205 replies to this topic

[Bleary]

Noth, on 07 November 2012 - 06:28 AM, said:

This is why they are overpowering in PUG matches. THey could flat out kill anything in the open at range with no threat of being shot at fatser than nearly every other weapon system in teh game that require LOS. Just because an orgainzed group can counter them with ease, doesn't mean that they are fine in pugs. In fact it shows a poor design of a weapon. Useless in one area, but potentially overpowering in another dednding solely on ability to use 1-2 strategies. That is horrid design. There are ways to make the LRM useful in competitive play yet not overpowering in PUG matches. I dont want LRMs useless anywhere in the game, and I don't want them to be overpowering in any part of the game either. I want them back to what they were meant to be, a support weapon, not a direct kill weapon.

Did you read my post? I have no idea what you're responding to. I did not find LRMs overpowering in PuG matches before the patch. Full stop. They did not flat out kill everything at range when I used them, and they did not flat out kill me when I took potshots at them with my Gauss Hunch or ran around with SRMs and medium lasers. They almost never scored at the top of the table and 90% of matches were decided by whichever team did the most stupid **** in the main brawl, after which any LRM 'Mechs hanging back got to face the rest of the enemy team by themselves. I know for a fact that my own LRM Hunch never outscored my SSRM/laser Hunch. Not once. Not in a single match. It spent far too much time solo dueling enemy Jenners or getting hopelessly rolled after the rest of the team died 4 minutes in. That's what I experienced.

If your experience was different, awesome. But I'm not a rare exception. That's why we had thread after thread of endless arguments about LRMs.

But again: this is all pre-patch. What's the point of opening up the old argument again? There was never a consensus on the board over how strong LRMs were before. I'm not going to agree with you, and you're not going to agree with me. All we can do is tell each other how our respective matches went. And in the meanwhile, LRMs are now completely different and I fully agree that new 90 degree flight path breaks them in half. So.

Edited by Bleary, 07 November 2012 - 06:43 AM.

[potatoparrot]

Noth, on 07 November 2012 - 06:38 AM, said:

AMS blanket is meant directly to counter LRM spam without having to remain in cover, it really doesn't counter anything else at all. There are two strats sorry and one tactic. The Strats are AMS blankets and having lights go harrass the LRMs while you hide in over. The tactic is hide in cover. Streaks could effectively kill any mech and effectively countered any mech not just lights. I could counter streaks by just using what was available on my mech, I didn't have to mount anything special. Heck I could even counter them in their dedicated range by being a good shot. Sniper I could counter by small terrain changes and good unpredictable movement. A small hill could effectively stop a sniper shot or throw the aim off enough it would hit something much less vital.

Post patch is only showing increased symptoms (the few counters no longer work) of a poorly design weapons systems.

I certainly agree that weaponry is presently atrociously balanced, primarily due to PGI's insistance of introducing a weapon system or feature before its logical effective counter.

I mean really, what were they thinking? Significantly increasing the potency of a weapon system that was previously reasonably well balanced, with the only other change being a slight rebalancing of heat and a miniscule buff to the AC/20?

The unfortunate side-effect is that I'm betting next patch not only will LRMs get nerfed quite heavily, but later down the line ECM will be introduced, further decreasing their effectiveness and shunting them out of the game entirely. Perhaps BAP will bring them back in, too...

Disconcerting how MWO has developed a bizarre kind of arms race with its features...

[Noth]

Bleary, on 07 November 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

Did you read my post? I have no idea what you're responding to. I did not find LRMs overpowering in PuG matches before the patch. Full stop. They did not flat out kill everything at range when I used them, and they did not flat out kill me when I took potshots at them with my Gauss Hunch or ran around with SRMs and medium lasers. They almost never scored at the top of the table and 90% of matches were decided by whichever team did the most stupid **** in the main brawl, after which any LRM 'Mechs hanging back got to face the rest of the enemy team by themselves. I know for a fact that my own LRM Hunch never outscored my SSRM/laser Hunch. Not once. Not in a single match. It spent far too much time solo dueling enemy Jenners or getting hopelessly rolled after the rest of the team died 4 minutes in. That's what I experienced.

If your experience was different, awesome. But I'm not a rare exception. That's why we had thread after thread of endless arguments about LRMs.

But again: this is all pre-patch. What's the point of opening up the old argument again? There was never a consensus on the board over how strong LRMs were before. I'm not going to agree with you, and you're not going to agree with me. All we can do is tell each other how our respective matches went. And in the meanwhile, LRMs are now completely different and I fully agree that new 90 degree flight path breaks them in half. So.

Point of it is that the problems in this patch are simply increased symptoms of a poorly design weapons system that has so few counters it is easily counter in an organized group but is so powerful it can dominate the battlefield in an unorganized group.

Jings, on 07 November 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

I certainly agree that weaponry is presently atrociously balanced, primarily due to PGI's insistance of introducing a weapon system or feature before its logical effective counter.

I mean really, what were they thinking? Significantly increasing the potency of a weapon system that was previously reasonably well balanced, with the only other change being a slight rebalancing of heat and a miniscule buff to the AC/20?

The unfortunate side-effect is that I'm betting next patch not only will LRMs get nerfed quite heavily, but later down the line ECM will be introduced, further decreasing their effectiveness and shunting them out of the game entirely. Perhaps BAP will bring them back in, too...

Disconcerting how MWO has developed a bizarre kind of arms race with its features...

Exactly, the only way to actually fix the issue, is to change how the LRMs actually work along with the equipment counters to LRMs. But frankly, I've given up hoping that PGI will realize this and instead just get stuck in this buff, nerf, introduce new counter, buff again cycle without actually acknowledging the real issue.

Edited by Noth, 07 November 2012 - 06:49 AM.

[deputydog]

Wait till Beagle probes are in and the scout can see you behind a wall..

Better have an ecm unit by you at all times.. except that you need that ecm unit to go jarm their lrms.. not their scout..
Its all tactics and hopefully they limit ecm or everyone will carry it and beagle will be useless..

[Raalic]

Artemis and ECM probably should have been released at the same time. All I'm saying.

[Orzorn]

Jings, on 07 November 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

Disconcerting how MWO has developed a bizarre kind of arms race with its features...

This is happening because PGI has a habit of buffing/nerfing items until they are snugly in place (in my opinion, for LRMs last patch, a little TOO snugly), then when they introduce a weapon system that makes those weapons more powerful, they end up overpowered.

It doesn't help that LRMs have a grand total of 4 items that buff their performance (NARC, TAG, Artemis, BAP). I imagine this is pretty difficult to balance.

[Myrenous]

Absolutley LRMs have become the Key factor to victory i cored a Atlas with like 4 volleys last night even tho he had AMS, then i owned a jenner with 2 volleys even tho he was moving at full speed, at the moment i have no reason to play my smaller mechs becuase with the new hit detection they die in 4 seconds (even tho they are missing on my screen by a lot) on my bigger mechs ive opted for dedicated LRM builds becuase i will out score everyone on the team and get the most kills. this latest patch actually feels like a step backwards.

[Bleary]

Noth, on 07 November 2012 - 06:48 AM, said:

Point of it is that the problems in this patch are simply increased symptoms of a poorly design weapons system that has so few counters it is easily counter in an organized group but is so powerful it can dominate the battlefield in an unorganized group.

I did not see disorganized LRM 'Mechs dominating the battlefield. I saw them scoring middle of the pile, getting locked into deathspirals with roaming Jenners, or helplessly watching their team split into three groups and die piecemeal before their supporting fire could make a difference. I don't agree with you. I didn't see what you saw. Arguing over this serves no purpose.

it's certainly not something intrinsic to the LRM's design, either. Long range indirect fire isn't unbalancing by itself. LRMs have moved throughout the balance range over the beta, from being too strong to mostly useless to middle of the road to where they are at the moment (ludicrous).

Make a single AMS meaningful against a single LRM volley. This was true once upon a time. It's not true now. Make the flight arc shallow enough that being in the deadzone of a terrain feature protects you. This was true from the time they changed the arc in early beta, until now. Make LRM course correction slow enough that fast lights can dodge an appreciable percentage of the missiles. Again, this is no longer the case.

Locking indirect fire weapons aren't broken unless you break them. Same as any other weapon in the game.

Edited by Bleary, 07 November 2012 - 07:06 AM.

[chaosdaemon]

siLve00, on 07 November 2012 - 05:36 AM, said:

as for me.. my dodge tactics working much more better + the ams getting down much more missles by now as they coming straight out of nowhere.

the angle is nice and it looks like those 10xlrm shoting those 10 rockets in 2 rows.. again easier for ams.
since there are the trial mechs with ams.. you can build up a very nice wall vs lrms.

i couldnt even tell if some1 is using artemis or not.

but when you see some ppl playing.. no wonder they cry about lrms.. but if that would be fixed it would be something else they would cry about.





so you are saying you need 3 ppl who are working together in a perfect mech setup to kill 1 mech in a few seconds ? wow thats realy new !

if there would be on the other side 3 perfect mechs in a grp guess what would happend to you ?

maybe you should play the game before commenting. Like most all MMO's this game is intended to be played as a team, otherwise it would have been released as a solo game complete with "quests and dragons and" oh wait that's a totally different game. Maybe you should go play tiddly winks or wow or something else, group play is what the game is about otherwise there would be only 1 vs 1 play. People that complained about "premades" just didn't get the whole idea behind games like this. The LRM's are rediculous now, and what they did to lasers (because they were so over powered) is so sad it hurts. Before this patch, the game was fun, it was hella unstable and needed to be worked on in that regard, but now it's just sad. Think I have said all I wnted to say, I am sure ppl will flame this post, but guess what, I don't care..lol

[Fais]

You know its bad when I'm equiping a LRM 10 pack on my Jenner. LRM's have to be balanced. I ran my Atlas Missile Boat (no founders bonus) and I got over 2k experience with only the premium account bonus, in a single battle. LRM's are too powerful. For the old timers, before they opened up closed beta to anyone who could buy a founders pack. I know you all remember when the LRM's were too powerful before? Its worse now.

Edited by Fais, 07 November 2012 - 07:05 AM.

[Marev Kilmer]

Bleary, on 07 November 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

Long range indirect fire isn't unbalancing by itself.

Eh... I have to disagree with you here. As a matter of fact, to me it's ludicrous that you would categorize the current implementation of LRM's as "indirect fire", particularly after the system just received an improvement to hit location. Long range fire in fact CAN be unbalancing if there are no methods to mitigate the strategy. The balance tips even further when the weapon is so highly favored by so many players.

I can't tell you how many premades I have encountered with four or more LRM boats and a few spotters that simply devastate their opposition, regardless of cover or AMS.

I certainly have to agree that no weapon system should be implemented into the game without its counter-balances. Even moreso no weapon system should be UPGRADED while the counters are still absent.

EDIT: Nevermind. I believe you were speaking a position pre-patch, and though I don't necessarily agree that they could have been considered "middle of the road" even then, I can see your point.

Edited by Marev Kilmer, 07 November 2012 - 07:21 AM.

[Bleary]

I didn't categorize the current implementation as anything other than ludicrously broken. I just said that long-range indirect fire isn't broken by itself (as Noth was arguing); it becomes broken when you break it. By, for example, changing the LRM arc so that they unerringly hit any target within 1000 meters unless it's standing in a cave.

Edited by Bleary, 07 November 2012 - 07:23 AM.

[Allekatrase]

Bleary, on 07 November 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

I did not see disorganized LRM 'Mechs dominating the battlefield. I saw them scoring middle of the pile, getting locked into deathspirals with roaming Jenners, or helplessly watching their team split into three groups and die piecemeal before their supporting fire could make a difference. I don't agree with you. I didn't see what you saw. Arguing over this serves no purpose.

it's certainly not something intrinsic to the LRM's design, either. Long range indirect fire isn't unbalancing by itself. LRMs have moved throughout the balance range over the beta, from being too strong to mostly useless to middle of the road to where they are at the moment (ludicrous).

Make a single AMS meaningful against a single LRM volley. This was true once upon a time. It's not true now. Make the flight arc shallow enough that being in the deadzone of a terrain feature protects you. This was true from the time they changed the arc in early beta, until now. Make LRM course correction slow enough that fast lights can dodge an appreciable percentage of the missiles. Again, this is no longer the case.

Locking indirect fire weapons aren't broken unless you break them. Same as any other weapon in the game.

I disagree with you about the state of the game but I agree on the solutions. Also, I think they should have waited on Artemis until they were ready to push out ECM. Another factor is that a large portion of the weapons are significantly weaker than they should be due to heat being completely broken presently. If large energy weapons were usable there would be a lot more damage being dished out in different ways and things might seem more balanced. People might end up dying to fast and armor/damage may need tweaking across the board, but more builds would be viable than are viable currently.

Ballistics and missiles rule this game right now, and with the latest patch missiles became even more prevalent. If there were more chassis with split ballistic hardpoints you'd see this even more. They really need to fix heat so that the energy weapons have a place on anything other than the light-medium chassis. Assaults weren't meant to be boating small-medium lasers, they were built for bigger things.

[Voridan Atreides]

It seems each patch just makes the game worse and worse......

[Bleary]

Heat's a separate issue. Making large energy weapons more usable wouldn't solve the current deal with LRMs. I'm not really sure what buffs could, unless you doubled Gauss damage and made its projectile travel instantaneous or something.

Personally, I'm willing to see how 1.4 double heat sinks go for a while. I like that single heat sinks still have a niche, and that you aren't just assuming you'll drop 1,500,000 C-bills on every chassis the first chance you get. And I don't think it harms the balance for most weapons. The good guns (sm/m lasers, missiles, Gauss, AC/2 and /5 to a lesser extent) are still good guns. The mediocre guns (PPCs, ER weapons, AC/10s and /20s, arguably pulses at the moment) would still be mediocre with 2.0 heat sinks.

The heat penalty on ER weapons is too high, pulses still need some ironing, and PPCs and large bore autocannons need a buff. Mostly faster projectile travel speeds and either the removal of PPC minimum ranges or something else (EMP, etc) to balance it. These need fixing first. Then we can see whether the basic heat scale needs tweaking.

Edited by Bleary, 07 November 2012 - 07:46 AM.

[Bleary]

On another side note, I really don't want ECM to be the go-to countermeasure. That's what AMS is supposed to be for. And having everyone spam ECM to ward off missiles is both unflavorful and boring. ECM's supposed to be a cool piece of tech that dedicated EW scout 'Mechs carry around to disrupt the enemy team. I want it to have a more interesting role than shutting down LRM boats, and I want it to show up on the kinds of 'Mechs that are supposed to have it. Not just anyone who's afraid of LRMs.

Edited by Bleary, 07 November 2012 - 07:47 AM.

[Noth]

Bleary, on 07 November 2012 - 07:44 AM, said:

On another side note, I really don't want ECM to be the go-to countermeasure. That's what AMS is supposed to be for. And having everyone spam ECM to ward off missiles is both unflavorful and boring. ECM's supposed to be a cool piece of tech that dedicated EW scout 'Mechs carry around to disrupt the enemy team. I want it to have more a more interesting role than shutting down LRM boats, and I want it to show up on the kinds of 'Mechs that are supposed to have it. Not just anyone who's afraid of LRMs.

As long as LRMs function as they currently do or even pre patch ECM will be the go to as it is even more effective than AMS. You don't want that to happen, something needs to change with LRMs.

[Shaddock]

Fais, on 07 November 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

. For the old timers, before they opened up closed beta to anyone who could buy a founders pack. I know you all remember when the LRM's were too powerful before? Its worse now.

Not more powerful, but equally as bad. We tested these flight paths and darn near everyone screamed they were ruining the game. Not sure why a few weeks later all testing and tweaking was thrown out.

[Inappropriate745]

I prefer my LRMS to hit thank you, it took me a while to get my own mech with alot of ammo, and install artemis, and now you guys want to hit it with the nerf bat.. Why can't you just play the game and enjoy it like I do instead of trying to make changes to suit your playstyle?

[Noth]

Backstabbing ****, on 07 November 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

I prefer my LRMS to hit thank you, it took me a while to get my own mech with alot of ammo, and install artemis, and now you guys want to hit it with the nerf bat.. Why can't you just play the game and enjoy it like I do instead of trying to make changes to suit your playstyle?

Because we like actual balanced games and not Games where one weapon is so vastly superior to the other that there is no reason to use anything but that.