crossflip, on 01 July 2014 - 05:43 PM, said:
The big issue is NARC was not balanced for it's function because it was co-opted into the ECM messcapade.
The entire ECM/LRM/TAG/NARC bullcrap needs a near complete redesign to balance.And this is because ECM was put into the game well before it's purpose was fully realized by complete development of the support electronics it was meant to counter.
Back when ECM came out we had ...
TAG with a range of 400m (or was it 500?) that enhanced missile clustering effects.This was occationally used in premades and nearly devoid of use by puggies.
We had a NARC that was pretty much universely ignored because it sucked.
Artemis was release along side ECM so it was nigh impossible to tell if Artemis did anything if ECM was around.
BAP was also a door stop with 20% sensor range boost (attainable for 0 tonnage and crits with modules) and 120m detection of powered down mechs.Big whoop BAP was also mostly ignored as nigh unto useless.
Command consoles doing absolutley nothing compared to the much improved doing nearly nothing current version.Anyone going to bother with command consoles? doubtful.
Essentially there was nothing for ECM to counter with all of the support electronics being neglected or under developed.
So "logicaly" ECM needed new abilities since the purpose it was designed for had yet to be added to the game.
So magicly ECM became an anti missile device coupled with a stealth feature for the whole gang that also turned off a bunch of stuff people were not using anyhow.
This was complained about with such frequency the Devs decided to...
Not change ECM or develop support electronics but add anti ecm to the very equipment ECM was suppose to be a counter measure to.
The reason ECM plays so heavily into LRM balance is how everything ended up.
ECM hard countered LRMs themselves instead of countering and mitigating LRM enhancing electronics.
Those very same LRM support electronics that ECM was suppose to counter became the counters to ECM.
So time to reset and redesign to make some sense of this mess.