116 replies to this topic

[Nathan Foxbane]

DocBach, on 17 September 2014 - 02:10 PM, said:

I just wrote this up in response to a different post, but its an appropriate response to the above comment.

When doing research for my essay I came to the conclusion that ECM is actually pretty spot on to how it should act when you take in its effects from the expanded rule sets like Tactical Operations.

The most apparent difference between MechWarrior Online and Battletech is the fact that Battletech doesn't take in account of requiring a manual lock like PGI translated in their LRM mechanic -- if you can see it in Battletech, you can shoot it as if ECM isn't present.

Probably the best way to implement that in this game would be to allow enemies that are visible within sensor range to be manually targeted -- put the reticle over the visible enemy and hit R and you get a target on him, and thus be able to use LRM's. Add in an interpretation scanning rules from Tactical Operations in the form of delayed targeting information on manually selected targets inside of ECM and call it a day.

LRM's are no longer hard countered but still penalized with the 100% lock on time delay, players would need to maintain situational awareness with the "Eyeball Mk 1," and being able to share the target location with friendlies would give the PUG's somewhere to steer their attention to.

You have better and much more recent rule sets to work off of than I do then. I am stuck doing my best with Master Rules Revised Edition and Maximum Tech. Many of the most heavily used bits of the latter found their way into the former.

[Gerhardt Jorgensson]

What I am not understanding about this suggestion is the fact that line of sight has any affect on target sharing of just 'Mechs inside of ECM:



Here is a visual mock up I poorly put together -- The bad guy Raven (in red) has an ECM bubble around him. The bad guy Centurion (also in red) is outside of the protective range of the bubble. The blue Centurion has line of sight for both of them. With the suggested change, he cannot share targeting information for the enemy Raven to his friendly Catapult (who is behind my poorly scaled hill and does not have LOS), yet he can share information on the enemy Centurion, even though he is not inside the Raven's area of ECM effect?

Once his sensors detect the enemy and get information on it, he should be able to share it, as long as he is outside of the range of ECM's influence -- his data is traveling outside of the jammed area, meaning it should be able to be communicated to the receiving 'Mech without problem. If ECM prohibits the Centurion's ability to transmit data on an ECM 'Mech because ECM is present in the area, he should not be able to transmit any data -- not even the red Centurion that he would be able to if I understand your change correctly.

I do not think I like the idea of this very much. I understand you want to try for a simple solution for a problem to fix ECM, but I would like to see any change to any system in this game that not only improves balance, but also makes sense.

Edited by Gerhardt Jorgensson, 17 September 2014 - 08:39 PM.

[El Bandito]

Gerhardt Jorgensson, on 17 September 2014 - 08:23 PM, said:

What I am not understanding about this suggestion is the fact that line of sight has any affect on target sharing of just 'Mechs inside of ECM:



Here is a visual mock up I poorly put together -- The bad guy Raven (in red) has an ECM bubble around him. The bad guy Centurion (also in red) is outside of the protective range of the bubble. The blue Centurion has line of sight for both of them. With the suggested change, he cannot share targeting information for the enemy Raven to his friendly Catapult (who is behind my poorly scaled hill and does not have LOS), yet he can share information on the enemy Centurion, even though he is not inside the Raven's area of ECM effect?

Once his sensors detect the enemy and get information on it, he should be able to share it, as long as he is outside of the range of ECM's influence -- his data is traveling outside of the jammed area, meaning it should be able to be communicated to the receiving 'Mech without problem. If ECM prohibits the Centurion's ability to transmit data on an ECM 'Mech because ECM is present in the area, he should not be able to transmit any data -- not even the red Centurion that he would be able to if I understand your change correctly.

From what I have gathered of the OP, the blue Cent should be able to transmit enemy Cent' location since the red Cent is outside of Raven's ECM bubble.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 September 2014 - 01:27 AM.

[MonkeyCheese]

Livewyr, on 16 September 2014 - 06:54 AM, said:

"It will still be stealth against anyone who cannot directly see it on their screens."


Thoughts?

amen to that absolutely love it!

It would still allow faster mechs to "sneak" around without all that "oh that atlas is out in the open but I cant target it for health readouts" or "look at that 3L raven just sitting back out in the open spamming erLL because noone can lock or lrm him"

Something that is still useful to the actual player equipping it without all the godmode

[Tombstoner]

I'm starting to think this change is a bit too strong. simply having LOS on an ecm mech means you can target the mech and fire LRM's. I think this is a bit too strong. i'm ok with not being able to provide indirect fire, but the LOS mech should need a begel probe to fully penetrate the ECM via LOS.

ECM prevents indirect targeting in an AOE and prevents LOS targeting for the EMC mech only.
Begal probe allows for LOS targeting of ECM equiped mech.

[M3 SABLE]

Khobai, on 16 September 2014 - 07:13 AM, said:

This idea defeats the entire purpose of LRMs which is indirect fire. If LRMs cant indirect fire theres really no point in using them over other weapons.

A better idea is to make ECM a soft counter to LRMs rather than a hard counter. And then weaken indirect LRMs just enough so that they no longer need a hard counter to be balanced. For 1.5 tons its completely ridiculous for ECM to hard counter anything.

Obviously the amount of ECM will vary.(sometimes few, sometimes none, especially fewer now that clans like DWF/TBR/Summoner arrived as everyone's favorite play toy)
Obviously the amount of LRM users will vary.
Obviously one ECM or even 2 ECM will not cover the whole team (especially in solo queues), because good portion don't even want to provide the ECM Umbrella, but to go snipe solo.
And obviously, ECM mechs are one of the first to go down. (Especially slow poke DDC)

You talk like there is some sort of perma nerf on LRM, that is going to make it an insufferable experience 10/10 times, in every situation. No. Each match is different, and sometimes you get to score over 1400 damage (like i had recently seen on BLR-1s lurmboat), and sometimes you get pwned in the first 2 minutes of the match by some over-geared DWF from 1k away, TBR with 4CSRMs in your back, or surprise Boom Jager from around the corner...

IT STILL REMAINS ---> IDF, when there is no ECM to affect the target...

Edited by Unikron, 18 September 2014 - 04:20 AM.

[Willard Phule]

Maybe this was already brought up but.....

What about streaks?

Considering that the vast majority of ECM mechs are lights (and in many cases, move faster than the 150kph that the Cryengine allows...thus giving them that "buggy hitbox" effect), simply allowing streaks to lock on to an ECM mech when within X range would change how it works completely.

In fact, it would probably add to the concept of "role warfare" to allow light/mediums to set up to hunt down ECM lights.

[Karl Marlow]

ECM balance seems to always come back to the LRM issue. Honestly I would give my right leg if they would let me fire the damn LRM's in direct fire mode. I HATE that arc. Yeah It's nice for the IDF (which I also tend to agree with those who say that should only be possible with some sort of targeting assistance such as TAG or NARC) but most of the Time I'm not hiding behind a rock. I'm duking it out at midrange combat and that arc is annoying. Hell take away the arc and you can keep the ECM stealth BS since I would be able to dumb fire them effectivly.

The only other thing I would like to see with ECM is if you are going to be shutting down my sensors you should be required to get close to me to do it. Make jamming people into a skill.

Edited by ThomasMarik, 18 September 2014 - 05:25 AM.

[Gerhardt Jorgensson]

El Bandito, on 18 September 2014 - 01:27 AM, said:

From what I have gathered of the OP, the blue Cent should be able to transmit enemy Cent' location since the red Cent is outside of Raven's ECM bubble.

Exactly -- this does not make sense.

Think of it like this -- the friendly spotter is transmitting the target data he has to friendly 'Mechs. If he is allowed to target an enemy inside ECM, why can he not share that information if he is outside of the range of ECM's effect? Shots do not do damage outside of range, why would ECM be able to jam just my ability to share data of the single ECM protected 'Mech, when neither the spotter or receiver of target information is no where near it? Why can I share data on the enemy Centurion who is just outside of its ECM bubble just fine?

Do you understand the question? I understand where he is coming from a balance perspective, but from a point of functionality, comparison to the lore, the board game, and even real life ECM it just does not make sense.

Edited by Gerhardt Jorgensson, 18 September 2014 - 05:40 AM.

[El Bandito]

Gerhardt Jorgensson, on 18 September 2014 - 05:37 AM, said:

Exactly -- this does not make sense.

Think of it like this -- the friendly spotter is transmitting the target data he has to friendly 'Mechs. If he is allowed to target an enemy inside ECM, why can he not share that information if he is outside of the range of ECM's effect? Shots do not do damage outside of range, why would ECM be able to jam just my ability to share data of a single 'Mech, when I am no where near it? Why can I share data on the enemy Centurion who is just outside of its ECM bubble just fine?

Do you understand the question? I understand where he is coming from a balance perspective, but from a point of functionality, comparison to the lore, the board game, and even real life ECM it just does not make sense.

Of course I understand. And I can tell you the answer, since you already got it.

Because BALANCE.

Balance over everything. This is a 31st century mech combat game. Not everything has to make sense. What is important is that info gathering and info denial are balanced.

Edited by El Bandito, 18 September 2014 - 05:41 AM.

[Gerhardt Jorgensson]

El Bandito, on 18 September 2014 - 05:40 AM, said:

Of course I understand. And I can tell you the answer, since you already got it.

Because BALANCE.

Balance over everything. This is a 31st century mech combat game. Not everything has to make sense. What is important is that info gathering and info denial are balanced.

There is no better way to implement an ECM fix without still negating an entire roll on the battlefield and requiring the use of extra equipment to bring indirect missiles into a fight? ECM still becomes a piece of equipment that hard counters everything, unless the grace of the match maker gives you a team who brought the temporary soft counters.

[SpiralFace]

@Livewyr

Not too dissimilar to my own notion.

So here is the only thing I see,

What do you do about the "red triangle" that immediately calls out the enemy's position?

I agree with this change, but if your able to target people normally under ECM and just not have that relayed out to team members, you still have to deal with all the other "information gathering" portion of ECM which includes having the giant "shoot me I'm here" triangle pointing at mechs, as well as the info gathering on those said mechs in place.

Would you leave the red triangles and info gathering in tact in this scenario?

Edited by SpiralFace, 18 September 2014 - 05:50 AM.

[Sorbic]

I've called for something along these lines as it protects mechs under the ECM bubble from being mass targeted while rewarding those who poke their nose out.

However I feel that ECM should have some LOS (line of sight) benefit as well. I would like to see a small delay in mech recognition if they are under an ECM bubble. I don't mean slow target locks, I mean leave a small, maybe 1.5seconds, delay before the red Dorrito pops up over their head. This will still give some benefit to ECM scouts and a sensible reward for being under ECM, even if the enemy has LOS.

Edited by Sorbic, 18 September 2014 - 06:40 AM.

[Lyoto Machida]

Dutch Bear, on 16 September 2014 - 07:17 AM, said:

Can't an LRM boat shoot their LRM's without a lock? They go to where the retical was when the trigger was pulled just like other weapons...

Have you tried this against anything but an assault standing still? Give me 250m/s direct fire low arc dumbfired LRMs and I'd be happy. Lots of crying on the forums and in game would happen though...

[COOL HANDS]

So let me get this straight OP you want LRM boats to expose themselves to allow the ones that are complaining about ECM not working LRM's are OP to get a free open shot at them?

Thank you but no thank you. Why should Lrm boaters expose their position when the guys that use ecm don't expose themselves either. They sit behind cover with their stealth mode pop shooting or pop tarting from 800m away.

[GeneralArmchair]

Necromancer go home.

[Pjwned]

That is a good idea, except ECM also needs to not have a bubble affecting teammates around it.

Now it's balanced.