945 replies to this topic

[Pjwned]

Jack Shayu Walker, on 15 July 2015 - 11:41 PM, said:

k

Glad you agree with everything I said, guess there's no need to continue.

[The Mech behind you]

I want to throw in a crazy idea here since were talking about changing ECM anyways. Well, I hope someone is seeing this even tho it's page 15.

How about making the ECM suit only affecting the Mech it's equipped on. Don't know how this can be implemented code wise. Maybe shrinking the bubble down to 10m to the center mass of the Mech. And then implementing a Module that gives the ECM its 90m bubble to cover teammates.

[PremithiumX]

90m radius? 60m? I say reduce to 15 or 20 meters, enough room to provide support to a 'mech taking LRM fire but not enough room to shield a mass of mechs without seriously hampering their manuverability and firing arcs.

Secondly: take a break forumwarriors. Seriously, 15 pages thus far and half the posts are like five people bickering with each other over minutea they have no control over, or even worse: semantics. Leave your thoughts on the chair post then go take a shower, spend time with loved ones, take a walk, really anything other than pad your post counts.

Edited by PremithiumX, 16 July 2015 - 12:25 AM.

[YUyahoo]

I'm of a different school of thought than most of what I have read and I don't expect many (or any) of you to agree with me, this is just my opinion (and after all that is what PGI is asking for here, our opinions). I don't think the range of ECM is really than big of an issue, there are already so many counters to ECM (tag, narc, bap all of which don't have any ways to counter their effects and ECM itself can be used to counter ECM). For me the biggest issue with ECM is that it currently makes a group of mechs in plain sight but at a distance untargetable for direct fire weapons (or all non-LRM weapons). I think removing this feature would be a far more balancing adjustment than reducing the effective radius by 50%. I also think that LRMs themselves need revising far more than ECM does...the path that missiles take to get to targets are very inconstant and are often blocked by things that shouldn't block their path as well as not being blocked when they should be and also the cockpit shake is crazy (getting hit by just 5 missiles that do 1pt of damage each is far more severe than getting hit by an AC10 shell, a gauss round or even an AC20). Do I think reducing the range of ECM by 50% is unreasonable, no (specially not if it also then means that BAP will be reduced by the same amount) but I do think that the other things I mentioned would be a better place to start to try to balance the perceived "god mode" that some people think ECM is. The biggest issue overall though is that anyone that likes to just LRM people to death would prefer to have ECM essentially removed from the game (or made so uncommon you might only see a mech with ECM once or twice per night) whereas just about anyone who has died by LRM rain seconds after popping out from cover (and before they can get back behind cover) would like to see more ECM mechs in the game so they can have some protection from missile rain whenever there isn't sufficient cover available. PGI is in a tough spot here because they can really only cater to one of the two groups....either they make ECM less effective than it currently is and the LRM boaters rejoice or they make everyone else happy at possibly the cost of LRMs being used less and less frequently. Tough choice, glad I'm not in PGI's shoes on this decision.

Edited by YUyahoo, 16 July 2015 - 12:37 AM.

[Zaldier]

Sounds like a good change but one thing bothers me, If I am in a light mech this change will encourage mechs to get close to me, this will undoubtedly result in mechs bumping into my legs witch will damage my armor. This will most likely result in light mechs not wanting to escort others since if they do they will most likely get leg damage due to leg bumping.

[General Solo]

ReapersGuise, on 15 July 2015 - 03:31 PM, said:

And the missiles will blot out the sky...I use to complain about ecm, now I don't think there is enough of it out there all this will do will bring out more skilless lrm 5 spammers...sigh

Make every one run c3 computers in order to share targeting information. 5 tons for the master c3 computer and 1 ton for the slave c3 computer. I am da lore.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 16 July 2015 - 01:12 AM.

[Nephoros Sradac]

bad arcade kitty, on 16 July 2015 - 12:08 AM, said:

240 it's the range of bap

Well you just keep thinking that

[Matthew Ace]

OZHomerOZ, on 16 July 2015 - 01:11 AM, said:

Make every one run c3 computers in order to share targeting information. 5 tons for the master c3 computer and 1 ton for the slave c3 computer. I am da lore.

Dont forget the integrated TAG in C3 master.

[Paigan]

Good change, I like it!

Simple suggestion:

Make the current "tiny" ECM a owner-mech-only equipment (or 1 meter radius if you want a quick and easy hack ), meaning a true Guardian ECM and introduce a second, heavier ECM (i believe "Angel" in lore) with a larger radius. 90m or 180m or whatever.
No additional coding, no broken existing loadouts, just another XML entry with different type and stats.

Edited by Paigan, 16 July 2015 - 01:21 AM.

[Heart of Storm]

Im in favour of this change as a first step to a wider (and much needed) rebalancing of the system as a whole.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next PGI.

[Kmieciu]

Paul Inouye, on 15 July 2015 - 04:30 PM, said:

Just want to pop in and remind everyone.. this is just the start... more to come and I'll keep y'all updated. We will put this stuff up on PTS before it goes live so you all get a chance to see what the changes do to gameplay.

Paul - right now ECM is so powerful, that everyone that has an option to mount one, does so. You see a Hellbringer - 99% of the time it's got ECM. You see a Kitfox- it's got ECM.
Even if you nerf the range to 60 meters, everyone will still use it.
Heck. Even if you disable the bubble and it will only work for the carrier, it's still the best spent 1-1.5 tonnes in the game.

If one could freely mount ECM , you would see it on each and every mech in MWO. Think about it.

Edited by Kmieciu, 16 July 2015 - 01:23 AM.

[Speedy Pinky]

Please think of the Light Pilots ... they are <10% and ECM is there cover ... when you make streaker easyer to lock on them then Lights will be <1% ... and i hope you dont want that.
Make the LRM Lock Time so that a bigger mech is faster locked than a little mech ... so its fair ...
And the ECM can be 90m when the BAP will be ~120m ... when BAP stay at what is now, ECM is useless for lights and they will stop playing.

[Hastur Azargo]

Actually while we're having this glorious revolution thingy, can I suggest that TAG beam is made invisible to anyone but the mech that's using it? That would make it less of a [read in Arnold's voice] "Kill me, I'm here!" thing and into more of a useful tool. I wouldn't even mind if the painted mech got a warning from BB that they're being TAGged.

I mean we all know that if covert teams that paint targets for laser-guided missiles/bombs used visible beams, that would be bad for their health, just like it's bad for health of LURMboats trying to paint their own targets in a bunch of mechs under ECM's Jesus canopy.

[Heart of Storm]

Meh, Speed has always been a lights best cover imo. Certain sniper builds of lights (Raven 3L) without jump jets benefit but most of the time staying in cover and sprinting behind a building makes LRMs easier to mitigate in a light then any other Mech frame.

As for Streaks, they're painful and everyone hates running into a Streakcrow with a light mech, the way i see it a Streakboat will get torn apart by any other mech in the game, so its a balance. If a Stormcrow pilot dedicates his whole build to light hunting he probably *should* be able to tear me apart in short order. Scouting and using the lights speed to pick your fights will always be the Light mechs best strategy, not relying on the Jesus Box™

[Túatha Dé Danann]

Well, I don't think any dev will read this after 16 pages, but:

As lame as ECM worked, as lame are LRMs. Up until now, ECM was only used as a sanity-checker that nobody in my or the enemy team is stupid enough to mount LRMs. Sadly, I still see arrows that blot out the sun once in a while. Granted, you could use cover - but the impact LRMs have on beginners is just bad. LRMs are the Noob-tube of MWO and to be honest: If you degrade ECM, then give us Laser-AMS. If LRM boats want to be effective, they have either to coordinate their attack patterns (to give at least a tiny aspect of 'skill' requirement towards the need of coordinated fire) or have to make sure to ready the target info box to check the targets which are not equipped with AMS.

ECM should make it hard to gather this information and should still increase the lock-on-times, but at the same time, the cross-dependencies in electronic warfare between all possible (and as of yet not included) equipment has to be designed anew.

Posts have been made by homeless bill and other people. They have good ideas.

[ice trey]

I'm OK with this, since the objective is a good one. Role warfare has all but gone the way of the dodo, and there's just far too much emphasis on being killy and shooty. If dialing back the already-doesn't-work-like-it-does-in-tabletop-anyway ECM bubble is one way of doing that, I'm alright with it. Personally, I think that changing ECM to make LRM locks take longer to achieve and causing Artemis-bound missiles to lose their tight formation would be the better way to go about doing this, but I'm not bothered either way, at this point.

Mostly, I just want LRMs to finally find a place outside of the bubbles of "No-skill BS" and "Useless garbage L2DirectWeapons", and want the role of being a forward recon/spotter unit to be worth taking, even in competitive play.

[Drunk Canuck]

Flutterguy, on 15 July 2015 - 03:17 PM, said:

Your logic makes AMS sad... ECM really shouldn't be the go to system to stop missiles.

AMS does nothing against Streaks as well, and that garbage needs a massive nerf before ECM does.

[Nephoros Sradac]

Speedy Pinky, on 16 July 2015 - 01:30 AM, said:

Please think of the Light Pilots ... they are <10% and ECM is there cover ... when you make streaker easyer to lock on them then Lights will be <1% ... and i hope you dont want that.
Make the LRM Lock Time so that a bigger mech is faster locked than a little mech ... so its fair ...
And the ECM can be 90m when the BAP will be ~120m ... when BAP stay at what is now, ECM is useless for lights and they will stop playing.

I do think about them - when I go out of my way to hunt them down in my Mad Dogs and Stormcrows.

[Lily from animove]

well, reducing the bubble, still makes it a bubble.
The range is not an issue, the effect is.
Make ECM mechs all be targetable.
increase missiles spread by 50% on mechs being shot with srm's and lrms. and lock time by 50% and target info gathering time by 50%.

50% more msisile spread will also grant lights by being smaller more benefit that a big mech which will still eat the most missles.

now ECM is a support tool, and not a instant choice bubble, because even the effect on the mech owning it is very strong.

Edited by Lily from animove, 16 July 2015 - 03:17 AM.

[D A T A]

ECM change
YES

complete quirk change

NO

reason:
actually in IS CW, in order to achieve best performance and get minumum 3 k damage per game, i switch 6-8 drop decks.
in order to play IS Cw properly you need a lot of mechs.
mechs, equipment, modules and engines are overpriced.
if you keep changing what mech is good and what mech is not, people simply will not have the proper mechs to play cw.
this is one of the reasons that makes cw population low.
due to your new changes, cw population will be even lower.

for example, when you put your first quirk pass, i spent 300 million c bills in order to have the perfect drop in each map.

people do not have all this money.

NEW COMPLTE QUIRK OVERHAUL = CW POPULATION GOES DOWN

Edited by IL MECHWARRIOR, 16 July 2015 - 02:07 AM.