117 replies to this topic

[Dogstar]

MyriadDigits, on 09 August 2021 - 05:21 PM, said:

there's always the fact that the weapon system attracts players that expect the team to throw themselves away spotting for the "artillery" hiding in the back.

See it's attitudes like this that make LRMs a problem, not the actual weapon system. LRMS could be entirely worthless and people with this attitude would still harp on about people 'not playing the way they're meant to'.

The problem is the uncompromising 'I know better' attitude that so many players have on this forum.

[Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie]

Dogstar, on 10 August 2021 - 04:08 AM, said:

The problem is the uncompromising 'I know better' attitude that so many players have on this forum.

just for the giggles: let me turn this around and claim that quite a few "DO know better"; it is astonishing that on one hand a 50%jarls-player can do very well with lurms, and a certain group of people here acknowledges that without a doubt.

yet when an 80+jarls gent comes around the corner and says: "yes, BUT.." the same group of people claims that he just doesn't understand how to lurm properly..

then again..
nah, returning to my cup of coffee. ;-)

Edited by Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, 10 August 2021 - 05:34 AM.

[1453 R]

LRM players need to understand that nobody is going to die for their locks. It's why they get told so often to move up and acquire their own locks - that way their armor's on the line too and they can see for themselves that people are "not holding locks" because the subjects of those locks are shooting back with big giant guns.

Other players need to understand that the LRM guy is best with cover between himself and his targets. he should be closer than "the very edge of missile range" and he should be able to operate directly, but the weapons are not tuned well for direct fire.

A spotter is a 'Mech that's able to stealthily move into position, observe and lock onto targets, and report the results of missile attacks back to the attacker. They actively do not shoot, as shooting breaks their concealment and ruins their ability to spot. They do not bring/use TAG, for the same reason (good gawd, TAG needs to STOP being visible...) This role is so vanishingly rare as to be effectively extinct in Puglandia - the only time you have a spotter is when you specifically bring one. A good spotter can quadruple an LRM 'Mech's damage output, but the spotter has to agree to give up all reward/score for the match because Piranha is terrible.

If you have no spotter (and you never will, in Puglandia)? Your tactics and build choices for LRMs have to change. You have to be your own spotter, which entails movingf faster than forty klicks and being able to operate in direct combat. There's a reason that since the game began, even before the Clan drop, the best LRM machines for Puglandia matches were held to be mediums, not assault bloatboats.

[XDarth BobX]

MyriadDigits, on 09 August 2021 - 05:21 PM, said:

99% of the time that dedicated spotter, even if its something silly like a 1RL10 1NARC 1TAG COM-2D, is going to be of greater value alive rather than dead.

Players like you who expect people to throw their mech away so you can splash the enemy free of return fire is a big part of why there's such a negative opinion of LRM players in this community. Even when LRMs are in as balanced a place as they are now, neither oppressive nor useless, there's always the fact that the weapon system attracts players that expect the team to throw themselves away spotting for the "artillery" hiding in the back.

I really think spotting narcing , all that stuff should get more rewards they deserve it , but dont think All Lurmers expect people to just die for them , thats not true , in fact they know they need people to help them

[VeeOt Dragon]

i agree that NARC and TAG should get more rewards

[justcallme A S H]

So I gave ATMs a solid run over this week.

They were doing around 600-800dmg on average for me per game before the game ended. Same as most other weapon systems and not the insanely disgusting 1300dmg+ games they used to crank out in a matter of seconds.


Some matches AMS completely ate me up and only 300dmg, but that is no different to what used to happen anyway.


Felt fine to me if you use them aggressively. I still see people shooting them at 600m+, this is a pointless no-no and largely why people seem to have issues with them.

[Wild Wolves]

With the amount of mechs running ECM or AMS (heck even laser ams) LRM's are much harder to make work. That being said I feel like the damage should be solid if you are in LOS of the target, much like the targetting and accuracy being faster I've seen so many pre-mades simply hide in the back with one or 2 lights in the field tossing out Narcs simply because the damage from a LRM is insane with or w/o LOS. ATMs feel horrible for me right now though, the burst damage it used to have was a good trade off for being *in* the fight with the team.

On a side note as a light player I'm tired of hearing Heavys and Assaults pester for us to "hold locks". It's hard to do when the only target the enemy has is the light mech because all the Assaults with LRM's are hiding like 1200 meters back behind a rock and not sharing armor so we can help provide locks...

[Thorqemada]

In the end all you will be measured on is the long term trend/playerretention since the Cauldron involved...2022 is the year of truth!

[Brom96]

Lrms are easily countered by ecm and ams, which are more then abundant nowadays anyway. If I am not mistaken, AMS fires through walls, as on Manifold?

And that doesn't even account for basic defence - taking cover.

Mobility really helps. In lrm boat I usually can do about 200 damage in bad maps/games, sometimes about 100. That is with fired 700+ missiles and usually direct locks. Why? Because most teams have at least several mechs with multiple AMSs, so they pluck 40 or 60 missiles instantly from the air. As for direct locks, sure... I loose all my armour because the enemy shoots and moves back to cover while I am still trying to lock him.

Simple as that, lrms are not viable weapons and I use them only when I farm assistances for the feat. ATMs are in slightly better place, but only if used on mobile platforms, where you can single pout easily targets that are not under protection umbrella and pursue them.

Unfortunately, due to neuromotoric issues, I cannot use direct fire weapons as easily as I did 6 years ago, so I am pretty much bound to lock weapons - that means almost exclusively ATMs. Not easy to use them with efficacy, but still better then lrms.

On the recieving end - I could never understand people complaining about lrms. They have always been easy to avoid unless you decide to stand in the open. I think I had problem with enemy lrm barrage once in several months. And I do not use ams or ecm.

That being said, I do shoot down enemy uavs.

Edited by Brom96, 11 August 2021 - 01:32 AM.

[Kroete]

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

ATM is a weapon that can only fire on the flat trajectory and MRMs are direct fire, so only one of these is comparable and the extra damage is what I'd say gives ATMs an edge otherwise being able to fire direct/indirect is far better.

Missed the point, indirect was nerfed, direct much worse then atm/mrm, direct flat trajectory let lrm hit terrain more often then ballistic trajectory direct fire. If i want to stay in the fornt its better with atm/mrms, using lrms makes you using idirect more.

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

This is ancedotal and something I can't agree with considering my experience using LRMs. The few times I've gone "I wish I could fire on a high arc" are massively outweighed by the amount of times I can fire and hit someone on the lower arc.

Where is over the head cover and how often is the enemy at a slope where you would hit the slope if he goes a few steps back?
Maybe just count the numbers of maps with overhead cover where you often find fights under that cover and the maps with slopes where you often find fights at slopes?

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

What the hell are you trying to say? Are you saying that getting generally lower lock-on time and lower spread with direct fire is bad?

Where did i say that? And why should i say that during moaning about high locktimes and nerfed locktime reduction on artemis?

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

Because of balance. You have lock-on, homing and indirect fire, the downside is a minimum range.

Missed the point again, countering 40 tonss of weapon by just standing near with a 20 ton mech is done by the nearly uncounterable stealth armor, it not only hides the mech, it also renders any lockweapon near unable to lock, even on other mechs.

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

Yes firing indirectly is going to see your misilesget eaten up by AMS, so fire directly and punch through with the lower flight time. I've regularly had IS LRM-40 punch through a Corsair's AMS bubble.

I said that 30 tubes are not enough anymore, seems you agree with your 40 tubes example?

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

You've already shown to not value the power of direct fire so I don't think you can really judge an upgrade that buffs direct fire.

Missed the point again, talked about artemis, the direct fire upgrade that should only work for los and is not worth its wheigt anymore after the nerf. The 4 tons are better invested in tubes or ammo for more spam now, what is pity.

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

Factually incorrect, a direct quote from the patch notes Attempting a weapon lock in direct LOS will see a 20% reduction in weapon lock-on time over the previous universal lock-on base time.

Still more then the old locktime with artemis and tag.
You know, artemis should have beed los only and tag is los only?

My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on 08 August 2021 - 08:15 AM, said:

This sounds like good usage of the abilities of the advantages of LRMs...

No, its the behavior of the standing in the back lurmers, giving the enemy an advantage on targets that where presented, leading to more focusfire against your team. And a nearly intact lrm boat as last mech ...

Edited by Kroete, 11 August 2021 - 04:04 AM.

[Kroete]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 10 August 2021 - 05:33 AM, said:

just for the giggles: let me turn this around and claim that quite a few "DO know better"; it is astonishing that on one hand a 50%jarls-player can do very well with lurms, and a certain group of people here acknowledges that without a doubt.

yet when an 80+jarls gent comes around the corner and says: "yes, BUT.." the same group of people claims that he just doesn't understand how to lurm properly..

then again..
nah, returning to my cup of coffee. ;-)

At the time i played more, i used mostly lockweapons and no meta but i dont know anything about these weapons ...

[HauptmanT]

MyriadDigits, on 09 August 2021 - 05:21 PM, said:

99% of the time that dedicated spotter, even if its something silly like a 1RL10 1NARC 1TAG COM-2D, is going to be of greater value alive rather than dead.

Players like you who expect people to throw their mech away so you can splash the enemy free of return fire is a big part of why there's such a negative opinion of LRM players in this community. Even when LRMs are in as balanced a place as they are now, neither oppressive nor useless, there's always the fact that the weapon system attracts players that expect the team to throw themselves away spotting for the "artillery" hiding in the back.

"Players like me"?

My entire argument was against that playstyle. Please read what I wrote you skallywag.

[FinnMcKool]

the lite s that Tag and Narc , are also the ones that Hunt and kill the other teams Lurmers

those expressing the Hate to Lurmers are those who get hammered by them that they get killed

mostly snipers or Brawlers , I suppose , heck I personally wish there where more maps that
supported just Brawling

I hate saying it but it is a lot like "Rock Papper, Scissors"

lights kill lurmers
Lurmers kill Brawlers
Brawlers kill lights

I know its over simplification but if you want to know who hates Lurmers , there you have it
that said give the narcers tagers spotters ECM AMS and Drone users more rewards
change the Skills so people can specialize a little more

but pretty much leave LRMs where the are

[JediPanther]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Urbie, on 31 July 2021 - 10:50 AM, said:

he can't tag, don't even bother. tag requires LOS, and that ..
yeah.

Oh i've seen him "play" before. Pressing the right mouse button is a huge achievement for him even when all he hits is part of the map.

[D V Devnull]

Alright... With this post, we'll be 97 (Provided nobody posts while I'm typing this!) in on the thread.


Unfortunately, it happens that I realized earlier in the day that there is something which can be done to fix this problem. Too many of you seem to have missed it in your thinking, or intentionally ignored it in order to sadly keep Lock-On Weapons suppressed unnecessarily. Hell, people... I wish here that I had thought of this a lot sooner, and I can't remember if I have already mentioned it! It boils down to three things...

• Ammo (reduce amount per Ton by a little bit, as the buffs to other things would mitigate the need for having so much)
  
• Ghost Heat (two prongs here....... increase penalty for exceeding allowed number of simultaneous firings, as well as adjust how many can fire at once without causing the penalty)
  
• Missile Heat Generation (This may be tied more into Ghost Heat than I think, but there may be some Non-GH adjustments needed for consistency.)

...as dealing with those above would allow reasonable minor buffs (both IDF and LoS) for fixing all of...

• Missile Spread (LRM/ATM are in the key sights here... Should be somewhere from 5% to 10% narrowing needed...)
  
• Missile Range (LRM needs a small bump, just enough so that 7 Skill Nodes can make it reach 1KM...)
  
• Missile Damage (I'm looking at you, C-SSRM and C-ATM... I knew it was a bad idea to disrupt/decrease their close-ranged Damage levels...)
  
• Lock Time (Why does this not include "Target Info Gathering" for use along with "Sensor Range"? It makes no sense, same as having Lock Times exceeding 8.5 seconds at 900 Meters is equally bad!)
  
• Lock Angle (Needs expanding... Non-ECM Mechs get a free Lock-breaking ticket by bumping into the Lock-On User... simply bad, particularly since Torso Twisting is forbidden while being Locked On and shooting...)
  
• Missile Cooldown (aka "Reload Time"... Why was it not simply called that in the first place?)
  
• Missile Health (Otherwise the larger launchers will still end up not worth their Weight/Slots...)

...in order to put Lock-Ons back in a place where it won't be too weak for people with disabilities or a 'Tier 5' to use, but also would avoid letting 'Tier 1' folk go flatly running away with those systems. I think the biggest problem we have with LRM/ATM/Streak Spam is the massive count being fired simply because of how ineffective any of them are in the current climate. If we shore up via Ghost Heat and Ammo here, then we can also give some value back to the heavy investment by Weight/Slots into using larger launchers again, all without making them OverPowered in battle. It would even become possible to do it for both IDF and LoS too, which would help MWO in general take a real step forward! Otherwise, if we can't work together and find a fix that everyone is comfortable with, the horribly inconsistent and unreasonable state that Lock-Ons are in will continue to persist, which would then keep causing threads like this to light up again well into the future. I would like to think we can help set that right instead, even if it falls to The Cauldron being the ones who ultimately come up with the final numbers which we all use. Maybe I'm crazy, but it should not take much more than calibrating the above things mentioned earlier in equal competition to...

• 6 I.S. Medium Pulse Laser (36 Damage Alpha)
  
• 4 I.S. Large Laser (36 Damage Alpha)
  
• 6 Clan Medium Pulse Laser (42 Damage Alpha)
  
• 6 Clan ER Medium Laser (39 Damage Alpha)
  
• 2 Clan AC/20 (Not the UAC type, and ~40 Damage Alpha)
  
• 2 UAC/5 paired with 2 UAC/10 (Regardless of Tech Base, and a staggering 60 Damage Alpha here!!!)
  
• 2 Clan Heavy Large Laser (36 Damage Alpha)
  
• 4 I.S. Light Gauss (40 Damage Alpha)
  
• 4 I.S. PPC (Admitted outlier, but volley-fired on more Mechs due to GH @ 3 now, and 40 Damage Alpha)
  
• 3 Clan ER PPC (Admitted outlier that gets used by too many, and up to 45 Damage Alpha)
  
• 4 LB/10-X (Regardless of Tech Base, and 40 Damage Alpha here!!!)

...for where the various Lock-On Missile launcher types stack up on Speed/Heat/Weight/Damage/Slots versus the Energy & Ballistic types of weaponry. It feels like that list of Damage Alphas which I've pointed out lack a Lock-On Missile that honestly is in-balance against them, even when using the LoS firing mode... and that's on both the giving & receiving ends...


~D. V. "can only hope they are showing a proper Lock-On Weapons solution guideline which all could accept" Devnull





(p.s.: I know that I have a reasonable sense of when they're in better alignment, and it wouldn't take too much to get there... But, I want to also make that mesh with other people and their senses, along with what it will take to restore the levels of communication and teamplay that used to exist back in early 2016 too. Right now, we're definitely way on the UnderPowered/OverNerfed side of that point.)


(p.p.s.: By the way, some of you appear to have not fixed your Forum Signatures to use https at this time, and using http is causing some people to have their web browser say that some MWO Forums pages are not secure. For those of you still using http at this time, I ask you to please fix your Forum Signature to https for the benefit of everyone!)

[Bamboozle Gold]

In most games LRMs are fine. But in QP every once in a while you have a situation where your team has limited ECM / AMS and red team has 2-3 dedicated LRM boats. And it feels pretty impossible to close the distance when you get instantly melted by LRMs from behind a hill.

To counter this there probably would need to be something like inaccuracy added to missiles when there's more than 60 missiles in close proximity. Or maybe mid-air collisions that thins out the missile swarm.

Conversely bad for the game is that assault that's boating LRMs and sitting far back against a team with good ECM / AMS. They contribute very little for your team.

For this the fix would be to add a lot of inaccuracy for indirect fire missiles or when you haven't acquired the lock yourself. In my opinion running a TAG should be almost necessary so you have to have that face time when you're boating LRMs.

Another option would require a lot of coding so not feasible but I'd like to see indirect fire LRMs work like artillery: you pick a spot where they land. If the enemy is there, they get hit. If they move, they don't get hit. This would introduce a skill element to indirect LRMs where you would have to lead your shots instead of just ask for your team to hold locks and mindlessly left click.

[Phaelan Ward]

Interesting read here...

To throw in my 2ct:

I personally think the LRM are in an OKish state. You do have several benefits that you "pay" for.

Most importantly, imho, is the fact that you can help another flank or mispositioned friendlies without the need for a lengthy relocation. The damage you can bring onto target with a dedicated build is insane.
Although, Well, you pay for it with lock-on times and ECM/AMS vulnerability. Noteworthy i think is that I play my Lurmboat pretty aggressively. I have a Tag. I share my armor. And I fire my 75 LRMs :-p

The worst playstyle is standing far back, being vulnerable to Lights and not really helping the team.
Also to mention is that Missles, especially LRMs even with Artemis are very situational. For example I never had any good Match in Solaris.

[Dogstar]

Bamboozle Gold, on 19 August 2021 - 01:33 AM, said:

For this the fix would be to add a lot of inaccuracy for indirect fire missiles or when you haven't acquired the lock yourself. In my opinion running a TAG should be almost necessary so you have to have that face time when you're boating LRMs.

Bear in mind that a fair number of missile boats lack an energy slot to use a TAG. If you make TAG a requirement then you just invalidated those chassis.

TAG/BAP should never be a requirement in order to use missiles, they are designed to give missile boats an increase in damage by reducing lock on time and/or increasing accuracy. Making them a requirement is just screwing over missile users for no reason other than appeasing the 'LRMS are no-skill weapons' crowd. There's been more than enough proof in this thread alone to counter that argument.

[Bamboozle Gold]

Dogstar, on 19 August 2021 - 02:29 AM, said:

... appeasing the 'LRMS are no-skill weapons' crowd. There's been more than enough proof in this thread alone to counter that argument.

Indirect missile fire does require some skills: map awareness to understand when someone is in terrain cover, timing and coordination to fire in conjunction and at the same target as other friendly missile boats, basic movement to avoid getting stabbed by a light or caught by the rotation.

But reading this thread I think everyone agrees that indirect fire weapons, while they have their place in the game, are less demanding. So then the discussion focuses on how much should you be rewarded for using indirect fire weapons that don't require you to have face time and therefore put yourself at risk.

And my opinion on this is that LRMs are fine for the most part but can be too much if there are multiple LRM boats doing indirect fire. So then in my opinion we should have systems that mitigate the indirect fire and encourage players to use direct fire missiles more.

And yes, you are correct that there are some chassis that are used as LRM boats but don't have any energy hard points. Going through a list of all heavies and assaults (as I don't think lights and mediums really contribute to the issue):

• ARC-5W
  
• CPLT-A1
  
• EBJ-C
  
• RGH-1C
  
• SMB-B
  
• SNS-C
  
• TNS-5T
  
• HTM-SG
  
• FNR-5E

I might have missed some maybe. Now let's say it was changed so that targeting time without TAG was increased. This would nerf these chassis as LRM missile boats (some of them have ballistic slots). They could use MRMs, or they could put in a NARC. If this kind of a change was implemented maybe ideally the chassis with only missile slots would get 1 head energy slot for TAG.

Dunno. I just identified those as problems with the current LRMs (very high damage from indirect fire when targeted by multiple LRM boats, LRM boats sitting in the back and not actively participating in the fights) and suggested some possible solutions.

[Curccu]

Bamboozle Gold, on 19 August 2021 - 03:58 AM, said:

(as I don't think lights and mediums really contribute to the issue):

• ARC-5W
  
• CPLT-A1
  
• EBJ-C
  
• RGH-1C
  
• SMB-B
  
• SNS-C
  
• TNS-5T
  
• HTM-SG
  
• FNR-5E

I might have missed some maybe.

What a we some? The bestests LRM assault in whole game IMO is missing from that list.

LRM lights are ****, but have to strongly disagree with LRM mediums. Those can really hurt and because of their mobility they can get into good firing position and will not get overrun so easily, Really IMO maybe the best option for QP if you really wanna play LRMs..

My weapon of choice for LRM quickplay would be something like this TBT-7M, and no it doesn't matter if you got couple ML or not, something gets inside lrm min range and if you are alone you are dead anyways, so just pack more ammo/ faster engine. I have played multiple 1000-1600 games with that with my own locks.