154 replies to this topic

[Eisenhorne]

Kroete, on 09 August 2018 - 01:35 PM, said:

You claimed:

This is wrong, if you would be right, i could not have a positive wl with lrms.

Maybe we should talk about the basics of the wl statistics?
Negative wl = reducing odds of your team winning
1.0 wl = even win and lose
positive wl = increasing odds of your team winning.

If you want to show some other correlations do it, but thats not part of your claim about lrms and wl.

You don't understand what MischeifSC is saying. He's saying your W/L record is worse than players with comparable match scores. Meaning that while you have a positive influence on your team winning, its LESS of a positive influence than players with similar match scores. So if you are doing an average of 1.22 w/l ratio with LRMs, you could have a w/l ratio of like 1.4 or something without using them.

Basically, you could carry harder to ensure more victories for your team if you used a weapon that required skill.

[RustyBolts]

I posted the solutions to LRM death several times over the years. See the link below

https://mwomercs.com...scared-of-lrms/

If you are getting LRM'd to death, it is most likely your own fault.

Minus the Radar Dep module, it still applies

Edited by RustyBolts, 09 August 2018 - 01:47 PM.

[Kroete]

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

You don't understand what MischeifSC is saying. He's saying your W/L record is worse than players with comparable match scores. Meaning that while you have a positive influence on your team winning, its LESS of a positive influence than players with similar match scores.

You dont understand his claim,
if he would be right i could not have a wl over 1.0.
How much over 1.0 doesnt matter for his claim.

You know, i still have problems after a stroke (blurry sight and other problems), athrosis and chronic tennisellbow, mostly stoned to reduce usement of painkillers. If you would look at season 24 you would see how i do with other weapons, your claim that i would do better with other weapons is wrong for the most time. But if i have a better day, its for sure fun to use some big guns, but i cant do consistently with them.

[Ghogiel]

Kroete, on 09 August 2018 - 02:29 PM, said:

You dont understand his claim,
if he would be right i could not have a wl over 1.0.
How much over 1.0 doesnt matter for his claim.

No that's not what he is saying.

He is just pointing out you have a higher match score then what other players with a similar w/l as you have. Which suggests your dmg isn't driving wins as well as their dmg does.
You could have a w/l 0.2 or a 5 it wouldn't matter.

Edited by Ghogiel, 09 August 2018 - 03:45 PM.

[Mystere]

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 01:44 PM, said:

You don't understand what MischeifSC is saying. He's saying your W/L record is worse than players with comparable match scores. Meaning that while you have a positive influence on your team winning, its LESS of a positive influence than players with similar match scores. So if you are doing an average of 1.22 w/l ratio with LRMs, you could have a w/l ratio of like 1.4 or something without using them.

Basically, you could carry harder to ensure more victories for your team if you used a weapon that required skill.

1.22. 1.4. In the grand scheme of things (i.e. we are playing a video game for fun) does it really matter how much that difference is?

If this were a real tournament (i.e. real cash, real trophies, real product endorsements), then it just might matter. Otherwise, …

[The6thMessenger]

Mystere, on 09 August 2018 - 06:40 PM, said:

1.22. 1.4. In the grand scheme of things (i.e. we are playing a video game for fun) does it really matter how much that difference is?

If this were a real tournament (i.e. real cash, real trophies, real product endorsements), then it just might matter. Otherwise, …

If it were really about fun, why is having OP weapon systems matter? If balance isn't important at anywhere but comp, why even bother participating in the debate? Get nerfed or buff, there's little point in conversation.

I get that it's supposed to be fun, but it's a completely subjective thing. We discuss here because we are interested with the balance of the game, to some it's fun, others its for stats, but ultimately it will affect how people play the game and thereby change the environment, change the stimulus, and change how people have fun.

[Mystere]

The6thMessenger, on 09 August 2018 - 10:57 PM, said:

If it were really about fun, why is having OP weapon systems matter? If balance isn't important at anywhere but comp, why even bother participating in the debate? Get nerfed or buff, there's little point in conversation.

I get that it's supposed to be fun, but it's a completely subjective thing. We discuss here because we are interested with the balance of the game, to some it's fun, others its for stats, but ultimately it will affect how people play the game and thereby change the environment, change the stimulus, and change how people have fun.

Considering that all these years I have been clamoring for lore-based formations via forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, and IS vs. Clan drops, you're barking at the wrong tree.

However, imagine if all the money, effort, staffing, and other very limited PGI resources spent on these endless -- and still apparently futile -- nerf and buff cycles were instead spent on actually providing the needed meat in this 5 year old barely skeleton of a minimally viable product, maybe, just maybe, the game would be feature rich enough to attract new players. THAT had been my point all this time.

But, no, let us have more rounds of these nerf and buff cycles instead.

Edited by Mystere, 10 August 2018 - 07:09 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Mystere, on 10 August 2018 - 07:07 AM, said:

Considering that all these years I have been clamoring for lore-based formations via forced IS vs. IS, Clan vs. Clan, and IS vs. Clan drops, you're barking at the wrong tree.

Lol, if that's the case you are also barking on the wrong tree. Complain to PGI, not us.

[Khobai]

Mystere, on 10 August 2018 - 07:07 AM, said:

But, no, let us have more rounds of these nerf and buff cycles instead.

It is silly

because PGI couldve just added countertech like reflective armor, blue shield, etc...

by giving players the tools to soft counter the dominant meta, it would keep the meta shifting constantly on its own

wed go through intuitive natural buff/nerf cycles instead of the artificially damaging cycles created by PGI

I never got the whole buffing/nerfing in circles. Why not just design your game around a healthy meta that can adapt itself to whatever weapon is dominant through use of heavy countertech? That forces mixed loadouts and discourages boating.

Edited by Khobai, 10 August 2018 - 03:27 PM.

[Mystere]

The6thMessenger, on 10 August 2018 - 03:06 PM, said:

Lol, if that's the case you are also barking on the wrong tree. Complain to PGI, not us.

But it's the players who keep demanding these nerfs/buffs!

[The6thMessenger]

Mystere, on 10 August 2018 - 06:49 PM, said:

But it's the players who keep demanding these nerfs/buffs!

Still. Complain to PGI, they are the ones mishandling things. Players who demand buff or nerf isn't really the issue, it's the changes themselves.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 August 2018 - 07:14 PM.

[dwwolf]

If you want to direct fire LRMs you might as well bring a direct fire weapon. They do it better and do not spread the damage around.

[Tetatae Squawkins]

Mystere, on 10 August 2018 - 06:49 PM, said:

But it's the players who keep demanding these nerfs/buffs!

Players demanding nerfs and buffs is an intrinsic part of any competitive game. It comes with the territory. Even if this game were close to perfectly balanced, where every mech and equipment system had a place. People would still complain. Blaming players for complaining is like blaming water for being wet. It's PGIs job to find the signal in the noise. It falls entirely on the devs to decide what is actually a problem and how to fix it without creating a cascade of new ones.

Let's be real though. PGI usually goes for the low effort band-aid solutions. And this game is a teetering mountain of crusty band-aids.

[Laser Kiwi]

I ask people all the time if they invested in radar dep skill tree, they say they'd rather invest in something else like armour and/or survival.

So...if you don't invest in that tree and suddenly a bunch of lurms smack you in the face, tough luck.

Then invest in ams and the appropriate skill points so that when they do get the spotter out and you can't kill him quick at least you can shoot down the missiles in the meantime.

Sure it doesn't always work, but most of the time when the enemy brings lrm assaults to quickplay the other mechs with ams and radar dep and ecm are standing on their shredded metal at the end of the fight.

As for making ECM better, well until recently that would have made the clans better, but IS are getting a few more mech options with ECM so that'll be fair whatever happens, though to make ecm really good you practically need the whole skill tree anyway so why not have both radar dep and ecm

dwwolf, on 10 August 2018 - 09:59 PM, said:

If you want to direct fire LRMs you might as well bring a direct fire weapon. They do it better and do not spread the damage around.

Or for us IS guys, just bring mrm's which is kind of the point of mrms

[Laser Kiwi]

Kroete, on 09 August 2018 - 02:29 PM, said:

You dont understand his claim,
if he would be right i could not have a wl over 1.0.
How much over 1.0 doesnt matter for his claim.

You know, i still have problems after a stroke (blurry sight and other problems), athrosis and chronic tennisellbow, mostly stoned to reduce usement of painkillers. If you would look at season 24 you would see how i do with other weapons, your claim that i would do better with other weapons is wrong for the most time. But if i have a better day, its for sure fun to use some big guns, but i cant do consistently with them.

My only problem with it is sometimes you just have insanely bad luck, for example you might get stuck with me on a bad day and then no matter how direct your fire you better haul arse to carry that W

[Laser Kiwi]

Eisenhorne, on 08 August 2018 - 10:50 AM, said:

Do you play faction play? Have you faced a team that uses LRM boats (6+ LRM assaults without backup weapons) and 2 dedicated NARC lights on an open map? If not, you do not know what many of us are complaining about. It is completely broken on Boreal, Polar, Alpine, and Caustic. It is not an issue in quick play or in other maps. It's a specific case, but it makes those games extremely lame to play. I'd be OK with removing those maps from faction honestly, unless they can fix this somehow.

I'd disagree in part, on alpine ER large lasers are broken, on boreal defence a line of er large lasers will smash a lrm cluster in performance, hell with sufficient er large lasers you can hardly get in the gate. In part because lrms are also effective on these maps as you say, but they are not alone

Though if the narcers are good its hell, if you kill the narcers it can turn in an instant

Edited by Laser Kiwi, 11 August 2018 - 04:03 AM.

[Lykaon]

WrathOfDeadguy, on 07 August 2018 - 03:46 PM, said:

Indirect fire doesn't just ruin the quality of play on the team using it to excess- it also makes the game less fun on the receiving end. A player who comes under fire but can't react quickly to see and retaliate against their attacker will generally dive for the nearest piece of hard cover and stay there until the rain stops. This gives them a chance to re-assess while not taking damage, and plan a more effective trade. However, the easier it is to maintain indirect locks, the more time that player will spend cowering under a rock... instead of taking cover only long enough to break the lock then re-emerge to retaliate. Keep them under cover long enough, and they won't be thinking about exposing to trade anymore- they'll be focused entirely on avoiding further indirect fire.

Active gameplay is healthy gameplay. Passivity, especially when it's being enforced by the game mechanics, breeds frustration and causes players to lose interest in the game.

I am at a complete loss when it comes to grasping your point here.

What you have described in detail is how to effectively suppress enemy movement to support your team's ability to advance on an enemy in heavy cover.

In effect the LRMs push the ranged peekers into cover to allow more dynamic brawlers to close on the covered possitions.

Thus avoiding the very boring and very static "peek-shoot-hide-repeat" trades.

In addition to accurately describing a correct technique when utilizing LRMs (or any long range suppression weapon like a RAC ) You have also pointed out an obvious weakness the LRMs possess as well and also pointed out a case of WHAT NOT TO DO when you are under heavy fire from LRMs.

The weakness in LRMs is that in order to actually keep any single player pinned into cover that enemy LRM carrier MUST FOCUS ENTIRELY on that singular target. This obviously means that one enemy mech is suppressed for one friendly mech engaged in active suppression. If the LRM carrier is focused on one target what are the other 11 team mates of the suppressed mech doing about it?

And that brings me to why sitting pinned is exactally WHAT NOT TO DO. You see if you are sitting pinned down you are doing exactally what your enemy wants you to be doing. They know where you are and know you are not contributing freely to your team's efforts. The LRM carrier is exerting pressure and dictating terms...basicaly winning. Since LRMs are not weapons that can deal focused precise damage with anything akin to speed of damage application I need to ask WHY? why are players sitting in cover for so long when they can if fast enough make a dash for the next closest cover and MAYBE get a light tickle on the armor from the worst weapons in the game.

If there are a lot of these terrible missiles (the whole lot of diddly factor) this is when your team needs to grow a fricken brain and realize it's time to take the pressure off the pinned mech and force the LRM carrier to switch targets or displace for a safer location. By forcing target changes or displacement your team can advance on the LRMs and force a close quarters fight.

Remember LRMs do NOTHING quickly. You have time and your mech's have armor for a reason.


Ironicly the correct counter to LRMs is actively seizing the initiative and the passivity you are placing at the feet of LRMs is precisely how NOT to counter play LRMs. Your issue isn't LRMs it's player failure in the face of a challenge presented by LRMs.


This to me is like complaining about clan laser vomit by saying it ruins game play because when I walk slowly in a straight line towards the laser boat it kills me in like two hits.

I did something very stupid yet somehow it's the game mechanics fault.

[East Indy]

Chris Lowrey, on 07 August 2018 - 04:21 PM, said:

No TAG nerf for August.

As said, this pass is focused on the ease of use and the force multipliers, but this does not mean we are against further changes. So feel free to discuss. As Paul has said in a previous podcast, only so far I'm allowed to push a month on certain things. So we aren't ruling out that we may see further changes to LRMs in the future.

Thanks for the community interaction.

"Force multiplier" distinguishes factors between the base value of LRMs and supporting equipment. Are the factors of equipment exponential, so that LRM performances with and without them have large differences — that you would rarely see sensible LRM usage without them, like you would rarely see sensible grouped laser usage without large numbers of heat sinks? I think evidence clearly says no. In most player experiences, dedicated use of LRMs that players consider frustrating (from either team) doesn't involve NARC or TAG. Artemis is common but not as important as sufficient LRMs, whether high tube-count or high rate-of-fire.

So, the question is where equipment force multipliers are a problem. There are a few posts in this thread describing disproportionate effects from NARC in Faction Play. This is tricky to build a case off of, I think, because Faction Play is about competitive play, giving teams the fewest reasons not to coordinate pushes under ECM. What's more, this example of effective NARC use embodies information warfare and teamwork — it's transformed the weapon system from "who cares" to giving two players distinct roles! If you want to preserve this play while requiring a certain level of commitment and risk from the NARC-LRM team, consider reintroducing/lowering damage limits for NARC before the beacon dies. Key limits to tonnage so damage is proportional (you really should do this for strikes, too, BTW). Start at 5-7.5% overall health. The effect is that in Faction Play, the dedicated NARC 'Mechs must re-expose themselves to fire, while in Solo Queue, where NARC isn't capitalized on as much, gameplay hasn't changed.

To combine my point about indirect fire with contemplation of force multipliers, consider making support equipment what differentiates low-effort LRM usage from team coordination. Push sit-in-the-back-and-ride-a-secondary-lock play — which, again, [i]is the single thing that drives players on either side nuts — into a low-damage harassment role, rewarding front-line or cooperative play with real damage.

[MischiefSC]

Kroete, on 09 August 2018 - 01:35 PM, said:

You claimed:

This is wrong, if you would be right, i could not have a positive wl with lrms.

Maybe we should talk about the basics of the wl statistics?
Negative wl = reducing odds of your team winning
1.0 wl = even win and lose
positive wl = increasing odds of your team winning.

If you want to show some other correlations do it, but thats not part of your claim about lrms and wl.

Statistics and the matchmaker are relative. If you have a 1.5 w/l with direct fire but a 1.05 w/l with LRMs you are reducing your teams odds of winning by bringing LRMs because the matchmaker is assuming you're going to perform at a level set by your use of direct fire, which works better.

I already pointed to your stats as an example of inflated damage vs win/loss as an average vs the population.

Are you saying you haven't seen the math on this or the feedback from people far better at than game than you or I, or the Jarls list really at all?

[C E Dwyer]

Mystere, on 07 August 2018 - 05:18 PM, said:

First, instead of a nerf, TAG should be buffed, first and foremost by making it invisible in normal visual mode.

Second, instead of catering to the whiny masses, encourage people to bring the available countermeasures. I mean, why have them if no one is going to use them?

Finally, be very extremely careful about weakening the so-called "force multipliers". Their use is what encourages team play, and we need as much of the latter as we can get.

Agreed