EHHHHH LONG TOMS?

[=]FC[=Striker]

Currently I would characterize the Long Tom as over powered and should not be available on the tiny maps that are available. Essentially a Long Tom can sit in base, or right outside of base, and nail any target that is actually out there and fighting. With the size of the maps, if you know the key locations where fighting occurs, random shots are frequent and devastating. When I am in a demolisher at 1100m away from a Long Tom and passive radar, but have splash all around me, I would call it random.

Here is the thing with the Long Toms. Essentially, they are intended to stay behind their friendlies and provide long range artillery support. Here is the rock, paper, scissor effect of this unit. Let us call the Long Tom the rock. The Long Tom weakness, or paper, is the Aero. The Aero has speed, agility, firepower, and does not suffer from the general condition of being on the ground to get nailed by the Long Tom.

So now we have rock and paper. What is the scissors? The AA is the scissors, meaning they take out the Aeros, which were attacking the Long Tom. Here is the major issue with the current build (and the Aero Jerks would never believe this would be coming from me). The AA is way too effective. There needs to be a balance that is struck between the AA being obsolete and it being super wtfpwnsauce.

Now look back at the original statement about the Long Tom being OP. Here is the exact reason the Long Tom is OP. Remember the rock, paper, scissor designators?

Rock is running around the game untouched because scissor is so effective that paper said "fapp it, I am not playing."

Fix that issue and we may very well see that the Long Tom isn't so over powered because there will be a control measure other then having 5 'Mechs charge across an open field, through Long Tom barrage and 10 well positioned 'Mechs, to try and take out a single asset unsuccessfully.

Striker

[Seraph]

Rock is running around the game untouched because scissor is so effective that paper said "fapp it, I am not playing."

That made me lol Well put, hehe.

[Stahlseele]

so essentially, the solution to the artillery being OP is nerfing the AA so the Aero becomes OP enough again to take out the artillery, while the AA gets hit by both Artillery and Aero?

[Spyro]

nail on the head.  this is how it goes in real life and is the easiest way to balance. Strategic artillery is a tanks worst nightmare and rightfully so, Artillery's is an aircraft, Aircraft the AA...I realize how hard it is to balance cause of the chain but this should always be beared in mind...Aero's need to survive long enough to penetrate enemy lines as long as they aren't stupid, return trip should be questionable

[=]FC[=Striker]

so essentially, the solution to the artillery being OP is nerfing the AA so the Aero becomes OP enough again to take out the artillery, while the AA gets hit by both Artillery and Aero?

Not exactly. The AA is too effective right now and that is without even bringing the Long Tom into the calculation. The Long Tom is actually just icing on the cake as far as justification as to why the Aeros can not be instantly killed by an AA.

Striker

[Brainwright]

My greatest problem with the Long Tom Artillery is that it's called the Long Tom Artillery.

Seriously, it should be Sniper or Thumper artillery.  Stop using the messed up naming conventions from previous games!

[2nd_Avatar]

The Long Tom is a fun weapon to use but, I can also see it driving players away. I was killed on marshes quite a few times just leaving my hanger.  The other team had a few LT's and they seemed to be spamming the hanger area. I know it was the first night and people were just messing around but, it was not fun. The only way I could counter was changing to the other hanger. This worked for a few minutes. Then I was forced to use LT myself, it worked. Maybe a little to good. I was getting what I would call instant kills. This asset has a lot going for it. The aiming mechanic along with radar makes it very easy, at least for me. I killed 2 mechs and heavily damaged a third in one volley at the enemy hanger area.

I can see this sort of thing only growing in popularity. A new player to the game will not be happy to be killed as he steps out of the hanger and most likely quit. Half of my team quit a short while after this LT spam started.

I mentioned 2 things in server  and I will say it again here:
1:On maps with no air assets, no LT.
2:Remove or reduce the radar from the LT tank. Make it more into a team based weapon because it will depend on information from other units.

Other than that, I lost a lot of sleep thanks to this patch....had a lot fun last night. Good thing today is a snow day.

[No!Petru]

2:Remove or reduce the radar from the LT tank. Make it more into a team based weapon because it will depend on information from other units.

Other than that, I lost a lot of sleep thanks to this patch....had a lot fun last night. Good thing today is a snow day.

I'd say it's already dependant to be truly effective.  A Long Tom using it's own radar (minding it has to be active) is within a thousand yards, which means it's a screaming "COME GET ME" target.  The really devastating LT is the one near base using C3 mechs and voice comms (which, incidently, is the most fun I've had in a game in ages .

I understand the Rock/Paper/Scissors thing, but everyone seems to be overlooking that at times, the best counter to artillery, is going to be your own artillery.  If the enemy LT is sitting focussing on your mechs, then you should easily be able to range a kill before he can reply.

[Friedrich Psitalon]

If multiple Longtoms are spamming your hangar, send out the Battlesuit brigade to rip them up. They'll have a field day.

I've yet to see a concerted, major Longtom hangar-saturation, especially a sustained one. (I mean seriously guys, the release isn't 24 hours old yet!)

I actually like that this really gives lighter, faster mechs a purpose even late in the game. Take an Atlas into open field fighting with a Longtom out there? Are you INSANE? I'm-a wait for my bud there in the Cougar to go rip that thing up, thanks.

It's virtually impossible to defend yourself against light mechs with the Long, and so if you want to use a Long-intensive strategy, you've got to base your team around it - defending them, etc. I think it's a very well-crafted piece. You can do a lot of damage, but a decent amount of time, you're actually blind to the field - because your angle of fire is so high in the air. Result? Someone running passive with a pair of gauss are going to have a field day with you.

People are kneejerking to the awesome power of the weapon, and the weapon's power is being displayed because we have a lot of bad habits right now: poptarting (stationary = target), backrank missileboating (stationary= target) and longrange, radar-active sniping (did I mention stationary= target?) Fast mechs running, or even medium/heavy mechs circling should be fine. God help an Assault against a Longtom surgeon, but that's kinda the point, right? Give people a reason to hesitate or plan before grabbing the Angel Atlas.

Longtom is fine - give people a lot longer to get used to them and countering them. AA is one way to kill a Long, but it's probably not even the best one. (MASC+GECM+shortrange weapons = dirt cheap light killing nice expensive Long.)

[(TLL)CapperDeluxe]

Or you can do like I did and jump on top of a Long Tom with an Osiris to some effect, it flipped it over  

[2nd_Avatar]

Yes send out a brigade that dies when they step out of hanger, sweet. I know time will tell but, first impressions are important too.

Imagine coming in late to the game. You spawn your light or med and step out of the hanger and explode to a random LT shell.

All tactical BS aside, this will drive players away. You don't even have to camp the enemy spawn to be lamer anymore.

The hanger in a full server usually has a decent amount of action going on from spawning, rearming and repairing. Random artillery can rack up a lot of damage. The base should be somewhat of a safe haven not an artillery magnet.

The debate for balance of any weapon can have so many variables, I usually don't even bother to add to the mess with my opinion. I do want to voice my opinion about driving players away with this sort of thing though. I can take it and will stick around but, a few of my buds are already less than thrilled. I'm not sure they will play again till another patch. At least I was able to enjoy there company last night.

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Yep, and an Atlas B can one-shot people who don't even know it's there with 1000m weaponry if it's running passive. Light mechs late in the game are always going to be playing tapdance with the heavier weaponry. That doesn't make it less appropo, and I sincerely doubt five or six people swarming out in Battle Suits are all going to get nailed.

If you're that worried about it, have someone drive an APC out behind the base at the start of the game as an alternative spawn point. That's good strategy in general, actually.

People in light mechs who join late should understand they're fragile. If they don't, it doesn't matter if it's Longtom, Atlas B, or Firebombs. Getting shelled at the hangar? Well, now you have even more motivation to send that light group out looking.

[Askis]

Concerning the LT spam on hangar entrances, maybe a base only sort-of-AMS system (intregrated into the defense turrets for example, or sitting on top of the hangar) that exclusively targets and destroys incoming LT shells and is indestructible since it does nothing but block incoming artillery.
Range should encompass the base only.

Why not regular AMS too you ask?
I don't know how often people still stay in their base and poptart with LRMs, but giving them the benefit of free AMS along with it would just encourage them further.
The anti-LT-system might too, but it would definitely stop the random spam on hangars.

But this would also mean that LT staying in or near their base would be protected from counter-artillery, so BA/Light Mechs coming in to destroy the LT would probably end up in range of the defense turrets...

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Hurray unintended consequences, eh?

Better solution: Do nothing.

If people still hang out near the hangars missileboating, the Longtoms blow the crap out of them. If they don't like it, they can either: A) move somewhere else (good) and resupply with an APC (also good) or B) send out someone in light/fast mechs to kill the Longtoms (also also good.)

It's not hard to kill a Longtom, and there are two hangars to spawn from, even if you have no APCs out.

If someone seriously means to suggest that an unstoppable, impenetrable barrage of Longtom is landing on both hangars at all times, I call bulshevik. If you're getting nailed once or twice a game at the hangar, I'd say that's healthy: means you need to plan around dealing with and killing them. Means all-assaults at the end is a bad idea, and means the game is running pretty well.

[Temphage]

So after playing a few games, the Long Tom definitely needs a hotfix ASAP. I'm almost at a loss for words about how broken it is.

If LRM camping couldn't kill this mod, Long Tom camping will. Surrounding it all is this boring bullshit rhetoric about how it's "balanced" because "the Long Tom is slow". Who gives a fapp how slow it is? So what, the enemy finally kills you ONCE after you've one-shot their mechs 4, 5 times? That's not balanced. What you have is a SUPERWEAPON. And if, amazingly, I somehow am *NOT* instantly vaporized by the enemy's artillery camping noobs, my own team simply fires at whatever cluster of mechs they can, because there's effectively almost zero effective penalty for hitting friendlies. I've been TKed by Long Tom more than I've been killed by the enemy. This means I can't go anywhere near enemy mechs, because I'll just get exploded. Congratulations, you've killed brawling.

Why do you people constantly fill this mod with bullshit weapons players can't defend themselves from? As if Aero TBolt spam and LRM camping weren't indicators enough that players HATE being killed by things they can't even *SEE*, you go ahead and put in a weapon that, literally, one-hit-kills anything lighter than an Atlas, in the same patch you removed one-hit Gauss kills from aircraft because "it wasn't fair".

fapp your rock-paper-scissors bullshit.

If that's what you want this mod to collapse into, a bunch of retards running around raping the fapp out of half the players with zero effort until the other half instantly kills them, why did you even waste time putting all these mech variants in? Where exactly DOES the mech fit into the moronic R-P-S of MWLL? It's raped by aircraft. Its raped by Long Toms. The only purpose mechs seem to have is to lumber around punching each other ineffectually? You build up ASF as mech-rapers, who are in turn instantly raped by a AAA tank. Now we have Long Tom has ground-everything raper, and is in turn instantly raped by aircraft.

The mod. Literally unplayable.