38 replies to this topic

[Kaeb Odellas]

Verilligo, on 18 January 2019 - 10:50 AM, said:

At which point Streaks lose all meaningful differentiation from standard SRMs, apart from being heavier and having a longer range on the Clan variation. Technically SRMs are "self-guided," but the practical effect is that, with that velocity and at that range, any level of guidance essentially makes the missiles foolproof. You might very well have to decrease the damage on SRMs, which is going to impact brawling mechs super heavily.

Streaks would still be different in that they never miss unless they are blocked by something. Standard SRMs would have significantly worse tracking, naturally.

Verilligo, on 18 January 2019 - 10:50 AM, said:

AMS is not a hard counter to LRMs. Even triple AMS is not a hard counter to LRMs. Now AMS does tamp down LRM damage to a considerable degree, but it's not designed to nullify them as much as it's designed to help give breathing space to deal with the threat. If four players were running AMS, then yes, that would pretty heavily counter an enemy mech with LRMs... but you can't count on that to happen in QP.

Triple AMS is a pretty hard counter to your classic LRM30 Founder's Catapult. It's kinda depressing that the only way to be even remotely be effective with LRMS is to just load up as many tubes as possible to brute force your way through.

[Prototelis]

When you consider what you have to trade for 3xams it makes sense.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Prototelis, on 19 January 2019 - 05:57 AM, said:

When you consider what you have to trade for 3xams it makes sense.

It's 2+ tons of equipmrnt completely shutting down 15+ tons of weapon. No it does not make sense.

[HammerMaster]

Prototelis, on 19 January 2019 - 05:57 AM, said:

When you consider what you have to trade for 3xams it makes sense.

Are you serious?
Its a clan mech.
It is as good as an IS mech 2x the tonnnage.

Edited by HammerMaster, 20 January 2019 - 12:51 PM.

[Verilligo]

Kaeb Odellas, on 19 January 2019 - 03:51 AM, said:

Triple AMS is a pretty hard counter to your classic LRM30 Founder's Catapult. It's kinda depressing that the only way to be even remotely be effective with LRMS is to just load up as many tubes as possible to brute force your way through.

It may be depressing, but you have to look at reality. Nobody is running around with LRM30, other than people that do mix builds or lore-specific ones. The reality is that LRM boats are generally 60 tubes and up. They're not running that many tubes to cut through AMS, they're running that many tubes because LRMs are a weapon system that synergizes the best with more of itself. It always has, in every MW title, because that's just how weapon synergy works.

[Koniving]

I doubt they'd go for this, though I'm using it for some variant concepts.

If they do experiment with this in MWO, though, they'd have one of only two building blocks to making "Mech Mortars" a reality.

"The munitions used by the mortars, though often possessing limited guidance packages, weren't destroyed by AMS systems in tests."

Proximity guidance.

[Koniving]

The6thMessenger, on 19 January 2019 - 01:45 AM, said:

I honestly don't have the data on that.

But I think it would be a better system to differentiate between LBXs.

Now if you're actually looking for THAT...

If you ever find an unabridged version of the LBX's description...
You'll find closer similarities to a smart flak shell than to a "shotgun."

Swap the "pellets" with "explosive cluster bombs", since each "pellet" does the same damage as an LRM... and then launch it in a single shell which upon entering proximity to a target or the final destination, ejects them into the air...

And here ya go. A distinction.

[Prototelis]

Kaeb Odellas, on 19 January 2019 - 09:21 AM, said:

It's 2+ tons of equipmrnt completely shutting down 15+ tons of weapon. No it does not make sense.

And you have severely limited offensive capability. That is the trade off.

Potato cannon gets neutered (lots of those missiles still make it through, btw) and the KFX gets self-neutered. Whereas the KFX is stuck with limited offensive capability, the LRM boat can switch targets.

Perfectly fair, and lets be honest toolboxfox is a lot more rare than any lrmboat.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Prototelis, on 20 January 2019 - 12:02 AM, said:

And you have severely limited offensive capability. That is the trade off.

Potato cannon gets neutered (lots of those missiles still make it through, btw) and the KFX gets self-neutered. Whereas the KFX is stuck with limited offensive capability, the LRM boat can switch targets.

Perfectly fair, and lets be honest toolboxfox is a lot more rare than any lrmboat.

The Kit Fox with max armor and 3 AMS with 3 tons of ammo still has 10 tons left over for weapons. 9 tons if you add ECM. That's still plenty of firepower for a Clan light. The Nova can also run triple AMS just fine with plenty of firepower to spare.

And there's no switching targets against deathball tactics, when said mech can cover the whole team under its umbrella.

[Prototelis]

Sustained DPS on both of those mechs is kinda poop with the triple AMS builds, and you know that.

Either way, I'm not at all against countermeasures specifically for auto aim weapons.

[thievingmagpi]

my suggestion is to take any lock on weapon fired immediately do a 180 and hit the firer, thus removing them from the game and improving overall experience.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Prototelis, on 20 January 2019 - 05:37 PM, said:

Sustained DPS on both of those mechs is kinda poop with the triple AMS builds, and you know that.

Either way, I'm not at all against countermeasures specifically for auto aim weapons.

It's a good thing sustained DPS isn't the sole measure of success then, is it? Ir's a small price to pay for the ability to negate 15 tons' worth of weapons.

And LRMs aren't an auto-aim weapon. You still have to hold your reticle on the target for a prolonged period of time. You don't have to aim as well, but you do have to aim for far, far longer.

[Y E O N N E]

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 January 2019 - 12:18 AM, said:

And LRMs aren't an auto-aim weapon. You still have to hold your reticle on the target for a prolonged period of time. You don't have to aim as well, but you do have to aim for far, far longer.

You have to hold it broadly on a target; you do not have to try to focus it on a single component. If all you did was sandblast damage with other weapons, everything except the other missiles would be even less efficient at killing things than LRMs which, when you think about it, explains a lot about the average player in MWO.

[Kroete]

Y E O N N E, on 23 January 2019 - 12:45 AM, said:

You have to hold it broadly on a target; you do not have to try to focus it on a single component. If all you did was sandblast damage with other weapons, everything except the other missiles would be even less efficient at killing things than LRMs which, when you think about it, explains a lot about the average player in MWO.

What does the moaning about a weapon that is that bad, says about the moaners?

[Dimento Graven]

Kroete, on 23 January 2019 - 04:35 AM, said:

What does the moaning about a weapon that is that bad, says about the moaners?

Nah, it just gets grating that the potatoes who use computer guided weapons crow about them requiring 'l33t sk1llz'...

1. Put the little circle in the big square.
2. Wait for big circle.
3. Pull trigger.

For extra difficulty:

2a. Check range before firing
3a. Keep little circle in big square until missiles land.

For extra EXTRA difficulty:
3b: Watch for red flash/reticule change to know when you've hit

For the super ELITE skilled:
3c: If missiles hit something before hitting target, do one of the following:
--- a. Move.
--- b. Switch Targets
--- c. Use arms/torso pitch to add more "arc" to flight path

I don't agree with making changes to a weapon system that eliminates even more skill from the game. Computer guided weaponry is the second easiest weapon type to use in the game (other than lasers, which are 'point and shoot' easy) and providing them with an extra 'can't miss' option is just a bad idea.

[Khobai]

Missiles should not auto-select targets and home in on them. They should only ever home in on the target you initially locked onto.

However all missiles should be fire and forget. You shouldnt have to hold locks for missiles thats never made sense. If you had a lock-on when you fired then missiles should continue to home in on that target regardless of whether you lose the lock-on midflight. Because missiles have their own on-board guidance systems.

But also LRMs are supposed to be long range missiles. Yet theyre absolutely terrible at long range. Making them fire and forget would help them hit targets slightly better at long range. Although LRMs still need a velocity increase too. You cant call them LRMs if theyre barely capable of hitting anything past 600m... thats medium range.

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2019 - 07:23 AM, said:

Nah, it just gets grating that the potatoes who use computer guided weapons crow about them requiring 'l33t sk1llz'..

no weapon in this game requires L33t sk1llz.

thats why complaining about LRMs being guided is completely irrational. because other weapons like lasers are also easy mode to use. even autocannons are easy to use because of the high rate of fire. PPCs and gauss are probably the only weapons in the game that require any skill and even theyre easy to use compared to weapons in other shooters.

the part of this game that has the highest skill ceiling is actually teamwork. thats where the biggest skill divide exists. the skill divide between using LRMs and direct fire weapons is almost entirely negligible, since most players are perfectly capable with direct fire weapons.

Quote

You have to hold it broadly on a target; you do not have to try to focus it on a single component. If all you did was sandblast damage with other weapons, everything except the other missiles would be even less efficient at killing things than LRMs which, when you think about it, explains a lot about the average player in MWO.

the skill divide between holding your reticle on a specific component or broadly holding your reticle over a target is incredibly small to the point of being almost negligible. except maybe in the case of light mechs, certain mediums, or at extreme long range.

but in the case of guided weapons they should be fire and forget anyway. having to hold the lock is completely dumb and goes against the whole principle of guided weapons.

Edited by Khobai, 23 January 2019 - 08:21 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 23 January 2019 - 07:56 AM, said:

...

the part of this game that has the highest skill ceiling is actually teamwork. thats where the biggest skill divide exists. the skill divide between using LRMs and direct fire weapons is almost entirely negligiable, since most players are perfectly capable with direct fire weapons.

Yeah you say that, and then I continuously see people who are somewhere in the T1 to T3 range constantly using the "spray-and-pray" methodology of fire control, which emulates the computer guided weaponry 'spread', instead of TARGETING and focusing their aim on the DAMAGED components...

[Khobai]

Quickplay is not exactly the best gamemode to base average player skill on. Since quickplay contains the largest population of players who are still learning the game. If theres going to be spray and pray methodology used anywhere of course its going to be in quickplay...

Edited by Khobai, 23 January 2019 - 08:31 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 23 January 2019 - 08:29 AM, said:

Quickplay is not exactly the best gamemode to base average player skill on. Since quickplay contains the largest population of players who are still learning the game. If theres going to be spray and pray methodology used anywhere of course its going to be in quickplay...

Yeah but in the T1 to T3 range you have to assume these people have played AT LEAST enough games to reach T3, which minimally is what, around 20 'good' high scoring winning matches? How long would it take someone that's supposed to be 'good' at video games to get to T3? Somewhere between 20 and 100, right? You'd think SOMEWHERE in that amount of time they'd learn about focusing on the already damaged portions of the 'mech instead of waving their weapons around like a fire hose...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 23 January 2019 - 08:38 AM.