265 replies to this topic

[D A T A]

I'd like to hear what people think about the topic.


1) LRMs have very low skill requirements, they are very close to an aimbot, which is the negation itself of the concept of PvP: they just should not be nearly as good as the other weapons, because they require no aim to be used.

2) Due to their easy nature, tier 3-4-5 are INFESTED by LRM rains, and at times these filthy aimbots bring cancer even in comp, which is laughable per se.

3) The overabundance of LRMs causes the ECM spam as a reaction, because all the other countermeasures got nerfed directly or indirectly into the dust.

4) LRM rains invalidate many slow mechs without ecm, reducing game diversity, because they are just too big to use many objects as covers and LRMs now travel too fast to even let them go to cover, due to the stupidity of the LRM velocity buffs delivered by Chris, pre cauldron.

5) AMS/LAMS are useless, you get rained regardless

6) LRMs can not be balanced on AMS solely, because many clan omnis can not effectively mount it.

7) LRMS got buffed repeatedly in a direct or indirect way in the last 4 years (velocity buff, velocity tree, velocity quirks, missile HP boost, ECM nerf, Radar Deprivation nerf)


PROBLEM

I am sick of a situation where you get hit by missiles so quick that Betty can't even finish saying "warning incoming missile" anymore.
I am sick of seeing most 70-100 tonners without ecm behave just like LRM landing platforms.

PROPOSAL

Nerf LRM velocity so that slower mechs have more time to travel to their cover, and so that AMS has more time to shoot down incoming missiles.

Edited by D A T A, 03 March 2023 - 01:17 PM.

[sosegado]

I'm probably going to get flamed for this but my personal opinion of LRMS is that they are a crutch for the unskilled and the sobriety challenged.

I am the former and occasionally the latter.

Stll I think I have only 3 mechs that use them in concert with other LR weapons loadouts.

Mostly I'm that lump of metal you referred to as an "LRM landing platform."

Maybe you could make a poll about nerfing the velocity?

Edited by Stab Wound, 03 March 2023 - 12:04 PM.

[Bud Crue]

As a T2 person playing with a group of typically two T1s and a T3, I assume we are seeing mostly T1-T3 matches, and I gotta say I don't see LRMs being problematic in more than perhaps 1 in 8 matches? 1 in 10? I mean yeah, they are out there and occasionally I or someone else will mention getting "LRMed to death" but it certainly isn't a common enough occurrence to where I would consider that LRMS are over represented or think that LRMs need a nerf.

Heck, given that most maps now have tons of cover, I might even go so far as to say that LRMs especially when played to take advantage of their despised "hide in the back and rely on others to get locks" ability, are more of a detriment to the player/team running them than other weapon systems. On some maps (Alpine, etc.), sure they can be a real PITA, but I don't find them to be any more problematic than the plethora of long range laser and PPC builds that seem to be far more common and dominate these days.

Edit -This just occurred to me:
Anecdotally, I used to play the Jester about 75% of the time and regardless of the weapons load out I always ran 2 AMS, mostly because they look cool, but also because they actually seemed to be worth taking due to all the LRMS. Over the last year or so though, I stopped running AMS most of the time because I realized that on most of the maps that are typically voted for, LRMs just don't seem to be much of a factor anymore. Yes, again, occasionally and on the right map, they can be a plague, but that just doesn't seem to happen with any regularity anymore.

Edited by Bud Crue, 03 March 2023 - 11:40 AM.

[Heavy Money]

They are too strong at low tiers against people who don't know how to avoid them or not overexpose and almost worthless at high tiers unless you have a coordinated group.

They should be harder to use and get results with. But, something should also be done so that a high skill player can still get some performance out of them in high tiers.

[Duke Falcon]

With all due of respect...

BUT! Indirect fire weapons (in this case LRMs) are vital part of any army. Banish them is foolish. Nerf them? Nerfed enough! I sometimes use LRM boats and their damage delivery IS LAUGHABLE AT BEST. Even worse if we are all frank about them. Getting locks is not as easy as evade lurm-rain whatsoever. Even in slow mechs. LRMs are a mere joke compared what they should be! I understand that some of you dislike them. No infantry likes a good artillery barrage, sure...
But it is part of the system. AND if you know how to exploit them a good part! Drop in a group, as your lurm-friend to soften targets for you! Teamplay works, really! She\he farm lots of damage while you farm the kills. Everybody wins IF YOU LEARN TO PLAY AS A TEAM.
And we not even have Arrow- and Thunderbolt launchers, buddy! War is not fair despite the clans tried to made it so...
Where do we head next? LRMs are slow, nerf AC slugs' speed because hit from afar? Or PPC? Or lazors as those are ovapowah? No they are not. All is situational. All is necessary with all of their advantages and disadvantages!
MWO went way to far from BT. Not a simulator even. Closer to mindless arcade. You really want to ruin it to an arcade FPS stuff like CS? Dumb rambo-wannabe ride all ovah da place? Sounds fair, go on!
I respect your tier, DATA, like your videos. No offense, really, but nerf things you may not use or misuse is not the answer for a problem. If we may get HAGs then topics would rise countless numbers to nerf those? Because super fast gauss-AC rains over all the slow mechs? On most maps lurming is an art on it's own! Tried ever lurming on Solaris city? LRMs work only on a few maps for the bulk of players. Stripping them from their little share of success sure would help increase the game's super-dense population! Let's do it! We want to wait 30+ mins for a QP match! Not just FP but QP! MAKE IT EVEN!!!
Sorry...
But there were a redline community and PGI both crossed. And noone stops and ought to consider that. Just nerfin'\buffin' everywhere. Noone would be satisfied ever, the jig is up, time for such hard truths...
Oh! Not nerf LRMs! Give us the mine-layer warhead variants! Ruinin' the game ferevah iz assured... As good idea as most one may read lately, yepp?
No? Hunh? Wutevah...

I wanted to posted some meme but I ******' tired even fer dat, sorry, mayhaps another timeth...

[sosegado]

Heavy Money, on 03 March 2023 - 11:47 AM, said:

They are too strong at low tiers against people who don't know how to avoid them or not overexpose and almost worthless at high tiers unless you have a coordinated group.

They should be harder to use and get results with. But, something should also be done so that a high skill player can still get some performance out of them in high tiers.

If the match score values for doing damage with them was cut in half maybe lower Tiers wouldn't spam them as much because it wouldn't help their PSR?

This, however, assumes that higher Tiered players are less likely to care about increasing their PSR.

Does that make sense?

[Heavy Money]

Stab Wound, on 03 March 2023 - 11:56 AM, said:

If the match score values for doing damage with them was cut in half maybe lower Tiers wouldn't spam them as much because it wouldn't help their PSR?

This, however, assumes that higher Tiered players are less likely to care about increasing their PSR.

Does that make sense?

I get what you mean but I don't think it'd really fix things in a satisfying way

What we really need is more nuance in the lockon system. Like faster locks if you keep the aimer on target better, etc.

[badpiggy]

I think it’s important to consider the experience of using LRMs as well as the experience of being on the receiving end when discussing balance.

As far as QP is concerned, using LRMs is essentially gambling. Everything from the map to your enemies’ loadouts and playstyle as well as your own team’s ability to hold locks or use UAVs is up in the air each match, so it may as well be a crapshoot.

While AMS has minimal effect aside from the few mechs such as piranhas, kit foxes and corsairs which can boat them, the increasing prevalence of ECM can make an already rough experience worse, doubly so when the very popular clan ecm omnimechs such as the timber wolf, blood asp, shadow cat, Hellbringer, sun spider, night gyr etc. are in the mix.

The chances of you getting favorable conditions are minimal enough (at least in my experience) that I’d consider using LRMs to be a mech lab loss unless you’re with a buddy who has NARC. This seems to be a common enough sentiment among higher tiers as you said that LRMs are hardly a problem anyways.

As far as being on the receiving end, if my mech doesn’t have ECM/sufficient AMS I can fall back on the radar deprivation tree like you mentioned in your skill tree video, or simply walk behind cover. Getting pinned down by some guy playing one handed in the back line is annoying, but frankly it’s preferable over the red team having another, more capable player in his place.

[-K H A N]

Or fix the blue laser from 1200 km away from someone tucked away in a corner using team mates as a shield scourge.

[BobBagels {ScorpS}]

I dont have a professional intelligent answer.
I just call it as I see it
So just my opinion

I personally consider LRM's a weapon for the unskilled or lazy.
Half the time ya don't even see what your firing at.
Hang back and lob missles. Oh Joy

Were's the fun in that?

Ya gotta get up close and blow their brains out in order to fully appreciate.

[TheCaptainJZ]

If you nerf them, there are a lot of players that will complain. In the past, there have been some players who have physical handicaps and LRMs that don't require precise aiming is one way they are still able to play this game and enjoy it. I think that needs to be taken into consideration.

The last LRM change was to make them so direct fire was more effective than indirect fire. The arc is different and the velocity. AMS is also effective against missile boats if your team is clustered. It can completely deny LRMs. The main problem with LRMs, performance-wise, is that the interaction of lock on weapons and counters has been changed innumerable times and no one is ever happy with it.

I won't claim to be an expert here, but here's some potential ideas for the points brought up in the OP:
1. Reduce velocity but increase lock-on "stickiness". Easier to stay locked on target for the lurmer but easier for the recipient to move. However, any change to lock-on affects Streaks as well.
2. Potentially increase spread. Make LRMs more area-of-denial weapons. Can change this value separately for indirect vs direct thanks to the previous structural changes made (in 2018?).
3. Add AMS to more clan omnipods--so most if not all mechs have at least one slot available. Seriously, why not? Why gimp them like this?
4. Some IS missileboats could have their weapon hardpoints/geo adjusted to force weapon volley firing for major offenders.
5. Revisit ECM, TAG, Narc interactions.
6. Change damage values. If you change damage down, consider increasing missile health.
7. Add or adjust some taller cover to maps.

The problem with any change is an LRM 10 on its own is not a threat. It becomes a problem when it's 6xLRM 10. You don't want to completely invalidate LRMs as a weapon. Most have stated throughout MWO's history that they underperform direct fire systems and are a real feast/famine system. That's still true today. In my experience, it's harder today than in the past to be a lurmboat and dominate. If you can get close to them, they'll fall apart. I find gauss and sniper assaults more problematic. I don't play lurmboats because I can't count on PUGs to stay locked on a target, nor really can I count on myself to keep the lock with all the radar derp, ECM, and terrain around. I found long ago that it's not worth it to be a lurmboat for the mechs that I play and my playstyle.

[LordNothing]

living legends made lerms work by actually making them very difficult to use. try getting locks when everyone is running passive sensors. or better yet, try being the only mech on the field with active sensors. fine way to out yourself as a lerm boat. maybe run gecm, or maybe stand next to an aecm mech. with even more team work you can find a battle armor to tag things for you and walk them in. or narc 'em with a vtol. and certainly have a few lights set up a c3 network so you can share locks.

the fact that they are easy to use is kind of part of the reason you have to nerf them into oblivion. simply getting rid of free target sharing helps, then lerm boaters would be forced to bring their own lock gear. narc, tag, bap, artemis should all receive buffs massive buffs, narc should halve lock time and tag should eliminate it entirely, bap should directly counter all ecm effects on your mech, and artemis should make missile formations tighter and hug the terrain to minimize flight time. significant buffs to make up for the fact that you took away their ability to say "hold lox pls", since it would do nothing unless you had a c3i unit and they also had one.

oh, youre complaining about lerms? well my opinion is that they are somewhat useless. they are for bad players for use against bad players.

Edited by LordNothing, 03 March 2023 - 12:38 PM.

[BLACKR0SE]

I think it's balanced, you're exaggerating.
I do not agree with you.
Using a machine with lrm is not easy.
because it is very vulnerable to melee attacks. + lrm = ammo = explosion
The issue is the right angle.
If you can't find the right angle, wait.
wait for him to approach you.

[D A T A]

TAMTAMBABY, on 03 March 2023 - 01:18 PM, said:

I think it's balanced, you're exaggerating.
I do not agree with you.
Using a machine with lrm is not easy.
because it is very vulnerable to melee attacks. + lrm = ammo = explosion
The issue is the right angle.
If you can't find the right angle, wait.
wait for him to approach you.

Bro are you ok? There is no melee in MWO, this is not MW5, you are writing in the wrong game chat

[JediPanther]

HAHA! Good post. Lrms are hardly useable unless boated en mass by assults with all the free ecm mechs from events given out. Lrm 40 and under is just lol. The speed of lrms are already crap. Even stacking velocity and mech quirks they are still one of the slowest things in the game. Other than narc's SEVEN second cool down. No other weapon in the game has a higher cool down.

I've long given up trying to play a "spotter" even with all the counter stuff. Maybe i'd narc if I could fire it more often but seven seconds...might as well fire er ppc twice and at least do some damage.

[sycocys]

So I've got what is probably not a popular opinion on LRMs - they should be a bit better at the weapon/user end, BUT the only way locks should be shared is via narc or command console - or add another computer for the purpose that is universally installable.

Bap/TCs (maybe even add a lrm/streak specific/leaning TC) should be improved.
ECM should be reeled in a bit

[An6ryMan69]

I actually find the game is weighed pretty heavy against LRM's. Most everything from the clearly LRM-defeating vertical terrain, to quickplay drops with 75% of players having ECM, to seriously long lock times, to mechs out there with multiple AMS systems, to other weapon systems actually having way more range than "long" range missles - life is crappy for lurmers right now. And honestly they are not that hard to avoid, I find.

I can understand really good Tier 1 players getting frustrated being brought down by amateurish players with simpler weapons. The problem is that those Tier 1 players shouldn't be running into amateurish players in the first place, ever.

Let the Tier 1 guys fight other Tier 1 guys only and they won't care about what weapons or tactics the amateurs are using.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 03 March 2023 - 05:58 PM.

[feeWAIVER]

This feels like a troll post.

D A T A, on 03 March 2023 - 10:28 AM, said:

PROBLEM

I am sick of a situation where you get hit by missiles so quick that Betty can't even finish saying "warning incoming missile" anymore.
I am sick of seeing most 70-100 tonners without ecm behave just like LRM landing platforms.

PROPOSAL

Nerf LRM velocity so that slower mechs have more time to travel to their cover, and so that AMS has more time to shoot down incoming missiles.

If LRMS are only prevalent in tiers 1-3, why are you sick of them?
I don't have a problem with LRMS, they are already the worst weapon in the game.
Try playing with them, they aren't fun.
They take forever to get a lock, and they are easily killed by anyone who isn't traveling at potato speed.

LRMS are so benign that I don't even consider them a threat. I don't even take AMS or ECM on most mechs unless I have an abundance of extra weight to spend. If anything, I say LRMS need a buff to their targeting time.

[Saved By The Bell]

Lets just imagine Tier 1 usual fight. You can see them on DATA videos.


You see 2-3 long range assaults on the hill. Err lasers, gauss, err PPC. They do great damage to all enemies, who try to look at them from the pit. They have a good armor and shooting skills. Its unable to fight with them even if you long range too. If your stupid team try to shoot snipers all together, we have a chance... But your team is stupid.

And now imagine, you so called "lrm bot". You cant even aim at that fat snipers. You can just look at them from corner.

Lrm should be improved, you should aim from 1500 m range, lol. Its not brawl weapon, its bad weak long range weapon.

Edited by Saved By The Bell, 03 March 2023 - 10:39 PM.

[Ilostmycactus]

Imo if you try to direct fire facetime like people like to promote, lrms are a terrible weapon system. It's hard to twist because you lose the lock by going off target a tiny bit, unless you have armlock off. By the time you lock and sandblast them, they will have plenty of time to alpha you. And that's if they don't have ecm. The hitbox on TAG is absolutely tiny too.

They only really perform well when a group takes them and coordinates, or matchmaker blesses you with non ecm carrying enemies that don't push, in an open map.

I believe direct fire should be buffed, perhaps by rolling it into or replacing the dumbfire mode, which is mostly worthless with how slow it is, difficulty in aiming because of weird trajectory issues, and spread.

Replace it with a cursor guided mode, similar to atgms in war thunder. Some level of manual guidance and correction, but without loop de loop levels of accuracy. Locks can be reserved for indirect fire or whatever.
Yes, variables such as velocity, spread, heat, tonnage, cd, damage etc etc will have to be messed with in order to preserve mrms.

But if you actually want me to midrange fight with them, I want to not be strangled by the lock and ecm system.