162 replies to this topic

[sycocys]

Samziel, on 22 August 2023 - 12:13 AM, said:

Everyone seems to ignore what Navid said.

Because honestly many of us believe he/they (cauldron) are often quite disingenuous with their tweaks, especially when it comes to already poorly performing systems.

There could be a change to ecm that doesn't kill it or explode lrms effectiveness - remove target block and increase target lock and information time. Or just have it reduced opposing mechs radar range and counter seismic if they are in the bubble.
Either are something pgi could actually do and it actually puts it closer to in line with what the system is supposed to be within the context of the game's capabilities.

[MrMadguy]

VeeOt Dragon, on 22 August 2023 - 02:20 AM, said:

yeah thats why i say that RD should have a direct counter skill.

First of all, it shouldn't be instant. Idea behind it, is that missiles should work as direct fire weapons only. But terrain, that causes split-second lock losses, turns it into OP 100% missile counter. This should be fixed. Thx God only Lights and may be Mediums can abuse it effectively enough. But Lights have enough immunities and invulnerabilities already. For example only around 10% LRMs hit them due to spread and low tracking speed.

[feeWAIVER]

It's only a 10% nerf to base velocity, while mechs in this patch are getting 30% velocity buffs, and there's a ton of velocity quirks already in the game. Really guys, it's not that big of a deal. You're gonna log in after the patch and realize it's fine.

Edited by feeWAIVER, 22 August 2023 - 04:58 AM.

[MrMadguy]

feeWAIVER, on 22 August 2023 - 04:57 AM, said:

It's only a 10% nerf to base velocity, while mechs in this patch are getting 30% velocity buffs, and there's a ton of velocity quirks already in the game. Really guys, it's not that big of a deal. You're gonna log in after the patch and realize it's fine.

It's always very bad sign, when fine/underperforming weapons are nerfed instead of overperforming ones. This only makes things worse, not better.

It's typical designing around extremes, that happens in so called "competitive" online games very often. Dev balance things around 1% of competitive players, streamer and their tournament matches, that happen once a year, while totally breaking things for average players.

It really seems to me, that we will have much more problems with HAGs after this patch. If I understand their mechanics correctly, they may be fine at long range due to spread, but at short range we will have exactly the same problems, we had with double-AC/20 in the past.

[martian]

feeWAIVER, on 22 August 2023 - 04:57 AM, said:

It's only a 10% nerf to base velocity, while mechs in this patch are getting 30% velocity buffs, and there's a ton of velocity quirks already in the game. Really guys, it's not that big of a deal. You're gonna log in after the patch and realize it's fine.

What 'Mechs are getting 30% velocity buffs in this patch? Specifically, velocity buffs applicable to LRMs?

[feeWAIVER]

martian, on 22 August 2023 - 05:11 AM, said:

What 'Mechs are getting 30% velocity buffs in this patch? Specifically, velocity buffs applicable to LRMs?

Oh sorry, only 20%. I guess the sky really is falling, my bad.

[Mark Yore]

Capellan Shenanigans, on 21 August 2023 - 04:40 PM, said:

Could you link some builds? I've been thinking that it's time for my Catapult to drop the MRMs and get back to my roots with LRMs.

I had a massive, cross-country move that made me miss most of the big summer event, so I want to spread the salt.

Blood Asp Rancor with BAS-E arms, LRM-20s in the torso and LRM-15s in the arms. Add a TAG and a CAP, lots of ammo and finish with heat sinks. Set the missiles to chain fire and you've got a great low-heat way of delivering 100 missiles per salvo with very little downtime.
Ideally you want to position yourself in the middle and slightly behind the main body of your team because you will be the number one target. You should be no more than 400 metres from your targets to maximise damage and minimise the opportunity to get swamped by lights. Although there is nothing like the sheer joy of destroying a Piranha by firing everything at almost point blank range.
It's almost the anti-sniper build, where you still have the range to use suppressive fire on the gauss and PPC snipers hiding at the edges of the map or in elevated positions.

Edited by Mark Yore, 22 August 2023 - 06:11 AM.

[Mark Yore]

One thing that hasn't been discussed is that LRMs are the only only weapon that can be substantially nerfed by the environment. The risk of loading up an LRM heavy build and ending up in a map like Solaris City or Coliseum (or the covered areas of HPG Manifold or River City) means that there are substantial problems in taking an LRM boat.

Alpine Peaks is really the only map where there is a small bonus in going LRM, balanced against the fact that gauss/PPC snipers will be targeting you and they don't have to hold locks.

[Runecarver]

Samziel, on 22 August 2023 - 12:13 AM, said:

Everyone seems to ignore what Navid said. LRM velo has been buffed over time to counteract the raise of ECM effectiveness and usage. Which is a wrong way to approach things. They are now gradually trying to nerf both as an attempt to eventually overall buff LRMs without causing a LRM apocalypse in the meanwhile. I can agree this ECM nerf seems too little, but I guess they have to take things slow to see the effect in action. In short, more patches regarding these systems are coming.

That remains to be seen. Will these supposed changes come next month, in 3 months, next year, or be conveniently forgotten? Who knows. We've heard this song and dance many times before. But in current terms, this change is a net negative for little reason.

7% less total sensor range reduction on clan ecm only, while inner sphere ecm will still provide the same 70% sensor range reduction bubble to all allies. For the average game, you won't see any difference. And the lock on system remains the same that said 210m/sec values were based around. From back when mechs were much less nimble, yet they could still reliably avoid said missile locks and missiles by staying on their toes. LRMs need all the speed they can get, because mechs have gotten more agile since then.

Sure, 10% doesn't seem much. Its something like an extra 0.2-0.4 seconds of flight time depending on distance and whether you're looking directly or indirectly at the target. But that's still effectively nullifying the extra bit of time that was provided when a target breaks line of sight when radar deprivation was finally changed from being a guaranteed, instant lock breaker. So now we're essentially back in square one. While many other weapons just keep going up and up in performance. More range, more velocity, more dps, less minimum range, less heat, less duration. Quality of life improvements are fine, but you're supposed to give them out equally.

feeWAIVER, on 22 August 2023 - 04:57 AM, said:

It's only a 10% nerf to base velocity, while mechs in this patch are getting 30% velocity buffs, and there's a ton of velocity quirks already in the game. Really guys, it's not that big of a deal. You're gonna log in after the patch and realize it's fine.

You shouldn't need ridiculously large quirks to make up for the lackluster performance of the base weapon. Not to mention that's a horribly flawed design philosophy, to force certain weapon use on certain variants with huge quirks, that shows someone forgot that MWO is supposed to be about freedom of customization.

And as an aside, those big quirks on specifically the Adder A-variant are a necessary bit of help considering how limited its missile builds are otherwise. 2 LRM20's gets completely shut down by a single skilled out triple AMS mech, with this it might get a couple more missiles through.

Edited by Runecarver, 22 August 2023 - 06:23 AM.

[Khalcruth]

sycocys, on 22 August 2023 - 04:17 AM, said:

Because honestly many of us believe he/they (cauldron) are often quite disingenuous with their tweaks, especially when it comes to already poorly performing systems.

Damn straight. I truly don't understand why anyone believes a single word that comes out of their mouths. Their credibility is exactly zero.

[feeWAIVER]

Runecarver, on 22 August 2023 - 06:13 AM, said:

Sure, 10% doesn't seem much. Its something like an extra 0.2-0.4 seconds of flight time depending on distance and whether you're looking directly or indirectly at the target. But...

I'm gonna say to you what Donald Trump once said to me in a dream:

Spoiler

"It's fine. You'll be fine."

Edited by feeWAIVER, 22 August 2023 - 08:28 AM.

[foamyesque]

Samziel, on 22 August 2023 - 12:13 AM, said:

Everyone seems to ignore what Navid said. LRM velo has been buffed over time to counteract the raise of ECM effectiveness and usage. Which is a wrong way to approach things.

LRMs are the slowest dang projectile in the game already, and also in competition for the worst weapon system generally if you, and multiple of your teammates, haven't built specifically to make it work.

And if the nerf was purely about trying to balance out the ECM nerf, it wouldn't apply to direct fire shots. That's the piece that really sticks out to me -- as a direct fire weapon LRMs are just a worse MRM that happens to have a couple hundred metres more reach. This required a penalty? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

[feeWAIVER]

foamyesque, on 22 August 2023 - 08:52 AM, said:

LRMs are the slowest dang projectile in the game already, and also in competition for the worst weapon system generally if you, and multiple of your teammates, haven't built specifically to make it work.

And if the nerf was purely about trying to balance out the ECM nerf, it wouldn't apply to direct fire shots. That's the piece that really sticks out to me -- as a direct fire weapon LRMs are just a worse MRM that happens to have a couple hundred metres more reach. This required a penalty? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

imo, lurms are better than streaks and atms. So from my perspective, they are the best homing missiles in the game.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

Mark Yore, on 22 August 2023 - 05:52 AM, said:

Blood Asp Rancor with BAS-E arms, LRM-20s in the torso and LRM-15s in the arms. Add a TAG and a CAP, lots of ammo and finish with heat sinks. Set the missiles to chain fire and you've got a great low-heat way of delivering 100 missiles per salvo with very little downtime. Ideally you want to position yourself in the middle and slightly behind the main body of your team because you will be the number one target. You should be no more than 400 metres from your targets to maximise damage and minimise the opportunity to get swamped by lights. Although there is nothing like the sheer joy of destroying a Piranha by firing everything at almost point blank range. It's almost the anti-sniper build, where you still have the range to use suppressive fire on the gauss and PPC snipers hiding at the edges of the map or in elevated positions.

The range quirk is wasted there. Max range LRMing results in a ton of waste.

https://mwo.nav-alph...4a535_BAS-PRIME

If you're going to be silly, might as well go all out. 2LRM20+2LRM20+1LRM20+2LRM15, use keyboard binds to roll through the groups, LMB for TAG. Barf out salvos, hide and cool.

Edited by the check engine light, 22 August 2023 - 10:36 AM.

[Ken Harkin]

Cauldron hates LRMs. They made a map covered with gigantic mushrooms simply to to punish LRMs and benefit snipers firing from the hills or top of the mushrooms.

feeWAIVER, on 22 August 2023 - 09:44 AM, said:

imo, lurms are better than streaks and atms. So from my perspective, they are the best homing missiles in the game.

Being better than streaks with all the ECM and stealth isn't hard. At least I can dumbfire LRMs at a sniper sitting under ECM coverage. With Streaks all I can do is shout at the Stealth builds.

[An6ryMan69]

Ongoing LRM hate in MWO is another win for a few loud elites over the huddled masses, unfortunately.

It's *** backwards - the very best players are the ones that need the very least catering to, in reality.

[Novakaine]

Just trash.

[foamyesque]

feeWAIVER, on 22 August 2023 - 09:44 AM, said:

imo, lurms are better than streaks and atms. So from my perspective, they are the best homing missiles in the game.

Better than streaks is a very low bar indeed because I think streaks probably *are* the worst weapon in the game. You pay extra tonnage for a weapon that performs worse than a standard SRM except in very limited circumstances.

Better than ATMs? That's more arguable, but only because in LRMs scale better in groups. ATMs do better when you can't rely on your teammates to either synergize with you or cover you, i.e. the more usual solo drop experience.

But either way, 'best of the worst set of weapons' is still bad.

[Bassault]

MrMadguy, on 20 August 2023 - 09:35 AM, said:

What I can say, is that LRMs are suppression weapons, that are great counters against guys, who exploit OP Meta. Especially when combined with tags. And this is exact reason, why Meta exploiters hate them. They just can't exploit their OPness without consequences. That's why they ask for nerfs. Should we listen to them? I don't think so. We should stop this zero-counter Meta, not support it.

How does LRM counter "op meta abusers"? I alphastrike my gauss and large lasers, your lrms lock and fire, I take cover. You eat ****, I take no damage. The only thing your LRMs are countering is people's willingness to move up, because if they do they can get LRM'd out in the open.

[Bassault]

Ken Harkin, on 22 August 2023 - 10:44 AM, said:

Cauldron hates LRMs. They made a map covered with gigantic mushrooms simply to to punish LRMs and benefit snipers firing from the hills or top of the mushrooms.


Being better than streaks with all the ECM and stealth isn't hard. At least I can dumbfire LRMs at a sniper sitting under ECM coverage. With Streaks all I can do is shout at the Stealth builds.

Krazzdax is not part of the cauldron. He is a PGI employee.