1125 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

naterist, on 09 February 2018 - 08:14 PM, said:

dropped with what im assuming was a teir 5 team tonight. they saw the enemy had a large amount of lrms coming from behind walls they couldnt see through. their bold solution to the problem was to stay away and not do anything, because one guy getting targeted would mean his instant death.

yes, i can see giving people the ability to click a button quickly from outside of LOS and then see massive rewards for it is very conducive to the overall populations enjoyment of this game.

I kinda agree. If that's the case though, i'll just settle for less heat-penalty, than reduced GH-Limit. It's in my opinion a good compromise.

[Kin3ticX]

Andi Nagasia, on 09 February 2018 - 06:45 PM, said:

if they Double LRM Velocity, LRMs will move Threw AMS range Twice as fast,
Double AMS damage this will balance this back to what we have now, but AMS will be too Strong vs other Missiles,
doubling all other(non LRM) Missile health will balance them back with double double damage AMS,

really all that would change is LRMs would get to their target faster,
and be more reliable for Damage, but would still be useless vs AMS, and may get people to bring AMS,

Big fat no in the strongest terms. This game needs 2x LRM speed like it needs energy draw.

[Andi Nagasia]

Kin3ticX, on 09 February 2018 - 08:27 PM, said:

Big fat no in the strongest terms. This game needs 2x LRM speed like it needs energy draw.

they would still be weak against AMS, and you could still counter them by hiding,
the only difference is now you have half the time, but that also means you dont have to spend so long hiding,

let me ask you, do you feel LRMs are a viable weapon system,
how do you feel they stack up against Ballistics, Energy, and other Missiles?

[Troa Barton]

The6thMessenger, on 09 February 2018 - 05:48 PM, said:

Isn't that the point of indirect-fire supportive weapon is to COORDINATE with the team though?

Yes technically however LRMs are not always an indirect fire weapon system.
They can be fired indirectly with someone else holding a lock or they can be fired with the boat's own lock.
You also have to take into account what mechs will use LRMs usually they aren't tanks, look no further than the awesome.
How much you expose to get your own locks depends largely on what mech you are in.
Having a tag is a balancing act 1 ton might not seem like a big deal but that's an extra ton of ammo, a faster engine, a medium laser, BAP, an extra crit slot that could go towards that last heat sink, ect.
Missile boats need A LOT of ammo and crit space is at a premium, I very seldom run tag on my boats (SOLO Q) because frankly there are mechs better suited to carry them like ravens. Poke over a ridge in a missile boat to hold a tag while your missiles are in flight and see how many people shoot back at you. Spoiler all of them because missile boats MUST DIE. I would much rather have an extra laser than a tag any day, there is always going to be someone not under the bubble of ECM.
Tag / narc should not be a requirement for a weapon system that already requires so much extra kit, nice if you have it not the end of the world if you don't.

Super competitive teams are another story entirely almost everyone has ECM or is protected by it. That said you do not go against a team without one of your own.

[Khobai]

Quote

Big fat no in the strongest terms. This game needs 2x LRM speed like it needs energy draw.

then how would you fix LRMs?

increasing their velocity seems logical to me

since LRMs are supposed to be LONG RANGE missiles. And cant actually hit anything at long range because of how slow and easy to dodge they are.

[The6thMessenger]

Troa Barton, on 09 February 2018 - 08:36 PM, said:

...

So in short, LRMs are just set up to be not good for competitive games?

[Troa Barton]

naterist, on 09 February 2018 - 08:14 PM, said:

dropped with what im assuming was a teir 5 team tonight. they saw the enemy had a large amount of lrms coming from behind walls they couldnt see through. their bold solution to the problem was to stay away and not do anything, because one guy getting targeted would mean his instant death.

yes, i can see giving people the ability to click a button quickly from outside of LOS and then see massive rewards for it is very conducive to the overall populations enjoyment of this game.





and for those saying discontinueing lrm locks from teammates will disrupt lrm usage at high teir, then clearly you are not using them at high teir. high teir lrm users bring their own tag and artemis so they can get their own locks, and fully use the buffs gained from the artemis system.

I use them all the time in tier 1 without a tag, and seldom with artemis.
I do often get my own locks when I can but I also use indirect fire when appropriate.

[The6thMessenger]

Khobai, on 09 February 2018 - 08:37 PM, said:

then how would you fix LRMs?

increasing their velocity seems logical to me

since LRMs are supposed to be LONG RANGE missiles. And cant actually hit anything at long range because of how slow and easy to dodge they are.

I'd 2x their damage, 1.5x their cooldown (fires slower), increase their missile speed to 240 m/s. That way the there's more weight to the volley so that people just don't spam it.

[Troa Barton]

The6thMessenger, on 09 February 2018 - 08:38 PM, said:

So in short, LRMs are just set up to be not good for competitive games?

As much as I would like them to be no they aren't nor should they be. Mid-long range pinpoint damage that isn't mitigated by ECM / mass AMS will always be stronger.
Pinpoint burst damage counters missiles, that's how it has always been and I'm fine with that. Rock paper scissors and all.
Make them viable in those situations and they will be broken everywhere else.

I am a big advocate of LRMs and I am also one of the few people that think they should NOT get a buff.
Smaller tube launchers 5's and 10's need a tiny bit of help but on the whole I think they are fine.
If the weapon changes shift the meta they might become more viable. As it stands the competitive scene uses builds that directly counter LRMs by accident. Those builds just happen to also be the best overall builds.
I think they are fine as they are.

Edited by Troa Barton, 09 February 2018 - 09:11 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I'd 2x their damage, 1.5x their cooldown (fires slower), increase their missile speed to 240 m/s. That way the there's more weight to the volley so that people just don't spam it.

I agree with increasing their damage and increasing their cooldown (I was thinking more like x1.5 cooldown and x1.5 damage though, not x2 damage). That forces you to insert your volleys in more opportunistic windows instead of just spamming them constantly. It very slightly raises the skill ceiling.

Obviously they need higher velocity. Ideally they should accelerate gradually upto top speed but I dont think PGI can code gradual acceleration on missiles.

I would also get rid of the missile warnings unless you have an AMS equipped. If you want the missile warnings then equip AMS. Other weapons dont warn you when theyre headed your way and LRMs shouldnt warn you either, at least not for free. AMS dps would also need to be buffed to counter the higher velocity of the LRMs.

Also get rid of ECM stealth because ECM isnt even supposed to grant stealth. ECM should only double lock-on time.

And buff artemis, high explosive skill nodes, and TAG/NARC.

However with all those changes its likely indirect fire would need to be heavily nerfed. You should still be able to indirect fire it should just have a severe accuracy/spread/tracking penalty without TAG/NARC.

Lastly I think the lock-on system needs to change. The lock-on system could have two stages like a soft lock and a hard lock. hard locks would be harder to acquire and easier to break. soft locks would be easier to acquire but harder to break. Getting a hard lock would first require getting a soft lock. Soft locks would have worse spread/tracking than hard locks. This would also affect streaks as well.

Edited by Khobai, 09 February 2018 - 09:03 PM.

[OmniFail]

The6thMessenger, on 09 February 2018 - 08:39 PM, said:

I'd 2x their damage, 1.5x their cooldown (fires slower), increase their missile speed to 240 m/s. That way the there's more weight to the volley so that people just don't spam it.

Do this and raise the ghost heat limit on LRM5s to 4 launchers so the can have a chance at punching through AMS.

Another option would be to raise the health of LRMs or decrease the effectiveness of AMS.

Still I choose the ghost heat option. It would allow for the firing of 20 tubes at a time. This would give some chance of maintaining some effectiveness against a small amount of AMS

Edited by OmniFail, 09 February 2018 - 08:49 PM.

[Tarogato]

Yeonne Greene, on 09 February 2018 - 06:50 PM, said:

I see that the isERML in the spreadsheet is still way too hot at 4.5 heat. Meanwhile, we've dropped the standard ML to 3 and the LL to 6.5?

Unless you also plan requesting an overhaul to isDHS, I think that ERML heat needs to come down to 4, tops, to get the collective result we need on mid-range (400-600 m) IS energy builds. Realistically, it could probably be even lower than that at 3.75 or so; the ERLL is +1 heat over the LL, it doesn't quite make sense for a weapon just over half as powerful to also take a 1 point hit. If that ends up being too much, the LL can always come back up to 7.

The cLPL is also way too cold for the number of cDHS you can bring.

Heh, you caught me. We discussed it, we agreed on it, but I forgot to put it in the sheet. So you reminded me. ERML is now 4.0 heat.


As for the cLPL ... well, I'm really not happy with the clan laser changes in general right now. Esp all the larges. We've done some reviewing and changes for the IS side, but we haven't reviewed clan laser yet, so that's tomorrow.

[Kin3ticX]

Khobai, on 09 February 2018 - 08:37 PM, said:

then how would you fix LRMs?

increasing their velocity seems logical to me

since LRMs are supposed to be LONG RANGE missiles. And cant actually hit anything at long range because of how slow and easy to dodge they are.

Whats there to fix? Its just a homing missile you spam until you figure out there are better things to do with your abilities (or you just spam homing missiles forever)

Seems to me you can already LRM spam your way to tier 1 max at their current level of strength.

Look at the game outside of context battletech/mechwarrior. People are too often trying to include LRMs for the sake of LRMs themselves. They are just the closest thing in the game to a noob spam FOOS strategy. In order for it to be properly tuned, you should be able to get that occasional kill on superior pilots caught by surprise or in an LRM checkmate. The power is decent but it is also very feast or famine. If you buff it and buff it you risk taking away the journey of being able to move from homing missile spam to other stuff.

TLDR you dont "fix" them

Edited by Kin3ticX, 09 February 2018 - 09:11 PM.

[Khobai]

you just explained what there is to fix

1) make them less spammy

2) make them more skill based

3) make them less feast or famine

[The6thMessenger]

So, about Light PPC -- do people even use these with great effect?

Could we lower the cooldown to 2.5 instead of giving it 6 damage? The PPC's always seemed to me as the half-damage long-range ammo-less lighter version of the AC20, so could we apply that to LPPC being those of the AC10?

[naterist]

Khobai, on 09 February 2018 - 09:15 PM, said:

you just explained what there is to fix

1) make them less spammy

2) make them more skill based

3) make them less feast or famine

you know whats already like that? direct fire weapons. let lrms rot, unless your in a situation were your team has narq or tag. you dont NEED lrms in order for this game to be good, in fact quite a few would learn from losing them, unless your one of those guys who uses them as a crutch, then it shouldnt really effect you.

i know of literally one person who had a good excuse for running lrms, and it was because he had cerebral palsy and legitematly had trouble aiming, so he made up for it with streaks and lrms.

[Navid A1]

The6thMessenger, on 09 February 2018 - 05:02 PM, said:

• Redline Jam-Chance from 3.7% to 100%
  
• Jam Duration from 10s to 4.5s
  
• Jam Dissipation from 9.5s to 4.5s
  
• Shooting time from 6s to 5.75s
  
• RAC2 Velocity to 2000
  
• RAC5 Velocity to 1650
  
• RAC5 Spin-Up time from 1.00s to 0.75s
  
• RAC2 Damage from 0.8 to 1.0
  
• RAC2 Heat/Sec to 2.4
  
• RAC5 Heat/Sec to 3.6
  
• RAC2 Ammo/Ton 300
  
• RAC5 Ammo/Ton 200

At that current suggestion, the RAC2 is balanced to have same upfront DPS at GH limit with the GH limit of the RAC5. The RAC5 would do fixed 55.5 damage at a single continuous use, and does 5.4146 DPS effectively. The RAC2 would do fixed 37 damage at a single continuous use, and does 3.609756 DPS effectively.


That's a start. And with that current mechanic, it has less erratic output that would make it easier to fit in the power curve.

Maybe we can increase the upfront DPS if it proves to still be not good to compete -- bump the ROF to 8 shots/sec too. Or if the RAC5 proves to have too much DPS, we can reduce it. At it's current state, maybe we need to increase the weapon's DPS to compensate with lasers' damage/tick. The C-HLL has around 11.6129 Damage/tick, perhaps it will do well for the RAC5 to do 12 upfront DPS, and the RAC2 at 8 DPS.

• Rate of Fire to 8.00 shot/sec

The RAC5 would do fixed 61.5 damage at a single continuous use, and does 6 DPS effectively. The RAC2 would do fixed 41 damage at a single continuous use, and does 4 DPS effectively. It's all spread damage anyways, as well as the lasers can be used en-masse to boost the damage/tick.

Do you want us to nerf the heat on RAC2s?

[FupDup]

The6thMessenger, on 09 February 2018 - 09:25 PM, said:

So, about Light PPC -- do people even use these with great effect?

Could we lower the cooldown to 2.5 instead of giving it 6 damage? The PPC's always seemed to me as the half-damage long-range ammo-less lighter version of the AC20, so could we apply that to LPPC being those of the AC10?

I think 2.5s would be taking it too far. Should be somewhere between 3.0 - 3.5 IMO.

[The6thMessenger]

Navid A1, on 09 February 2018 - 09:27 PM, said:

Do you want us to nerf the heat on RAC2s?

Honestly no -- that's my greedy self talking.

But seeing that we're increasing the damage/shot from 0.8 to 1.0, it would be prudent to increase the heat/shot as well. The DPS and HPS is equalized with their GH limits. The 3x RAC2 would have the same 7.2 HPS as the 2x RAC5 has 7.2 HPS.

Although if you want it to be really really cool, that's fine i guess.

But i can see the heat difference biting us back when 3x RAC2 is a lot cooler than the 2x RAC5 -- but the again for the less tonnage, that is 3x RAC2 needs 24 tons while 2x RAC5 needs only 20 tons, maybe it's something to further incentivize RAC2 enmasse.

Are you people considering the 8 shots/sec too? Cause that would actually be awesome.

FupDup, on 09 February 2018 - 09:27 PM, said:

I think 2.5s would be taking it too far. Should be somewhere between 3.0 - 3.5 IMO.

Sure i guess. I don't think going damage/shot should be our direction, it would be prudent to desync these variants of PPC so they could be less about being a filler for damage padding than being their own thing.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 09 February 2018 - 09:38 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Khobai, on 09 February 2018 - 09:15 PM, said:

you just explained what there is to fix

1) make them less spammy

2) make them more skill based

3) make them less feast or famine

I don't think you put a lot of thought into your posts. Are you trolling me?

Yeah sure we'll tweet Russ and ask him to nerf buildings, buildings OP. That will fix LRMs.

There just isnt a way to make LRMs more skill based. Its the nature of a homing weapon, it aims itself if you havent noticed.