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-Lock partially resetting on the PTS when target is obscured by terrain pieces is annoying, but apparently it is not intended to work this way.
- New distance based lock system counter-intuitive to the purpose of Long Range Missiles. Few maps give you the opportunity to see, lock on to, fire and track a target at distances for direct fire benefits to locking speed to come into effect. Right now, direct fire LRMs have to get obscenely close for a supposed long range weapon system in order to use them and achieve any level of effectiveness against other long range weapon systems such as standard and extended range large lasers, ppcs, autocannon 2 class weapons or gauss weapons.
For indirect, this considerable increase in lock-on time becomes absolutely impossible if the target(s) happen to be within vicinity of passive ECM. 5 to 6 seconds of tracking a target means your supposed long range weaponry will not be able to fire without either dropping the notion of this being a long range weapon entirely or being wholly reliant on teammates possibly having NARC or TAG or active probes to assist you. No weapon system should require such massive hurdles to get use out of.
It is also really confusing. There is no indicator or statistic in the mech lab or UI to show large your sensor range really is, so you can't as a player try to gauge where you should be.
If such a lock-on system is to be implemented, then the weapon system needs to be assisted in other ways, such as reducing the effectiveness of or outright changing the mechanics of radar deprivation.
- Spread increase for indirect unnecessary. Base spread for LRM's already puts them as one of the most ammo inefficient weapons in the game. The time it takes to kill someone with arced missiles on live gives them ample opportunity to break line of sight and seek cover. (Maps where this is not easily possible is not the fault of the weapon system.) Tracking strength of missiles has already taken considerable hits, and against swiftly moving targets they are considerably ineffective.
LRM spread should, for implementation to live server purposes, be set as the current live values with direct fire providing a 20 to 25% reduction in spread. Artemis and TAG or NARC should stack with this to further reward the tonnage investment and risk required to get angles with this direct fire mode.
The spread increase for indirect also hurts direct fire mechs that are trying to keep up with the rest of their lance or teammates, as a friendly who happens to walk in front of you while you're trying to lock onto an enemy ensures your missiles will now be indirect and considerably more ineffective against a target, despite attempting to get closer with a supposed long range weapon system.
- TAG should provide benefits for the missile mech using it. Either in the form of quicker locks regardless of distance, tracking strength making hitting fast lights or mediums much more reliable, or reducing spread. Especially the spread reduction for TAG should be considered, as you are required to hold the beam on the target while seeking a lock on the target and firing, exposing yourself to notable amounts of return fire.
- NARC should have its mechanic changed. Right now it is a death sentence on maps with little overhead cover, and its long duration guarantees that you are forced to stay at a position for quite a long while. So I propose a mechanical change where a NARC beacon will last for a certain amount of time or until enough damage is received. For example if you take 100 damage the NARC beacon should fall off, lose its signal or just be destroyed to prevent it from meaning someone becomes a guaranteed kill for multiple missile boats on open maps.
Add in a 1 to 2.5 second target lock decay effect when it is destroyed so that missiles in flight and close to the NARC'd target still have a chance to hit but any further will just behave like normal missiles that lost a locked target, hitting the last known position. This way, coordinated teams could still organize volley fire to devastate a target, but against poorly coordinated forces you would still have a chance to roll damage and survive.
- The heat spike penalty increases from the previous round of PTS as well as the base heat increases for clan LRMs this round of PTS are considerable reductions in effectiveness already. Implementing them first and seeing whether or not LRM's are still "overperforming" before considering adding the spread increase or the lock-time increase based on distance.
- ATM missile health increase for smaller launchers was a good start, however it does not help mechs such as the Sköll which only have access to one missile hardpoint and a single large class launcher.
So in summary, smaller ATM and LRM launchers getting a health boost against AMS and direct fire LRMs receiving a further spread reduction are improvements over PTS1.0, but otherwise this feels like a step backwards. Direct Fire mode should be an additional layer of tactical flexibility for the weapon, not something that has absolute priority. Other weapon systems are better for such shorter range fighting.
If these changes were to be implemented as they are now, LRMs would likely end up sliding back to their state of near complete irrelevancy that they were in for a considerably long time.
Edited by Nomad One, 09 February 2019 - 09:02 AM.
