98 replies to this topic

[foamyesque]

Step 1 in using LRMs wrong IMO is using Clan LRMs. People get seduced by tube count. Sphere LRM machines often have better quirks, tighter spreads, and volley fire; the minimum range sucks but if you're not a potato you can compensate.

[Kirito Kerenksy]

ScrapIron Prime, on 17 February 2022 - 08:04 PM, said:

So… you consider the Sensor tree to be a waste of time, and you feel you don’t need it if you have teamwork? Even Target Decay?

You missunderstand. a large chunk of people think the sensor tree is a waste of time for most builds. The sensor tree can benifit LRM mechs or ECM carriers, and seismic sensor is useful, but most people with most builds will not bother with the tree if they can get away with it.

[Duke Falcon]

I said it before but I say it again: LRMs are good as they are. Not need to be deadlier not really need to be nerfed.
There are those funny people who lurming about ~1000 metres away from the battlefield and cry because ECM, target decay, noone hit R to them to get locks. They say let's lurms better! NO. Learn to use LRMs properly and you would see they are among the most nefarious and vile weapons in MWO. Some people even think horison bombing is a way of glory and use LRM-exculise builds then whine "light are OP, nerf them!" This two threads corresponds nicely...
There are people who learned how to lurm, checked some skill-spots on the skill-tree, and they in a well-coordinated team, well, often r@pe the whole band. Many of them may say, like I, that LRMs could be perhaps a bit more weaker, deal 0.75 damage per missile instead of 1. Way to strong in good hands, good team and on maps designed to be lurmers' paradise (all remade maps from Polar highlands to Hellebore outpost).
And not forget that LRMs are capable to DIRECT FIRE! Almost all noob lurmers wants locks from a distance and brown in their pants if someone get close to them. LRMs are nice for direct fire (+ get your own lock faster because of the directness) and could be easily lethal - especially the clan version what have no minimal range. When someone able to kill a Marauder 2 in direct-line-of-sight brawl with LRMs in a Mad dog (happened yesterday after killed another Mad dog) then LRMs not need to be stronger. What need to be stronger are some direct-fire weapons, like some ACs (not necessary by damage terms but cooldown, bullet speed). LRMs are the last weapons need to be stronger.
Just look around when a new events starts and people go for X missile damage done. Get an AC or Las-boat and you would have carnage. Most people not understand the LRMs and how they (should) work\used but say they are weak\OP, change them! Cadets and noobs should be adviced to avoid lurmers because they often learn the wrong way of lurming result constant whining, toxic playstyle and a series of other troubles...

Sorry if some may found my post offensive but that is my exact opinion based on in-game experiences.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Kirito Kerenksy, on 19 February 2022 - 08:22 AM, said:

You missunderstand. a large chunk of people think the sensor tree is a waste of time for most builds. The sensor tree can benifit LRM mechs or ECM carriers, and seismic sensor is useful, but most people with most builds will not bother with the tree if they can get away with it.

And I'm in the camp of calling that a complete underestimation of the tree. With 100% Radar Deprivation, you drop off the red team's sensors IMMEDIATELY when not observed or under a UAV. In addition to losing locks on lurms instantly, any red who was not paying close attention to the minimap will be a lot less likely to factor your mech's position into their plans. This means less fire directed at you. This means more armor for later in the game.

[Blood Rose]

LRM's are a bad weapon that currently only serve to punish fatlases and bad players who are out of position and (usually) on their own. The only time they are ever a threat to a mech or team with decent AMS cover (what, you refused to spare 1.5 tons and 2 crits for an AMS because you were desperately trying to pack that extra laser for your gajillion pp alpha? Too bad.) is when they are concentrated and fired enmase in their hundreds and even then it is sometimes not enough. The only people complaining here are the ones who want to run a max-alpha gigamonster and dont want to suffer any countermeasure to live.
Give LRM's a buff. And whilst we are at it, give us Swarm LRM's, semiguided LRM's, and perhaps even Thunder LRM's. And reflective armour (heavily negates energy weapon damage) ballistic reinforced armour (negates ballistic damage) and Blue Shield (utterly nerfs OOC damage but has a limited run time). Of course, this still wont bring in as many countermeasures as LRM's currently have (AMS, ECM, full radar Derp, unseen cover), but it will start to bring in some parity, especially in the case of the current laser vomit meta and dakkaboat spam.

[ScrapIron Prime]

You want to make everyone take an AMS... introduce Arrow IV systems.

[Weeny Machine]

Blood Rose, on 19 February 2022 - 02:30 PM, said:

LRM's are a bad weapon that currently only serve to punish fatlases and bad players who are out of position and (usually) on their own. The only time they are ever a threat to a mech or team with decent AMS cover (what, you refused to spare 1.5 tons and 2 crits for an AMS because you were desperately trying to pack that extra laser for your gajillion pp alpha? Too bad.) is when they are concentrated and fired enmase in their hundreds and even then it is sometimes not enough. The only people complaining here are the ones who want to run a max-alpha gigamonster and dont want to suffer any countermeasure to live.
Give LRM's a buff. And whilst we are at it, give us Swarm LRM's, semiguided LRM's, and perhaps even Thunder LRM's. And reflective armour (heavily negates energy weapon damage) ballistic reinforced armour (negates ballistic damage) and Blue Shield (utterly nerfs OOC damage but has a limited run time). Of course, this still wont bring in as many countermeasures as LRM's currently have (AMS, ECM, full radar Derp, unseen cover), but it will start to bring in some parity, especially in the case of the current laser vomit meta and dakkaboat spam.

Not entirely true. Lock on weapons forces light mechs to disengage - and that without having LOS on them and across half a map. And that's quite an advantage.

[Tyman4]

Gotta love the lrms are easy crowd.
Derp, I have 2 Ac5s and 2 Ac2s that do direct damage with no counter play from the target and no way to miss so long as i stay on target.
LRM boat...and we lost lock...and my entire loadout is countered by a 1.5 ton piece of passive equipment...and they are grouped so their ams is preventing any damage until I throw in 2k missiles...and I have a minimum range...and only 1/3 of the missiles hit anyway...and my narc was countered by 1 shot from the ams...and my narc is under another mech's ecm...and radar deprivation as a universal skill. HELL LRM boats are countered just by the game mode domination...

But TBH, we just need different targets. Machine guns aren't in the game for anti mech play, they are for infantry. Flamers, arrays etc. Missles make a lot more sense for static defenses or for swarming lighter targets like helicopters or aircraft.

[Blood Rose]

Weeny Machine, on 19 February 2022 - 03:02 PM, said:

Not entirely true. Lock on weapons forces light mechs to disengage - and that without having LOS on them and across half a map. And that's quite an advantage.

Do they? I run Lights and usually its easy enough to duck behind some cover then pop out again, or just run to one side. Or if im in my firestarter keep running and laugh as dual AMS eats the missiles. And then there are the ECM and Stealth mechs, good luck locking them.

ScrapIron Prime, on 19 February 2022 - 02:44 PM, said:

You want to make everyone take an AMS... introduce Arrow IV systems.

Unironically. Bring Arrow IV along, not only will AMS be less effective against them but also they will be effective counters to camping snipers - you dont need a direct hit, just land the missile close to the mech.

[PocketYoda]

LRMs could be more powerful if they were forced to get their own line of sight and get locked out of using other players locks totally.

[panzer1b]

As a fairly ok player at T1, ill say that i agree with making LRMs more deadly specifically in indirect fire as they got nerfbatted so hard recently that they are truly only ok in direct fire, a situation where virtually ANY other weapons will be superior.

Also from my own experience playing LERMs at higer levels is both much harder then a laser build, and also often an extersize in frustration when half the enemy team has 100% radar derp which renders locking near impossible without a good friendly light that either spots constantly or poops out a UAV that miraculuously doesnt get shot down b4 i get a few volleys out. That and ECM which makes locking impossible without facetanking to get a TAG lock (or NARCing which just ends with the enemy hiding till it wears off most of the time, at best it gets a target out of the fight for 20s, at worst it doesnt do squat cause someone just ECMs the NARC).

If you insist on keeping indirect trash, at least make direct spread so little that a TAGd target is mostly going to eat CT without actively twisting, and if not, then make indirect lockons faster so even if the dmg spreads its actually possible to target someone in less time then it takes me to go afk and make tea...

Same thing for ATMs, they were always situational, but loosing the x3 dmg at short range rendered them terrible since the weapons already had the weaknesses of lockon weapons, had to get close (risky in of itself with the sheer number of 80 PPFLD brawlers running around), and still spread like crazy (and often legged targets but didnt do anything to the lehg behind the front one making the enemy tank 500+ before they started loosing critical parts.

Again, i full understand why LERMs are bad right now (whining at T5 where they truly are strong against those who dont use cover properly yet), but they truly do suck at higher skill levels while lasers, the easiest and best general purpose choice on light/med/heavy mechs are useful in almost all games and have plenty of choice depending on what range and playstyle you want from them.

[Weeny Machine]

Tyman4, on 19 February 2022 - 03:06 PM, said:

Gotta love the lrms are easy crowd.
Derp, I have 2 Ac5s and 2 Ac2s that do direct damage with no counter play from the target and no way to miss so long as i stay on target.
LRM boat...and we lost lock...and my entire loadout is countered by a 1.5 ton piece of passive equipment...and they are grouped so their ams is preventing any damage until I throw in 2k missiles...and I have a minimum range...and only 1/3 of the missiles hit anyway...and my narc was countered by 1 shot from the ams...and my narc is under another mech's ecm...and radar deprivation as a universal skill. HELL LRM boats are countered just by the game mode domination...

But TBH, we just need different targets. Machine guns aren't in the game for anti mech play, they are for infantry. Flamers, arrays etc. Missles make a lot more sense for static defenses or for swarming lighter targets like helicopters or aircraft.

Well, at one point in the past they were easy. Then more and more mechs with ECM were introduced. Just look at the amount of ECM in an average match and I wouldn't say that they are easy to use.

Actually, I think it is a similar phenomen like with light mechs. People use their meta hitscan weapon spam machines and when they encounter a melee light mech that is small, they suddenly realize that their point and click weapon has a drawback: it must be held steady on a (in case of 20t mechs and that is actually the "light mechs" they complain about).

The same seems to be the case for LRMs. When you get caught out of position and get lurmed to death, it sucks and you are annoyed. And sure, running of to hide because of lrms isn't that funny either.

[Blood Rose]

Plus, LRM's have been nerfed into oblivion. days of Lurmageddon 1 and 2 are nearly a decade behind us and LRM's have been nerfed harshly many times since.

[Tlords]

Tyman4, on 19 February 2022 - 03:06 PM, said:

Gotta love the lrms are easy crowd....

LRM boat...and we lost lock...and my entire loadout is countered by a 1.5 ton piece of passive equipment...and they are grouped so their ams is preventing any damage until I throw in 2k missiles...and I have a minimum range...and only 1/3 of the missiles hit anyway...and my narc was countered by 1 shot from the ams...and my narc is under another mech's ecm...and radar deprivation as a universal skill. HELL LRM boats are countered just by the game mode domination...

So many counters to LRMs.

LRMs are a challenge to play well. You seldom see LRM boats at high tier levels carrying a game. If they were so easy to play, you'd see competitive players having more success with them.

Hense make them deadlier. Deadly to the point, where some get scared not being in an ECM bubble. Scared not bringing AMS. Scared to get narced. Scared not moving with a team.

[Tlords]

Nomad Tech, on 20 February 2022 - 06:57 AM, said:

LRMs could be more powerful if they were forced to get their own line of sight and get locked out of using other players locks totally.

Now it seems you want everyone to have line of sight to other mechs to do damage. It sounds like you don't want a stealth flea providing line of sight to missile boats. Hidden so they can support their team mates raining down on them. Mechs who are outside the enemies line of sight.

It sounds like you do not enjoy seeing your LRM boats raining an enemy mech - all due to a well placed UAV.

[Tlords]

panzer1b, on 20 February 2022 - 07:02 AM, said:

... [LRMs got] more deadly specifically in indirect fire as they got nerfbatted so hard recently that they are truly only ok in direct fire, a situation where virtually ANY other weapons will be superior.

Amen Brother! Make them fun to play again!

[Bamboozle Gold]

This thread is silly.

But yes, I do believe that ECM and AMS can be frustrating to play against and their main purpose is to counter LRMs. I can believe this is compounded by the proliferation of ECM capable mechs that have been introduced. So how about we reduce the effectiveness of ECM and AMS.

Okay, so now indirect fire LRMs are free damage farm (I mean, they already are if you have a sacrificial lamb sitting there NARCing / spotting for you). So let's just reduce the effectiveness of indirect fire LRMs. Seems good to me.

But now the direct fire sniping weapons are the only effective long range engagement weapon. So let's reduce the range of sniping. Do we really need that 8cERLL Direwhale sitting in Timbuktu not sharing armour? Nah, I don't think so.

And I think it'd actually be a better game. Of course then medium range laser vomit (LPLs especially) will be even stronger, since they can trade with sniping more equally. So that needs to be nerfed.

Hopefully then balance hasn't been completely screwed and brawlers end up on top of the heap...

[Blood Rose]

A good counter to snipers would be tube and missile artillery. Thumpers and Arrow IV would make life hell for snipers who insist on sitting at long range and refuse to move, and would also help break murderballs up as spacing would become relevant.

But as for LRM's, they are the only weapon system currently in the game with multiple hard counters, in the form of ECM and Stealth (make locks impossible) Radar Derp (makes indirect fire without a dedicated spotter impossible) and AMS (literally shoots down the missiles as they come in). They have also lost 100 metres of range and spread damage everywhere, making them a poor second in direct fire engagements. So, I propose:
>Return the range to 1000 metres
>Heavily buff lock times and missile flight
>Introduce inferno, semiguided and swarm LRM's
>Introduce Streak LRM systems (higher velocity but cannot fire without a lock)
>Introduce Reflective Armour (halves the damage from energy weapons, will make the current metabunny's weep and scream)
>Introduce Reactive Armour (halves the damage from ballistics and missiles, still better than nothing)
>Maybe introduce the Blue Shield system (halves the damage from PPC's, stacks with Reflective armour, guaranteed to make the forums burn with metabunny rage, can only run for 60 seconds then it burns out)
>Maybe introduce Thumper and/or Arrow IV to the game, if Arrow IV is introduced remember to add in guided and regular missiles. Maybe inferno too.
Then, and only then, can we start to talk about fine tuning.

[DaZur]

Bring back the LRM death spirals.... BAM... LRMs are deadlier.

Hell, I'd be happy is they only spiraled with LOS locks.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Blood Rose, on 21 February 2022 - 10:58 AM, said:

A good counter to snipers would be tube and missile artillery. Thumpers and Arrow IV would make life hell for snipers who insist on sitting at long range and refuse to move, and would also help break murderballs up as spacing would become relevant.

But as for LRM's, they are the only weapon system currently in the game with multiple hard counters, in the form of ECM and Stealth (make locks impossible) Radar Derp (makes indirect fire without a dedicated spotter impossible) and AMS (literally shoots down the missiles as they come in). They have also lost 100 metres of range and spread damage everywhere, making them a poor second in direct fire engagements. So, I propose:
>Return the range to 1000 metres
>Heavily buff lock times and missile flight
>Introduce inferno, semiguided and swarm LRM's
>Introduce Streak LRM systems (higher velocity but cannot fire without a lock)
>Introduce Reflective Armour (halves the damage from energy weapons, will make the current metabunny's weep and scream)
>Introduce Reactive Armour (halves the damage from ballistics and missiles, still better than nothing)
>Maybe introduce the Blue Shield system (halves the damage from PPC's, stacks with Reflective armour, guaranteed to make the forums burn with metabunny rage, can only run for 60 seconds then it burns out)
>Maybe introduce Thumper and/or Arrow IV to the game, if Arrow IV is introduced remember to add in guided and regular missiles. Maybe inferno too.
Then, and only then, can we start to talk about fine tuning.

Rather than all that, just make one simple change... a missile that is fired with a lock becomes self guided, so even if it loses lock during flight, it still homes in and hits the target. Done and dusted, and for streak missiles too.

The only issue would be how much effort that mechanic change would be on PGI. if its not a matter of changing an XML value, they won't do it at this point.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 21 February 2022 - 12:09 PM.