15 replies to this topic

[C337Skymaster]

So I decided to buy Butterbee on the last Hero sale, just to complete my Catapult collection, and I'm realizing that its SRM loadout is bugged to hell and back. 50% of the time, in a close-range brawl, with the doors set to auto-open, your first salvo (delayed by the doors) will hit, but the very next salvo, delayed only by the time it takes for the weapons to cycle, and fired with the doors still open, striking directly on the CT of the 'mech that's standing still in front of you, about 150 m away, shooting back at you, does zero damage and doesn't even turn the crosshair red. Obviously, you're not usually given a chance at a third shot. Certainly not with both arms (all 4 SRMs).

Have SRMs always been that terrible at HitReg? I thought PPCs were bad, but HOLY CRAP!!! Honestly, when a PPC misses, I can see where I shot under someone's arm or something, but SRMs spread. Even if I'm accidentally shooting through an armpit, most of them should still hit the arm, side torso, and a little on the CT. Especially without Artemis, and from 150-200m away. Even a single missile in a salvo of 24 will register a "hit" on the crosshairs, so to have all 24 missiles "miss" when they clearly strike the torso areas of a target is frustrating to say the least.

And for some reason, I can't replicate this in the testing grounds. Only in live combat. I've got a few videos of it. I just need to upload them somewhere since MWO's forums can't support video or image hosting.

If IS SRMs have always been that bad, is PGI doing anything to fix them?

[Shock21]

Yes SRM hit reg has been bad as long as I can remember. Not with complete misses but always doing less damage than expected. And the faster a target is moving the more it's a problem. I don't know if it's because the client isn't accurately showing where they actually hit or what.

[V O L T R O N]

Doesnt show up on the scoreboard all the time but it puts people down.

[C337Skymaster]

EDIT: It embedded on its own! Nice! First time that happened. I wonder if it's because it was the first bit of text, instead of the third or fourth paragraph. Skip ahead to when the match starts (4 minutes), and then just watch me fight, cringeworthy though it may be. There are three or four examples of what I'm talking about, because every 2nd shot missed, even if it was pointing straight at the target.

1st example is just after 6:50. It's pretty consistent after that. I think the shots prior were spaced out enough for the doors to close between shots.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 02 July 2020 - 03:31 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

Ya that's really bad. You can watch your cooling correct every few shot. Basically the sever isn't seeing you fire or it's not taki g the fire command. I saw this before when out clients had faster cool down then on the sever.

You can try to remove some cool down quirks see if that helps.

[C337Skymaster]

Monkey Lover, on 02 July 2020 - 04:45 PM, said:

Ya that's really bad. You can watch your cooling correct every few shot. Basically the sever isn't seeing you fire or it's not taki g the fire command. I saw this before when out clients had faster cool down then on the sever.

You can try to remove some cool down quirks see if that helps.

It wouldn't. I skilled this up from zero and noticed it right away when I took it out the first time. I get Seismic first of anything, then go to cool run, mobility, THEN firepower last of all, so I didn't have cool-down of any sort for a very long time. The 'mech has some inherent cooldown quirks, I think, but I can't remove those manually.

[C337Skymaster]

Monkey Lover, on 02 July 2020 - 04:45 PM, said:

Ya that's really bad. You can watch your cooling correct every few shot. Basically the sever isn't seeing you fire or it's not taki g the fire command. I saw this before when out clients had faster cool down then on the sever.

You can try to remove some cool down quirks see if that helps.

You know what? I think you're on to something, there. In these cases, I'm holding the mouse button down, and letting the weapon refire as soon as it's done cooling down. The cooldown bar starts when I click the button, though, not when the weapons fire, so the weapons start cooling down while the doors are still opening. Thus, there hasn't been enough time from the actual projectile flight until the next attempted projectile flight for the weapons to have "really" cooled down, and if there's something in the server that thinks it's preventing cheating, that might be causing the problem.

Now we just need PGI to adjust the cooldown mechanism to start AFTER the weapons fire, and not let the weapons cool down while the doors are opening, because that's wreaking havoc with the cooldown timer and interfering with honest combat.

Thanks for pointing that out! Not something I'm likely to notice while I'm fixated on the crosshairs.

EDIT: and now that I watch for it, I see that it's not using ammo the "2nd" time that it fires, either. Honestly, I'd be interested in seeing these fights from the other point of view, because it's possible that the 2nd shot isn't going through the server, and the other guy isn't even seeing my attempt to shoot again.

Edited by C337Skymaster, 09 July 2020 - 10:58 AM.

[Nightbird]

I haven't had any SRM reg issues. Just hit ? at the beginning of the match to open the doors.

[ghost1e]

try opening weapon doors before shooting the first salvo

afaik it is related to your client starting the cooldown when you press the button while the server starts it when you actually fire, so when the second shot goes out, you're technically still on cooldown for the server

[YouKnowNothing]

I went back and checked at the waiting screen the ping of the marauder, the one that SRMs got through and just disappeared, and it's 300+... So probably Aussie/Oceanic. RIP. That might be the reason your SRMs went into the void.

Edited by YouKnowNothing, 09 July 2020 - 01:53 PM.

[Clydewinder]

firing more SRM seems to result in more SRM not doing any damage. a single SRM4 or SRM6 usually works but four of them on a griffin should wreck face and even on a direct hit with ASRM6 they are doing a fraction of the correct damage.

[C337Skymaster]

I forwarded the linked video and a link to this forum thread to PGI and they said they "forwarded it to the appropriate people", so perhaps it might get a fix in the next patch? (Whenever that will be). The weapon doors appear to be what's happening in this particular instance, and the people who've pointed out the server/client difference seem to be correct: The client begins the cooldown at button press, but the server begins it at weapon fire. Because of the weapon doors, those do not happen at the same time, and the weapons are still on cooldown on the server when they refire on the client. Not only is no damage done, but no ammo is consumed, either. Unfortunately, you DO still take the heat of the weapons firing, and start the cooldown all over again, after which the server will have finished the cooldown awhile ago, and will accept a second shot. With any luck, the client cooldown will be moved to weapon-fire, instead of remaining at button-click. For all I know, the same thing happens with LRMs, but they're too far away to notice the missiles passing harmlessly through the target, and nobody focuses on the ammo counter while fighting. They just assume the target made it into cover.

[Kubernetes]

YouKnowNothing, on 09 July 2020 - 01:52 PM, said:

I went back and checked at the waiting screen the ping of the marauder, the one that SRMs got through and just disappeared, and it's 300+... So probably Aussie/Oceanic. RIP. That might be the reason your SRMs went into the void.

Nah, that shot at 6:52 simply disappears-- missiles that go wide left don't even impact the building behind the marauder.

[C337Skymaster]

Monkey Lover, on 02 July 2020 - 04:45 PM, said:

Ya that's really bad. You can watch your cooling correct every few shot. Basically the sever isn't seeing you fire or it's not taki g the fire command. I saw this before when out clients had faster cool down then on the sever.

You can try to remove some cool down quirks see if that helps.

Whoa! I went back and re-watched. I didn't even watch the heat bar beyond it going up. I didn't see it rapidly dumping the extra heat when the server says "that never happened". Of course, the cooldown doesn't correct... I wonder, though, if you took overheat damage or shut down from that heat spike, if any of that would get reversed, or if you're still hosed, even though "that never happened"?

[Kubernetes]

Hey, isn't the new patch meant to fix this?

You did it bro!

[C337Skymaster]

Kubernetes, on 21 July 2020 - 06:38 PM, said:

Hey, isn't the new patch meant to fix this?

You did it bro!

Yup!! I emailed a link to this thread, and a link to that embedded YouTube video to their support email, and that got them to fix it. I'm quite convinced that they don't pay much attention to the forums on their own. You've gotta email them with concrete proof of the issue. Honestly, I think that Monkey Lover's help in diagnosing the fact that it was a server/client mismatch was pivotal, as well. If I'd just gone to them with "I dunno what's happening", they would have ignored it, but because I said "this is exactly what's going on, and you can see it here, here, and here", they went in and fixed it. I'd even be willing to bet it was a 10 minute fix.