InnerSphereNews, on 20 August 2018 - 11:06 AM, said:
LRMs
The past few months have brought with them a number of changes to the LRM system. As we have stated in a recent podcast as well as the follow up forum thread, these changes have been implemented to make LRMs more effective at the core role we wish to see them occupy within the game. While this did improve the base weapon as we wished to see, we also observed is that in its elevated baseline state, a number of force multipliers surrounding the LRM system compounded on one another to make the weapon system a bit too oppressive in certain situations. In addition to a general ease of use that we felt needed tuning to be a bit more difficult to acquire and maintain targets. For this month, we will be hitting a number of force multipliers as well as provide a boost to ECM to help with coordinated counter-play against them. While we are focused on these force multipliers for this month, we still are closely observing LRM play and will consider further changes if we feel that it still does not put the weapon in a satisfactory state.
Weapon Lock changes- Weapon lock assistance angle tightened by ~50%
Design notes: With the recently boosted LRM stats, we want to take a second look at the weapon lock assistance angle and tighten the system up. This is not only to make it more challenging to lock on with LRM's but with all lock on type weapons including ATMs and Streak Missiles, which we feel had previously been set a bit too generously to the detriment of lighter, faster 'Mechs for all systems linked to the weapon lock on system.
Artemis Upgrade- Lock Time Boost and Tracking Strength Boost removed (from 50% Lock Time Boost 50% Tracking Strength Boost)
Design notes: Unlike TAG or NARC that require either team work or direct line of sight to provide lock-on and Missile Tracking boosts, Artemis was often a raw-upgrade that applied to the other more risky boosts in a cumulative way that saw a massive performance gap between loadouts that centered on baseline LRM launchers and loadouts that took LRMs equipped with Artemis. While we want Artemis to remain a worthwhile upgrade whose primary benefit is to boost Missile volley accuracy through tighter clustering, we do not want the upgrade to become a barrier to entry for effective LRMs use. And the previous benefits simply resulted in too great a performance gap between baseline LRM launchers, and those that took Artemis. Especially when the benefits of Artemis compounded on the benefits of TAG and NARC that require much more risk and exposure to fully benefit from.
Additionally, the Artemis upgrade was also applying these benefits to ATM's and Streak Systems without any further cost investment to the base launchers. This change will close the Artemis loophole on those systems, making their overall performance no longer dependent on any kind of hidden mechanic / upgrade. ATM and Streak launchers will now behave identically to one another whether a 'Mech has an upgraded Artemis system or not.
*golfclap*
I just came back to say that you managed to go from making lock-on systems marginally useful to throwing them right back into the trash. Also, most people won't have an idea what the heck you mean by "Weapon lock assistance angle tightened by ~50%", just saying.
In fact, you actually managed to make them worse than the whole pre-velocity increase thing, namely by taking every lockon missile system save unArtemised LRM spam (which gives not a care about most of this) and rendering them inherently slower across the board to fire, meaning facetime becomes even more ridiculous and the odds of a light simply orbiting it's way out of locks increases drastically.
Yay, my missiles go faster. My opponents now get all the time in the world to cut loose before I can do anything but dumbfire.
Did you, y'know, TEST THIS ON PTS?
Kin3ticX, on 20 August 2018 - 12:41 PM, said:
I like the change to the LRM lockon. It was always way too generous, to the point someone made a joke video of themselves holding locks with their foot on a mouse and doing ~1000 damage.
He also couldn't hold a lock while moving at the same time, something we generally point to and invoke terms related to tubers. We already mock people who can't move and shoot at the same time, why are we pushing any weapon system closer to that?
Jackal Noble, on 20 August 2018 - 12:26 PM, said:
Artemis fix is welcome.
Atm velo increase is also welcome, but will see if hp wouldnt be better.
Overall more good changes along with the PTS 2.0 stuff.
The hilarious thing is that with the Artemis "fix" (more like gelding), the ATM velocity increase is more than countered by the increased lock time on pretty much any ATM user with two brain cells firing together. Your missiles will actually take longer to get to the target simply because the time saved by higher velocity vanishes waiting for the lock to complete. Assuming the target just doesn't vanish entirely.
Edited by Brain Cancer, 20 August 2018 - 01:15 PM.
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