160 replies to this topic

[WANTED]

ECM use to be a game changer but I think everyone has adjusted as PGI knew to the quirks of it and I really don't see it affecting games like it use too. People are using PPCs to knock it out for 4 seconds and TAGS to help assist missle locks. I personally laugh at any ECM light now cause I run a Hunchback and I got 5 medium lasers to swipe their legs and when they stop or change directions, I hit them with a heavy dose of SRM 6+Artemis and SRM4 + Artemis. They mostly leave my Hunchback alone until they get help.

[Urza Mechwalker]

I lIke ECm because it is problematic only to people that have no situation awareness and depends on hand holding form a mini map.


NEVER used ECM myself, but never felt any problem fighting them

[Krondor]

Abivard, on 05 April 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Exactly what roles does ECM 'cleave from the battlefield'?

How does it make things one dimensional?

Why should your play-style and skill and load-outs be always as effective or superior to anyone else?

Why does only your view count?

ECM completely destroyed long-range, dynamic, and fluid gameplay. The only reason long range gameplay exists in MWO right now is because of Gauss/AC20 boats -that's it. After ECM was introduced the vast amount of gameplay devolved into close range, boring brawls. The role of scouts has been significantly reduced because they can't target for indirect fire anymore. LRM cover to approaches is now non-existant, because a single ECM'd mech can cloak an entire team. A huge chunk of the strategic gameplay before ECM was outmaneuvering the other team's LRM coverage. It was absolutely doable and very fun, especially when working in conjunction with your team's scouts and fast mediums -but required teamwork and coordination. "Camping" way more rare, because a pair of well placed and concealed scouts could spot for indirect fire. LRMs were a great counter to "sniper" builds.

The best games of MWO I ever had were against LRM heavy teams before ECM came in. Those games actually required you to think to beat the opponent. Now it largely comes down to who has more ECM and who has higher alphas, and little else.

Other than that one time where they messed up LRM damage in a patch, LRMs were never the "I Win" button so many people make them out to be. They added another dimension to MWO combat that ECM has completely destroyed. It was a dimension that required tactical thought and situational awareness to employ and to counter -moreso than one's twitch gunnery and KDR- which is maybe why so many people these days dislike it.

So no, ECM has not, in any way, made this game more tactical.

Edited by Krondor, 05 April 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Urza Mechwalker, on 05 April 2013 - 07:40 AM, said:

I lIke ECm because it is problematic only to people that have no situation awareness and depends on hand holding form a mini map.


NEVER used ECM myself, but never felt any problem fighting them

Just because I hate this "hand holding, no situational awareness thing".

What weapons do you use on your mechs?

[armyof1]

Zylo, on 05 April 2013 - 05:39 AM, said:

For me the answer is simple - ECM prevents LRMs and SSRMs from being overused.

Unless you're in the ECM mech using the streaks and pretty much have the use of it exclusively. Streaks as they are now are too good because of unlimited turnrate, this should be fixed. But letting R3L and Streakmando go on a streakfest while whoever fighting them can't use streaks is not the solution.

[hammerreborn]

Krondor, on 05 April 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

ECM completely destroyed long-range, dynamic, and fluid gameplay. The only reason long range gameplay exists in MWO right now is because of Gauss/AC20 boats -that's it. After ECM was introduced the vast amount of gameplay devolved into close range, boring brawls. The role of scouts has been significantly reduced because they can't target for indirect fire anymore. LRM cover to approaches is now non-existant, because a single ECM'd mech can cloak an entire team. A huge chunk of the strategic gameplay before ECM was outmaneuvering the other team's LRM coverage. It was absolutely doable and very fun -but required teamwork and coordination.

It's funny you think Ac20 boats are long range mechs...

[HammerForge]

Krondor, on 05 April 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

It may not remove LRMs, but it reduces them to the point where putting the tonnage into LRMs over something else makes zero sense. LRMs have become a "novelty weapon" that the only reason to run is if you specifically want to play with missiles.

Was like that before ECM, AMS made the non-boating of LRMs rather pointless. So I respectfully disagree with your assessment that this is an issue ECM caused.

[Carl Wrede]

I dont

[Nonsense]

Here are some reasons I like it:

1. Prior to ECM, any light mech poking its head out was instantly seen, targeted by the enemy, and chased away by missiles. Now you can scout and have a chance at staying hidden (especially with the new vision mode distance nerfs)

2. Prior to ECM, LRMs infested the battlefield in a silly way, similar to the way they did before the splash damage bug/nerf/fix thing.

3. Now that you can easily leg Ravens, the only truly OP ECM mech is the DDC atlas...it's ridiculously good to be shielded against missiles when you're slow. Sure, TAG or PPC fire counters it, but if you don't bring the PPC yourself, you can't count on it.

Things that need addressing:

1. PUG matches are rather frustrating with ECM because other than typing, there's no way to let your team know you've spotted someone if you can't target them. Prior to ECM, pugs were a little more "organized" because people could see targets without typing. Now, bad PUG players with little/no situational awareness have no idea where the enemy is, and typing grid squares does nothing for these players.

[Urza Mechwalker]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 05 April 2013 - 07:44 AM, said:

Just because I hate this "hand holding, no situational awareness thing".

What weapons do you use on your mechs?

Direct fire weapons. Most used ones are Medium laser, large laser, AC/20, gauss rifle. Used to use LRM as well (always fun to fire at a standign mech that thinks you cannot LRM him because you cannot lock him), but the nerf to LRM made them useless.

[Krondor]

HammerForge, on 05 April 2013 - 07:50 AM, said:

Was like that before ECM, AMS made the non-boating of LRMs rather pointless. So I respectfully disagree with your assessment that this is an issue ECM caused.

AMS was never a 100% counter to LRMs. It reduced their effectiveness against the target mech, not eliminated it. ECM completely eliminates any threat caused by LRMs. 100%.

[Urza Mechwalker]

Nonsense, on 05 April 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

1. PUG matches are rather frustrating with ECM because other than typing, there's no way to let your team know you've spotted someone if you can't target them. Prior to ECM, pugs were a little more "organized" because people could see targets without typing. Now, bad PUG players with little/no situational awareness have no idea where the enemy is, and typing grid squares does nothing for these players.

This is players incompetence problem. Not a game issue. These players need to learn, or continue to fail!

[Dan Nashe]

I like that it lets you or a team be sneaky. At least a little. I like that you can get exciting ambushes, surprises or flanks, and ecm is needed for this. I like that it lets light mechs scout or ambush bg mechs.

I like that it maks lrms ssrms harder to use, but I HATE when it hard counters them. Such as when I bring a raven and a jenner and you bring two ravens. Two ravens wins. Too much ecm and an lrm is 100 percent useless no matter how skilled the pilot because tag won't work if you are in the ecm cloud.

I would like ecm if it just doubled lock time and halved lock duration (tweaked for balance, 25 percent or 50 percent might play better). It would also be acceptable if your tag always permitted you to fire your own weapons. (I.e., even when a spider is trolling you by being behind a building nearby and laughing). (You still couldn't use other people's targets or their tag).

I like that it hides your teammates from enemy mini maps, which rewards actual looking out your view screen. I hate that it hides your allies from you because this disproportionately punishes pugs, cripples new players, and doesn't add anything to competitive play. Ths will hopefully change though1

Edited by DanNashe, 05 April 2013 - 08:00 AM.

[Krondor]

The other huge problem with ECM is that it destroys your team's ability to call targets. Pretty vital in a team-based game.

DanNashe, on 05 April 2013 - 07:58 AM, said:

I like that it lets you or a team be sneaky. At least a little. I like that you can get exciting ambushes, surprises or flanks, and ecm is needed for this. I like that it lets light mechs scout or ambush bg mechs.

I like that it maks lrms ssrms harder to use, but I HATE when it hard conters them. Such as when I bring a raven and a jenner and you bring two ravens. Two ravens wins. Too much ecm and an lrm is 100 percent useless no matter how skilled the pilot because tag won't work if you are in the ecm cloud.

I would like ecm if it just doubled lock time and halved lock duration (tweaked for balance, 25 percent or 50 percent might play better. It would also be acceptable if your tag always permitted you to fire your own weapons. (I.e., even when a spider is trolling you by being behind a building nearby and laughing). (You still couldn't use other people's targets or their tag).

I like that it hides your teammates from enemy mini maps, which rewards actual looking out your view screen. I hate that it hides your allies from you because this disproportionately punishes pugs, cripples new players, and doesn't add anything to competitive play. Ths will hopefully change though1

See, this is it. I'd have no issue if it made LRMs harder to use. That presents a challenge to be overcome, and still maintains a place for them on the battlefield. But as a hard counter it doesn't matter.

[Mancu]

Abivard, on 05 April 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

How in the world does ECM which increases the roles needed in combat, adds new dimensions of tactics, complexity, and skill to the game, encourages team play and balanced team compostions , combined arms philosophy and a multitude of new equipment and variants to play with suddenly become:

yet at the same time claiming because it took away the easy button for your preferred weapon you alone have the right to demand something be nerfed?

What exactly does ECM do to increase the roles needed? Nothing that's what. It does not encourage team play to stomp on non-TS using pugs and it does not encourage balanced teams. I can't count how many times I've dropped against all Raven or Raven/DDC 4 man builds.

Also, your assumption that everyone who thinks ECM is broken is spamming LRMs it just plain wrong. According to my Weapon Stats I've played LRMs in 0.01124% of my matches and even then I never boat. I've added a single rack to a couple of short range builds so they aren't totally helpless on big maps.

Finally, anyone who uses ECM should NEVER EVER make a statement about easy buttons. You don't even need to press a single key to use ECM. Its on all the time and always "hits". A 2 year old could use ECM and not mess it up. It is the very definition of EASY BUTTON!

[Nonsense]

Urza Mechwalker, on 05 April 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

This is players incompetence problem. Not a game issue. These players need to learn, or continue to fail!

Partially, yes, it's just that the lack of easy communication just makes it harder for them to learn and more annoying when the matchmaker puts them in your game.

Games like Battlefield have spotting (even map-only spotting in hardcore mode), MWO could easily have it too. Even something that did nothing other than play a sound and put a dot on everyone's minimap...

[Mystere]

First and foremost, I love it for the vast flowing rivers of male nerd rage tears that it continues to produce.

Secondly, it also helped me improve my aiming, situational awareness, and stealth skills, to name a few, by making me rely on nothing more than my Mark 1 eyeballs.

[HammerForge]

Krondor, on 05 April 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

AMS was never a 100% counter to LRMs. It reduced their effectiveness against the target mech, not eliminated it. ECM completely eliminates any threat caused by LRMs. 100%.

One on one, I would agree with that statement, but with how missles were being fired around, everyone was required to have AMS to survive and create a dome of protection. That much AMS meant that the casual LRM was pointless and that you had to boat LRMs, this all happened before ECM hit. LRM5s went the way of the dodo quite quickly because of these issues.

[MaddMaxx]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 05 April 2013 - 07:15 AM, said:

It's funny how no one really answered his question.

Even better is, everyone's answers are regarding using it offensively.

"I don't want LRM's, I don't want Streaks, I use it to kill people".

No one really uses it because of the information warfare pillar.

That is mostly the case because, and the Capping QQ threads bear this out, most players are playing, even Conquest, as straight TDM. Rush to the middle and brawl, best coordination, or Comms enable team wins... 99.9% of the time.

It is hoped, that with the advent of CW, the Roles everyone thinks should exist, by way of Osmosis, rather than players actually playing those roles, will begin to show up more.

ECM keeps ones head in the game. Many dislike it because they are not a fan of having to "focus" or be aware of ones surroundings, to much. Better to just watch for the "red triangles" on the mini map and rush to them.

As for trends. Making generalized sweeping statements about why people who like ECM, do so, is no different than the same being done in opposition. It proves nothing.

ECM currently provides a warning when it is on your area. They have said they will remove the IFF block for friendlies, something that really separated the good and bad pilots IMHO.

The Dev have also indicated that it be specifically slotted into all Mechs that carry it. So now we will always know where to shoot to knock it out AND after the inevitable nerf of its HP down to 3, ECM will be like everything else the Community QQ's about. Mediocre at best.

That day will be...a damn shame.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 05 April 2013 - 08:20 AM.

[wwiiogre]

I love the current ECM because I can get in my raven and completely disable the enemy mechs that have LRM's and SSRM's. I can now hide my entire team at 751 meters range on night maps. I can shoot my own ssrm straight in front of my mech and they will do a 180 fly thru my own mech and hit the enemy jenner that is behind me and out of sight of me. I like it because it is so easy to get 500 damage in a 35 ton mech while the Heavy/Assault mechs around me are struggling to get 300 damage. I like it because it is not Guardian ECM that I have but a combination of Angel ECM and Null Sig from the future and I get if for only 1.5 tons.

It is so easy to use.

The Best part about current ECM is the only things that can affect it, only work against a single ECM mech, but since our team runs 4-6 or more ECM mechs there really is no way to counter it, unless the other team brings more ECM than us. Then if that happens all we do is bring more ECM.

Yep, I love ECM warrior online. Can't wait till the missile nerf is fixed and we get back to ECM/SSRM missile warrior online. So much fun, so easy. Just drop with your friends, everyone bring ECM and it is pug stomping joy.

Chris

Yes, this was a sarcastic reply to this thread

Edited by wwiiogre, 05 April 2013 - 08:25 AM.