40 replies to this topic

[Rifleman89]

Even though I max out Radar Deprivation and carry 2 tons of AMS ammo, to get where I can shoot back at the enemy with direct fire weapons the LRM death is unavoidable. Most matches now have 1/3rd of the enemy sporting TAG and their own LRMs on top the the assault boats. Even though you dodge back into cover, you take sooo much damage, it tells me the latest attempt to modify the LRM firing mechanism is adding to the problem.

The real problem is the inefficiency of the countermeasures other than ECM. AMS is under performing. Who knows what AMS is supposed to do effectively? What are the stats? Stop 1 in 5 missiles, 3 in 10? Are they supposed to stop 50% of a LRM 5, 30% of LRM 10, 20% of LRM 15, and 10% of LRM 20??? Does anyone know so we can all be enlightened? You see the dilemma don't you? With so many optimized missile builds that can quickly and effectively overcome the defense, the defense is the failure.

Want to reign in the missile threat? Improve the countermeasures. Unless LRMs are nerfed into oblivion, which PGI seems unwilling to do, nor should they be removed as AN EFFECTIVE OPTION for the players. The cure? We need a stronger "pill" to fight "the cancer." If you take a countermeasure, it should actually provide a reasonable counter. AMS in the current state of constant metal missile rain isn't doing what it is supposed to. Since electing to use AMS should be JUST AS EQUALLY AN EFFECTIVE OPTION for the players, it needs to be EFFECTIVE, which it is obviously not.

There is no doubt that LRMs are easily effective. AMS doesn't share this aspect. Taking AMS has more detriment than benefit in the current state. You sacrifice DPS or cooling or speed or armor; there is a trade off. At the moment there is no equal sacrifice for taking LRMs and a TAG compared to the effectiveness you gain. I think this is self evident.

If everyone on the other team has AMS THAT ACTUALLY DOES ITS JOB, then missiles would be countered and drop their use. Perhaps then, some sort of BALANCE is possible and not with the current proposal to change the cancer. Give us an equal option to fight the cancer.

[Rifleman89]

I went and looked at most of my Inner Sphere mechs (just short of 70). I didn't see one that didn't allow AMS as an option. Many of the Clan mechs don't have an AMS option but omnipods can obviously allow any build to have an AMS. The option is there for all mechs to defend themselves against missiles, for a trade off. If only we had an EFFECTIVE AMS option worth trading for........

I didn't even address the effectiveness of MRM and ATM missiles in the above quote. We see very effective builds that do what the current change would offer. MRM and ATM are EFFECTIVE OPTIONS for the players. I would like to have AMS perform well against these as well, so I have an EQUALLY EFFECTIVE OPTION as a player.

The emPHASis is on the wrong sylLABLE. If so many mechs can boat more than one missile pods, why can't I boat just as many AMS systems needed to counter them effectively? Only a few mechs allow for more than one AMS. All the others are only allowed 1 AMS that doesn't put a dent in the damage. Even those with mulit AMS can be easily overwhelmed and killed by LR and MR missiles.

Edited by Rifleman89, 07 February 2019 - 08:26 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Rifleman89, on 07 February 2019 - 08:09 AM, said:

I went and looked at most of my Inner Sphere mechs (just short of 70). I didn't see one that didn't allow AMS as an option. Many of the Clan mechs don't have an AMS option but omnipods can obviously allow any build to have an AMS. The option is there for all mechs to defend themselves against missiles, for a trade off. If only we had an EFFECTIVE AMS option worth trading for........

I think the X-5 lacks AMS option. That’s all I can think of that lacks it, though there is an itch in the back of my head suggesting that there is at least one more.

Anyway, in GQ there is usually at least two us us running Jesters with dual AMS, and often others. Plus often 1-2 mechs having ECM. We also make a point of calling out and downing UAVs pretty damn quickly. I’d say 1 out of 6 matches have LRMS of such magnitude that we take note of them in a loss. I understand in solo queue they are much more predominant so you have my sympathies.

[Nightbird]

Rifleman89, on 07 February 2019 - 07:53 AM, said:

it tells me the latest attempt to modify the LRM firing mechanism is adding to the problem.

Nerfs to LRMs on test server are not on live yet. Once implemented, LRMs won't shoot over obstacles in direct fire mode.

[R Valentine]

I don't think the LRM changes are going to make things any better. It's just going to throw LRMs back to garbage tier and we'll have less viable weapons again. No matter how "good" you make LRMs at direct fire, they will always be vastly inferior to ACTUAL direct fire that can single out components and trade in short windows. Even with the changes, the window it takes for LRMs to travel from launcher to target is too long. Any half decent trader will be long since back into cover before the LRMs get to him, and since they no longer jump over cover the LRMer will lose every time. So now they'll just suck at the only thing they're good at, indirect fire, but won't be any better at the thing they suck at. What a waste.

[Darian DelFord]

LRM's are not a problem for the most part. I am in a light, and I am usually always in cover and can get to it quick.

Just because an assault mech lumbers out into cover and becomes easy pickings for any LRM, it does not make LRM's OP.

In regards to the new changes putting LRM's into the garbage, well, Hunchback J is all I have to say about that!

[Bud Crue]

Kiran Yagami, on 07 February 2019 - 08:26 AM, said:

I don't think the LRM changes are going to make things any better. It's just going to throw LRMs back to garbage tier and we'll have less viable weapons again. No matter how "good" you make LRMs at direct fire, they will always be vastly inferior to ACTUAL direct fire that can single out components and trade in short windows. Even with the changes, the window it takes for LRMs to travel from launcher to target is too long. Any half decent trader will be long since back into cover before the LRMs get to him, and since they no longer jump over cover the LRMer will lose every time. So now they'll just suck at the only thing they're good at, indirect fire, but won't be any better at the thing they suck at. What a waste.

The increased (returned) heat to clan LRMs (if it goes live) I think will dampen a lot of the current complaints about LRM spamming. For myself, that is the change I see being the most impactful from this PTS. The rest is just mucking about for the sake of change.

[GoodTry]

Rifleman89, on 07 February 2019 - 07:53 AM, said:

Even though I max out Radar Deprivation and carry 2 tons of AMS ammo, to get where I can shoot back at the enemy with direct fire weapons the LRM death is unavoidable.

The problem is you. I never run AMS, and rarely ECM, and I only die to LRMs when I'm out of position. The fact that you can't even get into position to shoot the enemy without dying to LRMs shows that you are exaggerating or grossly out of position in every match.

[Khobai]

AMS is not underperforming. If the other team is using LRMs/ATMs, it pretty much always saves your team from losing armor equal to or greater than its own weight. I think what youre forgetting is that AMS helps protect your teammates, and often it protects your teammates better than it protects you.

And LRMs certainly arnt overperforming either...

This whole PTS is a joke. Its not fixing LRMs its just making them worse.

Bud Crue, on 07 February 2019 - 08:35 AM, said:

The increased (returned) heat to clan LRMs (if it goes live) I think will dampen a lot of the current complaints about LRM spamming. For myself, that is the change I see being the most impactful from this PTS. The rest is just mucking about for the sake of change.

They didnt need to increase the heat.

They needed to increase the cooldown and increase the damage per missile.

That wouldve made LRMs less spammy while also making them require slightly more skill to use since youd have to time your volleys better instead of just being able to constantly spam volleys. LRMs would also have better armor penetration then and damage would be more concentrated instead of being uselessly spread around.

PGI's LRM changes are terrible. LRMs are just going to end up overall weaker than they were before. What's the point of that? To appease some tier 4-5 crybabies that havent learned how to dodge LRMs (mostly because PGI themselves didnt make a tutorial to teach them how to dodge LRMs)? The only LRM changes PGI should be making are ones that help make LRMs better in Tier 1+.

Edited by Khobai, 07 February 2019 - 09:10 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

AMS shouldn't completely counter LRMs. That being said, the last match I played with my Triple AMS Kit Fox, I shot down 792 missiles and if LRMs are at least in moderate use, even a single AMS will shoot down 150-200 missiles with one ton of ammo. Also ATM's in any quantity under 20 fired at a time, are virtually rendered useless by a single ATM. Get AMS covering an area and anyone with ATMs might as well be shooting spitballs at the enemy.

Also I think your operating on a false assumption that the LRM's are getting buffed due to being underpowered in some way and that is not the case. The whole change to LRMs are to encourage players using them to move closer to the fire and engage enemies with LRMs by using direct line of sight attacks instead of hiding 800m away from the fight just pressing the fire button over and over and hoping for good results.

[Phoenix 72]

Some random AMS information: One ton of AMS ammo will shoot down anything between 300 and 350 missiles, normally, when you have the AMS skill nodes. This will prevent roughly 100-120 damage, as the most prolific lurmers have an accuracy of around 30% with their LURMs.

Most of my Mechs have AMS and in the past 2-3 weeks, I have rarely run out of 1 ton of ammo, and never run out of 2 tons, which is what I field on my Crab 27. The only time I see lurms en masse is when there is a missile-, narc- or tag-event. However, then things are almost unplayable.

Testing by players much better than myself shows that ECM is a much better defense against LRMs than AMS is. If you bring a Kitfox with 3 AMS and ECM, you are essentially set. That is much more effective than the Nova Champion we all got a while ago (although the Nova puts out more damage, most of the time). Either way, I do not feel like AMS is too weak, myself.

***EDIT: 1.5 tons worth of equipment neutralises a little over 1 ton worth of LRM missiles. Asking for more is a bit much, I feel. All AMS does is give you some time, anyway. Which most of the time people do not really use efficiently, deciding to run around in circles, anyway..***

Edited by Darakor Stormwind, 07 February 2019 - 11:39 AM.

[dwwolf]

Angel of Annihilation, on 07 February 2019 - 10:52 AM, said:

AMS shouldn't completely counter LRMs. That being said, the last match I played with my Triple AMS Kit Fox, I shot down 792 missiles and if LRMs are at least in moderate use, even a single AMS will shoot down 150-200 missiles with one ton of ammo. Also ATM's in any quantity under 20 fired at a time, are virtually rendered useless by a single ATM. Get AMS covering an area and anyone with ATMs might as well be shooting spitballs at the enemy.

Also I think your operating on a false assumption that the LRM's are getting buffed due to being underpowered in some way and that is not the case. The whole change to LRMs are to encourage players using them to move closer to the fire and engage enemies with LRMs by using direct line of sight attacks instead of hiding 800m away from the fight just pressing the fire button over and over and hoping for good results.

You mean they used the one niche they actually occupy ?

[Koniving]

Rifleman89, on 07 February 2019 - 08:09 AM, said:

I went and looked at most of my Inner Sphere mechs (just short of 70). I didn't see one that didn't allow AMS as an option. Many of the Clan mechs don't have an AMS option but omnipods can obviously allow any build to have an AMS. The option is there for all mechs to defend themselves against missiles, for a trade off. If only we had an EFFECTIVE AMS option worth trading for........

X-5 Cicada Hero.
No AMS capability.

Side note: Read the LRM PTS 2. One of the focuses is fixing AMS by having missile health for larger volleys reduced, and health for lower volleys increased.

This is of course only going to encourage boating of smaller launchers for greater effect per ton of ammo, and per tons spent (4 LRM-5s shoots faster, is more accurate and is 2 tons less than 1 LRM-20).

Edited by Koniving, 07 February 2019 - 12:11 PM.

[FupDup]

Koniving, on 07 February 2019 - 12:08 PM, said:

This is of course only going to encourage boating of smaller launchers for greater effect per ton of ammo, and per tons spent (4 LRM-5s shoots faster, is more accurate and is 2 tons less than 1 LRM-20).

Boating of smaller launchers comes at the cost of a lower alpha strike and fewer energy/ballistic hardpoints (because those missile hardpoints are not free). Also, even with the health changes a huge LRM80 volley is still probably going to get a fair amount of its damage past AMS.

Smaller launchers have always been an exaggerated boogeyman in MWO, especially the LRM5 (which is borderline useless right now).

Edited by FupDup, 07 February 2019 - 12:24 PM.

[Steel Raven]

AMS was never meant to be a 'Jesus Bubble' like the ECM of old, your best bet is multiple AMS that always yield the best results.

[Variant1]

Lrms arent weak and werent for a long time (theres a reason they got nerfed hard). Going to see how the lrm changes workout after the next patch but for now lrms aint week unless your standing behind cover 800m away from your team facing a rock.

As for op, ams shouldnt get buffed. No one should be forced to use an equipment it should be optional just like deciding which weapons to mount on a mech. I recomend you try lrm launchers and see from a different perspective

Edited by Variant1, 07 February 2019 - 12:36 PM.

[Koniving]

FupDup, on 07 February 2019 - 12:23 PM, said:

Boating of smaller launchers comes at the cost of a lower alpha strike and fewer energy/ballistic hardpoints (because those missile hardpoints are not free). Also, even with the health changes a huge LRM80 volley is still probably going to get a fair amount of its damage past AMS.

Smaller launchers have always been an exaggerated boogeyman in MWO, especially the LRM5 (which is borderline useless right now).

It really depends. I'm quite the consumer of both large launchers and small ones.

We've seen my large ones, in both the LRM-90 Roflpult and LRM-100 Roflwalker as well as my Roflmaster.
And my lower volley ones are in my significantly more successful Archer build which doesn't sacrifice speed or armor to boat large volumes of LRMs and uses smaller launchers. Alpha doesn't truly matter, as ghost heat renders alpha worthless, and so what it boils down to is DPS and how quickly the volleys get there. The smaller launchers fire faster, and when chain fired run colder than the larger launchers allowing them to pump out more, longer which is even more significant now that the heat ceiling is cut in half from the Roflpult's hayday in 2014/2015, making the roflpult almost worthless due to overheating too quickly.

In the end boating smaller works better and sacrifices less. Yes it has its own costs. But only a fool boats large launchers in the name of a high alpha, as the heat, the ghost heat, the spread and the hit detection all fight against it. The only real reason to go with larger launchers is to get through AMS... but that's on its way to be undone.

Its true that this will be a huge benefit to lights or mediums with only a couple of small launchers, like the SHK or even the Grasshopper with an LRM-5 in the head... but beyond this, the issue comes when it is used in larger volumes. But then again, that problem exists for every weapon system and our impressive array of hardpoints. So it is worth at least noting, even if it isn't the boogey man that some may believe it to be....because chances are it soon may become that.

[Khobai]

Angel of Annihilation, on 07 February 2019 - 10:52 AM, said:

Also I think your operating on a false assumption that the LRM's are getting buffed due to being underpowered in some way and that is not the case. The whole change to LRMs are to encourage players using them to move closer to the fire and engage enemies with LRMs by using direct line of sight attacks instead of hiding 800m away from the fight just pressing the fire button over and over and hoping for good results.

which is completely dumb.

the whole purpose of LRMs is both indirect fire and LONG RANGE. Those are two things that define LRMs.

buffing their direct fire ability doesnt help them fulfill their intended role. they still cant compete with other direct fire weapons and now theyre weaker at indirect fire. Thats a straight up nerf. theres no other way of looking at it.

Theyre LONG RANGE missiles. how does nerfing them at long range and making you get closer with them help them fulfill their role? oops it doesnt. thats also why garbage like ECM stealth and radar derp is bad for the game too because it makes LRMs unnecessarily worse at what theyre supposed to be good at.

PGI has no clue what theyre doing as usual. Theyre just appeasing a bunch of crybabies by nerfing LRMs instead of balancing LRMs properly so they actually fill the roles theyre supposed. And again its mostly PGI's fault for not even preparing new players by including a basic tutorial on LRMs. Since according to Paul its the T4-T5 players that struggle the most with LRMs.


The better solution wouldve been threefold:

1) properly reward people for spotting, tagging, narcing. if you risk the armor to spot you should get credited with 50% of the damage for spotting for the IDF LRMs. And the LRM boat loses 50% of its damage by having other people spot for them.That gets rid of the parasitic nature of LRMs since the people risking the armor get properly rewarded for doing so and the LRM boat loses out on damage by having others spot for them.

2) make sure LRMs are actually good at the ONLY two things they should be good at. Indirect Fire and Long range. theyre not supposed to be good at direct fire, how does buffing their direct fire make any sense? Its beyond dumb. if you want direct fire LRMs just use ATMs... thats the role of ATMs afterall.

3) create a LRM tutorial that prepares new players for LRMs and explains how to deal with them by not walking out into the open. Hell even a lot of tier 1 players could benefit from that tutorial because they never learned how to properly play the game...

Edited by Khobai, 07 February 2019 - 01:10 PM.

[The Lost Boy]

To the OP:

With full radar dep and AMS( with both skillnodes) with no mre than 1/2 ton of ammo not getting killed by lurmaggedon should be EASY. I think I can count on 1 hand the number of times I got got lurm focused down in the last 6 months and still have 3 fingers not used.

LRMs are an inefficient, very easy to counter weapon. All range nodes help AMS, mag bonus helps AMS, radar dep tells you when someone has lock on you, so you duck out of sight and lock is gone. Terrain blocks missles, as do other mechs both friendly and enemy. Learning to roll damage for an incoming volley mitigates impact and finally getting under the min range completely nullifies IS LRMS, and makes Clan lrms next to useless.

The problem isnt the game. Its you.

Really.

[Yiryi-Sa]

AMS is really effective already, but many players write it off and settle for a self-fulfilling prophecy and don’t use AMS altogether. If, for example, a twelve person team fielded a mech with at least one Laser AMS, your collective heat would quite minimal and your protection would be quite good. I would, however, like to see the range of AMS increased (it can help protect your light mechs against Streaks a lot better).

And no, Laser AMS is not awful nor does it take away from mechs’ abilities to be effective at dealing damage. It takes some awareness to shut them off from time to time. My triple Laser AMS Nova is really nice, though the 30% increase in rate of fire isn’t something I have noticed as impactful (yet).