With respect, PGI -- grow a pair. You claim that ECM is balanced "how you would like it to be"; but refuse to take the course that you are on to the obvious conclusion. I disagree that ECM is in any way balanced; but let's put that aside for the moment. If you're going to keep to this course; then I demand the immediate introduction of two new modules (each limited to certain chassis, of course -- to keep them in line with ECM).
Magneto-Field: mech generates a bubble that makes all friendly mechs in it immune to ballistic damage. Cancelled for four seconds by an AC20 hitting the specific mech that is the source of the field.
EM Scattering Shield: mech generates a bubble that makes all friendly mechs in it immune to energy damage. Cancelled for four seconds by an LRM20 hitting the specific mech that is the source of the field.
You want hard-counters? Fine. Then frigging
do it. You won't, because the above modules would be stupid, lead to annoying and stupid game-play, and you'd bleed players as if you had severed the games carotid; which in effect you would have.
The problem is that having
only ECM -- rather than the above smorgasbord of annoyance and pain -- only limits the damage. Implementing only one of the three different types of weapons-counters doesn't make it balanced. It limits the annoyance; but it is only limited; not removed. It doesn't make it a good move, it doesn't make it fun, it doesn't make it a great benefit to the game nor to the players. It just limits the damage.
ECM is broken. It will
stay broken until you all put aside whatever your subjective opinions about what it "should be" are; and actually try to
balance it as opposed to trying to throw out just enough soft-counters so that you can claim to have listened and so that the community shuts up about it.
Why is it broken?
- Amusingly, the most often I see it defended; it is by people who want it in-place to protect against "skill-less" game-play (i.e. "noobs" standing at the back of the battlefield and pitching LRMs forward). ECM itself is, of course, skill-less. You literally have to just spawn on the map and you are good to go. You can make it more effective by covering other guys, by countering the enemy ECM; but that is like saying you can make LRMs more effective by shooting guys with them. In terms of skill-level, ECM erects an astonishingly low bar in terms of skill to make it worthwhile. ECM is zero-skill.
- I concentrated on the missiles above; but the reality is (as other people have pointed out) that ECM affects all weapon types. Most skilled players try to concentrate fire on where a mech is hurt worst. Being unable to see where a mech is hurt is a nerf to their skill; because they can't necessarily see where to shoot. So not only is ECM zero-skill; it actively lowers the skill-level of all of the people within it.
- ECM tends to be on mechs that are more or less immune to all of it's weaknesses (including some voiced in this command chair). Specifically, it's low hitpoints, "vulnerability" (I use the term loosely) to PPCs, and having a dedicated hardpoint are entirely immaterial on lights. It would be far easier/faster (and more effective) to just annihilate the light than it would be to try and target damage to blow up their ECM -- and if you do manage to blow up their ECM (which presumably would be LT or RT); then chances are extremely good that they're dead already, since most will be running XL engines; and even if they aren't lights spread damage so well that their CT is probably ripe for the picking.
- As others have pointed out, there is little negative to equipping ECM. The one negative is if you want to sneak around with it; it can actually paint your location (since enemy mechs around you will be disrupted) -- of course you can work around this by switching to counter; and even if you do not work around this; it isn't all that terribly much of a negative.
In addition, the
mini-soft-counters that you have enacted thus far (specifically PPC, TAG, etc.) are all extremely high-skill demand to use:
Guardian ECM takes 1.5 tons of weight and 2 critical slots; and does not take up any hardpoints (you'll presumably be adding one to enforce the "Guardian ECM must go here" rule; but it's immaterial because Guardian ECM still will not take a hardpoint that could be otherwise used -- you won't have to
give anything up in order to use Guardian ECM).
- PPCs are heavy to fit, both in terms of heat and in terms of weight. Many loadouts they simply don't work on. In fact, I rarely see them work in any loadout that isn't specifically built around them. PPCs weigh 7 tons (close to 5x as much as ECM) and take an energy hardpoint -- both of which actually make them impossible to fit for some cases (i.e. if the chassis doesn't have an energy hardpoint; or if it is a very light mech and effectively cannot fit 7 tons).
- TAG is so laughable that I almost forgot to mention it as a soft-counter. You have to maintain LOS, have to maintain fire on the target for the entire flight time of the missiles, and it completely ceases to work if the light clips past you and you fall inside their ECM bubble for any time at all. I so rarely see anyone even attempt this that it is barely worth mentioning at all. Although it weighs only 1 ton, it still takes an energy hard-point and directly impacts the actual combat-effectiveness of your mech.
So basically -- ECM is a zero-skill hard-counter to missiles and soft-counter to everything else; and the "balancing measures" that PGI has taken come down to extremely high-skill soft-counters that aren't available in a lot of pertinent places -- for example -- anyone see TAG or PPCs come into play in a solo combat between a RVN-3L and a Jenner? I bet not. Lights spend a lot of time skirmishing with other lights further away from the actual teams; and in that realm neither of the above "balancing measures" have any impact whatsoever.
As a result of the above, any chassis that can equip ECM does so. There's no thought, no choice. It just
does; because there is literally
no reason that you wouldn't. It's so obvious that (again, as above) that if someone sees you running a variant that
does have the ability to equip it, but you
don't have it, they know to laugh at you outright.
That, right there, is the
very definition of an unbalanced module, folks.
I expected more from your ECM post, PGI. A
lot more. I thought that it was taking a long time to balance because it was complicated. Instead it appears that you were just delaying in order to come up with more immaterial changes that won't really help much.
Your ECM is bad and you should feel bad, at this point.
Edited by Eraos, 04 April 2013 - 08:01 AM.
23
Bluten, on 04 April 2013 - 06:52 AM, said:
Now my poor K resides in mothball scrotums.
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