185 replies to this topic

[OznerpaG]

sorry, ECM is a joke and anybody who thinks it's op is afraid of ghosts and the boogyman. i pilot LRM mechs with TAG almost exclusively and as soon as i spot any mech - ECM or no - they get a burst of TAG, they'r immediately targeted, and they get a swarm of LRMs pounded down their throat. combine that with target decay and even if they break contact they still get nailed

heck, you don't even need adv target range or BAP anymore if you'v got TAG - every single visible mech within 750m range is IMMEDIATELY targetable with TAG, and if you have SSRMs you combine that with target decay once you lock on you STAY locked on unless the target retreats. if the ECM-equipped target is maneuvering you keep giving it the occasional 'TAG paint' to keep it locked on - you are trying to keep the enemy in front of you so you can fire at it anyways, right?

i'm not saying that it's easy - it takes practice and skill to use TAG in all the situations you'l encounter, and of course it's going to take up one of your weapons mounts/groups (you can even group it with another weapon so when fire at the enemy you also TAG it, allowing you to target it or keep it targeted), but it is a HARD counter to ECM and if you don't use or don't want to use TAG or you use a mech that is unable to mount TAG, then you can't complain about ECM.


i'm sure this will turn into a 'passionate' topic regardless lol

Edited by JagdFlanker, 22 May 2014 - 07:28 AM.

[Dracol]

Interesting, a LRM pilot that doesn't find BAP essential. Most excellant... for my commando. A LRM pilot without BAP provides a large area of engagement for me. Were as a BAP equipped LRM mech forces me to fight between 130m and 180m to regulate their LRMs to dumbfire mode.

[Revis Volek]

My RVN-3L begs to differ....

[Kjudoon]

Well, it certainly is OP when you consider game balance in the form of function versus weight/slot comparativeness. BAPs are broken currently and don't seem to block ECM half the time anyway, but it does at least find powered down mechs and speeds locks and stacks with TAG when TAG isn't acting stupid about ECM either.

So I don't know about your elo range, but at mine, ECM is often the singular determining factor between a ROFLstomp and a close fought game. If both sides have equal ECM, the side with the fewest LRMs wins. If one side forgets to bring it, the other side, if they have at least 2 LRM mechs will ROFLstomp easily. A team with more than 2 ECM, LRMs are patently useless with every single penaid in the game unless the enemy is also excrably stupid or the ECM pilots are incredibly selfish.

The only way to make ECM no longer OP is make it Guardian ECM a la lore (means no bubble of influence, only helps the mech it is on), not Angel ECM like they have here (which has a 180m bubble extension).

If you really want to see how OP ECM is, have it affect targetting computers for all systems, like it does with TAG, eliminating the ability to fire on targets, or give the JJ reticle shake every time a mech aims at an ECM protected mech. Then you'll learn how OP that system is.

Edited by Kjudoon, 22 May 2014 - 07:53 AM.

[Grimmrog]

It still is too strong. 1 tonnage to counter 1,5 tonnage.

No wait, for this you need direct vision, and it only works up to 750m (why is ther eno mod extending this range?)
ECM also does cover all people withing range around the ECM carrier.
And TAG needs a direct pointing of you instead of somewhere in range. And when your opp is clever and sticks together, your attemp to "lurk and tag" is mostlikely stuffing your Mech with damage.

ECM is an unbalanced joke for the benefit it brings. And what if they target it? rockets still neeed to track the opponent, and when you lsoe the lock? so you basically need to have a line of sight for an way too long amount of time. Tag works mostly then, when the opponent doesn't recognizes being tagged because hes distracted by your teammates.

[Kjudoon]

I must say I love the "Just use tag" line, I do admit that. Hillarious. The major benefit of LRMs is the ability to shoot at target signals, not have to get LOS to fire a weapon that moves at one tenth the speed of ACs that must do the same thing, with more range and more damage. Just 1.5 tons to remove the entire advantage of a weapon system. I wonder if PGI can make an AC counter that removes pinpoint damage from ballistics? Or maybe slow down the instant speed and unlimited ammo for energy weapons? Has to weigh 1.5 tons and take up 2 slots on my mech though, and help out every friendly mech within 180m of me.

[DodgerH2O]

Just going to repeat myself here:

OP does not mean automatically wins. It means that for the cost (2 crit slots, 1.5 tons) the item does too much. Do you have any thoughts on what other things you can do with 2 crits and 1.5 tons that is more powerful than ECM in the majority of instances?

[focuspark]

The functionality of ECM is not confounding. However, the benefit (stealth mode for you and all your closest friends) for cost (2 crits + 1.5 tons) make is no brainer when designing a layout. This is a problem. No other component of module is so compelling that if you can fit it, you will fit it. True balance is when functions (effects of things) are self balancing and do no need some lazy-assed-game-designer rock-paper-scissors-bullshit.

Edited by focuspark, 22 May 2014 - 08:11 AM.

[Dracol]

How I see it, is we have three teirs of weapons:

LRMS - extended time to guide weapon | Easiest to become proficient with / hardest to excel at when skill level of matches increases
Lasers - short time to guide weapon | Easy to start dealing damage / higher skill increases effectiveness
ACs / PPS - 1 instant to hit or miss | hardest weapon type to start dealing damage with / High skill provides greatest effectiveness of all weapons

LRMs being the easiest weapon to pick up and deal decent damage with, requires the more advanced counters.

One thing ECM effects all weapon types equally is removing the instant notification of an enemy mech.

Edited by Dracol, 22 May 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[Koniving]

ECM may not be "overpowered" with the slew of hard and soft counters that exist. But that still doesn't mean it was made correctly.
To be invisible to sensors an ECM mech actually requires a thing called Stealth Armor. It takes up 12 slots, equals the same weight as regular armor, and I gotta say... Put Stealth Armor on an Atlas D-DC and that's 12 slots it can't use. Every other Atlas would become that much more viable.

Guardian ECM does NOT have any affect what-so-ever on Streaks.
"Contemporary guided missiles such as Streak SRMs are not affected by the Guardian suite and will be able to achieve hard lock as normal" Standard LRMs are also included (and removed from this quote), but 'standard' LRMs are artillery missiles without line of sight (pop open the battlegrid, click where you want to fire, and then aim your missiles to the sky). Since they didn't work that way in this game there's no point in debating the LRM unaffected aspect.

Lovely, isn't it?

What's it supposed to do? Delay lockons, the game has it but that only happens if you try to 'tag' one. Its even stronger if someone else has them 'under BAP', but my god have you ever spent 8 seconds trying to get a lock? That's how strong ECM is with no lock on accelerators like TAG, without the 'invisibility' cloak.

Create false targets: This plays perfectly with the design pillar information warfare. Tossed right out the window as a missed opportunity.

What else does Guardian ECM do? Makes you undetectable on Thermal, MagScan, various others within only 180 meters. It is supposed to confuse your minimap / radar within 180 meters.

But it is not supposed to confuse your ability to lock missiles outside of 180 meters unless the ghost targets mode is activated (in which case there are several fake targets including the real one to sort through; not pure nothingness that you can't lock onto, and every single one of them including the real one would say 'Unknown').

What it would do is prevent a player at longer range from being able to tell what condition the ECM mech is in (so they can't know that your left torso is really weak right now unless it's smoking, after all you are identified as a target called 'Unknown'). But that is entirely separate from the lock on system as we can get locks without the player's damage reading.

Now, making Guardian no longer affect streaks would also fix the Artemis-enhanced streaks bug (as it would require separating LRM and Streak lock on mechanisms).
It's a win-win for balancing and lore. So why wasn't it done?

Edited by Koniving, 26 May 2014 - 08:05 PM.

[mailin]

If ECM were truly OP you'd see a LOT more of it. Also, those who say it's OP either don't remember or weren't around when ECM was initially implemented. Instead of only having ECM be able to counter ECM, there are now 3 other systems that ANY mech can choose from to counter ECM.

If you are honestly encountering entire enemey teams huddled under a single ECM, why the heck isn't someone dropping an artie strike on them?

[Wrathful-Khan]

Having no ecm makes your team UP...

[Wildstreak]

What ECM should do in this game.
- Negate benefits of Artemis.
- Negate benefits of NARC.
- Negate benefits of BAP.
- Maybe affect appearance on Minimap.

Now what does the currnet ECM do and how many counters/alterations were done to counter it?

In addition to affecting LRMs, ECM Stealth has one other effect.

It affects Information Warfare thus shapes how a battle goes.

I played this game before ECM Stealth was added. Then you could see every enemy within your sensor range except when hidden by terrain. Having this knowledge shaped what Mechs went where and allowed powerful Mechs like Assaults to have a great affect on the match as one example. Where the Atlas went is where the fight went even the non-DC variants.

Then came ECM-Stealth. Commandos, Ravens and Cicadas had greater effect than an Atlas. They coudl blanket a whole team or even just a smal Lance and shape the battle far more than any Assault. When base capping was big in Assault, an entire team could Stealth move on a map edge avoiding contact and cap win easy even on a small map.

ECM Stealth does more than affect LRMs. ECM units define the battle too much.

[Harathan]

mailin, on 22 May 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

If ECM were truly OP you'd see a LOT more of it. Also, those who say it's OP either don't remember or weren't around when ECM was initially implemented. Instead of only having ECM be able to counter ECM, there are now 3 other systems that ANY mech can choose from to counter ECM.

If you are honestly encountering entire enemey teams huddled under a single ECM, why the heck isn't someone dropping an artie strike on them?

More of it than at least 3 ECM mechs per side, which is generally what I'm seeing?

[Kjudoon]

mailin, on 22 May 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

If ECM were truly OP you'd see a LOT more of it. Also, those who say it's OP either don't remember or weren't around when ECM was initially implemented. Instead of only having ECM be able to counter ECM, there are now 3 other systems that ANY mech can choose from to counter ECM.

If you are honestly encountering entire enemey teams huddled under a single ECM, why the heck isn't someone dropping an artie strike on them?

That's like saying "If AC40 builds weren't OP, you'd see a lot more AC40 locusts".

The only reason you DON'T see ECM on every mech is it is disallowed on every mech and often kept to bad builds of the chassis they do have as a way to compensate for them sucking. The only ECM mech you don't see is the commando, and that is because even with ECM it's still not worth it to most pilots.

Why doesn't someone drop on the little ECM protected Arty balls? They do at my elo level. But also, who wants to waste the money in Pugs? Plus, most of us have better things to spend module slots on.

[Wildstreak]

Koniving, on 22 May 2014 - 08:27 AM, said:

What's it supposed to do? Delay lockons, the game has it but that only happens if you try to 'tag' one. Its even stronger if someone else has them 'under BAP', but my god have you ever spent 8 seconds trying to get a lock? That's how strong ECM is with no lock on accelerators like TAG, without the 'invisibility' cloak.

Actually incorrect.

Quote

Contemporary guided missiles such as standard LRM or Streak SRMs are not affected by the Guardian suite and will be able to achieve hard lock as normal.

So no Lock delays for anything.

mailin, on 22 May 2014 - 08:40 AM, said:

If ECM were truly OP you'd see a LOT more of it. Also, those who say it's OP either don't remember or weren't around when ECM was initially implemented. Instead of only having ECM be able to counter ECM, there are now 3 other systems that ANY mech can choose from to counter ECM.

If you are honestly encountering entire enemey teams huddled under a single ECM, why the heck isn't someone dropping an artie strike on them?

I was.
Counters have not changed how often it shows up.
Because you cannot find them thanks to ECM Stealth and good use of terrain, no one is going to spam the God Strikes anywhere hoping for Lucky Hits.

Edited by Merchant, 22 May 2014 - 08:59 AM.

[Kjudoon]

Merchant, on 22 May 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

What ECM should do in this game.
- Negate benefits of Artemis.
- Negate benefits of NARC.
- Negate benefits of BAP.
- Maybe affect appearance on Minimap.

Now what does the currnet ECM do and how many counters/alterations were done to counter it?

In addition to affecting LRMs, ECM Stealth has one other effect.

It affects Information Warfare thus shapes how a battle goes.

I played this game before ECM Stealth was added. Then you could see every enemy within your sensor range except when hidden by terrain. Having this knowledge shaped what Mechs went where and allowed powerful Mechs like Assaults to have a great affect on the match as one example. Where the Atlas went is where the fight went even the non-DC variants.

Then came ECM-Stealth. Commandos, Ravens and Cicadas had greater effect than an Atlas. They coudl blanket a whole team or even just a smal Lance and shape the battle far more than any Assault. When base capping was big in Assault, an entire team could Stealth move on a map edge avoiding contact and cap win easy even on a small map.

ECM Stealth does more than affect LRMs. ECM units define the battle too much.

Wait... wut? ECM should negate everything designed to control the OP nature of ECM and keep it from being the instant win button it almost is?

Welcome to ECMwarrior Online.

Okay, I see what you're getting at now... Yes. ECM stealth has a huge impact, but it has an inordinate impact on missile systems and need it fixed somehow. Of course, the best way to equalize its impact is to make it affect targetting for direct fire weapons by giving them jitter. Then after that, see if it's still OP.

[Denolven]

JagdFlanker, on 22 May 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

ECM is a joke and anybody who thinks it's op is afraid of ghosts and the boogyman.

Simple question from a fellow missile pilot:
When you are in a mech that is capable of ECM, do you take it?

As long as the answer is always "yes", it's op. ECM is not a choice, you always take it if you have the hardpoint. Now if that doesn't mean anything to you, there is little point in discussing.

[Kjudoon]

Denolven, on 22 May 2014 - 09:32 AM, said:

Simple question from a fellow missile pilot:
When you are in a mech that is capable of ECM, do you take it?

As long as the answer is always "yes", it's op. ECM is not a choice, you always take it if you have the hardpoint. Now if that doesn't mean anything to you, there is little point in discussing.

I have only one ECM mech, and I don't like it because I can't make it into a functional LRM mech and that's the Raven 3L. I hate atlases, so I won't get a DDC, otherwise, that'd be the only atlas I would get. The instant an ECM LRMboat variant shows up, I'm probably grabbing it as long as it's not a light or have catastrophic hardpoints or performance issues that counter the ability to pilot it worth a darn.

[1453 R]

The definition of overpowered is, as someone said, that an item does too much for the cost of taking it. In other words, there’s no world in which the opportunity cost of equipping ECM, if available, would be better spent on something else. If you have an ECM-capable ‘Mech, you always put ECM on it. End of story. There is no “but maybe if I forewent it, just this once, I could do…” The ECM-capable variants of the four chassis currently capable of carrying ECM are the reasons you still see those chassis in the game. The D-DC’s ECM is the only reason the Atlas still has a job when Banshees are available. The CDA-3M’s ECM is going to start being absolutely critical again when it’s the only ECM available in the second 3 of 3/3/3/3. Entire team configurations are built around ECM platforms and what works for them.

Yes, ECM is overpowered. Enough so that another system which is itself fairly well-balanced (outside of its interactions with ECM) has become mandatory equipment for certain machines not on its own merits, but solely because of its anti-ECM properties.

Is it a problem? Not like it used to be.

MWO uses an entirely different set of sensor rules than any previous incarnation of the series – we all have a C3i computer mated to sensors that haven’t been maintained in two hundred years. Frankly, I find the sensor system interplay in MWO more interesting than a flat 360-degree ring of I-see-you extending out 1k from the ‘Mech, as is traditional. The notion of defeating enemy sensors as part of defeating enemy ‘Mechs definitely has a place in this game – all those folks who want stealth to just up and go away completely are doing it wrong.

It would, however, be good if the sort of effects one gets out of ECM, as it currently stands, were broken out to several systems. Skipping the timeline enough to bring stealth armor into the game now instead of in fifteen years, and tying the current hard-stealth bonus to said armor, would be really a very good idea. I don’t see a reason to bother with Angel ECM, as the existence of Angel would just straight-up invalidate Guardian, but a paradigm in which a ‘Mech had to spend fourteen slots instead of two for full-up stealth, as well as the 1.5 tons for the ECM itself and whatever weight costs not taking Ferro-Fibrous inflicts on the ‘Mech, would go a long way towards bringing the opportunity cost of ECM’s current effects in line with its power. When you can’t just splash ECM on a ‘Mech anymore and instead need to more or less devote the entire machine to being a stealthy bastiche, we’re getting closer to where we need to be.

You also eliminate the ECM shadow effect from other ‘Mechs near you, who don’t have your stealth armor to complete the thing. Instead, those ‘Mechs are soft-covered – sensors pick them up at half the normal distance, and lock times against the things are doubled, at least. LRMs fired at ‘Mechs covered by ECM also suffer a penalty to both tracking and grouping, so that even if a salvo hits, it isn’t nearly as devastating. In this way ECM is still an effective deterrent to LRMs, and LRM machines will want to deal with it, but they’re also not completely impotent in a match lousy with ECM and the AMS is still worth equipping in units that have a lot of ECM.

Of course, none of this is Community Warfare, so not only will the devs never do it, but even if for some reason we find ourselves living in some strange parallel world where they did, The Community would scream in righteous outrage about it delaying CW AGAIN. Le sigh…