221 replies to this topic

[Ed Trend]

@Garandos

I see your point mate , and i agree in most extend . I just dont see why an equipment instalation like an ecm always has to have a huge disadvandage to balance its abilities . Granded , ecm does provide a benefit for the team , but its impossible to cover the whole team , especialy after the 2-3 minutes of a match , while most pugs spread out and hunt almost individualy . It does become a problem tho , when the matchmaker puts 5 ecms on one side and just one or none on the other side .
But is this realy ecm's problem ?

[Lily from animove]

The issue is what ECM cna do at all.

Not only making LRM lock impossible without countering ECM measures, it does on top:

increase Missile lock times even if someone can lock on the target.
It makes you literally invisible on the minimap for other teammates
it makes you 100% invisible in night missions outside the heat/nigh visions range. So even NARc and TAg are kinda pointless if yoiu do not knwo where to point and shoot them at.

I would change SCM completely:

Any sensors can detect and lock ® a ECM mech at any time.
But missiles can not lock on mechs with ecm cover. And ECM covered mechs can not deliver target informations to the opponents.

TAG and NARC completely negate any ECM features, while ecm still negates benefits if narc/tag

This way ECM is still a very nice missile counter for the only 1t 1 slot it consumes. AND it still has a slight role in information warfare by not providing target informations.

BAP can still gather target info if a mech with ecm is withing 200m, but still does not provide the ability to lick missiles. Locking missiles will always require narc or tag.


Because keeping stuff simple is the better way to go than making 30 different interacting rules.

[Garandos]

Ed Trend, on 15 September 2014 - 02:43 AM, said:

@Garandos

I see your point mate , and i agree in most extend . I just dont see why an equipment instalation like an ecm always has to have a huge disadvandage to balance its abilities . Granded , ecm does provide a benefit for the team , but its impossible to cover the whole team , especialy after the 2-3 minutes of a match , while most pugs spread out and hunt almost individualy . It does become a problem tho , when the matchmaker puts 5 ecms on one side and just one or none on the other side .
But is this realy ecm's problem ?

Well, basicaly it is the matchmaker, but he can only work with what he is getting, and putting "Has ECM" in as another factor to consider for the MM, well, at some point you hit the wall with how much constraints you can put in and still get a match together.

ECM doesnt even have to have a hughe disatvantage, just a price you feel, attached to it.

For example, we have, as "balancing" Factors only weight.

Thats, as you stated 1 Mlas and 1 Slas

in Btech it has a Battle Value which makes it as costly as 1 Mlas and TWO Slas

Plus the Weight

(41 + 9 + 9 for the weps 61 for ECM)

Maybe it simply, even if it is against the core rules, should get 3 modes:

Hide self, puts the ECM effect on YOU

Guard, puts the ECM effect on the Team, ECM mech stays visible

Counter


This way you need to stay low, if you want to guard your team, and in a PUG match, ECM mechs are easy to identify.

If we need some "reason" for this, lets call it constraints of the system, it can either hide your electronics, or those of a whole team.

*edit* would even put some Skill into the use of ECM, and re-introduce "ECM dancing" as in, switching your ECM according to the Situation.

That way a Bonus for ECM usage could be introduced, as the Guardian mode would vome with an inherent personal risk.

And, any mech in guard mode, would be "immune" to friendly Guard modes, so multiple ECMs on one Team wont backup each other.

You still would have all option we have now, force multiplier and snipers tool, but you could only do one or the other at the same time.

Edited by Garandos, 15 September 2014 - 03:02 AM.

[Wolfways]

Why is this a discussion? Why reinvent the wheel?
The problem with GECM is that it isn't the GECM that is in BT...which MWO is supposed to be based on.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Guardian_ECM

It already exists. There are already rules for it....

Edited by Wolfways, 15 September 2014 - 03:05 AM.

[Ed Trend]

@Garandos , Lily , Wolfways

Altho i dont agree with your opinion , i can see a good reasoning behind your thesis as in overall .
I would just like to point out couple of things which you probably missed to see .

a ) if we agreed to nerf the ecm , this wont only aply to the enemy team , but in our friendly team aswell . This practicaly means that we will also be alot more vanurable than we all are now . And as a player that i am playing fanaticaly the cicada ecm version for the past 3-4 months , i can assure you that as a front liner , never felt that my ecm could do all the things you described . The ppl i supose to "protect" die just like any other mech due to direct fire from other weaps . The only difference i see is the reduction of the missiles that i have to suffer , and thats not always the case . Tag's , narcs and uav's , many times do some sort work on me just fine . But thats just me , thus i wont insist on this cuz i wouldnt like to pass as an arrogant person whom can only accept my own thesis as the "right one|". I could be wrong...

b ) I am personaly using a version of a mech that has restrictions in its weap configuration (4 energy slots , 1 balistic) , probably just cuz of its ability to carry ecm . Its my belief that all other ecm light mech versions (atlas excluded) suffer the same restrictions . If the ecm get nerf all the way which you describe , i see no reason to keep using the mech . I could better switch to a cicada 2A , in which i could squize 20% , maybe even 30% extra firepower . And i dont believe that i am alone in this one . And exactly cuz the ecm provides a benefit to both teams , (friendly or foe) , i wont be the only one to feel the lack of its protection , it will affect us all .

c) imho there is already a distinct problem with lrm boats in PUGland . The minute that ppl will feel that ecm is not longer a valid protection for anyone , ppl will turn to missile boating instandly . Its just the nature of things . When that occurs , what i expect to see is two teams exchanging missiles from 1k meters away , and having matches ending with no more than 2-3 kills on each side after 15mins of playing .

Thats a few things i had to say , ty for a good conversation guys , but i have to go now

cya all later

Edited by Ed Trend, 15 September 2014 - 03:32 AM.

[Wolfways]

Ed Trend, on 15 September 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

I am personaly using a version of a mech that has restrictions in its weap configuration (4 energy slots , 1 balistic) , probably just cuz of its ability to carry ecm .

There are two other CDA's with 5 weapon hardpoints that don't have ECM.

Quote

c) imho there is already a distinct problem with lrm boats in PUGland . The minute that ppl will feel that ecm is not longer a valid protection for anyone , ppl will turn to missile boating instandly . Its just the nature of things . When that occurs , what i expect to see is two teams exchanging missiles from 1k meters away , and having matches ending with no more than 2-3 kills on each side after 15mins of playing .

Or maybe people will learn to play like others have, and not have to rely on ECM.

[Galenit]

Changing ecm without touching other systems?

Why do i have the feeling, they dont understand the "system" they have patched together?

But let me try:
ECM reduces enemy radarrange by 25%
ECM increases lockontime by 50%
ECM increases missilespread by 50%
ECM increases inforeadout by 50%
ECM counters criticalchance increase caused by cc and tc
Mechs in the ecm-bubble can be targeted.

The numbers must be tweeked to match the other systems we have, the missilespread is to counter the indirect fire ability.



For balancing it out, its needed to tweek lrms, ecm, tag, narc, bap and ams and modules together.

Best start will be a much greater missilespread, thats reduced by the different systems to make missiles a great los weapon and let them splat an whole area in indirect fire without tag and narc.

But this needs to overwork the spreadpatterns.
Every launcher starts with the same spreadradius,
the radius is increased by lauchers fired together
and if the target is in an ecm bubble.
The radius is reduced by artemis (works only with los!),
tag and narc and maybe bap.

Edited by Galenit, 15 September 2014 - 04:12 AM.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

I've played a lot of matches without ECM in my entire team again LRM-boat-heavy teams and still won. But this needs to be made inside a coordinated team. People rushing blindy forward just die - and it does not matter, if they are being ripped apart by ballistics or LRMs. What ECM does is to reduce the need to advance under cover, giving team the opportunity to advance certain areas without being spammed to death by LRMs. If the ECM goes away, at least in PUG-matches, you will find a massive amount of LRM and AMS boating, because in an unorganized group you cannot rely on teamplay, as there is simply no tool to organize them (no voice-comm, chat much too slow, people can still just do what they want etc)

Missing teamplay indirectly backslashes to ECM. A good team does not need ECM, a good team can advance as any other team, as they are both:
- Not affected by missing ECM on their side
- Not affected by present ECM on the enemies side

But PUGs are lightyears away from that and thus need some sort of "widening" mechanic. The UAV already did that, ECM does that too, as well as even NARC just for spotting.
Also, many people understand balance to make every mech interchangeable with others, which is not true. Balance means to even-weight vastly different roletypes of playstyles and mech-setups to be equally valid, even if they perform different.

So back to the council: When changing parts of the game-mechanic cross-connected with all other game mechanics, they must be aware of that and be able to at least imagine the effects on both competitive-players, as well as on PUGs as well as on new players, that try to get a grip.

So when widening up ECM, we have to consider, that the BAP was adapted to be a direct counter, that the NARC now broadcasts through ECM, that the TAG goes through it. with a missile lock available even with ECM, all those systems must get scaled back, as they do not need to be a direct counter anymore. In the end, packing you mech full of stuff like TAG, BAP, Adv. Sensor Range, Adv. Target Decay and Artemis would pretty much the new standard-PUG Buildup. So what about the other roles and how to make them valid, so that the PUGs do not play 90% LRM boats?

Edited by Túatha Dé Danann, 15 September 2014 - 04:18 AM.

[Galenit]

Túatha Dé Danann, on 15 September 2014 - 04:13 AM, said:

In the end, packing you mech full of stuff like TAG, BAP, Adv. Sensor Range, Adv. Target Decay and Artemis would pretty much the new standard-PUG Buildup. So what about the other roles and how to make them valid, so that the PUGs do not play 90% LRM boats?

Thats what you allready put in a lrm mech, the sensorrange can be exchanged for a seismic if you like it more ....

I though we talk about ecm and not "how to make the pugs play less lrms"?
Why dont we talk about, what to do to make lrms viable for group- and compplay?

Edited by Galenit, 15 September 2014 - 04:25 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Ed Trend, on 15 September 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

@Garandos , Lily , Wolfways

Altho i dont agree with your opinion , i can see a good reasoning behind your thesis as in overall .
I would just like to point out couple of things which you probably missed to see .

a ) if we agreed to nerf the ecm , this wont only aply to the enemy team , but in our friendly team aswell . This practicaly means that we will also be alot more vanurable than we all are now . And as a player that i am playing fanaticaly the cicada ecm version for the past 3-4 months , i can assure you that as a front liner , never felt that my ecm could do all the things you described . The ppl i supose to "protect" die just like any other mech due to direct fire from other weaps . The only difference i see is the reduction of the missiles that i have to suffer , and thats not always the case . Tag's , narcs and uav's , many times do some sort work on me just fine . But thats just me , thus i wont insist on this cuz i wouldnt like to pass as an arrogant person whom can only accept my own thesis as the "right one|". I could be wrong...

b ) I am personaly using a version of a mech that has restrictions in its weap configuration (4 energy slots , 1 balistic) , probably just cuz of its ability to carry ecm . Its my belief that all other ecm light mech versions (atlas excluded) suffer the same restrictions . If the ecm get nerf all the way which you describe , i see no reason to keep using the mech . I could better switch to a cicada 2A , in which i could squize 20% , maybe even 30% extra firepower . And i dont believe that i am alone in this one . And exactly cuz the ecm provides a benefit to both teams , (friendly or foe) , i wont be the only one to feel the lack of its protection , it will affect us all .

c) imho there is already a distinct problem with lrm boats in PUGland . The minute that ppl will feel that ecm is not longer a valid protection for anyone , ppl will turn to missile boating instandly . Its just the nature of things . When that occurs , what i expect to see is two teams exchanging missiles from 1k meters away , and having matches ending with no more than 2-3 kills on each side after 15mins of playing .

Thats a few things i had to say , ty for a good conversation guys , but i have to go now

cya all later

to a:
You will still have the same LRM protection. target lock =/= missile lock. But people can press R to get you in the lock and show other people in their team you are there. That negates the heavy imbalance when some PUG macthes have like 4 ecm on their side and 0 on the other. Because in said matches, not the LRM's are an issue, its the lack of communication to tell other teammates fast enough where is who. It will by my changes not change sudden LRM spams onto your team or my team. No matter who has the ecm. LRM's will still be as unusable vs your team as before. And on night maps, you will be able to see where mechs are, But the possibility to throw LRM's at you is still as low as before unless someone tags/narcs or UAV's you. This is not impacted by my idea except reducing the ridiculous 4-5 secs to lock a tagged ECM mech. Which makes even tag kinda pointless.

To b:
I see no reason why not to use it, you still provide a lot effect for your team. I Have kit fox builds who heavily suffer from not having weapons anymore on the right arm, and yet even with my changes I would still run the build like that.
Also my 2xLBX10 3xSRM6 + some lasers DDC wants to speak with you about how he sacrifices weapons potentials for his ECM. And I doubt you can truly put 20% more firepower into that mech, because its only 1 t one slot. And when hardpoints make the difference this would mean you currently run undertonnages due to lack of hardpoints? Not really. Your CDA runs now different, less lasers longer firepower duration, while a Full laser CDA would run hot extremely fast. All you lack is sudden firepower but not Firepower overall. And how many ECM capable chassis do you see in non ECM variants? nearly none, they all drive the non ECM chassis just for the skills and may drop these chassis later when mastered. Then they run the ecm version all day. A bit lowered ecm would help to make these chassis more than just a forced buy to skill the ecm variant.

to c:
as said it does not impact LRM protection a lot, and so this will hardly chaneg puglands LRM and lasergameplay, it will just grant a person the ability to press R and lock you visible for the rest of the team. They still can not spam missiles at you.

So my biggest issue is the non-targeting feature of ecm, since it heavily favours ecm teams to an unbalanced degree in a Pug gameplay. And on certain map conditions.

Túatha Dé Danann, on 15 September 2014 - 04:13 AM, said:

So when widening up ECM, we have to consider, that the BAP was adapted to be a direct counter, that the NARC now broadcasts through ECM, that the TAG goes through it. with a missile lock available even with ECM, all those systems must get scaled back, as they do not need to be a direct counter anymore. In the end, packing you mech full of stuff like TAG, BAP, Adv. Sensor Range, Adv. Target Decay and Artemis would pretty much the new standard-PUG Buildup. So what about the other roles and how to make them valid, so that the PUGs do not play 90% LRM boats?

Not sure, because when the possibility of me bringing ecm causes nearly every pug mech to use sensor range, Adv. target decay and 2tons of equipment + wasing a Energy hardpoint for this, then this alone is a success for investing 1t 1 slot. Because that heavily drains a load of firepower and weight from the opponent team for a borderline useful equipment, or other vital modules. And this would actually cause what? balance. Not everyone would use bap and tag and sensos modules, because they would be mostly pointless waste of module and mech slots. poeple may focus a lot more on AMS; which is totally underused atm, since ECM is all you need. And with that fact, anyone missile boating would also boat less missiles since now missiles are less efficient. But atm, people Missile boat in hope to not encounter ECM and smash the poop out of the opps, while in return they rely on having a ecm mech on their side. But if they are on the wrong side, not having ecm and the others have them, they start screaming about ecm. Kinda weird behavior, but it is like that. And so we need to find a middle way of ecm being a support but not a game changers. Which ecm especially in the PUG is to a too big degree. In coordinated group play, its not so much, because people can tell each other via their private voips who and what is where.

also, TAG and narc have only be borderline counters, because the tagger/narcer has to go very close to the ECM to even work. but a LRM bunch supported with ecm at 900m is kinda uncounterable fortress when the map doesn't provides you with cover to close the distance. narc is too short ranged and tag as well. But ecm is stealth protection at any distance, which is way too strong.

and the weight and hardpoints you sacrifice for a narc/tag? for a half or 3/4th range counter compared to the ecm, this is already more than imbalanced in the ecm's favor. And yet if thre are 2 ecm mechs narc doesn't even works.

Edited by Lily from animove, 15 September 2014 - 04:47 AM.

[Killstorm999999]

As others have stated, the main issue with ECM is the all-or-nothing nature of it. Either its active and stopping all missiles and preventing the other team from using the minimap (which is disastrous for PUGs), or its not. There is no in between state.

I don't think ECM should provide stealth or a missile lock shield. It should instead interfere with incomming missiles, sending them off in random directions/increasing their spread. This effect would be countered by TAG and NARC of course. Then in the future, perhaps stealth armor could be added which I envision doing everything ECM does, except only for one mech.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Galenit, on 15 September 2014 - 04:24 AM, said:

Why dont we talk about, what to do to make lrms viable for group- and compplay?

Both things are currently connected - sadly. So we need to separate them without breaking them.

For example:
BAP - it shows you a steady red rot similar to seismic when enemy mechs are in range, but without LOS, you still don't get a lock-on, but know where they are. The BAP is only active when your sensors are in "active" mode
TAG - Gives the ability to indirectly target an enemy mech via a spotter in order to hard-lock them, where before only a soft-lock was possible. You can either do it yourself or it can be done by a spotter. By doing it yourself, you get a bonus on lock-on-time and the time you hold the lock, even after the mech ran out of your hard-lock.
NARC - Boradcasts the hard-lock information for your missiles even if the enemy is behind cover, but has a limited broadcasting range similar to the TAG. As it does not matter if you or a spotter fired the NARC, this weapon is perfectly suited for spotters
ECM - Reduces all soft and hard-lock ranges and reduces both the detection range of your mech as well as those inside the range-of-effect of your ECM. It also affects the efficiency of TAG, NARC, BAP and active sensors by a huge degree.

How we define the exact values is another matter of balance, but in general, ECM should enable you do get closer to the enemy and should make it hard for the enemy to coordinate against a group with ECM.

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Deltron Zero, on 15 September 2014 - 04:33 AM, said:

As others have stated, the main issue with ECM is the all-or-nothing nature of it. Either its active and stopping all missiles and preventing the other team from using the minimap (which is disastrous for PUGs), or its not. There is no in between state.

I don't think ECM should provide stealth or a missile lock shield. It should instead interfere with incomming missiles, sending them off in random directions/increasing their spread. This effect would be countered by TAG and NARC of course. Then in the future, perhaps stealth armor could be added which I envision doing everything ECM does, except only for one mech.

I like the idea of having an incoming swarm of LRMs only hitting 10% because they spead so much under the influence of ECM.
There were other suggestions on how to approach the "boating" with a hard-counter on trackable missiles. For example, a Mech can only guide 40 missiles and every missile above that will invoke a loss in the overall tracking ability of all missiles, leading to a huge spread that may miss even on full-lock-on. While I don't like hard-caps at all, as mechs scale in this game from 20-100 tons with different hardpoints, modules and we already have lore mechs with more than 40 missiles per salvo, this idea is not thought to the end, but I like the idea of "more missiles, more spread".

[Fooooo]

All of ECM atm is an issue really.


Its not just ECM that is the problem tho, however if we need a list of some problems for ecm...

1. Stealth
2. Disables locks for lrms
3. Is only 1.5tons (I guess this really should be " doesnt have enough of a drawback" )


Now, if Missiles did not exist then ECM would just be a stealth tool. (its generally used just for the stealth + anti-streak for lights nowadays neway as lrms are generally not worth it)

To that I would say "Its not that OP really, but shouldnt it be called that angel ecm thingy then ?? "

Really tho to do it right they need to have test servers with ecm disabled and then start making changes to how LRMS and targetting works.

Let the players test it out and give ideas for changes & go from there.....at least it would be easier for everyone to "see" and decide what would be best to fix LRM's etc first then we can create a new ecm from scratch so to speak......

[DocBach]

We have ghost heat to make up for the fact that we can slave several weapons to one trigger and point of aim where in the board game this is based on requires each to have a separate roll to hit. Because we do the same thing with missiles where several launchers can share a single lock, perhaps more missiles adds a longer lock on time for all to simulate the fact we are replacing multiple hit rolls from the table top to a single lock.

[Galenit]

Túatha Dé Danann, on 15 September 2014 - 04:42 AM, said:

I like the idea of having an incoming swarm of LRMs only hitting 10% because they spead so much under the influence of ECM.

Thats what i talked about some posts ago:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3723235

Example:
Spread for a single launcher: 15m

+10 for each additional launcher
+50% for enemy ecm

-5 for artemis with los and no ecm
-5 for tag
-5 for narc (does not work with artemis together, but works if artemis is nullyfied by ecm)

1 Launcher:
15m circle if fired direct or indirect
10m circle if fired direct with artemis
5m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
10m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

1 Launcher against ecm:
22,5m circle if fired direct or indirect
22,5m circle if fired direct with artemis
15 m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
15 m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
7,5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc


2 Launchers:
25m circle if fired direct or indirect
20m circle if fired direct with artemis
15m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
20m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
15m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

2 Launcher against ecm:
47,5m circle if fired direct or indirect
47,5m circle if fired direct with artemis
30 m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
30 m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
22,5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

[Túatha Dé Danann]

DocBach, on 15 September 2014 - 04:47 AM, said:

We have ghost heat to make up for the fact that we can slave several weapons to one trigger and point of aim where in the board game this is based on requires each to have a separate roll to hit. Because we do the same thing with missiles where several launchers can share a single lock, perhaps more missiles adds a longer lock on time for all to simulate the fact we are replacing multiple hit rolls from the table top to a single lock.

Maybe both... Spread and lock-on time. The spread in nominal for launchers up to 20 and will increase in 5% increments for every 5 missiles above that are *currently* in the air. Your targeting system also needs processing capacity to guide the missiles, meaning that for every 5 missiles above that magical 20 missile number, the lock-on-time will increase by 0.15 seconds. Thus a real boat needs more time to lock on and if it fires 60ü missiles away, the spread is so huge that even some missiles would miss a standing Atlas. The problem with this is, that small mechs, like for example a Spider would become next to immune to missiles, as for that spread only 2 or 3 missiles out of 60 would hit, even with hard-lock enabled.

I think, that we also need to scale light mechs up in their size, solving two things:
- Broken hitboxes
- That they eat up more damage than assaults

Currently, a spider is a better tank than any medium mech out there. This may not have much to do with the ECM topic, but as you may see, all things are connected. ECM --> Missiles --> Spreads --> Hitboxes

Galenit, on 15 September 2014 - 05:10 AM, said:

Thats what i talked about some posts ago:
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__3723235

Example:
Spread for a single launcher: 15m

+10 for each additional launcher
+50% for enemy ecm

-5 for artemis with los and no ecm
-5 for tag
-5 for narc (does not work with artemis together, but works if artemis is nullyfied by ecm)

1 Launcher:
15m circle if fired direct or indirect
10m circle if fired direct with artemis
5m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
10m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

1 Launcher against ecm:
22,5m circle if fired direct or indirect
22,5m circle if fired direct with artemis
15 m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
15 m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
7,5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc


2 Launchers:
25m circle if fired direct or indirect
20m circle if fired direct with artemis
15m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
20m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
15m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

2 Launcher against ecm:
47,5m circle if fired direct or indirect
47,5m circle if fired direct with artemis
30 m circle if fired direct with artemis and tag
30 m circle if fired indirect with tag or narc
22,5m circle if fired indirect with tag and narc

Wow, thats also good. Also a good handling for the 6 LRM5 boats, as it is now equally valid to have 2 LRM 15 instead of 6 LRM5. Nice going. Thanks for bumping that up again.

[Garandos]

Ed Trend, on 15 September 2014 - 03:30 AM, said:

@Garandos , Lily , Wolfways

Altho i dont agree with your opinion , i can see a good reasoning behind your thesis as in overall .
I would just like to point out couple of things which you probably missed to see .

thats why i said, its really only a "gut feeling" from my side, i have absolutely no numbers, or facts, i can put out, i just provided, what, when playing in a PUG as i allways do, seems to bear the most impact, but it could be all easily utter nonsense


*edit* but about that direct fire, yeah there is another issue underlying, at least as i see it:

Player Skill.

ECM gets stronger, the lower the players personal skill is,

if someone has to, for example, relay on the red box to take his aim, and then sprays his damage happily across the enemy and the landscape,
ECM is brutal

if someone can take off a single leg of a fly, with his AC 20 at 600 Metres, ECM has not so much of an impact.

Edited by Garandos, 15 September 2014 - 05:17 AM.

[Blakkstar]

For balance, pay attention to the corerule system that's been proven for 25+ years. PGI also forgot the LRM missile hit table. Oops. Putting it in place fixes a vast number of problems with LRMs.

ECM is too powerful. All it should do is cancel Beagle Probes, Artemis, and NARC (and C3 computers if/when we get them). ECM should also slightly increase missile lock time. It was never intended to be a cloak of invisibility, and specifically says in the TT rules that it DOES NOT effect mech sensors or mounted targeting devices such as TAG or Clan targeting computers.

ECM is too powerful because LRMs are too powerful. LRMs need to "roll" on the missile hit table, which averages about 60%...12 missiles on an LRM 20. Artemis kicks this up to 80%. Missile damage is then allocated by 5 on a normal hit chart, not all chained into the same 1-2 locations as it seems to work now. This is extremely easy to implement because the player has no say in where LRMs land anyways.

TT rules can also reflect the inherent difficulty in indirect LRM fire. Indirect fire is supposed to be penalized on a to-hit roll, and further penalized if the spotter does anything but spot. Maintaining a target lock should therefore be skill-based, and not based on who MM gave ECM to or not. This can be accomplished by making the spotter hold a reticule inside the targeting box instead of just pressing "R" and going about his business normally.

Edit: the to-hit table and effectiveness of spotting can all be built into the target lock system as a unified mechanic, and to also avoid the dreaded RNG. Basically add up the quality of spotting over time (reticule on the target + direct/indirect + Beagle + Artemis + TAG - limited ECM) and you get a lock percentage. It grows as the lock is held, and degrades after LOS is lost. This roughly equates to the missile hit table. A 50% target lock will land 60% of the missiles. A 90%+ lock will land all the missiles.

Net effect:
1. ECM is less powerful and less critical to team success, and is a counter to other electronic goodies rather than core gameplay mechanics
2. LRM indirect fire is somewhat more difficult, and riskier to the spotter
3. Being hit with LRM fire is less devastating
4. Teams can use more real tactics instead of playing huddle under the umbrella

Improvements in all categories. All accomplished by opening the book that this game is based on. Go figure.

Edited by Blakkstar, 15 September 2014 - 05:33 AM.

[Haji1096]

How about this idea ?

ECM should be a consumable like improved UAV. Same implementation as now except it works over a period of time, and every mech can equip it.