605 replies to this topic

[process]

Alternately, heatsink values remain the same across the board, but you make IS weapons cooler and/or Clan weapon hotter. Clan heatsink tonnage and slot benefits should be offset by their weapon heat values, and I suppose Clan weapons would also be proportionally hotter because they're all essentially of the ER variety.

In other words, I would expect an IS mech with +/-14 DHS to have a similar heat efficiency of a comparable Clan mech with +/-18 DHS.

[Khobai]

process, on 13 August 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

In other words, I would expect an IS mech with +/-14 DHS to have a similar heat efficiency of a comparable Clan mech with +/-18 DHS.

Its more like IS mechs with 18-19 DHS need to have similar heat efficiency to clan mechs with 24-25 DHS.

So changing IS-DHS from 1.4 to 1.9-2.0 is really not that crazy. Thats exactly where IS-DHS need to be to compete with clans. And given that they take up 50% more crit slots, it would be fine.


A Clan laser vomit mech with 24 DHS (2.0 internals, 1.4 external) = 39.6 dissipation

An IS laser vomit mech with 18 DHS that are all 2.0 = 36 dissipation

And that -10% heat gen quirk that a lot of IS mechs get, easily makes up the remaining difference.

So buffing all all IS-DHS to the 1.9-2.0 range gets us pretty close to equal. That's a no brainer balance change that needs to happen. Because clans having way more dissipation is one of the biggest imbalances.

I also firmly believe ISXL needs to be changed to survive side torso destruction. And IS ES/FF both need massive buffs so theyre more on par with the clan versions.

Edited by Khobai, 13 August 2018 - 12:59 PM.

[Chris Lowrey]

Kin3ticX, on 10 August 2018 - 09:55 AM, said:

I'll throw on a flame suit just to point out that LRMs imo should be more or less tuned to be strong enough for an inferior pilot to seldom or occasionally defeat a superior pilot in 12v12 solo play. Since LRMs are literally a spam / homing missile its the perfect candidate as a FOOS strategy just like streaks. Whether or not you guys call it a FOOS internally...i dont know..but I think it is. Other players that are too tied up with "A BATTLETECH GAME" sometimes just include LRMs for the sake of LRMs without much more thought than that.

Making LRMs good in bracket builds is a whole other issue and I don't really think its possible short of some kind of shoehorned reverse boating system. It's the whole specialist vs swiss army knife thing. So obviously I assume you do the tuning primarily with LRM boats.

Also, I don't think you'd have much a PR problem with LRM tweaks & buffs if the state of the game balance was otherwise bitchen for all the other play options.

I saw this post on Friday but wanted to put a pin in responding to it till today because what I'm going to say I'm sure is going to set off a ton of back and forth that I wouldn't have the time to address over the weekend. Apologies in advance for the length of the response. Naturally don't expect this involved of a response from me on everything asked here in the forums (I still have to get a PTS ready for everyone.) But on this point I felt it was important to get out there.

So I hear a lot of talk and get a lot of messages / tweets forwarded to me about LRMs as a low tier / Noob Tube / First Order Optimal strategy and that is how it's supposed to be so (insert argument here...) There are a few fundamental things about this position that rub me the wrong way that I feel the need to clear the air on so we can move forward on further talks with LRM's in a constructive way.

First off, to answer the question on if we use this terminology internally, I would say by and large, no, not specifically at least. Mostly because like most other design terminology that often gets thrown around, its a single component of a much larger language / work of game design. While it makes for a more focused / convenient talking points in standard conversation to argue a particular viewpoint, when it comes to the work involved, it is a single component of design that feeds into the greater whole of both the experience, and the overall balance between the different functions of the game. In this sense, its never just about FOO strategies, but its about FOO strategies against other, sometimes much more important balance points. Such as Character / weapon / ability scaling between tonnages, item accessibility, differences in kind to differences in scale, design break points, and Skill in to Power out ratios and how each and every one of those singular points feeds into all of the other ones. All individual points that don't exist in a vacuum from one another, but are deeply intertwined in the overall experience. Focusing too heavily on any one singular point from a design side is a quick way to unintentionally gloss over something that may be much more important in the grand scheme of things. So while FOOS specifically isn't really discussed at length internally, like everything else, it is a singular factor within the greater whole of everything we do look at on our end.

But as to LRMs existing as effectively a FOO weapon, or "Noob Tube," I think neglects a very important aspect what FOO experiences are designed around. And to this, I would argue that LRM's should not be looked at as something that fills these roles for a number of reasons.

Before I get to that, when it comes to weapons within the roster that I personally would consider as "FOO" weapons, streak missiles and the Inner Sphere medium laser would probably be the best examples that I would define within the context of MWO. In the case of Streaks, the weapon has potentially 100% accuracy provided you both lock on and fire your missiles at the appropriate time, allowing for efficient accuracy, and more importantly to a new player, heat that is only applied to the weapon when it has an almost guaranteed chance of hitting it's target, but the lock on sequence requires both venerable face time, it also gives up the initiative which allows other players to react to you with trigger fired weapons or by attempting to evade you, and they are heavier to equip in the 'Mechlab compared to alternative launchers. While for the IS medium lasers, they are the "jack of all trades" laser that provides you with a mix of decent range, accuracy, damage potential, all at reasonable heat costs compared to alternative laser types. For Novice 'Mechwarriors, these get you in the game and playing, but as you raise in skill, you will more then likely move away from these weapons. For the Medium laser, you will often see at the higher levels players begin to take the hotter, but more specialized lasers which allows them to optimize on their play-style / battlefield positioning to a much greater degree then you could with the standard lasers, while with streaks, you can negate a lot of their drawbacks with standard SRM launchers and often save tonnage on your build, but a streak player still gains valuable experience in positioning, target acquisition and recognition, from their time with streaks that directly translates into SRM builds. Thus being a fairly common "FOO" progression since these weapons are often very effectively utilized at lower skill levels, but the playstyles are eventually replaced with more specialized, or efficient options once you have the skills to utilize them.

Both of those above points are things that make LRMs ill suited to that kind of weapon design. Mainly because of the unique mechanics behind LRMs. Picking up LRMs with the intent that they become obsolete past a certain skill level leads to effectively a progression "dead end" since no other weapon in MWO works in the same way that LRM's do. So when you pick up LRM's early and they are designed to effectively become obsolete at a certain skill level, it effectively puts up a hard wall that players that enjoy the mechanics or 'Mechs that are specialized in that style of play, simply cannot progress past. Since unlike Streaks or the Medium laser, none of the skills that an inexperienced player learns while playing LRM's are immediately transferable to any other weapon or mechanic in the game like the other weapons. Which is something that completely goes against what FOO weapons are supposed to do since the idea is that they are "beginner friendly" weapons that become "less efficient" the more skill you have in the game, which allows you to take the skills you learned in the early game and have that translate into more efficient weapon choices in the higher tiers.

The other big thing comes from what happens at the top. Mainly, with planned obsolescence past a certain skill level for LRMs, its not simply a matter of removing a weapon system as a viable option for play at the top, but with its unique mechanics, it removes an entire play style that needs to be accounted for at high levels of play which simply results in a much more tactically narrower experience at the top then there is at the bottom or mid-tiers of the game. No matter what game it is, there is always a particular loathing for indirect / arching fire / splash damage weapons that can often result in a less experienced player taking out a more experienced player no matter what game system you play in. But their inclusion / balance still has to be to the point where there are legitimate risk / reward factors to their use that leads to a more tactically diverse experience at the top. It could still be much more inefficient to more direct fire solutions, but keeping it as a unique threat that must be respected and played around goes towards breaking up the overall tactical experience we want from the game at a high level. As avenues that may be seen as "safe" are suddenly much more risky, which augments play in a number of ways. Both in their effective use as an offensive weapon, but also in strategies that can be utilized to effectively counter-play against them.

To use a few examples we have been finding from monitoring Solo and Group queue over the past month, we have seen two major things on our end:

1.) Effective LRM play often sees a force much more spread out to provide successful spotting angles + multiple LRM angles of attack.
2.) We have seen a major uptick in the efficiency of brawlers, especially light and medium brawlers, that directly counter the more spread out nature of typical LRM play in Solo and Group queue. Either through dedicated flankers (more common in solo queue.) or calling for a coordinated push into the more spread out team (more common in group queue.)

This is not to say that we don't see the current feedback regarding LRMs. Particularly their skill in to power out effectiveness and their overall ease of use. It is why we are targeting changes the way we are for August and as we have said in this tread multiple times, we will monitor and consider future changes depending on how thing go. But as we said in the podcast, we will be moving forward with the intention to keep LRMs as a threat that must be accounted for at all levels of play. And we will be monitoring feedback from all players on moving us in this direction.

Thanks for putting up with the long post. I'm sure there are going to be very strong opinions expressed from what I've posted here, so please remember to keep it civil and constructive. (Sorry in advanced Tina.)

[Decency]

Hey there, I just wanted to focus on a couple of things after listening to the podcast today.

First, the cool shot change. I think applying the heat over a duration is a great idea that could help make these a bit more fun to play with/against. However, I'm confident that 3 seconds is too short to meaningfully change how these are used. The typical use case right now, say with a Laser Vomit HBR, is that I alpha something until I'm at/near max heat. If I have a chance to kill it with my next alpha but wouldn't be able to make that shot safely without a coolshot, I'll use it immediately after firing my previous alpha and not getting the kill. By the time my HLL/ERMLs have cycled, it will have been more than 3 seconds anyway and I can just alpha exactly as I could've before this tweak. So, it seems like a good idea, but the number needs to be higher to meaningfully impact how these are used: something like 6-10 seconds would be my guess. (7 is the most elegant, as it's just +2 dissipation per second).

As a somewhat related aside, I'd also really appreciate some sort of signal or visual cue when an opponent I'm looking at has used a coolshot, as in an evenly matched fight it essentially means that I also need to use one or retreat to avoid a bad engagement. This certainly isn't necessary, but hopefully it's something worth considering.

Next, I was surprised to hear very little discussion about light mechs. Light mechs outside of those that can boat machine guns are in a really terrible place right now. And in games with more competent players, even those select few mechs which can boat MG's are mostly just leg target practice for the massive alphas and dual Gauss/HGR builds common right now. Part of this is definitely due to limited hardpoints, as you touched on. But while recent changes certainly haven't helped, I think the hitbox rescale is the primary cause of this, unfortunately, and my understanding is that that isn't something you'll consider adjusting further. But these guys need some attention for sure.

I think the best thing to do that would help Lights would be making Small and Micro class lasers far more usable. Currently, the range on these is extremely low for both IS and Clan, and how quickly you're able to "spend your heat" with them is just too long to be viable in most engagements. For example, the C-SPL has only a TINY bit more DPS than the C-HML, but it needs to be fired almost 3 times as much and from about half the range. This leads to spreading your damage, more exposures, higher facetime, and significantly limited opportunities to safely "spend your heat" to deal damage. I wouldn't even consider running a 5x/6x SPL/ERSL/HSL Cheetah nowadays when I can just run 4x HML instead.

Notably, this buff to Small/Micro lasers should NOT be imbalanced among Heavy/Assault mechs with more energy hardpoints, as those mechs are mostly too slow to get close enough and have sufficient heat capacity to fully utilize bigger weapons, anyway. The only one that comes to mind who might be a viable wielder is the GAR-D and I don't think too many people are concerned that Gargoyles will become overpowered anytime soon.

I do also want to point out as well that additional facetime ISN'T a concern for MG boating mechs, as they will be staring at enemy mechs anyway. Thus, they already utilize small lasers and so significant buffs to these weapons without commensurate nerfs to MG boating could cause problems. The simplest nerf to me is adding a small amount of ghost heat when 4+ or 6+ MG's are in use simultaneously. Not an absurd amount, just enough so that a mech with most of its loadout invested into MG's but which also has a few small lasers runs into meaningful heat issues instead of being essentially heat-neutral.

Thanks for reading!

Edited by Decency, 13 August 2018 - 01:20 PM.

[process]

Khobai, on 13 August 2018 - 12:48 PM, said:

Its more like IS mechs with 18-19 DHS need to have similar heat efficiency to clan mechs with 24-25 DHS.

So changing IS-DHS from 1.4 to 1.9-2.0 is really not that crazy. Thats exactly where IS-DHS need to be to compete with clans. And given that they take up 50% more crit slots, it would be fine.


A Clan laser vomit mech with 24 DHS (2.0 internals, 1.4 external) = 39.6 dissipation

An IS laser vomit mech with 18 DHS that are all 2.0 = 36 dissipation

And that -10% heat gen quirk that a lot of IS mechs get, easily makes up the remaining difference.

So buffing all all IS-DHS to the 1.9-2.0 range gets us pretty close to equal. That's a no brainer balance change that needs to happen. Because clans having way more dissipation is one of the biggest imbalances.

I don't think IS and Clan need to have the same dissipation rates, so long as the efficiency is similar. This could be done with a blanket 5-10% decrease in IS weapon heat.

Edited by process, 13 August 2018 - 01:19 PM.

[Kageru Ikazuchi]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 12:54 PM, said:

...
To use a few examples we have been finding from monitoring Solo and Group queue over the past month, we have seen two major things on our end:

1.) Effective LRM play often sees a force much more spread out to provide successful spotting angles + multiple LRM angles of attack.
2.) We have seen a major uptick in the efficiency of brawlers, especially light and medium brawlers, that directly counter the more spread out nature of typical LRM play in Solo and Group queue. Either through heavy flankers (more common in solo queue.) or calling for a coordinated push into the more spread out team (more common in group queue.)

This is not to say that we don't see the current feedback regarding LRMs. Particularly their skill in to power out effectiveness and their overall ease of use. It is why we are targeting changes the way we are for August and as we have said in this tread multiple times, we will monitor and consider future changes depending on how thing go. But as we said in the podcast, we will not be moving in a direction that simply relegates LRMs back into the garbage bin at higher levels of play. They can still be ineffective when compared to direct fire weapons, but they still need to serve as a potential threat to be accounted for if the goal is indeed to diversify the amount of legitimate tactics that can be utilized at the top.

This is an interesting observation and a nice bit of insight into your goals for balance. It would be shocking to see a day when a varied drop deck ... with brawlers, mid-range direct fire, scouts, and extreme-range harassing fire (including LRMs) ... is comparable, maybe even preferable to the more focused and specific decks we normally see in competition.

[Chris Lowrey]

Kageru Ikazuchi, on 13 August 2018 - 01:16 PM, said:

This is an interesting observation and a nice bit of insight into your goals for balance. It would be shocking to see a day when a varied drop deck ... with brawlers, mid-range direct fire, scouts, and extreme-range harassing fire (including LRMs) ... is comparable, maybe even preferable to the more focused and specific decks we normally see in competition.

We are starting to see experimentation with that on our end in a number of venues right now. Especially when it comes to a Brawl + LRM support deck.

We have been seeing faster brawlers "jump in" to a brawl, Pop UAV's directly in the middle of a brawl, and then have a handful of LRM support 'Mechs rain in from the mid / back field.

Although they are still few and far between with varying degrees of success, we are happy to see adaptation on this front lead to unique deck construction that we didn't really see much previously. While I'm sure much of this is to enjoy the current state of LRMs before the incoming changes next week, it is something interesting that we are monitoring how teams are adapting.

[Khobai]

process, on 13 August 2018 - 01:14 PM, said:

I don't think IS and Clan need to have the same dissipation rates, so long as the efficiency is similar. This could be done with a blanket 5-10% decrease in IS weapon heat.

given the importance of heat in this game, they do need roughly the same dissipation rates. otherwise clans will always have way more firepower throughput than IS. the game will never achieve adequate balance as long as clans can pump out way more damage.

you could try to balance in a ridiculous roundabout way by making IS weapons cooler or clan weapons hotter. I think IS quirks make it pretty clear why roundabout balancing is a bad idea though. The simplest and best way to balance things is just to go right to the source of imbalance: the heatsinks themselves.

Quote

This could be done with a blanket 5-10% decrease in IS weapon heat.

the evidence shows thats not nearly enough. Clans can easily mount about 33% more DHS than IS.

and again IS-DHS take up 3 crit slots, so why shouldnt they be better than C-DHS which only take up 2 crit slots? thats kindve a common sense thing.

C-DHS should be about efficiency/streamlining. IS-DHS should be about brute force dissipation. So IS-DHS should all be buffed to +2.0 capacity/dissipation.

Edited by Khobai, 13 August 2018 - 01:45 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Khobai, on 13 August 2018 - 06:18 AM, said:

the best solution IMO is to buff IS DHS. all IS DHS should be 2.0 because they take up 3 crit slots instead of 2 crit slots.

putting IS DHS at 2.0, in conjunction with many IS mechs having -10% heat gen quirks, would largely bring IS and Clan mechs into parity with eachother for heat capacity/dissipation.

the two tech bases need to be equalized. heatsinks are an obvious place to start. but also ISXL needs to survive side torso blowout. and IS ES/FF needs to be more on par with the clan versions.

Considering that IS lasers are generally cooler, that's not really much of an issue.

[Khobai]

The6thMessenger, on 13 August 2018 - 02:27 PM, said:

Considering that IS lasers are generally cooler, that's not really much of an issue.

what? theyre only cooler because they do less damage

but the damage per heat is pretty much the same (its 1.11 for both ISERML and CERML)

so what youre saying doesnt really make any sense

clans still get way more damage throughput because they get similar damage per heat in addition to way better dissipation. and both IS and clan lasers are ghost heat limited at the same amount. IS never wins in that situation.

rather than nerfing clan lasers into the dirt id rather just see IS DHS get buffed. address the problem directly instead of in some goofy roundabout way. nobody likes repeated nerfs and clan players are sick of it.

IS DHS should be better than CDHS because they cost more (3 crits vs 2 crits). if youre not going to make things worth their cost then whats the point of even trying to balance anything at all?

Edited by Khobai, 13 August 2018 - 02:56 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 01:29 PM, said:

We are starting to see experimentation with that on our end in a number of venues right now. Especially when it comes to a Brawl + LRM support deck.

We have been seeing faster brawlers "jump in" to a brawl, Pop UAV's directly in the middle of a brawl, and then have a handful of LRM support 'Mechs rain in from the mid / back field.

Although they are still few and far between with varying degrees of success, we are happy to see adaptation on this front lead to unique deck construction that we didn't really see much previously. While I'm sure much of this is to enjoy the current state of LRMs before the incoming changes next week, it is something interesting that we are monitoring how teams are adapting.

If you are trying to encourage people to include LRMs, I don't see how you can avoid an LRM boating problem. LRMs probably have the games strongest bandwagon effect since the skill floor is pretty low if not the lowest.

For example, an LRM-20 is at least a 12 ton investment and there is a good chance I will get into a situation where the weapon is a 100% dead weight in a match (no locks, 3xAMS, ECM, cover, buildings, etc etc). How will you convince above avg players to take out a large direct fire weapon and make more of these mix builds that include LRMs? How will you do this without also causing the forums to burn down because of extreme lurm boating in solo queue?

[justcallme A S H]

Hey Chris - Good post / information. While I don't agree about Streaks being a 'easier' weapon compared to LRMs given Streaks are;

• Hotter, much hotter.
  
• Require lock acquisiton at much closer ranges which means holding over a light/med at closer range, lot of newer players struggle with this let alone adding ECM into it. Fast moving targets @ 100m are not that easy to target for that player base
  
• Streaks are essentially the 'light counter', how are they too effective?

A lot of the current issue with streaks is the change you guys made. The fact they aim torso's MUCH harder than they used to. That basically ensures a 1-shot kill against a IS light (due to IS XL) from a 6xSSRM6 volley where previously you could survive it as the damage spread better where now it seems to predominately torso check instantly. Any Clan mech instantly is cXL torso checked too, that is why SSRMs are a bit silly right now. It is a cause vs effect level change... Made a change, effect wasn't good. This also applies to the LRM velocity and heat buff - I really don't think Aug patch is really going to affect LRMs and their useage at all.

That said streaks are essentially useless against anything above ~50T, that's a lotta mechs. Ok so they let you get, almost, gauranteed hits if you have a clean LoS, but that is not always the case same with LRMs.

I mean I can crank out consistent 800-1000dmg games with LRMs, doing literally nothing, just firing missiles around the map. If I wanna crank out a 1k damage game with anything direct fire my work-rate is much, much higher. LRMs are too heat efficient and velocity too high - Aug changes aren't really required if the recent buffs are just backed out.



Also - As quite a few people seemed to agree - Any comments on PSR / Tier 1 and the Grand Canyon level skill varience contained within the Tier 1 - and thus it's affect on peoples 'view' of balance, or what they think is overpowered?

Edited by justcallme A S H, 13 August 2018 - 03:01 PM.

[Chris Lowrey]

Kin3ticX, on 13 August 2018 - 02:55 PM, said:

If you are trying to encourage people to include LRMs, I don't see how you can avoid an LRM boating problem. LRMs probably have the games strongest bandwagon effect since the skill floor is pretty low if not the lowest.

For example, an LRM-20 is at least a 12 ton investment and there is a good chance I will get into a situation where the weapon is a 100% dead weight in a match (no locks, 3xAMS, ECM, cover, buildings, etc etc). How will you convince above avg players to take out a large direct fire weapon and make more of these mix builds that include LRMs? How will you do this without also causing the forums to burn down because of extreme lurm boating in solo queue?

I'm afraid I don't follow. The quoted post was in reference to mixed drop deck building with a core of brawlers backed up by LRM focused support 'Mechs. Not individual mixed range bracket builds.

[Shaggath]

Chris Lowrey, on 07 August 2018 - 02:55 PM, said:

Bridging the gap is defiantly a good way to define the current intent. While we often hear about flatter trajectory arcs + increased speed for direct fire solutions, we run into the same issues with multiple firing states for LRM's as we do for switchable LBX / ATM ammo. While as Paul said, we won't ever completely discount the possibility of core weapon changes, we do need to stay within the bounds of what is feasible on the engine side, and unfortunately alternative fire states presents a major challenge. Never say never, so don't fully discount what I say here. But this is a case where like ATM's, keeping a single firing state across the weapon makes it more feasible for implementation on our end.

If you can't make a ammo switch just add one weapon.
For one hardpoint who handle x type of ammo you add x line of the weapon for each type of ammo and share the cooldown.


Actually Innersphere faction mini campaign was funny, clan minicampaign at the opposite the worst of the worst.
The ultimate synergy beetween potato laser carry bear and lrm boater 15 min of SILENCE on each game with one question what the purpose ????

So waiting the patch where you nerf without nerfing, introduce the possibility to choose IS Clan or both in quickmatch and faction can be a simple temporary solution.

Edited by Shaggath, 13 August 2018 - 03:36 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 03:01 PM, said:

I'm afraid I don't follow. The quoted post was in reference to mixed drop deck building with a core of brawlers backed up by LRM focused support 'Mechs. Not individual mixed range bracket builds.

Sorry, I quoted the shorter post because I was being lazy. I was typing more about this portion I think.

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 12:54 PM, said:

So when you pick up LRM's early and they are designed to effectively become obsolete at a certain skill level, it effectively puts up a hard wall that players that enjoy the mechanics or 'Mechs that are specialized in that style of play, simply cannot progress past. Since unlike Streaks or the Medium laser, none of the skills that an inexperienced player learns while playing LRM's are immediately transferable to any other weapon or mechanic in the game like the other weapons. Which is something that completely goes against what FOO weapons are supposed to do since the idea is that they are "beginner friendly" weapons that become "less efficient" the more skill you have in the game, which allows you to take the skills you learned in the early game and have that translate into more efficient weapon choices in the higher tiers.

The other big thing comes from what happens at the top. Mainly, with planned obsolescence past a certain skill level for LRMs, its not simply a matter of removing a weapon system as a viable option for play at the top, but with its unique mechanics, it removes an entire play style that needs to be accounted for at high levels of play which simply results in a much more tactically narrower experience at the top then there is at the bottom or mid-tiers of the game. No matter what game it is, there is always a particular loathing for indirect / arching fire / splash damage weapons that can often result in a less experienced player taking out a more experienced player no matter what game system you play in. But their inclusion / balance still has to be to the point where there are legitimate risk / reward factors to their use that leads to a more tactically diverse experience at the top.

[justcallme A S H]

And end of the day - cause I have a little more to add - dying to, or being rained upon by LRMs ...

Is just not fun for the majority of people.

It's become far more prevalent since the recent buffs, fun is just being eroded, skill is not being rewarded. I could be 1-shot from a 94pt BOOGEYMAN all day and be fine with it, because that is my failure to twist/pay attention. Dying because some dog poo is spotting me from 800m away and then LRM200+ instantly rains down on my head? That ain't fun, and, is what I see in many games I play - People just getting frustrated.

[XX Sulla XX]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 12:54 PM, said:

I saw this post on Friday but wanted to put a pin in responding to it till today because what I'm going to say I'm sure is going to set off a ton of back and forth that I wouldn't have the time to address over the weekend. Apologies in advance for the length of the response. Naturally don't expect this involved of a response from me on everything asked here in the forums (I still have to get a PTS ready for everyone.) But on this point I felt it was important to get out there.

So I hear a lot of talk and get a lot of messages / tweets forwarded to me about LRMs as a low tier / Noob Tube / First Order Optimal strategy and that is how it's supposed to be so (insert argument here...) There are a few fundamental things about this position that rub me the wrong way that I feel the need to clear the air on so we can move forward on further talks with LRM's in a constructive way.

First off, to answer the question on if we use this terminology internally, I would say by and large, no, not specifically at least. Mostly because like most other design terminology that often gets thrown around, its a single component of a much larger language / work of game design. While it makes for a more focused / convenient talking points in standard conversation to argue a particular viewpoint, when it comes to the work involved, it is a single component of design that feeds into the greater whole of both the experience, and the overall balance between the different functions of the game. In this sense, its never just about FOO strategies, but its about FOO strategies against other, sometimes much more important balance points. Such as Character / weapon / ability scaling between tonnages, item accessibility, differences in kind to differences in scale, design break points, and Skill in to Power out ratios and how each and every one of those singular points feeds into all of the other ones. All individual points that don't exist in a vacuum from one another, but are deeply intertwined in the overall experience. Focusing too heavily on any one singular point from a design side is a quick way to unintentionally gloss over something that may be much more important in the grand scheme of things. So while FOOS specifically isn't really discussed at length internally, like everything else, it is a singular factor within the greater whole of everything we do look at on our end.

But as to LRMs existing as effectively a FOO weapon, or "Noob Tube," I think neglects a very important aspect what FOO experiences are designed around. And to this, I would argue that LRM's should not be looked at as something that fills these roles for a number of reasons.

Before I get to that, when it comes to weapons within the roster that I personally would consider as "FOO" weapons, streak missiles and the Inner Sphere medium laser would probably be the best examples that I would define within the context of MWO. In the case of Streaks, the weapon has potentially 100% accuracy provided you both lock on and fire your missiles at the appropriate time, allowing for efficient accuracy, and more importantly to a new player, heat that is only applied to the weapon when it has an almost guaranteed chance of hitting it's target, but the lock on sequence requires both venerable face time, it also gives up the initiative which allows other players to react to you with trigger fired weapons or by attempting to evade you, and they are heavier to equip in the 'Mechlab compared to alternative launchers. While for the IS medium lasers, they are the "jack of all trades" laser that provides you with a mix of decent range, accuracy, damage potential, all at reasonable heat costs compared to alternative laser types. For Novice 'Mechwarriors, these get you in the game and playing, but as you raise in skill, you will more then likely move away from these weapons. For the Medium laser, you will often see at the higher levels players begin to take the hotter, but more specialized lasers which allows them to optimize on their play-style / battlefield positioning to a much greater degree then you could with the standard lasers, while with streaks, you can negate a lot of their drawbacks with standard SRM launchers and often save tonnage on your build, but a streak player still gains valuable experience in positioning, target acquisition and recognition, from their time with streaks that directly translates into SRM builds. Thus being a fairly common "FOO" progression since these weapons are often very effectively utilized at lower skill levels, but the playstyles are eventually replaced with more specialized, or efficient options once you have the skills to utilize them.

Both of those above points are things that make LRMs ill suited to that kind of weapon design. Mainly because of the unique mechanics behind LRMs. Picking up LRMs with the intent that they become obsolete past a certain skill level leads to effectively a progression "dead end" since no other weapon in MWO works in the same way that LRM's do. So when you pick up LRM's early and they are designed to effectively become obsolete at a certain skill level, it effectively puts up a hard wall that players that enjoy the mechanics or 'Mechs that are specialized in that style of play, simply cannot progress past. Since unlike Streaks or the Medium laser, none of the skills that an inexperienced player learns while playing LRM's are immediately transferable to any other weapon or mechanic in the game like the other weapons. Which is something that completely goes against what FOO weapons are supposed to do since the idea is that they are "beginner friendly" weapons that become "less efficient" the more skill you have in the game, which allows you to take the skills you learned in the early game and have that translate into more efficient weapon choices in the higher tiers.

The other big thing comes from what happens at the top. Mainly, with planned obsolescence past a certain skill level for LRMs, its not simply a matter of removing a weapon system as a viable option for play at the top, but with its unique mechanics, it removes an entire play style that needs to be accounted for at high levels of play which simply results in a much more tactically narrower experience at the top then there is at the bottom or mid-tiers of the game. No matter what game it is, there is always a particular loathing for indirect / arching fire / splash damage weapons that can often result in a less experienced player taking out a more experienced player no matter what game system you play in. But their inclusion / balance still has to be to the point where there are legitimate risk / reward factors to their use that leads to a more tactically diverse experience at the top. It could still be much more inefficient to more direct fire solutions, but keeping it as a unique threat that must be respected and played around goes towards breaking up the overall tactical experience we want from the game at a high level. As avenues that may be seen as "safe" are suddenly much more risky, which augments play in a number of ways. Both in their effective use as an offensive weapon, but also in strategies that can be utilized to effectively counter-play against them.

To use a few examples we have been finding from monitoring Solo and Group queue over the past month, we have seen two major things on our end:

1.) Effective LRM play often sees a force much more spread out to provide successful spotting angles + multiple LRM angles of attack.
2.) We have seen a major uptick in the efficiency of brawlers, especially light and medium brawlers, that directly counter the more spread out nature of typical LRM play in Solo and Group queue. Either through dedicated flankers (more common in solo queue.) or calling for a coordinated push into the more spread out team (more common in group queue.)

This is not to say that we don't see the current feedback regarding LRMs. Particularly their skill in to power out effectiveness and their overall ease of use. It is why we are targeting changes the way we are for August and as we have said in this tread multiple times, we will monitor and consider future changes depending on how thing go. But as we said in the podcast, we will be moving forward with the intention to keep LRMs as a threat that must be accounted for at all levels of play. And we will be monitoring feedback from all players on moving us in this direction.

Thanks for putting up with the long post. I'm sure there are going to be very strong opinions expressed from what I've posted here, so please remember to keep it civil and constructive. (Sorry in advanced Tina.)

This all seems to be missing the main focus of if the game is fun to play. Over performing LRMs make new players quit the game and experienced players play less or not at all. The game play of being focused by 1-4 large LRM mechs is something that drives people away. It has never been good for the game. The same is true for any long range weapon were most players can do nothing about it many times not even being able to see who is doing the damage to them.

[XX Sulla XX]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 01:29 PM, said:

We are starting to see experimentation with that on our end in a number of venues right now. Especially when it comes to a Brawl + LRM support deck.

We have been seeing faster brawlers "jump in" to a brawl, Pop UAV's directly in the middle of a brawl, and then have a handful of LRM support 'Mechs rain in from the mid / back field.

Although they are still few and far between with varying degrees of success, we are happy to see adaptation on this front lead to unique deck construction that we didn't really see much previously. While I'm sure much of this is to enjoy the current state of LRMs before the incoming changes next week, it is something interesting that we are monitoring how teams are adapting.

You should not see this as a positive thing. Variation of things being used is not a goal in its own right. By that I mean say you make it where the variation in decks and builds is greatly increased but the game is less fun and more frustrating you will keep loosing players while achieving a goal of variation. Where the real goal is to make the game fun so that you attract new players and keep them while also bringing back old players and getting more playing time out of current players. Far to often people at PGI seem to confuse secondary data with the one main goal of any game. Making it fun to play.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 13 August 2018 - 03:37 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Khobai, on 13 August 2018 - 06:18 AM, said:

the best solution IMO is to buff IS DHS. all IS DHS should be 2.0 because they take up 3 crit slots instead of 2 crit slots.

putting IS DHS at 2.0, in conjunction with many IS mechs having -10% heat gen quirks, would largely bring IS and Clan mechs into parity with eachother for heat capacity/dissipation.

the two tech bases need to be equalized. heatsinks are an obvious place to start. but also ISXL needs to survive side torso blowout. and IS ES/FF needs to be more on par with the clan versions.

I would say ditch the heat gen quirks entirely if you can, because if a piece of equipment needs a heat gen quirk to be effective then the baseline is still broken. I'd rather use other quirks to add flavor back, it is my opinion that heat is too fundamental to basic utility to fiddle with like that.

And last time I did the math, IS would need something like 0.25 dissipation per sink to match Clan dissipation levels. Having increased dissipation also allows more room to tweak the heat on weapons with less risk of weapons overlapping each other too closely.

The6thMessenger, on 13 August 2018 - 02:27 PM, said:

Considering that IS lasers are generally cooler, that's not really much of an issue.

Wrong. So very, very wrong,

(Link is to a table of common laser builds and their performance metrics, with two additional tabs showing what happens when you increase IS dissipation first by 10%, then by 20%)

Furthermore, the only IS lasers that are tangibly colder for the damage are:

• IS Small Laser
  
• IS Small Pulse Laser
  
• IS ER Large Laser
  
• IS Large Pulse Laser

The first two are so pathetic in terms of damage that nobody cares, and the second two are so heavy that they can't bring enough heatsinks for that heat advantage to actually count; that's why letting the cERLL also fire in groups of 3 without ghost heat is such a horrible idea, because they become ridiculously heat efficient by comparison.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Chris Lowrey, on 13 August 2018 - 01:29 PM, said:

We are starting to see experimentation with that on our end in a number of venues right now. Especially when it comes to a Brawl + LRM support deck.

We have been seeing faster brawlers "jump in" to a brawl, Pop UAV's directly in the middle of a brawl, and then have a handful of LRM support 'Mechs rain in from the mid / back field.

Although they are still few and far between with varying degrees of success, we are happy to see adaptation on this front lead to unique deck construction that we didn't really see much previously. While I'm sure much of this is to enjoy the current state of LRMs before the incoming changes next week, it is something interesting that we are monitoring how teams are adapting.

If brawlers aren't providing locks until the brawl has already started, then you have already wasted tonnage in a dropdec. If LRMs (or any ranged unit) isn't applying pressure before a brawl half of your team engage then you've screwed up. With any sort of mixed deck, this how things work:

• If facing a team with an average engagement range of longer than you, your goal is to rush/push/pressure primarily avoiding any long range engagement if at all possible because you don't have the guns to win that fight. How ever you must have all guns showing when you push because showing fewer targets makes it easier for a ranged team to focus you down, especially if they can maneuver to split the projection of damage of your team.
  
• If facing a team with a shorter average engagement range, you pepper them at range as much as possible before either getting caught up in a brawl or before you force them to push you or risk death by passiveness.

Here is the main problem though, what exactly is the purpose of indirect fire in this game or really any game for that matter? Sure it doesn't require LoS that part's obvious but how is it typically used? In MW4 for example, Long Toms were solid for dealing with camping groups or to force a somewhat passive or control oriented strat to adapt or get softened up. The damage was never enough to kill somebody unless someone stood there and just ate several long toms, and you didn't spam it because it was hard to use against any mobile enemy. You see this with LRMs in stock mode WC by some teams. They use it to disrupt control or camp oriented strats (not really any camping going on due to the fact it is conquest, but you get the idea) and this to me gets to the crux of the usefulness of indirect fire, to do what essentially strikes do, punish passive play and give the ability to deal with control strats better (or at least that's the idea anyway). The problem with LRMs is as Kinetix put it, a low effort focus fire tool design to destroy not soften up or disrupt control strats.

So at that point, there are two options:

• Fix the low effort focus fire capability of current LRMs and allow for them to be useful in that punishment of passive teams role.
  
• Fix LRMs to be as oriented towards indirect fire and be just a variant of direct fire similar to LRMs in MW4 (I would prefer this option so that actual artillery could be added to the game).

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 13 August 2018 - 04:19 PM.