenty of concealment on Polar, not cover. People confuse those two terms and they are NOT interchangeable.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Malachy Karrde, on 26 June 2016 - 06:13 AM, said:

You don't need high terrain to block lrms. Any of the 100 valleys or so work if you hug the walls and remove line of sight.

Bull shite they do. Maybe in a light mech, which is small and fast enough to get away from a spotter. Look, the fact that LRMs are obviously incredibly effective there and that video of an unstoppable tactic that has no counter on that map because of inadequate high cover just speak for themselves. Balanced terrain makes for balanced gameplay. If the maps were all flat nobody would bother to use SRMs or small/med lasers, AC20s...nothing would have a place except gauss, ERLLs, LRMs, and PPCs. You need varied terrain within all maps to promote all weapons and styles of play. Otherwise you are just rolling the dice depending on what map you get as to who is going to have an unfair advantage or disadvantage. That causes weapon balance problems, and annoys players when they get randomly penalized for things beyond their control. Lack of "situational awareness" has go nothing to do with poor map balance.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Kroete, on 26 June 2016 - 06:41 AM, said:

If i see people crying and moaning about lrms, i dont see ams that often.
You say, there is no counter against lrms, but there is one ...

Dude, I have a Warhawk missile boat that runs quad LRM15s. AMS? Don't make me laugh. You will die exactly one volley slower. You can basically just negate AMS by overwhelming it, and that's why you rarely see it. In addition, there are plenty of mechs mechs with no AMS capability.

Bulletsponge0, on 26 June 2016 - 06:54 AM, said:

Plenty of concealment on Polar, not cover. People confuse those two terms and they are NOT interchangeable.

^^THIS! This guy gets it.

Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 26 June 2016 - 07:08 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

LRMs move so slow it is ridiculous. If you move diagonal to their source most of them miss if you keep moving: even on Polar. ECM counters the lock. AMS counters the missiles, as stated above. Many Mechs have the capacity to carry AMS but most do not equip them. Why is that? Because it would cut into your ability to do a massive Alpha. You make your choices in the MechLab and then you live with the consequences on the battlefield.

There is nothing wrong with LRM (except they need a buff) and there is nothing wrong with Polar. You just have to make the right chices and realize that when you make the wrong ones you are going to suffer for it.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Mystere, on 26 June 2016 - 06:22 AM, said:

So two maps out of 20 are extremely LRM-friendly. That's not reason enough to remove or completely alter them.

I was complaining about bad map design being the problem with Polar Highlands, not LRMs....

[Red Shrike]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:

I'm kind-of amazed that you even said this. At least half the matches I play on Canyon Network involve brawling around the tall central rock formation while ranged mechs snipe from the rear and sides...

That's not brawling, that's hiding. Sure, people collect around the center, but all they do is: poke out, get shot, crawl back into cover, rinse and repeat until either side has the numerical advantage. When I think of a brawl I think of mechs circle strafing each other without using cover. (As seen in the MW4:Mercs intro)

[Mcchuggernaut]

Rampage, on 26 June 2016 - 07:10 AM, said:

LRMs move so slow it is ridiculous. If you move diagonal to their source most of them miss if you keep moving: even on Polar. ECM counters the lock. AMS counters the missiles, as stated above. Many Mechs have the capacity to carry AMS but most do not equip them. Why is that? Because it would cut into your ability to do a massive Alpha. You make your choices in the MechLab and then you live with the consequences on the battlefield.

There is nothing wrong with LRM (except they need a buff) and there is nothing wrong with Polar. You just have to make the right chices and realize that when you make the wrong ones you are going to suffer for it.

As I already mentioned above, people don't bother with AMS because you can easily just completely overwhelm it. There are plenty of mechs that can't mount AMS as well.

[Mystere]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

Balanced terrain makes for balanced gameplay. ... You need varied terrain within all maps to promote all weapons and styles of play.

Not all maps should play the same (i.e. have the exact same variety of terrain). That makes them boring. A variety of maps with different terrain is better in my book.

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

Otherwise you are just rolling the dice depending on what map you get as to who is going to have an unfair advantage or disadvantage. That causes weapon balance problems, and annoys players when they get randomly penalized for things beyond their control. Lack of "situational awareness" has go nothing to do with poor map balance.

This so-called "rolling the dice" is just another name for "not preparing for any eventuality". I have absolutely no sympathy for people going full meta-***** instead of equipping for variety then crying on the forums that maps do not cater to their favorite meta-***** load out. It's also the reason I am not fond of this map "voting" thing.

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

Dude, I have a Warhawk missile boat that runs quad LRM15s. AMS? Don't make me laugh. You will die exactly one volley slower. You can basically just negate AMS by overwhelming it, and that's why you rarely see it. In addition, there are plenty of mechs mechs with no AMS capability.

Now imagine if 8-12 players created an LRM umbrella.

[Sorbic]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

Polar Highlands is broken, it isn't the fault of LRMs. It's like PGI doesn't even play their own damn game. Why the hell they would make a map with basically no cover high enough to block incoming LRMS just blows my mind and frustrates me to no end.

It's not broken it just represents another landscape as not all battles are fought in city like spaces. I do continue to be amused at how many people inexplicably continue to pretend that breaking LOS is the same as "blocking" in their responses...

Yes, when pugging getting narc'd is a hell of a thing on Polar. But it's also very rare and if you're lucky you have a friendly ECM who hasn't ran off. Spotters are more problematic but again aren't actually common. Most of the time if I'm getting LRM'd on Polar it's after a brawl ensues and the other guy somehow found the R button.

Bottom line is while there is potential for LRM's to be a pain, most games don't see enough for them to be a huge factor. Sure there are vid's of LRM heavy teams laying waste on Polar but there simply aren't that many LRM'ers due to other maps being very unfriendly to them. So suck it up and acknowledge that it's not actually a problem the vast majority of the time if one plays smart and brings AMS?

[Kroete]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:07 AM, said:

Dude, I have a Warhawk missile boat that runs quad LRM15s. AMS? Don't make me laugh. You will die exactly one volley slower. You can basically just negate AMS by overwhelming it, and that's why you rarely see it. In addition, there are plenty of mechs mechs with no AMS capability.



^^THIS! This guy gets it.

How many of your missiles will go through 8+ ams?

Which mechs are not able to mount ams?

I know, the cicada x5, maybe you can help me and say which mechs i missed?

Edited by Kroete, 26 June 2016 - 07:29 AM.

[wanderer]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 03:39 AM, said:

The hard counter for LRM

There's the problem right there.

Please, show me the hard counters to lasers, ACs, PPCs, and SRMs.

[Mystere]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:11 AM, said:

I was complaining about bad map design being the problem with Polar Highlands, not LRMs....

The maps being "bad design" is just an opinion, and something I do not share.

[Mcchuggernaut]

Red Shrike, on 26 June 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

When I think of a brawl I think of mechs circle strafing each other without using cover. (As seen in the MW4:Mercs intro)

Yeah, that looks cool in the movie and stuff, but it's really bad tactics in the actual game. You don't want to be staring at the enemy getting blasted in your CT. You want to either hit the enemy without being hit, or at least take as much damage as you can on the arms. A good "brawler" uses powerful, heat-efficient short-range weapons to overwhelm enemies at close range, with a lot of torso-twisting to stay alive and keep putting out damage.

This is a good video on the concept of trading/peeking and why it works. I didn't do this when I first started playing, and after I started doing it I improved greatly as a player:

[Flutterguy]

Technically, Polar has lots of cover high enough to block LRMs. It's just all pretty much on the edges of the map. You could try to convince your team to force engagements there if you are really that concerned about LRMs.

[wanderer]

Mcchuggernaut, on 26 June 2016 - 07:14 AM, said:

As I already mentioned above, people don't bother with AMS because you can easily just completely overwhelm it. There are plenty of mechs that can't mount AMS as well.

AMS is the equivalent of a shield wall. One is weak. I've seen entire forces using them back during some of the lurmageddon days. Eight AMS will shred an incoming volley like wet kleenex, and virtually zero (even Omnis always have a pod with AMS) 'Mechs are AMS-incapable, not "plenty". Go ahead. Name a few.

If LRMs were that good, you'd see comp level players strap AMS on every design and a single LRM 5 fired through the air would have more tracers chasing it than a Gulf War air strike.

[Bishop Steiner]

Flutterguy, on 26 June 2016 - 07:27 AM, said:

Technically, Polar has lots of cover high enough to block LRMs. It's just all pretty much on the edges of the map. You could try to convince your team to force engagements there if you are really that concerned about LRMs.

stay out of the very middle and play smart, one should be fine. I am sure I have been killed and or heavily damaged by LRMs on Polar but it happens so rarely I honestly can't remember when.... and I pretty much never run ECM, and usually am too lazy to swap modules like Radar Derp.

What I am is a Medium Jock who knows that concealment and cover is life. And that there is PLENTY of it on Polar if one actually pays attention.

Also, aside from getting NARC'd and LRM'd without LoS (gratz to mr Narcer who got me, nuff said) ERLLs and PLPLs beat LRMs every single frikkin time on Polar. While they are trying to get and hold locks, yyou are melting their face.... and can do it from outside LRM range.

[Kroete]

wanderer, on 26 June 2016 - 07:31 AM, said:

AMS is the equivalent of a shield wall. One is weak. I've seen entire forces using them back during some of the lurmageddon days. Eight AMS will shred an incoming volley like wet kleenex, and virtually zero (even Omnis always have a pod with AMS) 'Mechs are AMS-incapable, not "plenty". Go ahead. Name a few.

If LRMs were that good, you'd see comp level players strap AMS on every design and a single LRM 5 fired through the air would have more tracers chasing it than a Gulf War air strike.

The cicada x5.
But i dont know any more, i hoped he will enlight me, but he refuses to answer as he refuses to answer how many of his 60 missiles will go through 8 ams.