172 replies to this topic

[Lykaon]

M4NTiC0R3X, on 17 January 2014 - 06:05 AM, said:

It's not overpowered, but it makes it so your team can't see what you see unless you tell them it's there, are shooting at it or tagging it to death. That is what makes ECM deadly is your own teams capability to process the battlefield and move accordingly. IMO

most OP 'mech does not have ECM and it isn't required, just helpful, It's much easier to shoot at something when you hear the blip and point for the middle of the box. That's about it.

And you have hugely understated the value of these effects.

Disproportionatly effects players who are using VOIP compared to those who are not.This a significant advantage for premades over pugs and let's make no mistakes premades are not the players who need more advantages.

ECM wins information warfare when used in the pub queue.ECM passivley denies the enemy information and requires players to rely on their own vision and situational awareness to coordinate a response to enemy actions.Except,we do not have the means to effectivley do so.

It comes down to this.

The team with ECM does not need to try as hard to complete several key activities to develope a winning situation.

Reduced need to manuver through cover and remain unseen to create a suprise situation.

Reduced concern of area denial from LRM fire.

Reduced concern of being focused due to ECM's obfuscating critical data.

Enhances survival by reducing accuracy at longer ranges allowing players to make more effective use of long range snipe meta or covering fire.

On the flip side.

A team fighting against ECM must have a host of "countermeasures" prepped and ready on their builds

Suffers from a loss of data and intel via passive transmition.

Must use "MK1 eyeballs" instead of HUD assisted targeting.

Is in a far better situation if they have adhered to a narrower mech design concept (few locking missiles,more direct fire focused on front loaded snap fire weapons) reducing variety and tactical flexability.

Lacks passive communication efficency and are forced to use primitive text comms. to communicate enemy locations and dispositions. (even a 4 man in the pub queue needs to type to the other 8 players what they see)

One 1.5 ton support electronics item can completely alter the perameters of achieving a victory condition by creating disparity between two teams.

ECM team gets to kick back and relax more because ECM has taken over some of the strategy for them.Easyer mode.

Non ECM team needs to focus hard and fight/type at once to reduce the ECM advantage.Harder mode.

LastPaladin, on 17 January 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

You know, my memory is shot, but I think they actually did mention his name as "Dr. Buckaroo Banzai" in one technical readout entry, I think, but not in the novels.

Tech readout 3025 lists his name as "B. Banzai" in the hatchetman mech readout if I recall.

[Lykaon]

Solis Obscuri, on 17 January 2014 - 12:16 PM, said:

We have nine fingers more than we need to play MWO.

Single-click meta is further proof that humanity is devolving into slugs.

Pressing Alpha strike with my eyestalk sounds painful. probably gonna macro it instead.

[LastPaladin]

Lykaon, on 17 January 2014 - 03:29 PM, said:

Tech readout 3025 lists his name as "B. Banzai" in the hatchetman mech readout if I recall.

Hmm, that's how it is on Sarna now, but for some reason I thought the original edition actually said Buckaroo. I only remember this because, before I even knew what BT was I read that TR at my cousin's house and thought it was cool that it had some connection to the movie. I don't think I would have picked up on it if it hadn't actually said the name.

[Wrathful-Khan]

ECM is available to anyone who wants to bring it - no matter whether they be red team or blue...

[Roland]

Indiandream, on 18 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

ECM is available to anyone who wants to bring it - no matter whether they be red team or blue...

This doesn't really have anything to do with balance.
I could make a weapon that did 100 damage per shot, and the fact that anyone could choose to bring a mech carrying that weapon wouldn't suddenly make the weapon balanced.

Weapon balance doesn't really have anything to do with whether different players can carry a piece of equipment.

[DocBach]

Indiandream, on 18 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

ECM is available to anyone who wants to bring it - no matter whether they be red team or blue...

Its only available to be installed on a handful of available 'Mechs, yet that small fraction regularly takes up several slots on each team.

I wonder why such a small pool of 'Mechs are so common in drops? Probably coincidence, since ECM is pretty useless and doesn't affect battles at all.

[Khobai]

Whether or not ECM is balanced or unbalanced is actually pretty irrelevant.

The bigger problem is that information warfare is simply not fun because it revolves around one piece of tech. Its like playing rock paper scissors, but with rock and paper being the same thing, and scissors always losing. Who wants to play a lopsided game like that? Not me.

Information warfare should be balanced around three types of equipment. You should have detection equipment like BAP, stealth equipment like NSS, and disruption equipment like ECM. And they should have a fairly straightforward interaction, something like: detection should counter stealth, stealth should counter disruption, and disruption should counter detection.

Edited by Khobai, 18 January 2014 - 06:57 PM.

[wanderer]

Indiandream, on 18 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

ECM is available to anyone who wants to bring it - no matter whether they be red team or blue...

Last I checked, I can't use most 'Mechs in the game if I want ECM. Oddly enough, all of them can mount Beagle Probes. Go figure.

[Lykaon]

wanderer, on 18 January 2014 - 07:56 PM, said:

Last I checked, I can't use most 'Mechs in the game if I want ECM. Oddly enough, all of them can mount Beagle Probes. Go figure.

You do know that a mech under ECM that is not within 150m of a hostile mech with BAP still has all the benifits of ECM?

In actual play this means that the mechs under ECM are invisable to sensors until someone with a BAP activley hunts them down and stays within 150m of the ECM.

Take that in for a moment.

the ECM starts with it's team around it granting all of it's very benificial effects passivley to every friendly within 180m no action required to function it just needs to be there.

Conversley the BAP equiped mech needs to find the enemy (who are cloaked from sensors) and remain within very close proximity of the ECM to counter it.

If the ECM is 180m behind the leading mech that lead mech is covered by ECM Even if a BAP closes to within 150m of that leading mech.The BAP needs to be 30m behind the lead mechs to counter the ECM.

So,ECM can hide in the back and work with no effort what so ever conversley the BAP must be operating well within the enemy ranks to actualy counter the ECM a significantly more risky operational perameter don't you think?

And that is the issue with these counters.They require active use and frequently require high risk action at that.

TAG needs line of sight you can see them they can see you.TAG exposes you to counter fire.

PPC same deal as TAG plus it's an ineffective counter since 4 seconds is not long enough to sight/lock/fire/and hit with a volley of LRMs and good luck hitting an ECM mech every 4 seconds with a PPC.

BAP as I said requires the BAP user to be dancing in the middle of an enemy formation to counter an ECM bubble.

About the safest mitigation effect for ECM is a UAV you dash n drop leaving you exposed to fire for as short a time as possible.

Indiandream, on 18 January 2014 - 11:08 AM, said:

ECM is available to anyone who wants to bring it - no matter whether they be red team or blue...

Yet the matchmaker does not assign one ECM to blue and one to red.

[colsan]

What if the counters were just beefed up a bit? Bear with me:

The PPC should be the Daddy of this; if a PPC hits a mech with ECM in Disrupt mode, it immediately overheats and shuts down. This would make sense, since the energy being dumped through the magnetic field would wind up wherever that field is being generated, as well as put a crimp in the ECM wolfpacks running circles around assaults and heavies.

TAG would be the lightest; in addition to allowing lock-on, though, it should make ECM start to heat up gradually. This would scale well, also, since the easier-to-hit Atlas should have more heatsinks and so take longer to be affected, while the quick lights would heat up pretty fast.

BAP and NARC would be in-between, but you could really have some fun with these. NARC could "hack" into the ECM system and start randomly firing weapons, changing the throttle, twisting the torso, etc. for the duration, while BAP could "burn through" and interfere with the ECM mechs targeting systems when it is in range.

Edited by colsan, 21 January 2014 - 05:34 PM.

[wanderer]

Lykaon, on 21 January 2014 - 02:00 PM, said:

You do know that a mech under ECM that is not within 150m of a hostile mech with BAP still has all the benifits of ECM?

*bahleeted rest of "this is why ECM is superior" *

That was kinda my point.ECM is considered so potent that only it's counters are virtually universal equipment choices- TAG, PPC's, Beagle - and all of them are limited relative to ECM. That is, GECM is so powerful PGI actually seems afraid to let it propagate into too many designs lest we all be sneaking around like electronic ninjas, or perhaps Kuritan ninjas in sneak suits. Sometimes that's one and the same depending on who the Smiling One sent out last Tuesday.

That is, it's an item so treasured, they feel that if it was allowed on all chassis, it would turn something into a terrible death machine that delivered stompy endings to all while going "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!". That points to PGI fearing a game of nothing but ECM/counter/no double-countered-ha-spin-parry-thrust-warrior Online.

Meh to THAT.

[KAT Ayanami]

I stopped using LRM because of ECM. Completelly. There went my cats.

[PawPaWuFF]

i agree ecm is broken and abused