142 replies to this topic

[Jestun]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

I'm not asking for positives.. I'm asking for the cons to it to balance the positives.

(It's already the most influential piece of equipment in the game.. I already know its positives..)

It's positive as in, it's something that's right about it (which is what the topic is asking).

Less LRM boating = a good thing.

I agree that ECM as a whole is OP and needs addressing, however one of the few good points of it is reducing LRM spam.

Edited by Jestun, 02 March 2013 - 03:41 PM.

[Merky Merc]

Less LRM boats, No moar SSRM boating

And it made lights that aren't jenners viable (arguably too viable)

[Livewyr]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

That's not how LRMs work. If you feel like it is, teamwork/TAG moar. Having "more ECM" only matters when you're trying to stack Streak-dependent lights until they reach critical mass.

And I already gave you the most important Con for ECM. Without it, the COM-2D, RVN-3L, CDA-3M, and SDR-whatever are terrible, terrible Mechs. Using it only brings them up to par.

So it's "cons" are .. being without it. Did I read that right?

hammerreborn, on 02 March 2013 - 03:42 PM, said:

The thing that's right about ECM is that it keeps making you cry like the biggest little girl that just got her first boo boo every single day on these forums, so it's clearly doing something right.

Adapt or cry!

hello hammer.. I see you've come to make the pro-ECM argument regret your existence.

[Obeast]

In my Streakitty.....I hate ECM....in my 3L or DDC....LOVE IT.

I just wish we could rent/purchase private serves. I would love to set and run games without LRMs, SSRMs, and ECM. No lock on easy mode weapons allowed.

[hammerreborn]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

So it's "cons" are .. being without it. Did I read that right?



hello hammer.. I see you've come to make the pro-ECM argument regret your existence.

And I see that someone asking what's wrong with ECM caused your toddler tantrums to rage so hard you had to make another thread about how you can't help but run crying to your mommy when you see an ECM equipped mech.

[Vlad Ward]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

So it's "cons" are .. being without it. Did I read that right?

No, you clearly did not.

Here, let me make it really simple.

Before ECM: Every Light that wasn't a Jenner was bloody terrible and anyone who used anything else was laughed off the field.

After ECM: Ravens and Commandos are suddenly viable, though still not as viable as a properly piloted Jenner.

Which is better?

[Hawks]

'Properly piloted' in this context meaning 'left in the hanger'.

[hammerreborn]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

No, you clearly did not.

Here, let me make it really simple.

Before ECM: Every Light that wasn't a Jenner was bloody terrible and anyone who used anything else was laughed off the field.

After ECM: Ravens and Commandos are suddenly viable, though still not as viable as a properly piloted Jenner.

Which is better?

Here, ill respond for live:

A world without ECM of course, lolololololol!

ECM bad, streakcat good, bring back streakcat so I can hit things!

[Livewyr]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

No, you clearly did not.

Here, let me make it really simple.

Before ECM: Every Light that wasn't a Jenner was bloody terrible and anyone who used anything else was laughed off the field.

After ECM: Ravens and Commandos are suddenly viable, though still not as viable as a properly piloted Jenner.

Which is better?

A: It's not "Ravens and Commandos" it's Raven 3L, and Commando 2D. And now all other lights, are absolutely pointless, except perhaps the Jenner which might contend because of the amount of armor and lasers/SRMs it can mount.

B: Before ECM: Streaks were able to deal with lights. (They need a nerf, but now they're literally useless on anything with, or anywhere near ECM.) LRMs dealt with charging mechs and lights in the open. Now LRMs are practically useless.. they're like a Gauss Rifle, that you have to point a laser at before you can shoot, and wait 5 seconds for the bullet to arrive. They need a nerf in damage, and a buff in missile speed.. not a "possible chance to be used in tandem with a laser" because of some equipment mounted in a mechlab.

[Vlad Ward]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

A: It's not "Ravens and Commandos" it's Raven 3L, and Commando 2D. And now all other lights, are absolutely pointless, except perhaps the Jenner which might contend because of the amount of armor and lasers/SRMs it can mount.

B: Before ECM: Streaks were able to deal with lights. (They need a nerf, but now they're literally useless on anything with, or anywhere near ECM.) LRMs dealt with charging mechs and lights in the open. Now LRMs are practically useless.. they're like a Gauss Rifle, that you have to point a laser at before you can shoot, and wait 5 seconds for the bullet to arrive. They need a nerf in damage, and a buff in missile speed.. not a "possible chance to be used in tandem with a laser" because of some equipment mounted in a mechlab.

A: That's twice as many viable variants as there used to be. There's nothing they could've done to make the rest of the awful Commandos and Spiders and bullcrap Light variants useful anyways short of more game modes. They are awful, and will always be awful.

B: It stands for B'awwwwww. LRMs need a tweak but ECM has nothing to do with their issues.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 02 March 2013 - 04:09 PM.

[slash b slash]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

Well.. at least someone gave an actual answer.. though it missed the point.

What con does it have to balance out it's ability to "curb" an entire class of weapon?


------------------
And pretending that simply curbing missile boats is enough to make it "right" would these two pieces of equipment also be OK?

Magnetic Field Calibrator: MFC
-1.5ton 2 Crit space equipment that reduces the speed of any projectile (fired from outside 270 meters) so much that it does little or no damage. The MFC could be disabled for 4 seconds by hitting the mech with a PPC to overload the calibrator, or training an Energy Drain beam on the mech. (Same style as TAG) Two MFCs within 180 meters of each other would overload each others' systems and cancel out the field.
Available on the Jenner D, Spider V, Catapult A1, and Atlas D.

Dense Fog Generator: DFG
-1.5ton 2 Crit Space equipment that envelopes the mech in Fog so that lasers have to be on target for .5 seconds in order to burn through it an do damage (with the remainder of the beam.) PPC charges would disperse in the fog in the form of lightning that would do 3-5 damage to the mech. This fog could be dissipated by a mech using Jump jets near it, using flamers on it, or by hitting it with missiles to disperse the cloud.
Available on the Hunchback 4G, Dragon 1N, Awesome 8Q, and Stalker 5M.

Those systems would certainly curb those snipers, therefore they're worth it.
Right?

Please don't give them ideas for more terrible equipment.

[hammerreborn]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

A: It's not "Ravens and Commandos" it's Raven 3L, and Commando 2D. And now all other lights, are absolutely pointless, except perhaps the Jenner which might contend because of the amount of armor and lasers/SRMs it can mount.

B: Before ECM: Streaks were able to deal with lights. (They need a nerf, but now they're literally useless on anything with, or anywhere near ECM.) LRMs dealt with charging mechs and lights in the open. Now LRMs are practically useless.. they're like a Gauss Rifle, that you have to point a laser at before you can shoot, and wait 5 seconds for the bullet to arrive. They need a nerf in damage, and a buff in missile speed.. not a "possible chance to be used in tandem with a laser" because of some equipment mounted in a mechlab.

The 4x and the 2x being bad has nothing to do with ECM and everything to do with the fact that 4 ballistic hard points and top speeds around the same as a centurion stock on a light are garbage.

Give ECM to the 4x and the spider k and you'll still have two useless mechs.

So are you saying the Jenner d is also op because it makes the k obsolete? I mean, essentially that's what your argument boils down to

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 03:28 PM, said:

See.. here's the big problem with that.. a system is not balanced if it requires having the same number of that system on either side of a match. If a system can only be balanced against itself, it is not balanced.

(Example: Missiles Pre-ECM: whichever side had more missile boats typically won. Example: Gauss pre-nerf/pre PPC buff: whichever said had more Gausscats typically won.)

Warrax, you should search my ECM balance thread (you can look in my profile if need be) and check out the quote at the bottom of the OP. You can read the whole thread if you like, in order to get a handle of a viable solution as we discussed our way to it.

LRMs aren't more engaging to play.. they're more: I hope we have more ECM than them.
---------------but aside of that:

Perhaps you would like to give it a con for this pro?

Ok, I read your thread. There is some good stuff there, but it's too long and too technical for me to discuss point-by-point the things that I agree and disagree with. I'll try instead to clarify my viewpoint.

You talked about it a bit in the other thread, but streaks are the #1 issue that has to be addressed before ECM can be toned down. They should be desirable as a tertiary weapon system, but undesirable as a primary/boated system. No one but crazy people want the streak cat to come back.

Any changes to ECM also have to keep LRMs from becoming easymode again. LRMs are pretty close to good right now, and I like that.

I also try to think in terms of what the detractors and defenders of ECM actually want.

People who defend ECM for the wrong reasons want:
To continue running easymode ECM builds.
No LRMs on the field.
*People who want to the game to be all-brawling, all-team deathmatch all the time.

People who dislike ECM for the wrong reasons want:
LRMs to be easymode again. These are the ones that think an LRM equipped mech is supposed to sit in one spot 999m away from the fight and think that getting 600dmg from 12 tons of ammo is a good thing.
People who want automagic-aimbot-streak-boats to be viable again.
*People who want to the game to be all-brawling, all-team deathmatch all the time.

*I put this in both categories, because any sort of well-implemented role/information/electronic warfare runs contrary to this method of thinking. I agree with Vlad Ward that the current ECM implementation has actually made LRMs fun and engaging to play.

I agree that the current dynamic of "whoever has the most ECM is at a huge advantage" is a bad dynamic, so something does need to be done. But I also think that trying to go back to something closer to TT rules (which you referenced heavily in that other thread) would just bring back the issues that ECM was designed to stop in the first place, i.e. guided missile dominance.

[Livewyr]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

A: That's twice as many viable variants as there used to be. There's nothing they could've done to make the rest of the awful Commandos and Spiders and bullcrap Light variants useful anyways short of more game modes. They are awful, and will always be awful.

B: It stands for B'awwwwww. LRMs need a tweak but ECM has nothing to do with their issues.

I'm dumbfounded.. I really am.

A: Please explain to me why the 3L and 2D were NOT viable before ECM?

B: ECM has nothing to do with LRM's issues? Well I suppose so if you skip over the fact that ECM nullifies any way to aim them, then that's true. Unfortunately, not being able to aim 100 speed projectiles is pretty important.. you might even say the "most" important piece of that puzzle.

[Karyn Urtsakar]

A little point to make is ECM is specifically designed to mess with your advanced targeting systems. It's what it does and it's what it always has done in Battletech. But that's why you'd take an ECM unit in the tabletop game. Artemis and Streak systems are ******* for doing higher damage.

Aside from taking up some mass and tonnage, ECM doesn't have a down side. It'll help keep your rear safe from missiles, and mess with targeting and sensors as that's what it was meant to do from day 1

If large amounts of ECM units are becoming a problem, then I think it's really going to end up being a balancing issue. Limiting the number of units with Guardian on either side maybe, or cutting down on the mechs that can actually add it perhaps. Seriously though, EWAR's always been OP in battletech. I can already hear the screams of rage when C3 is added.

[Volthorne]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

A: That's twice as many viable variants as there used to be. There's nothing they could've done to make the rest of the awful Commandos and Spiders and bullcrap Light variants useful anyways short of more game modes. They are awful, and will always be awful.

B: It stands for B'awwwwww. LRMs need a tweak but ECM has nothing to do with their issues.

A: I ran a surprisingly devastating RVN-4X in Closed Beta that was essentially on-par with a Heavy in terms of damage output, and 30 tons lighter. Sure, I typically got my *** handed to me by other Lights, but still...

B: B stands for "bull sh**". I'm willing to concede that LRMs need some tweaking, but I shouldn't be punished for making LRMs the primary weapon system on, say, a Catapult (you know, like they should be?). I personally refuse to put a TAG because it drops my defence by 1/4, and because I shouldn't need to further gimp myself (I've already devoted upwards of a third of my tonnage to a single role) to be able to use the weapons I want to in the first place.

On topic: Cons for ECM... THERE ARE NONE.

Edited by Volthorne, 02 March 2013 - 04:30 PM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

This is just dumb, devs need to put up a Command Chair like they said and address the issue. We all keep going round and round as the devs keep adding little stupid things to curb ECM because they see an issue. But they don't know how to fix it or something.

[Vlad Ward]

Livewyr, on 02 March 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

I'm dumbfounded.. I really am.

A: Please explain to me why the 3L and 2D were NOT viable before ECM?

B: ECM has nothing to do with LRM's issues? Well I suppose so if you skip over the fact that ECM nullifies any way to aim them, then that's true. Unfortunately, not being able to aim 100 speed projectiles is pretty important.. you might even say the "most" important piece of that puzzle.

A: They are straight up inferior to the JR7-D. They are not sidegrades. They are not "viable alternatives". They are inferior.

JR7-D: 4 Lasers, 2 Missiles (up to SRM4), Jump jets, 150kph, symmetrical design

JR7-F: 6 Lasers, Jump Jets, 150kph, symmetrical design

RVN-3L: 3 Lasers, 2 Missiles (one with a NARC tube), no jets, 150kph, mismatched reticules, massive side profile

COM-2D: 0 Lasers, 3 Missiles, no jets, 150kph, mismatched reticules, significantly reduced Armor

ECM gives you something called a "Sidegrade". RVN-3L is still worse than a Jenner, build-wise, but allows you to use Streaks+ECM.

LRMs work fine. If you don't believe me, just read all the LRM whine threads in GD. They do need a damage nerf and flight speed buff, though.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Vlad Ward, on 02 March 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

LRMs work fine. If you don't believe me, just read all the LRM whine threads in GD. They do need a damage nerf and flight speed buff, though.

I have thought about this myself. Could be a very good thing for everyone.

[Livewyr]

hammerreborn, on 02 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

The 4x and the 2x being bad has nothing to do with ECM and everything to do with the fact that 4 ballistic hard points and top speeds around the same as a centurion stock on a light are garbage.

Give ECM to the 4x and the spider k and you'll still have two useless mechs.

So are you saying the Jenner d is also op because it makes the k obsolete? I mean, essentially that's what your argument boils down to

Playing like you actually have an argument for a moment: Why are the COM 1B, and 1D, as well as the RVN 2X- uncompetitive as well?

Warrax the Chaos Warrior, on 02 March 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

Ok, I read your thread. There is some good stuff there, but it's too long and too technical for me to discuss point-by-point the things that I agree and disagree with. I'll try instead to clarify my viewpoint.

You talked about it a bit in the other thread, but streaks are the #1 issue that has to be addressed before ECM can be toned down. They should be desirable as a tertiary weapon system, but undesirable as a primary/boated system. No one but crazy people want the streak cat to come back.

Any changes to ECM also have to keep LRMs from becoming easymode again. LRMs are pretty close to good right now, and I like that.

I also try to think in terms of what the detractors and defenders of ECM actually want.

People who defend ECM for the wrong reasons want:
To continue running easymode ECM builds.
No LRMs on the field.
*People who want to the game to be all-brawling, all-team deathmatch all the time.

People who dislike ECM for the wrong reasons want:
LRMs to be easymode again. These are the ones that think an LRM equipped mech is supposed to sit in one spot 999m away from the fight and think that getting 600dmg from 12 tons of ammo is a good thing.
People who want automagic-aimbot-streak-boats to be viable again.
*People who want to the game to be all-brawling, all-team deathmatch all the time.

*I put this in both categories, because any sort of well-implemented role/information/electronic warfare runs contrary to this method of thinking. I agree with Vlad Ward that the current ECM implementation has actually made LRMs fun and engaging to play.

I agree that the current dynamic of "whoever has the most ECM is at a huge advantage" is a bad dynamic, so something does need to be done. But I also think that trying to go back to something closer to TT rules (which you referenced heavily in that other thread) would just bring back the issues that ECM was designed to stop in the first place, i.e. guided missile dominance.

My thread discussed a change to all the inter-related systems to be more balance.

Streaks need no-fail accuracy adjusted, LRMs need to do less damage, but travel faster- so LRM boating would be less desirable since they would do much less damage.. pretty much relegating them to the support weapon they're supposed to be, not the predator weapon they are now.