769 replies to this topic

[Elder Thorn]

Greg Djekow, on 09 November 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

Fixed that for you

Brawling isn't everything. However the LRM "nerf" is good.

basically that is what i was saying, so i am wondering if you did read and understand my post.

Edit: or if i did missunderstand yours

Edited by Elder Thorn, 09 November 2012 - 10:41 AM.

[qki]

The last hotfix seems to be spot-on Don't use LRMs myself, so it's from a purely "getting hit with them" standpoint.
Dunno how easy it is to put together an LRM boat that doesn't suck - haven't tried.

[WarMonkey14]

bump.

agreed

[DaZur]

+1

For too long Fire-Support Mech pilots have been using LRMs as their primary assault weapon. Problem is they are not assault Mechs... LRM canonically have never been or intended as "Kill" weapons but support & suppress. They've been happily benefitting from them in this capacity.

The recent patch simply realigned the LRM Mechs to their proper role of Fire-Support, which for obvious reasons, has left them feeling impotent and ineffective comparatively.

In the grander scheme of things for the benefit of all and the franchise, the recent patch has nudged the role-warfare ideology of each Mech having a purpose and a defined role back into the right direction... Which is a good thing.

[Butane9000]

Now first and foremost. Long Range Missiles did way too much damage before the hotfix. End of story. So before you try to flame me please read.

I feel overall that LRMs have taken far too much of a damage hit. I can analyze the damage hit with my Hunchback HBk-4J before and after patch.

Before patch my HBK-4J had 59 alpha damage. It's armament was 2 small lasers and a LRM10 and LRM15. So subtract 6 damage from 59 to remove the small lasers and you have 53. If you divide that by 25 missiles each missle was doing roughly 2.12 damage.

Now after patch my damage is 48.5 so if you subtract 6 from the two small lasers then I have 42.5 damage from LRMs. Which means missiles are doing 1.7 damage a piece. That's a 20% drop in effectiveness.

Now while for some who use Artemis may not have the problem of having a majority of their LRMs miss. I have noticed while firing on a target in the open a majority of my LRMs will miss even though I have kept a solid lock throughout. Specifically in a mass of 25 LRMs without artemis I have been lucky to see more then 10 hit on average.

This is talking about a moving mech without AMS. Even slow Atlases I have seen dodge 5-10 of the missiles. So much so that Artemis fells necessary now. The only time I have been able to see a clear significant impact with regular non-artemis LRMs is when the target is completely immobile.

Aside from this I have noticed LRMs not tracking damage properly. In one game I fired off roughly 600 of my 720 standard LRMs and only had 183 damage. Yes I know from watching I saw at the very least 300 hit. So my damage should have been somewhere in the 500 region.

All I can say is LRM damage was overnerfed when you consider it without an Artemis upgrade as the Devs made them much more inaccurate. I wouldn't consider raising LRM damage nearly as high as it was because they were blatantly OP. However I would consider a .05 to .125 at the maximum increase in damage ideally in the .075 to .1 range.

As it stands now Artemis feels necessary to hit anything with large amounts of LRMs but not all builds support this. Also if anything feels necessary to have then isn't that opposite the intention of the developers?

Edited by Butane9000, 09 November 2012 - 11:06 AM.

[NaerahQc]

On my TRIAL cata-c1, each salvo of lrm15(i shoot both separatly, so 15 missiles) seems to be doing 1% to 2% damage on an atlas, before patch i could be doing 5-6% per salvo. I agree that this was too much damage, but i still like to see them do 1-2% more damage(between 2-4%, ). If 2.0 was too strong and 1.7(if it's the real number) seem not enough, i suggest getting them back at 1.85. The perfect in between imo. Still i'd like to hear something from a dev about the actual damage of lrms.

[TheUnderking]

To quote all the LRM boaters over the last two patches : It's fine L2P. It's a SUPPORT WEAPON. Keep your distance, use terrain.

My opinion:
LRMs are fine, they are still the only weapon in game that does 170% of it's tabletop damage value!. If I stand out in the open, I still get wrecked by them. LRMs were stupidly powerful before. I was doing 1300+ damage a game starting in my second drop as an ArtemisLRM catapult.

[Mongoose Trueborn]

LRMs are fine. LL need a major boost.

[Mongoose Trueborn]

Neg, LRMS are fine. LL needs a major boost tho.

[Trynn]

<sub>Everything has it Drawbacks and Strengths, The LRM is a multi purpose tool as has been pointed out, It has direct and indirect fire capability. The only weapon in the game with that, so if you have to wait a few seconds to get a lock, so be it, it greatly increases your hit chances against a moving mech.

Gauss, Ac20's any ballistic weapon, does not lock, and when fire has no guarantee to hit, if you have no lead your target correctly. you miss. LRMs will seek out there target if you still have LOS on the target (yours or an allies).

Prior to the patch the concentration was insane and the seeking on the missles was insane, I watched them arc over or around builings to hit me...there was NO cover from them them. I use LRMs, as well as brawlers. Currently I am more than happy with the way they are running now.

If you think that launching 600 missles at an Atlas that will not fall down, try taking out a Jenner or commando with direct fire weapons. and then try to whine.

As with everything, adapt and change or become irrelevant. and thak you PGI for fixing LRM's because for a while if you where not and LRM boat you where just a stat.

Having said that, I can see some tinkering be needed when the ECM's come out....but until then....YAY patch</sub>

[Butane9000]

Mongoose Trueborn, on 09 November 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

Neg, LRMS are fine. LL needs a major boost tho.

I disagree, hence why I posted. LL seems fine, haven't used it since the heat change though.

[TheUnderking]

If I get this right you're advocating increasing LRM damage from 1.7/missile to 2.25-2.95/missile? Sorry, I cannot agree for a weapon that requires you to aim in their general direction and fire.

LRMs are already godlike compared to how they are on tabletop, they do 70% bonus damage. On TT you'd hit about 60% against a typical target without AMS.

[Christof Romulus]

WillyPete, on 08 November 2012 - 01:34 PM, said:

Turn off your auto-rearm, add craploads of ammo and after one match you will automatically get 75% ammo free.

True Story.

My missile boat atlas brings 75% of 15 tons of LRM ammo, which is over 2000 shots and its FREE GLORIOUSLY FREE!

Until they nerf welfare ammo =P

[Butane9000]

TheUnderking, on 09 November 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

If I get this right you're advocating increasing LRM damage from 1.7/missile to 2.25-2.95/missile? Sorry, I cannot agree for a weapon that requires you to aim in their general direction and fire.

LRMs are already godlike compared to how they are on tabletop, they do 70% bonus damage. On TT you'd hit about 60% against a typical target without AMS.

No I am advocating a incease from 1.7 to a maximum of 1.825. It appears I misplaced a decimal I will edit the post.

Edit: Fixed it in the original post.

Thontor, on 09 November 2012 - 11:02 AM, said:

Thing is, going by the numbers, they weren't over nerfed... 15% less damage isn't much of a drop...

But something else changed, they are doing a lot less damage than that.... I have a feeling there is some kind of bug that nerfed them much more than intended.

It's a 20% decrease not a 15%. Also that could be possible that there is a bug, considering previous patches.

Edited by Butane9000, 09 November 2012 - 11:06 AM.

[warp103]

Robdillard, on 09 November 2012 - 10:32 AM, said:

How about 187 m min range? how about requiring a target lock? Everything has drawbacks but since the last patch lrms arent really viable you would be better off mounting direct fire weapons then using them currently as a slow atlas in the open can avoid the bulk of the damage just by walking from lrms

No we want weapons that do not work. this is the future and precision missile are not available lol. We have electro-optical imager (IIR) seeker or a W band radar seeker in the nose of the missile. Once the target is identified, the missile needs no further guidance during flight; it is "fire-and-forget", and the missile operator is free to retreat. So how the hell in the future we are stuck with LOS lol but railgun {guass}works better then the guided ammo .TT had it right and MWO making new rules.

NaerahQc, on 09 November 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

On my TRIAL cata-c1, each salvo of lrm15(i shoot both separatly, so 15 missiles) seems to be doing 1% to 2% damage on an atlas, before patch i could be doing 5-6% per salvo. I agree that this was too much damage, but i still like to see them do 1-2% more damage(between 2-4%, ). If 2.0 was too strong and 1.7(if it's the real number) seem not enough, i suggest getting them back at 1.85. The perfect in between imo. Still i'd like to hear something from a dev about the actual damage of lrms.

so basically you are getting a 66% reduction for something that was only suppose to get a 15% reduction

Edited by warp103, 09 November 2012 - 11:15 AM.

[TheUnderking]

Thontor, on 09 November 2012 - 10:59 AM, said:

Except they clearly aren't doing 170% of TT like intended, that's the point of this thread.

You got 1300 damage before the Nov. 8 hotfix? How about now?

Now I don't play boring assed LRM boats because I can play the fun way (brawling/sniping) without getting wrecked by the 7 LRM boats on the other team.

PS. Support != top damage in game.

[SmithMPBT]

WarMonkey14, on 08 November 2012 - 10:47 PM, said:

well then why the **** should a weapon that does not require careful aim or line of sight be allowed to do the same damage as an ac20, which does require both as well as gets less ammo per ton and weighs way more in tonnage.

so yes it is our opinion, but seriously our opinion makes sense in terms of balance. LRMs not being a support weapon and comparing them in the same category as an AC-20 is ridiculous. if you played battletech, you should feel ashamed of such a statement. I'm ashamed i found it on this forum. Just my opinion

I couldn't have explained it better!

[EtherDragon]

Hi Devs!

Hey, thanks for toning down the LRMs lately. I think with their current DPS and spread, they feel just about right; Any futher tweaks should be very minor.

I am coming before you with a "but" however... I hate fractional damage numbers, for purely aesthetic reasons. I know in the game fractions of damage doesn't hurt anything - it all adds up the same. But in the current damage charts, we have only two weapons that do not deliver a whole number in over-all damage; That is the LRM5 and the LRM 15.

The reason for this fraction is due to the math of multiplying an odd decimal by an odd number (you always end up with an odd fraction). If LRM damage was buffed ever so slightly to 1.8 per missle, then the fractions disappear.

Any other tweaks needed for LRMs could be handled in ROF, Impulse, and behavior/grouping adjustments.

P.S. I really love how LRMs are functioning now. I love Boating them, I love fighting against them, LRMs are 100% more fun right now, to me! (But I still hate fractional damage.)

[Elder Thorn]

i am currently playing catapults to get them to elite or master.
When i was playing them before hotfix.. it was fun for about 10 matches, after that i switched to a Jenner and we made a wolfpack of 4 to take out enemy LRMers - turned out, everyone forgot how to play and we won one match after the other by capping - doing 0 damage.

Now after the Hotfix, i feel my Catapult back to a point where it belongs. It's a support Mech, softening up the enemys armor to allow the direct fire guys to kill it easier. IMO, this is how it should be. I think, why people think they got nerfed more than intended is, that they are missing a lot more.

Edit: Forgot to add: What i think is a bit over the top right now, are the rearm costs for a catapult. This is to a point, where i just refuse to play a cat in a PUG match, because even with about 700 or more damage done (which only occurs if you are in a bad team and doing the job allone in your LRM boat anyway) i am losing a good pile of money when the match is lost.

I agree, that you SHOULD be losing money when losing a match, this should either be for everyone or no one, but not only to Catapults

Edited by Elder Thorn, 09 November 2012 - 11:22 AM.

[Belphagor]

While I don't think anyone would argue that they were temporarily OP they needed to do something different with their hotfix.

They should've just reverted to the pre-artemis state of LRMs, while dropping damage to 1.7ish

Some might say- well that is what they did. According to the numbers and how many missiles just are not registering now... they really didn't. Something got messed up in the code somewhere so it feels like ~1.25 damage compared to the pre-artemis days.

Compared to what we had before artemis, tag also now seems slightly less effective, 'normal' LRMs are more spread, and artemis LRMs are now about as spread as normal LRMs used to be. All while keeping the high costs. Sure you can play the 75% re-arm game, but LRMs are not worth the cost anymore. And perhaps that is a good thing... enough people will quit playing them, players will stop carrying so much AMS again and things will work themselves out in the long run.

I just hope ECM doesn't make the currently weakened LRMs completely useless.
If playing the balancing act of [worthless, field at least 1, field several, or all mechs must have] we've moved from 'must have' to field 1... which is about where it should be, hopefully ECM won't pull that down to worthless.