Okay. I'm going to mostly respond to only posts directly directed in my direction. (I couldn't help myself.)
MischiefSC, on 03 June 2017 - 06:27 AM, said:
I hear this said a lot and it flat out isn't true.
Competitive play, both in context of real comp teams and even just teams that work hard at winning are constantly looking for new strategies, tactics and approaches. This consists of private matches and hours of theory crafting. Building decks and playing those new strats in live matches. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
If there was any way to squeeze value out of LRMs then good players would do it. LRMs fail due to spread vs precise damage, time to target and the counters available. Because getting someone to move into cover is not as useful as killing them. Plus the guy in cover can still peek out, shoot, pull back in. Taking 20 pts of spread LRM damage to deliver a 60pt alpha to a single location is a great trade to make.
The meta for comp play has changed constantly. Poke, push, gauss/ppc, laservomit, SRM rush, it's a big bag of tricks. If LRMs worked as well they would get used.
They don't. They're good for spud farming in pug queue. People want to use them for that, great. It's pug queue, it's for derping. Saying they're actually useful but all the people who are better at the game "just don't get it" is incredibly disingenuous.
I didn't say they didn't experiement and try to find new things that work, but often times I find their tactics to be rather "straight forward" in their approach. Mostly because "outside the box thinking" doesn't always have reliable or consistent results (which I'll admit). Sometimes, it's also a matter of effort as well, and most comp players look for the most results with the least effort applies (least chance of something being able to go wrong or ease of use, not talking about being lazy, this is different). If lasers can deal the most damage currently with less effort than SRM boating (maybe do to wonky hit reg, range, spread, or even lasers just happened to deal damage easier to one location), than lasers are what gets boated (and become a meta). Then, when ACs happen to being "easier to kill something" with (quad CAC10 for example, despite comp players saying for months before that they "where awful and spread damage all over the place") due to pure DPS they can spam (where as, then pin point damage isn't as necessary when you are splatting out 100-300+ damage in seconds at a target)...
I'll let you know, when I use LRMs, most times if you even get to hear the "Incoming Missile" warning, I've probably already hit you with them. No chance of dodging most times when I'm shooting it (unless it's an indirect fire support shot or some such). If they are shot within 400m, you really don't get much time to "duck into cover", and it's really hard for me to lose a lock. Closer to minimum range grants better results. Not saying I'm a great pilot (I'm not), but I can manage to get them working fairly well. You've seen my Huntsmen stats with 100+ matches on each mech with the same build on it (so those stats are for said build specifically, for my level of play). In my instance (in example of my Huntsmen Prime build), I'll be lobbing 30 LRMs at you, most of which should hit (excluding AMS, which I'm still not seeing much of yet). Even if they don't hit, I'll also most likely be shooting you with four ERMLs, into a single component if I'm lucky/skilled enough. Typically, while I'm also popping up over terrain, reducing their effective time to react.
A lot of people, including many of the "top level comp players" seem to (in my opinion) use them poorly. Even some of the people whom I've seen (that comp LRM team vs Comp direct fire team video for example) that I know can use them reasonably well, tend to fall into the same traps as everyone else (my opinion again). They tend to boat them, depending upon DPS to counter spread, shoot indirectly, bloat the team with them... It's real easy to fall into the "boating" trap. WIth most weapons, you emphasize and expand upon your strength, and can play away from your weaknesses. With LRMs, once you boat them you tend to not only emphasize your strength, but also your weakness. Spread can quickly go from being a potential ally (counting shield siding for example) to being a detriment (you can't take advantage of any holes you may open at all). You can't play "away" from spread with LRMs, and then have to try and depend upon even MORE DPS to counter it... Creating a "feedback loop". Once you get so heavy with it, you just keep sinking. It's one of the large reasons I find LRMs most effective in a mixed build, and not placed as an entire team of LRM only mechs...
As for the bulk of my statement, I called out different levels of play, far more than how comp players do thing.
You can't possibly tell me that T5 QP plays the same as T1 QP matches, and that those matches also plat the exact same as GP (as PSR tiers don't always matter here), or again as it does in FP matches, or that those play exactly the same as top tier competitive play matches. If it truly did, then why are their PSR tiers?
Depending upon the level of play of the player, LRMs may very well be an effective and useful tool. Maybe even boating them works very well for them at that time. The question is, will they adjust and adapt as they rise in tier? Can they continue to play as they once did, or do they need to work harder or bring better tactics/weapons than before? Is that UAC2 and LPL Nova build (I've seen them) really going to continue to work "like a charm" when they finally get to T3?
I'd also mention, as an LRM user who has worked through the ranks, I've found that I've had to work harder to make LRMs as effective as I have. Against a player standing out in the open... I don't need to work all that hard. When I'm in GP with my unit, I find I really have to stay on my toes to remain as effective as I do. And yet, I continue to find that I do very well with LRMs. Even more so than with direct fire mechs, via analysis of my mech stats for over hundreds of matchs of data. I'm apparently doing "something" right, at least often enough. And I can assure you, it isn't from lack of using direct fire mechs, even my LRM mechs use direct fire weapons. I also spent almost a solid year using nothing but direct fire weapons, hardly if not even touching LRMs at all. (From the time the Crab came out, to the time the Huntsmen came out.)
LRMs are different. They have many uses. I can not say they are better nor worse than direct fire weapons, as it seems to greatly depend upon who is using them, how they are being used as well as who they are being used against.
MischiefSC, on 03 June 2017 - 10:23 AM, said:
Going to repeat this -
Why don't all these pro LRM players go dominate top tier comp play. Would love to see it. All the talk about how it would work but it never happens.
Go ahead. Anyone. Watching and waiting. Put those scrubs in their places, roll comp play with LRMs.
(Firefox went goof. I was typing and "hit enter" and it posted. What? Anyway... this is the "edit".)
I can continue to repeat what I've said, not all levels of play are competitive top tier play. Not all players are top tier competitive players. Even then, unless you do that test hundreds of times, against opponents who do not know who their opponents are going to be (so they can't "bring in the counter builds" and sabotage the results) and get only the "best of the best" LRM players in the game together (which, good luck finding those people out), it would be rather moot.
I can't say how LRMs might work in comp play. I'm not a comp player. I don't play at those levels of play. I most likely don't have the current skills/computer/internet stability to truly play at those levels of play. I can say, I seem to do rather "alright" when I'm with my unit and we drop against a comp team with "well known good players" on their team. I'm not ripping their faces off (don't expect to), but I'm also not "bottom of the team" either.
So, for my level of average game play, I seem to be holding my own or doing even better. Do I always do well? No. I have some bad matches sometimes like everyone else. If you even try to look at my "leader board stats" I'd have to remark that I also don't always run LRMs in every match, the same mech in every match, nor do I even run the same play style in every match. (Which is why I refer to individual mech stats combined with their loadouts for those specific mechs for crunching numbers. Only thing I miss out on there is average match score for said mech, which is kinda sad.)
Deathlike, on 03 June 2017 - 10:00 PM, said:
Well, my stats are already inflated for playing 1 day this season with Linebackers (zero Lurms used).
Oh well. I'm not saying cherry picked stats help, but I don't think I've ever really seen Lurmboats with anything resembling 2 k/d ratios, let alone 2 w/l ratios (even when matchscore is through the roof).
K/D really is rather irrelevant. That only tracks the person who deals the last shot on a target. If you stripped the CT of a mech out to red internals, and someone else taps it with a MG or a fraction of a laser burst and dropped the target instead, it doesn't account for you "nearly almost killing" a target.
I can not account for LRM boats on the second half, but I can state (and I can screen shot my individual mech stats with posted builds, but I think you've seen me post about them already) my LRM mechs tend to have a higher W/L ratio than my direct fire mechs do. Though I shall admit, I don't have any mechs (with 100+ matches) with a 2.0 W/L rate. I have some at 1.5, but then again I never claimed to be "the best" either... Just I seem to do well for my level of play.
PS: I think the websites "stats" page is messing up again. Suddenly I have a Huntsmen Prime(S) stat line, and it doesn't seem to be accurate at all. I also have other stat lines that, I know I played far more matches in the mech (because it was mastered in old skill system, and I didn't master it in 5 or fewer matches)... So I don't even know how reliable that information may be...
Edited by Tesunie, 04 June 2017 - 09:27 PM.
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