4 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

The6thMessenger, on 22 June 2017 - 07:04 PM, said:

Ah rocket launcher, one use like a consumable, and shoots dead-fired missiles like SRM at a longer range. It's a filler you put on a missile, maybe buff a hardpoint or your have just some few tonnage or slots you could spare.

The Rocket Launchers are single use, not reloadable while deployed, that means you shoot one and you're done, and hope that you didn't miss and you dealt considerable damage.

But how would that translate to an FPS game? PGI had made several steps to compensate for an FPS game that has pin-point accuracy like 2x armor value. The impact is kind of reduced, whereas before a KGC has 40 ct stock armor, a single RL20 would have taken 50% of hp assuming all missiles hit, but now at 80 CT armor it would have left 75%.

What if we buff a rocket launcher damage? Wouldn't simple 2x damage would put it on it's former glory before?

I'm kind of worried with buffing it's damage, cause it could easily pad alphas and go into 1-hit-kill territory. Maybe 1.5x damage would be the magic number? I guess so.

But consider the one-use splat nature of the Rocket Launcher, at 40 alpha per RL20, what if we get so much Leeroy Jenkins builds? Basically cancerous suicide bomber lights or mediums. What if we get an archer with 8 RL20s? That is basically a 160 alpha.

As with the words of FupDup:

FupDup, on 17 March 2017 - 09:38 PM, said:

No. A 1.5 ton weapon dealing 40+ damage with one shot is absolutely insane.

Rocket Launchers in general should have been left out of MWO. They promote a very frustrating if not toxic playstyle where people load up on them, instakill one enemy mech, and then have no weapons for the rest of the match. It's basically like the 11 ERPPC Dire Star mech, but with massively lower tonnage requirements.

Weapons built around being used only one single time in a match are not worth the hassle of trying to balance. Too strong and they make the game horribly unfun (because random instakills and suicide-bomber teammates), too weak and nobody uses them.

The other option would be for PGI to do what MekTek did in MW4 and make RL's not be one-shot launchers anymore. The civil war page description already tells us that this will never happen, though.

My solution is to not make it a one-use, but just limited use. It's still disposable in a sense that you don't put 1-crit-slot ammo to extend your use, you put another rocket launcher. As opposed of the RL10 shooting all 10 missiles at once, RL15 shooting all 15 missiles at once, and RL20 the same, all of them shoots only one missile per trigger/pull and is accurate, goes at a straight line like a narc, and each missile does a lot more damage but the entire damage is just spread out over a long duration. The launcher size only dictates how much ammo you can have.

Basically, think of it as an Autocannon instead, but it flies slower, deals more damage, and you can't add more ammo via 1-ton ammo items.

Quote

Damage/Missile: 5
DPS: 6.944444444444444
Heat/shot: 0.8
Range: 450m
Missile Velocity: 650
Cooldown/Fire Interval: 0.72s
Ammo/weapon: 10/15/20

As the stats shown, the "alpha" effect is instead handled by the short-lived DPS, this gives a chance to spread the damage, while still do a lot over a long duration. AC-esque as it fires one accurate shot that deals damage.

Doing this effectively removes the potentially-cancerous light-weight cheap-shot dire-star-esque high-damage alpha. But at the same time adds a bit of sustainability.

That's just my idea about it.

What about you, how do you think the RLs should turn out?

[LordNothing]

go from instant damage to rapid fire high dps that only lasts 1-2 seconds depending on launcher size. you can save some for later, but cant have more than launcher size rockets. individual rockets get higher damage than stock. also severe ghost heat for firing more than one at a time. encourage people to chain their launchers.

[Kmieciu]

They key to balancing is to establish a baseline.
Rocket launchers are unguided, therefore the extra range over SRMs will only mean more chances to miss your target.
Therefore IS mechs carrying rocket launchers will have to compete against Clanners using SRMs.
RL20 "seems" like a good deal - it only weights 1.5 tons right? You can put 3 of them on a Commando!
Well, that Commando has to fight against a Mist Lynx armed with 3xSRM6. It's a silly build, nobody would use it. Because it "only" has tonnage for 200 missiles (or 400 damage).
Meanwhile, for the same tonnage the Commando can bring 3xRL20+ 1xMPL.
Now.
How much damage should a rocket launcher 20 deal in order to match the 400 potential damage of the Mist Lynx? 20 ? 40? 80? Even at 80, I'll take the SRM build every day of the week.

Edited by Kmieciu, 26 June 2017 - 11:39 PM.

[The Basilisk]

Dudes....it isn't even in game ynd you guys start fiddling with "how It could be and how it should be"

[NimoStar]

people were all offering different "solutions" here now:
https://mwomercs.com...ds/page__st__40

Yet the one on this thread was prescient and correct, even as it was told "too early".

In fact, rocket launchers worked like this in Mechwarrior 4, and we all know that game was much more balanced than this one...
You could fire a lot of rocket launchers only if you kept the "fire" button pressed, as they launched just one at the time; but that "one" dealt good damage.

The things the developers did with the spread didn't fix the "troll build" as it still allows to suicide one-shot at point blank. It just made the weapon pointless to use to legitimate people.

Rocket launchers shold have pinpoint damage but be fired progressively.
This way, you can also have control of not having just "one shot". You could use 3, 4, 5 missiles at the time and save the rest of your 10 or 20 for later.

This solution gives the weapon some strategy, instead of "fire once when you are point blank and then nothing". This isn't what the lore meant by "dumbfire", it is just that they didn't seek.
In fact, in the lore rocket launchers are effective at medium range, and that's how it should be.

As it is now, it's just a meme weapon for trolling basically...
This solution would both end the trolling strategy and provide a real, legitimate one.