107 replies to this topic

[ScaZz]

So I thought about trying streaks and wow they are literal utter garbage.
So lets analyze pro and cons of that entire weapon system.

Pros:
they lock onto target (which is a double sided edge and I will explain why later)

Cons:
they spread damage all over the enemy mech so he can just stand there and facetank you if it is anything heavier than a light and even some lights have so much armor between quirks and skill tree that it takes several streak6 alphas to even core them, let alone kill them.
on top of this they are ubelievably ridiculously hot and streak6 have a ghost heat on firing even just 4 of them which means mechs like the Marauder II 4HP cannot even fire one side of 4 launchers without getting ghost heat that would be equivalent of the heat of firing 5
they are rather heavy at least for IS streak6s
and on top of this we have all the problems that come with a lock on weapon that cannot dumb fire
for example the having to wait for the lock to actually happen because otherwise you cannot fire
the fact that ECM and stealth armor screws them over because it screws with the lock
and to avoid what I said before you need to carry one or several of additional equipment for the weapons to be used like a TAG and manage to keep it on target and pressed at the same time because for some unknown reason TAG lasers dont count as toggleable equipment so anyone can toggle their ECM and keep it on disrupt forever or toggle on their stealth armor and leave it on but if I wanna break that I need to keep my TAG pressed the entire time ontop of just keeping it on target
also need to carry active probe which is more tonnage and if both your TAG and active probe were to get destroyed you have NO WAY absolutely NO WAY WHATSOEVER to fire your weapons against anything with ECM
lock on weapons also pretty much make mandatory using up several points on the sensors skill tree but it still wont guarantee you hits as streaks fire and track in a straight parallel to terrain trajectory so any enemy even if he is perma spotted by a friendly UAV or NARC can just juke in and out of any cover shoot you and re enter cover to make your missiles become useless

Now all that being said, I would be willing to accept all those problems the weapon has IF at least the damage it did was reliable and the missiles tracked into the enemy center torso like they should because its the center of the target and there is no reason whatsoever that makes sense about why a lock on tracking missile would go toward hitting anything else than the center mass of the target its tracking.
So players facing streaks would actually have to rely on their skill in torso twisting and correct timing to avoid getting hit in the center torso and block the missile alpha with their arms or side torsos.
Instead as the weapon is now they can just l0lfacetank you because they know your weapon is literally useless when fired against anything heavier than a 20 tonner.
And no I dont think a volley of 4 streak6s that does 48 damage make any sense to be gimped so hard when we have some mechs capable of carrying and double tapping twin UAC20s and annihilate everything in their path.
And now thanks to the gulag we also have 2 assault 100 tonners that can alpha at the same time twin gauss and twin erppc for a total of 50 pinpoint damage, and both of these mechs have armor bonuses to hell and back and one of them even has ECM and can upgrade to stealth armor.

tl;dr Streaks have been a literal joke tier weapon for way too long.
They are still a weapon in the game and deserve to be usable and not be literally laughed at.

EDIT: I forgot mentioning the severely limited range and the fact that during travel time the missiles can easily be shot down by AMS while in flight to the point where a single quad AMS corsair or triple AMS kit fox standing next to the target will insta neuter your entire salvo.

Edited by ScaZz, 01 November 2021 - 05:55 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

Streaks suck. There's no reason to use them.


You know what might make streaks good? Removing their ghost heat link with SRMs.
So you could do 4 SRM6 + However many streaks you can slot without ghost heat.

Then maybe- maybe- they would be good on a few select mechs.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 01 November 2021 - 04:53 PM.

[The6thMessenger]

Well, they have to suck else the Lights would get nuked, especially the IS ones that typically use XL Engine.

They could have just removed bone-tracking and made it stream. But nope, they really just hate auto-aim in the game.

[Haipyng]

The recent damage and timing nerf to Clan streaks hurt them too much. A few years ago they tightened up the need to keep the target aligned with the reticule and that really fixed them from being OP against lights. They have always been total crap against heavies and assaults. They spread like crazy. 175M and you will hit all over the mech, legs, torso, sides and arms (and several miss). They are mediocre against mediums. They used to be a decent counter against many lights, with the exception of the tanky lights. ECM and Stealth are hard counters to Streaks. A couple of lights with those will gank a Streakboat alone, he won't be able to fire a shot from not being able to get a lock. They can't be dumb fired.

Everything today is longer range and high alpha with the balance tweaks,

[ScaZz]

feeWAIVER, on 01 November 2021 - 04:49 PM, said:

Streaks suck. There's no reason to use them.

That was the entire point of my post.
I tried to analyze pros and cons of the weapon system in its current state and propose a way of fixing it.
I can perfectly understand that most of the negative sides of the weapon are related to how it works in the lore, and Im perfectly fine of living with them.
What Im not fine with is the devs deliberately on purpose choosing to make the weapon even more garbage on top of all the other negative aspects it already has.
What Im talking about it making the volleys spread all over a mech as tall and big as an Atlas instead of making the missiles track into the center torso only.
I mean this game is marketed and advertised as 'High skill ceiling competitive game'.
I dont see how in a competive oriented game an entire weapon system can be relegated to 'L0L IT SUCKS' role and be there just for lore accuracy and nothing else.
The devs dont care its pretty clear, they dumped the entire balance aspect of the game on some people from the community.
And the gulag doesnt care either, the so called 'balance' they are bringing can be summed up to buffing every weapons system they and their comp buddies like to use for their comp game and thats it.
They single handedly in a few months managed to make this game so ridiculously unbalanced and unfun that half or so of the playerbase quit during this time.
And Im talking about people that played this game for 5+ years.
Ballistics are also atrociously terrible, its embarassing that in 8 years the devs could not come up with a better system other than 'chance to jam' leaving the entire effectiveness of an entire class of weapons rely on sheer luck.
Who jams less wins the 1v1.
And I could go on but then I would be going off topic from my original post.

[ScaZz]

The6thMessenger, on 01 November 2021 - 05:02 PM, said:

Well, they have to suck else the Lights would get nuked

Then I guess lights would have to use their brains for once and scout properly, acquire target information on where the enemy is and especially what loadout they have and choose on what to go in ***before*** YOLOing into a blob of enemies and just rely on lag shield/ECM/Stealth Armor and speed and small size to never be hit.
A light that charges into a mech chassis that he knows could be mass carrying streaks before acquiring target info on what the enemy is carrying deserves to be splattered on the spot period.
Not that an entire weapon system instead deserves to be useless to the point of being laughed by the enemy for using said weapons and at the same time flamed by your own team because you are useless with that weapon just so light and pseudo light mediums abusers can have their fun and be unkillable.

[LordNothing]

in almost any other mechwarrior game, streak locking used to be instant. problem is we use a one size fits all lock system. they should make all locks instant under 120m. since the new system uses different lock rates at different ranges, i think that it should be possible to tweak the curves so there is a minimum range where locks take zero seconds to complete. this would of course be inside the minimum range of is lerms, and atms and clan lerms doing significantly less than full damage in this bracket.

Edited by LordNothing, 01 November 2021 - 06:47 PM.

[FupDup]

The6thMessenger, on 01 November 2021 - 05:02 PM, said:

Well, they have to suck else the Lights would get nuked, especially the IS ones that typically use XL Engine.

Odd Idea: Give Streaks lower damage per missile than SRMs (like 1.5 or so), but faster firing rate to make DPS similar or a little greater? That prevents insta-nuking but still poses a large threat if they stick around.

[Haipyng]

LordNothing, on 01 November 2021 - 05:52 PM, said:

in almost any other mechwarrior game, streak locking used to be instant. problem is we use a one size fits all lock system. they should make all locks instant under 120m. since the new system uses different lock rates at different ranges, i think that it should be possible to tweak the curves so there is a minimum range where locks take zero seconds to complete. this would of course be inside the minimum range of is lerms, and atims and clan lerms doing significantly less than full damage in this bracket.

You would think the TAG would be able to lock close ECM or any range Stealth in the current system. Nope, can't lock. Heck the best light pilots zig and zag so well its rare to get a lock to fire at them at short range even without stealth and ECM.

Edited by Haipyng, 01 November 2021 - 06:03 PM.

[ScaZz]

LordNothing, on 01 November 2021 - 05:52 PM, said:

in almost any other mechwarrior game, streak locking used to be instant. problem is we use a one size fits all lock system. they should make all locks instant under 120m. since the new system uses different lock rates at different ranges, i think that it should be possible to tweak the curves so there is a minimum range where locks take zero seconds to complete. this would of course be inside the minimum range of is lerms, and atims and clan lerms doing significantly less than full damage in this bracket.

That is a good suggestion but it goes beyond what I asked.
All I want and think the weapon system needs is 2 things.
One is the spread of the missile volley needs to be removed and they should as it makes sense track and hit toward the center of the enemy target's mass so they would become a weapon threatening enough for heavier and more armored chassis of mechs and they would have to take a streak boat seriously as a threat that can actualy damage them severely if they just underestimate it, and not just laugh in his face without even bothering to attempt to torso twist because l0lstreaks are useless anyway.
And second thing to lower their heat.
Remove the ghost heat at least from firing 4 launchers of streak4s and 6s and at the same time and lower a little bit the base heat of 4s and 6s.
And no I dont think that those 2 changes at all considering the state of the game as it is now (read SniperWarrior Online: CERLL Extreme Edition) would in any way break the game.

Edited by ScaZz, 01 November 2021 - 06:06 PM.

[FupDup]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:05 PM, said:

One is the spread of the missile volley needs to be removed and they should as it makes sense track and hit toward the center of the enemy target's mass so they would become a weapon threatening enough for heavier and more armored chassis of mechs and they would have to take a streak boat seriously as a threat that can actualy damage them severely if they just underestimate it, and not just laugh in his face without even bothering to attempt to torso twist because l0lstreaks are useless anyway.

Once upon a time Streaks used to always home in on the CT of the enemy mech. It was pretty bonkers. This was back when the IS only had the SSRM2 and the Clans didn't invade yet, but the lowly SSRM2 was literally the strongest missile weapon in the game for a while. Part of that was because they did 2.5 damage per missile (I think?), but still.

[ScaZz]

FupDup, on 01 November 2021 - 06:08 PM, said:

Once upon a time Streaks used to always home in on the CT of the enemy mech. It was pretty bonkers. This was back when the IS only had the SSRM2 and the Clans didn't invade yet, but the lowly SSRM2 was literally the strongest missile weapon in the game for a while. Part of that was because they did 2.5 damage per missile (I think?), but still.

Maybe back then people didnt even know what torso twisting and using cover even meant, they just rammed down the W key into the enemy team shooting in the random direction of the red dots on their map.
And yes if people do not manage to learn those 2 simple mechanics in their first month of playing they deserve to be stomped by something as terrible as streaks would be even without the spread.
And players like those that do not want or cannot learn those basic mechanics will still lose to any other weapon type their enemy might be fielding and remain stuck in tier 5 and 4 where they belong, streaks being viable or not.
Also, I dont think back then there were so many mechs with built in hard counters to streaks and lock on weapons in general, like ECM and stealth armor.

[Haipyng]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:05 PM, said:

That is a good suggestion but it goes beyond what I asked.
All I want and think the weapon system needs is 2 things.
One is the spread of the missile volley needs to be removed and they should as it makes sense track and hit toward the center of the enemy target's mass so they would become a weapon threatening enough for heavier and more armored chassis of mechs and they would have to take a streak boat seriously as a threat that can actualy damage them severely if they just underestimate it, and not just laugh in his face without even bothering to attempt to torso twist because l0lstreaks are useless anyway.
And second thing to lower their heat.
Remove the ghost heat at least from firing 4 launchers of streak4s and 6s and at the same time and lower a little bit the base heat of 4s and 6s.
And no I dont think that those 2 changes at all considering the state of the game as it is now (read SniperWarrior Online: CERLL Extreme Edition) would in any way break the game.

That would make them extreme against lights. I remember when they used to mostly go to the CT. They could be tightened up some now.

Don't get me wrong, I agree they are really useless now. I'd like to see the brawling game come back and find a balance. Brawling is down to end game with ERLLs duking it out at 150 meters with scavenger machine gun mechs cleaning up.

Maybe FupDup is right and they need a mechanic change (I don't think I have seen a major mechanic change since the game exited beta, its all values changes). They need a serious rework in any case...and make the Tag do what it is suppose to do and make it possible to get a lock.

Edited by Haipyng, 01 November 2021 - 06:24 PM.

[ScaZz]

Haipyng, on 01 November 2021 - 06:23 PM, said:

That would make them extreme against lights. I remember when they used to mostly go to the CT. They could be tightened up some now.

Don't get me wrong, I agree they are really useless now. I'd like to see the brawling game come back and find a balance. Brawling is down to end game with ERLLs duking it out at 150 meters with scavenger machine gun mechs cleaning up.

Maybe FupDup is right and they need a mechanic change (I don't think I have seen a major mechanic change since the game exited beta, its all values changes). They need a serious rework in any case...and make the Tag do what it is suppose to do and make it possible to get a lock.

Lights as I said before would have to turn on their brain and not play like they have built in permanent free invulnerability and scout on what the enemy has before jumping into brawl range of a streak boat.
If they cannot do that, as I already said, they deserve to be stomped.
Its their job to scout anyway, they might as well learn to do it properly.

[ScaZz]

TO ALL THE PEOPLE SAYING THEY WOULD BE OP AGAINST LIGHTS:
No, because back in tier 4 and 3 when I still got to see them I regularly 1v1 Huntsman chassis armed with quad streak6s with or without TAG in a Mist Lynx G that doesnt even have ECM to begin with.
You just have to use your brain:
Scout target and his loadout before yoloing in.
Go in when they arent aware of you that will give you at least 2 full laser alphas into one of their legs
Go around them constantly to make them lose lock if there is no cover
Or if there is cover as tall as a light mech abuse it bait the target into following you so he is within your weapon range and the cover in question and he will literally miss every single volley if you time your peeking correctly because they will go into the cover.
Also use your insane armor (for a light) and if you see a volley fired and cannot hide behind cover tank it with your left arm and left side torso which has more armor because most of your weapons (half the machineguns and 3 out of 4 lasers are mounted right side).
I had more than 1 player personally accuse me of invulnerability cheating because to them playing streaks was a guaranteed win against any light.

[The6thMessenger]

FupDup, on 01 November 2021 - 06:00 PM, said:

Odd Idea: Give Streaks lower damage per missile than SRMs (like 1.5 or so), but faster firing rate to make DPS similar or a little greater? That prevents insta-nuking but still poses a large threat if they stick around.

I think that's what they did.

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:37 PM, said:

TO ALL THE PEOPLE SAYING THEY WOULD BE OP AGAINST LIGHTS:
....

Eh, take it up with the Gulag Cauldron, they're the one doing the stuff.

They seem to hate auto-aim, but what can you do?

[ScaZz]

The6thMessenger, on 01 November 2021 - 06:40 PM, said:

They seem to hate auto-aim, but what can you do?

Because staying on an elevated rock 1000 meters away from the enemy while boating CERLL and as many heatsinks as possible and a clan TCOMP 7 with advanced zoom unlocked and literally just pointing and clicking and farming entire teams from outside their weapon range is a sign of skill to them apparently.
Instead of having to manage a weapon with a lot of drawbacks in close range.
Just because it has a lock function that comes at more disadvantages than advantages it classifies as 'no skill weapon' to them apparently.

[The6thMessenger]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:44 PM, said:

Because staying on an elevated rock 1000 meters away from the enemy while boating CERLL and as many heatsinks as possible and a clan TCOMP 7 with advanced zoom unlocked and literally just pointing and clicking and farming entire teams from outside their weapon range is a sign of skill to them apparently.
Instead of having to manage a weapon with a lot of drawbacks in close range.
Just because it has a lock function that comes at more disadvantages than advantages it classifies as 'no skill weapon' to them apparently.

Basically you can't do anything about their distaste against it.

[LordNothing]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:05 PM, said:

That is a good suggestion but it goes beyond what I asked.
All I want and think the weapon system needs is 2 things.
One is the spread of the missile volley needs to be removed and they should as it makes sense track and hit toward the center of the enemy target's mass so they would become a weapon threatening enough for heavier and more armored chassis of mechs and they would have to take a streak boat seriously as a threat that can actualy damage them severely if they just underestimate it, and not just laugh in his face without even bothering to attempt to torso twist because l0lstreaks are useless anyway.
And second thing to lower their heat.
Remove the ghost heat at least from firing 4 launchers of streak4s and 6s and at the same time and lower a little bit the base heat of 4s and 6s.
And no I dont think that those 2 changes at all considering the state of the game as it is now (read SniperWarrior Online: CERLL Extreme Edition) would in any way break the game.

the way streak homing works is a missile locks onto a random mech component. the torso sections are weighted slightly higher. this makes them less likely to leg lights but also allows you to focus damage to the torsos on larger mechs to make killing blows more likely. it doesnt spread randomly like dumbfire missiles do. the missile is pretty much guaranteed to hit unless something gets in the way. changing the weights would make them even stronger against larger mechs. thats not a bad thing, but id like to keep them as the go to anti-squirrel weapon. the accelerated lock time would help in that situation especially with the legs not being as likely to be targeted.

i also think another thing that needs buffs is the tag laser. it should be able to soft-counter stealth and ecm at any range. i used to run tag with streaks as a lock accelerator, but when they removed that ability i stopped using it all together. for only 3 times the weight i can bring an lppc and use that to break locks. giving the tag that ability would make it a hard counter. but i think that may be too op. imagine having your stealth broken every time somone slashed you with a tag. it should light you up, but not force stealth armor to go into cool down.

[justcallme A S H]

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 04:47 PM, said:

Cons:
they spread damage all over the enemy mech so he can just stand there and facetank you if it is anything heavier than a light and even some lights have so much armor between quirks and skill tree that it takes several streak6 alphas to even core them, let alone kill them.
on top of this they are ubelievably ridiculously hot and streak6 have a ghost heat on firing even just 4 of them which means mechs like the Marauder II 4HP cannot even fire one side of 4 launchers without getting ghost heat that would be equivalent of the heat of firing 5
they are rather heavy at least for IS streak6s

So SSRM are generally a light-med hunter/deterrent within MWO. Without a complete mechanic overhaul that is how they will stay.

Your CON seems to be partly a player derived one. Putting SSRM on a 100T mech? You ain't light/med hunting in that thing, that is more a mech issue and not the best example at all.

You want to be putting SSRM on Meds, Lights or faster heavies. Not mechs bumbling around at 55km/h. IS SSRM are not hot. Lets compare SSRM6 to SRM6A

tbt-lg SRM6A
[tbt-lg SSRM6

DPS is overall pretty similar. Ammo count and speed. SSRM has more range and of course locked on capability.

SSRMs still effectively hunt lights if you put them on mechs that should have SSRMs. You make them too strong they instantly nuke lights which is what Cauldron said we wanted to reduce ages ago. Fact is Lights are the worst performing and least used class in MWO - making SSRM s and cSSRM too strong hurts that.



Now that said Cauldron is talking about potential cSSRM alterations. As we've said all along we will continue to look at balance as things play out. Nothing confirmed just yet however.

Again Streaks overall are limited by the mechanic and it is a fine line between making them instant-delete and not strong enough.

ScaZz, on 01 November 2021 - 06:37 PM, said:

TO ALL THE PEOPLE SAYING THEY WOULD BE OP AGAINST LIGHTS:
No, because back in tier 4 and 3

Not would - they were. A cSSRM6 x 6 mech would and would 1-shot the majority of lights in the game from a pure lock-on shot. If it did not yeet them it would maim them enough to be basically useless.

Hate to break it to you - balance is not done for Tier 4. Take into account, sure. You do not balance a game from the bottom up.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 01 November 2021 - 07:55 PM.