313 replies to this topic

[Teralitha]

Tie Ma, on 03 April 2013 - 09:44 PM, said:

the 3L will still dominate in the light circuit. no light mech can carry ER PPC to combat the ECM/sSRM combo.

and if they allowed everymech to have ECM. it would be the replacement for AMS. nobody would ever carry AMS. and everbody would have ECM.

Nobody would have radar either. Think man... THINK

[TruePoindexter]

Teralitha, on 04 April 2013 - 10:42 AM, said:

Why do you think ECM is fine? Id like someone who says this to give a very detailed and lengthy logical explanation why you think ECM is fine. Otherwise your opinions are worthless. Make it constructive and actually have a point that debunks all the reasons why everyone else thinks its a bad thing. What is the logic behind the reason.

You see all these guys in the feedback forum giving detailed explanations on why ECM is bad for the game that are many paragraphs long? Yea... lets see you do that.

Well first off the length of the argument does not add to the validity of the argument. In fact I would argue it usually indicates an unclear idea that needs a lot of justification.

• ECM changes the game dynamics forcing players to be more alert and actively seek out the enemy as opposed to walking towards whatever their friend has targeted. It forces communication and teamwork to overcome the cloaking aspects.
  
• It provides a very powerful shield against long range LRM bombardment (ignoring that LRM's are lackluster right now) from cover while still allowing teams who specialize in that tactic use it by countering the ECM.
  
• It discourages the SSRM build making it a high risk high reward (when SSRM's were working correctly) mech as opposed to the overlord of light stomping.
  
• It helps protect the scout making true intelligence gathering easier as the scout must now be visually acquired as opposed to just found via radar lock. Combined with the changes to Thermal vision scouting is more important than ever.
  
• It is now legitimately possible to ambush enemies as you no longer appear on radar when you briefly expose more than 25% of your mech while advancing.

There are more benefits but I think that's enough for now.

[General Taskeen]

People that like ECM, fine. You can't deny that you like being hidden and locking out missile weapons, something that never happened in any Mech Warrior game where ECM was a balanced bonus and that was it. I am speaking for myself too, because I do abuse ECM for an easy time and I like that feeling when it hides me and that people have to equip other items like modules, weapons, or equipment just to counter it in addition to the "more ecm counter." But, I recognize that it's not right and unethical for me to agree with that balance.

In MW:LL, ECM hides you from radar, but any lock on weapon can shoot at you in addition to direct fire. It just takes longer for the lock to occur than normal.

The change is so simplistic it kills me to see the direction this game is going as far as balance goes.

Edited by General Taskeen, 04 April 2013 - 11:46 AM.

[Inkarnus]

remove ecm from heavy and assault mech that support it problem fixed :X

[Ialti]

Tennex, on 03 April 2013 - 09:39 PM, said:

does it matter what we think?

Again like with the PPC effect paul missing the point completely.

Binding the ECM to a hardpoint will nerf the atlas, but what about the raven. who can honestly say they can pinpoint the raven's right torso to take out ECM. if you had the skills to do that, you'd be better off blow out its XL engine and kkil it. and if that were so easy there wouldn't be a 3L infestation in the firs place.

before saying nerf the 3L. lets use our thinking noggin and remember back to before the ECM was implemented and the 3L was unknown and the Jenner was OP.

And then use our readin' noggin and read the rest of Paul's post:

Quote

you will notice an even more drastic fix to the problem (state rewinding as addressed by Bryan and Matt C. in another Command Chair post). What does this have to do with ECM? With state rewind going into the game, it is VERY possible to take down any high-speed Mech as long as you have the aim because where you aim is going to be where you hit. ECM or not, high-speed Mechs are in for a world of hurt that they are currently not used to.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

It provides a very powerful shield against long range LRM bombardment (ignoring that LRM's are lackluster right now) from cover while still allowing teams who specialize in that tactic use it by countering the ECM.

It can completely counter an entire weapon type, unlike AMS which just reduces the effective damage. Not to mention it made AMS pretty much obsolete. So that is 2 pieces of equipment that are worthless because of one thing.

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

It discourages the SSRM build making it a high risk high reward (when SSRM's were working correctly) mech as opposed to the overlord of light stomping.

High risk high reward is taking a insanely powerful point blank weapon, not taking an easy mode weapon that only if you have the ECM superiority. SSRMs were easy mode before, so rather than change them, they introduced a piece of equipment that made the light game solely revolve around the combination of these weapons, and only killed Streakapults. So rather than change what is broken, they add something broken to fix another broken aspect.

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

It helps protect the scout making true intelligence gathering easier as the scout must now be visually acquired as opposed to just found via radar lock. Combined with the changes to Thermal vision scouting is more important than ever.

I agree with this, but this was present in MW4 as well, where it wasn't overpowered because it didn't provide cloaking for more than that mech, nor did it neutralize weapons types that might be suitable against you.

People aren't arguing that cloaking is a problem, but it providing cloaking for an entire team is bad, especially when you get to stacking elements which force an arms race of countering when the only passive counter to it, is itself.
The other problem, it makes two weapons absolutely worthless within its bubble. It doesn't give those people a chance to be skillful with their weapons and overcome a disadvantage (like AMS did), it just flat out removes them from the equation. This is not only bad counter-play for those fighting against ECM, but it is bad game-design, there should be no hard counter to any weapon system.

Edited by majora incarnate, 04 April 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[TruePoindexter]

General Taskeen, on 04 April 2013 - 11:03 AM, said:

People that like ECM, fine. You can't deny that you like being hidden and locking out missile weapons, something that never happened in any Mech Warrior game where ECM was a balanced bonus and that was it. I am speaking for myself too, because I do abuse ECM for an easy time and I like that feeling when it hides me and that people have to equip other items like modules, weapons, or equipment just to counter it in addition to the "more ecm counter." But, I recognize that it's not right and unethical for me to agree with that balance.

In MW:LL, ECM hides you from radar, but any lock on weapon can shoot at you in addition to direct fire. It just takes longer for the lock to occur than normal.

The change is so simplistic it kills me to see the direction this game is going as far as balance goes.

Well that's kinda the point isn't it? Hiding you from missile locks is one of the key features of ECM. If all it did was slow target locking it really wouldn't be worth mounting.

I don't remember MW2 or MW3 having ECM. Might be bad memory but none of the league mechs we used in MW3 had it. MASC on the other hand was on everything as well as 5 AMS. MW4's ECM was only marginally useful and really you could forgo it for multiplayer and not see any difference. As for MW:LL well I don't like criticizing it here so I'll just pass on that one.

Let me put it this way - when I start seeing my KDR and W/L take a hit I will start investigating it to find a reason. It hasn't and I don't run any ECM mechs while also almost always solo pugging.

The only legitimate case where ECM had an issue was in 8 mans where the meta game (no weight class matching or weight restrictions) dictated that you should bring only ECM mechs (pretty much ideally 2 RVN-3L and 6 AS7-D-DC). I have not played 8 mans for a very long time though so this may have changed.

[Sam Slade]

best thing they could do: remove the 'arms race' element... one ECM on Counter negates all enemy ECM in range. More think less pack

[Quicksilver Aberration]

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

MW4's ECM was only marginally useful and really you could forgo it for multiplayer and not see any difference.

MW4 Missile Boats would like to have a word with you.......specifically the ATM60 Vultures.
Were the game not as dominated by giant Lasers, and were ECM and its counter, BAP, less prevalent, you might've seen a lot more ECM. The difference is, it didn't stop anyone from returning fire, and even on mechs that had it as an option didn't HAVE to run it and be effective (barring missile boats and scouts that is). If you have to have it to be effective, why even give players the option to run it?

Edited by majora incarnate, 04 April 2013 - 11:33 AM.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

ECM changes the game dynamics forcing players to be more alert and actively seek out the enemy as opposed to walking towards whatever their friend has targeted. It forces communication and teamwork to overcome the cloaking aspects.

It does not. Here are the ECM tactics, that brough so much variety to the game:

• Hang back and snipe with LRM immunity.
  
• Rush up and brawl with LRM immunity.
  
• Don’t worry about piloting skill, maneuvering, and evasion; those things are all handled by ECM now.
  

Communication and teamwork, two things that don’t have adequate in-game functionality. Maybe PGI should have implemented those first. A working command console and c3 network.

Quote

It provides a very powerful shield against long range LRM bombardment (ignoring that LRM's are lackluster right now) from cover while still allowing teams who specialize in that tactic use it by countering the ECM.

Let me rephrase that for you: “it allows ecm teams to wreck non-ecm teams because our LRMs work, and yours don’t.

Quote

It discourages the SSRM build making it a high risk high reward (when SSRM's were working correctly) mech as opposed to the overlord of light stomping.

That was a poor excuse when SSRMs were overpowered. When they all hit the CT every time, and they did 2.5 damage per missile. Now it is just laughable.

Quote

It helps protect the scout making true intelligence gathering easier as the scout must now be visually acquired as opposed to just found via radar lock. Combined with the changes to Thermal vision scouting is more important than ever.

It does just the opposite. Before a scout had to be quick witted and a good pilot to get in, get intel, and stay alive. Now all the “scouts” are just mini-brawlers who are dependent on ECM to replace skill.

Quote

It is now legitimately possible to ambush enemies as you no longer appear on radar when you briefly expose more than 25% of your mech while advancing.

Did you even play before ECM. This was a huge role for the scout. Without ECM they used to herd the enemy around, pulling them into ambushes, or getting them to turn around at the right moment. In fact I have never seen a good ambush accomplished with ECM, and ECM ambush amounts to moving to the enemy in a straight line taking advantage of LRM defense and their inability to focus fire.

[Teralitha]

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Well first off the length of the argument does not add to the validity of the argument. In fact I would argue it usually indicates an unclear idea that needs a lot of justification.

• ECM changes the game dynamics forcing players to be more alert and actively seek out the enemy as opposed to walking towards whatever their friend has targeted. It forces communication and teamwork to overcome the cloaking aspects.

Why does there need to be forced communication? Dont coordinated teams communicate and use teamwork already? People need radar and voice coms to coordinate. All ECM does is nerf team coordination and teamwork. It doenst enhance it in any way.

Quote

• It provides a very powerful shield against long range LRM bombardment (ignoring that LRM's are lackluster right now) from cover while still allowing teams who specialize in that tactic use it by countering the ECM.

So an enemy team takes all ECM mechs. The map has cover. Your team which specializes in making use of LRMs... is all dead, doing very little or no damage. The counters for ECM are pretty useless in that situation. Only time the team that uses LRMs does well is if there are only 1 or 2 ECM enemies. Guess what... every coordinated team focuses on using lots of ECM, and infighter builds. Not saying thats all there is, Im just saying thats really the kind of gameplay that ECM promotes.

Quote

• It discourages the SSRM build making it a high risk high reward (when SSRM's were working correctly) mech as opposed to the overlord of light stomping.

Light mechs need a counter. SSRMs are it. All; ECM has done is make light mechs even more powerful.

Quote

• It helps protect the scout making true intelligence gathering easier as the scout must now be visually acquired as opposed to just found via radar lock. Combined with the changes to Thermal vision scouting is more important than ever.

This is just fine. Except that the ECM light doesnt just do that, because it has a area radar disruption it more beneficial to run around the enemy team blocking their radar disorienting them, making them easy targets for your team... It should not have that ability.

Quote

• It is now legitimately possible to ambush enemies as you no longer appear on radar when you briefly expose more than 25% of your mech while advancing.

There are more benefits but I think that's enough for now.

It was always possible to ambush enemies, even before ECM. ECM just makes it so you can "ambush" on the go. No need to shut down in a hiding spot waiting for enemy mechs to approach.(This is a true ambush) ECM is a roaming ambush. no longer do you have to hide shut down... no, now you can sneak up on your enemy unseen without using any skill whatsoever. Which is overpowered.


There. It was a nice post, but you got alot of it wrong.

Edited by Teralitha, 04 April 2013 - 11:38 AM.

[Deathlike]

Sam Slade, on 04 April 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

best thing they could do: remove the 'arms race' element... one ECM on Counter negates all enemy ECM in range. More think less pack

I don't think that would necessarily work. It's not too hard to figure out the guy using Counter mode and to focus fire on it. In the end, you'd still want more ECM on the field... as long as they stay alive long enough with it. It changes the dynamics slightly, but wouldn't change the overall ECM arms race.

[TruePoindexter]

majora incarnate, on 04 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

It can completely counter an entire weapon type, unlike AMS which just reduces the effective damage. Not to mention it made AMS pretty much obsolete. So that is 2 pieces of equipment that are worthless because of one thing.

That's the point - It keeps carrying only LRM's from being advisable. Pre ECM I would see many mechs who would just sit way in the back and lob missiles while relying on their team's locks. Now those locks are not reliable. It makes using the weapons a tactical decision instead of a knee jerk one. A larger issue is that LRM's are not performing where they should right now.

majora incarnate, on 04 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

High risk high reward is taking a insanely powerful point blank weapon, not taking an easy mode weapon that only if you have the ECM superiority. SSRMs were easy mode before, so rather than change them, they introduced a piece of equipment that made the light game solely revolve around the combination of these weapons, and only killed Streakapults. So rather than change what is broken, they add something broken to fix another broken aspect.

It's easy to say that they should change a weapon's behavior so let me play devil's advocate here and ask you how you would change it? It's a missile - you lock onto targets and then fire it. In what way would you change behavior to discourage exclusive use of the weapon without overly weakening it and still providing meaningful choices to the player? It's not an easy question so carefully consider your answer.

majora incarnate, on 04 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

I agree with this, but this was present in MW4 as well, where it wasn't overpowered because it didn't provide cloaking for more than that mech, nor did it neutralize weapons types that might be suitable against you.

Having played in the leagues during the early launch of MW4 I would point out that it was also largely inconsequential. MW4 was a broken game and is the main reason why ranked play from MW3 died fairly quickly after the transition to MW4. MW4's main boon was a solid campaign and interesting story that culminated in MW4:Mercs. Its game balance was abysmal.

majora incarnate, on 04 April 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

People aren't arguing that cloaking is a problem, but it providing cloaking for an entire team is bad, especially when you get to stacking elements which force an arms race of countering when the only passive counter to it, is itself.
The other problem, it makes two weapons absolutely worthless within its bubble. It doesn't give those people a chance to be skillful with their weapons and overcome a disadvantage (like AMS did), it just flat out removes them from the equation. This is not only bad counter-play for those fighting against ECM, but it is bad game-design, there should be no hard counter to any weapon system.

Playing devil's advocate again (sorry I kinda enjoy it) but why should there not be a hard counter in a game? Think about a balanced fighting game like Soul Calibur or Street Fighter or an RTS. There are some definite hard counters in those games and yet they offer enough depth to encourage high ranked league play. How can this be if hard counters are bad?

I also think people need to stop viewing ECM in a bubble - there are other aspects of the game to consider. In the past ECM lights were very difficult to kill. People incorrectly attributed this to ECM because of a dumb idea that SSRMs were the only way to kill lights but in truth it was just the fact that hit detection on fast moving lights was very poor. Lights in general were just hard to kill. We have much better hit detection now making the ECM light much more vulnerable than it had been in the past. The AS7-D-DC is also no where near as intimidating as it had been simply because the game style has shifted away from slow lumbering point blank encounters. Fights now break out at much longer ranges and demand more mobility - two areas where an Atlas tends to not be the best mech for the job. It's important to take in the game as a whole and not just one aspect of it.

[Teralitha]

Ialti, on 04 April 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

And then use our readin' noggin and read the rest of Paul's post:

The problem isnt light mechs and how they are hard to hit. Its the capabilities of ECM that are brokenly overpowered. Paul should get it, but he doesnt, which is pretty sad considering is the like the lead designer or something.... I wonder if he is even playing the game...

[TruePoindexter]

majora incarnate, on 04 April 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

MW4 Missile Boats would like to have a word with you.......specifically the ATM60 Vultures.
Were the game not as dominated by giant Lasers, and were ECM and its counter, BAP, less prevalent, you might've seen a lot more ECM. The difference is, it didn't stop anyone from returning fire, and even on mechs that had it as an option didn't HAVE to run it and be effective (barring missile boats and scouts that is). If you have to have it to be effective, why even give players the option to run it?

By the time those were in the game balance had checked out and thrown in the towel. MW4 league play in early launch was exclusively 6 ER Large Daishi. If you ran anything else you were wrong. The ideal builds changed as expansions/patches were made but at no point did it have even a fraction of the depth found in MWO.

I enjoyed MW4 a lot but it simply was a bad game for balance.

[Xtrekker]

My constructive input.

[General Taskeen]

TruePoindexter, on 04 April 2013 - 11:23 AM, said:

Well that's kinda the point isn't it? Hiding you from missile locks is one of the key features of ECM. If all it did was slow target locking it really wouldn't be worth mounting.

If you mean the key feature of what it does in this game, then yeah that is the 'key' feature, if one could call it that, of the balance measure in this game. The balance measure that most people talk about is removing that, because that is never what ECM did. If it didn't have stealth/no missile lock, you would take ECM to weigh in on mounting it just for the bonus of preventing artemis accuracy, narc (if it actually was useful for 3 tons), and much increased missile lock on time on you or your ally within the envelope. Those are plenty of bonuses that don't out right shut down game mechanics or require shoe horning in counters that have to be equipped.

For a read on what MW:LL ECM does:

Quote

http://wiki.mechlivi...x.php?title=ECM

The Guardian Electronic CounterMeasure Suite, or GECM, is an advanced electronic warfare suite that can be used to reduce the range at which enemy units can detect you on Radar, and can be mounted on both Mechs and Vehicles. In MWLL, this effect is represented by a unit's radar signature being reduced by 500 meters. This does not stack on top of a unit's reduced signature when in Passive Radar mode.
Regardless of GECM, the moment an asset overheats, they are equally visible to having no radar protection and running in Active Radar.

As of release 0.3.0, the GECM also increases the time it takes for an enemy to achieve target lock. This bonus does stack on top of the similar bonus given by running in Passive Radar mode.

^ Increased time to lock, and reduces radar signature in Active, and provides increased stacked bonus while going Passive/ECM. However if someone's radar can not see you, they can still achieve a lock if they have in LOS.

[sC4r]

i must say 44% peeps that are satisfied is... HUGE
i expected this to be like 20 vs 80 for this ..I.,

i must say having it on fixed locations is nice idea
and allowing seeing teammates in bubble is a bit too much though but w/e... will not have to double check for teammates so SUX TO BE YOU

[Calamus]

It's too early to tell. I'll have to give it a try before I have an opinion. I'm willing to wait and see how it works though, so their idea is good enough to not be rejected out of hand.

[Davers]

OP your question is a bit bad. What do you mean by 'satisfied'? Do you mean 'Are you satisfied that PGI finally gave a definitive answer to ECM so now you can stop complaining and adapt to it'? Or are you asking 'Are you happy and in agreement with PGI's decision on ECM that seemed to ignore most of the community's complaints about it?'