413 replies to this topic

[Pjwned]

Pronotum, on 30 July 2016 - 10:15 AM, said:

Bandito, first, I will say this. Clan LB's? They are made obsolete by the less bulky, same tonnage UACs. Already from a pure DPS standpoint. That should be adressed. How to fix them, however, is a different story.

Agreed that it needs to be addressed, though I will point out that if LBX wasn't so inherently bad it would be a more desirable weapon than UACs with some builds because LBX fires all of its shells at once.

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And if we applied the same to the IS LB-10X, then suddenly the AC10 risks obsoletion.

That really depends on the solution. Like I said earlier, the critical hit system needs to be reworked instead of messing with LBX extensively, and doing that would definitely not obsolete the AC10.

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But let's not ignore what the IS LB10-X has going for it. We need to consider the fact that Hardpoints are a thing, limiting what you can do on a mech. And hardpoint combinations on mechs allow diffrerent builds... And the fact that the only good one, the IS LB-10X weighs less, and takes less slots than the AC-10. So the LB-10 should have spread as that balancer. Anyway, that one ton, one slot opens up a whole can of varied builds that you can't do with an AC/10 and that are viable. Again, an LB-10X on a Dragon? Not a bad idea. 2xLB10 Marauder? Doable.

We should not just drop ourselves to comparing the weapon stats on an excel spreadsheet. There is more to practical use than just that.

Would you like me to give you a pretty thorough explanation why LBX is bad? I thought it was a decent weapon at 1 point as well because surely taking up less space and weighing less and the extra crit seeking properties would make it at least decent...but then after looking into it I came to the conclusion that the pellet fire is just bad and the fact that the pellets spread out more the further they travel makes it even worse.

[Mcgral18]

Brain Cancer, on 30 July 2016 - 12:37 PM, said:

LB-X's would actually be useful "critseekers" if they did meaningful damage to equipment.

If I put an LB-20X into an exposed armorless torso, there should be structure left but a long list of wrecked weapons, heat sinks, and so on should be the result. By comparison, what would be junk for critseeking (big guns like the PPC, Gauss, or AC/20) should be doing a fraction of their damage to equipment.

If they upped the CritDamMult from 2x to 5x, it would be a good Crit weapon, where even the lowly LB2x has a small chance of destroying an item.

The LB20x would be monstrous, if more than 2 pellets his the same component.


As it stands, it takes 5 Crits to destroy an item, where as few as 2 and as many as 10 (RNGeesus plz) pellets need to hit the same component, and then all need to roll to Crit (0-3), and again another roll as to where the Crit damage is going.

This change makes the required (generally) 10 damage come from 2 Crits, instead of 5.

[Deathlike]

Mcgral18, on 30 July 2016 - 12:50 PM, said:

If they upped the CritDamMult from 2x to 5x, it would be a good Crit weapon, where even the lowly LB2x has a small chance of destroying an item.

The LB20x would be monstrous, if more than 2 pellets his the same component.


As it stands, it takes 5 Crits to destroy an item, where as few as 2 and as many as 10 (RNGeesus plz) pellets need to hit the same component, and then all need to roll to Crit (0-3), and again another roll as to where the Crit damage is going.

This change makes the required (generally) 10 damage come from 2 Crits, instead of 5.

Perhaps.

I hate RNGesus at times, and LBX is the instance where RNGesus works against you due to actual math involved. Compare this to like an AC20 or Gauss Rifle where even if you weren't looking to crit stuff out... it's just damn well more effective at it (headshots non-withstanding - if anything, crit damage for 10+ damage weapons need to be nerfed a tad).


It's a funny thing about math and PGI.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

Antares102, on 30 July 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

If you are Tier 3 then you are also playing against Tier 4 and 5 which have zero idea how this game is played.
And as I said I also own a IV-4 and did great with it sometimes but again this doesnt mean that it is a good mech.
Tiers do mean one thing: How high your chances are to play against total potatos.

But whatever.. so IV-4 is a good mech and LBX are ok because you are doing well with them in one mech.
Fine .. QED.. I admit defeat.

again proving you dont know what youre talking about. Ive solo dropped many many times and been put into games with the tier 1 players in my unit.

[Antares102]

Deathlike, on 30 July 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

This thread will never go away.

The reality is that while you can say that LBX is serviceable, but it's just inferior to the alternatives.

I'll have fun running LBX... but it's just not even a comp viable option.

Bad weapons (and mechs) are classified bad for good reason. You might get a good game with them, but... they'll never really win out if you can aim with a better weapon.

To all those "LBX are ok" ...
My feeling is that this is about the 5th post other than me stating that while LBX might be ok
there are just better alternatives and nobody uses LBX in competitive play.

[Antares102]

Deethree, on 30 July 2016 - 01:03 PM, said:

again proving you dont know what youre talking about. Ive solo dropped many many times and been put into games with the tier 1 players in my unit.

You are playing against Tier 1 yes BUT you are also playing against Tier 4 and 5 which makes your games easier
and you will have more situations in which you can exploit the potato-ness of other players, making you feel doing well in the end.

Dont tell me that at Tier 3 games are equal or more challanging that in Tier 1.

..


You know what.. lets do a 1vs1 in IV-4 you with LBX and me with AC10.
Best of 7. The winner buys the other guy a mech pack.

Edited by Antares102, 30 July 2016 - 01:16 PM.

[Positive Mental Attitude]

Holy you dont get it. The tiers dont matter.

Anytime on the 1v1 but i can already tell your not the type of person I'd want to spend a best of 7 with.

[Antares102]

Deethree, on 30 July 2016 - 01:23 PM, said:

Holy you dont get it. The tiers dont matter.

Tiers matter because the system of MWO is supposed to put
Tier 1 only in games with Tier 2 and 3
Tier 2 only in games with Tier 1, 3 and 4
Tier 3 with all other Tiers
Tier 4 only in games with Tier 2,3 and 5
Tier 5 only in games with Tier 3 and 4

Since newbies are put in Tier 5 from start at Tier 3 you have a chance to play against somebody who is just doing
his first game. This wont (should not) happen in Tier 1.
Therefore games in Tier 3 are on average easier.


..

And I am online right now, sending you a friend request.

Edited by Antares102, 30 July 2016 - 01:33 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Deethree, on 30 July 2016 - 01:23 PM, said:

Holy you dont get it. The tiers dont matter.

There are Potatos everywhere, but there are generally fewer Potatos where people have maxed their EXP bar


This is exemplified by the fact you're defending LBx as a weapon system.

[XX Sulla XX]

I have been saying this for a long long time. The LBX basically works like SRMs and should be balanced in the same way. Up the damage, and spread until there is a reason to take them.

[Brain Cancer]

Deathlike, on 30 July 2016 - 12:55 PM, said:

Perhaps.

I hate RNGesus at times, and LBX is the instance where RNGesus works against you due to actual math involved. Compare this to like an AC20 or Gauss Rifle where even if you weren't looking to crit stuff out... it's just damn well more effective at it (headshots non-withstanding - if anything, crit damage for 10+ damage weapons need to be nerfed a tad).


It's a funny thing about math and PGI.

It's literally the reverse of how you'd see people wrecking equipment in TT. Something that spreads damage in lots of small bites in TT is much more dangerous to unarmored targets, while weapons that carve large chunks out of armor/structure tend to be bad at wrecking internals.

In MWO the "lots of spread damage" weapons are absolute garbage at either. LB-X should be looking at dealing five point hits minimum per pellet to equipment, lose the whole "crits add structure damage", and TTK would go up (no more twin Gauss lucky one-shots to the head) while you'd see robots being actually being afraid of those shotgun blasts outside of point-blank range if something saws off the armor first.

[El Bandito]

Deethree, on 30 July 2016 - 11:43 AM, said:

been running lb10s on my iv-4 for a week over using the 2 ac10s... I dont even want to go back to ac10s now. I also fight you within 400 meters generally anyway and the heat advantage over ac is more dps in my book.

Even at 300-400 meters LBX is crap.

Deethree, on 30 July 2016 - 12:03 PM, said:

Ive played enough games to know what works and what doesnt. For me the lbx is working as intended and for my playstyle its better than the ac10.

Meaning he can't aim for ****.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 July 2016 - 04:14 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Antares102, on 30 July 2016 - 01:27 PM, said:

Tiers matter because the system of MWO is supposed to put
Tier 1 only in games with Tier 2 and 3
Tier 2 only in games with Tier 1, 3 and 4
Tier 3 with all other Tiers
Tier 4 only in games with Tier 2,3 and 5
Tier 5 only in games with Tier 3 and 4

Since newbies are put in Tier 5 from start at Tier 3 you have a chance to play against somebody who is just doing
his first game. This wont (should not) happen in Tier 1.
Therefore games in Tier 3 are on average easier.


..

And I am online right now, sending you a friend request.

How'd those 1v1s go?

[Random Carnage]

KDK-3 LBX variant. 2 LBX10's and 2LBX5's with 2 ERML as back-up. The way the guns fire once tweaked has a perfect cycle of 30/10/20/10 for 70 damage every couple seconds continuously, rinse and repeat. The pin point is less, certainly, but the heat is relatively low allowing for virtually continuous fire, which shouldn't be underestimated. I've had 7 kill games with this build, and 700-1100 point games are not uncommon.
When compared to the high heat, high damage alpha builds, sure, this is not a build you'd back. But as the game wears on and armor gets worn away, this build becomes devastating for cleaning up damaged mechs. Also, if you can twist away the first couple of big hits in a melee, it is often the case that the red mech runs into heat issues, at which point you can eat them with sustained fire.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Random Carnage, on 30 July 2016 - 04:50 PM, said:

KDK-3 LBX variant. 2 LBX10's and 2LBX5's with 2 ERML as back-up. The way the guns fire once tweaked has a perfect cycle of 30/10/20/10 for 70 damage every couple seconds continuously, rinse and repeat. The pin point is less, certainly, but the heat is relatively low allowing for virtually continuous fire, which shouldn't be underestimated. I've had 7 kill games with this build, and 700-1100 point games are not uncommon.
When compared to the high heat, high damage alpha builds, sure, this is not a build you'd back. But as the game wears on and armor gets worn away, this build becomes devastating for cleaning up damaged mechs. Also, if you can twist away the first couple of big hits in a melee, it is often the case that the red mech runs into heat issues, at which point you can eat them with sustained fire.

Why would you not just take dual UAC10 + dual UAC5 and just have double the DPS? You can just cut the ERMLs and bring ultras and be about the same heat generation as before but with so many more advantages?

With the Ultras getting under 700 is a bad match.

[davoodoo]

I kinda expect lbx to have rather tight spread so at optimal range it wont go further than adjacent parts aka ct shot will not go further than st's and still 60-70% pellets will hit ct and at half of optimal range basically everything hits whenever you aim.
That might make them worth using at least for is.

Edited by davoodoo, 30 July 2016 - 05:43 PM.

[Mcgral18]

davoodoo, on 30 July 2016 - 05:29 PM, said:

I kinda expect lbx to have rather tight spread so at optimal range it wont go further than adjacent parts aka ct shot will not go further than st's and still 60-70% pellets will hit ct and at half of optimal range basically everything hits whenever you aim.
That might make them worth using at least for is.

I want a cylindrical spread.

Equal at all ranges.

Of course, that's still inferior...but at least you can use it at range then.
Like how SRMs currently work. Large initial spread, then nearly static.

[El Bandito]

Mcgral18, on 30 July 2016 - 07:08 PM, said:

I want a cylindrical spread.

Equal at all ranges.

I suppose the logic behind such spread could be similar to this.

[Mcgral18]

El Bandito, on 30 July 2016 - 08:11 PM, said:

I suppose the logic behind such spread could be similar to this.

More along the lines of a band aid for the Air Burst cartridge the LBx uses in lore.
Same spread at 50M as 450M

[Deathlike]

Dartboard of Balance(tm) said:

No.