The good; new angle system seems to be working great! It feels weird at first but it is fairly responsive so far. I'd personally like a lower arc for direct fire as they're still flying a bit higher than ATMs. Might make dumbfire a bit easier.
The bad; pretty much all the other nerfs added in feel unnecessary and ruin the experience of getting a feel of the new LRMs. There doesn't seem to be much benefit between the old LRMs and the new in Direct Fire, but rather the Direct Fire seems to be a mechanic implemented as a workaround to new nerfs. Not rewarding at all so far.
Still, it's new, but these are my thoughts so far.
Edit: Further testing shows that these changes are a big nerf.
Testing on the Atlas in Tourmaline between the live and PTS, from 200m directly in front of it with an LRM15, took me an average of 395 missiles to net a kill in the Live client. The PTS takes an average of 540.
This is using the new Direct fire with the increased spread; net nerf. PGI, please roll back the nerfs, or better yet, increase the Direct Fire bonus.
Edit again: Same test at 200m to the front of the testing grounds Atlas, this time using LRM5s with Artemis on chainfire and Tag. Should be as accurate as LRMs can get.
Live: Average of 238.33 to get a kill.
PTS: Average of 310.
Both tests involved three sets each to achieve their average, so I'm going to lay off of that poor Atlas for a bit.
Sadly, my testing tells me that these changes are Direct Nerfs instead of fun Direct Fire.
Edited by Bad Pun, 16 January 2019 - 09:04 PM.