473 replies to this topic

[BLUPRNT]

And I thought coming in here was going to be about the Trebuchet being a fast missle boat. My thought in response to OP. PPC knocks out ECM for 5 seconds which seems to me a bit short to coordinate a missle lock adjusting for flight time and actually make an impact. And in the heat of it, this coordination is going to go way down. Even with your bestest bud at you side.

[Jman5]

LRMs have always been an amazing weapon. It's just a lot of people convinced themselves not to use them anymore when ECM came out. Whenever my team gets completely obliterated in a one-sided pug match, there is almost always 2 LRM mechs on the other team.

[Rhent]

All you'll see is LRM Boats + 1 ERPPC + Tag +BAP to deal with existing ECM.

[jay35]

I'm just thankful the devs don't listen to these sort of posts. This game would be terrible if they did.

[Havyek]

MischiefSC, on 14 February 2013 - 11:06 AM, said:

Rock/paper/scissors is the idea that you have 1 weapon and 1 counter in some form or another and that each weapon has a specific use. However what this translates into is boating - since each weapon is geared towards a limited use you're more effecting stacking that 1 use so that when you have someone in your 1 viable target slot so to speak you can really hammer them.

LRMs should be viable on any and every mech. So should SRMs, or lasers for that matter. In TT the Atlas is a freaking BEAST because it can deliver the pain on targets at any range, softening with LRM fire, burning them with lasers (and still LRMs) as they close before obliterating them with his AC20 at point blank.

In MWO that doesn't work. The spread of an Atlas' weapon loadouts to prevent boating makes it LESS effective than a Stalker. It's a limitation to be worked around and not an advantage to be used.

Every weapon should be dangerous in its own right, viable and effective. ACs are, so are lasers. Missiles however suffer from the rock/paper/scissors effect with ECM. Result being you either boat LRMs or you carry SRMs so at least the hardpoints are not wasted.

Does that make more sense? An LRM20 should not be any more or less effective than any other 10 ton weapon, like say an AC10. It's got more range and technically more damage but that damage scatters and is not pin-point. In theory anyway. In practice you need tag (a laser hardpoint) plus teamwork to use any LRMs at all, so if you're going that route may as well boat.

See what I mean? the attempt to use a rock/paper/scissors approach doesn't promote diversity it destroys it. You end up with specialized mechs that you need to use in a team OR you end up at a disadvantage.

I understand what you're saying, but what you're missing is that the rock/paper/scissors situation is still in effect. In the case of your Atlas, if his LRMs are getting jammer by ECM, then someone is within 180m (which is also within the minimum range of LRMs) and within range of both SRMs, AC20, and MLAS.

Sure if someone wants to focus on 1 single roll, they then are screwed when someone who's focused AGAINST that role comes a-knocking.

[Comassion]

Death Mallet, on 14 February 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

The Problem:

LRMs never got "fixed". The problem with LRMs was only covered up by the dominance of ECM on the battlefield. Well, ECM is about to take a big hit. . . and once again the LRM boats will reap a deadly toll on everything else.

Actually, they really weren't that bad at all, and made for an easy kill if you could get close to them. I actually miss the old days when there were LRM boats in the back to be hunted, it made my 'role' as a light Headhunter feel more like a really important role.

Quote

How We Got Here:

On the Feb 8 patch the heat fixes to the PPC allowed it to make a triumphant return to the battlefield. Its in widespread use again now.

On Feb 19, PPCs will now shut down ECM. Which means, AS7-D-DCs will largely become obsolete. They'll be hit with enough PPC fire that their ECM will be negated most of the time.

PPCs will shut down one ECM for five seconds. If I have a second D-DC with ECM, that'll cover whoever's getting hit (you could split your fire against both if you like - please do, in fact). If I have a third or fourth, then you'll have to perform wonders with those PPCs to shut it all down long enough for LRMs, and you'd be far better served by just killing one with all that PPC fire.

[Broceratops]

lrms are bad and will remain bad

[Coolant]

from OP:

What can be done to fix the coming LRM apocalypse?

- Nerf LRM damage
- Increase non-ECM LRM lockon time
- Reduce LRM accuracy
- Reduce ammo/ton for LRMs
- Fix the double heat sink issue so its not biased in favor of light mechs.
http://mwomercs.com/...simplification/

or, how about use cover?

[armyof1]

To say that lrm are easy to avoid by just taking cover is severely simplifying the matter. Some maps like caustic valley has so many open areas that if one team has 2-3 lrmboats and you have none and if you also don't have ecm you end up hugging a mountain for most of the match. I've had a bunch of matches where you have very little choice but to sit and wait for a couple thousand missiles to run out. And that can take most of the 15 minutes. What it boils down to is that matches like that are just a boring waste of time. And after a while some players just get fed up and go out and do a few alphas at the closest enemy and die in the missile rain and frankly I don't blame them. Matches like these I can understand that people disconnect from.

The lrm has by far too good tracking ability and to sneak around corners and top of buildings/mountains that should have you covered but no, here comes a couple missiles that apparently can turn 90 degrees around the mountain and hit you. That is certainly something that should be looked at.

Edited by armyof1, 14 February 2013 - 11:31 AM.

[Rhent]

Coolant, on 14 February 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

from OP:

What can be done to fix the coming LRM apocalypse?

- Nerf LRM damage
- Increase non-ECM LRM lockon time
- Reduce LRM accuracy
- Reduce ammo/ton for LRMs
- Fix the double heat sink issue so its not biased in favor of light mechs.
http://mwomercs.com/...simplification/

or, how about use cover?

Cover is too hard for all the rambo wanna be's to use. That being said, I frankly love all the idiots who don't have ECM around them running to the open to die by LRM fire.

[TheMightyWashburn]

LRMs were not a big problem before ECM, SSRMs were. LRMs arent very good at killing people because most are competent enough to move away after the first volley or even before. In this way they act as a suppression force just like gunfire in real combat.

As far as Im concerned this is great, because ever since ECM came out my LRM boat has been useless without a good AND dedicated spotter. Which is simply ********, to make an entire class of killing machine useless.

[Sethalos]

I'm a big fan of sneaking up behind LRM boats and blasting them to bits with their measely few Med Lasers. I get most of my kills from ambushing LRM boats that are focused on trying to find easy out in the open kills.

I agree, adapt to the new paradigm or suffer the consequences.

[jay35]

Rhent, on 14 February 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

Cover is too hard for all the rambo wanna be's to use. That being said, I frankly love all the idiots who don't have ECM around them running to the open to die by LRM fire.

Truth. After all, if LRMs weren't effective in that situation, they'd essentially have zero use! Apparently what some folks want is to render LRMs worthless. That's just being silly and refusing to adapt to the situation on the battlefield.

[Tuku]

My friends, I come as your savior because I have the most OP LRM deflection apparatus in the game right here.




Hills and buildings are impenetrable fortraces for witch no enemy fire can stop....Hills my friends are the true OP.....nerf them ....nerf them.

[Elizander]

SI The Joker, on 14 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

Could we please let them implement this first?

Apparently the house already burned down before it could catch fire. And apparently we are talking about DDC Atlases standing still or walking in a straight line towards the enemy in open ground again.

[CDLord HHGD]

FOTM will always happen. The community will equalize and things will return to normal.

Not sure if this is a "My ECM will not protect me" QQ thread or not.....

[Bishop Steiner]

PropagandaWar, on 14 February 2013 - 10:25 AM, said:

Hills are my AMS so I'm good.

Worst thing I could see happening on the 19th is I might actually find a use for AMS again. Only mech I ever ran it on during the ECM wars have been on my Raven-3L, just so I could exploit every last bit of cheezeshield possible. Then they took away my lovely Lag Armor.... and I had to remember how to actually play again. Boo hoo.
(I might actually miss that extra heat sink I had squeezed into my mechs with LRMs being so marginal the last couple of months.)

[Gregore]

Prosperity Park, on 14 February 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

I am *almost* at my 10th death by LRMs since I started playing in June... so I can still count the times on my fingers when I was killed by LRMs.

Hills are OP, use them while you can before they release a BulldozerMech that can nerf hills. (Oh, and don't trundle your Atlas across open Terrain without AMS, + the AMS of your Escort, all working in unison). Since all Mechs (except a couple spiders) can mount AMS, I suggest you get back into that grove.

See this kind of thought is a fallacy.

This implies that you were never hit by LRM's except for those 10 occasions.
Seriously if LRM's strip all of your armor and a commando comes up and finishes you off with a small laser does that mean the small laser is over powered and the most deadly weapon? No it doesn't, because if you still had all your armor you would not have died to that small laser.

I think LRM's are pretty much ok the way they are now, they just need their damage reduced by 10-20%.
Their job is to soften targets up, not decimate them completely (or 99% of the way).

Make them like artillery in Civ3, they cannot do lethal damage HAHAHAHA.

[Arcadian Xero]

The only time LRMs were ever a problem was when they completely botched the Artemis cluster effect on them combined with their ridiculous firing arc... they were nerfed a day later.

They have been ever since, and were fine before hand. What's actually going to happen is that LRMs will be a little more viable than they are now with the PPC anti-ECM effect, and the new corck screw artemis cluster.

They will not devastate anyone, and you will still see plenty of ECM DDCs on the field. Especially mine. I was using it since JUNE and I don't intend to stop now.

What you will see are less bad players using DDC Atlai, so you are right... they will decline, but they won't disappear, and frankly I have no problems with that. Every time I see a DDC now I just roll my eyes and obliterate them because 9/10 they are just AWFUL players.

Play styles WILL change, and new methods of dealing with threats will show up. I anticipate much LRM ownage in the first... day... day and a half, before players get wise and alter their tactics.

On the 8 man side of things I anticipate slightly more direct fire PPC support than we have now, with a little more focus, light mechs that will seek out and kill PPC/LRM support mechs, and the same style of brawlers we always had.

The game MIGHT come closer, competitively, to what it originally was before ECM was implemented. Which was essentially 1-2 LRM support mechs, with brawlers as backup, and scouts hunting down scouts and waiting till those scouts were dead before anyone made a real move.

But make no mistake, LRMs will not dominate the field. It will be as it always was; bad players won't use cover, good ones will.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Death Mallet, on 14 February 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

The Problem:

LRMs never got "fixed". The problem with LRMs was only covered up by the dominance of ECM on the battlefield. Well, ECM is about to take a big hit. . . and once again the LRM boats will reap a deadly toll on everything else.

[...]

I was only driving medium mechs as of late and only Hunchbacks and Centurions (both to master). I've never had the "ease" of carrying ECM into battle, nor do I usually enjoy ECM shielding for long, because I'm too fast for the Atlas and too slow for lights.

Luckily, early on in the development LRMs were pretty dominant already, so I learned to use something else for cover instead of ECM. It might surprise you, OP, but I used

COVER

I used cover god damnit! You know, solit objects in the path of the flight of missiles. Oh boy...