791 replies to this topic

[Kurayami]

Shi no Kami, on 11 November 2012 - 03:54 AM, said:

....

among many long ranged weapons LRM no longer have any advantages - only drawbacks thus leading to rightful question - why should one use LRM when another long range weapon can do better? and this is not the matter of k\d - this is directly related to w\l, because better have best weapons loadout for desired role to support team better.

[Dorque]

Kaijin, on 11 November 2012 - 03:52 AM, said:

http://everything2.c...eated+assertion

http://www.sarna.net...g_Range_Missile

Or if you can't be bothered:

Quote

First introduced in 2400 by the Terran Hegemony, Long Range Missiles are designed to engage the enemy at great distances at the expense of damage dealt.

Edited by Dorque, 11 November 2012 - 04:06 AM.

[brtz]

Dorque, on 11 November 2012 - 01:09 AM, said:

They are a support weapon and if you want to play a support role it's time to get used to not racking up kills. Because in the end, in this game kills don't matter

You think bolding up keyparts makes your statement correct? Let me correct that for you: Kills matter, it does not matter who is doing them. It is important to kill your opponent because otherwise you will leave some nearly cored but still armed enemy on the field. Current implementation does not allow a face to face standoff between some atlas and an lrm awesome. You will need about 1000 missiles to kill him and he will definitely kill you while charging up the 820 meters you've got.

LRMs are currently no real thread to anybody with ams or buddies with ams. Force them to stay in cover? I just count the lrms on my opponent and if he's got less than I got I just stand in the open. I just know that I don't have to take cover.

So, instead of whining here's my suggestion:
Make LRM+Artemis act like LRMs before nov. 6th patch. They were decent. They did suppress your enemy. They enabled you to face off some assault mech. Without Artemis they should be like they are now. This way Artemis is worth its money and you can actually grind with a lrm build.

I think this is very important as any current build that relies on missiles doesn't make much sense. Take the A1 for example: By now you can either go for lrm and hope to deal enough damage before getting challenged or you can go for srm builds (as streaks got nerfed as well, which was good). Awesome has some disadvantages against Atlas now as they can't run ballistics, so they rely on energy+missile which underperformances.

So... please stop spamming this "support weapon" bs and except that lrms currently are no real thread to anybody. No decent man asks for the way they were in the 48h period. And no decent man is going to base his argument on the tabletop, as this game is a teambased realtime multiplayer shooter/simulation and no turn based game.

[Dorque]

brtz, on 11 November 2012 - 04:22 AM, said:

So... please stop spamming this "support weapon" bs and except that lrms currently are no real thread to anybody. No decent man asks for the way they were in the 48h period. And no decent man is going to base his argument on the tabletop, as this game is a teambased realtime multiplayer shooter/simulation and no turn based game.

LRMs soften, other weapons deal killing blows, and I'll stand by that.

Oh, and I bold my text because I like to type the way I speak, stressing important points. The statement is correct regardless of the formatting.

[wanderer]

Dak Darklighter, on 10 November 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

Why SHOULD a mech that uses mainly one type of weapon be able to solo a mech, including ones that are tougher than it? Instead of complaining, how about you use something in conjunction with the LRM's, like some Large Lasers? Did it ever occur to you that LRM's are not a primary weapon, but a support weapon intended to help the TEAM, not YOURSELF?

All your asking is that LRM's become amazingly dangerous, so that you can solo Atlases all day long, while they can't, because they do not load themselves on LRM's completely.

Gotta quote that first part again:

Quote

Why SHOULD a mech that uses mainly one type of weapon be able to solo a mech, including ones that are tougher than it?

Specialization. And the first thing that should come to mind is everyone's favorite, the Gausscat.

There's a price to specialization, mind you. For LRM carriers that do it too much, there's that 180m dead zone of nothin' doing, the current literal "throwing money" LRM reloads are (to the point where virtually all LRM carriers are taking 75% ammo into fights because reloading is insanely expensive), and the usual host of reasons people give when complaining about the hotfix. But enough of that.

Now, here's the dirty secret about LRMs and "no-skill" play.

I'm going to share it with everyone here, and I'd like you to pass it along. It's important.

LRMs are an inversion of what your average "WAAAAAAH LRMS ARE NO SKILL" player believes is skill.

To them, "skill" involves being able to keep their guns on target and pew pew pewing the location until it goes boom. This is indeed skill.

The "skill" in LRM use rests instead on one's ability to evade and confound them- and to an extent, the LRM user's ability to minimize that chance of evasion. The greater onus lies on the target vs. the firer, as opposed to the other way round on most weapons in MWO.

For most weapons, having bad aim means "no skill".

To me, every QQing target that explodes after being rained to death with nearly 100% hits is a "no-skill" target for LRM use. I've had plenty of opponents that make me work for every missile hit, games where 75% of my ammo has been wasted shots, ones where my ammo bin has gone up in flames because two scouts were smart enough to sneak unseen through the map and put a dozen medium lasers and SRM racks into my backside and one-shot it.

And underneath it all, every player that gets burned by LRM fire feels that subconscious lack of "skill"- and they detest it. Why can the "no-skill" player kill me- this weapon must be OP, NERF IT TO THE GROUND!

Not that evasion or even learning to spread damage isn't a skill learned when dealing with direct fire weaponry. But with LRMs, it takes more practice to learn how to deal with them than to fire them effectively- although that too requires skill, in the form of learning how to make evading those shots harder and what weapons to combine with them to get better effectiveness

And because that skill is different- that is, mastery of a defensive skill is more important rather than an offensive one - you see players howling in dismay at the thought that nasty ol' LRMs should do anything except chip their paint job at 30K/ton. 60k if it's Artemis. And the sad thing is, prior to Artemis and the OP -> UP shift from the hotfix, people were learning that skill.

Hope it comes back.

[ollo]

Dren Nas, on 10 November 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

At random times throughout the beta, I would pick a mech and run out in the open, be spotted, and diesoon afterward to the sky falling on top of my head. At others, I would be the one launching explosive death. I learned that to get away from LRMs you use cover and even powerdown randomly to break targeting locks.

Today, I can sit in my catapult and drop hell on an atlas trudging out in the open with my entire 700+ missiles and not even phase him.

It's quite disheartening to the point that I've even taken all LRMs off my Catapults and replaced them with SRMs or SRM Streaks.... or even removed missiles completely replaced with lasers.. or even dual Gauss (lolgausscat).

My point is that since the LRM nurf, there's really no reason to equip them when other long range weapons deal so much more damage. Oh, and before you say something along the lines of "QQmoar" or "That's all he plays", I have an atlas and yen lo wang that I play quite often.

TL;DR: LRMs have been nurfed too hard.

EDIT: Since there are so many of you that don't care to read through the thread before bashing me because I'm "whining about LRM's not still being broken", I just want to say I'm not. They were broken and op before the hotfix.

For the last time, this isn't a post crying about the needed fix for LRMs. This post is about the hotfix going too far and making them near useless.

+1

I too have tried SRMs on my C1, but they suck even more...

[Dorque]

wanderer, on 11 November 2012 - 04:48 AM, said:

And because that skill is different- that is, mastery of a defensive skill is more important rather than an offensive one - you see players howling in dismay at the thought that nasty ol' LRMs should do anything except chip their paint job at 30K/ton. 60k if it's Artemis. And the sad thing is, prior to Artemis and the OP -> UP shift from the hotfix, people were learning that skill.

Hope it comes back.

Not that I disagree with you on this; LRM avoidance is a skill and an important one.

I think what bothered me about the game pre-patch is that matches were turning into LRM-Avoidance Online. Entire teams would be clustered next to each other behind the largest rock they could find because LRM boats changed the battlefield that much.

I want LRMs to be useful and valid in the role they're meant to play. I'm not sure about now - I've been nailed pretty good by them plenty of times post-patch and I've seen plenty of LRM boaters in this thread stating that they still do fine damage - but before the patch I think they changed the battlefield far too much.

Forcing your foes to play strategically is all well and good but the battlefield needs to have movement or matches get boring and entire "classes" of Mech (short-range brawlers specifically) get to spend the entire game hiding or die near-instantly.

[ollo]

Dorque, on 11 November 2012 - 04:45 AM, said:

LRMs soften, other weapons deal killing blows, and I'll stand by that.

Now WTH should that mean? No one should get a kill with LRMs? What if i shoot an already 'soft' target? And if the 360 LRM of a stock C1 should soften, what is an LRM boat with 1400 supposed to do?

But you've got a slight point, perhaps it might be worth a try to have LRMs do around 1.5 dmg to armor, but only 1 to internals, something like this. That might make them actually useful again without overpowering them.

[wanderer]

Dorque, on 11 November 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

http://www.sarna.net...g_Range_Missile

Or if you can't be bothered:

That's relative to SRMs, which deal twice the damage for less than half the range. It's also why LRM launchers toss more missiles per salvo than SRM launchers and weigh in at considerably more tonnage for the same delivery of damage.

In TT, an SRM 6 (avg 4 missile hit/shot = 8 damage) deals similar damage to an LRM 15 (avg 9 missile hit/shot = 9 damage).

The SRM rack weighs in at 3 tons, the LRM rack more than twice that at 7. To get the damage performance of an LRM 20 (avg 12 damage, 10 ton launcher) you only need 4 tons (SRM 6+ SRM 4 = avg 12 damage, 4 tons worth of launcher instead) of SRMs. LRMs trade punch (and hence have to throw more missiles at higher launcher tonnages) for range, but not for the reasons you stated- LRMs still are killing weapons (believe me, 25 years of chucking them at targets in TT I can tell you that most assuredly), not something that merely "softens them up" for your mighty direct-fire barrages of awesomeness as a "support weapon".

We don't even have the third of the IS launchers-of-love in the game yet- the MRM, which works with the exact same punch per warhead as the LRM (and delivers damage in the same patterns), only as a direct-fire launcher rather than a ballistic-arc one, using the sacrifice of guideable fire to pack more shots per launcher ton + more ammo. But believe me, nobody in BT calls an MRM 20 a "support weapon", or an MRM 40 one for that matter!

[Sarevos]

wanderer, on 11 November 2012 - 05:08 AM, said:

That's relative to SRMs, which deal twice the damage for less than half the range. It's also why LRM launchers toss more missiles per salvo than SRM launchers and weigh in at considerably more tonnage for the same delivery of damage.

In TT, an SRM 6 (avg 4 missile hit/shot = 8 damage) deals similar damage to an LRM 15 (avg 9 missile hit/shot = 9 damage).

The SRM rack weighs in at 3 tons, the LRM rack more than twice that at 7. To get the damage performance of an LRM 20 (avg 12 damage, 10 ton launcher) you only need 4 tons (SRM 6+ SRM 4 = avg 12 damage, 4 tons worth of launcher instead) of SRMs. LRMs trade punch (and hence have to throw more missiles at higher launcher tonnages) for range, but not for the reasons you stated- LRMs still are killing weapons (believe me, 25 years of chucking them at targets in TT I can tell you that most assuredly), not something that merely "softens them up" for your mighty direct-fire barrages of awesomeness as a "support weapon".

We don't even have the third of the IS launchers-of-love in the game yet- the MRM, which works with the exact same punch per warhead as the LRM (and delivers damage in the same patterns), only as a direct-fire launcher rather than a ballistic-arc one, using the sacrifice of guideable fire to pack more shots per launcher ton + more ammo. But believe me, nobody in BT calls an MRM 20 a "support weapon", or an MRM 40 one for that matter!

Indirect fire in the TT game gave you a massive penalty to accuracy if you want the same power and accuracy you should have to maintain los even with the artemis system (which doesnt even do anything if you DONT have los in canon) nobody would mind that

Edited by Sarevos, 11 November 2012 - 05:14 AM.

[alVolVloLy]

Missiles have had a lot of changes this week. I don't have screenies, but I've been using basically the same catapult config throughout the week (2Xlrm15, 4Xssrm2), here is what I've seen, on average.

Monday - roughly 400 damage per match
Tuesday - roughly 800 damage per match
After hotfix (Wednesday?) = roughly 150 damage per match

If that's what is intended, so be it, no problems, but they do seem to be scaled back beyond fixing the obvious problems with the patch on the 6th.

[Sarevos]

alVolVloLy, on 11 November 2012 - 05:15 AM, said:

Missiles have had a lot of changes this week. I don't have screenies, but I've been using basically the same catapult config throughout the week (2Xlrm15, 4Xssrm2), here is what I've seen, on average.

Monday - roughly 400 damage per match
Tuesday - roughly 800 damage per match
After hotfix (Wednesday?) = roughly 150 damage per match

If that's what is intended, so be it, no problems, but they do seem to be scaled back beyond fixing the obvious problems with the patch on the 6th.

dual Ams on the trial atlas is likely the culprit as well as streak spread/miss

Edited by Sarevos, 11 November 2012 - 05:18 AM.

[wanderer]

Sarevos, on 11 November 2012 - 05:14 AM, said:

Indirect fire in the TT game gave you a massive penalty to accuracy if you want the same power and accuracy you should have to maintain los even with the artemis system (which doesnt even do anything if you DONT have los in canon) nobody would mind that

See, some of that I agree with- I expected Artemis to "paint" a target like TAG, only with unlimited range. The pre-hotfix version was, IMO, OP. Standard LRMs were right on the money pre-patch, but the hotfix actually reverted them to an older version with broader spread and lower damage/missile.

On the other hand, greater accuracy for LRMs in MWO I view as fair game- you can't precision-aim a laser at specific locations in TT without *ahem* a massive penalty to accuracy AND the use of tons of additional targeting systems. Don't give me "accuracy" as an excuse to dump on LRMs- nearly every weapon in MWO has major accuracy bonuses vs TT. Even standard SRMs can be clustered into a single hitbox at close range, an impossible feat in TT!

[FrostPaw]

My only real thought on this subject is now they have been reduced in damage and accuracy, and no longer disrupt the targets aim, why would I still be paying the pre fix cost to rearm? Surely that expense was balanced around how much of a cbill reward I was getting pre hotfix?

It seems obvious to me if you make something less effective you can't then justify why it stays expensive.

[RedHairDave]

lrm's are very underpowered right now. really a waste to bring to the fight, that is not right.

[Dorque]

wanderer, on 11 November 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

See, some of that I agree with- I expected Artemis to "paint" a target like TAG, only with unlimited range. The pre-hotfix version was, IMO, OP. Standard LRMs were right on the money pre-patch, but the hotfix actually reverted them to an older version with broader spread and lower damage/missile.

On the other hand, greater accuracy for LRMs in MWO I view as fair game- you can't precision-aim a laser at specific locations in TT without *ahem* a massive penalty to accuracy AND the use of tons of additional targeting systems. Don't give me "accuracy" as an excuse to dump on LRMs- nearly every weapon in MWO has major accuracy bonuses vs TT. Even standard SRMs can be clustered into a single hitbox at close range, an impossible feat in TT!

This is worth stressing; on the one hand a highly-skilled player can eke ridiculous damage out of direct-fire weapons. On the flip side, missiles are the only weapon in the game that aren't an all-or-nothing proposition (setting aside laser arcs which are an entirely different issue).

Edited by Dorque, 11 November 2012 - 05:58 AM.

[Sarevos]

wanderer, on 11 November 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

See, some of that I agree with- I expected Artemis to "paint" a target like TAG, only with unlimited range. The pre-hotfix version was, IMO, OP. Standard LRMs were right on the money pre-patch, but the hotfix actually reverted them to an older version with broader spread and lower damage/missile.

On the other hand, greater accuracy for LRMs in MWO I view as fair game- you can't precision-aim a laser at specific locations in TT without *ahem* a massive penalty to accuracy AND the use of tons of additional targeting systems. Don't give me "accuracy" as an excuse to dump on LRMs- nearly every weapon in MWO has major accuracy bonuses vs TT. Even standard SRMs can be clustered into a single hitbox at close range, an impossible feat in TT!

uh you could take aim for a shot while standing still in TT for a large bonus to accuracy much like in mwo and in TT accuracy was determined by a dice roll to represent the pilots skill and luck. if someone is a good shot with a laser he'd "roll" hits all day. In mwo many times the slightest bump or movement causes you to skim around to other components spreading the damage and point blank with srms how can they miss? its not impossible in TT as rolling well scored critical hits to represent good fortune and amazing skill if someone has those qualities IRL then it should be possible for him to use his skill with direct-fire weapons

Dorque, on 11 November 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

This is worth stressing; on the one hand a highly-skilled player can eke ridiculous damage out of direct-fire weapons. On the flip side, missiles are the only weapon in the game that aren't an all-or-nothing proposition (setting aside laser arcs which are an entirely different issue).

I think lrms should have kept their old power but have poor accuracy for indirect fire and that wouldve been good for balance no?

Edited by Sarevos, 11 November 2012 - 06:03 AM.

[Dorque]

ollo, on 11 November 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

Now WTH should that mean? No one should get a kill with LRMs? What if i shoot an already 'soft' target? And if the 360 LRM of a stock C1 should soften, what is an LRM boat with 1400 supposed to do?

Oh, definitely not saying they can't make kills. I was torn apart by LRM fire more than once today when I accidentally turned my back to it.

What I mean is that the weapon isn't designed to make killing shots. It's designed to soften up hard targets to open them up for a killing blow from your allies. LRMs are useful against a variety of targets but their primary use is to soften up those high-armour, slow-moving Main Battle Tanks that are Assaults and some of the Heavies.

When I'm on my brawler Hunchback I rely quite a bit on the LRM carriers to strip some armour before I get in range because my shots pack a serious punch but against something that well-armed I'm only going to get a couple of them and that softening makes all the difference; it also keeps the snipers from just standing in the open and blasting me into scrap before I can reach them.

That, really, is my fundamental case against giving LRMs too much punch, it just removes too much of the combined-arms strategy that's a staple of BT... pre-patch most premades I ran into were one light scout lance, one heavy fire lance because scouting and LRM bombardment won almost all matches, especially on certain maps (Caustic, anyone?)

[Sarevos]

Dorque, on 11 November 2012 - 06:05 AM, said:

Oh, definitely not saying they can't make kills. I was torn apart by LRM fire more than once today when I accidentally turned my back to it.

What I mean is that the weapon isn't designed to make killing shots. It's designed to soften up hard targets to open them up for a killing blow from your allies. LRMs are useful against a variety of targets but their primary use is to soften up those high-armour, slow-moving Main Battle Tanks that are Assaults and some of the Heavies.

When I'm on my brawler Hunchback I rely quite a bit on the LRM carriers to strip some armour before I get in range because my shots pack a serious punch but against something that well-armed I'm only going to get a couple of them and that softening makes all the difference; it also keeps the snipers from just standing in the open and blasting me into scrap before I can reach them.

That, really, is my fundamental case against giving LRMs too much punch, it just removes too much of the combined-arms strategy that's a staple of BT... pre-patch most premades I ran into were one light scout lance, one heavy fire lance because scouting and LRM bombardment won almost all matches, especially on certain maps (Caustic, anyone?)

the fact is they could obtain pinpoint accuracy without exposing themselves which made it rather unbalanced. Currently lrm spam WILL devastate an opponent but its not the "landing on omaha beach" that it has been before XD

[Viper69]

Dren Nas, on 10 November 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

Why?

If you're going to make such a definitive statement, give us a reason why... and don't say "LRMs are ezmoade!" because they aren't unless some scrub tries to run through a large open area.

They are easy mode. You rely on the work of your team to get your targets that you gleefully push one or two buttons while holding your circle over them for a few seconds, your game gets exciting when someone decides to rush you. LRMs are balanced now because I do not see missile boats dominating matches nor achieving almost double damage numbers than the entire team. It is a hard pill for long time LRM lovers to swallow, but they new in their hearts it was coming.

As for not doing competitive damage? That is funny because in all my 4 man drops the LRM mech in our group was still near the top and still racking up kills.