122 replies to this topic

[kalashnikity]

Baba Yogi, on 11 November 2023 - 08:53 PM, said:

Problem with Lrms is inherent. Has nothing to do with ECM. Every other weapon in the game, time to deal damage usually is as long as = time to aim + weapon burn duration/projectile speed. With missiles, you also have to add target lock time, and lrms are also bogged down by horrible projectile speed which doesnt make sense on long range weapon. Only reason Lrms can get away with it is that it has automatic targeting. Nobody would touch ppcs if it had 190 speed.

Forget ecm, it is very easy to duel against missile carriers. When every other weapon system gives you instant damage, and you arguably have to wait 5 seconds+ just to deliver the damage, weapon system inherently becomes inferior. All it does is force target to break lock after few seconds. So, lrms will never be good so long as projectile speed is not buffed to something like 1000. But then again, you have to remove indirect targeting function because it has caused Lrms to be nerfed repeatedly over the years to balance it. There's a reason why its called a noob weapon, and rightly so. Current lrm gameplay completely removes skill out of the equation. Thats why noobs do better with Lrms while good players do worse with them compared to other weapon systems.

Right now, even without your target having ECM, it takes too long to get a lock (and the lock zone is far too small) and then fire, even the slowest assault can peak, fire, then get back behind cover for a LRM boat can even return fire. (That is why Cauldron finished off the nerf, they love sniping at range)

At most we will hit the cover the a assault just stepped back behind, you can only at best get a few hits if you dumbfire as soon as they break cover. Adding a guidance after getting lock might be an interesting mechanic, so you could acquire lock after launch, to guide them in just before impact.

That should not be that hard to spaghetti code into place.

[kalashnikity]

w0qj, on 12 November 2023 - 05:37 AM, said:

It's actually quite easy to make lock-on weapons (LRM/ATM) viable again:

1) [approximately] half the lock-on time needed when target is under ECM bubble protection, and

2) nerf Radar Deprivation, again a ballpark figure is half as effective for Radar Deprivation, and max 75% from skill nodes.

3) Oh, and please let all Legendary Mechs have AMS hardpoint. Thank you!
Before the Legendary Mechs, only Cicada hero mech CDA-X5 did not have AMS hardpoint. What gives??
(For those who think AMS hardpoint is useless, then just don't equip AMS!)

Having a lock on area 2 pixels wide is also a major problem. Its is practicality impossible to get a lock on a fast mover in variable terrain, even on a medium speed mech.
PGI nerfed that about 2 or 3 years ago IIRC. SO now, not only does it take too long to get a lock, the slightest movement off perfect center decays your lock.

And yet there is still that false narrative that LRMS are a newbie low skill weapon. That's ridiculous. If LRMs were "low skill" then we we wouldn't be complaining about how useless they are right now.

Frankly you have to be very crafty and skilled to even use them halfway effectively, and even then it's blind luck if you can even get a shot off.

[kalashnikity]

KursedVixen, on 12 November 2023 - 04:04 PM, said:

C3? we have C3I FOR FREE already, even on clan mechs.

I don't believe it works as it should.

[KursedVixen]

kalashnikity, on 12 November 2023 - 04:07 PM, said:

Right now, even without your target having ECM, it takes too long to get a lock (and the lock zone is far too small) and then fire, even the slowest assault can peak, fire, then get back behind cover for a LRM boat can even return fire. (That is why Cauldron finished off the nerf, they love sniping at range)

At most we will hit the cover the a assault just stepped back behind, you can only at best get a few hits if you dumbfire as soon as they break cover. Adding a guidance after getting lock might be an interesting mechanic, so you could acquire lock after launch, to guide them in just before impact.

That should not be that hard to spaghetti code into place.

yeah I noticed streaks take forever to lock by the time you get a lock the light is either out of your view or you just can't keep up

I wish lock on time was dependant on the weapon but then there's the problem of mixing like streaks and ATMs or streaks and Lrms or lrm and ATms...

kalashnikity, on 12 November 2023 - 04:31 PM, said:

I don't believe it works as it should.

Well I mean that's kinda what we got.

Edited by KursedVixen, 12 November 2023 - 05:01 PM.

[epikt]

Some thoughs.

1/ A weapon system being part of Battletech does not mean it's good for MWO and/or should be implemented in MWO.
For example, the Long Tom is part of Battletech and we saw Long Tom does not work in MWO.

2/ If lock-on weapons are so bad, why are there multiple LRM/ATM boats (even streaks!) in every drops and why they consistently deal high damage and high match score?
And I'm speaking about T1, as I heard the weapon system is even more prevalent in T5.

3/ to personally test point 2 I dropped in my (not even fully skilled) lock-on Summoner, it mostly performed well, despite me not being used to it and I felt my results were way too good for the amount of skill and effort I put into my games.

4/ even assuming they are weak (which they are not really), lock-on weapons have a role in the current state of the game, this is area denial: "if you go in the open, you will be rained". It is then normal, balanced, and working as intended if the target can (if they are fast enough) retreat behind cover.

5/ LongBow is coming soon, so your wish will be granted.

[Besh]

RickySpanish, on 12 November 2023 - 10:00 AM, said:

Someone needs to archive all of these threads somewhere nice and safe for future reference, for when lock on weapons get their inevitable buff (right alongside removing map selection) and everyone realises WHY these changes were made in the first place.

Ikr ? I cant belive we are at the "Buff LRMS ffs" stage . I am expecting a hailstorm of "What tf did you to LRMs, NERF!" if LRMs get to a stage where comp players may look at them at vaible .

Its absolutely funny how these things go .

Edited by Besh, 12 November 2023 - 11:39 PM.

[Curccu]

epikt, on 12 November 2023 - 11:12 PM, said:

Some thoughs.

1/ A weapon system being part of Battletech does not mean it's good for MWO and/or should be implemented in MWO.
For example, the Long Tom is part of Battletech and we saw Long Tom does not work in MWO.

Long Tom could also do what it normally does in BT instead of tactical nukes... But yes very bad implementation

epikt, on 12 November 2023 - 11:12 PM, said:

2/ If lock-on weapons are so bad, why are there multiple LRM/ATM boats (even streaks!) in every drops and why they consistently deal high damage and high match score?
And I'm speaking about T1, as I heard the weapon system is even more prevalent in T5.

Played about 6 hours in a row Saturday, encountered Lurms twice, streaks once... they didn't do that well.

epikt, on 12 November 2023 - 11:12 PM, said:

4/ even assuming they are weak (which they are not really), lock-on weapons have a role in the current state of the game, this is area denial: "if you go in the open, you will be rained". It is then normal, balanced, and working as intended if the target can (if they are fast enough) retreat behind cover.

Compared to Gauss/HAG/ERLL/ERPPC area denial LRMs are stupidly weak and hard to use. With those weapon I can deny LRM mech doing any LOS shooting or it just dies.

epikt, on 12 November 2023 - 11:12 PM, said:

5/ LongBow is coming soon, so your wish will be granted.

There is gonna be a lot of disappointed people unless some heavy changes happen before that release.

[RickySpanish]

Besh, on 12 November 2023 - 11:32 PM, said:

Ikr ? I cant belive we are at the "Buff LRMS ffs" stage . I am expecting a hailstorm of "What tf did you to LRMs, NERF!" if LRMs get to a stage where comp players may look at them at vaible .

Its absolutely funny how these things go .

Round and around and around... What do we call that? Rotato featuro?

[pbiggz]

RickySpanish, on 13 November 2023 - 06:11 AM, said:

Round and around and around... What do we call that? Rotato featuro?

Its always been a cycle.

Before the cauldron took over was gauss and PPCs not sort of coming back into the meta? Not by dint of being buffed, but buy dint of having not been nerfed lately. Paul just went in a circle nerfing down whatever percolated to the top, until his first nerfs had become the best again because he'd nerfed everything else around it.

And yes, a remotely competent game designer would not have fallen into that "trap". Everything about paul's work screamed "I dont give a **** about this game, everyone stop yelling at me".

[Runecarver]

pbiggz, on 12 November 2023 - 02:03 PM, said:

If it hasn't been put into words here yet, I would add to this that lock on weapons are basically impossible to properly balance in this game. If they are good enough to use, they're basically instantly oppressive. If they are not instantly oppressive, they are not worth using.

There isn't really any meaningful way to walk that tight rope for the designers. Changes need to be made to the actual mechanics of lockons, and their interactions with other equipment. These are far beyond what I expect will ever happen to this game, so absent that, the choice is either make them good, or make them bad. The cauldron have chosen to make them bad, because, arguably, it makes everything else good. Sucks, but im not sure what else you can do without the engineering resources.

Its entirely possible to balance them while limiting their "oppressiveness." The major stumbling points for lock ons as a whole are ECM and radar deprivation being too strong, missiles being too slow, LRMs have a redundant minimum range they're not really supposed to, ATMs having redundant minimum range and being a bit too spread out that forces them to be boated in order to have a chance against AMS, and Streaks not having enough DPS.

LRMs can be made much faster and their minimum range reduced while toning down their DPS. You achieve this by increasing their cooldown and heat a bit, and giving them drastic ghost heat penalties to force players to stagger fire them according to existing group values. Could also increase their range so that they're actually long range missiles.

The Artemis IV Fire Control System upgrade can be made into a viable sidegrade by letting it remove minimum range entirely and having it provide an additional boost to speed so that players could use them in direct sight firefights more reliably, since apparently the spread reduction mechanic this upgrade provides only works against targets in direct line of sight, not indirect.

ATMs are in the best shape, but frankly they need a bit more velocity and their volley to be reduced (as in they come out packed together a bit more) to be able to be used at mid ranges more. Also, their minimum range might as well be done away with entirely. Their missile tracking value is low enough that they're not super effective against fast moving or small targets up close.

Streaks lack DPS wholesale. They can't increase their damage in order to avoid them becoming hard counters to light mechs, but thats fine. Just improve their DPS by reducing cooldown and heat values (and possibly increasing ghost heat groups) so that they achieve more DPS than SRMs because of their forced spread all over a target, and their requirement to have lock to fire. This way you make them far more efficient against bigger targets while still mitigating their lethality against lighter targets. They also could do with a bit more speed, and IS Streaks could do with a tiny bit more range.

Its entirely possible to do cool stuff with the tools available, that doesn't require yet another redesign of the locking system when this one does function just fine. Just needs the counters efficiency toned a bit.

KursedVixen, on 12 November 2023 - 04:04 PM, said:

C3? we have C3I FOR FREE already, even on clan mechs.

No they do not. This is mechanically just basic sensor systems from battletech tabletop rules. The C3 computer network provides additional accuracy bonuses to friendlies, with the C3 master unit additionally functioning like a TAG laser.

[RickySpanish]

pbiggz, on 13 November 2023 - 07:15 AM, said:

Its always been a cycle.

Before the cauldron took over was gauss and PPCs not sort of coming back into the meta? Not by dint of being buffed, but buy dint of having not been nerfed lately. Paul just went in a circle nerfing down whatever percolated to the top, until his first nerfs had become the best again because he'd nerfed everything else around it.

And yes, a remotely competent game designer would not have fallen into that "trap". Everything about paul's work screamed "I dont give a **** about this game, everyone stop yelling at me".

They barely had any means to test either though, and not much in the way of sanity checking the changes they made. Typos don't make it into production if you have unit tests or people reviewing check-ins. Yeah part of it was design choices, but I also think there was/is an element of the process and tools being error prone.

Edited by RickySpanish, 13 November 2023 - 10:05 AM.

[Der Geisterbaer]

KursedVixen, on 12 November 2023 - 04:04 PM, said:

C3? we have C3I FOR FREE already, even on clan mechs.

Tell me you don't know about original Battletech technology in general and C3/C3i in particular without explicitly telling me that you don't know.

[Weeny Machine]

Lock on weapons are really problematic...especially the inidrect fire part. They can lock down the complete gameplay and again we are in camping mode.

The next problem is...imagine you sit in a light mech, wait for the perfect moment to attack, your victim is finally isolated, you attack...then your targets pop a UAV and you get "missile incoming". Yeah, great fun! You got shot by your intended victim and missiles and all just because of a button press - zero skill needed. That is a hardcounter to light mechs.

Point is: buff the direct fire mode and reward people for exposing themselves and get their own locks, but leave them weak in indirect fire or the sniping and camping will get even worse.

I use LRMs once in a blue moon so take this with a grain of salt but what frustrated me most was the overlapping ECMs basically made me target the enemy for ages while he fired at me and ducked into cover and even dumb firing them made a lot miss the target. So...maybe increase dumb firing speed as well?

Edited by Weeny Machine, 13 November 2023 - 10:50 AM.

[LordNothing]

Der Geisterbaer, on 13 November 2023 - 10:40 AM, said:

Tell me you don't know about original Battletech technology in general and C3/C3i in particular without explicitly telling me that you don't know.

c3 as a concept is completely different from its implementation by a game of a certain format. in video game format it worked out quite well in mwll as a means to add depth to information warfare. of course having that in mwo is meaningless without passive sensors, or the tag/narc mechanics, or large maps, or respawn, or match times upwards of an hour.

[pbiggz]

Runecarver, on 13 November 2023 - 07:36 AM, said:

Its entirely possible to balance them while limiting their "oppressiveness." The major stumbling points for lock ons as a whole are ECM and radar deprivation being too strong, missiles being too slow, LRMs have a redundant minimum range they're not really supposed to, ATMs having redundant minimum range and being a bit too spread out that forces them to be boated in order to have a chance against AMS, and Streaks not having enough DPS.

LRMs can be made much faster and their minimum range reduced while toning down their DPS. You achieve this by increasing their cooldown and heat a bit, and giving them drastic ghost heat penalties to force players to stagger fire them according to existing group values. Could also increase their range so that they're actually long range missiles.

The Artemis IV Fire Control System upgrade can be made into a viable sidegrade by letting it remove minimum range entirely and having it provide an additional boost to speed so that players could use them in direct sight firefights more reliably, since apparently the spread reduction mechanic this upgrade provides only works against targets in direct line of sight, not indirect.

ATMs are in the best shape, but frankly they need a bit more velocity and their volley to be reduced (as in they come out packed together a bit more) to be able to be used at mid ranges more. Also, their minimum range might as well be done away with entirely. Their missile tracking value is low enough that they're not super effective against fast moving or small targets up close.

Streaks lack DPS wholesale. They can't increase their damage in order to avoid them becoming hard counters to light mechs, but thats fine. Just improve their DPS by reducing cooldown and heat values (and possibly increasing ghost heat groups) so that they achieve more DPS than SRMs because of their forced spread all over a target, and their requirement to have lock to fire. This way you make them far more efficient against bigger targets while still mitigating their lethality against lighter targets. They also could do with a bit more speed, and IS Streaks could do with a tiny bit more range.

Its entirely possible to do cool stuff with the tools available, that doesn't require yet another redesign of the locking system when this one does function just fine. Just needs the counters efficiency toned a bit.

What you're suggesting is blanket buffs to all lock on weapons such that the opportunity cost is justified. If they do this, and especially, if they nerf the countermeasures hard enough, then the issue flips on its head, and lockon weapons become oppressive almost instantly.

Case in point, if you make streaks good enough to fight anything bigger than a light, by definition its oppressive to lights. There is no way around it with the current mechanics that exist in the game.

Runecarver, on 13 November 2023 - 07:36 AM, said:

No they do not. This is mechanically just basic sensor systems from battletech tabletop rules. The C3 computer network provides additional accuracy bonuses to friendlies, with the C3 master unit additionally functioning like a TAG laser.

Accuracy based bonuses are not reflected in mechwarrior; those are strictly a tabletop/dice rolling thing.

LordNothing, on 13 November 2023 - 11:11 AM, said:

c3 as a concept is completely different from its implementation by a game of a certain format. in video game format it worked out quite well in mwll as a means to add depth to information warfare. of course having that in mwo is meaningless without passive sensors, or the tag/narc mechanics, or large maps, or respawn, or match times upwards of an hour.

Barring match times of up to an hour, which wouldnt work in this game, all of those things are things we should have had from the beginning, but eh.

[LordNothing]

pbiggz, on 13 November 2023 - 11:25 AM, said:

Barring match times of up to an hour, which wouldnt work in this game, all of those things are things we should have had from the beginning, but eh.

control of the battlefield takes time to set up. get units deployed and control spawn points. there is no way you are doing that in a 15 minute format.

as for the streak thing i think part of the reason is that the guaranteed hit suits turn based gameplay better than real time gameplay. borrow a mechanic from space sims and make any locked weapon evadable. missiles can turn at a fixed rate, and lights can simply outturn them where as bigger mechs cannot, then you have your means to buff them in a way that op against a specific weight class while useless against others. you could apply that to any other homing weapon type.

the ability to spoof targeting with flares or other countermeasures would also be ok. you could have flare dispensers or chaff that fit in your ams slot which you can fire off manually when you have incoming missiles.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 November 2023 - 11:44 AM.

[pbiggz]

LordNothing, on 13 November 2023 - 11:34 AM, said:

control of the battlefield takes time to set up. get units deployed and control spawn points. there is no way you are doing that in a 15 minute format.

lots of shooters do it.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Yeah, while I do have rosy memories of MW4-esque matches, I really don't think it is conducive to trying to attract more players in. An hour long match is just too damn long, even the current 15 minute matches are just too long. While I love the large MW4 maps, I just don't think they would work in this day and age and IMO that's fine, I don't think it is necessary for Mechwarrior to be Mechwarrior nor does it help it be successful.

[LordNothing]

pbiggz, on 13 November 2023 - 11:40 AM, said:

lots of shooters do it.

you mean lots of shooters, i dont play, because they are boring.

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 13 November 2023 - 12:34 PM, said:

Yeah, while I do have rosy memories of MW4-esque matches, I really don't think it is conducive to trying to attract more players in. An hour long match is just too damn long, even the current 15 minute matches are just too long. While I love the large MW4 maps, I just don't think they would work in this day and age and IMO that's fine, I don't think it is necessary for Mechwarrior to be Mechwarrior nor does it help it be successful.

i do admit some of those mwll sessions can be a total slog. play two games and youre spent. 30 minute format would be better if we could do it in a way that people want to play. the 15 minute format really doesnt give you time to do anything.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 November 2023 - 12:41 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

LordNothing, on 13 November 2023 - 12:40 PM, said:

i do admit some of those mwll sessions can be a total slog. play two games and youre spent. 30 minute format would be better if we could do it in a way that people want to play. the 15 minute format really doesnt give you time to do anything.

I mean Counterstrike does more with 2 minutes than MWO does with 15 in a typical match. I'm not saying we need to speed things up that fast, but 15 minutes is slow and it has nothing to do with MWO being more "tactical" and everything to do with mobility and TTK. Rotations take longer in MWO, and TTK is higher so the matches typically have longer periods of teams looking for openings.