Foreword for Garth: You had to put up with my ECM question(rant) in a NGNG podcast. You've seen so many posts from me about the topic, I'm sure. Sorry about all that. I'm giving up my ECM crusade and following my own advice: Focus on the real problem.
TL; DR summary - This post is about fixing the underlying mechanics of guided weapons in MWO. All this talk about ECM overlooks the fact that many people have problems with how Streaks and LRMs function. Rather than use ECM as a band aid for the underlying problem, why don't we address the issue of the missiles? This post is long. Very long. Fair warning.
We will be only talking about a status quo world to start with. This means TAG, Narc, Artemis, ECM, etc get addressed AFTER addressing the underlying mechanics.
Step 1: Premises
Premise 1: Many people think LRMs provide too much benefit for the level of skill required.
Premise 2: Many people think Streaks provide too much benefit for the skill required AND the tonnage required.
Background: Know where we came from to know where we are going
As way of background, lets note the functionality of LRMs and streaks in tabletop.
In tabletop, all weapons require to-hit rolls. The LRM, gauss rifle, PPC, and ER large laser all have the same chance to hit at functionally similar ranges. Streak SRMs have the same chance to hit as normal SRMs or medium lasers, at the same ranges. When LRMs do hit, they hit for a variable amount of damage. Streaks, weighing more than standard SRMs have two benefits in tabletop. First, when they hit, every missile hits (as opposed to the partial damage dealt by normal SRMs and by LRMs). Second, when they miss, they do not waste ammo or generate heat. Damage, tonnage, ammo, and heat is relatively balanced based on these assumptions.
PGI changed some of these assumptions.
For LRMs, the lock on feature made them much more likely to hit (massively more likely, in that they hit all the time). There is at least a slight trade off, in that the very slow missile travel time means the target of the missile has time to seek cover. However despite the slow travel time, it still requires very less effort to hit someone who is walking in the open with significant numbers of missiles compared to hitting them with consistent AC2 fire, or holding a large laser beam on them, for example. If you are firing at someone who is currently brawling, you will get very consistent damage without having to aim, and you barely even risk hitting your own teammate.
This is the source of
Premise 1.
For SSRMs, not only do you not have to aim as much as SRMs, but your target for the most part cannot even try to evade your shots. The current issue of all the missiles hitting the torso is said to be being addressed by the devs. However even without that, while it is correct that Streaks are supposed to hit with every missile every time they connect, we are still in a situation where the streaks are hitting every time the pilot pulls the trigger, which is far, far more powerful than any other current weapon. This goes even beyond the LRMs, which can at least be evaded... kind of.
This is the source of
Premise 2.
Goal 1: Add skill to guided missiles.
Both Premise 1 and Premise 2 address the issue that guided weapons are just too easy to use. While one way to fix this would be to simply reduce the damage of the weapons until one can consistently do more damage with the "skilled weapons," this is not the preferred method.
Because the skill level of the player base varies widely, it is nearly impossible to fairly balance a "static, easy damage" weapon against weapons whose damage output varies with skill. If they are balanced for a low ELO player to do better with aimed weapons, then they will be basically worthless in games between skilled players. If they are balanced to do ok damage compared to that dished out by skilled players with lasers or ballistics, then they will do far too much damage in the hands of newbies against other ELO matched newbies.
The goal should be to instead add more skill to the use of missiles first.
Why are guided weapons easy to use right now? Right now, an LRM boat's cross hairs don't have to stay on the enemy mech, they only need to stay near the enemy mech. Once lock is attained by an LRM boat or streak user, the crosshairs again only have to stay "near" the target.
PGI has already shown us that they can do lots of things with how lock ons and missile paths work, and they can do it dynamically while missiles are in the air. Variables such as lock on time, missile path, and missile spread are all modifiable by various pieces of equipment. I would like to see one other thing modifiable as well, if the code does not already support it: angle of lock
By adjusting these all depending on conditions in play, you can create escalating difficulty in using guided weapons, depending on the factors present. I propose a series of possible ways to improve the level of skill required in guided missiles in a status quo world. The presence of positive influencing factors (TAG, Narc, Artemis) can improve performance, allowing lower skilled players to perform easier, and rewarding teamwork. These ideas can be used all together or in part, but would work best together as part of an entire systemic overhaul.
Here is an example of one way to do it:
- Case 1 - Non-targeted locking: Allow locking onto and firing of weapons at targets that are not targeted, but to which the launcher has line of sight. This will be the baseline setting. This lock on should take longer than standard to lock on, require that the launcher's cross hairs stay completely on the target at all time, should be lost as soon as the cross hairs move off the target.
- Case 2 - Line of Sight, Targeted locking: When firing at a target which the launcher has line of sight and had the target selected, lock on should occur faster than in Case 1, but still slower than the current default lock speed. Further, while we may wish to not require the cross hairs to be directly on the target, I would advocate a "lock angle" that is smaller than what we have currently in game, to make it marginally harder to maintain lock on a moving target, especially while moving yourself.
- Case 3 - No Line of Sight, Targeted locking: This is our indirect fire mode. It should be somewhere between Case 1 and Case 2. It should be less effective than when you can see the target. Possible solutions would be a longer lock on time, quicker loss of lock, and wider missile spread.
The result of these changes would be that LRMs are harder to use at longer range, harder to quickly get fire on a target unless you have a very quick aim, and would be less effective when fired indirectly, shifting the risk-reward ratio.
Once we have established a base line, status quo world that requires more skill to use LRMs, we can then add the positive influencing factor equipment to make significant improvements. Currently Narc is basically junk, TAG is ok but not great (current ECM functionality aside), and Artemis is decent, but a luxury. We can change this, to reward people who try harder to use teamwork.
Narc would allow for targeting (via "R") targets that are either outside of normal targeting range or to which the launcher or teammates do not have line of sight. TAG could significant decrease the lock on time or increase the "lock angle" for the cross hair. Artemis could significantly tighten the groupings (as it does now).
Now we have a situation where LRMs are harder to use effectively at a status quo level,
and we have positive influencing factors that are much better than they were before. So now we can look at ECM. In TT, ECM blocks Narc, Artemis, and C3 (no effect on TAG). Because we've added TAG functionality to LRMs, however, lets let ECM block that too. Now ECM blocks all the fancy offensive technology that makes LRMs work better, but it is no longer a game breaker. Why not? Because we can still fire LRMs at enemies when we have direct line of sight! ECM has brought us back to the status quo world, LRMs can still be used, but require more effort.
Many of these principles involving lock on time, angle of lock, and quickly losing lock apply to streaks as well. If you allow streaks to slowly lock on enemies which you don't have targeted, and have them quickly lose locks, they suddenly become functional in an ECM world if you still want to "cloak" mechs in the bubble. Are they as functional? No, but they can at least be be used
if you have the skill to hold the target.
Goal 2: Reduce effectiveness of Streaks.
However, even applying the above rationale to Streaks may not be enough. Consider for the moment that a Streak Cat carries 6 SSRM2s, a total of 9 tons of weapons. They are a devastating force once they have lock, because it is trivial for the pilot to keep firing and keep hitting. As we stated before, in the source material (TT), Streaks are supposed to be as hard to hit a target with as SRMs. Here we clearly aren't just looking to add skill to the weapon, but we want a straight nerf.
Step 1 is already going to be done by the devs, which is to have the missiles target components at random. This will alleviate the "all damage to the CT" problem completely, but it won't change the fact that, in comparison to SRMs, Streaks hit their target far more often (in that they hit all the time). For fast moving mechs, this is a much bigger issue, because even with spread damage, a Jenner will quickly die even to 12 normal tubes of SRMs if they never miss.
Step 2 should be reducing the chances a Streak user has to hit the target! The simplest solution here is to tighten the lock on parameters significantly. As we saw in the LRM example, we could use a combination of increased lock on time as well as losing lock as soon as the crosshairs are off the target. All of a sudden we've created a situation where it takes much more effort on the part of the launcher to hold the target, even if the actual firing of the missiles is easy.
Other options for dealing with streaks: Notably I have ignored a few options for "balancing" streaks, such as heat or recycle time. Part of this is for canon reasons (a Streak 2 should not generate more heat then a standard SRM2), but also because, effectiveness wise, heat and recycle time are not good balancing factors unless the only thing you are trying to adjust is DPS. If you can kill someone with one alpha of a massed weapon (see: Vulture A, 60 ton clan mech with six SSRM6 launchers), then it won't matter what the cooldown time or heat load is.
Conclusion:
Even if you don't like my proposed solutions, the point of this thread is to focus on the underlying issues (functionality of Streaks and LRMs), not to argue about ECM. ECM arguments should happen, yes, but only AFTER we come to a consensus on what should be done with Streaks and LRMs
in the absence of ECM.
Please remain respectful of one another when posting in this thread. Ad hominem attacks on people who choose to use specific weapons, or play in specific styles are unhelpful, as they distract from legitimate concerns and make it less likely that anyone from PGI takes a thread seriously.
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Jim Elliot, on 06 December 2012 - 01:10 AM, said:
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