132 replies to this topic

[M3 SABLE]

ramjb, on 14 September 2014 - 11:29 AM, said:

Fun fact. While I play I hear a lot of complains about the lurm rain of death and LRMs being out of whack.

I think I've never ever heard a single complain about ECM being OP. In fact i've indeed heard a lot of complains each time ECM was not present in a team. And the complains went like "We're going to be Lurmed into the stone age"...not about spotting/not spotting.

Again, if you can't spot an enemy without a red triangle on top of it, you have issues, but ECM is not one of them.

I have exactly the same impression. People who talk and mention their frustrations in all chat, and forums, make it look like we play a different game.

Thus changing features via forum quarrels, is definitely not something I find fair. Make it as some sort of brief in-game questionnaire... somehow...

Edited by Unikron, 14 September 2014 - 11:35 AM.

[Bront]

PappySmurf, on 14 September 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

(There are certainly more people against ECM than for it on the Forums. Varying degrees, of course. But we have 55% up there, VS your 30%. )


Here is a poll for you!!!!!

yes or no = ( how many players want new maps new game modes and CW before a ecm fix? yes for more content / no for a ECM fix) my vote is YES I WANT MORE CONTENT DONE BEFORE A ECM FIX. or

yes or no = ( how many players want jump jets back the way they were before the nerf ? yes for old jump jets or no for new jump jets?

Why do you keep on insisting that they can't fix ECM without delaying other projects?

[M3 SABLE]

Aresye, on 14 September 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

The thought never dawned on you that when entire teams complain because they don't have a single piece of equipment, and that because they don't have that they're likely going to lose, that maybe perhaps that single piece of equipment has too much influence on the outcome of the game, and is therefore, broken?

lol

It must be like... over 50% team composed of complete LRM boats to apply your example, where a team is "likely going to lose", just because they didn't have a dude with ECM, and the other team had.

Edited by Unikron, 14 September 2014 - 11:38 AM.

[ramjb]

Aresye, on 14 September 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

The thought never dawned on you that when entire teams complain because they don't have a single piece of equipment, and that because they don't have that they're likely going to lose, that maybe perhaps that single piece of equipment has too much influence on the outcome of the game, and is therefore, broken?

No. What I gather is that people complain about not having ECM because that means an instant rain of hell from the sky from people sitting behind a hill 900m away. Hence, what's broken is not ECM - is the thing it mainly counters. Namely: LRMs.

PappySmurf, on 14 September 2014 - 10:59 AM, said:

What I more important is gaining new players to support this game before the game dies and ECM is a mute point and that means content first and a way to advertise for new players and getting them hooked on this IP for revenue.

I'm a new player (6 weeks playing), and I want to support this game. I've done it with my money, time, and youtube videos, since 6 weeks ago and I plan to keep on doing so in the future. Unless ECM gets crushed and LRMs not fixed. if that happens I'm out of this game instantly - and I know I'm not the only one with that feeling.

Since day one the one and only reason that really made me angry about this game was the LRM spam of death. I didn't get mad at clans. I didn't get mad at anything (well I do now and then about teams but PUGs are PUGs). The only thing I find unacceptable in this game, as a newcomer, is LRMs. And I know how to avoid them, but even knowing how to avoid them doesn't mean that you always can. In many cases you can't. It's a cheap weapon, with no skill requirements whatsoever, that breaks gameplay. Just try fighting under the constant rain of death of a single kintaro with LRM5s. Good luck with that.

You want new players to come and stay?. Then I have a valid voice to tell you here as I'm a new player and I want to stay: don't crush the only tool we have to keep LRM spam at bay, as LRMs is the most likely reason they'll want to go away.

Edited by ramjb, 14 September 2014 - 11:40 AM.

[Bartholomew bartholomew]

ECM needs a major fix. Magic stealth in a box is NOT what it should be.

And if they fix the stupid ECM. Then Lurms can finally be balanced to something other than an all or nothing weapon.

[DocBach]

The thread title makes it sound like ECM is broken.

[PappySmurf]

First WELCOME ramjb to MWO you said= (You want new players to come and stay?. Then I have a valid voice to tell you here as I'm a new player and I want to stay: don't crush the only tool we have to keep LRM spam at bay, as LRMs is the most likely reason they'll want to go away. )

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And your right ECM is the only module new players have besides skill cover and luck to not get LRM spammed and I feel ECM should be left alone for now in favor of more content to help new player experience and just general fun in the game.If ECM were nerfed like jump jets were the endless battles of LRM RAIN would be constant just like we had a year ago and quite possible ruin the game to a point where the mech game Hawken is almost extinct.Hawken devs did not listen to a dang thing there playerbasewanteduntill the game is almost dead and there trying to resurrect it.

And Hawken was truly a fun mech game from my point of view.

Edited by PappySmurf, 14 September 2014 - 12:15 PM.

[Aresye]

Also, for all those wondering where the ECM complaints were before, they've actually been around for quite awhile. In fact, people have been saying ECM is broken since it was first implemented:

http://mwomercs.com/...ize-fixing-ecm/
http://mwomercs.com/...ng-overpowered/
http://mwomercs.com/...class-citizens/
http://mwomercs.com/...-into-the-fotm/
http://mwomercs.com/...474-remove-ecm/
http://mwomercs.com/...s-too-powerful/
http://mwomercs.com/...ng-as-intended/
http://mwomercs.com/...eedback-merged/

For context, ECM was implemented back when the 6x Steak-2 Catapult was the #1, top OP loadout. ECM wasn't implemented yet, and Steaks at the time always hit CT, no matter what. Thus, ECM was originally embraced with open arms, and the few people who were complaining about it were mostly former Steak-Cat pilots.

As you can see however, as time went on, people started looking at it more objectively, and started to realize just how powerful this 1 ton piece of equipment truly was. They realized how it managed to do "above and beyond" what ECM was supposed to do, how it implemented a null signature feature despite not having the drawbacks of the null signature feature (aka higher heat), and how the only effective counter against ECM was (and still is) another ECM.

Those threads only go until December of 2012, however the ECM of today's game is the same ECM that was introduced nearly 2 years ago. That's 2 years of being a hard counter to LRMs, requiring LRMs to be tweaked extensively to avoid them being rendered completely useless, leading to LRMs being overpowered in certain situations (aka no ECM).

Argue all you want about ECM and whether or not the devs should devote time to fixing it, but please, don't try and bulls*** me by telling me this is a new issue, because I've been around for awhile. I've been seeing threads about ECM balance since it was introduced. Some of you may see it as a new issue because it hasn't been talked about in awhile, largely because the community had given up and just accepted it would never change, but now, after 2 years of complaints, the devs have finally said they will look into it. 2 YEARS!

Quote

No. What I gather is that people complain about not having ECM because that means an instant rain of hell from the sky from people sitting behind a hill 900m away. Hence, what's broken is not ECM - is the thing it mainly counters. Namely: LRMs.

I'm not sure how your logic is working, but that's completely backwards. If the balance of a weapon is completely dependent on the presence of another system, then it isn't the weapon that's changing the outcome of the game.

We've already seen multiple changes to LRMs, but no matter how fast they go, or how much damage they do, the #1 biggest influence on LRM balance, is the presence of ECM.

Fix ECM, and you can fix the targeting and spotting systems.
Fix the targeting and spotting systems, and you can fix LRMs.

Edited by Aresye, 14 September 2014 - 12:26 PM.

[ramjb]

Aresye, on 14 September 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

I'm not sure how your logic is working, but that's completely backwards. If the balance of a weapon is completely dependent on the presence of another system, then it isn't the weapon that's changing the outcome of the game.
.

No, it's not backwards. LRMS can be effective even with the presence of ECM (TAG, NARC on the ECMr, UAV, BAP, own ECM assets acting as counters).

ECM without the presence of LRMS only has one utility: hide the spot triangles and prevent targetting. But if you're dependant in the red triangles to spot your enemy then, again, the problem is not ECM, but in your eyesight. I have no problems spotting and shooting enemy mechs that are under ECM cover. Unless I'm LRM-boating, ofc. But that's why I load TAG in my LRM50 Twolf prime.


Hence the problem is in the weapon, not in the counter. The weapon is too powerful without the counter. In fact, it just dominates. Put the weapon where it belongs (something that easy to use should give minimal returns, its MMO balancing 101), then you can argue about ECM's "hiding" properties. But until the LRMs aren't crushed, ECM has to stay as is, or the whole gameplay will go to hell.

Edited by ramjb, 14 September 2014 - 12:47 PM.

[Mystere]

Mcgral18, on 14 September 2014 - 10:43 AM, said:

The old poll, posted above, and below.

Well then, considering I've been flourishing with odds at or worse than 1:5, 3:5 is going to be a piece of cake in comparison.

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

<maniacal >

<Seriously, though, thanks. >

[zortesh]

I don't think ecm needs nerfing as such, thou it should be made spherical and not a 180 meter wide column that goes upwards to a infinite degree, ie you shouldnt be able to cover the top of hpg from the basement of hpg, or if you can it should be a very tiny bubble ton the top.

What i think is some of the counter could do with a slight buff, ppcs for instance could have the knockdown time taken from 5 seconds up to say 8 seconds, and maybe beagle being more effective, say to the point of 3 beagles effectively turning off the nearest ecm or something, id also say make ecm in counter counter 2 ecms in disrupt, so the offensive players always have the ecm edge.

Edited by zortesh, 14 September 2014 - 01:08 PM.

[Aresye]

ramjb, on 14 September 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

No, it's not backwards. LRMS can be effective even with the presence of ECM (TAG, NARC on the ECMr, UAV, BAP, own ECM assets acting as counters).

ECM without the presence of LRMS only has one utility: hide the spot triangles and prevent targetting. But if you're dependant in the red triangles to spot your enemy then, again, the problem is not ECM, but in your eyesight. I have no problems spotting and shooting enemy mechs that are under ECM cover. Unless I'm LRM-boating, ofc. But that's why I load TAG in my LRM50 Twolf prime.


Hence the problem is in the weapon, not in the counter. The weapon is too powerful without the counter. In fact, it just dominates. Put the weapon where it belongs (something that easy to use should give minimal returns, its MMO balancing 101), then you can argue about ECM's "hiding" properties. But until the LRMs aren't crushed, ECM has to stay as is, or the whole gameplay will go to hell.

The problem is these are all, "hard-counters," to ECM, meaning that somebody with missiles that doesn't have on their team...
1. ECM
2. NARC
3. TAG
4. BAP (only counters within 150m, so "almost" pointless)
5. UAV

...has absolutely, 100% no chance of a lock.

Note, we aren't talking about eliminating ECM, nor making it useless. We're talking about making it more like the way it was originally designed in canon. A player in the solo queue with missiles that randomly got matched with no teammates or equipment that can counter ECM shouldn't be downgraded to 100% useless.

The problem is we can't touch missiles before fixing ECM, and as someone who dislikes missile boats...a lot, I can sympathize with not wanting to change the best defense against missiles, but for the sake of long-term balance and longevity of the game, the current balance cannot continue. It's been a fundamental problem that can be attributed to many balance issues, and it's about time it's seen an overhaul.

[ramjb]

Aresye, on 14 September 2014 - 01:29 PM, said:

The problem is these are all, "hard-counters," to ECM, meaning that somebody with missiles that doesn't have on their team...
1. ECM
2. NARC
3. TAG
4. BAP (only counters within 150m, so "almost" pointless)
5. UAV

...has absolutely, 100% no chance of a lock.

For starters, anyone who decides to LRM boat and doesn't carry a TAG with him, just deserves to get no locks in the whole game. Only excuse would be the Catapult A1, which has no energy hardpoints. All the rest ,do. I'm just out of a game where a summoner with LRM20 launchers and nothing else was crying because nobody was holding locks for him. Well, his fault for not moving up and achieving them with a TAG. O wait, he didn't load one. Not even a medium laser. Only LRMs. So he deserves what he got: no locks, for being so cheap to load an all-LRM weapon set with no backup weapons, much less tag, just to get a couple hundred LRMs more.

So if you're in a LRM and you get no locks due to ECM, man up, move with your frontline mechs, and start tagging some. If you don't then the blame is not in the ECM, but in whoever loads a bunchload of LRM launchers and then is cheap enough not to load a TAG to put 180 more missiles in his boat.

BTW, being a LRM boat doesn't prevent you from taking an UAV and putting it to good use. Of course it doesn't help if you don't want to move from behind your hill as the UAV won't help for anything there, but, honestly, if all a player wants is to hide behind a hill and point and click on any red box that appears, then I suggest he leaves MWO and makes himself a Whack-a-mole professional. Both more to the point of the gameplay he looks for, and less griefing for other players who actually are looking for a fun game.

Quote

Note, we aren't talking about eliminating ECM, nor making it useless. We're talking about making it more like the way it was originally designed in canon. A player in the solo queue with missiles that randomly got matched with no teammates or equipment that can counter ECM shouldn't be downgraded to 100% useless.

The problem is we can't touch missiles before fixing ECM, and as someone who dislikes missile boats...a lot, I can sympathize with not wanting to change the best defense against missiles, but for the sake of long-term balance and longevity of the game, the current balance cannot continue. It's been a fundamental problem that can be attributed to many balance issues, and it's about time it's seen an overhaul.

First I'll repeat: a player that solo queues with missiles only and has no TAG nor UAV, is liable only to himself if he falls into a team which carries none either. With the only exception of the Catapult A1. And given the kind of griefing those blasted things force upon other players with their quadruple/quintuple/sextuple sequentially fired LRM5 launchers, don't expect any sympathy from me towards them. The rest, if they fall into a team with no TAG means they didn't load TAG themselves. The blame is upon them and not upon ECM.

Besides that, I suspect that what I say is going to cause some people to burn me at the stake, but really...just to the hell with lore. As simple as that. That lore was built around a tabletop game, not a Multiplayer Online game. What might work in one context doesn't mean it will work if you carry to another whole different one. Or in other words: whatever lore was built upon the tabletop game should be respected, I agreee to that, but only up to the point where it messes the gameplay. From that point onwards, no lore excuses are valid if you want a game that's worth playing for everyone. Hence whatever ECM was under lore conditions, I really don't care. I care for the practical situation in MWO today: LRM rains of doom are impossible to stop if no ECM is present on the battlefield. Hence, unless you blastnerf LRMS into oblivion, you can't touch ECM.

I think in any case we're running circles here. You say ECM should be nerfed and LRMS then could follow. I say LRMS should be nerfed and then ECM can follow. Let's agree and say that a simultaneous nerf to both would work. But if the LRMs stay as they are, the ECM should -not- be touched.

Edited by ramjb, 14 September 2014 - 01:56 PM.

[ramjb]

Also about the lore explanations. I don't know for sure (I'm very new to the MW world and I'm very unfamiliar with the lore) but if I'm not totally wrong, in the lore, in 3050 LRMS couldn't fire on out-of-sight targets for the launcher unless NARC was in play (an some special command&control datalink between scouts and launchers?). So if we're going to mount an argument to nerf ECM based on lore, then I demand all out-of-line-of-sight firing abilities taken away from LRM boats unless its on a TAG/Narc'd target.


Then again, I don't really mind. As I said lore is there to be respected up to the point where it means a huge hit to gameplay. Then it should be overriden. But if we're going there to complain about ECM not working as it should, then LRMs are much,much, worse on that regard.

Edited by ramjb, 14 September 2014 - 02:02 PM.

[Redshift2k5]

The problem with an ECM fix is a lack of consensus, which is what we have been charged with doing recently by Russ.

Nobody is saying ECM is the only thing that needs improvement, but it's what is on our plate atm due to Russ's post. If it goes well we'll probably see even more community-driven balance issues.

We don't need a community consensus to say we need more maps, or better net code, or whatever, those things are all being done but maps take lots of time, money, and work, and a community consensus won't be of any use in any of those factors.

[Bront]

ramjb, on 14 September 2014 - 12:43 PM, said:

But if you're dependant in the red triangles to spot your enemy then, again, the problem is not ECM, but in your eyesight.

Believe it or not, that's actually a hardware performance issue. On low, spotting mechs far away is difficult because they aren't distinguished well from the background. The better your PC, the easier it is to spot mechs from far away. The red triangles help a lot in these situations.

So, ECM negitively impacts folks with slower computers.

zortesh, on 14 September 2014 - 01:03 PM, said:

I don't think ecm needs nerfing as such, thou it should be made spherical and not a 180 meter wide column that goes upwards to a infinite degree, ie you shouldnt be able to cover the top of hpg from the basement of hpg, or if you can it should be a very tiny bubble ton the top

In my experience, this is the case, just like weapon ranges, it's a sphere. ECM only effects a small area on top of HPG if you're under.

[ramjb]

Bront, on 14 September 2014 - 02:26 PM, said:

Believe it or not, that's actually a hardware performance issue. On low, spotting mechs far away is difficult because they aren't distinguished well from the background. The better your PC, the easier it is to spot mechs from far away. The red triangles help a lot in these situations.

So, ECM negitively impacts folks with slower computers.

In my experience, this is the case, just like weapon ranges, it's a sphere. ECM only effects a small area on top of HPG if you're under.

I play on the lowest settings. And I get 20-25 FPS (and is not rare to have games at 18 when I'm capturing footage). I play at 1366x768 pixels. Hardware is not a valid excuse, as you can hardly have a more limited gaming setup than what I do and I can perfectly distinguish enemies at very long ranges on most situations...

/edit: for more fun details, my right eye's eyesight is seriously impaired, so even being eyesight impaired is -not- an excuse XD

Edited by ramjb, 14 September 2014 - 02:29 PM.

[Bront]

ramjb, on 14 September 2014 - 02:00 PM, said:

Also about the lore explanations. I don't know for sure (I'm very new to the MW world and I'm very unfamiliar with the lore) but if I'm not totally wrong, in the lore, in 3050 LRMS couldn't fire on out-of-sight targets for the launcher unless NARC was in play (an some special command&control datalink between scouts and launchers?). So if we're going to mount an argument to nerf ECM based on lore, then I demand all out-of-line-of-sight firing abilities taken away from LRM boats unless its on a TAG/Narc'd target.

Not true, those just made it easier. There are rules for spotters in the targeting rules.

ramjb, on 14 September 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

I play on the lowest settings. And I get 20-25 FPS (and is not rare to have games at 18 when I'm capturing footage). I play at 1366x768 pixels. Hardware is not a valid excuse, as you can hardly have a more limited gaming setup than what I do and I can perfectly distinguish enemies at very long ranges on most situations..

I went from 20 FPS on low on 1080P to 45 FPS on medium/high, and distinguishing mechs at range became a lot easier. When I played on a friend's machine (95 FPS on Very High), it was amazing how much easier it was to see at range.

Sure, I'll admit it probably also depends on your eyesight a bit, but it does make a difference being able to render objects further out in greater detail.

[ramjb]

Bront, on 14 September 2014 - 02:31 PM, said:

Sure, I'll admit it probably also depends on your eyesight a bit, but it does make a difference being able to render objects further out in greater detail.

Not gonna argue what's just obvious: if you run at the highest settings I'm sure spotting will be much easier. Then again, I hardly have a problem and I doubt anyone will play with lowest settings/fps than what I do. The point I try to make is that, while it might be harder to spot on low settings/resolutions, it still is enough to see enemies at pretty long ranges.

[InspectorG]

Unikron, on 14 September 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

Oh yeah?

Should a Jenner be able to solo Direwolf, lorewise?

Depends on the map and dice rolls, its possible.

Put a bad pilot/gunner in a whale and an excellent one in a jenner in an environment with lots of terrain to hide behind, sure.