24 replies to this topic

[HoppinRaven]

After the last small patch, to downtune the effects of Artemis, LRM's have become ineffective as a weapon. When Artemis is not installed the targetting is so bad that more than 60% of a salvo missess, even on a immobile target. With TAG or NARC it only slightly improves and with Artemis it seems to be back to the normal situation before artemis was introduced but due to that the damage per missile is nerfed too it matters little.
Gauss is once again the preferred weapon on the field.

LRM's not being a viable weapon and Gauss again taking the field is detrimental on this game.

To give an idea: LRM Cat with four 10 launchers did around 500-700 damage per game round. Now without Artemis I am glad to get 100-200 damage, with Artemis it improves to between 200 and 400.

This needs a fix.

PS if you are going to reply to this post try to be constructive. Please don't go into another discussion about what weapon should own the battlefield.

[Henree]

I think softening up a target with LRM's and/or LRM's flying to and fro make for a more interesting battle it gives fases to the battle. I'd like to see what happens when ECM and the like will be fully functional to counter lrm's and such. Truth is though that LRM's were really efficient as they were, now to add to that efficiency with Artemis, now that would seriously be overdoing it. I don' t use LRM's much at all but they used to make and sometimes break the battle, i'd like to see the damage increased but the accuracy as it is now or maybe a bit more accurate. I would like to see a shell shock effect like maybe one minute of that fuzzy effect that's a bug...

[Elder Thorn]

500-700 damage is above average i think.
A weapon system that doesn't need THAT much efford (note how i am not saying it doesn't need skill pls) should not deal more than average damage without putting more efford into it.
I agree though, that 100-200 might be a bit low, but i can't confirm that. I managed to get between 400 and 700 damage per round with artemis after the hotfix and it felt pretty right to me. I was not instakilling everything but i was very well able to ruin the day for an atlas if i did somethign different than just sitting there and waiting for him to close in on me.

So asking me, LRMs are in a spot right now, where they should be, question is, how ECM will alter that spot.

[Arisaema]

As a cat player I can certainly validate these problems. Running a Cat-A1 with 2xLRM15 and 2 SSRM2's as close combat weapons, something has been seriously broken. Before with the help of good scouts who can keep lock, I could consistently do 500+ damage, get at least one kill several assists and several crit bonuses and not go run out of ammo. The ammo stores I take are 6-7 tons of LRM ammo and 1 ton of SSRM ammo.

I have since stripped out the SSRM's for regular SRM4's as the streaks are absolutely useless right now, 50% of the time they won't even hit.

[Merlin Moondancer]

After some testing, (10+ drops) I have found that the average damage is lower than before the Artemis introduction. Even if a target is tagged. If I as a LRM pilot expose myself with my center torso toward the target for more than 25 seconds, I'm dead, shot by a GaussCat. A few seconds to lock, at least ten seconds for the missiles to land on target. To fire a AC, PPC or Gauss you can protect yourself by shooting and then turn your torso away.
The damage from a indirect weapon should be a the same but spread across the target. I get more damage from my ER Large CAT than on my LRM 15 CAT. I don't expect to kill people in a LRM boat, just give them a lot of damage across the mech.

Using LRM:s as intended, from behind something gives even less damage, from a LRM 15 I might get 5-6 hits on a slow/standing still target. I had matches when I had solid locks on every target I hit. Lag makes things even worse.

What we need is the Artemis to work as intended, tightening group when I have the enemy LOS.
If then I add my TAG it should be quite deadly. On SRM6, Artemis is a joke, not worth the money at all.

We are back to Gauss Alley sadly. Anything with a Gauss is instakill with a skilled pilot.

I would suggest the following fix, to try things out.

Rollback the damage to 2.0. Keep the trajectory as it is. The reason people was killed was that all missiles hit head and upper torso all because of the wrong flightpath of the missiles. You might even tighten Artemis back to 2.5%.

A note about damage: I have 1050 missiles onboard, at least 50-70% of them should score a hit if target is stationary.
Then deduct the AMS coverage. So 500 hits with a good team should be feasible.

Edited by Merlin Moondancer, 11 November 2012 - 10:53 AM.

[Shivaun]

I agree, LRMs went from OP to rather pointless. LRMs are supposed to work the same way as direct fire support (i.e. sniper) mechs - force people to keep their heads down and use cover so they don't get lit up. Now with current issues with most weapons, the only direct fire support that really keeps people's heads down is dualguass cats. Artemis is a waste of money and slots as it is and I can't imagine anyone is going to use it. TAG itself doesn't seem to add much after the patch, but that could just be my imagination, and since no one uses LRMs anymore, it's a little hard to say.

LRMS aren't necessarily supposed to get a lot of kills but they are supposed to change the flow of the battle and act as area denial weapons. With the current damage, grouping, tracking and weight to dmg ratios, there is no reason to take them and no reason to fear them. Streakcats are meant to be an edge case, not the default role for missile cat pilots.

[Prophet of Entropy]

yea they nerfed the crap out of lrms. with the damage the way they are they could be fire and forget and not be too over powered.

[Curon Hifor]

Agreed, OP

[DifferentFish]

Agreed. I can still get kills with LRMs but I need Artemis and TAG on my mech and even then I really have to work for it. Even with all of that I still fee like I'm less effective than before Artemis was introduced.

[Sir Ollie]

Yeah right now. if i see the "Incoming Missiles" warning i almost laugh, unless it happens to be from 4-5 mechs. I had my DDC set up with 3*15's and before Artimus I could at least stand up to another Assault mech coming toward me. Since the patch I had to fire nearly 500 rounds at one to make make his ARMOUR turn orange. Another match i fired over 1000 lrms at an assault in the open water and at the end of the match my Damage done was only 250?? Thats like a 15% Hit ratio? I mean OK, AMS would kill some. some miss. but in open water, solid view, and no obstructions, there should have been WAY higher damage done.

I think you should put the damage back where it was, as has been stated by others in this tread, it was the Arch or the LRMS that was the biggest issue, With them coming down nearly vertical and nearly all impacting Torso and head locations Mechs melted. With that fixed the LRMs with Artimus SHOULD DO more damage over all then standard. What else are we paying DOUBLE the Ammo cost for?

[Mokyu]

"the firing unit must have line of sight to its target, indirectly fired LRM receives no increase in accuracy." Artemis IV FCS description

What seemed to happen with the implementation of Artemis was that the accuracy applied to every round fired, not just LOS as it should.

After the minipatch I fired 8 x LRM15 salvos into a stationary mech, LOS in the open, my only engagement of the match before we capped. Total damage from 120 missiles was 27.

I recommend Indirect LRM fire go back to what it was pre-Artemis (damage and accuracy) and LOS fire gets an increase in accuracy along with a tighter SRM spread. It think this would put the usefulness of LRMs and Artemis where it should be.

TAG/NARC should provide no accuracy benefits for LOS with Artemis, only quicker lock on.

TAG/NARC should provide normal benefits to Non-LOS fire.

Edited by Mokyu, 11 November 2012 - 09:17 PM.

[Reginald Rawlins]

As an infrequent LRM player, it's difficult for me to gauge the effectiveness of LRMs pre/post nerf. However, as a dedicated Scout/harasser, I can with certainty say that it is no longer worth me to risk my neck scouting for the team. Direct fire support is very strong right now, and it represents a significant risk to stay on target, with an even greater risk incurred if you're trying to run TAG.

It used to be that the skill to keep a lock for your LRM boats and not die in the process was rewarded because it allowed you to counter direct fire stuff like gausscats if you played it smart. Now, with LRMs whiffing left and right, it's just not worth it to play as a spotter or as an LRM boat.

Direct fire and assaults are king now, because the best way to counter them is not in the game anymore.

I know something needed to be done (because it used to be that a half-hearted LRM strike could blow my light 'mech to smithereens instantly), but this is definitely an over-correction.

[White Bear 84]

Better nerfed than LRM-ONLINE!

[DifferentFish]

White Bear 84, on 11 November 2012 - 09:29 PM, said:

Better nerfed than LRM-ONLINE!

No it isn't. Unbalanced is still unbalanced,

[Noth]

The people who can't have success with LRMs need to re learn how to use them. There are still people who use mostly LRMs that can pull 400+ damage and get kills. Further they still mess up my mech.

[Tyrzun]

HoppinRaven, on 11 November 2012 - 09:15 AM, said:

After the last small patch, to downtune the effects of Artemis, LRM's have become ineffective as a weapon. When Artemis is not installed the targetting is so bad that more than 60% of a salvo missess, even on a immobile target. With TAG or NARC it only slightly improves and with Artemis it seems to be back to the normal situation before artemis was introduced but due to that the damage per missile is nerfed too it matters little.
Gauss is once again the preferred weapon on the field.

LRM's not being a viable weapon and Gauss again taking the field is detrimental on this game.

To give an idea: LRM Cat with four 10 launchers did around 500-700 damage per game round. Now without Artemis I am glad to get 100-200 damage, with Artemis it improves to between 200 and 400.

This needs a fix.

PS if you are going to reply to this post try to be constructive. Please don't go into another discussion about what weapon should own the battlefield.

Exactly what are you basing this on?

The effectivness of let's say the PPC? Or ANY aimed weapon at range? Are you saying these LRMS are more useless than that? I don't think so.

Again, I am against nerfing ANY weapons until ALL are effective and able to be used correctly. We will need larger maps, better structures, much less "small" cover, much less bouncing up and down, and then and only then can we start balancing weapons. PGI is still trying to shoehorn "balance" into these tiny "bouncy" brawling maps and that just simply isn't possible. Anything aimed has a disadvantage unless you are very close. So, their solution was to nerf LRMs.

I orginally knew they that LRMS were OP compared to all the "aiming" problems, slow ballistic weapon projectiles, etc... <---- IF you use those weapons at RANGE and see how near hopless it is unless someone is just standing still... then you will see that NERFED LRMS at least do SOME damage which is more than all those missed shots every 6 seconds. PGI's focus is in the wrong direction. So, many of us were thinking along those lines... not me anymore. No weapon balancing at all till maps are corrected so no more bouncing etc...

I'm fine if they roll back the LRMS damage wise, but not the CURVE over and around cover stuff. That was overly lame.

[Ashnod]

Ashnod, on 12 November 2012 - 10:38 PM, said:

Went from 1000-1500 damage a match pre Artemis patch to 500 damage if I do well with Artemis installed.. Seems like its .7 damage per missile instead of the 1.7, also the hit rate is absolutely horrid currently.

Went from 1000-1500 damage a match pre Artemis patch to 500 damage if I do well with Artemis installed.. Seems like its .7 damage per missile instead of the 1.7, also the hit rate is absolutely horrid currently.


Sorry but 500 damage spread out over mechs is just awful when any other mech using direct fire weapons has the potential to pull 500+ damage that is focused on key hard points, god forbid I use my atlas and pull 1000-1400.


Also when LRM's were doing 2 damage per missile they were doing the same damage as they were in the table top game considering armor was doubled in MWO.. Granted that's not needed since no other weapons received that increase, just something to think about

Edited by Ashnod, 12 November 2012 - 10:44 PM.

[Qarnage]

Long Range Missiles, before the introduction of Artemis, weren't fulfilling their proper role. They were the main (or only) damage source and too much effective for their previous use. Now, we need to move, to get better position and to actively support our team to do damage, assists.

Our role is not to get 6/8 kills. Our role is to support, and now it require skill. Long Range Missiles are in place with other weapons.

Edited by Qarnage, 14 November 2012 - 07:02 AM.

[MaxFool]

Qarnage, on 14 November 2012 - 07:00 AM, said:

Long Range Missiles, before the introduction of Artemis, weren't fulfilling their proper role. They were the main (or only) damage source and too much effective for their previous use. Now, we need to move, to get better position and to actively support our team to do damage, assists.

Our role is not to get 6/8 kills. Our role is to support, and now it require skill. Long Range Missiles are in place with other weapons.

What game have you been playing? LRMs worked just fine before artemis, they were well balanced. They were OP for exactly two days, from the introduction of artemis until the hotfix. What I especially liked (before artemis) was the their arc, forcing firesupport to seek good places to lauch missiles from. Now they fire from anywhere and 4 LRM mechs focus firing from optimal position at a target that's standing still takes minutes to kill him. If it's a jenner running in circles at full speed (but visible all the time) they may never kill him.

They are so bad that dedicated scouts are complaining about them. If your target complain about your firepower being underpowered, then it's really broken.

I'm speaking of as someone who used to run with LRMs only about 10-20% of the time. Right now everyone like me is using LRMs for 0% of the time.

[PropagandaWar]

Getting 400+ damage without having to have line of site is pretty damn good. The rest of us have to actually shoot straight. However they should increase the arc and damage for you guys a tad.

Edited by PropagandaWar, 14 November 2012 - 09:53 AM.