216 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

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Let me clarify - what's the problem with requiring LRMs using indirect fire to require a TAG or NARC?

Missiles would still fire in a direct fire context with their own lock. Like if you had a target you had locked with line of sight you would still be able to shoot your missiles. However to shoot LRMs with indirect fire you would need them painted with TAG or NARC.

Let's just disable parts of your weapon systems unless someone else happens to be packing TAG or NARC.

Or, of course you do so yourself, which in the case of a missile boat wanting to self-enable indirect fire means NARC. TAG is direct fire, so if you want indirect in your "must TAG/NARC" world, someone else is gonna have to TAG it.

That's right, for a fully functional LRM, you either pay your own NARC toll or hope someone wants to be random and packed TAG. Or perhaps NARC. Hoping that you had lurms.

This takes a big steaming dump on LRMs in quick play, making them even more of a niche weapon.

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LRMs are not like artillery. Artillery is extremely destructive, more so than regular man or vehicle carried weapons in terms of area destruction. LRMs are nothing like that.

Of course not. LRMs have been repeatedly nerfed for fear of their mighty potato-peeling powers.

The damage per missile has been reduced. Repeatedly. Spread has been pushed wider, so damage is further nerfed by diluting it across more locations- and dirt. TT launchers deliver every 5 missiles (or a fraction of 5) to a single location. MWO launchers shotgun the entire load in single-point dinks, including deliberately missing with parts of larger launchers (which again, nerfs damage- no other weapon system deliberately wastes damage in this fashion). Again, this dilutes LRM damage.

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LRMs do *less* damage than comparable tonnages of direct fire in actual applied, useful damage. Shooting someone with a PPC is more useful than shooting AT someone with an LRM 10. You'll land all 10 damage, it'll all arrive in a fraction of a second and all apply to one location.

And the inaccurate lurm is only this way because "Waaaah, newbies might get hurt."

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LRMs are nothing like artillery. They're just bad direct fire weapons you can shoot while hiding. That's the fundamental issue with them.

I'd cheerfully mount artillery cannon- oh wait, PGI CAN'T DO MULTI-LOCATION WEAPONS. Or Arrow -OH WAIT, SAME PROBLEM. Even mortars. Assuming PGI could figure out how to aim them to fire over hills.

The fundamental problem isn't that capacity to IDF. The problem is there's no obvious benefit to firing them directly to the average player, but there's lots of benefits to shooting them while hiding by comparison. Killing IDF does nothing to fix this, making IDF worse does nothing to fix this (rather, it just kills the weapon).

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 10 October 2017 - 12:52 PM, said:

Let's just disable parts of your weapon systems unless someone else happens to be packing TAG or NARC.

The point is to make using indirect less easy so that it's potency can be buffed in both direct fire and indirect aspects.

The fact that indirect is potent against only people who don't know better is pretty telling that there is a huge problem with the mechanic as is.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 October 2017 - 12:57 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

That's because indirect fire is more telegraphed than the Old West.

You could instantly improve IDF with one simple thing.

Turn off missile warnings. Accuracy would climb significantly with less time to dodge. Heck, if we had actual ballistic indirect fire, they wouldn't get a warning other than *BLAM*, but for some reason the slowest traveling weapon in the game gets a big flashing warning + Betty going off. To most people, IDF launches at anything save short range may as well be the Moonites, with Frylock playing the role of the guy with direct fire weapons.



Or, y'know you could just improve velocity, reduce/normalize spread and all that. You know, that complex .xml file editing bit.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 10 October 2017 - 01:09 PM, said:

That's because indirect fire is more telegraphed than the Old West.

You could instantly improve IDF with one simple thing.

Turn off missile warnings.

Or, y'know you could just improve velocity, reduce/normalize spread and all that. You know, that complex .xml file editing bit.

That still doesn't help, that actually EXACERBATES the problem in the lower tiers.

Again, that doesn't fix that it is essentially a "focus fire for dummies" in lower tiers.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 October 2017 - 01:28 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

It can't be achieved any easier way. The problem with LRMs is that they are trying to fulfill 2 separate roles, artillery and direct fire. So long as they are trying to pull double duty, they will always be lackluster in one or OP in the other. If you want indirect fire, I propose trying to get PGI to add artillery pieces that already exist so that LRMs can be re purposed and be useful for something other than spud farming outside of Polar.

Well, there's easy, and then there's lazy.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

As I said above, no, it can't. It makes more sense to separate the functionality so you can dedicate one way or the other and they can be balanced without directly affect performance of each other.

... wrong, on your previous statement is that a weapon that could function with two separate roles, such as direct or indirect fire won't be that particularly good at one thing.

My point of that is that you yourself may just not make use the feature, just as you are not using other features in comp.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

Correct, I want to remove a small option for the temporary to hopefully gain one in the very limited meta. Not that I want artillery weapons to be removed from the game, but again that dual purpose of LRMs has doomed them. I don't care whether they were able to in TT or not, let's leave artillery to actual artillery weapons that already exist in lore (hell you could even re-purpose mortars if PGI is resistant to adjusting crits of artillery).

And the thing is, there's people like us who don't want to and prefer something else.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

Yes, because it is a strategy that has a low skill floor and low skill ceiling.

Just because it is expected doesn't mean it is good.....this is a different game than TT and people need to get over themselves and accept that. IT WILL NEVER live up to this dream people have of how Mechwarrior should be especially given that this is a PvP game.

But it's not like we can't elevate those without removing the indirect fire ability.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

Teamwork is important regardless of LRMs being capable of indirect fire, that is a non-sequitur.

The strawman you made is the non-sequitur. It's not about LRMs that time, it's about the buddy lock system that compromises teamwork because of the reduction of quality of information.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 October 2017 - 08:31 PM, said:

The6thMessenger, on 09 October 2017 - 08:08 PM, said:

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 09 October 2017 - 06:41 PM, said:

The6thMessenger, on 09 October 2017 - 06:05 PM, said:

I'm all for a better LRM, but screwing over teamwork like that is just a disservice to the teamwork aspect of the game itself. Buddy locks does promote bad play, but it also affect the ability of us providing indirect-fire help or any other magic we can pull off.

Screwing over teamwork......lolwut

First, we are talking about solo queue where there virtually IS NO teamwork. Remember above? How you said people play this to just take a load off? What do they care about teamwork?

It does happen that people in Solo-Queue can coordinate, not frequently, but they can. And when they do, when people actually respond to drop-calls, it's amazing.

It takes the stars to align for both people to coordinate AND respond to drop calls. Never did I say impossible (I may have implied it) but it is extremely rare such that it should not be considered a normal experience.

As you can see, it's about team-work. The second part of LRM branched off someplace else.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

I don't think it is a problem, I think the current implementation of it is a problem. Again, low skill floor and low skill ceiling.

And then fix how it's implemented, not remove it from the game.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

Do mechs automatically come with AMS? Nor should it be required for all new players, that's indicative of a balance problem when something is required.

There's a difference with "there's no counterplay" to "counterplay is not being done at all".

AMS is not required, they could rely soley on cover the entire match, unfortunately they are just not yet good with it. What good is AMS if there isn't LRMs to defend right?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

So here is the issue. You know everyone complains about focus fire in this game? You know how LRM mechs tend to all target the first mech they get locks on? Notice the commonality here? That's the problem, in low end game it actually causes focus fire that most would otherwise not be capable of, especially since it can be done without exposure. Making all LRM users get their own locks makes that focus fire less of a thing since they can't be pre-targeting or anything like that. I almost guarantee you would see less focus on a target in the open. This is that exponential problem I was talking about earlier about lower tiers.

That's essentially what it boils down, help removing the focus fire "crutch" (I couldn't think of a better term for it) that indirect fire provides.

So you want to remove a part of the game, on the grounds that newbies are being focus-fired, so your aim is for them getting focus-fired less. Guess what, they will still get focus fired and killed.

There's not a lot we can do for them unless they straighten their play, and we wouldn't even need this mess in the first place. This lessening of the ability to focus-fire would just make mistakes much more forgiving, and would less encourage improvement, and hurt people who could actually utilize the strategy properly.

It wouldn't solve the real problem of potatoes, is that they don't utilize cover and AMS well. This will just exacerbate the problem.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

This is a slippery slope sort of argument, it is fallacious because it doesn't understand the context of the problem with LRMs.

It's called Reductio Ad Absurdium, with the use of Rhetorical Question. And the logical conclusion of this proposal is absurd. You say that it doesn't understand the context of the problem with LRMs, neither does the proposal. LRMs are bad for a lot of reasons, so does low-tier potatoes, something this proposal didn't considered.

It outlines the problem of what you want to happen, on the grounds that potatoes are idiots. If you want to remove indirect fire due to targets unable to utilize cover or AMS, what's stopping us from removing homing lrms too just because it's an unfair advantage that LRMs can home when potatoes are also bad at aiming?

Nothing that's what, and that itself is a slippery slope, that's the logical conclusion of your argument that we should do this because terribads, it's absurd and we shouldn't do it. And it's exactly that.

It's great that we're at an understanding, now we can stop with this argument.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 October 2017 - 04:03 PM.

[Brain Cancer]

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That still doesn't help, that actually EXACERBATES the problem in the lower tiers.

A weapon that kills incompetent players isn't a problem. Better weapons do so, and faster. A weapon that is ineffective against competent players is understated, and that is a problem. You don't go seal clubbing with lurms, you pull out a "real" metabuild and go turn newbies into giant robot donuts with a big ol' laser hole in the middle.

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Again, that doesn't fix that it is essentially a "focus fire for dummies" in lower tiers.

Because surely, a weapon that encourages focus fire, even unconsciously is some kind of problem. It's almost as if we don't want PUGs all aiming at the same targets and increasing their effectiveness or something.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 10 October 2017 - 03:40 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Brain Cancer, on 10 October 2017 - 03:39 PM, said:

A weapon that kills incompetent players isn't a problem. Better weapons do so, and faster.

Except they have the same skill floor, LRMs are this game's noob-tube.

Brain Cancer, on 10 October 2017 - 03:39 PM, said:

A weapon that is ineffective against competent players is understated, and that is a problem.

No disagreement.

Brain Cancer, on 10 October 2017 - 03:39 PM, said:

Because surely, a weapon that encourages focus fire, even unconsciously is some kind of problem.

It is when it doesn't match the skill floor.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

Well, there's easy, and then there's lazy.

The idea that these are mutually exclusive is fallacious.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

... wrong, on your previous statement is that a weapon that could function with two separate roles, such as direct or indirect fire won't be that particularly good at one thing.

That's kind of the rule, you don't get versatility without a cost not to mention the level of mechanic changes required to make them function acceptably at both roles.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

But it's not like we can't elevate those without removing the indirect fire ability.

Considering the changes required, it's very possible this simply isn't true. Though I'm not against making NARCs and TAG the only way to use indirect fire on LRMs as Mischief suggested (so they could behave like they did back in MW4 with NARCs) which I'm okay with given these are lock-on indirect fire weapons.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

The strawman you made is the non-sequitur. It's not about LRMs that time, it's about the buddy lock system that compromises teamwork because of the reduction of quality of information.

It doesn't compromise teamwork if you can still get the same effect through a different route. Half the time the buddy lock system isn't even useful in comp because of various reasons (sight only target identification, or flash contacts) and given you can't lock multiple targets you never get the idea of the full force through buddy locks. So I would say if it encourages people to use VOIP instead and give more accurate info, then I'm cool with it as well.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

As you can see, it's about team-work. The second part of LRM branched off someplace else.

Cool story then, pretty sure teamwork got a long just fine back in the MW4 days, and there wasn't even VOIP to use.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

And then fix how it's implemented, not remove it from the game.

Or they can add a temporary workaround until a better solution is found. The ultimate question is which is better for the longevity of the game.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

So you want to remove a part of the game, on the grounds that newbies are being focus-fired, so your aim is for them getting focus-fired less. Guess what, they will still get focus fired and killed.

Sure, but the difference in the speed of that death matters a lot to the experience, especially since LRM spam tends to cause boat loads of cockpit shake (which is a terrible mechanic as well). Ignoring the fine details is a problem. That said, I'm okay if they added an unguided indirect fire like the good ol Long Tom (or some version of it) for those that want to use indirect fire until they can figure out good mechanics to fix guided indirect fire and the force multiplication issue in lower tiers.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

This lessening of the ability to focus-fire would just make mistakes much more forgiving, and would less encourage improvement, and hurt people who could actually utilize the strategy properly.

Lol, people who "utilize strategy properly" don't rely on shared locks alone because they don't give the whole picture. You think that happens in comp? No, you rely on more detailed voice information because eyes are more reliable than sensors in this game (because sensors are all LoS based outside seismic, which isn't shared ironically).

If anything the shared locks can often cause the squirrel effect in solo queue because people drift towards a target if it is queued up long enough. Sure, if you are a player who can "strategize" properly you could utilize it, until you realize that sticking with the team rather than using that information to take up a "better position" ends up with you stranded and alone.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

It's called Reductio Ad Absurdium, with the use of Rhetorical Question. And the logical conclusion of this proposal is absurd. You say that it doesn't understand the context of the problem with LRMs, neither does the proposal. LRMs are bad for a lot of reasons, so does low-tier potatoes, something this proposal didn't considered.

LRMs are bad for many reasons, but the number one reason they haven't been buffed is because of their power in lower tiers and the mechanics that cause this lop-sidedness. PGI doesn't want to cause an LRMpocalypse to make their already bad NPE even worse. So, fix the force multiplication issue (or at least the ease of it) and then we can have an honest discussion about fixing LRMs.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 03:37 PM, said:

It outlines the problem of what you want to happen, on the grounds that potatoes are idiots. If you want to remove indirect fire due to targets unable to utilize cover or AMS, what's stopping us from removing homing lrms too just because it's an unfair advantage that LRMs can home when potatoes are also bad at aiming?

More slippery slope argument and yes, this is a slippery slope argument because of the bolded part.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

The idea that these are mutually exclusive is fallacious.

I never said that they are mutually exclusive, however i am implying that this is lazy even if it's easy.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

That's kind of the rule, you don't get versatility without a cost not to mention the level of mechanic changes required to make them function acceptably at both roles.

Min maxing, sure. However that's not exactly tackling what i just said.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Considering the changes required, it's very possible this simply isn't true. Though I'm not against making NARCs and TAG the only way to use indirect fire on LRMs as Mischief suggested (so they could behave like they did back in MW4 with NARCs) which I'm okay with given these are lock-on indirect fire weapons.

No, you just require them.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

It doesn't compromise teamwork if you can still get the same effect through a different route. Half the time the buddy lock system isn't even useful in comp because of various reasons (sight only target identification, or flash contacts) and given you can't lock multiple targets you never get the idea of the full force through buddy locks. So I would say if it encourages people to use VOIP instead and give more accurate info, then I'm cool with it as well.

Yes, a route that's barely tackled by certain people at all, with even less quality of information, in which the result is an even less amount of contribution to the team. So what if half of the time it's not useful in comp, it does not mean that it's not much more useful someplace else, or we should aspire what you people do in comp. You know what else the game offers? FP, QP, Solo, and basically fooling around. And people don't just build their skill just so they could do things what you people do at comp.

It's one thing to fix the weapon to work for comp, it's another to compromise it on the other ways of enjoying the game for the sake of comp, the elitist few. Whatever happened to your "compassion" about terribads?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Or they can add a temporary workaround until a better solution is found. The ultimate question is which is better for the longevity of the game.

Certainly not removing the indirect fire. I'd vote having a proportional reward with skill of use.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Sure, but the difference in the speed of that death matters a lot to the experience, especially since LRM spam tends to cause boat loads of cockpit shake (which is a terrible mechanic as well). Ignoring the fine details is a problem. That said, I'm okay if they added an unguided indirect fire like the good ol Long Tom (or some version of it) for those that want to use indirect fire until they can figure out good mechanics to fix guided indirect fire and the force multiplication issue in lower tiers.

And how does that prompts potatos to improve? It doesn't if they aren't punished enough for behavior they aren't suppose to be doing, such as being not careful with cover.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

Lol, people who "utilize strategy properly" don't rely on shared locks alone because they don't give the whole picture. You think that happens in comp? No, you rely on more detailed voice information because eyes are more reliable than sensors in this game (because sensors are all LoS based outside seismic, which isn't shared ironically).

Here we go again with comp, we are talking about MWO as a whole, not just comp. MWO isn't just filled with fine-tuned teams, sometimes you have to work with what you have -- implying that you don't have a fine-tuned team at most time. And you don't need to be in comp to need a good team, it can be anywhere in the game. Likewise indirect-fire can be set up, like so:

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

If anything the shared locks can often cause the squirrel effect in solo queue because people drift towards a target if it is queued up long enough. Sure, if you are a player who can "strategize" properly you could utilize it, until you realize that sticking with the team rather than using that information to take up a "better position" ends up with you stranded and alone.

Stranded and alone doesn't necessarily mean we're stuck with indirect fire, we could be with the team, but being on different covers or occupied firing lines, we are forced to fire indirectly and relied on shared locks, also UAVs.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

LRMs are bad for many reasons, but the number one reason they haven't been buffed is because of their power in lower tiers and the mechanics that cause this lop-sidedness. PGI doesn't want to cause an LRMpocalypse to make their already bad NPE even worse. So, fix the force multiplication issue (or at least the ease of it) and then we can have an honest discussion about fixing LRMs.

Terribads would still be prone to Focus Fire regardless.

And this lopsided-ness isn't just caused by simple indirect fire-support, it's combined homing missiles and indirect fire. The removal of any of the two takes away from being an LRM, we might as well remove the weapon system.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 05:10 PM, said:

More slippery slope argument and yes, this is a slippery slope argument because of the bolded part.

And again, reductio ad absurdium, that's the logic of your argument right there taken to it's logical conclusion. And while you feel that just because it's a slippery slope, it's fallacious -- it's not fallacious if the slope is actually real.

Eventually, we'd also address the fact that LRMs are homing because terribads are less capable of aiming, we cannot completely compensate for the terribads and if they find the worse weapon to be so effective they'll be nabbed by just about anything.

And if you say that you really just want the no-indirect-fire part therefore a bad slippery-slope, then what you have left is a proposal that wouldn't really address much of the problem, as the LRMs still have immense range that prevents effective counter and at the same time have the homing component that with their case it's pretty much a 100% chance of hit at such range, which is an "unfair advantage" that would still result in focus-firing of terribads. In itself is a counterproductive change and would hurt good players worse and only barely helping bad players, it's still absurd.

Remove the homing component than indirect fire, how on earth could you hit anything via indirect fire? You can't put a lead that you need an immense lead to hit, and if you do so while buffing the velocity it will still end up either-or hit, that it's not like they just couldn't move away, and would only ever be useful to those standing at the same spot at an inordinate amount of time. Absurd.

On the one hand should you accept that we also have to remove homing because terribads, then we're left of a completely different weapon it wouldn't even LRMs, or would have dubious performance within the game, which is also absurd.

Options are absurd, the conclusions are absurd, because the proposal is absurd. Reductio Ad Absurdium, the end. And if you don't know what it is:

"In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"; or argumentum ad absurdum, "argument to absurdity") is a form of argument which attempts either to disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion, or to prove one by showing that if it were not true, the result would be absurd or impossible." - Wikipedia

If you think you just defeated what i said by calling "slippery slope" therefore it's bad, you only defeated yourself cause there is such a slope. And that's the point of the use of Reductio Ad Absurdium here.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:27 AM, said:

This is a slippery slope sort of argument, it is fallacious because it doesn't understand the context of the problem with LRMs.

That's not what a slippery slope is, not understanding the context of the problem of LRMs (but it actually does) is completely unrelated to what a slippery slope is. It's:

"A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is a consequentialist logical device in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences.
...
This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fear mongering, in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. " - Wikipedia

Hey, since we're going aha moments with fallacies, here another. Argument from Fallacy:

"Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false." - Wikipedia

Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 October 2017 - 09:46 PM.

[Leggin Ho]

Lykaon, on 10 October 2017 - 12:15 PM, said:

This "sit and hide" routine is getting tired and old. Let's just stop the lies and face the truth.

EVERYBODY HIDES!

Laser boats...hide poke hide poke hide poke

Gauss/PPC...hide poke hide poke hide poke

Brawlers...hide because nobody else will advance and they get annihilated as the ONLY mechs to advance

LRM boats...hide wait for a friendly "buddy lock" but...the rest of the team is playing hide...poke...hide...poke so no useful locks happen anyway.

This is the reality of actual solo quickplay.

Every match goes down thusly...

Advance as fast as you can (screw those assault mechs) to the point of contact (you know the same grid you always run to on that particular map) see a badguy and ....you guessed it HIDE!

All this B.S. about armor sharing. It's not like any non-LRM user is doing it deliberatley.Nearly nobody says in the VOIP hey you guys up front should fall back to second line I will "SHARE MY ARMOR" for you now.

That is a myth. it's just an insidental side effect of being next in view after your team mate has run to hide.

Nobody wants to share anything in solo quickplay what "THEY" want is for "YOU" to be the one "SHARING ARMOR" so "THEY" can play hidey pokie.

Read a little closer next time and you'll see where I said in QP LRM users are not helping, in FP or a actual group when you can plan for it, LRM's can be quiet effective but then again your doing it all together as a team, not a person hiding while the rest of his team get's the crap kicked out of them as he lobs LRM's to little or no effect. Also if you think me or the team I play with hides you must not have ever played us, folks on this team don't know what the "S" button is for, just the "W" button......

Edited by Leggin Ho, 10 October 2017 - 06:08 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

I never said that they are mutually exclusive, however i am implying that this is lazy even if it's easy.

Lazy or not, it accomplishes 2 things:

• Fixes the issue with the lowered skill floor with focus fire of LRMs.
  
• Allows for both indirect (through NARC and/or TAG) and direct (LoS) to be buffed.

The reticle shake for JJs was lazy too but it still works just fine at its job.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

Min maxing, sure. However that's not exactly tackling what i just said.

Min maxing is pretty important when talking about balance.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

So what if half of the time it's not useful in comp, it does not mean that it's not much more useful someplace else, or we should aspire what you people do in comp.

If we are considering comp to be where the most cohesive team play exists and does not use a feature much and we are saying that it is still useful for team play, something just smells afoul with that sort of argument. If it is useful for team play, then it should be useful for comp. Now, without target sharing, my question is does target spotted still work, because honestly, that is more useful of a feature than target sharing simply because it lasts even after people lose locks. I would be okay with that staying honestly.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

It's one thing to fix the weapon to work for comp, it's another to compromise it on the other ways of enjoying the game for the sake of comp, the elitist few. Whatever happened to your "compassion" about terribads?

The compassion for terribads is still there, that's what the suggested fix is there for. The lack of compassion is for those who are using a weapon system that is for lack of a better word, a crutch for their inability to focus fire without a lockon indirect fire weapon. Whether you "enjoy" that play style or not is irrelevant if it is bad for the game. I mean, we got rid of the poptart era did we not? I know several enjoyed that era just because it had a high skill ceiling but in the end it was too powerful and dominant. While not exactly the same I am at least cognizant of one of the few differences between lower end queues and higher end play, and those are ones that both become much more powerful against and used by those who aren't quite up to par with shooting or piloting but also those who can't play cohesively.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

And how does that prompts potatos to improve? It doesn't if they aren't punished enough for behavior they aren't suppose to be doing, such as being not careful with cover.

They will get punished for being in the open, it just won't be as quick a death (or won't be a death but a maiming). Let's not over-exaggerate, I mean you did mention that they could still get focus fired with direct fire weapons after all and that's still entirely possible (just not really plausible if actually in lower tiers).

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

Here we go again with comp, we are talking about MWO as a whole, not just comp. MWO isn't just filled with fine-tuned teams, sometimes you have to work with what you have -- implying that you don't have a fine-tuned team at most time. And you don't need to be in comp to need a good team, it can be anywhere in the game. Likewise indirect-fire can be set up, like so:

You realize that video is of 228's comp team trolling FW (you know, the mode that encourages camping an area, the mode that made most comp players quickly quit FW)? Right? Not quite the same comp team going to Vancouver this year but I can at least hear Panic in that video and that's their DC.Not to mention FW is also the queue that has no MM trying to soften the blow for rainbow PUGs against 12 mans like a 228 comp 12 man. As for working with what you have, that's pretty much what any pug star does, that's how you "win" solo queue when you are a good player and it generally involves using your team as meat sponges so that you can do as much effective damage as possible before your team has the potential to crumble (which is why the Dakka Kodiak is still potent for carrying).

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

Stranded and alone doesn't necessarily mean we're stuck with indirect fire, we could be with the team, but being on different covers or occupied firing lines, we are forced to fire indirectly and relied on shared locks, also UAVs.

That's bad. You don't ever strand yourself such that you can't be covered by friendlies, that's how you become Cheetah food. You only do this if you have the speed to get out.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

Terribads would still be prone to Focus Fire regardless.

As I mentioned earlier, that's acceptable because it is less easy to do that for unguided direct fire weapons.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

And this lopsided-ness isn't just caused by simple indirect fire-support, it's combined homing missiles and indirect fire. The removal of any of the two takes away from being an LRM, we might as well remove the weapon system.

Quit over-exaggerating. LRMs could EASILY be useful for you know, long range missiles WITHOUT indirect fire. Indirect fire isn't what makes LRMs, LRMs. If that were true, then MW4 never had LRMs, they had weapons posing as LRMs because guess what? The only way to indirect fire with LRMs was through NARCs, you HAD to have LoS to even start gaining a lock with any missile.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 05:30 PM, said:

And again, reductio ad absurdium, that's the logic of your argument right there taken to it's logical conclusion. And while you feel that just because it's a slippery slope, it's fallacious -- it's not fallacious is the slope is actually real. Eventually, we'd also address the fact that LRMs are homing because terribads are less capable of aiming, we cannot completely compensate for the terribads and if they find the worse weapon to be so effective they'll be nabbed by just about anything. It will take more than lessening focus-fire to address what the problems the terribads have.

And if you don't know what it is:

"In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"; or argumentum ad absurdum, "argument to absurdity") is a form of argument which attempts either to disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion, or to prove one by showing that if it were not true, the result would be absurd or impossible." - Wikipedia

Except you haven't proven s**t when it comes to inevitability. That's the difference between slippery slope and reductio ad absurdum. That's the problem, you have yet to make a clear case as to why suddenly we should ban all lock on weapons. You can supposition arguments all you want but all you end up with is a strawman argument.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 10 October 2017 - 09:24 PM.

[Lykaon]

Leggin Ho, on 10 October 2017 - 06:02 PM, said:

Read a little closer next time and you'll see where I said in QP LRM users are not helping, in FP or a actual group when you can plan for it, LRM's can be quiet effective but then again your doing it all together as a team, not a person hiding while the rest of his team get's the crap kicked out of them as he lobs LRM's to little or no effect. Also if you think me or the team I play with hides you must not have ever played us, folks on this team don't know what the "S" button is for, just the "W" button......

You may want to reread what I typed...

See that little bit in the middle,the part where I specifically reference "solo quick play"

Since I WAS specifically speaking about "solo quick play" as it is in fact specifically mentioned (in that part right there in about the middle of my post)

What was it again I needed to "read a little closer" ?


My point was the point of LRMs not sharing armor is essentially a pile of steaming B.S. because EVERYBODY IN QUICKPLAY HIDES!

When ever I hear people crying about not sharing armor and I can observe reality because I play this game I clearly see it for what it really means.

I will now make my point so unbelievable clear anyone can get it.

"sharing armor" actually means "Someone else getting shot to bits instead of me while I stay back here playing hidey pokey"

Read that line above again or three or four times.


It's not at all about "needing support on the front line" because nobody wants to ever be there first...Quick play solo queue is all about not being first to commit to anything so you are not the first left hung out to dry by a cowardly team.


In fact when I do inevitabbly get tired of waiting behind a rock for team mates to rediscover their spines and I push out on my own I would rather have an on the ball LRM boat using my "buddy locks" to help me kill the enemy because the hidey pokey types can't be pried from their cover to actually engage anyhow.

At least indirect fire LRMs can contribute from behind a rock somewhere.

The really silly part is claiming that quickplay is where LRMs do not contribute when LRMs are at their MOST EFFECTIVE levels in solo quickplay followed by small group quick play. The larger a team becomes and the more clear the communication is on a large team the less effective LRM use becomes when used against them.

So, if an LRM boat on your team dishes out 1100 damage gets 2 kills and 3 KMMD how did they not contribute?

Let's take it further... an LRM carrier does 700 damage no kills no KMDD how is 700 armor not protecting the enemy mechs not contributing?

The excuse people ussually go to for this question is...

"but it's not focused damage and it's spread all over so damage on arms isn't good damage"

BUT... a compitent mech pilot does in fact use their mech's arms to shield with by torso twisting. So again if that enemy mech doesn't have the armor to absorb damage due to LRM barrages how is this not contributing? Other mechs that engaged the softened target have less armor to destroy to land a kill. Less time taken to kill a target is less time under fire and that means less damage is taken during that specific engagment.

Or, How about this...one of your team's assault mechs engages the enemy but finds themselves in a bad spot. But because of the "buddy lock" mechanics they will have support even though nobody else has LOS to the enemy.

So how is the LRM mech not contributing by reducing the damage taken by the assault mech by killing the engaged target faster? If the enemy is destroyed 30% faster this means 30% less time spent returning fire right?

What about the cockpit shake and blinding effects ? reduced accuracy means less hits and that is less damage dealt. And then there is the psycological pressure that pilot now knows they are not fighting one Vs one but Two Vs one now. Shaken confidence is a potent factor in defeating another human.

Or what if the LRM barrage forces the enemy into cover preventing them from firing on an advancing mech. Isn't this better than sharing armor? no damage is dealt PERIOD! no armor is lost AT ALL. Because the enemy is forced into cover.

Contribution isn't limited to being a damage sponge so someone else isn't being paid attention to.

[The6thMessenger]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

Lazy or not, it accomplishes 2 things:

• Fixes the issue with the lowered skill floor with focus fire of LRMs.
  
• Allows for both indirect (through NARC and/or TAG) and direct (LoS) to be buffed.

The reticle shake for JJs was lazy too but it still works just fine at its job.

Low skill-floor isn't a problem, so what if it's easy to use? The problem is it's result, that it's easy to use and easy to get good result to low-tier, but hard to get good result at high tier. If it just have an equivalent effectiveness with skill applied.

And if they hated to buff NARC or TAG before, why is it being more exclusive going to change that? It still does indirect fire after all.

But you know what, okay, i actually agree with that if TAG and NARC would be the only way to indirect fire. Although they should still share locks, just require LOS, TAG, or NARC, or UAV, for "Missile" Locks. Would that be an okay Compromise?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

Min maxing is pretty important when talking about balance.

Yes, but that's not what i said.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

If we are considering comp to be where the most cohesive team play exists and does not use a feature much and we are saying that it is still useful for team play, something just smells afoul with that sort of argument. If it is useful for team play, then it should be useful for comp.

And the problem is that, comp is too cohesive that there's an excess of benefit that isn't used, it's a surplus, and you want to remove the surplus. Non-comp, we just get the use just fine with little surplus.

Your idea is this, comp gets 140% use, and could lose that 40%. But the thing is that, non comp just gets 100%, and if you lost 40% so comp would be at 100%, then non-comp only gets 60%. And that's the issue i was pointing out, you are screwing the non-comp with that 40%.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

The compassion for terribads is still there, that's what the suggested fix is there for.

At the cost of ruining LRMs to those who could use them well. There's being compassionate through altruism, and then there's just compromising yourself by giving away all of your money that there's nothing left for you.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

The lack of compassion is for those who are using a weapon system that is for lack of a better word, a crutch for their inability to focus fire without a lockon indirect fire weapon. Whether you "enjoy" that play style or not is irrelevant if it is bad for the game.

That assumes that indirect fire is automatically bad for the game, it's not. It's just bad for potatoes.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

They will get punished for being in the open, it just won't be as quick a death (or won't be a death but a maiming). Let's not over-exaggerate, I mean you did mention that they could still get focus fired with direct fire weapons after all and that's still entirely possible (just not really plausible if actually in lower tiers).

That's not exactly a lot of help and would net more disadvantages that it gives advantages. It's basically two steps forward, three steps back.

Now it's less punishing, it's less of a prod for them to actually improve. Likewise it's not really that hard to point and shoot, they'd still find them being chewed upon, and with actually better weapons such as the higher PPFLD of ACs, and the pin-point lasers, accurately putting stuff instead of spreading all over, i would argue that their TTD would actually go down.

Put the need of TAG/NARC/UAV for missile locks, like my compromise above, you can still achieve the same indirect fire rain by just one scout that has a TAG or NARC sure as hell we don't exactly need that much effort to scout for locks, with people dumb enough to go in the open. That would still get indirect fire on the way of these terribads, only the LRMs would be buffed by then and would result in a heavier rain, and result into MOAR cries.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

You realize that video is of 228's comp team trolling FW (you know, the mode that encourages camping an area, the mode that made most comp players quickly quit FW)? Right? Not quite the same comp team going to Vancouver this year but I can at least hear Panic in that video and that's their DC.Not to mention FW is also the queue that has no MM trying to soften the blow for rainbow PUGs against 12 mans like a 228 comp 12 man.

That's not exactly the point of the video. It's literally a properly coordinated indirect fire LRM battery.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

As for working with what you have, that's pretty much what any pug star does, that's how you "win" solo queue when you are a good player and it generally involves using your team as meat sponges so that you can do as much effective damage as possible before your team has the potential to crumble (which is why the Dakka Kodiak is still potent for carrying).

Meat sponges is for stupid random teammates, but what about those -- at a rare occasion -- we got? Shouldn't we also coordinate with them if they are willing to coordinate? After all it's a team game, it's team-deathmatch, etc.

Your presence there affects the team. Whatever to do-onto-others-what-you-want-others-to-do-to-you? If you want teammates, even if they are random strangers to have your back, it's only fair to have theirs. That's me and a few others, even if strangers we prefer working together if it's an option.

If it were free-for-all, that would actually be fine, but it's not free-for-all.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

That's bad. You don't ever strand yourself such that you can't be covered by friendlies, that's how you become Cheetah food. You only do this if you have the speed to get out.

Or i could still be covered with friendlies, and still utilize indirect fire. Indirect fire would have little hand on that.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

As I mentioned earlier, that's acceptable because it is less easy to do that for unguided direct fire weapons.

Oh, suddenly now it's about guidance? But okay lets ignore that, but really how harder is point-and-shoot? The terribad is in the open, you can still reach him with anything with range.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

Quit over-exaggerating. LRMs could EASILY be useful for you know, long range missiles WITHOUT indirect fire. Indirect fire isn't what makes LRMs, LRMs. If that were true, then MW4 never had LRMs, they had weapons posing as LRMs because guess what? The only way to indirect fire with LRMs was through NARCs, you HAD to have LoS to even start gaining a lock with any missile.

What if i told you, yes they never had LRMs, they had weapons posing as LRMs? Hell we don't have Battletech, we have MWO, we have a game posing only as Battletech. But as far as flavors go, yes MWO can have it's own pseudo-LRM disguising as "LRMs" too, but it's not what what we'd want, or would have a completely defined role -- i mean what's the point of "LRMs" that way? Is it the homing? Can't just just get an MRM?

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

Except you haven't proven s**t when it comes to inevitability. That's the difference between slippery slope and reductio ad absurdum. That's the problem, you have yet to make a clear case as to why suddenly we should ban all lock on weapons.

No, slippery-slope isn't necessarily fallacious, or mutually exclusive. Slippery-Slope is a type of Reductio-ad-absurdium.

I am also not arguing that we should ban lock on all weapons, I am saying that removing LRM homing is the logical conclusion if we are to allow the removal of buddy target lock preventing indirect fire-support, on the grounds that it's also a component that makes LRMs unfair, and is required if it were to achieve the goal in helping terribads.

Terribads would still get nabbed regardless of whether it's LRM or any other direct fire weapon, that's why they are the potato, they are terribad, the idiots -- basically they are defined that way. That's my axiom.

And my reasoning is exactly that removal of indirect fire is not enough to help the terribad. It's absurd because we have to also remove the homing component to truly help them by virtue of evening out the advantage aim -- or lack there of, as it's a massive factor that contributes at the same vein with indirect fire, but at the cost of completely ruining LRMs. If we didn't it's also absurd because really it does so little to achieve the goal of truly helping the terribads because the real help is to stop them from being terribads in the first place, and would just end up compromising many other aspects for the non-terribads.

Either way you cut it, it's absurd, reductio ad absurdium, the end.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

You can supposition arguments all you want but all you end up with is a strawman argument.

You can play being the philosophy expert all you want, invoke fallacies that you don't even get right. Whatever lets you sleep at night.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 11 October 2017 - 02:34 AM.

[Lykaon]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 10 October 2017 - 09:23 PM, said:

Quit over-exaggerating. LRMs could EASILY be useful for you know, long range missiles WITHOUT indirect fire. Indirect fire isn't what makes LRMs, LRMs. If that were true, then MW4 never had LRMs, they had weapons posing as LRMs because guess what? The only way to indirect fire with LRMs was through NARCs, you HAD to have LoS to even start gaining a lock with any missile.

So what makes LRMs distinctly LRMy in MWo?

Is it the long range? nope 900m is the range cap without skill nodes and we have quite the list of other weapons that have 900 + meters in range.

So long range is not a distinct advantage LRMs have in MWo.

Is it their ability to lock on and track targets?
Well no, streaks and ATMs do this so... probably not locking mechanics.

It's not a competative projectile velocity because LRMs are the slowest projectiles at 160 mps.

It's not damage dealing capacity because of defused damage and missed missiles from a single volley.

It's not reliability either since LRMs have a wide array of active and passive countermeasures as well as an abundance of strategic and tactical counter play options.

So what is it that LRMs have that make them do anything better than any other weapon option?

Nothing but indirect fire.

[Kroete]

LRMs indirect only with narc or tag would be interesting if narc and ecm would do the same as tt.

ECM: Goodbye Jesus
NARC: Stick it and all ally srms (yes also not homing missiles lock and home to a narc beacon in tt), mrms, ssrms, lrms and atms in range will instant lock to it. A missile user dont need to lock or target with narc then, just fire in the direction, the missiles will get their own locks on the narc on the fly. And even missiles locked to another mech will relock to the narcbeacon.

Sounds like fun for me.

Edited by Kroete, 11 October 2017 - 12:57 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

Vellron2005, on 10 October 2017 - 12:28 AM, said:

the point of the game is not to get shot and die.. it's to kill the other guy and do the objective..

Well yeah, but it is also a 24 man 12v12 deathmatch for the most part, if you expect to always be dealing damage and getting kills while never receiving or always minimising damage received, you are expecting a pretty boring and selfishly oriented team game there pal.

[Lykaon]

Joey Tankblaster, on 10 October 2017 - 12:41 AM, said:

A brawler locking up his target to find the damaged section, passively passing this information to a LURM-boat sitting 600m behind him - this has nothing to do with teamplay.

<sigh>

So a team mate assisting in taking down a target is not team play? I really want you to defend this point in realistic way that actually makes sense.

Because I know we are actually rewarded for assists. The game mechanics encourages assisting we actually get paid for it we gain higher match scores from it clearly the intention is we are to assist our team mates by dealing damage to targets that are also under fire from other team members.

And here is one very important factor all of you folks on this side of the fence miss.

Killing a target faster gives that target less time to deal damage. Assisting in a kill quickens the target's demise. A dead mech does no damage.

Point two. Sharing armor by deffinition is taking damage. You are expending a limited resource in an attrition fight. But reducing the enemy's time to deal damage by killing them quicker does NOT deplete your limited armor resources. it does however preserve your team's limited armor resource by reducing the time the enemy has to deplete the armor of your team.

How is this not assisting the team? I get it that it may not fall into many players limited understanding of broader tactics and strategy.But the enemy will never run out of missed opertunities to deal damage your team will most certainly run out of armor eventually.

I also understand that most of what people are really saying is " I want someone else to spend their armor while I preserve my own" and wrap it up under the guise of "team work" .

The moment I hear on comms a player calling out to the vanguard to shift to second line so they can take point because they have more armor is when I will actually belive "sharing armor" isn't a simple side effect of being the next target the enemy sees after the first has run to hide or been elliminated.

Can you guess how many times in quickplay I have seen this happen?

ZERO! big fat zero times have I heard a player communicate they wished to rotate forward to take some hits for damaged teamamtes. And I am a closed beta founder playing this game since it was playable literally years of playing and not once in puggyland have I ever heard anyone say anything of the sort.

Now think hard how many times have you heard anyone else say anything of the sort in solo quickplay?

Outside of premade teams and high levels of organized play "sharing armor" is largely a myth.

Edited by Lykaon, 11 October 2017 - 02:13 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Lykaon, on 10 October 2017 - 10:27 PM, said:

So what makes LRMs distinctly LRMy in MWo?

Is it the long range? nope 900m is the range cap without skill nodes and we have quite the list of other weapons that have 900 + meters in range.

So long range is not a distinct advantage LRMs have in MWo.

Is it their ability to lock on and track targets?
Well no, streaks and ATMs do this so... probably not locking mechanics.

It's not a competative projectile velocity because LRMs are the slowest projectiles at 160 mps.

It's not damage dealing capacity because of defused damage and missed missiles from a single volley.

It's not reliability either since LRMs have a wide array of active and passive countermeasures as well as an abundance of strategic and tactical counter play options.

So what is it that LRMs have that make them do anything better than any other weapon option?

Nothing but indirect fire.

Half of this drivel makes no sense. Let's compare the missile weapons in a "chart".
SRMs | Unguided | "straight" trajectory | 270m
MRMs | Unguided | "straight" trajectory | 500m
LRMs | Guided (homes on center of mech) | arcing trajectory | 630-1000m
ATMs | Guided (homes on center of mech) | flat trajectory | 810m (technically, but ammo efficiency is stupidly low outside ~500m)
SSRMs | Guided (homes on random body parts | "straight" trajectory | 270-360m

They seem pretty unique without indirect fire in the scope of things, and that arcing trajectory isn't just useful for indirect fire, it is also useful for targets that go into cover after you get a lock like say a target hiding behind the small ridge in front of stage on tourmaline. Not to mention half the crap you listed off are counter-balances BECAUSE it has indirect fire capabilities (like damage inefficiency, slowest projectile, etc).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 11 October 2017 - 07:16 AM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Low skill-floor isn't a problem, so what if it's easy to use? The problem is it's result

These go hand-in-hand.........

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

But you know what, okay, i actually agree with that if TAG and NARC would be the only way to indirect fire. Although they should still share locks, just require LOS, TAG, or NARC, or UAV, for "Missile" Locks. Would that be an okay Compromise?

That's actually the preferred avenue, hell I'm pretty sure if you could search my post history you would find I have suggested this very thing several times as a stopgap until they can fix missile mechanics to not be stupid. Some things would have to change (like how long NARC lasts), but that's not really for this conversation.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

And the problem is that, comp is too cohesive that there's an excess of benefit that isn't used, it's a surplus, and you want to remove the surplus. Non-comp, we just get the use just fine with little surplus.

This makes no sense. The reason it isn't as useful is because for scouting purposes it doesn't give you context of force size because unless you spam R your friendlies don't get a good idea of what they are looking at. Now, if lights could press R and lock up ALL enemies in LoS then that would actually help because it cuts down on VOIP noise. Surplus isn't the problem, it is misunderstanding what is actually useful for scouting information (force size and locations).

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

At the cost of ruining LRMs to those who could use them well.

You mean like how other weapons are nerfed because they are too strong in certain cases, or mechs? "Ruining" a weapon for people who can "use" them well is irrelevant. Speaking of which, how are you determining using them well? I'm pretty sure you cannot say Jman5 doesn't use them well and his HBK-4J of olde definitely didn't rely on indirect fire often as he was often leading the pack, especially in PUGs.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

That assumes that indirect fire is automatically bad for the game, it's not. It's just bad for potatoes.

Where did I say all indirect fire is bad for the game? Where you did you make this leap? The only problem with the CURRENT indirect fire is because shared locks are too easy of a requirement in lower levels of play for a guided indirect fire weapon.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Now it's less punishing, it's less of a prod for them to actually improve.

What are you even talking about? If we wanted new players to improve we should just let them face comp teams all the time right guys!!! No, that's not how it works. Getting gibbed like that isn't something that gets them to learn and instead can turn away players.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Likewise it's not really that hard to point and shoot, they'd still find them being chewed upon, and with actually better weapons such as the higher PPFLD of ACs, and the pin-point lasers, accurately putting stuff instead of spreading all over, i would argue that their TTD would actually go down.

You argument would then be wrong because that assumes that players will get the same angles without LRMs and that they are good shots. You can say it is easy to just point-n-shoot but again, I've seen some terrible aim, I mean, how many still think lights are invincible?.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

That's not exactly the point of the video. It's literally a properly coordinated indirect fire LRM battery.

It's also a symbol of everything that is wrong with Siege mode "hey let's encourage people to camp and allow them to setup a meat grinder". It is more static than ERLL trading and even more passive of play, this is not really something that should be encouraged.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Meat sponges is for stupid random teammates, but what about those -- at a rare occasion -- we got? Shouldn't we also coordinate with them if they are willing to coordinate? After all it's a team game, it's team-deathmatch, etc.

Your presence there affects the team. Whatever to do-onto-others-what-you-want-others-to-do-to-you? If you want teammates, even if they are random strangers to have your back, it's only fair to have theirs. That's me and a few others, even if strangers we prefer working together if it's an option.

If it were free-for-all, that would actually be fine, but it's not free-for-all.

"Having each others backs" is not what you should care about, it should be "do whatever it takes to win". If letting my teammates die because I can deal out more damage than they could in the situation where I "had their backs" then I'm going to do it. If I see smart play then yeah, I'm going to trust them a bit more and I make take some damage, maybe try and lead a charge even though it might not be the wisest thing to do, but unless I have that trust all the blue dots on my radar are my armor.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Or i could still be covered with friendlies, and still utilize indirect fire. Indirect fire would have little hand on that.

If the lights don't feel threaten and the result is you still end up dead with no trade in kills then it was still a bad move.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

Oh, suddenly now it's about guidance? But okay lets ignore that, but really how harder is point-and-shoot? The terribad is in the open, you can still reach him with anything with range.

The difference is how many have angles on him. Shared locks with indirect fire allows for more "angles" or avenues of fire to hit that target, it's that simple. Making direct fire the only way to hit that target automatically shrinks the angles you have to worry about.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

What if i told you, yes they never had LRMs, they had weapons posing as LRMs? Hell we don't have Battletech, we have MWO, we have a game posing only as Battletech.

What if I told you, you are never going to get a game that does more than pose as Battletech so arguing about LRMs not being "LRMs" is asinine? Battletech is meant for a turn-based strategy game, things are GOING to have to change to work for a team-based FPS.

The6thMessenger, on 10 October 2017 - 10:18 PM, said:

And my reasoning is exactly that removal of indirect fire is not enough to help the terribad. It's absurd because we have to also remove the homing component to truly help them by virtue of evening out the advantage aim -- or lack there of, as it's a massive factor that contributes at the same vein with indirect fire, but at the cost of completely ruining LRMs.

Thus you make a strawman to support your argument because never did I say it was going to fix terribads nor have I ever suggested making a leap to removing the homing component. You can think that is the next logical step all you want but it has no connection to what I want.

[MischiefSC]

Lykaon, on 11 October 2017 - 02:10 AM, said:

&lt;sigh&gt;

So a team mate assisting in taking down a target is not team play? I really want you to defend this point in realistic way that actually makes sense.

Because I know we are actually rewarded for assists. The game mechanics encourages assisting we actually get paid for it we gain higher match scores from it clearly the intention is we are to assist our team mates by dealing damage to targets that are also under fire from other team members.

And here is one very important factor all of you folks on this side of the fence miss.

Killing a target faster gives that target less time to deal damage. Assisting in a kill quickens the target's demise. A dead mech does no damage.

Point two. Sharing armor by deffinition is taking damage. You are expending a limited resource in an attrition fight. But reducing the enemy's time to deal damage by killing them quicker does NOT deplete your limited armor resources. it does however preserve your team's limited armor resource by reducing the time the enemy has to deplete the armor of your team.

How is this not assisting the team? I get it that it may not fall into many players limited understanding of broader tactics and strategy.But the enemy will never run out of missed opertunities to deal damage your team will most certainly run out of armor eventually.

I also understand that most of what people are really saying is &quot; I want someone else to spend their armor while I preserve my own&quot; and wrap it up under the guise of &quot;team work&quot; .

The moment I hear on comms a player calling out to the vanguard to shift to second line so they can take point because they have more armor is when I will actually belive &quot;sharing armor&quot; isn't a simple side effect of being the next target the enemy sees after the first has run to hide or been elliminated.

Can you guess how many times in quickplay I have seen this happen?

ZERO! big fat zero times have I heard a player communicate they wished to rotate forward to take some hits for damaged teamamtes. And I am a closed beta founder playing this game since it was playable literally years of playing and not once in puggyland have I ever heard anyone say anything of the sort.

Now think hard how many times have you heard anyone else say anything of the sort in solo quickplay?

Outside of premade teams and high levels of organized play &quot;sharing armor&quot; is largely a myth.

Sharing armor means distributing enemy fire. It can be physically getting shot or it can mean being a fast light at range drawing missed shots or it can mean trading with an enemy that you're winning, resulting in most their shots being wasted on your cover.

The point is to ensure the enemy has multi targets drawing their attention so they don't focus down one person. Bads don't get this and bads are usually unwilling to learn to not be bad, so it's usually a waste to try. Because most have the same mentality about the game you do and so they lose a lot and blame everyone else and develop bad habits.

If you're not actively a visible threat, even if the enemy isn't shoot at you that second they're watching your cover, you're less useful to the team. That's all during armor. You should constantly be pushing up to get a good firing position, someone who's damaged pulls back a bit so the rotation happens naturally. I see it in pug games all the time from the good players while the bads are always in the back or hiding.

It's why some people win a lot more consistently than others.

[Mystere]

Do some of you people even know the concept of indirect fire?