1089 replies to this topic

[Carrioncrows]

I can't help but feel all the hours I spent on well thought out discussion on ECM and how to balance it was nothing more than a waste of my ******* time.

Obviously when it comes to feedback PGI writes it's own.

Edited by Carrioncrows, 03 April 2013 - 03:00 PM.

[Tennex]

have it equipable on every mech.

then we shall see if it is OP or not

Edited by Tennex, 03 April 2013 - 01:57 PM.

[BlueSanta]

Royalewithcheese, on 03 April 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

On the subject of the 3-L, Garth has been dropping hints that that particular variant may be nerfed.

No, he's hinting that the first Champion mech will be one of the bum Ravens. Big deal.

[Deathlike]

BlueSanta, on 03 April 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

No, he's hinting that the first Champion mech will be one of the bum Ravens. Big deal.

Well technically, he is hinting that the 2X and 4X may get some sort of buff... I only hope for an engine buff.

Even then, they are still garbage when the 3L is still the goto Raven.

Edited by Deathlike, 03 April 2013 - 01:59 PM.

[Phaesphoros]

Royalewithcheese, on 03 April 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

On the subject of the 3-L, Garth has been dropping hints that that particular variant may be nerfed.

Then it'll be the Streakman COM-2D. It also shreds light mechs, especially spiders. The 3L isn't the problem, you can hit its legs now. The problem is streaks in general (off topic) and the combination of streaks + ECM.

[Sybreed]

make BAP a counter to ECM and while you're at it, give a purpose to NARC, it's so useless right now!

Jesus, will I have to make a trip to Montreal and tell IGP to tell you guys to balance this game once and for all. (I could go to Vancouver, but Montreal is much closer...ya know)

[armyof1]

Well it's nice to see one of the things that always annoyed me will be fixed, the minimap jamming so you can't see where your team/targeted opponents are whenever an ECM is close. But still the ECM+SSRM combination needs to be adressed. To give ECM mechs exclusive use of of SSRMS while cancelling out anyone equipping SSRMS being able to target them back is a mistake. And seriously that 5 sec cancel from PPC is way too short, you'd need to be perfectly placed to just fire once and then it's back to ECM business as usual.

Weapons that you can equip should be more or less effective against your opponent depending on how you use them, not totally useless because you face an ECM equipped opponent. With LRMS you can at least use TAG, but with streaks you're 100% unable to use them. This still makes ECM unbalanced overall and needs to be looked over. Unless you are only dropping in an organized team where you can assure a couple of ECM are equipped so you can cancel the ECM of the opponents, you will still have obvious balance problems as soon as one team has several ECM and your team has none. This needs to be looked at ever since ECM was introduced.

Edited by armyof1, 03 April 2013 - 02:06 PM.

[Rippthrough]

I was gonna give feedback, but it's pretty obvious it wasn't listened to the last few times after pages and pages of it from the community, so - LONG LIVE THE 3L!

[shintakie]

Prosperity Park, on 03 April 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

That's just my opinion... but you can always drop ECM in favor of Jump Jets. That, right there, is that ACTUAL balancing feature of ECM. You can't use ECM with Jump Jets because there are no Mechs that can co-equip them. EDIT - Forgot the Spider, sorry, I was thinking only in terms of 35 tons. You can use a Spider with JJ and ECM at the price of many, many tons.

It'd be better if all the ECM mechs were like the 3M. The 3M is only so so. No missile hard points. Kinda wonky hardpoints in the first place. No JJ's (though no Cicada has them), and kinda undergunned. That's a tradeoff for ECM right there. The Raven, Atlas, and Spider ended up havin the best variants already get the extra bump with ECM makin the others even worse.

Think of it like this. What if the Raven with ECM was the 2X? The 3L would be faster and better gunned, but you'd lose the utility of ECM to use it. What if the Spider that had it was the..uhh...whichever one only has 2 energy hard points in the chest, or the 5K because lolMG's? You'd lose firepower for a gain in utility.

That's how ECM should be spread out. The mechs with the least optimal hard point allocations should get the utility boost of ECM, not the mechs with the best possible hardpoints.

[INSEkT L0GIC]

Royalewithcheese, on 03 April 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

If a 3-L gets hit by any serious build that runs PPCs, it has more pressing issues than losing ECM for 4 seconds. Don't get me wrong, I actually think ECM is mostly okay (and will be more okay with HSR II) but 4 seconds of short-out from a PPC was never a viable counter.

You get more than one mech hitting it with a PPC every 3 seconds continuously and leg it before its ECM ever comes back up.

ECM is better countered through tactics, not gear.

[BlueSanta]

Deathlike, on 03 April 2013 - 01:58 PM, said:

Well technically, he is hinting that the 2X and 4X may get some sort of buff... I only hope for an engine buff.

Even then, they are still garbage when the 3L is still the goto Raven.

Yeah, the ECM variant of any chassis will always be the best variant.

[shintakie]

BlueSanta, on 03 April 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

Yeah, the ECM variant of any chassis will always be the best variant.

Thats entirely not true. The Cicada ECM variant is far from the best variant. There's a choice involved in decidin if you want ECM or not when you pick a Cicada. Granted none of the other mechs with ECM make this choice, but you definitely have to there.

INSEkT L0GIC, on 03 April 2013 - 02:01 PM, said:

You get more than one mech hitting it with a PPC every 3 seconds continuously and leg it before its ECM ever comes back up.

ECM is better countered through tactics, not gear.

And how do you propose we get better tactics in pugs with the inability to even see where your team is let alone have absolutely no effective way to communicate with them with the terrible chat interface we have.

Seriously. I can't even delete more than 1 letter at a time in my chat window because holdin backspace does NOTHING. Zero. Zip. Nada. I have to hit backspace for every single letter if I mess up. somewhere. The only other option is CTRL+A.

Edited by shintakie, 03 April 2013 - 02:06 PM.

[TexAce]

Since I had no problem with ECM until now (never piloted an ECM mech) I will have even less when you do the changes.

Thank you very much.

I can't understand how everyone is still nagging around. Kindergarten.

I hope the devs know you can never satisfy everyone, but watching this forum it looks like everyone is 12 years old and against everything like a pubertarian girl.

Edited by TexAss, 03 April 2013 - 02:05 PM.

[Suko]

After reading the reply thread to the ECM discussion, I have to say that I'm extremely disappointed in your response to ECM.

ECM is not a "fun" gameplay mechanic. It's only total counter is another ECM unit. This is terrible asymmetrical game balancing. PPCs helped a bit, but notice that LRMs are nowhere to be seen anymore? Damage reduction aside, TAG + LRMs just aren't a good enough counter to use against ECM teams.

I've found myself getting more disinterested with MWO over the last couple weeks, but now that I know ECM isn't changing in any significant way, I'm simply demoralized. I was hoping someone at your company would realize that perhaps BAP could be a useful counter to SOME aspects of ECM...but no. It's completely trumped by a piece of equipment that is supposed to be its opposite counterpart. Hilarious.

Honestly, at this point I don't know how long I can keep playing MWO before I don't come back. I have NEVER played a game of MWO where I thought to myself "Thank GOD for ECM. This makes the game AWESOME!". Then again, I don't play an ECM mech, so maybe I'm missing out on all the fun.

Conclusion: I'm really disappointed to hear that your company thinks ECM is working as intended. Simply put, it is not.

Edited by ShadowVFX, 04 April 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[Roland]

I honestly have no problem with how ECM affects missiles. However, I still wish that if I actually SEE a mech, and put my reticle directly on top of it, that I should be able to target that mech.. not for missile launching or anything, but for target designation.

That is, if I put my target DIRECTLY onto a mech and hit R, even if it is under ECM, it would be nice if it was targeted (but still immune to missile lock) and given a designation. Purely for the purpose of supporting team coordination.

[Tennex]

it is still the best thing for 1.5 tons and 2 criticals. and is still used offensively rather than as a scout tool. ECM mechs should be scouts/support.

Sacrificing nothing for all that utility means that these mechs have enough tonnage avaliable to still be very strong fighters.

Critical Health is the worst way to balance an item.

Edited by Tennex, 03 April 2013 - 02:56 PM.

[Davers]

Four seconds is not long enough time to really do anything. Maybe if you had the mech under your reticle and were within 300m you might get one volley of LRMs off. This really isn't something to write home about. Lights with ECM are pretty much immune to LRMs anyway, and if getting maybe one volley of SSRMs off in those 4 seconds is so good, imagine being able to fire them at will.

That being said, ballistic state rewind will be a very good thing (especially since it effects the PPC as well). ECM not hiding friendly units is a very big positive step.

[TOGSolid]

This is a really awful command chair post and a complete smack in the face of everything the community has been saying for a long time now.

Quote

It'd be better if all the ECM mechs were like the 3M. The 3M is only so so. No missile hard points. Kinda wonky hardpoints in the first place. No JJ's (though no Cicada has them), and kinda undergunned. That's a tradeoff for ECM right there. The Raven, Atlas, and Spider ended up havin the best variants already get the extra bump with ECM makin the others even worse.

Exactly. Combining a module that shuts down the best counter to light mechs with mechs that run that very weapon system is just disastrous. Streak equipped, ECM light mechs are absolute terrors on the battlefield and far more powerful than they have any right to be. Move the ECM module to the Atlas K (the post-Jihas K2 is supposed to be the ECM Atlas anyway), pull it off of all the missile equipped lights and place it on variants with fewer weapons and no missile hard points. Make taking ECM into a legitimate choice that isn't always an easy one.

Quote

Disagree, I don't think the CDA-3M or AS7-D-DC are the best variants.

Lolwut?

Edited by TOGSolid, 03 April 2013 - 02:08 PM.

[BlueSanta]

shintakie, on 03 April 2013 - 02:04 PM, said:

Thats entirely not true. The Cicada ECM variant is far from the best variant. There's a choice involved in decidin if you want ECM or not when you pick a Cicada. Granted none of the other mechs with ECM make this choice, but you definitely have to there.

Cicada is garbage (sorry Garth). It's essentially an easier to hit scout because of its big torso with all those sections close together.

Edited by BlueSanta, 03 April 2013 - 02:08 PM.

[Gregory Owen]

Wow they actually did it, They pulled a full Smedley.

He has completely disregarded any feedback from the community in favor of there own "Vision" of the game.

that entire post is just him kicking the community in the balls and saying "I am in charge, this is whats happening"

Edited by Gregory Owen, 03 April 2013 - 02:08 PM.