196 replies to this topic

[Grokmoo]

Watching the IGN videos, I noticed that you can easily see the weapon cycle time each time you fire - the bar next to the weapon fills up with red, and once it is empty again, you can fire again. I think this is a very nice touch to the UI. In contrast, in Mechwarrior: Living Legends, it is not nearly as obvious how much time you have remaining until your weapons are ready to fire again.

However, I am concerned by what seems to me to be the very fast cycle times for the LRMs. If you watch the Heavy Mech Developer breakdown, you will see that the player is purposefully firing at a much slower rate than he needs to. In a competitive match, the player would generally fire as fast as possible, especially given that it doesn't seem at all difficult to maintain target lock. Being able to fire LRMs every 3 or so seconds (at least for 4 or 5 barrages until you overheat) seems like a ridiculous amount of firepower. Unless you immediately start running directly away from an enemy catapult as soon as they achieve missile lock, it seems like you are going to go down very quickly.

I am worried that in order to try to make scouts more useful (by allowing them to provide targeting data to other mechs), they have gone a bit overboard.

[Zakatak]

If I was in command of this ship, for all the "rangy" guns:

LL: 650
AC/5: 675
LRM: 150-750
PPC: 50-775
Gauss: 750
AC/2: 825

Agreed that LRM's look to be just guided MRM's. I don't like numbers that aren't multiples of 25.

Edited by Zakatak, 08 May 2012 - 05:51 AM.

[CyberCrist]

Personally I think LRMS need to be just that... LR. They should outshoot other weapons for distance, but should NOT be guided, unless of course you have a beacon.

[MaddMaxx]

It may also depend a lot on whether or not you get a Incoming Missile warning signal, which I think we have seen somewhere. If you watch the video closely, the Missiles seem to do more than one type of damage to the targets. In one Volley, the arms and Torsos flash with damage, in another, the target was moving quite a bit, it flashed only Leg damage, and that may have been simply Splash based.

What seems to be preferred, is to not allow any Missile Boats to simply stand off, without some form of support, and blast away at targets that cannot get to it with out getting Missile *aped.

As long as some of the other LR weapons can reach out and keep a Boat honest, say the erPPC, or AC2 etc, the Boats can run, but hiding away totally will be more difficult. Can't see that as a bad thing really.

Support/defend your Missiles Boats, likely the Command Boat as well, or face the real possibility of losing it and having to fight without one.

P.S. The base core weapons ranges are based on a multiple of 30. Why would they re-invent the wheel... : /

Edited by MaddMaxx, 08 May 2012 - 06:13 AM.

[Threat Doc]

Wow. In the real-world, most gun fights take place in ranges of less than 60 feet; anything beyond that and you're ineffective. Soldiers in the U.S. Army are taught to shoot well up to ranges of 300 feet, because that's their best EFFECTIVE range, for both power and accuracy, even though they can shoot well over 1500 feet before hitting the dirt.

The tabletop ranges were originally set to keep the tabletop battlefield small, but there is real-world precedent to keep ranges short. Wow.

Wow.

[AlanEsh]

I'm concerned about the narrow usable range of LRMs. I'm also concerned about the fact that SRMs appear to be dumb rockets with no guidance. That is not TT canon, they are guided munitions. (this was hashed out with many links to sarna and other sources in other threads).

If they're going to take these rather short "LRM" ranges from TT, they should also use guided SRMs rather than these MW4-style unguided rockets.

[Sesambrot]

Don't you think it also depends on the damage they do?
After all, you can spam missiles all you want, if they hardly do damage, for the most part it'll you'll just be harassing your opponent.
What you can see from the vid, they have a rather high refirerate and seem almost ridiculously agile.
With that in mind, their damage probably isn't too high...

Edited by Sesambrot, 08 May 2012 - 06:18 AM.

[Alexander Fury]

If I remember correctly 1000m LRM were clan tech from MW2

[Threat Doc]

I'm an LRM lover, and a purist, and I think the cycle time for missiles should be about ten seconds, a standard tabletop round. Lasers and ballistic weapons should, perhaps, cycle faster. I know in the videos the LRMs FELT right, but I will have to watch the Heavy video again and count to see if it really is right. I say ballistic weapons should fire faster because they're bullets, not warheads, and warheads need to be handled and reloaded with care where bullets really don't. If you don't hit that primer, the bullet isn't going to fire.

Sesamebrot, LRMs are only supposed to do one point of damage each... for the Hunchback, with it's doubled armor from yesterday, they would do two points of damage, each. So, no, they don't don't do high damage. If they do higher damage, I will respect a proper, or higher, recycle time of 10 seconds.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 08 May 2012 - 06:26 AM.

[neodym]

with all respect the LRMs in MWO are nowhere near devastating as mighty LRM from MW2&3... I would like them powerfull

[Talon Thorn]

While I agree that the ranges seem short, I like things up close and personal, so I'm OK with it.

[EDMW CSN]

MWO LRMs aren't as accurate as their MW3 or MW4 counterparts, it's obvious when the Jenner "dodged" some missiles. So a higher refire rate might make sense. But then again all LRMs were VERY fast firing in all iterations of MW.

MW4 IS LRMs fired practically once every 4 seconds.

[MaddMaxx]

Angelicon, on 08 May 2012 - 06:17 AM, said:

I'm concerned about the narrow usable range of LRMs. I'm also concerned about the fact that SRMs appear to be dumb rockets with no guidance. That is not TT canon, they are guided munitions. (this was hashed out with many links to sarna and other sources in other threads).

If they're going to take these rather short "LRM" ranges from TT, they should also use guided SRMs rather than these MW4-style unguided rockets.

I don't remember the exact video but I did see some SRM's being fired and thought, ouch "missed high" then they totally hit the target upon reaching it, veered in just enough.

One thing about the LRM min range is it totally allows a place for the SRM to be used for a player who prefers missiles over ML say. If the LRM has no min. the SRM becomes moot, unless they totally ramped up the "per volley" damage of the SRM.

If I take a mid level LRM (10) versus the biggest SRM (6) the potential damage difference is quite small. 10 (lockable) v 12 (max if all hit with non-locking) plus the SRM damage fluctuates without the added Streak capability, versus the LRM's which bring in 2 more potential damage brackets (15's & 20's)

So, yes the LRM min. may seem long but it opens a avenue for the SRM based launchers. I like the SRM myself and am glad to see they have been given a purpose, versus just taking an LRM version based on weight restrictions.

[00dlez]

In a 12 on 12 match, that ammo won't last long spamming the fire button. What's more, He had teammates spotting for him, needed to keep an eye on his flanks, etc etc. If it appeared that it was little more than spamming the FIRE ZE MISSILES! button I'd be on your side, but without having played the game I dare not speak against it just yet.

[Kaemon]

Love the 'issues' before we even get to play and see how it works, the game may not lend itself to longer ranges, or the devs may feel that the game slows down to 'camp, arty, camp' styles with longer ranges for indirect fire weapons.

I'd rather have to be a bit closer, than spend all game trying to dodge LRMs from targets I can't even see, or if I'm in a heavy die instantly because I cannot get to a missile boat in time to do any damage before I'm swiss cheese.

[AlanEsh]

Sesambrot, on 08 May 2012 - 06:17 AM, said:

Don't you think it also depends on the damage they do?
After all, you can spam missiles all you want, if they hardly do damage, for the most part it'll you'll just be harassing your opponent.
What you can see from the vid, they have a rather high refirerate and seem almost ridiculously agile.
With that in mind, their damage probably isn't too high...

Agreed... and it didn't seem like those LRMs were "all that" for damage. It looked like the refire rate was pretty well tuned with the damage output per shot.

[Ulric Kell]

640m is plenty enough. In the video you see him walk INTO combat. He could easily stay away from it and with a proper lance be protected. He also has weapons for close range fighting as well. The range for LRM's is perfect where it is.

[Grokmoo]

It is definitely a fair point that LRMs might not do very much damage.

However, I would much prefer LRMs to do a bit more damage but recycle more slowly. This creates a lot more interesting tactical opportunities. When a catapult fires its full LRM banks at you, you should see your missile warning light up and feel the urge to run for cover. For me, it is a very fun part of the gameplay when somebody fires a large salvo at you and you try to dodge it. With a very high firing rate, your missile warning is going to be on continuously and you won't really be able to do special maneuvers to dodge (beyond normal combat maneuvers), since you would need to be doing those things continuously to have any effect.

[00dlez]

Oh no! Strengths and draw backs to different weapons!?! Oh noes! Which weapon is the best and I'll use that!

LRMs can lock on, can provide indirect fire and as we also saw can fire quickly. There's a thread going where someone is concerned they are OP).

[Ulric Kell]

They are supposed to fire that fast. Just remember ammo. One salvo of LRM-20 is 20 missiles. Standard ammo is packs of 120 if I remember correctly. Fire 6 times and your Out of Ammo. Best targeting lands 4 of those salvos hits the enemy. In 18 seconds (6 shots times 3 seconds) you have no more LRM ammo. Matches last 15-60 minutes. Good luck surviving the match spamming the launch LRM button.

Even with more ammo it's not about spamming in MWO, it's about making careful use of your shots to where they matter. At the start people will spam ammo weapons like nobody's business because it wasn't really a factor in all previous MW games since the time between resupply was so short. In MWO it will be a big factor.