119 replies to this topic

[MechWarrior254947]

It's broken PSR that makes LRM viable in QP, not lurm buffs.
How often do you see an assault lurmboat doing 150-200 dmg in QP? Do you think this number will decrease after PGI buff lurms again?
A good player can easily farm QP potatoes with lurms but usually lose when facing equally skilled opponent. The fact that best players can farm with lurms consistently in T1 matches is just an indication how bad the overall T1 population.

[justcallme A S H]

Deathlike, on 15 July 2018 - 05:38 PM, said:

That doesn't begin to discuss how random LRM hits are. I mean, it's great for stat padding if you like damaging a target all over the place, but the guy is still alive. If a target died quickly but whatever means, that's usually more efficient than someone lobbing LRMs regardless of distance.

Just remember... double teaming is useful for all builds, but anytime you are dedicating a mech to NARC or TAG just for the purposes of spotting is one less guy dealing actual useful damage to a target (like trying to aim for a backstab, which is a more efficient kill).

You'll laugh at this . So in my recent LRM trolling I've had targets try and face-rush me in LRMboats to 'close' that min range and all that. By the time they close from 600/500-300m, in most cases, I've CT-cored them without anywhere else being open and this is with LRM15A/LRM20A from both Clan and IS. 2 volleys, maybe 3 is all that is needed. IS will end to spread a bit more simply due to the bucket firing.

Also if you are aggressive and use TAG / Line of Sight then the spread and hit really is not that random. Now of course charging at LRM50A+ as if it's going to do nothing is dumb, but that is the overall playerbase and I see it a LOT. More often than I would have 2 years ago.

At 800m / across a map without sight lines then I absolutely agree with you. There is a lot of ineffective damage being delt unless someone else had a TAG on the target or otherwise (which is very rare).

El Bandito, on 15 July 2018 - 07:31 PM, said:

That's most likely cause your targets were dumb enough to go straight backwards in order to dodge the lurms, and the missiles hit their legs.

Great players such as them are not "some rando" by my definition. I myself have already proven to everyone that I can make LRM only ARC-5W work successfully and consistently in QP, but I am also better than the average pug.

Nah not even man - Any Heavy/Assault will still take torso/arm/CT damage, rarely legs. I say this as the next time the target appears the leg armour is barely touched each and every time while (usually) torsos seem to take the brunt of it - mech depending.

This is even on maps with lots of cover, long as you LRM from the right position you can negate cover if you know what you are doing.

Of course I am not 'the average' when it comes to this discussion as positioning is key.... BUT...

It's 1000x easier to crank 1,000 damage 2/3 kill games in LRMBoat and control a game than it is in the 94pt BOOGEYMAN DWF whichPGI are using as the justification for, well, I don't know what. I don't know what because the stated aim isn't backed up by the stats/changes proposed.

[Cedien Kerensky]

Purpose of LRMs is to Praise Chris!

[El Bandito]

justcallme A S H, on 15 July 2018 - 08:34 PM, said:

It's 1000x easier to crank 1,000 damage 2/3 kill games in LRMBoat and control a game than it is in the 94pt BOOGEYMAN DWF whichPGI are using as the justification for, well, I don't know what. I don't know what because the stated aim isn't backed up by the stats/changes proposed.

My DF mechs (including big alpha Deathstrike/Hellbringer) still have better stats than my best LRM mech, in solo-q and FP. And I have lurmed for 4 years at least. As I said, consistency--something LRM lacks.

The best argument for me for LRM change is--Is the current LRM unfun in terms of mechanics? Yes, yes it is unfun. For both the shooter and the receiver. PGI should make LRMs truly fire and forget, and reduce the tracking strength.

Edited by El Bandito, 15 July 2018 - 09:34 PM.

[MischiefSC]

justcallme A S H, on 15 July 2018 - 08:34 PM, said:

You'll laugh at this . So in my recent LRM trolling I've had targets try and face-rush me in LRMboats to 'close' that min range and all that. By the time they close from 600/500-300m, in most cases, I've CT-cored them without anywhere else being open and this is with LRM15A/LRM20A from both Clan and IS. 2 volleys, maybe 3 is all that is needed. IS will end to spread a bit more simply due to the bucket firing.

Also if you are aggressive and use TAG / Line of Sight then the spread and hit really is not that random. Now of course charging at LRM50A+ as if it's going to do nothing is dumb, but that is the overall playerbase and I see it a LOT. More often than I would have 2 years ago.

At 800m / across a map without sight lines then I absolutely agree with you. There is a lot of ineffective damage being delt unless someone else had a TAG on the target or otherwise (which is very rare).



Nah not even man - Any Heavy/Assault will still take torso/arm/CT damage, rarely legs. I say this as the next time the target appears the leg armour is barely touched each and every time while (usually) torsos seem to take the brunt of it - mech depending.

This is even on maps with lots of cover, long as you LRM from the right position you can negate cover if you know what you are doing.

Of course I am not 'the average' when it comes to this discussion as positioning is key.... BUT...

It's 1000x easier to crank 1,000 damage 2/3 kill games in LRMBoat and control a game than it is in the 94pt BOOGEYMAN DWF whichPGI are using as the justification for, well, I don't know what. I don't know what because the stated aim isn't backed up by the stats/changes proposed.

If I tried to close in a face rush charge from 600m on you while you were in, say, a dakka Mad Cat MK II nobody would bat an eye or consider it surprising if I died in about 6 seconds. 2 or 3 seconds if you were focusing fire along with a teammate. That you can at least chew me pretty badly with LRMs in the same approach but I'll probably survive to 300m.

That's really the crux of it. Yes, a good player can do a lot of damage with LRMs. Even a bad player can do a lot of damage. However a good player with a decent direct fire loadout will kill me faster - significantly faster, which will in turn do a better job of driving wins on average.

There's also a lot of talk from people who know how to play direct fire really, really well. Like top 5% or better players. Of course you guys can make LRMs work. People in that skill category could do well in stock mechs. You also don't play anything at all like the other 95% of the population and 99.99999% of the population that plays LRMs. The people who actually play LRMs as described (mid range, always good positioning, always excellent range control) could all fit on the same tour bus with room for some groupies, beer and snacks.

The overall gaming population of MWO is as likely to run into Chris playing in QP as they are one of the players in question playing an LRM boat as described in QP. It's bordering on statistically irrelevant. With the average skill level in QP as low as it is with the population where it is the difference between killing goats in a Tank via your .50 or actual HE tank rounds is largely semantics. That's not a good argument for saying that a .50 is as good at blowing **** up as a 120mm HE shell. One is demonstratively superior at blowing **** up than the other but when you're a skilled tank gunner in a modern tank blowing confused and terrified goats off a hillside it probably all feels the same and shooting the .50 probably feels like less trouble.

[justcallme A S H]

My point was simply - with TAG/Atermis even on larger launchers - it's able to core relatively easy.

And to stir Death a bit with said information.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 16 July 2018 - 12:58 AM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

NobleSavage, on 15 July 2018 - 01:57 AM, said:

First of all, I am not a native speaker, so please forgive me my grammatical errors.

Very often it's been said, that LRMs are a terrible/ineffective weapon and that it's easy to counter them. I agree to that but only in the case of a 1 vs 1 situation or with little teams. LRMS are by no means easy to counter in a 12 vs 12 situation like in Quick Play. Why?

I just can't use always terrain, not because I am to dumb, but because there are 8 or 10 other enemies which I also have to fight against. In many situations you are temporary forced into positions where LRM can hit you badly and even destroy you without the chance to fight these mechs back. That's why they are so popular and getting popularer each day.

So, my provoking thesis or opinion is the following:

LRMs are a crutch weapon for bad players to be able to also get high damage scores and kills too. Not every match but often enough.
And that is why they are so annoying to better players. While the better players with aiming weapons are in an intense fight with each other (which inludes the necessity to move over the battlefield) they get often badly damaged by the beneficial LRMers in the third row.

A similar motivation I see in the coming LRM buff and in the intended mid range Laser nerfs and long range Laser buffs. Bad players benefit from sniping and LRM fighting styles. Even when i want to have a little more "relaxed" match for myself i use this two styles. They are not evil and some get really good at them, but nevertheless they give bad players the chance to play along.

So all this lately development is in truth a "Bad Player buff"... to make them happy and hold them to the game. But that's just my personal point of view and assumption.

Alright cool, let me break down your argument and point out why you're wrong my friend.

1: just can't use always terrain, not because I am to dumb, but because there are 8 or 10 other enemies which I also have to fight against. In many situations you are temporary forced into positions where LRM can hit you badly and even destroy you without the chance to fight these mechs back. That's why they are so popular and getting popularer each day.

This, is called tactical engagement. A good LRM user will capitalize on this kind of situation. This does not make the LRM user "a bad player" It takes skill to understand the tactics and proper time in which to utilize the weapons system.

You say you cannot use the terrain because of the other enemies. Then in that case, the other enemies are doing their job of denying you terrain advantage, allowing the LRM user to do what he does, which is rain indirect firepower down on your head.
[now I will admit, there's a case to be made for changing how indirect fire works, IE only available via TAG/NARC, but that's another discussion.]

2:LRMs are a crutch weapon for bad players to be able to also get high damage scores and kills too. Not every match but often enough.
And that is why they are so annoying to better players. While the better players with aiming weapons are in an intense fight with each other (which inludes the necessity to move over the battlefield) they get often badly damaged by the beneficial LRMers in the third row.

"Better" Players, will already be utilizing the hard counters, ECM alone, absolutely shuts down LRM boats... simple as that, 1 secondary system, that weighs 1 ton, and comes on a variety of mechs, shuts down an entire multi-ton weapons system + ammo. 1, single ton piece of equipment shuts down: lrm5,10,15,20, ALRM5,10,15,20, Streak SRM 2,4,6. ATM's, that's aproximately 25 entire weapons systems shut down via a single ton of equipment.[not the exact number but it's damned close]

combined with radar derp and various other options... LRM's are already at a huge disadvantage against those who decide they want to cut out about 25 of the weapons systems in the game out of the weapons they need to worry about. Thus rendering only ballistic's and lasers as the weapons of worry by that point.

good LRM pilots know this, thus they focus on those who are either less knowledgeable about the counters, or those who do not care.

3: A similar motivation I see in the coming LRM buff and in the intended mid range Laser nerfs and long range Laser buffs. Bad players benefit from sniping and LRM fighting styles. Even when i want to have a little more "relaxed" match for myself i use this two styles. They are not evil and some get really good at them, but nevertheless they give bad players the chance to play along.

Well, considering the fact that for clans at least, there's a spread nerf coming to LRM's... 1/2 of the LRM weapons systems in the game are going to end up suffering a nerf due to spread... I guess you can count it as another IS buff at least, so let's argue from the IS side of things..

Okay so IS are getting a buff, you're saying that two entirely different play styles, "Sniping and LRM'ing" are "bad play styles."

Let's look at the 2 ERLL Raven... while it can do a lot of damage at range with those ERLL's, a new player, or even a bad player, is unlikely to be able to utilize the weapon's burn time effectively to do any real damage with this weapon combo. Now in the hands of a GOOD player, Those 2 erll can be absolutely pinpoint devastating.

Same goes for LRM's, LRM's are area denial weapons, they're great for breaking up murderballs and often times can cause heavy scouts, or even sometimes heavy mechs in general, to break off from the fight due to pure shake and suppression. They're intimidating weapons to go up against, and to those who are worried about armor levels or the like, can make fighting against LRM's feel, very difficult.

However as stated earlier, LRM's are, frankly, the most easily countered weapons system in the game. AMS, ECM, Stealth Armor, and Radar Derp all hard counter LRM's, combined with positioning, the weapon can, in some cases, be entirely nullified out of a fight.

So that's 3 major points you postulate, and 3 rebuttle's from someone who's been here since the LURMAGEDDON days of closed beta...

The truth is, LRM's would be fine as they were, LRM's constantly come into vogue, then players start taking the counters, and LRM's fall out of favor, then the counters stop being taken as "Wasted tonnage" then LRM's rise again... simple as that.

[MischiefSC]

justcallme A S H, on 16 July 2018 - 12:56 AM, said:

My point was simply - with TAG/Atermis even on larger launchers - it's able to core relatively easy.

And to stir Death a bit with said information.

Fair enough. Dat Awesome; screwing around in 1 v 1s the other month I was shocked at how much that thing went for my CT even on a Battlemaster. Same with the Archer. Like 75% of that damage was CT, even when twisting if I was in the open. If I was running parallel I got a lot more leg hits and arm hits but if I'm going straight in or straight back, yeah - it was pretty focused.

If everyone played LRMs like the 20 or so people who can do so intelligently and consistently it wouldn't be an issue. Just that we never see that. We see guys with 0.8 w/l in LRM Scorch camping in the back, blowing the **** out of mountain sides or raining LRMs at 700m down splattering worthless damage on the guy who's precisely and consistently coring out and killing us in QP, because we're functionally fighting 10 v 12. Then at the end saying 'I did my part' because he got 700 damage using his team as pug armor and ensuring our defeat while padding his stats.

We all ******* hate that guy. I'd rather have Captain Derplas doing his solo 'flank' in an Atlas and dying alone. At least he tied up and drew off a few enemies for a while and we can leverage that for a win. Nobody is going to complain about Ash farming salty lulz, wrecking the dreams of people thinking 'well at least I can kill that easy LRM boat'.

Edited to add -

and to your 94pt boogieman comment. A 60-70pt alpha HBR in the hands of a good player is a metric **** ton more dangerous than a Dire and with the proposed changes the CERLL-spam in, well, anything and everything will be dramatically worse. The Dire is, ironically, dangerous in the same way the LRM 80 SNV is dangerous. You get caught out in the wrong place and it'll smash you. However it's not that tough to counter and kill it. A well built heavy mech with gaussvomit or the proposed 3CERLL-based builds don't really have an effective counter save 'be better than that player in the same sort of mech'. Not in QP. Overall the HGauss Cyclops is a bigger consistent performer and a bigger overall threat in QP 9 times out of 10.

Edited by MischiefSC, 16 July 2018 - 09:05 AM.

[The Mysterious Fox]

starting to get games with nothing but airstrikes and lrms holy crap on polar highlands no less

[Deathlike]

justcallme A S H, on 16 July 2018 - 12:56 AM, said:

My point was simply - with TAG/Atermis even on larger launchers - it's able to core relatively easy.

And to stir Death a bit with said information.

Sorry. I haven't played recently outside of the recent PTS in a minimally viable capacity.

I stopped caring, just like PGI has. I'm pretty much only here for when the corpse appears.

The thing is, I rarely see anyone with competent LRM intelligence, so outside of seeing a few ones that are good... the intelligence (or actually the lack thereof) are the people that PGI is catering to. It's self evident in who they are aiming for. You only need to hover/highlight over the target instead of aim when it comes to LRMs.

[Andi Nagasia]

this is the part where i pop in and remind everyone to keep things civil,
i know the beginning of this topic was abit heated but please remember to be civil,
thank you,

[justcallme A S H]

Deathlike, on 19 July 2018 - 02:03 PM, said:

Sorry. I haven't played recently outside of the recent PTS in a minimally viable capacity.

I stopped caring, just like PGI has. I'm pretty much only here for when the corpse appears.

The thing is, I rarely see anyone with competent LRM intelligence, so outside of seeing a few ones that are good... the intelligence (or actually the lack thereof) are the people that PGI is catering to. It's self evident in who they are aiming for. You only need to hover/highlight over the target instead of aim when it comes to LRMs.

haha I know ya haven't mate.

But yeah LRMs are in a dirty, dirty place right now either way and the heat buff made it a lot worse.

[Dragonporn]

The actual problem right now is that many people think LRMs got some sort of buff and became good, so more people than usual pick up Lurm boats, turning matchmaking into brutal cluster****, from what I see lately. It hurts everybody and everything, I just hope soon people will realize nothing really changed in terms of balance and get back to their usual builds...

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Dragonporn, on 19 July 2018 - 07:11 PM, said:

The actual problem right now is that many people think LRMs got some sort of buff and became good, so more people than usual pick up Lurm boats, turning matchmaking into brutal cluster****, from what I see lately. It hurts everybody and everything, I just hope soon people will realize nothing really changed in terms of balance and get back to their usual builds...

Look at this guy, thinking some of us don't run LRM's as our usual builds.

[No One Lives Forever]

Dragonporn, on 19 July 2018 - 07:11 PM, said:

The actual problem right now is that many people think LRMs got some sort of buff and became good, so more people than usual pick up Lurm boats, turning matchmaking into brutal cluster****, from what I see lately. It hurts everybody and everything, I just hope soon people will realize nothing really changed in terms of balance and get back to their usual builds...

Do you want to be the only lurm boat on the battlefield? Getting too much of your own medicine (getting lurmed too much)?

[Mystere]

Dragonporn, on 19 July 2018 - 07:11 PM, said:

The actual problem right now is that many people think LRMs got some sort of buff and became good, so more people than usual pick up Lurm boats, turning matchmaking into brutal cluster****, from what I see lately. It hurts everybody and everything, I just hope soon people will realize nothing really changed in terms of balance and get back to their usual builds...

Here is another point of view: Maybe, just maybe, people want to directly see the changes themselves.

Something similar happens each and every time a new Mech is released (i.e. "too many" of the new Mechs are being used). So why is it a "problem" when it is a change to a piece of equipment?

[Dragonporn]

Mystere, on 20 July 2018 - 07:12 AM, said:

Here is another point of view: Maybe, just maybe, people want to directly see the changes themselves.

Something similar happens each and every time a new Mech is released (i.e. "too many" of the new Mechs are being used). So why is it a "problem" when it is a change to a piece of equipment?

People can't imagine what tiny heat decrease % + tiny spread increase on c-lurms would look like? That's hilarious...

[Mystere]

Dragonporn, on 20 July 2018 - 11:04 AM, said:

People can't imagine what tiny heat decrease % + tiny spread increase on c-lurms would look like? That's hilarious...

It's hilarious only to people -- especially software developers -- who do not thoroughly review their work. The latest example is the borked Ebon Jaguar cockpit. <shrugs>

Edited by Mystere, 20 July 2018 - 11:13 AM.

[Andi Nagasia]

Mystere, on 20 July 2018 - 11:12 AM, said:

It's hilarious only to people -- especially software developers -- who do not thoroughly review their work. The latest example is the borked Ebon Jaguar cockpit. <shrugs>

i dont think thats really fair,
from a programing standpoint a single misplaced character and lead to everything not working,
you could make a small change and it could completely break something else in your game,

and i know sometimes people just say [well just thoroughly test everything] but thats not really an option,
if your game has 94 chassis(as MWO does) you cant always test all 94 as well as every Variant every patch,
as the Cockpit problem wasnt for all EBJ, as the Hero i bought didnt have that problem,

[Mystere]

Andi Nagasia, on 20 July 2018 - 04:25 PM, said:

i dont think thats really fair,
from a programing standpoint a single misplaced character and lead to everything not working,
you could make a small change and it could completely break something else in your game,

and i know sometimes people just say [well just thoroughly test everything] but thats not really an option,
if your game has 94 chassis(as MWO does) you cant always test all 94 as well as every Variant every patch,
as the Cockpit problem wasnt for all EBJ, as the Hero i bought didnt have that problem,

If your code base is so brittle that a single misplaced character can lead to disaster, then you have a much much much bigger problem.

Edited by Mystere, 20 July 2018 - 05:13 PM.