466 replies to this topic

[Pariah Devalis]

JRcam4643, on 06 December 2017 - 11:18 AM, said:

No it really is a myth. I can't predict where my team mates will shoot an enemy. The damage that I do could actually affect that decision of where they shoot. You can sit around after a battle and talk about trash damage if you want but there is no way of knowing what is trash until after the fact. It makes no sense to bring it up.

You made two statements so far that concern me, from the standpoint of rational thinking and what implies you are trying to deflect the concept of personal responsibility.

The first was that you state that your allies might not be very accurate, so you might as well take LRM. You can't control your allies, but you can control yourself. YOU could choose to be effective, or you can choose not to be. However, as an LRM boat, you are susceptible to various counters wholly in control of the enemy players that can render you completely ineffective. Be it radar dep, cover, ample AMS, or exploiting travel times or minimum ranges. Even if they couldn't control the likelihood of you getting solid, unimpeded locks, your weaponfire is still extremely spready, meaning you'd take 3-4x the time to kill a target than you really should, putting you and your allies at greater risk of return damage.

The second is that you seem to throw your hands in the air saying "I have no control where the allies will shoot!" You're right. You don't. But that isn't an excuse to smear damage, either. It is totally unrelated to you being more efficient, more lethal, and more effective as a result. It is totally unrelated to you maximizing the effectiveness of the damage you intend to output in any given game. You can't control your allies, but at least you can take it upon yourself to be the effective one on the team, instead of another damage farming dragger. Go for the kill shots, every time. If you don't finish them off, odds are an ally will notice the lethal damage and exploit it. You can actually guide your allies' fire by simply inflicting effective damage, and they will, more often than not, attempt to capitalize on that damage placement.

But you're just one person, right? What difference does that make?

If everyone thought your way, the games would be awful. If everyone played to win, however, to be effective? Oh my god, the gameplay would be so much more brutal. Exciting. Every game an adrenaline rush!

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 06 December 2017 - 11:38 AM.

[Bombast]

JRcam4643, on 06 December 2017 - 11:18 AM, said:

No it really is a myth. I can't predict where my team mates will shoot an enemy.

No, but you can responsibly shoot mechs where the damage is most important. If a mechs leg is already blown off, and you have a clear shot at the other one, and then decided to carpet bomb his grid square from 800 meters away with LRM fire for a minute until he dies, you've wasted damage. Either yours or whoever legged him, depending on your point of view.

Of course, there's always going to be wasted damage. Even the pros will admit that a certain percentage of their fire was 'meaningless,' because no one has absolute accuracy and sometimes mistakes are made. It's all about trying to maximize your effective damage, which LRMs are really, really bad at. SRMs, LB-Xs, and even MRMs can overcome their inherit 'sloppiness' by playing range or simply carrying so many that it doesn't matter, but LRMs generally can't.

[Khobai]

Quote

It's all about trying to maximize your effective damage, which LRMs are really, really bad at. SRMs, LB-Xs, and even MRMs can overcome their inherit 'sloppiness' by playing range or simply carrying so many that it doesn't matter, but LRMs generally can't.

people boat LRM5s to make them less sloppy. because they basically all drill into the CT if the mech is facing you.

so in that sense youre doing less trash damage.

but its still subject to all the other limitations of LRMs.

[JRcam4643]

sycocys, on 06 December 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:

You can easily predict where your team will shoot the enemy.

#1 - CT

#2 - Legs

You don't even need targeting info to know that, but if you do happen to hit R, you'll see exactly where they are and have been shooting because those parts will be stripped of armor.

There's only 2 ways to consistently kill a mech unless you are a very good cockpit shot - destroy the engine or destroy the legs. If you shoot there, you are shooting where your team is shooting and not wasting your damage on parts that don't need to be hit.

I think you said earlier you don't play solo queue hardly and if thats the case this comment makes sense cause thats not what happens there usually.

[sycocys]

JRcam4643, on 06 December 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

I think you said earlier you don't play solo queue hardly and if thats the case this comment makes sense cause thats not what happens there usually.

It doesn't make any difference what mode you play - the CT (engine) and Legs are the 2 ways that mechs die - the only outlier is people that can cockpit with regularity.

Sure you can occasionally get an XL mech, but the CT is still a better target unless you are 100% positive it's running is XL - clan XL needs both sides so CT is a better target for the majority of the mechs because it's less overall armor to drill through.

Edited by sycocys, 06 December 2017 - 11:35 AM.

[Khobai]

i wish people didnt aim for my CT in solo queue

then id be unstoppable with my LBX

[MischiefSC]

JRcam4643, on 06 December 2017 - 10:37 AM, said:

I'll save you the trouble. I'm below 50%.
Tested by who though? A bunch of pro players? Thats not the experience many people play with. In group play and faction play,sometimes, that might be right. Most people don't have that many buddies to play with that are very good. You can call that an excuse but it's undeniable truth that to an extent you're slave to your teams ability. One player can't carry every battle no matter how meta you may think his load out is.

In all levels. All teams play with LRM decks sometimes for giggles. Also in QP, we all do it sometimes. However LRMs are effective only relative to the skill of your opponent - essentially they are only good at killing bads. Even more to the point you could kill those dame bads even better with direct fire, unless you also are bad.

For example however I am NOT a top tier player but ran all last month in QP with bleeding edge meta (MAD IIC laservomit, Deathstrike) and ended over 2.0, winning about 68% of my matches. More than 2 out of 3. In LRMs just hitting 1.0 is a struggle.

Nothing lets you solo carry every game, but it does skew the odds. LRMs make you less likely to share armor, makes you stare to hold locks and so easy to focus, has a 180m deadzone and spreads damage. If I'm getting LRMed I'll usually ignore it until I finish killing my target. If I'm taking direct fire I have to bail immediately - because direct fire can core me in 1.5 seconds, LRMs won't open me up for 6 or 10 seconds.

LRMs are bad by comparison.

[Jay Leon Hart]

WRT "wasted damage" we have the aforementioned dead siding, where one torso & arm are stripped of weapons and used to shield the other, important half of your 'mech. We also have things like only torso mounted weapons and stripped "shield arms" to use in a similar manner. They are used to absorb damage, causing no ill effect to your 'mech. The damage used against these components is essentially wasted, as it does not contribute to the death of the 'mech, or even reduce it's firepower or mobility.

Wasted damage is definitely a thing in MWO. Try playing a few Centurions with their decent shield arm, you can take a heck of a beating.

[Y E O N N E]

JRcam4643, on 06 December 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

I think you said earlier you don't play solo queue hardly and if thats the case this comment makes sense cause thats not what happens there usually.

Maybe not in Tier 6. Balance cannot be judged from Tier 6, though.

Jay Leon Hart, on 06 December 2017 - 11:50 AM, said:

Wasted damage is definitely a thing in MWO. Try playing a few Centurions with their decent shield arm, you can take a heck of a beating.

Marauders, Stalkers, Warhammers, Mist Lynxes (inorite?), Night Gyrs, Crabs, even Nightstarsccan take a hell of a pounding thanks to damage transfer reductions.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 06 December 2017 - 12:02 PM.

[sycocys]

If you ever played with/against a 5SS - especially during the quirk-wars, you'd truly understand the concept of wasted damage and how/why players really dialed in on the CT/Leg focus.

Left arm - 100% a shield.
Left st - useful until it follows, then you still use that side as a shield until they manage to take your ct armor.
Then you swap to using the right arm as your lead arm and repeat the process until you or everyone else died.

[Brain Cancer]

Spread damage is possibly the worst debuff a weapon can get, and the only way to overcome it is by large amounts of damage as quantity has a quality all it's own.

LRMs tend to suffer there too- the more other forms of concentrated damage increase, the worse an LRM boat does in trades.

It's why I've got ATMs on my missile boats right now. One good 36-missile salvo is enough to ruin someone's armor, two will probably cripple or kill anything smaller than 45 tons. That is, it delivers enough raw damage to compensate for it's lack of focus.

LRMs have to basically play a game where they avoid trading as much as possible- second line, hill peeking, or (yech) firing on other people's locks. You can play well with LRMs, but LRMs are not in a good spot simply because they are understatted. That's all it'd really take. Improve the accuracy to something closer to (but still less than aimed) direct fire weapons. Bring the spread in some so less damage is wasted.

[Asym]

I find it interesting, page after page of LRM's and pilots who use them are bad.... Who cares: they are playing MWO.

At some point, you 'all will drive off all of the pilots in MWO who "do not want to brawl" and then, it will be fun to watch you'all find fault with yourselves... "I have a 2.0 W/L and you're meta laser trash driver at 1.9843212.....git GuD and man-up with real weapons...." Sigh.......... Page after page....

I think I'm gonna stay a potato and enjoy what little there is left of MWO......and, on occasion, take out a pure LRM boat "just to piss off some hack brawler moving at 50 kph in open terrain without AMS or Radar Dep or any idea what cover is......"

Oh yeah, maybe even start a team of nothing but LRM/IDF mechs.....imagine a LRM-600 salvo. Oh God, please give us Arrow IV and Thunderbolts....... META IDF teams.......Anyone want to join the ATM/LRM/SSRM team Woosh !

See, we can come off the rails too !

[Jay Leon Hart]

Asym, on 06 December 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

At some point, you 'all will drive off all of the pilots in MWO who "do not want to brawl" and then, it will be fun to watch you'all find fault with yourselves...

You sure do hate players who brawl, huh?

I wonder who started this thread... tell me Asym, was it someone saying "SEE! LRMs are GOOD!!!" or someone say "SEE! LRMS SUCK!!!!" ?

[Weeny Machine]

[MischiefSC]

Asym, on 06 December 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

I find it interesting, page after page of LRM's and pilots who use them are bad.... Who cares: they are playing MWO.

At some point, you 'all will drive off all of the pilots in MWO who "do not want to brawl" and then, it will be fun to watch you'all find fault with yourselves... "I have a 2.0 W/L and you're meta laser trash driver at 1.9843212.....git GuD and man-up with real weapons...." Sigh.......... Page after page....

I think I'm gonna stay a potato and enjoy what little there is left of MWO......and, on occasion, take out a pure LRM boat "just to piss off some hack brawler moving at 50 kph in open terrain without AMS or Radar Dep or any idea what cover is......"

Oh yeah, maybe even start a team of nothing but LRM/IDF mechs.....imagine a LRM-600 salvo. Oh God, please give us Arrow IV and Thunderbolts....... META IDF teams.......Anyone want to join the ATM/LRM/SSRM team Woosh !

See, we can come off the rails too !

I'm all for people playing what they want.

However there's a difference between "I play LRMs for fun" and "LRMs are good weapons if you do them right".

[JRcam4643]

To change things to something maybe we can agree on I put a post in most wanted features about getting a proper after battle report in the game. https://mwomercs.com...85#entry5966285 Show that some love maybe they will think about.

[Khobai]

Quote

I'm all for people playing what they want.

However there's a difference between "I play LRMs for fun" and "LRMs are good weapons if you do them right".

Its just like real life. People can do whatever they want. As long as it doesnt affect me and I dont have to hear about it.

[Jman5]

I wish people would just relax with the build purity stuff. You can do well with LRMs, you can do poorly with LRMs. You can do well with lasers, you can do poorly with lasers. Stop worrying about where, in the grand scheme, LRMs rank. Maybe LRMs are underpowered compared to another weapon. I think PGI should address that, but it doesn't mean you can't do very well if you bring it.

In many ways I believe that this obsession with builds and weapon stats blind people to all the other stuff that matter when it comes to playing well. I get frustrated when I see guys who are struggling to perform well, but all they want to do is focus on their builds.

This ain't table-top fellas.

[Asym]

Jay Leon Hart, on 06 December 2017 - 12:34 PM, said:

You sure do hate players who brawl, huh?

I wonder who started this thread... tell me Asym, was it someone saying "SEE! LRMs are GOOD!!!" or someone say "SEE! LRMS SUCK!!!!" ?

Ha ! I don't "hate" anyone: I gave that up for Lent some time back.....

This was a little dark humor on my part... You'all can't have all of the fun! I think since Solaris is the strategic goal; many of us will migrate on to other things and if we stay, will be once a week or event only players... That's OK....there are other games to play and it seems my team are there in force now ! Oh, they are in for a nasty surprise in a few levels since my brothers are all veterans, sailors no less, and are levels 9 - 10.....and, I get to be in their clan or whatever they call it in WoW !!! Woo-Hoo ! I get to club seals !
I'm terrible at brawling because I play MWO one handed.........that kinda makes it kind of difficult to "be GuD' sometimes. You can take the challenge: take a roll of blue painting tape and completely tape your dominant hand and play that way.... Another forum pundit tried that and now he knows it isn't a lack of desire, it's a lack of hands...

I don't use LRM's that much anymore.... Why? Because you Hoofties were right and I listened... (and, Hoofties, as used, isn't the as referenced definition of the actual Eastern PA use of it... So smile and I'm being nice...) And, thanks for helping me be a Super Spud Grand Potato of the Mashed rank !

Edited by Asym, 06 December 2017 - 02:37 PM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

For the record, I don't use LRMs much anymore (in fact, I don't think I've used them since the Archer release), because they weren't fun for me. I love PPCs & Gauss, even though I perform terribly with them, because they are fun. I am currently (and have been for a number of months now) an "event only" player, because the only way I can both perform reasonably well & have a bit of fun, is boating some combo of Large & Medium lasers and hiding behind rocks.

I would love to brawl again, but it's too difficult to be effective when you're out ranged by at least 200m. I still have a crack at it now-and-then, but it's generally a bad time for me and my team.

I haven't played a game one handed since Final Fantasy VIII, so I'll pass on that.