8 replies to this topic

[Stomp]

In regards to LRMs I think it's fair to say a majority of players think that PGI has consistently done the wrong thing. While I can appreciate their efforts. it seems most consider them a waste of tonnage. I've played my missile boat recently, because I was curious as to where they stood after the flight path/speed/damage changes.

I find it bizarre that LRMs have been down the gutter for so many months, but whenever they implemented the new changes, which have been in the works for MONTHS, they forgot why they got nerfed in the first place: SPLASH DAMAGE. How does that slip through into the game? And Streaks as well. But back to LRMs first: I love missiles, but when it takes 8 seconds to fly their full range, don't you think that's... slow?

But why not leave their damage where it is, and buff their flight times? I'm aware that this already got a slight buff... but honestly I've always wanted to see FAST LRMs. Most people forget that as a non-LOS dependent weapon, where the information is shared to your teammates, they're NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE A CARPET BOMBING. Instead, they're supposed to be support weapons, because you're taking NO RISK in sitting back and lobbing missiles. Lots of people immediately go "BUT WAIT IF THEY DON'T DO MASSIVE DAMAGE THEY'RE ****!" And let's consider why they think that: Without a ginormous punch, they fly slow, are very unwieldy and slow to respond, and are easily countered. In my opinion, If you want to murder with LRMs, you should be investing serious tonnage towards it. For instance, missile boats don't get artemis because it makes it difficult to fit the weapons. But if Artemis did a small damage buff, wouldn't the incentive shift to developed, well rounded missile mechs that aren't min-maxing their hardpoints? This is taking into account that a heat-scale response to high alpha boating also addresses LRMs, which I'm hoping it does. Together with a faster lock time and faster missiles, maybe missile mechs like the CPT-C1 will start to get some more love, with a TAG and 2 LRM15s+Artemis it should be a formidable missile threat, with FAST response times for consistent damage, NOT a carpet bombing of WTF-ROFL-OMG missiles.

This is all just my rambling though, and for the people still crying about ECM lights, if you're not equipping BAP on your missile mechs you should be ashamed. Honestly I just want my missile boat to not sit in my mechlab, I want to be taking it out and utilizing it's strengths to support a push on an Atlas, as indirect fire-support. If it takes so long that missiles are killing a corpse, what's the point? If I can get the same response with a direct-fire weapon that arrives FASTER and does more reliable damage, and doesn't require a target lock, and that with practiced skill will minimize my own exposure (read: Jumpjets), why not leave the LRMs at home? And that's why we have the PPC/Gauss meta we do.

Also, as an aside I wouldn't mind seeing splash damage on missiles of all kinds disappearing, and a buff of dmg/missile. Again, and this can't be stated enough, all this LRM musing is assuming that LRM boats like that nasty Stalker build with 4 LRM 15s will be threatened from the high alpha boating just like multiple PPCs.

It's my way of thinking that if they nerf the heat dissipation like Garth/whoever was talking about with multiple weapons of the same type and size, then it might encourage other people to consider more varied builds, and avoid it becoming MissileWarrior Online again. We've already seen it like 4 times haha, I'm hoping to avoid the fifth. I want variety people! I wanna see missiles and AMS going, and PPCs and Gauss rounds exploding everywhere as little Spiders sail through the air and Centurion unload an AC10 into a Treb's face. And that variety and different styles of play just seems very hard to come by. I want a missile mech to have just as much chance as a K2 or a CTF-3D to do good damage, reliably, and have fun doing it. Isn't that the point of this game? To have fun?

Oh god sorry for the wall of text, I was just bored and thinking about a video game haha. This wasn't really supposed to be this long. :/

[Nauht]

I think it's fair to say PGI have done the right thing. The majority of players wanted LRM's the way they are.

There I can say it too. We don't have the data - only PGI has and they acted on it.

[Stomp]

Nauht, on 28 May 2013 - 04:12 AM, said:

I think it's fair to say PGI have done the right thing. The majority of players wanted LRM's the way they are.

There I can say it too. We don't have the data - only PGI has and they acted on it.

Maybe it's just me that wants them a bit different. Of course while I'm over here fantasizing might as well pretend people aren't going to min-max the crap out of their mechs to squeeze every single point of dps out of a chassis.

[Cyke]

LRMs are too conditional. There are situations in which they are absolutely useless, and also situations where a smart enemy can make them useless.
When I say "smart", I simply mean had the experience of, say, 100 matches facing an LRM-armed opponent and learning to simply walk behind cover. This includes probably upwards of 70%-80% of players.

Regardless of the shooter's skill level, LRM accuracy is rarely above 25%. I don't have the hard data that PGI has (side question: why don't they share this data?), but I can state with certainly they have the lowest hits per shot of any weapon in the game, for any player.

Like the OP said, they're so bizarrely different from every other weapon in the game. The responsibility for successful hits or misses is almost completely put in the hands of the target rather than the shooter. This makes them terribly unreliable and causes their abysmal hit rates (~25% or less). They're too slow to respond, and upping the damage is the wrong way to counteract this.

Instead of making them highly situational weapons that takes the control out of the shooter's hands, and then balancing them with repeated flightpath tweaking, splash, guaranteed CT damage, etc.. why not put the control back in the shooter's hands, then leave them at low, splashless damage?



I think separating the behavior of LRMs in direct fire and indirect fire is critical.

I feel that the biggest part of their impotence is in direct fire.
Instead of making them incredibly situational, extremely sluggish response weapons, allow the shooter to have more control over the LRMs, especially when performing direct fire.

If the shooter has line of sight to the target, allow a shooter similar options to a direct fire weapon: If you can see the target, and track it and lead it with your reticle, you should have a chance to do some damage, even without an R-lock.

I suggest allowing LRMs to be fired without any lock, but the shooter needs to hold his reticle on the target from launch until impact. The longer the reticle is held on target, the tight spread is maintained. Any time the reticle is off-target, the salvo starts to spread out and get bigger.

Thus, if you can hold the reticle on target throughout the entire flight time, you get a lot of hits.
Managing to track the target only half the flight time results in huge spread, with only a few missiles hitting. At 600m (5 seconds flight time), it's almost like having to fire a 5 second-duration laser at the target, but a steady hand will reward you with solid hits.

Removing the requirement for a lock for shooting direct-fire LRMs will give them the functionality they need to give them bite, balanced by the fact that the shooter will need to give his full concentration and hand-eye coordination, as much as firing any other direct fire weapon.

[Stomp]

Cyke, on 28 May 2013 - 04:36 AM, said:

Instead of making them incredibly situational, extremely sluggish response weapons, allow the shooter to have more control over the LRMs, especially when performing direct fire.

If the shooter has line of sight to the target, allow a shooter similar options to a direct fire weapon: If you can see the target, and track it and lead it with your reticle, you should have a chance to do some damage, even without an R-lock.

I suggest allowing LRMs to be fired without any lock, but the shooter needs to hold his reticle on the target from launch until impact. The longer the reticle is held on target, the tight spread is maintained. Any time the reticle is off-target, the salvo starts to spread out and get bigger.

Thus, if you can hold the reticle on target throughout the entire flight time, you get a lot of hits.
Managing to track the target only half the flight time results in huge spread, with only a few missiles hitting. At 600m (5 seconds flight time), it's almost like having to fire a 5 second-duration laser at the target, but a steady hand will reward you with solid hits.

This is pretty interesting, and while I don't like how... disjointed?... this method of attack might be, I do agree that the situations in which they're useful need to be examined. I agree completely, without the shooter's ability to dictate the damage dealt, they're worthless. You've got a very well-informed opinion of LRMs, I like that you took the time to respond! I never considered the fact that the damage is so hard to make stick. Accuracy isn't a myth, after all haha. And of course as long as ECM cloaks enemies, LRM users will always have a much more difficult time using their weapons, which i suppose is why they're so so powerful with splash etc.

[Cyke]

It may certainly seem disjointed, because nothing like this has existed in the game previously.

However, putting the reticle on a target (and keeping it there) in order to inflict maximum damage is a mechanic we are all familiar with*. Controlling missile spread based on the consistency of the shooter's reticle aim during missile flight accomplishes this.


IMO, indirect fire can be launched repeatedly with near-impunity into an ongoing brawl or with a well-hidden ECM-protected spotter, so the mechanic to accomplish indirect missile shots can be designed/fine-tuned as a separate offensive capability, with its own nuances.

I believe large spread for indirect fire (fewer hits per salvo) becomes acceptable, if direct fire is improved to potentially cause similar amounts of damage as energy and ballistics per ton/slot of launcher/ammo. This capability is balanced by an increased amount of skill and attention required by the LRM pilot, which is commensurately increased to require similar aim to using energy and ballistics.


Hopefully higher velocity LRMs (perhaps around maybe 300 meters/sec) in direct-fire mode, combined with with this manual line-of-sight reticle targeting, will bring the LRMs more in-line with normal weapons.
Basically each ton of LRM ammo will potentially inflict more damage if fired directly rather than indirectly, but with the attendant risk of exposing oneself.


* - When I say "we are all familiar with", it's with the assumption that every player has used one or more lasers at some point in their MWO career.

Edited by Cyke, 28 May 2013 - 06:37 AM.

[Stomp]

Cyke, on 28 May 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

* - When I say "we are all familiar with", it's with the assumption that every player has used one or more lasers at some point in their MWO career.

Done and done. How do I laser? Haha. I like your ideas. The "no lock LOS tracking" would make some of the BT junkies lose their minds, but honestly if it gets the balance right at this point I'm willing to compromise.

[AnnoyingCat]

too much words for my cat brain to handle... TwT

[Cyke]

Just to add on a bit..
As a corollary, boating insane numbers of LRMs (e.g. 60 missiles per alpha) would be no worse than boating other weapons. Not that I think boating other weapons is okay.

However, people might finally load up with a single LRM5 or LRM10, shoot it alongside their other normal weapons, and actually have it do something useful.. for the first time in MWO history.

AnnoyingCat, on 28 May 2013 - 08:55 AM, said:

too much words for my cat brain to handle... TwT

*rubs your chin*