69 replies to this topic

[Dem0niah]

I hope that this recent event in faction play, has opened some eyes to a great unbalance that sits within this great game. We talk again of course about LRMS, and the lack of protection against them. My point especially is the unbalance between Clan and IS in protection. The clan has options of not only ECM but also AMS on one Mech, my favourite example is the KFX-C. Mine packs an ECM and x3 Laser AMS, purely a support Mech, BUT I EAT up missiles, in faction play getting anywhere from 3000 to 4300 missiles destroyed in a single faction skirmish match. Then just to mention, u can also take a support piranha with x4AMS. You cannot find anything like this on the IS side. Consequently the clan team just needs two KFX-C kitted out like mine, and they are basically missile proof. however on the IS side, this is not nearly as EASY to accomplish. The best I found was the WLF-1B with just two AMS, but no ECM. Now we take into account the slots and tonnage difference, the KFX-C with laser AMS takes up one slot, and costs one ton each, this means I use only three slots and three tons for my three laser AMS. Now I go to my IS Mech with the WLF-1B. I have only two AMS, with zero ECM. My laser AMS takes up two slots, and costs one and a half ton each, meaning I use four slots and three tons in total for my two AMS. This is clearly unbalanced to the point of unfair. The missile AMS on both sides is the same, but we all know that LASER is Much better.
During this event in faction play, i have played both sides to test and see this difference, and it is clear, the clan Mech's were stacked with ECM and AMS, but also lots and lots LRM's. The IS tried to combat this, but was always lacking in every way, and Mech after Mech, match after match they fell like flies to LRM's in seconds! not even double digit seconds, just not at all fun, and completely boring and a waste of time to play. I had my WLF-1B close by, and even with three or 4 more AMS close by, we had could not cope at all. Now to my clan matches, It was completely different, I took my KFX-C first drop always, The LRM's incoming from the IS were EASY to defeat, with only three Mech's carrying AMS, because the total was always around eight or nine. This is not even mentioning the VAST amount of ECM's that where around from the clan Mech's making getting locks for IS extremely difficult to begin with.
I would love to see a balance made here from PGI, because at the moment, I see the only solution people turning to in order to have a fun match, is they take up Clan.

Thanks.

[justcallme A S H]

So "do we need more balance".

Yet talks about a single weapon system which, generally, is one's own inabilty to counter it. In light of the recent ECM buffs as well.

LRMs are a problem, but not really for why you are saying. Issue is dual buffs they took earlier in the year. This has been discussed many times now as well.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 05 September 2018 - 07:04 AM.

[Eisenhorne]

I agree, PGI should move the game balance slider from imbalanced to balanced.

[Bud Crue]

LRMs. Again?

In that case, no. No I do not want more "balance". I am content to not giving one little **** about LRMs on either side of the tech divide. I don't see the need to change things to make me care even less about them.

[Fuerchtenichts]

As Ash already pointed out, the negative impact of the last LRM related changes has already been addressed in many postings in this forum. As I am not very deep involved in Solaris 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 these changes might be positive for this game mode.

In QP and even more in FP the changes produce killtimes < 3 sec. (1 Narc Mech + 11 tag LRM Mechs) on certain maps. Of course you can counter this by sticking together, using lots of ECM and AMS, but this requires a great amount of communication and cooperation and will leave you volunerable if your opponents play brawl or long range laser because you sacrified so much tonnage for missile protection.

Btw. have you noticed than IS (missile package) and Clan (missile stream) LRMs operate differentlty which gives IS AMS a greater impact?

At least the balance question is a little bit trickier than Yes/No

[TWIAFU]

I stopped reading due to laughter when "great imbalance" was in reference to LRMs.

[UnKnownPlayer]

Pretty much everything in game at the moment has a counter, when you mention having a narc mech and 11 LRM mechs that isnt a weapon system which is causing the "balance" issue it's the other team being organised and stuff. Go get ECM fast movers and destroy them.

Get a team, get balanced, end of.

[K O Z A K]

First of all 2 triple ams mechs make the team immune to lrms? Lmfao, from what I've seen when faced with properly setup lrm team triple ams mechs last about 7 seconds instead of the 5 seconds for no ams mechs. If you want to fight clan lrms in the open maps without lrms as IS your best bet apart from fast rushing with like asns or something is to stack your team full of facebook stalkers with 4erll, ecm and ams. A few of those will be as good as anything in the game if you want to trade vs clan clag

[Eisenhorne]

Hazeclaw, on 05 September 2018 - 07:50 AM, said:

First of all 2 triple ams mechs make the team immune to lrms? Lmfao, from what I've seen when faced with properly setup lrm team triple ams mechs last about 7 seconds instead of the 5 seconds for no ams mechs. If you want to fight clan lrms in the open maps without lrms as IS your best bet apart from fast rushing with like asns or something is to stack your team full of facebook stalkers with 4erll, ecm and ams. A few of those will be as good as anything in the game if you want to trade vs clan clag

lol, when there's a triple AMS kitfox or something, he's usually the first one to die to lurms, because he had the audacity to try to prevent our righteous LRM spamming.

I'm sorry, but there's literally no way any team can mount enough AMS (and still be combat effective) to mitigate 8+ LRM boats. And when I say boats, I mean 80+ ton assault boats, each packing 5,000+ LRM's with 60+ tubes. They get NARC'd all the same, because if you have 2 NARC launchers you can brute force through their AMS, and then they just die.

[Leone]

Dem0niah, on 05 September 2018 - 06:32 AM, said:

We talk again of course about LRMS, and the lack of protection against them.

Ahahaha. Ha. Heh. Nice try.

~Leone.

[McGoat]

I really have started to dislike what the FP community has become. What you may ask? 97% scrubs wanting everything to work perfectly for their individual needs. 2% scrubs wanting everything to work exactly (and i mean exactly) like 1988 tabletop. 1% non scrubs who figure out the nuances of the current "balance", adapt, and continue to play to the best of their ability.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Every time PGI "balances" more people head for the exit. They are messing that part of it up so bad, i'm not sure how they manage to upset every sub section of the player base with each patch.

[K O Z A K]

Racerxintegra2k, on 05 September 2018 - 08:46 AM, said:

Every time PGI "balances" more people head for the exit. They are messing that part of it up so bad, i'm not sure how they manage to upset every sub section of the player base with each patch.

because the game is pretty well balanced already, PGI listens to whiny babies that want the only playstyle they play to be stronger, while putting up an image like they're still working on the game, most "balance" changes are just sideways balance moves that don't improve anything but just shuffle the numbers around. Longtime veterans that only have so much time to play the game anymore get tired of these pointless meta shifts, and having to go back and rebuild dozens or even hundreds of mechs because whiny babies push the brawl op, poptart op, lazors op, dakka op, lrms op......w/e flavour of the month op. Eventually you just want to play the game, not spend hours in mechlab, testing grounds and private lobbies to rediscover what works every month

[Nightbird]

On the forums, balance always seems to mean, make the way I play more powerful, the ways I don't play weaker. So no.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Hazeclaw, on 05 September 2018 - 09:35 AM, said:

because the game is pretty well balanced already, PGI listens to whiny babies that want the only playstyle they play to be stronger, while putting up an image like they're still working on the game, most "balance" changes are just sideways balance moves that don't improve anything but just shuffle the numbers around. Longtime veterans that only have so much time to play the game anymore get tired of these pointless meta shifts, and having to go back and rebuild dozens or even hundreds of mechs because whiny babies push the brawl op, poptart op, lazors op, dakka op, lrms op......w/e flavour of the month op. Eventually you just want to play the game, not spend hours in mechlab, testing grounds and private lobbies to rediscover what works every month

I don't disagree, but PGI is making the changes and annoying everyone it seems.

[Spheroid]

Why are you bothering to bring a pure support mech? An I.S. team that brought lurms has already lost. AMS only boosts matchscore not earnings. Its dumb to bring a Kitfox when you could have brought a Hellbringer and actually shot things.

The I.S. suffers lurm **** because it is populated with potatoes that are too poor or too dumb to understand herd behavior and the concept of a missile saturation threshold. This wrongly leads them to believe all AMS in general is not worth it, which is clearly false.

Look at all the dual AMS platforms available to the I.S. There are some extremely powerful mechs in there. The Battlemaster-2C, Jester, Crab-27, Thunderbolt-9S and the heavily quirked Grasshopper-5J. All good or good enough to bring to a fight before considering their AMS potential. Yet people never optimize their decks for the map.

If you get caustic there is a 90% chance of facing a lurm rain either from a premade looking to farm or clueless Clan pugs whose mechs include lurms as default equipment. Even knowing the map the correct builds are never brought! This event is paying out millions of c-bills and MC but people never utilize the earnings to build counter or map specific decks.

I have been yelling at my unit to get serious about map specific builds for months and they still bring garbage. What can I do when the call is Victors instead of Battlemasters? Nothing. I tell them the thousands of missiles I shot down during the match and that running the same builds would increase that rate exponentially to no avail. I can't do anything else as its not my unit to command.

People need to get serious about the Battlemaster-2C. The 1G is excellent but only beats the 2C at extreme range. There is no guarantee that range will remain extreme during the course of the match. I can build a 2C with a TC8 that maintains a good portion of the range utility of the 1G while being both more flexible and durable.

It seems to me the 2C should be the more common mech. In my unit though the 1G appears more frequently. This is a mistake. Hopefully the proposed ability to allow intra unit transfer of funds will eliminate poverty as an excuse for lacking equipment. I have my two dozen plus Battlemasters tailored for every map so should others. No more excuses.

Edited by Spheroid, 05 September 2018 - 02:20 PM.

[Eisenhorne]

Honestly Spheroid I'd recommend the STK-3FB over the BLR-2C, because mass ECM is more useful than AMS in my experience. 4-5 STK-3FB with ECM alongside a bunch of BLR-1G, with no AMS, is one hell of a force to be reckoned with, because most NARC pilots will have difficulty pinging ALL of them.

AMS is just not good enough at stopping missiles. 1 ton of ammo shoots down what, 400 missiles? Not good enough, when most LRM boats pack 15-20 tons of ammo. 8+ solid LRM boats will beat the living hell out of you, even through all your AMS fire. You can also use mechs like the Fafnir with Gauss + ERLL as an ECM source, it does a decent job of it.

Alternatively... just adapt to the LRM meta on some FP maps by doing it yourself. When two LRM teams fight, the skill of the NARC lights is what decides the game. Maybe bring 9 LRM boats, 2 NARC lights, and 1 dedicated NARC light killer, like an Assassin or something.

[Xaat Xuun]

Best balance one can get, and it's available now . . Group up, Listen, and Communicate, added with more mech bays and mechs, to have a variety for any situation.
having the Finances for the mech bays would be the only issue

[Asym]

This topic is comical. The entire game's premise is that of the cold war: *post WW2 to the 1980's".... One side had all of the high tech and well educated warriors and the other side has a huge military foot print of study bit simple stuff....

Mass versus finesse. It's the backdrop to the MW Universe. Balance on in this case, a lack of balance is what "should have driven the entire story line..." You solve problems differently from either of the two perspectives... The challenges are more exciting because of those differences.

But, this is a game and most kids never studied the cold war and have zero inkling about the history of that struggle..... NATO vs. the "Eastern Bloc". The M1 versus the T-72.....as an example. Balance is for those whom always want an easy solution and complain that "all things need to be 'fair' for me to compete......"

No wonder MWO is failing.

[Black Ivan]

Lurmwarrior please nerf here we go again?
It has been discussed over and over....