46 replies to this topic

[Thorqemada]

So, i watched competitve play, i listened to streamers talk, to podcasts, read posts, comments concerning Streaks in MWO.

Obviously there is some confusion around how Streaks in MWO work and certain myths are repeated again and again:
Streaks hit 100% of the time
Streaks lock on with no need to aim, maybe even immediately
Streaks only launch if they hit with guaranty
Streaks be an instant delete button
...

Where do we start....lets start with real ingame stats:
STREAK SRM 2 213 42,150 28,735 68.17%
STREAK SRM 6 14 191 97 50.79%
C-STREAK SRM 6 2 864 629 72.80%

Very obviously they do not hit 100% of the time and as i am the same player regardless what tech i use Clan Streaks seem to hit a tad better than IS Streaks which probably has the reason in that Clan Mechs be more mobile and you get in a better firing position which results in a higher to hit rate.


No aim - easy lock on:
Complete Myth!
First and foremost we need to understand that Streaks share the lock on mechanic with all other lock on missiles and get no special treatment in that regard.
So, unless you or someone else sharing targets aims at the target as a whole inside the target box you get no target lock at all!

Second - ECM will disrupt and impair your ability to lock on as it does to any other lock on weapon.
You could use TAG to overcome that but like a laser it needs to be pointed at the target steadily to achive lock on.
BAP could counter ECM but its a numbers game and with excessive amounts of ECM in the wild the chance you are on the losing end of the numbers game is high.

Third - locks can be broken by breaking LOS and that happens quite quick scince the changes to target lock already some years ago - you can counter it a little with the skilltree but then for streaks these points in the skilltree seem wasted as it is a direct fire weapon.

4th - it takes quite a time to lock on at fast and erratically moving targets close by and i have seen the comp matches and have witnessed that streaks mechs were completely useless against charging in and out highspeed Lights.


Streaks only launch when the hit is guaranteed:
Unless i missed some patch notes that is a myth bcs they share the lock on mechanic with the other lock on weapons and that means they launch when a lock on is achieved...maybe they added a LOS check, i am not sure about that, i doubt it and it would not mean a guaranteed hit anyway.

Even when Streaks are fired it is still some time to the impact bcs they are not hitscan weapons and as such their tracking makes them vulnerable for premature impact detonations on geometry or other mechs.
It would be a common tactic to dodge behind enemy mechs and induce streak damage to them that way while shilding oneself in their shadow.
Or the highspeed Lights dodge around a corner and have the Streaks blow up bcs they dont track paths but targets and would hit whatever big enough obstacle the target dodged around instead.

You simply could move out of range...


Streaks be an instant delete button:
No, not if you have a fully intact Mech and have spend enough points on armor.
That scenario would be such an edge case that it would need some of the lightest armored Mechs in the game hit by one of the most uparmed Streakmechs available it simply is not a concern for practicality reasons.

Then the way how Streaks work is that their spread is guaranteed by a predefinded weighting what Mech bones are hit by what amount of Streaks - that was at times posted and whoever wants can search for it - but it is pretty much guaranteed that a healthy Mech survives.
Albeit it can be crippled which is the very reason you mount a weapon!

Though - but that is to the lobbying of the people of the same Sphere that now defines the new foodchain in MWO - there is a caveat:
It was lobbied by the Sphere that Streaks as they in the lore have this in MWO mythical 100% hit chance no longer hit destroyed mech locations and would not waste their damage away on already gone parts.

That has the effect that Streaks become the more dangerous the more Mech parts have been already destroyed bcs they now concentrate on the intact Mech parts and especially Clan Mechs but also a few IS Mechs can field insane amount of Streak Launchers which will lead to utmost destructive power in such a scenario.


I hope i could shed some light on the Streak situation.....


PS: I will add some words to the target sharing thing bcs it may be a bit misunderstandable.
Target sharing does NOT remove the necessity for you to get a lock on - in only enables you to get a lock on at a target that is outside your LOS.
It comes pretty much down to a dual aiming teamwork effort.

PPS: Ande there are so ******* many typos and the numbers arent formatted but this editor simply sucks.
The numbers are perfectly formatted but not saved and the auto correct thing allways interferes with my typing plus i get keystrokes lost somehow...mybe a connection thing.
I leave it as it is bcs it is nevertheless perfectly understandable.

Edited by Thorqemada, 28 July 2021 - 04:11 AM.

[MyriadDigits]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

No aim - easy lock on:
Complete Myth!
First and foremost we need to understand that Streaks share the lock on mechanic with all other lock on missiles and get no special treatment in that regard.
So, unless you or someone else sharing targets aims at the target as a whole inside the target box you get no target lock at all!

Aiming is still easier than even lasers. If you want the most effective possible damage out of the literally instant hit weapon that a laser is you need to track not just the target you want to hit, but the component itself, for the entire duration of the beam. A mech so much as stepping over uneven terrain can easily waste a good chunk of damage from a laser burn.

Lock on weapons in general however, you just need to get that lock, and getting that lock is just a matter of looking at a red dorito. Don't need to think about leading the target, don't need to hold it on the mech itself, certainly don't need to hold it on a specific component.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

Second - ECM will disrupt and impair your ability to lock on as it does to any other lock on weapon.
You could use TAG to overcome that but like a laser it needs to be pointed at the target steadily to achive lock on.
BAP could counter ECM but its a numbers game and with excessive amounts of ECM in the wild the chance you are on the losing end of the numbers game is high.

Any PPC class weapon will shut down the ECM of what it hits, but of course, this requires actually aiming and leading of the target to be effective. TAG also works, but as you mentioned the laser need to be held on the target to work. God forbid you need to use actual aiming skills to be effective I guess.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

Third - locks can be broken by breaking LOS and that happens quite quick scince the changes to target lock already some years ago - you can counter it a little with the skilltree but then for streaks these points in the skilltree seem wasted as it is a direct fire weapon.

UAVs. UAVs would allow you to retain the lock even after they go behind cover. NARCs should work for this as well.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

4th - it takes quite a time to lock on at fast and erratically moving targets close by and i have seen the comp matches and have witnessed that streaks mechs were completely useless against charging in and out highspeed Lights.

This is true, but difficulty hitting and tracking high speed mechs is something that affects every weapon, not just lock-ons.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

Streaks only launch when the hit is guaranteed:
Unless i missed some patch notes that is a myth bcs they share the lock on mechanic with the other lock on weapons and that means they launch when a lock on is achieved...maybe they added a LOS check, i am not sure about that, i doubt it and it would not mean a guaranteed hit anyway.

"Streaks only launch when the hit is guaranteed" is lore fluff from its tabletop behavior, which was that Streaks would only fire if the to-hit roll was good enough for the whole volley to hit. This behavior was translated to MWO by restricting Streaks to only be capable of firing when lock is achieved.

Additionally, this restriction does not exist on other lock on weapons as you said it did; LRMs and ATMs can be dead-fired without a lock.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

Even when Streaks are fired it is still some time to the impact bcs they are not hitscan weapons and as such their tracking makes them vulnerable for premature impact detonations on geometry or other mechs.
It would be a common tactic to dodge behind enemy mechs and induce streak damage to them that way while shilding oneself in their shadow.
Or the highspeed Lights dodge around a corner and have the Streaks blow up bcs they dont track paths but targets and would hit whatever big enough obstacle the target dodged around instead.

You simply could move out of range...

Deadfire weapons can strike terrain as well, as well as getting shots screwed by the enemy moving from cover to cover.. Hell even lasers can strike terrain if you don't make sure your whole mech's armament is exposed to fire. Many of these can be worked around by timing your shots better.

As for lights intentionally dodging them around corners, that requires the light in question to actually be aware they are dealing with a streak mech in the first place, otherwise its a byproduct of actually using their braincells and minimizing exposure in engagements in general.

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 06:12 AM, said:

Streaks be an instant delete button:
No, not if you have a fully intact Mech and have spend enough points on armor.
That scenario would be such an edge case that it would need some of the lightest armored Mechs in the game hit by one of the most uparmed Streakmechs available it simply is not a concern for practicality reasons.

Streaks being an instant delete button for light mechs is still a major issue considering they take very little skill compared to other weapons, and seeing as you probably have LOS of the target, they very rarely actually miss.

In fairness however, streaks are rarely a concern for larger mechs. While I'm not a Cauldron member, both of these are issues I know are on the Cauldron's radar, but until PGI can get an engineer on hand they are limited in what levers they can pull for streaks. In an ideal world streaks would be effective against heavies and assaults without instantly ruining light mechs.

[Thorqemada]

All my points still stand unchallenged...

[Bud Crue]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 09:08 AM, said:

All my points still stand unchallenged...

The only "point" I have any problem with is your initial supposition that there is any confusion regarding streaks. I am well aware of how streaks perform and compared to other weapons, I find their usefulness to be situational in the extreme, but for the most part they're just boring.

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 09:08 AM, said:

All my points still stand unchallenged...

Sorry it seems you must've missed a post when checking the thread, but don't worry because I can just post a link for you to read.

https://mwomercs.com...95#entry6418695

Big post, I wonder how someone could missed it. Hmm

Edited by My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 27 July 2021 - 09:57 AM.

[pattonesque]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 09:08 AM, said:

All my points still stand unchallenged...

man if you say stuff like this no one is gonna take you seriously

[JediPanther]

Thorqemada, on 27 July 2021 - 09:08 AM, said:

All my points still stand unchallenged...

Are you saying ssrm6x3 won't kill a light mech? Pretty sure the vast majority of lights would be one-shot. did you factor in the target decay and retention skills and mechs with missile quirks? Velocity and range stacking with fire power's range and velocity all adds up.

The only time I couldn't get ssrms to lock on are when a mech has stealth and my mech didn't have tag. A uav or two will counter ecm lights easily enough even without any points into aux tree. There's also the c/bap and tc mk 1-7 computers to worry about.

I'd see a mech with ssrms only having trouble if that was the sole weapon the mech had trying to fight multiple stealth-ed mechs. Most missile mechs do have lasers and/or bal hard points. Maybe running out of ammo would be another problem.

[Heavy Money]

The biggest issue with using Streaks right now is the proliferation of ECM, and the unreliability of counters. You can be running a probe, a tag, and your ECM set to counter, and often you still can't get locks on an enemy mech with a single ECM, let alone a stealth mech. And if there's more than one ECM mech around, then you're just useless.

[1453 R]

What gets me is all the people who screech and shriek and caterwaul and complain about "Streaks take no SKILL!!! You shouldn't be able to damage an enemy without using SKILL!!! Lock-on weapons are just cheap cheat buttons used by players with no SKILL(!!!) to rob real players of their hard-earned victory they got by being able to click on pictures on their screen better than you can! All lock-on weapons should be removed from the game because I only recognize one kind of SKILL(!!!) and that's mindless point-and-bang twitch aim!"

Needless to say, this stance is beyond idiotic. There's absolutely room for lock-on weapons in this game, and in fact in virtually any other shooter game. There's even room for them to be quite good, even competitive with direct deadfire weapons, provided they're competitive in different ways.

Lock-on weapons have a delay between "point" and "Bang" - they must first lock on. This gives direct-fire weapons and those skilled in their use a powerful initiative advantage against lock-on users, allowing them to deal their damage first. This is one hell of an edge in a shooter game, and if the direct-fire user can kill the lock-on user before the lock-on user can kill them back, then the direct-fire guy is rewarded for his "skill". The key is ensuring that the lock-on guy has an opportunity to utilize other skills to overcome his inherent disadvantage and win. If the lock-on guy can utilize superior positioning, awareness, and team play to ambush his target? He should be rewarded for that.

Furthermore, the presence of alternative fire weapons, including lock-on, is often helpful for video games like this. They allow players who are not able to keep up with blazing high-speed Pro Fortnite Gamer twitch aim skills to still compete and enjoy themselves, and in some cases they offer tactical options no amount of direct-fire weapons can provide. Screeching yaybos who insist that PFG mindless twitch aim skills are the only skills that should matter are A.) generally just selfish jackholes, and B.) really shouldn't be bothering with a much slower, more methodical game with immense target health values, such as MWO.

There's room for lock-on weapons to be much better than they are in MWO. But fixing them properly would require Piranha to give a ****, so...not likely. Oh well.

[MyriadDigits]

1453 R, on 27 July 2021 - 02:49 PM, said:

twitch aim

MWO is not a twitch shooter. Not even remotely.

1453 R, on 27 July 2021 - 02:49 PM, said:

Furthermore, the presence of alternative fire weapons, including lock-on, is often helpful for video games like this. They allow players who are not able to keep up with blazing high-speed Pro Fortnite Gamer twitch aim skills to still compete and enjoy themselves

You say that, but do you realize what happens if lock-on weapons are made strong enough to do what you describe above? Actually good players will use the lock on weapons, and use them to far greater effect than low skill players ever would. You aren't closing the gap, you're just moving the same gap upward. Low skill players will still get stomped and high skill players will still be the ones stomping, and everyone else in between will be frustrated by it all.

[Escef]

JediPanther, on 27 July 2021 - 01:45 PM, said:

Are you saying ssrm6x3 won't kill a light mech?

I almost literally laughed out loud at this question. Before the Cauldron changes nerfed clan streaks, I had not once, but on two separate occasions unloaded a full spread of 36 Streaks from a Mad Dog into a Locust's face and watched the little SOB turn tail and run away.

Will 3xSSRM6 kill a light? Dude, I've fired twice that amount of firepower into the lightest of lights and watched them facetank it. You do not know WTF you are talking about.

[1453 R]

I can point you to two separate games where that didn't happen - the original Titanfall and Overwatch.

Both games had lock-on weapons - the Lock-On Pistol for Titanfall, and the mere existence of Winston and (original) Symmetra in Overwatch. In both games' cases, the autotargeting weapons had their roles and allowed lesser-skilled players or players with physical injuries or debilitations to play and enjoy, while direct-fire weapons enjoyed greater range and DPS which allowed a skilled user to easily outcompete the largely fixed DPS of the lock-on weapons.

Overwatch's Winston, for example, can't do better/higher damage by aiming better - either you're in his field of fire or you're not, and while you are he does a fixed amount of damage to you per second. If you're good, you can end Winston before that fixed counter ends you, or you can find a way to get away. if the Winston is better than you are, he can gain enough edges to end you before you can escape him.

Same with the lock-on pistol from Titanfall. You had to wait [X] seconds to get a full-damage shot against another player. You could fire early, but the less time you gave the gun to lock on the lower your damage was, and the thing had absolute dogshit spam-click DPS and terrible magazine capacity. A player skilled with direct-fire DPS weapons could absolutely kill you before you achieved a full killshot lock, often doing so easily. In Titanfall most weapons also had better reach than the lock pistol, giving them an edge if they saw you coming. You had to be sneaky, elusive as hell, and good at hunting to get pilot kills with the lock-on pistol.

In neither game did 'good players' derive nearly as much benefit from either weapon. yes, a Good Player with a lock-on gun is better than a bad player with such a gun, but the overall benefit the 'Good' player gets is much lower. Their time is better spent mastering direct-fire weaponry and utilizing the edge that gives them, leaving the lock-on weapons/characters to those without the skillz for twitch aim. Players who dislike twitch aimbots, or who cannot use them well, can choose to use these other options instead and still play the game and contribute to their team's win.

It's a strong net positive, even though in all three games - Titanfall, Overwatch, and MWO - people scream and kvetch and carp and complain about "stupid dumb no-skill lock-on stuff!" Primarily because these players are not nearly as 1337 pr0 m@d F0rt!t3 w!nn3r awesome as they think they are, and when someone else's inability to cope with rapid aim is made less impactful their perfectly-fine ability to move, anticipate, and otherwise play the game turns out to be better than the Fornite Weenies thought.

[FupDup]

The issue with that model is that you're effectively relegating the weapons to noob bait that exist to be stripped off after they practice a little bit. My philosophy is that one's arsenal should become broader (in terms of what you can make work) as you get better at the game rather than become narrower. I don't believe in the philosophy of planned obsolescence.

Also, with games like Overwatch, these kinds of weapons are a lot more necessary because of how insanely mobile certain characters are; compared to MWO lights which are nowhere near that level of mobility and also have to sacrifice a ton of damage output unlike Overwatch flankers (who can delete most other heroes faster than they can react).

Furthermore, most FPS games just have two hitboxes: body and head. Many weapons can't even get headshot bonus damage. Mechwarrior, on the other hand, has 11 hitboxes per mech. Targeting the exact hitbox you want to hit is a critical element of this game, whereas in a normal FPS you can generally still get quick enough kills without headshots (depending on the game/weapon) so you just have to hit the character anywhere rather than a specific spot.

[1453 R]

I wasn't saying that the Overwatch/Titanfall model was a perfect fit for MWO, merely that games exist in which lock-on weapons were roughly competitive with direct-fire weapons without everything being terrible forever. if they can do it in those games, they can do it here. Or they could if Piranha gave the remotest rat **** for MWO, I suppose. Either way, the stance "Lock-on weapons are terrible and should either be removed from the game or made so absolutely godawful they may as well be removed from the game, becuz skill" is idiotic and should not be tolerated.

[JediPanther]

Escef, on 27 July 2021 - 03:41 PM, said:

I almost literally laughed out loud at this question. Before the Cauldron changes nerfed clan streaks, I had not once, but on two separate occasions unloaded a full spread of 36 Streaks from a Mad Dog into a Locust's face and watched the little SOB turn tail and run away.

Will 3xSSRM6 kill a light? Dude, I've fired twice that amount of firepower into the lightest of lights and watched them facetank it. You do not know WTF you are talking about.

At what range? i'd love to have my lcts tank your 36 ssrms. If you have sundays off and play gmt time zone lets put your mdd point blank with one of my lcts. Name the lct as I have them all. I can even re-skill to have no survival tree vs full survival tree.

[Escef]

JediPanther, on 27 July 2021 - 04:16 PM, said:

At what range?

If you knew how Streaks operated you wouldn't even be asking that question.

[Escef]

[MyriadDigits]

1453 R, on 27 July 2021 - 03:43 PM, said:

Overwatch

Winston's lightning, like tanks in general in that game, is geared more towards crowd control rather than single target damage. And Sym's weapon lost the lock on because they were gearing her more single target damage as expected with her becoming a "damage" class hero rather than "support". And quite frankly, dealing with Sym in her lock-on era sucked, especially a good Sym. It

I won't comment on Titanfall because I've not played it.

1453 R, on 27 July 2021 - 03:43 PM, said:

It's a strong net positive, even though in all three games - Titanfall, Overwatch, and MWO - people scream and kvetch and carp and complain about "stupid dumb no-skill lock-on stuff!" Primarily because these players are not nearly as 1337 pr0 m@d F0rt!t3 w!nn3r awesome as they think they are, and when someone else's inability to cope with rapid aim is made less impactful their perfectly-fine ability to move, anticipate, and otherwise play the game turns out to be better than the Fornite Weenies thought.

I still don't get why you keep going "Fortnite harg blarg blah", when this game has nothing in common with that title. This is not a game where rapid, accurate aim is required, in fact its physically impossible because of how slow literally everything is. In fact, do you know what the first thing all the "1337 pr0 m@d F0rt!t3 w!nn3r" comp pilots would tell you to do if you struggle with aiming? Turn DOWN the sensitivity. Doing instant 180s to headshot a dude that crept up behind you simply is not something that happens in this game. Needing to track something that makes rapid and instantaneous changes in any direction does not happen in this game. The big mechs are massive, plodding glaciers, the small mechs are fast in a relative sense only and as such still remain quite slow compared to something like Fortnite, COD, Halo, or whatever other twitch shooter you want to bring up. Mechs in MWO quite honestly move like, well, the vehicles in those games rather than the people, even at their fastest.

[FupDup]

1453 R, on 27 July 2021 - 04:02 PM, said:

I wasn't saying that the Overwatch/Titanfall model was a perfect fit for MWO, merely that games exist in which lock-on weapons were roughly competitive with direct-fire weapons without everything being terrible forever. if they can do it in those games, they can do it here. Or they could if Piranha gave the remotest rat **** for MWO, I suppose. Either way, the stance "Lock-on weapons are terrible and should either be removed from the game or made so absolutely godawful they may as well be removed from the game, becuz skill" is idiotic and should not be tolerated.

My stance is not to remove or giganerf them; I want them redesigned to be aim-able which would be a huge buff in many cases (especially for Streaks). Also this means we could relax their counters (i.e. you can now lock a target without needing a red dorito, meaning that ECM is no longer a hard-counter).

This is all just an academic exercise though since there's like 4 people working on this game (no mechanics changes).

Edited by FupDup, 27 July 2021 - 05:00 PM.

[Leone]

MyriadDigits, on 27 July 2021 - 07:28 AM, said:

Aiming is still easier than even lasers.

Uhh, no. You are wrong. If I want to hold my mouse over a dodging enemy, why use lock-on weaponry when I could just use lasers that do the damage whilst I'm holding on the target, rather'n afterwards?

Have you used lockon weaponry recently? Just like lasers need to stay on the mech to deal damage, the targeting reticule needs to stay near the mech to lock on.

MyriadDigits, on 27 July 2021 - 07:28 AM, said:

Lock on weapons in general however, you just need to get that lock, and getting that lock is just a matter of looking at a red dorito. Don't need to think about leading the target, don't need to hold it on the mech itself, certainly don't need to hold it on a specific component.

Ahh, gotcha. You don't know how the lock-on function works.

MyriadDigits, on 27 July 2021 - 07:28 AM, said:

Any PPC class weapon will shut down the ECM of what it hits, but of course, this requires actually aiming and leading of the target to be effective. TAG also works, but as you mentioned the laser need to be held on the target to work. God forbid you need to use actual aiming skills to be effective I guess.

Yes... that's right, take other weaponry to make your weapon viable. Why, pray tell, would I not boat more ppcs then, rather'n using the ppcs to make paltry streaks less paltry? I mean, if I hit a light in the leg with a triple ppc burst, it doesn't really matter what my backup weapon is.

Ah yes, take a tag, because again, why not maintain a laser on the mech that deals no damage and just makes my sad little missiles less sad. There is no reason to not just take a bank of lasers if I can maintain that target.

What about narcs? Hitting my target with one short range missile that deals no damage rather'n an actual srm cloud that'll strip precious, precious armour.

Seriously, everything that might help the streak boat would be better applied as direct damage right now. The only thing I'd rather find around a blind corner in a light more'n a heavy streak boat that can't chase me is an lrm or atm mech.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 27 July 2021 - 05:52 PM.