Mechwarrior Online (Previously MW5/MW3015)

[Rifter]

I lost it when they screwed up double heat sinks and simply said pound sand. I am with others now, don't call this thing Mechwarrior anymore. It is simply big stomping robots. They have gone so far from the rules that it isn't battletech universe anymore, simply a universe with things that have the same name.

Yeah its getting bad, i posted the same thing i just posted above in this thread over in the MWO forums, was up to 17 pages with alot of BS PGI white knight responses but with over 200 people liking the post and alot of supportive posts as well and they just deleted the thread 5 min ago.

They are in full damage control mode.

EDIT: PM'ed mod got thread brought back! at least they still listen to reason

 

[Elcs]

Artemis seems to be alright for LRM's, giving them a minor boost when used in a direct fire capacity.

However, they've removed cockpit shake upon LRM impact and the angle of approach seems to have changed also so that LRM's are capable of looping up over a building and arching in such a fashion that you can take a hit in the rear armour.

DHS changes have not affected my Centurion build, despite losing out on ~1.4 cooling capacity out of a previous ~22. I still feel just as punchy for my heat levels but it's just the LRM's.

I hope they hotfix the LRM arcs because it just seems to be a massive LRM-fest and you melt so fast. I feel like I'm whining even though yesterday the game was really good fun ... but LRM's don't require as much skill to be reasonably effective as many weapons and if you consider most mechs have at least one LRM pack, including Trial Mechs, everyone and their granny poses a serious threat to you when previously you'd be able to use tactics to nullify their LRM's to some degree.

 

[BrightCandle]

Right now PPCs are useless because they generate too much heat. They have gone so far from MechWarrior values that certain weapons are now pointless. In their attempts to try and prolong battles by using heat they have made missiles and ballistics the death dealers of the battlefield, because they produce less heat per damage point and heat determines your DPS almost exclusively right now.

Its dumb and as a founder I really hope they see reason on this and reset the balance to being Mechwarrior based so all builds become viable again. For now its SRMs/LRM/Gauss fights with some ML's or LL thrown in where there is spare heat capacity but not too many because you can't even mitigate the heat of a single LL on an Atlas let alone 2.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

Picked up a Cat C4 to complete my trio and try out this LRM hubub last night. hooooooo my god. I racked up the kills. at least 3 kills a match. it was insane. They need to put the damage per LRM missile back to 1 if this is the route they go down. And doesnt Artemis only work if theres a direct line of sight? I shouldnt get a better lock and tighter spread when im shooting a target being spotted by a team mate over a hill.

Artemis for SRMs is glorius! nice tight spread with a pair of SRM6s. it almost makes up for the DHS nerf on my founders cat. went from 1.45 heat efficiency to 1.21 but had to drop 2 to fit Artemis. So 1.12 now kinda sucks.

 

[Elcs]

Issue with LRM's is the arc (and Artemis seems to work for indirect too). They're almost unavoidable now.

Previous patch: LRM's were a nice long ranged, indirect fire damage tool. Not easy to avoid but there were some tactical manuevers you could perform such as using cover and buildings to block LRM flight paths or 'not get spotted/targeted in the first place' (my favourite with an LRM launcher, a Gauss and an ER Large Laser. Thermal view, x3.0 zoom, shoot what I can see, launch LRM's at what I could target.

This patch. LRM's are a primary weapon. Customised mechs with large numbers of LRM launchers and/or Artemis are lethal due to some arcing that seems to have LRM's being able to fly up and over buildings, slamming straight down the side of them. There are so many people packing these nigh unavoidable, next to skill-less menaces (previous patch LRM's required some skill to avoid wasting a large amount of ammo) that it's became a system of "If you're spotted, they'll launch LRM's at you and if you're not fast enough, you'll be nailed by most of the salvo." whereby when there are 2-3 people likely to be doing this to you at one time, surviving long enough to get some damage in on the enemy is a task which even 8x Atlas AS-7K's with 2 AMS each and unlimited would probably struggle with in this time.

Background: I was a Founder from early on and I've lived through various stages of LRM's. I've tested in every patch since Mid-July. In my opinion, the LRM's of the last patch were the most balanced LRM's we have had to date. Their lock-on times, damage dealt, avoidance capabilities, firing arc... all made for a weapon which could deal reasonable damage for a reasonable price and was something you could avoid taking damage from to a certain degree.

Now I'm not sure that Artemis IV FCS is to blame here. I think the LRM's may have been tweaked (intentionally or unintentionally) to give them such an arc that damage is hard to avoid. Couple this with Artemis IV FCS decreasing lock-on times and tightening the spread of LRM's then we have a weapon that does crazy damage. People try out this new Artemis IV, realise that it's powerful, use it more and more, more people start using it and the game becomes a bit of an LRM-fest.

My statements are not based on scientific fact but they mirror my feelings and my opinion, as well as possible causes, of this patch compared to previous iterations.

A post I made on the MWO Forums.

 

[lupi]

That's the main issue, they called it mechwarrior for a reason. If they wanted to ignore what that actual meant they could have gone with smashn battlin robots or lumbertech.

 

[child of wonder]

Game is continuing its descent into "LRM Warrior Online."

If LRMs are going to be so easy to indirect fire AND clear cover so easily, the damage needs to go back down to 1/missile.

 

[Elcs]

Game is continuing its descent into "LRM Warrior Online."

If LRMs are going to be so easy to indirect fire AND clear cover so easily, the damage needs to go back down to 1/missile.

Even with this kind of LRM-mode, 0.5/missile may be too damaging. The arcing and agility of missiles makes them extremely difficult to avoid unless you can completely break the lock in time.

I felt that LRM's were fine in the last patch. Possible to dodge, takes skill to use most effectively but is still on the easier side of use, worth using but not something overpowered or overwhelming. It had strengths and weaknesses which could be flaunted or exploited.

Artemis should have been a nice little accuracy/guidance/damage focus boost for those moments when direct-fire was possible, however it seems to do this for indirect fire too. Combined with this LRM arc change, they're just nuts and have turned the game into something enjoyable yesterday to something worthy of uninstalling and not reinstalling until it's changed/changed back.

(in my opinion)

 

[HydroSqueegee]

missile agility is right! i fired a spread at a target over a ridge, as it was lobbing in, i lost my lock. as the missiles were arcing down, i reaquired the lock when they were about three mech heights above the ground. the missiles made a hard 90 degree turn to the left about 30 meters, then dropped like a rock straight down on top of the poor mechs head for the kill.

made me giggle

 

[HydroSqueegee]

so in related news... the Bpackjack is in! it will be fun to play in 8 months...

theres an ask the dev thing going on at kotaku. from what i was relayed from other places are desert map will be next... on dec 18. blech. LRM flight path will be hotfixed. yay!

 

[Turbonium]

I barely read through this thread, but judging from a lot of the posts, seems like the glory days of MechWarrior/BattleTech are indeed over. MechWarrior 2 was the greatest thing ever (minus the less-than-lightspeed lasers and floating PPC orbs, lol).

 

[HydroSqueegee]

I barely read through this thread, but judging from a lot of the posts, seems like the glory days of MechWarrior/BattleTech are indeed over. MechWarrior 2 was the greatest thing ever (minus the less-than-lightspeed lasers and floating PPC orbs, lol).

meh. dont listen to the haters. its still fun and every tuesday its a new adventure in game mechanics!

 

[Elcs]

LRM's will be hotfixed today (10am PST)

My week has been saved!!!

 

[BrightCandle]

LRM's will be hotfixed today (10am PST)

My week has been saved!!!

Thank **** for that. It got ridiculous last night, we could tell who would win based on how many missile boats the team had. The brawler setups were out, the 100% LRM boats were in. Madness.

But I stand by the assertion that until they genuinely fix the armour/heat/weapon damage balance that they broke with the doubling of armour they will never make PPCs or the anti clan weapons (ERPPC, ERLL) viable weapons.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

im glad theyre putting in a hotfix, but im sad i couldnt get more playtime in with my C4 before the patch. i was a wrecking machine and wanted to grind out the experinace i needed on it quickly.

 

[Stuka87]

So happy they are fixing the missiles. My poor Cicada could NOT stand up to them. I could hide behind things, and they would still hit me. Full health to dead in one hit is not fun.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

So happy they are fixing the missiles. My poor Cicada could NOT stand up to them. I could hide behind things, and they would still hit me. Full health to dead in one hit is not fun.

i killed quite a few pesky cicadas. they go down real easy under a volly of 40 missiles.

 

[Elcs]

Can't wait to have my Centurion in the game as it was on Monday but with Artemis IV on the LRM10. Dropping either a single ML or single DHS for it (depending on how badly my 5-10% drop in heat disappation affects my build).

A nicely rounded build with decent alpha, strong staying ability and mobility enough to be a challenge to any Mech on the battlefield up to 65 tons. (took out almost every type of mech in a 1v1 except the Awesome and the Atlas) (Addendum to that: I've taken down an Awesome but we were both significantly damaged at the time and I cannot count that). Decent rounds see me doing anywhere from 250-700 damage in my little 50 tonner

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I was relieved to see a quick fix for the LRM trajectory, but then this pops up and pretty much confirms these guys just aren't putting a proper effort forth at the very least.
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/70334-dhs-effectiveness/
I don't want to write this game off, what they have now even with the problems isn't bad necessarily, but they are handling these issues terribly, and the game is still so limited content-wise.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

the fix helped a lot. played last night and didnt dominate completely by my lonesome. did well when the team was halfway coordinated. didnt do so well when the enemy knew what they were doing and played smart. my last match i ended up in a group with a premade of 4. they all had at least 1 large LRM rack each. combined firepower with LRMs are still effective, but no where near as bad as tuesday night. cover works again and team coordination is KING again.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

oh. and the best match last night was my team of 7 Cats and 1 Cicada against 7 Cats and 1 Cent. good times. was pretty sweet watching all our chicken legs move en mass

 

[Elcs]

Tempted to buy myself an Awesome (just coming up to Elite on my Centurions).

Is it as bad as people say? Easy headbox (know that one), vulnerable and consistantly hittable CT? weak due to the general weakness of Energy Weapons compared to it's ammo-based counterparts?

I have a feeling I know how to set one up nicely but one of my Battletech knowledgable friends is not impressed by it (he's played TT, MC/MW, read most of the novels etc.)

It was okay'ish in closed beta but nothing spectacular.

 

[HydroSqueegee]

whats the setup? i heard the baloon sized head hitbox is smaller now.

 

[lupi]

I'd stay away from them until heat issues are addressed better.

 

[Elcs]

Haven't decided on an Awesome build but I'm rocking my Centurions with an Energy-biased build quite nicely. DHS and an okay engine keeps the energy hogs at bay so I'm feeling quite confident that I could handle an Awesome.