69 replies to this topic

[gregsolidus]

Tilon, on 05 December 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

BT rulebook also says that ECM only works against indirect LRM fire. Why didn't you mention or respond to that part?

Direct fire of LRMS requires you to have a lock on a target. Having a lock on a target causes that target to appear on radar.The point of Electronic Counter Measures is to effectively make you invisible to the enemy sensors. It a quandary but it can be solved by getting closer or by ECCM.

[Tilon]

Purlana, on 05 December 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

And ECM reqires skill?

LOL

Everything Counter Measures is skill my friend!

I equip this little 1.5 ton piece of equipment, and my heat signature, my ferrous signature, everything, gone! Nobody in the 31st century has developed a missile to lock onto me!

gregsolidus, on 05 December 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

Direct fire of LRMS requires you to have a lock on a target. Having a lock on a target causes that target to appear on radar.The point of Electronic Counter Measures is to effectively make you invisible to the enemy sensors. It a quandary but it can be solved by getting closer or by ECCM.

Mechs don't use 'radar' to target mechs, friend. Radar is only used to target aircraft in Battletech, and most mechs do not even have a radar equipped.

Mechs use Vislight, Infrared, Electromagnetic to target mechs. The only sensor ECM would block is Electromagnetic.

One possible solution is for the mechs to still not 'pop up' on radar, but if you see them and hover your mouse on them, you can get an LRM lock. This would be more in line with canon.

I actually kinda like how you have to actually see mechs and look around you. That part of ECM is pretty neat. The part that is ridiculous is how it completely shuts down LRMs. There is no justification for that. If an LRM mech sees you and identifies you in a direct line of sight, they should be able to lock you. ECM would block Indirect fire, because that uses Electronic Communications.

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:19 PM.

[Nightcrept]

gregsolidus, on 05 December 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

Direct fire of LRMS requires you to have a lock on a target. Having a lock on a target causes that target to appear on radar.The point of Electronic Counter Measures is to effectively make you invisible to the enemy sensors. It a quandary but it can be solved by getting closer or by ECCM.

NO.

Closer? ECCM? Have you been playing?

Closer doesn't work so that's nonsense. And ECCM means your playing a ecm mech and not lrms.

And no amount of ecm is supposed to be able to stop direct line of sight weapons.

[gregsolidus]

Tilon, on 05 December 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

Mechs don't use 'radar' to target mechs, friend. Radar is only used to target aircraft in Battletech, and most mechs do not even have a radar equipped.

Mechs use Vislight, Infrared, Electromagnetic to target mechs. The only sensor ECM would block is Electromagnetic.

And? Maybe PGI justs wants you to be invisible.

[Hotthedd]

Nauht, on 05 December 2012 - 05:04 PM, said:

Again making up numbers. But it's also true that where one leaves another walks in the door.
You can't assume anything without solid numbers and facts - unless you run your business on assumptions.

The amount of assumptions about people leaving, quitting of getting a refund has been going on for months. Months. Ever since closed CB. There have been doomsday prophecies about the game blah blah.

Well lookee here, the games still going and without any indication of slowing down.

I do not think too many people will leave a game over ONE issue, but if it is symptomatic that broken mechanics complaints fall on deaf ears, that WOULD cause casual gamers to leave.

EVERY BUSINESS in the world MUST make some assumptions. Even the SMALLEST businesses pre-pay their ESTIMATED tax bills.

[Tilon]

gregsolidus, on 05 December 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

And? Maybe PGI justs wants you to be invisible.

And as a Battletech fan, I find that hilarious. This ECM situation is ridiculous. I like how it lets you flank and ambush and not 'pop up' on radar, but shutting down weapon systems completely with a tiny piece of equipment? Ridiculous. You should still be targetable with missiles.

Direct line of sight should largely nullify ECM when it comes to weapon systems. There is not an ECM on Earth that can negate your Infrared, Vislight, or metallic signature.

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:22 PM.

[Sovolis]

Xenosphobatic, on 05 December 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

Pre-ECM, 5/8 mechs in a match were either streakcats or had streaks if they had a missle slot. Very few mechs lower than heavyweights were on the field
Post-ECM, I've seen a much greater variety of mechs being fielded.
While the ECM is, IMO, a little on the overpowered side at the moment, it has gone a long way to making lights and especially mediums useful again.

Then fix the ACTUAL problem; the streaks themselves. Fixing a problem weapon system by coding in a whole new feature will only result in the problem we are currently facing; 2 problem features instead of 1. This shows incredibly bad game design, along with very limited foresight, on the part of PGI.

[Tilon]

Sovolis, on 05 December 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

Then fix the ACTUAL problem; the streaks themselves. Fixing a problem weapon system by coding in a whole new feature will only result in the problem we are currently facing; 2 problem features instead of 1. This shows incredibly bad game design, along with very limited foresight, on the part of PGI.

Exactly. As I have said, the problem with streaks is you only have to lock on once. The way streaks are designed, they had to lock on every shot. I'm not saying that is necessarially the answer, but having them only lock on once obviously imbalances the concept.

Streaks were never intended to be EASIER to hit with. The bonus of streaks is that you never fired and missed, so you never wasted ammo or heat! It didn't give you a targeting edge, and the current streaks have a huge targeting edge.

[LOWJACKCITY]

Its definitely broken. But its just like anything else, anyone who benefits from this (basically people that loved to use the mechs that can equip ECM before it came out) will love it and think its now skill that they are doing so well. This is literally like the OP LRMs issue but the opposite.

For instance, Im mainly a Jenner D player that relies on my 150kph speed to outrun missiles or get behind buildings. I dont need ECM nor do I believe it should be available for my variant, but in it's current state there is no point in playing my Jenner since now even Commandos can routinely kill me since I only have my two MPLs because my streaks never lock. I cannot kill even a Commando that is laying streak after streak into me, period. Whereas before I felt it like it really was skill and a bit of luck who won, plenty of excellent Commando pilots have killed me before, but I won plenty too...now never. It's OP. In fact, I haven't really seen anyone playing anything missiles since ECM came out, unless they haven't tried to yet.

[Nauht]

Hotthedd, on 05 December 2012 - 05:19 PM, said:

I do not think too many people will leave a game over ONE issue, but if it is symptomatic that broken mechanics complaints fall on deaf ears, that WOULD cause casual gamers to leave.

EVERY BUSINESS in the world MUST make some assumptions. Even the SMALLEST businesses pre-pay their ESTIMATED tax bills.

Only for another to try the game out and maybe that one will like it.

See we're going in circles and like I said we can play the what if game til the clans invade - for real.

I'll just file your "assumption" with every other doomsday "prediction" in a non marked box up on the top shelf.

You have my permission to quote on it when what you say actually happens. Here it's box number 1847736.

[Harmatia]

Nightcrept, on 05 December 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

Ecm does far more to turn this into cod then it does to make this game a sim. Unless of course an adequate counter is in the works.

You should read the developer post describing how both ECM modes work. You might have a clue how to overcome it.

[Tilon]

Harmatia, on 05 December 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

You should read the developer post describing how both ECM modes work. You might have a clue how to overcome it.

You have to be at close range to counter ECM currently. From longer range, ECM is not counterable. Even Active Probe is worthless against it, and it was about worthless anyway.

Hilarious, how bad this is balanced. For the price of a heatsink and a half, never be shot at by an LRM again!

Tell me, if you can make LRMs obsolete with 1.5 tons, why would anyone use an AMS?

That alone proves it's broken game design. The only reason everyone doesn't replace their AMS with ECM, is that the devs won't let them.

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:32 PM.

[darknothing]

bioscmos303, on 05 December 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

bye bye mwo was short and sweet

problem is to many people cant handle strategy or anything overly hard.

[Tilon]

BiffAlexander, on 05 December 2012 - 05:31 PM, said:

Well, I think it is fine. How dare there exist a counter to LRMs and Streaks.

This isn't a 'counter', it shuts LRMs down completely, which not only is imbalanced, it has no precedent in the game universe. LRMs should have no problem locking a target in direct line of sight.

Streaks are imbalanced for reasons stated before in this thread. I agree streaks needed something done to them, but this is not the answer.

Once again, if you think ECM is balanced:

If you can make LRMs obsolete with 1.5 tons, why would any mech ever equip an AMS?

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:34 PM.

[Felix]

darknothing, on 05 December 2012 - 05:31 PM, said:

problem is to many people cant handle strategy or anything overly hard.

There is no strategy involved with ECM, other than just drooling on yourself and running around doing the same thing you would have done before the introduction of ECM with the added benefit of ruining other folks fun

[Tilon]

An easy fix: Mechs can still stay off HUD targeting, but if someone locks you with Vislight or Infrared (If they directly put their cursor over you) they should be able to fire missiles.

This would solve a lot of the problems, while still retaining a lot of the stealth qualities of ECM. Direct line of sight should allow missiles to lock on.

Just couple this with a lock on nerf to streaks that prevents them from being 'lock on once, fire 100 times' 100% accuracy spamfest, and things will be fine.

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:39 PM.

[LOWJACKCITY]

I dont get these posts implying how strategic it is to use ECM and how it isn't to use locking on missiles. Go tell every military ever that they suck and aren't strategic since they pretty much rely on missiles that can lock on and home in.

LRM boats exist for a reason. You don't have all mechs capable of everything, wheres the team?? While I see that ECM is effectively making a team stick together, it completely negates a few key roles. After the LRM fix a few weeks back, I never felt that LRMs OR Streaks were OP. Never. I have multiple mechs some with streaks and/or LRMs, some without any. I do well with all my mechs generally, but I never completely dominate. Now it's totally pointless to use at least 2 of my mechs. IMHO I feel like those that ***** about how easy it is to use lock on weapons should go actually try and dominate like you think people automagically do...trust me. They don't. They win just as often as anyone else.

Edited by LOWJACKCITY, 05 December 2012 - 05:40 PM.

[Nightcrept]

Harmatia, on 05 December 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

You should read the developer post describing how both ECM modes work. You might have a clue how to overcome it.

You can talk about how to overcome it all you want but if it isn't real world applicable then its just talk. And currently there is no way to counter ecms.

[Tilon]

LOWJACKCITY, on 05 December 2012 - 05:39 PM, said:

I dont get these posts implying how strategic it is to use ECM and how it isn't to use locking on missiles. Go tell every military ever that they suck and aren't strategic since they pretty much rely on missiles that can lock on and home in.

If lock-on isn't skill, I don't see how equipping a tiny module that makes lock-ons impossible is skill, either.

There's no such thing as an ECM that hides your heat or metallic signature. Currently, we have Everything Counter Measures.

Why would anyone ever equip an AMS if 1.5 tons makes you completely unlockable to LRMs?

Edited by Tilon, 05 December 2012 - 05:42 PM.

[Nightcrept]

Tilon, on 05 December 2012 - 05:41 PM, said:

If lock-on isn't skill, I don't see how equipping a module that makes lock-ons impossible is skill, either.

There's no such thing as an ECM that hides your heat or metallic signature. Currently, we have Everything Counter Measures.

Quoted for the truth.

It's super easy cheat mode for brawlers.