39 replies to this topic

[Dee Eight]

AIRBERG, on 24 March 2017 - 06:46 AM, said:

This change is crap. As if Inner Sphere mechs didn't have a hard enough time vs clan mechs to begin with, now you go ahead and nerf something that gave us some balance. If this change is to stay for good, I believe Clan LRMs deserve a spread nerf as well. It's not our fault people don't use AMS and then cry about LRM boats destroying them. Revert LRM 5s back and give AMS a boost such as 1/2 ton lighter. It seems ridiculous that the tiny little gun on your shoulder shooting missiles down weighs 1.5 tons and 1 ton of ammo is only 2k rounds but a Machine Gun is .5 tons and 2k ammo for 1 ton... how about letting machine guns act as AMS does but you manually shoot the missiles. I think that could add a fun mechanic to the game

What game are you playing exactly? AMS is 0.5 tons, same as a MG. The ammo is the same shots per ton. AMS does more damage per shot against missiles than MGs do as well (3.5 vs 0.095). MGs can already shoot missiles, as can any other weapon. That's why you see a lot of higher skilled players torso / arm pitch upwards and fire lasers into the path of missile flights. Flamers used to be particularly effective at it before they altered how they worked a year ago. A firestarter with dual AMS and four flamers could provide excellent point defence against LRMs before.

[BlueFlames]

AIRBERG, on 24 March 2017 - 06:46 AM, said:

This change is crap. As if Inner Sphere mechs didn't have a hard enough time vs clan mechs to begin with, now you go ahead and nerf something that gave us some balance. If this change is to stay for good, I believe Clan LRMs deserve a spread nerf as well.

From the patch notes (emphasis mine):

Quote

LRM5 (IS and Clan)
• Spread increased to 4.2 (from 3).

So many things with this game that you could legitimately complain about, and you choose to make up a fictional instance of Clan bias.

[Tesunie]

AIRBERG, on 24 March 2017 - 06:46 AM, said:

This change is crap. As if Inner Sphere mechs didn't have a hard enough time vs clan mechs to begin with, now you go ahead and nerf something that gave us some balance. If this change is to stay for good, I believe Clan LRMs deserve a spread nerf as well. It's not our fault people don't use AMS and then cry about LRM boats destroying them. Revert LRM 5s back and give AMS a boost such as 1/2 ton lighter. It seems ridiculous that the tiny little gun on your shoulder shooting missiles down weighs 1.5 tons and 1 ton of ammo is only 2k rounds but a Machine Gun is .5 tons and 2k ammo for 1 ton... how about letting machine guns act as AMS does but you manually shoot the missiles. I think that could add a fun mechanic to the game

Um... Dude? AMS weights 0.5 tons on it's own... It's basically a MG with tracking systems.

As for the LRM5 nerf, I believe even Clan LRM5s got hit with wider spread as well. Even then, LRM5s have long since been out performing larger launchers. It wasn't until recently that the larger launchers started to get some attention. This latest nerf to the LRM5 just helps bring all LRMs into better alignment with each other.

And I'm saying this as an LRM user myself. Clan AND IS LRMs...

[Tesunie]

Dee Eight, on 24 March 2017 - 09:43 AM, said:

What game are you playing exactly? AMS is 0.5 tons, same as a MG. The ammo is the same shots per ton. AMS does more damage per shot against missiles than MGs do as well (3.5 vs 0.095). MGs can already shoot missiles, as can any other weapon. That's why you see a lot of higher skilled players torso / arm pitch upwards and fire lasers into the path of missile flights. Flamers used to be particularly effective at it before they altered how they worked a year ago. A firestarter with dual AMS and four flamers could provide excellent point defence against LRMs before.

I have observed some players attempting to shoot LRMs down manually, and I have never seen it work at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe you've ever been able to shoot LRMs down with anything other than AMS. I've also never seen more advanced players shoot skyward at LRMs, but I do see them look downward and turn a side torso to the incoming LRMs as they move to break the lock...

As I said though, I could be completely wrong, but I've never observed that as a functioning mechanic... Anyway someone could test this?

[Dee Eight]

Private match 1v1. It works but the trick is actually getting the aim right. The missiles are moving 160 meters per second afterall. Best results come when they've begun their downwards arc of their flight path. You might only get ONE or two missiles per volley... but if you have nothing else to do with your weapons at the time... take a chance and try it.

[D V Devnull]

Dee Eight, on 25 March 2017 - 04:50 AM, said:

Private match 1v1. It works but the trick is actually getting the aim right. The missiles are moving 160 meters per second afterall. Best results come when they've begun their downwards arc of their flight path. You might only get ONE or two missiles per volley... but if you have nothing else to do with your weapons at the time... take a chance and try it.

Well, that's it for LRM5's... Hitting with that few missiles in an LRM5 is unacceptable, and will cause unnecessary weapon deprecation. I could be okay with only hitting with 3 of the 5 missiles, but only 1 is too few. I just KNEW that PGI had set the spread too high. *facedesk*

~D. V. "Well, there goes a weapon into disuse..." Devnull

[Tesunie]

D V Devnull, on 25 March 2017 - 05:16 AM, said:

Well, that's it for LRM5's... Hitting with that few missiles in an LRM5 is unacceptable, and will cause unnecessary weapon deprecation. I could be okay with only hitting with 3 of the 5 missiles, but only 1 is too few. I just KNEW that PGI had set the spread too high. *facedesk*

~D. V. "Well, there goes a weapon into disuse..." Devnull

He's talking about being able to shoot down incoming LRMs, and being able to shoot down 1 or 2 incoming LRMs manually with your weapons, such as MGs and lasers.

[The6thMessenger]

I find the change totally ********. LRM5s in the build is precisely because larger launchers ain't viable, so being artemis-independent means LRM5s have a niche in still having okay LRMs provided with many hardpoints sacrificed, and high heat, and still have good ammo, without being tonnage intensive.

If they wanna push this nerf, what should have happened s that LRM5s without artemis, has the same spread as the LRM10 with Artemis.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 25 March 2017 - 04:52 PM.

[Tesunie]

The6thMessenger, on 25 March 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

I find the change totally ********. LRM5s in the build is precisely because larger launchers ain't viable, so being artemis-independent means LRM5s have a niche in still having okay LRMs provided with many hardpoints sacrificed, and high heat, and still have good ammo, without being tonnage intensive.

If they wanna push this nerf, what should have happened s that LRM5s without artemis, has the same spread as the LRM10 with Artemis.

The problem with LRM5s wasn't them being used in tonnage starved builds to have an alternative weapon, the problem was "LRM5s are so good, it's the only LRM system you should take, the others are not worth it".

Now, I'm not going to claim if this exact change is good or too much, but something did need to be done. The LRM5s where too good, especially when boated with lots of missile hard points.

[Dee Eight]

Exactly...like the Archer 5W... why carry two LRM20s when 9 LRM5s work soooo much better. Same total heat, fire it in 3 groups of 3...less tonnage and crit spaces...faster cool down and smaller spreads. Oh and more total missiles. Granted the 5W is unique in having 9 missile hardpoints... but there were lots of other mechs where the "lore" loadout was a pair of large launchers and because of PGI's hardpoint creep urges and overt favouring of the LRM5s...what this game actually has is a lot of small launchers.

Edited by Dee Eight, 26 March 2017 - 07:16 AM.

[D V Devnull]

Tesunie, on 25 March 2017 - 01:07 PM, said:

He's talking about being able to shoot down incoming LRMs, and being able to shoot down 1 or 2 incoming LRMs manually with your weapons, such as MGs and lasers.

Oh... I misread that, then. Whoops.

~D. V. "Oops..." Devnull

[D V Devnull]

Dee Eight, on 26 March 2017 - 07:13 AM, said:

Exactly...like the Archer 5W... why carry two LRM20s when 9 LRM5s work soooo much better. Same total heat, fire it in 3 groups of 3...less tonnage and crit spaces...faster cool down and smaller spreads. Oh and more total missiles. Granted the 5W is unique in having 9 missile hardpoints... but there were lots of other mechs where the "lore" loadout was a pair of large launchers and because of PGI's hardpoint creep urges and overt favouring of the LRM5s...what this game actually has is a lot of small launchers.

Of course, a loadout like that also comes with problems. If you're all LRMs, you don't have short-range backup weaponry. So, I see what PGI was trying to defeat. But at the same time, they've also gone a little too far in doing so, and hurt everyone who was NOT boating those. Let's hope they narrow it back up just a little, from that '4.2' to either a '3.9' or '3.8'?

~D. V. "Can't really expect PGI to do something actually smart, though..." Devnull

[The Lobsters]

The6thMessenger, on 25 March 2017 - 04:45 PM, said:

If they wanna push this nerf, what should have happened s that LRM5s without artemis, has the same spread as the LRM10 with Artemis.

That would in fact be a straight buff for lrm 5's from 3m spread to 2.8m spread. Their basic spread is 4.2m now.

[Dee Eight]

Ok I took my ARC-5W out... its SRM20 and LRM25... chain firing the LRM5s...over 3 games... 6 kills for 2 deaths, about 1600 damage total. A dozen or so components destroyed.

[D V Devnull]

Dee Eight, on 26 March 2017 - 12:49 PM, said:

Ok I took my ARC-5W out... its SRM20 and LRM25... chain firing the LRM5s...over 3 games... 6 kills for 2 deaths, about 1600 damage total. A dozen or so components destroyed.

Given what you said earlier about its' damage numbers...

Dee Eight, on 23 March 2017 - 07:47 AM, said:

Once I get bored with my Assassins I'll take out my ARC-5W and see if the spread change has altered its habit of regularly having 700-1100 damage games or not.

...it looks like your design, and any similar ones, have taken a rather drastic hit. That's a difference of anywhere from 500 to 1500 damage total across a measured 3 game run, which is an earth-splitting balance change. That's too much of a spread increase, for a Mech that I figure used to get at least a few more kills in.

This pretty much confirms my sentiment about PGI always doing overkill with their bloody Nerf Bat whenever they change anything. Now I'm wondering if PGI's Developers have the mental ability to do any kind of across-the-board buff to compensate for anything. Eventually, they're going to release something that would force it, and they may land up breaking the game completely if they try to just keep Nerfing to adjust.

~D. V. "Of all the awful misbalancings... Damnit, PGI!!!" Devnull

[Tesunie]

D V Devnull, on 26 March 2017 - 11:41 PM, said:

Given what you said earlier about its' damage numbers...

...it looks like your design, and any similar ones, have taken a rather drastic hit. That's a difference of anywhere from 500 to 1500 damage total across a measured 3 game run, which is an earth-splitting balance change. That's too much of a spread increase, for a Mech that I figure used to get at least a few more kills in.

This pretty much confirms my sentiment about PGI always doing overkill with their bloody Nerf Bat whenever they change anything. Now I'm wondering if PGI's Developers have the mental ability to do any kind of across-the-board buff to compensate for anything. Eventually, they're going to release something that would force it, and they may land up breaking the game completely if they try to just keep Nerfing to adjust.

~D. V. "Of all the awful misbalancings... Damnit, PGI!!!" Devnull

That breaks down to (if his numbers are accurate and combining all three games) a total of 534 damage per game. Considering that is 5 LRM5s, and I'm going to guess mostly using those LRM5s for damage(?), it seems reasonable to me for the class of weapon it is.

I'll say again though that maybe the spread was adjusted too much, but the overall change I so far am still in agreement with. (AKA: I believe LRM5s needed something done, most likely a change to their spread. Not sure if it's gone too far or is sitting well at this moment.)


Personally speaking, I'd rather change how LRMs work completely... Make every launcher have LRMs seek like SSRMs do, but instead of per missile, it would be per group of five missiles. This all but removes the need for spreading the shots (you would need a very small spread for each cluster of missiles for visual effects most likely). Then, have Artemis increase the chances of your shots homing in on the torso sections over the arms.

The problem with any spread mechanic is that it depends upon the targets size, and hit box shapes on how effective it's going to be. A mech with large hit boxes and large size means that the spread weapons are more effective. A mech with smaller hit boxes and smaller sizes means those same spread weapons are less effective against.

Now, if size indicated armor values, that may remain balanced, as smaller targets have less health, so the fewer missiles hitting is dealing "about the same damage", but as that isn't really the case in MW:O (where the Catapult and Wolfhound are the size of a medium mech), spread weapons aren't as reliable here. You even have some mechs where they have small hit boxes for some locations, or in other cases hit boxes that increase dramatically in size just by taking a specific weapon in said location. (Ebon Jaguar makes for a good example, and most any missile hard point for LRMs gets extra large for it. Compare the arm hit boxes of the Summoner between LRMs mounted and SRMs...)

[Dee Eight]

The first game was over 700, 4 kills no death, the second was 400ish 4 assists and died, third was 2 kills and died and 500ish damage. First and second games didn't use the SRMs. 3rd game I did.

[OmniFail]

Whatever……..

The truth is that they have nerfed a weapon that was arguably amongst the top four weakest weapons in the game. They claim they did this to make players use the larger launchers because the LRM5s where a more appealing choice because of their efficacy and players were less likely to use the more poorly performing weapons. So instead giving a buff to the under performing weapons they nerfed the appealing weapon.

At the very crux of this conversation is the question of spread. Before the patch a single volley from a cLRM5 would land four hits on the CT of the Atlas in the testing grounds and one on one of the adjacent components. After the patch a single volley now lands three hits on the CT and two hits on random adjacent components. So if a player considers time to core a CT as effective damage and the damage to the adjacent components of the target much and ineffective damage it is easy to see that effective damage has decreased by 25%. The reason I call the rest the damage ineffective damage is because if the hits on random adjacent components of the target only do one point to two components each volley and then only 50% of the time because there are four adjacent components it could take up to eighty volleys to destroy one of the adjacent components. Now a single volley of a cLRM5 now does 3 points of effective damage. This is way less than a small laser and this is not considering hard counters like AMS. It also takes more tons of ammo because of the wasted rounds. In theory it should take around 33 volleys to core a Kodiak with a 100-point CT. With all that being said I am still doing the same amount of damage but kills and components destroyed are dropping through the floor. It’s because of all the wasted rounds.

Now I would really love it if PGI would make LRM10s and LRM15 worth it. Maybe try making LRM15s spread tighter so you can actually feel like your killing your targets instead of slowly sanding away their paint. I have some really killer builds I would use if they were slightly better than they are now. Which is very much like raining confetti down on my enemies. But it is a fact that players use the LRM5s because they get results with them. Now after the patch players do not get results from the LRM5s. But players are not going to move to the LRM10s and LRM15s because they are still not going to get the desired results with them either that’s why they were not using them in the first place. And to get those desired results with the larger launches they are going to need more tonnage to work with to mount enough launchers and the additional equipment to make them effective. This encourages players to make things like the LRM Sprite Bears and Lurm Atlases. Also medium and light mechs will be less likely to equip LRMs because they lack the tonnage to make them effective and they will never have the space to put artimes on a bunch of LRM5s to make them effective.

Now another thing to note is that patch notes state that “Like the SRM4 changes, after testing these values on the PTS we have decided to roll over these changes to the main game to better balance the LRM5 against the other launcher types.” Now I don’t really believe the part about the balancing against the other launchers. But It does seem to me that this is the PTS with the skill tree where players can buy tighter spreads with their skill points. I’m just saying it’s not working out in the real world right now because I can’t spend the skill points to fix my spread. It also feels a lot like the idea of shortening the range of LRM’s to make the players spend skill points on getting back to where they were before idea PGI to sell us.

Now one more thing about all of this. All the time I read posts where people talk about how ineffective LRMs are and with the exception of how the LRM5s where before the patch and heavy/assault mechs boating an insane number of the larger launchers. And they are right. Teams in community warfare just want to win so badly that they just can be bothered with the second rate light and medium LRM boats because they are ineffective and do not give good returns on their tonnage. And they are right. They also don’t like players using heavy and assaults because with LRMs current state the armor would be better used soaking up damage and boating more direct fire weapons on the front line. And they are once again right. The reason they are right is because PGI keeps suppressing the effectiveness of LRMs in order to coddle the Alpha Strikers who can’t be bothered to carry counters or learn to play with LRMs mechanics.

Anyway I’m tired of wasting my breath here.

I’m gonna stick it out for another month or so and hope the PGI addresses these problems. If not I will spend the last of my C-bills and MC to buy a drop ship homing beacon to remove my obsolete mech from the battle field and fly away to some other fight in another world. I want even be mad I got my money’s worth and I had a lot of fun. But I’m not having so much fun anymore and nothing last forever anyway.

Edited by OmniFail, 27 March 2017 - 07:58 PM.

[Tesunie]

Long post is long, so I'm going to address it in pieces. And no, I'm not necessarily in disagreement with you, but I feel some things needed to be said here is all. Sorry if this gets long.

OmniFail, on 27 March 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

Whatever……..

The truth is that they have nerfed a weapon that was arguably amongst the top four weakest weapons in the game. They claim they did this to make players use the larger launchers because the LRM5s where a more appealing choice because of their efficacy and players were less likely to use the more poorly performing weapons. So instead giving a buff to the under performing weapons they nerfed the appealing weapon.

Actually... They have buffed larger launchers. A few patches ago. However, LRM5s where still running so well, no one (except for me it seems) seemed to have noticed. Many people just looked at the buff, and didn't even try it out because their LRM5 boat was still working so effectively.

I've been using the larger launchers for some time now, even before the buff. Many people called them useless, but I found them to be very handy on some of my builds. I actually stopped using LRM5s for the most part, especially after the recent buffs to the larger launchers. Of course this is just me, and my sanity should not be questioned. (If you question it, you may deem me crazy.)

OmniFail, on 27 March 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

At the very crux of this conversation is the question of spread. Before the patch a single volley from a cLRM5 would land four hits on the CT of the Atlas in the testing grounds and one on one of the adjacent components. After the patch a single volley now lands three hits on the CT and two hits on random adjacent components. So if a player considers time to core a CT as effective damage and the damage to the adjacent components of the target much and ineffective damage it is easy to see that effective damage has decreased by 25%. The reason I call the rest the damage ineffective damage is because if the hits on random adjacent components of the target only do one point to two components each volley and then only 50% of the time because there are four adjacent components it could take up to eighty volleys to destroy one of the adjacent components. Now a single volley of a cLRM5 now does 3 points of effective damage. This is way less than a small laser and this is not considering hard counters like AMS. It also takes more tons of ammo because of the wasted rounds. In theory it should take around 33 volleys to core a Kodiak with a 100-point CT. With all that being said I am still doing the same amount of damage but kills and components destroyed are dropping through the floor. It’s because of all the wasted rounds.

Now I would really love it if PGI would make LRM10s and LRM15 worth it. Maybe try making LRM15s spread tighter so you can actually feel like your killing your targets instead of slowly sanding away their paint. I have some really killer builds I would use if they were slightly better than they are now. Which is very much like raining confetti down on my enemies. But it is a fact that players use the LRM5s because they get results with them. Now after the patch players do not get results from the LRM5s. But players are not going to move to the LRM10s and LRM15s because they are still not going to get the desired results with them either that’s why they were not using them in the first place. And to get those desired results with the larger launches they are going to need more tonnage to work with to mount enough launchers and the additional equipment to make them effective. This encourages players to make things like the LRM Sprite Bears and Lurm Atlases. Also medium and light mechs will be less likely to equip LRMs because they lack the tonnage to make them effective and they will never have the space to put artimes on a bunch of LRM5s to make them effective.

Here I would make the point that LRMs are far more of a utility weapon, than a direct damage dealing weapon. Often times, LRMs are used for more than just damage, and have flexibility in how they can be used. As such, they pay for this in other areas, such as direct damage and ability to out right kill.

Do consider that LRMs are the only weapon in the game currently that can shoot indirectly. No other weapon has such a capability. As such, they are hindered slightly in the damage department, in the form of spreading the damage around a bit. I find this to be a reasonable pay off.

They are also the only weapon in the game with direct counters and support gear, which can really throw them off from what they can do. And this is part of where we get into balancing issues in my opinion. If played with the support gear against a foe with no counters, they complain that LRMs are too good. If the other way, they laugh and say LRMs are bad. Too many people have complained that LRMs are too good without learning how to counter them and/or take the gear that helps counter them. Because of this, LRMs got nerfed. Now they are being buffed again, but first they need to be placed at an equal level.

AKA: No one LRM system should be out performing the others. The LRM5 has been doing so for some time, and it's now being brought back into line with it's larger brothers. Don't know if it's there yet, but I think it's a good start to work from. Then, continue to adjust from there as needed.

OmniFail, on 27 March 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

Now another thing to note is that patch notes state that “Like the SRM4 changes, after testing these values on the PTS we have decided to roll over these changes to the main game to better balance the LRM5 against the other launcher types.” Now I don’t really believe the part about the balancing against the other launchers. But It does seem to me that this is the PTS with the skill tree where players can buy tighter spreads with their skill points. I’m just saying it’s not working out in the real world right now because I can’t spend the skill points to fix my spread. It also feels a lot like the idea of shortening the range of LRM’s to make the players spend skill points on getting back to where they were before idea PGI to sell us.

Probably some good points there. This change may be more warranted after the new skill tree makes it in, or maybe just more obvious. It's something to consider.

OmniFail, on 27 March 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

Now one more thing about all of this. All the time I read posts where people talk about how ineffective LRMs are and with the exception of how the LRM5s where before the patch and heavy/assault mechs boating an insane number of the larger launchers. And they are right. Teams in community warfare just want to win so badly that they just can be bothered with the second rate light and medium LRM boats because they are ineffective and do not give good returns on their tonnage. And they are right. They also don’t like players using heavy and assaults because with LRMs current state the armor would be better used soaking up damage and boating more direct fire weapons on the front line. And they are once again right. The reason they are right is because PGI keeps suppressing the effectiveness of LRMs in order to coddle the Alpha Strikers who can’t be bothered to carry counters or learn to play with LRMs mechanics.

This is a point I contest a little. I bring LRMs into CW, and I do rather well with it. It has little to do with the weapon systems, but how people are typically using them. Most players, sadly, use LRMs as a purely support weapon, used only indirectly and from as far back as possible. This leads to much of your team being more forwards and more alone.

I use my LRMs on the front lines, without boating them. I have reasonable results when I use them, and can often times pull good numbers with them. Then again, I'm not packing just LRMs, and I use them to compliment the rest of my build.

To some extent, LRMs are bad. To another, they are good. Depends upon what you are wanting out of them and how well your team utilizes them.

Compared to direct fire weapons, in a direct fire situation, yes. LRMs are not that great. When used in combination of other direct fire weapons, you can really use cover and other teammates more effectively. Should see me in my Huntsmen sometimes... Jump up, get a lock, laser someone with my 5 ERMLs, and depart leaving a gift of 25 incoming LRMs as I land behind cover. If I've got a teammate with a lock after, I may be able to deliver more gifts as I cool down from that alpha...

OmniFail, on 27 March 2017 - 07:57 PM, said:

Anyway I’m tired of wasting my breath here.

I’m gonna stick it out for another month or so and hope the PGI addresses these problems. If not I will spend the last of my C-bills and MC to buy a drop ship homing beacon to remove my obsolete mech from the battle field and fly away to some other fight in another world. I want even be mad I got my money’s worth and I had a lot of fun. But I’m not having so much fun anymore and nothing last forever anyway.

I've been talking about LRMs for probably a thousand posts or even more. LRMs are not something that is very easy to balance, as they are just so flexible. Change one aspect too much, and they can be too deadly. Go the other way too much, and they become fireworks... So many things one can adjust, spread, speed, range, arc, damage, reload speeds... Then you have their counters and support systems.

They can't be too powerful when there are no counters, but they can't be too weak when there are counters available. Then you have the different levels of play, from top tier to new player. We've had a lot of issues with LRMs being too powerful at the lower tiers of play, and yet not powerful enough at high levels.

(I will remark, LRMs are viable at higher levels of play. I will say though, typically the skills required to use LRMs effectively at higher levels of play is much more than other weapons typically. They require more effort in those levels of play, which means they aren't as favored as other weapons tend to be, which deal their damage more reliably and with less effort to do so.)

[Captain Grayson Lighthorse]

Dee Eight, on 22 March 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

Countered by AMS requires players who'll actually USE AMS on their mechs. The majority do not. And yes the LRM5 was the standout size except for heat. For mechs with lots of hardpoints, boating LRM5s makes more sense than carrying a couple larger launchers. Faster ROF, less tonnage, smaller spread, and you can group up to 3 of them at a time without ghost heat (all other sizes its pairs only) meaning they'll do 15 missiles for less tonnage and a much smaller spread than a single LRM15 launcher for only 1 more heat. Boated LRM5s is one of the reasons there was a fight to get an AMS equipped mech into the latest round of champions... as they are used as trial mechs and no other champion in the game so far had AMS equipped which could simply be placed into rotation. Even when the tech advance happens, I suspect few will use the Laser version of the AMS anymore than they use the version we already have.

The reason I don't use AMS is that it is not effective enough at stopping missiles! It's basically taking up space for a useless device that I can put to better use loading something else in its place in my Mech. I've tried AMS several times and really couldn't tell that it was doing much of anything at all except making a lot of noise. It seemed to me that the missiles hit me anyway. From my tests, it was totally useless, and I doubt that the new Laser AMS will be any better.

I keep seeing all of this crap about decreasing weapon's effectiveness and putting things in place that DECREASE ROF, INCREASE missile spread, DECREASE targeting computer effectiveness, INCREASE heat/ghost heat, DECREASE range, DECREASE damage at longer range, DECREASE the number of weapons of a specific type that can be fired together without SEVERE heat penalties, DECREASE the crit chances on PPCs and Gauss Rifles and others, ... IT'S ALL CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!!!

I'm sick and tired of having all of the EFFECTIVE WEAPONS neutered - balanced - normalized - RUINED!!!!!

After the 3/2017 update I was TRYING to use IS LRM 15 in a couple of games and the targeting system has been destroyed! It couldn't maintain a target lock for more than 2 or 3 seconds on ANY target. And I tried using Artemis, Beagle Probe, and the enhanced Targeting Module and it STILL WOULDN'T HOLD A LOCK! Couldn't even get it to maintain a lock on targets with line of site! If this is what they call IMPROVEMENTS or BALANCING, I DON'T WANT ANY OF IT!!!

And about the LRM5... After dieing from trying to use the crippled LRM15 I had in my Mech, I was spectating on someone that had 5 or 6 LRM5s in theirs. He helped take down one Mech and started firing on a King Crab. He was firing them continuously and it took FOREVER for him to deliver significant damage to the target. The damage was being spread all over and nothing was being concentrated in the center torso or anywhere else on the target. Now this is NOT a weapon that needs to have its damage potential DECREASED!!! It's already low enough. This is not a weapon that is worth having much of in a Mech thanks to all of this balancing - normalizing - neutering going on. It needs to have damage INCREASED, or at least the target lockon STAY locked on!

Some players, (especially the upper tier players) don't like LRMs because they hurt them without them being able to fire back. Awe, poor babies. Let me get you a pacifier? I like running a brawling Mech, which means I get rained on quite often; and many times destroyed if I am dumb enough to get out in the open where the LRM boats can get a lock on me. Brawlers and direct fire units are supposed to wait behind cover until the LRM boats have softened up the enemy. But, you always have these people that want to run head long into the center of the enemy force and and then ***** up a storm because everyone else didn't follow their stupid tactic. PATIENTS is a part of winning the game also.

LRMs are a weapon in the game and if you don't bring them to the battle and the other team does then you deserve to get your butt kicked for NOT bringing any. ANY weapon that allows you to put down damage on your opponent WITHOUT taking damage yourself is a pretty logical weapon to bring to a fight from any battle tactical perspective.

With the new Civil War pack coming out and all of the new weapons, I would imaging that there might be about one week of good weapons with some decent damage capability before the whinney-*** crowd screams loud enough to get them all neutered - balanced - normalized - RUINED for the rest of us.

I want my weapons and Mechs at full power and potential. Period!