104 replies to this topic

[Brain Cancer]

Requiring TAG/NARC essentially turns LRMs into direct-fire weapons in quick play.

Period. You're requiring a weapon essentially do half it's job by randomly hoping someone else equipped TAG/NARC and got assigned to your team, meaning not only frequently wasting an energy/missile hardpoint and 1-5 tons of payload, they get a near useless piece of equipment if someone doesn't happen to use guided missiles. What a deal.

I can easily point to plenty of games where the only missile boat was me. And for every one of those, ten where nobody had TAG or NARC.

Flat trajectory guided missiles? They're called ATMs, and they're the second-rate weapon because situational or not, at least they can pack enough of a wallop to make up somewhat for spread, have velocity LRMs dream of, and so on.

Minimum range deadzones should never have existed to begin with. There's nothing in TT that magically loses all damage the second you get "too close". Reduced damage to represent the loss in accuracy? Sure.

And as for the warning? Great, give it to everyone for every weapon, as sensor locks are apparently enough to get a BIG FLASHING WARNING....oh wait, we don't. We give it to the slowest, most vulnerable to countermeasures weapons in the game instead.

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The nerfs to LRMs happened because it's not like any of that makes them worse against good players but at least it helped with them being a potato farming weapon

If all a weapon is "good" at is farming potatoes, it's not good at anything considering. I watched a 3-day newbie rack up seven kills in a Nova Cat.

His big complaint now that he's T3?

"I wish people stood still like they used to." (He's still pretty good now.)

A weapon that's good at killing people who don't move, don't use cover, and don't even properly understand the game. That's a sorry definition of "good" or even "balanced". Perhaps we should rebalance lasers so they automatically drift if not constantly corrected to stay on target. Or give all guns HGauss-like recoil. Surely, making weapons deliberately bad is a good idea.

Think of the newbies!

[Xavori]

LRM's, like artillery, are fantastic at shaping a battlefield. They suppress enemies by forcing them into cover. They open up enemy armor for their team.

What they are bad at is securing kills for yourself.

Since most QP players are looking for their own stats, not team, most QP players say, "LRM BAD" without understanding the role of the weapon or even how much it could help their team if played well.

[Lykaon]

MischiefSC, on 22 December 2017 - 02:17 PM, said:

The nerfs to LRMs happened because it's not like any of that makes them worse against good players but at least it helped with them being a potato farming weapon.

You make them flat trajectory, require TAG/NARC for indirect fire which works like it does currently. Then with direct fire you make them accelerate - so they're 170ms within 300m, accelerating up to AC2 speed at max range - this makes them inferior to SRMs up close (did I mention get rid of minimum range?) and far more accurate at long range.

I really don't see the problem with "potato farming weapon" As players learn to use counter play they become better players and not "potatos" to be farmed. But if we remove the threat and pressure to develope counter play techniques they will likely stay "potatos" longer even as their tier level progresses.

Many of the counter play used to defend from LRM damage directly translates to general defensive techniques. Not getting locked on to means better cover use and stealth technique. Spreading LRM damage with torso twists translates directly to most incoming damage etc.

I guess I'm a hard knocks school advocate and see no reason to make the tier 4-5 matches into a nerf fight where even the densest players will advance in tier.

Now about your "solution"

Requiring TAG/NARC for indirect fire, well you may as well remove indirect fire since outside group play you are asking an LRM user to rely on a random matchmaker to pair them with the .5% of players who will bother with bringing TAG/NARC rather than just using actual weapons on their mechs.

It's not going to work in solo quick play it's a two way street as well. Let's say we also enhance rewards for bringing TAG/NARC well now the TAG/NARC user is depending on a random matchmaker to put an LRM user on their team to make it worth while. It becomes a cyclical event where TAG and NARC are rare so LRM use is discouraged that in turns discourages bringing TAG/NARC because of how rare LRMs are and so on until we have a bunch of TAG/NARC/LRMs gathering dust unused.

The idea of increasing velocity over range has some merit. The removal of minimum ranges may be problematic due to overlap with SRM/MRM even with the lower velocities.There is a point where your target is so close you could be throwing the missiles at them and still hit.

I hate the idea of flat trajectories because it removes one of the few utilities LRMs have as a second line force multiplyer.

What I mean is when I do use LRMs I am frequently immediate second line in formation behind the advancing team. I have a few big mechs in front of me but I am still using direct LOS to fire on my targets and OVER my team mates on the front.

What this does is increase the volume of fire that can be placed through a particular firelane. The mech on the font has a clear lane and the LRM mech behind can also fire because of the missile arc allowing for firing over the lead ally. If the Ally becomes overly damaged the LRM mech can because it is actually on the front rotate forward to shield the damaged mech.

A far better example of team work than 'I'll sit waaay back here and lob missiles at the badguys you see...good luck" And I would hate to see that disappear.

[Brain Cancer]

The problem with that statement of "shaping the battlefield" is pretty much anything does that job better.

Heck, I get a bigger engagement envelope with ATMs than LRMs, simply due to higher velocity. They open up armor better than LRMs. They'll even kill something in a respectable manner, especially at proper ranges.

Or a few ERLLs or ERPPCs. They'll deal more meaningful, focused damage at the same ranges LRMs can hope to hit at and open up holes faster than the LRM will.

Did I mention the average LRM boat has a roughly 35% hit rate?

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What they are bad at is securing kills for yourself.

With the Artemis nerf, they're even bad at giving your team kills to secure, as that extra spread means even less of a given launcher hits for meaningful damage to open up a target. Missile boaters try to compensate with ever-increasing numbers of tubes, and we're to the point where it takes 60 or so CLRM to make a marginal impression on a target, or 45 or so ISLRM. Again, it's a sign of overnerfing- usually, the problem is boating makes a weapon VERY good, where LRMs require it to merely attempt mediocrity.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 22 December 2017 - 03:57 PM.

[Xavori]

Brain Cancer, on 22 December 2017 - 03:56 PM, said:

Did I mention the average LRM boat has a roughly 35% hit rate?

Did you know you can take a 55 ton mech and do this:
https://steamuserima...1153A2233A7609/

(for those not wanting to waste the mouse click to go to steam images, that's a Kintaro 18 w/ 5xLRM5's, 2xERSML's, and 18 tons of LRM ammo)

18 tons of LRM ammo is 3,240 potential damage. If 35% of that is all that hits, that's still 1,134 damage. Jus' sayin'.

p.s. No. My Kintaro 18 is not really built this way. I'm using it to farm damage in faction play atm, so it's actually a streak boat

Edited by Xavori, 22 December 2017 - 04:20 PM.