36 replies to this topic

[Phoenix 72]

I think it is very funny to watch how people have been argueing about "the lurm problem" for years. And the discussion has over the years essentially evolved into:

Lurms are OP. Are not. Are too. Are not. Are too. Git gud. You suck. No you suck. You don't understand my point. No, YOU don't understand MY point.

People keep saying that, since they do not have any problems with lurms, nobody should have any problems with lurms. That's like Jeff Bezos saying "I don't know why everybody keeps complaining about not having enough money. It is sooooo easy. If you want to be as rich as I am, git gud." It is just not quite that easy for everybody.

So, let's try a different approach. Can anybody think of any solution that will NOT involve a massive nerf to missiles?

The one thing I could think off, off the bat, is to improve the rewards for AMS. Not increase power of AMS, not nerf missiles, just get the guy bringing the AMS for their team more of a reward. Cash and Match Score will do. If a lot of people bring LRMs because it is a good way to get a higher match score, countering that should also do more.

I dunno, what is the accuracy of the best lurmers using missiles? Is it something like 50% missiles hit? More? Less? Either way, tie the reward exactly to that. If the average hit chance of lurms is 50% and a missile user receives 1 buck for every missile hit and 1 match score for every missile hit, the person bringing the lurm could receive 1 buck and 1 match score for every second missile shot down.

Every person saying lurming is easy mode can now earn rewards with the same easy mode. It does not take anything away from missile users. But just maybe more people will bring AMS if it is more rewarding. Thoughts? Opinions? Curses? Insults?

Other suggestions?

[Eisenhorne]

Double AMS ammo per ton. Add AMS range bonuses to targeting computers. That would make me consider taking AMS on my mechs, because right now it's useless.

[OmniFail]

I theorize that I am the most prolific LRM user in action at this time. I can't be sure of this. But, I think I am.

I have 7 million plus LRM fired and my accuracy is around 37% over the entire course of my LRM career, which is around four years.

For any that start examining my Jarl's list numbers keep in mind two things.

1. I only play quick play.
2. While the rest of you have had power creep, I have suffered from power nerf.

Respectfully
Omni

Edited by OmniFail, 09 August 2018 - 10:17 PM.

[Khobai]

Quote

So, let's try a different approach. Can anybody think of any solution that will NOT involve a massive nerf to missiles?

couple things.

1) nerf indirect LRMs. but also buff artemis/tag/narc.

2) change the reward system so spotters/taggers/narcers get way more reward for spotter for indirect fire and lrm users should get less reward. end the parasitic behavior.

3) nerf the max range of direct fire weapons from x2 down to like x1.6 at most; because in tabletop, LRMs are 21 hex max range and ERLL are 19 hex max range. but in MWO, ERLL massively outranges LRMs for no good reason (often doing damage out to 1600m or more, while LRMs are barely effective past 600m)

part of the whole reason LRMs struggle is because direct fire weapons were given way too much max range.

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 09:46 PM, said:

Double AMS ammo per ton. Add AMS range bonuses to targeting computers. That would make me consider taking AMS on my mechs, because right now it's useless.

then why would you ever take laser ams?

im all for increasing range on AMS. but doubling the ammo is a bad idea.

Edited by Khobai, 09 August 2018 - 10:26 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

One or Two years ago Russ tweeted me Ams cbill rewards was a top priority

Im hoping there was a reason they never did it.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 09 August 2018 - 10:38 PM.

[Eisenhorne]

Khobai, on 09 August 2018 - 10:19 PM, said:

then why would you ever take laser ams?

If you're running a zero heat gauss or low heat ac2 build.

AMS is only useful on fast brawlers so they can close the distance under ams cover. Otherwise you just run out of ammo too fast. 2000 rounds can shoot down what, 400 missiles total? A competent LRM boat can carry 10 times that. Just keep lurming and you can run the enemy AMS dry easily, unless they have like 6 tons of ammo, which is also dumb, because if the enemy has no LRMS you just wanted a lot of tonnage on a useless system.

[Khobai]

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 10:41 PM, said:

2000 rounds can shoot down what, 400 missiles total? A competent LRM boat can carry 10 times that.

its 2200 rounds per ton. and if you have both ammo skills its 2640. AMS ammo doesnt not need to be increased more.

and why should AMS protect you from *all* the missiles from a competetent LRM boat? Thats a completely unreasonable expectation. AMS only weighs a couple tons compared to the dozens of tons the LRM boat is devoting to LRMs.

ams is already extremely good against LRMs for its tonnage. I could see maybe a slight range increase since it never got a complementary range increase after LRM velocity was increased again. But thats all it should get.

plus like I said before, increasing the ammo per ton on AMS, just makes the LAMS even worse by comparison. if you feel like you dont have enough AMS ammo, considering using a LAMS. thats why it exists.

Edited by Khobai, 09 August 2018 - 10:52 PM.

[OmniFail]

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 10:41 PM, said:

AMS is only useful on fast brawlers so they can close the distance under ams cover. Otherwise you just run out of ammo too fast. 2000 rounds can shoot down what, 400 missiles total? A competent LRM boat can carry 10 times that. Just keep lurming and you can run the enemy AMS dry easily, unless they have like 6 tons of ammo, which is also dumb, because if the enemy has no LRMS you just wanted a lot of tonnage on a useless system.

A competent LRM boat has less than 3000 LRMs. I am really good at what I do and I only carry around 2500. I would be hard pressed to launch 4000 LRMs in a match and my team would have to spend a lot of time standing around to make that happen.

[Eisenhorne]

OmniFail, on 09 August 2018 - 10:48 PM, said:

A competent LRM boat has less than 3000 LRMs. I am really good at what I do and I only carry around 2500. I would be hard pressed to launch 4000 LRMs in a match and my team would have to spend a lot of time standing around to make that happen.

I'm mostly talking about faction play, quick play lrms arent a problem because they're so random if they're good or bad based on map, opponents, and supporting mechs. I take 6000 rounds on my LRM mauler. I've run it dry repeatedly, doing 2500 damage or so. Along with 5-6 other LRM boats with similar levels of firepower we've killed clan groups with multiple triple AMS kit foxes.... the AMS just cannot repel firepower of that magnitude.

[Vellron2005]

OmniFail, on 09 August 2018 - 10:14 PM, said:

I theorize that I am the most prolific LRM user in action at this time. I can't be sure of this. But, I think I am.

I have 7 million plus LRM fired and my accuracy is around 37% over the entire course of my LRM career, which is around four years.

WOW, and I thought I was dedicated!

With only 2,4 million, I'm only a beginner compared to you!

30-ish % average accuracy, with the funny thing being I'm more accurate with regular LRM than when using Artemis

Good job man!

Now, back on topic..

OP has a good idea.. make Lurming, Tag/narcing, and AMS-ing more lucrative, and people will do it more.

[Kurbeks]

From Sarna - Long Range Missiles are designed to engage the enemy at great distances at the expense of damage dealt

They are not meant to be damage dealers as they are now. DPS clearly need to come down, espeically on big boats as Supernova-A

[Kroete]

Vellron2005, on 09 August 2018 - 11:12 PM, said:

30-ish % average accuracy, with the funny thing being I'm more accurate with regular LRM than when using Artemis

Artemis or not is only marginal on accuracy for me, the spreadreduction is not noticeable,
i use it for the locktimereduction.
But i clearly see the difference between tubescount: aclrm20 38; aclrm15 39,4; aclrm10 43,7 (to bad that my 4x10 dog is eaten by too much ams, dont like that you need more tubes and bigger mechs to use lrms nowaday).

But we use them different depending on your other posts. Some days ago i ask what you do with 4000 missiles.
Now i have an aswer omin and me using only 2/3 of your ammo but with a little more accuracy.

Funny thing:
ClanLrms are nerfed, people cry for more nerfs because they become overpowered by the last nerf.
(Dont know how you need to twist your brain to understand this.)

Edited by Kroete, 10 August 2018 - 02:15 AM.

[SPNKRGrenth]

Khobai, on 09 August 2018 - 10:47 PM, said:

if you have both ammo skills its 2640.

Since when did any of the ammo nodes start affecting AMS ammo? If they snuck AMS ammo being affected by the ballistic ammo nodes in a recent patch, that's great!

Edited by SPNKRGrenth, 10 August 2018 - 03:01 AM.

[Sjorpha]

They're very close to fine as is, the velocity buff was maybevslightly too big and could be reduced by 50. Ideally they should have progressive velocity, starting slow and speeding up, but I assume pgi can't code that.

Mechanically I like them as they are, don't understand why idf with teammates locking is a bad thing. It's not "parasitic" it's simply a team based mechanic and cooperation between players.

[Verilligo]

You could try making it so that LRMs only gain Artemis buffs when they're in LoS. Which apparently isn't the case, according to Chris.

[Mystere]

This is my quick and dirty take from another thread:

Mystere, on 08 August 2018 - 08:11 PM, said:

Here is just a quick -- and completely uncurated -- example:

• Give LRMs an initially ballistic trajectory to target.
  
• Make multiple AMS more effective (i.e. improved accuracy, killing more missiles per AMS) when positioned as an "umbrella" (i.e. overlapping).
  
• Give ECM a new feature: decoy target signatures.
  
• Make TAG invisible in 2 of 3 vision modes.
  
• TAG flattens the trajectory of LRMs, thus giving them a shorter time-to-target. Better yet, make the missiles accelerate while target is tagged.
  
• NARC makes LRMs prioritize the enemy hit with a beacon, if any, making LRMs true fire-and-forget weapons.
  
• Using any two of TAG, NARC, and Artemis gives extra benefits.
  
• TAG + NARC + Artemis gives even more extra benefits.

Remember, the above is just a quick and completely uncurated example.

Edited by Mystere, 10 August 2018 - 07:17 AM.

[Phoenix 72]

(In best Edna Mode imitation voice) *smacks people on the head with a newspaper* No nerfs!



Responding to the different comments...

Eisenhorne, on 09 August 2018 - 09:46 PM, said:

Double AMS ammo per ton. Add AMS range bonuses to targeting computers.

I would agree that it makes sense to be able to boost AMS range. If anything adds to missile range, it makes sense that it would also add range to (missile based) AMS. If it adds to laser range, it makes sense for the equipment to add to LAMS range. I think doubling the amount of ammo is probably overkill. 1 ton of AMS ammo with 2 AMS nodes will normally shoot down around 300-325 missiles on average. IIRC LRM ammo is 250 per ton. So one ton of AMS ammo neutralises a bit over one ton of LRM ammo. Asking for a 2:1 ratio might be a bit much...

OmniFail, on 09 August 2018 - 10:14 PM, said:

I have 7 million plus LRM fired and my accuracy is around 37% over the entire course of my LRM career, which is around four years.

I am finewith a 3:1 ratio in cbill and match score reward, then. No need to be greedy. 3 missiles shot down could then grant the exact same reward as 1 missile hit on the enemy.

Khobai, on 09 August 2018 - 10:19 PM, said:

2) change the reward system so spotters/taggers/narcers get way more reward for spotter for indirect fire

While I generally agree, if we improve the rewards for spotting without improving rewards for countering the missiles, we will just get more spotters and nothing else changes. As for the rest... No nerfs... *smack*

Monkey Lover, on 09 August 2018 - 10:38 PM, said:

One or Two years ago Russ tweeted me Ams cbill rewards was a top priority

Should be finished any minute, then.

Khobai, on 09 August 2018 - 10:47 PM, said:

its 2200 rounds per ton. and if you have both ammo skills its 2640. AMS ammo doesnt not need to be increased more.

I checked ingame, ammo skill nodes do nothing ingame for AMS. No stealth buff was snuck past us.

Kroete, on 10 August 2018 - 02:12 AM, said:

Funny thing:
ClanLrms are nerfed, people cry for more nerfs because they become overpowered by the last nerf.
(Dont know how you need to twist your brain to understand this.)

That's easy. Clan LRMs received a nerf and a buff. While IS LRMs only received the buff. So people are only complaining about the IS LRMs now, of course.

Edited by Darakor Stormwind, 10 August 2018 - 08:32 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

Darakor Stormwind, on 10 August 2018 - 08:30 AM, said:

I would agree that it makes sense to be able to boost AMS range. If anything adds to missile range, it makes sense that it would also add range to (missile based) AMS. If it adds to laser range, it makes sense for the equipment to add to LAMS range. I think doubling the amount of ammo is probably overkill. 1 ton of AMS ammo with 2 AMS nodes will normally shoot down around 300-325 missiles on average. IIRC LRM ammo is 250 per ton. So one ton of AMS ammo neutralises a bit over one ton of LRM ammo. Asking for a 2:1 ratio might be a bit much...

I'm really only coming at this from a FP perspective, so QP players, what I'm saying obviously isn't your experience.

LRM ammo is 240 per ton, closer to 300 after ammo node in skill tree. A good, dedicated LRM boat will carry 15+ tons of ammunition. You obviously cannot counter all of that, you can't take more than like 2 tons of AMS ammo without crippling your offensive capabilities. You'll run dry of AMS after they fire a few thousand missiles, and you'll be defenseless. If you dedicate enough space and weight to AMS + Ammo to actually counter them, you'll be seriously gimped if the enemy decides to NOT run LRM's. You can't know the team you're up against will bring LRM's, so you need to have a strategy with your selected mechs that will counter both LRMs and alternative strategies.

Also consider how effective AMS is at shooting down incoming missiles. One AMS system may shoot down what, 5-10 missiles on the way in? If you have 6 LRM boats, shooting 60 LRM's at a time, thats 360 LRM's incoming at once. You'd need 18 AMS systems to cut that damage in half... 18 AMS that will run out of ammo quickly.

I know some teams (MS in particular) have taken to running rush strats on things like polar, where they take 12 dual AMS crabs and just bunch up and rush the enemy team wave 1. And that's a good way to kill LRM boats, because while the LRM boats may kill a few of the crabs, if they trade evenly or better the crabs are winning that trade, what if the enemy team doesn't go LRM's? What if they go ER Larges, another pretty common strategy? The crabs would get cut to pieces. You need to have a strategy that works against everything, and at this point that strategy is LRM's. AMS is insufficient against them in a protracted engagement, and even against a fast mech rush, if the LRM boats spread out far and concentrate fire they can sometimes prevail.

So because LRM's are always effective on large open maps, they are an easy go-to strat that requires very little skill to do (except for the NARC light, that's the only skilled position really), but is very hard to counter without extremely specialized builds that will not fare well against the opponent if they don't use LRMs. Therefore I think we need fairly sizeable buffs to AMS, including massive ammo capacity buffs.

[Andi Nagasia]

well does have some Nerfs to LRMs, but rewards team LRM play, as well as Directfire LRM Play,
though Spamming LRMs with nothing more than Basic Locks wont be as strong,

Spoiler

Andi Nagasia, on 30 May 2017 - 12:19 PM, said:

First off id like to say personally i feel LRM arnt really in a good place,
they are rather unreliable when compared to other weapon Types and systems,
and unlike other weapon their utility is mostly based on the skill of the Targets,
not the Skill of the LRM Player which can make using them harder to use,
they also have many counters(AMS, RadarDep, ECM, Cover),

they are Skill to Skill, Amazing against those who dont know how to Counter them,
and they are Useless against those who know their Counters and how to use Cover,
That said i do feel LRMs need a rework,
the Current LRM Spreads & Cooldowns,
Type,....Spread,...Cooldown,.....(Clan)
LRM5,....4.2m........3.25sec,....(3.50sec)
LRM10,..4.2m........3.70sec,....(4.00sec)
LRM15,..5.2m........4.00sec,....(4.30sec)
LRM20,..5.2m........4.30sec,....(4.60sec)
(all velocities are 160)
-
the Current TAG, Artemis, & NARC Spread Bonuses,
TAG,........-25%LRMSpread(Need to hold TAG on Target as Missiles Hit)
Artemis,...-35%LRMSpread(Need to have LOS with Target as Missiles Hit)
NARC,.....-35%LRMSpread(ECM counters NARC, removing Effect)
(Note Artemis & NARC dont stack(max of -60% Spread for LRMs)
-
now the problem, indirect fire LRMs can be extremely annoying,
but they arnt really effective, as stated above their Counters,

LRM Max Spread Reduction,
4.2(LRM5/10) - 55%(TAG+Artemis(Need LOS) = 1.7m(160m Velocity)
5.2(LRM15/20) - 55%(TAG+Artemis(Need LOS) = 2.1m(160m Velocity)
for reference an LBX10 has a spread of 0.9m(1100m Velocity)

as far as i can tell the biggest problem with LRMs is their Indirect fire,
People Hate getting hit with Indirect fire LRMs when Boated,

so how to Fix this problem?


=LRM Spread Rework Concept=
Buff LRMs when Target is in LOS to enhance LRMs as a Direct fire weapon,
Nerf LRMs when Fired Indirectly decreasing their Indirect effectiveness,

Reworked LRM Stats
the Current LRM Spreads & Cooldowns,
Type,....Spread,...Cooldown,.....(Clan)
LRM5,....6.0m........3.40sec,....(3.70sec)
LRM10,..6.0m........3.70sec,....(4.00sec)
LRM15,..6.0m........4.00sec,....(4.30sec)
LRM20,..6.0m........4.30sec,....(4.60sec)
(all velocities are 240m(+80m)
-
then give all LRMs a Pseudo Artemis(-35%Spread),
this would give All LRMs 3.6m spread when in LOS, making them better for Direct fire,
however when fired Indirectly they will have 6m spread, reducing Indirect effectiveness,
(also make display an Icon(like TAG/NARC) for LOS, notifying player of LOS Bonus)

reworked TAG, Artemis, & NARC Spread Bonuses,
TAG,........-30%LRMSpread(Need to hold TAG on Target as Missiles Hit)
Artemis,...-30%LRMSpread(Need to have LOS with Target as Missiles Hit)
NARC,.....-50%LRMSpread(ECM counters NARC, removing Effect)
(Artemis & NARC dont stack)(Max -80% Spread for LRMs)
-
LOS LRMs = 3.9m Spread,
LOS LRMs + TAG = 2.1m Spread,
LOS LRMs + Artemis = 2.1m Spread,
LOS LRMs + Artemis + TAG = 1.2m Spread,
(remember Target has to be in LOS)
-
Indirect LRMs = 6m Spread,
Indirect LRMs + NARC = 3.0m Spread,
Indirect LRMs + NARC + TAG = 1.2m Spread,

this could reduce the effectiveness of long range Indirect fire Spamming,
wail also increasing the effectiveness of long range team play(TAG/NARC),
as well as the effectiveness of using LRMs as an direct fire weapon,



Comparison to Live Stats,
LOS LRMs = -0.3m Spread(-1.3m Spread LRM15/20)
LOS LRMs + TAG = -1.1m Spread(-1.8m Spread LRM15/20)
LOS LRMs + Artemis = -0.6m Spread(-1.3m Spread LRM15/20)
LOS LRMs + Artemis + TAG = -0.5m Spread(-0.9m Spread LRM15/20)
(remember Target has to be in LOS)
-
Indirect LRMs = +1.8m Spread(+0.8m Spread LRM15/20)
Indirect LRMs + NARC = +0.3m Spread(-0.4m Spread LRM15/20)
Indirect LRMs + NARC + TAG = -0.5m Spread(-0.9m Spread LRM15/20)
(Remember LRM Velocity is now 240(+50%) LRMs will arrive 50% sooner)

we can see LOS LRMs will only gain -0.3 to -1.7Spread and +50%Velocity,
and with that i feel would become a more reliable weapon system,
-
Indirect LRMs have much greater spread when Blank fired at a target,
but have comparable spread with NARC and less spread with NARC & TAG,
however the +50% Velocity aids in their reliability as with long range hits,
as your Target has less time to get to cover if initially exposed,

=(Poll)=

Thoughts, Comments, Concerns?
Thanks

[Phoenix 72]

Eisenhorne, I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I think it is a real challenge to try to fix this in faction play as well as quick play. Anything that solves your faction warfare problem to give you a fighting chance will completely cripple LRMs in quick play.

With my Kit Fox I have shot down 1200 missiles before and with my Nova I even managed over 1600 once. I have seen screenshots of a guy shooting down over 1900. If having 2 Novas will completely invalidate one 100 ton missile boat, that might be a bit much.

However, shooting down 4K missiles might not be nearly enough in FP. I actually have no idea how to fix this discrepancy. I don't think there is a "one size fits all" solution for this. PGI might well have to implement different solutions for different game modes.

Andi, while I think a number of the nerfs discussed have merit, I doubt we will ever reach the point where PGI will implement any of them. From what I understand, their developer resources are quite limited to put it nicely. Anything that requires any development effort whatsoever is probably never going to happen. Which is why I would prefer to actually get a solution short term that should be no effort to implement, since the functionalities for it are already ingame.