945 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

The reduction of ECM and BAP range is a first step in the right direction.

I'd go further and include other technologies into radar range and signatures of a mech like this:


Rules:
- Your mechs radar signature is dependend on the size (weight x2) the armor and structure aswell as the type of heatsinks or the state of the engine (heat over 50%)
- A mech with BAP equipped can target enemy mechs 25% further away
- A mech with the engine producing more than 50% heat (heat bar) can be detected 25% farther away
- A mech with ECM equipped reduces its radar signature by 50%
- A mech with Stealth Armor equipped reduces its radar signature by 25%


Here the trade-off for better engine, structure and armor is a better Radar Signature for your enemies targeting you.
That also means that the advantage of low tech (Tech lvl1: Std Engine, Std Structure, Std Armor, Single Heatsinks) and ECM is a lower Radar Signature.
This also adds value to mechs like the Nova (Std structure, Std armor and medium engine) over better equipped mechs like the Stormcrow (Endo, Ferro and higher engine).

The overall differences in Radar Signature ranges makes the use of scout mechs more important.

[Ngamok]

90 might be too close and can result in too many people standing too close together. Should try 120m first and see how it goes.

[CtrlAltWheee]

CapperDeluxe, on 15 July 2015 - 03:06 PM, said:

Why not just take out the ability to shield friendlies from GECM, then add Angel ECM as separate equipment? I just don't get it.

+1. The forums are swimming in great ideas for ecm redo

PGI please don't invest deeply in another flawed game mechanic (CW moba-style maps). Without a bigger picture of where this ecm/role warfare change is going, it's difficult to give feedback. A lot of us are $500-1000 in here. This is my favorite game. I'm okay 100% with an overhaul of the whole ecm system.

[CtrlAltWheee]

Jabilo, on 16 July 2015 - 12:25 PM, said:

Must of taken a lot of man hours to come up with such a far reaching and imaginative overhaul to the way ecm, sensors and targeting work. I am not surprised it took three years.

Bravo.

I thought that perhaps a total overhaul was what we needed;

Removing hard counters, introducing interactive systems such as passive sensors and moving to an elegant solution that allowed sensors, BAP, modules, ECM and Artemis to play off against each other in a deep yet logical way.

I was wrong. What was really needed was to spend three years thinking about it and then cutting the range in half. It is so laugh out loud funny it is impossible to be upset. I will look forward to further developments with great interest!

Harsh but valid.

[AztecD]

CtrlAltWheee, on 16 July 2015 - 03:49 PM, said:

+1. The forums are swimming in great ideas for ecm redo

PGI please don't invest deeply in another flawed game mechanic (CW moba-style maps). Without a bigger picture of where this ecm/role warfare change is going, it's difficult to give feedback. A lot of us are $500-1000 in here. This is my favorite game. I'm okay 100% with an overhaul of the whole ecm system.

Add me to the +500-1000 here and i also am OK with re-hauling the whole ECM system

[Cyborne Elemental]

Why have a feedback thread?

Paul is just going to do exactly what he said in the announcement regardless of our complaints and many of the other poster's much better solutions.

ECM is the last thing that needs a simple kneejerk fix.

It needs something ... more.

Edited by Mister D, 16 July 2015 - 04:01 PM.

[bad arcade kitty]

Mister D, on 16 July 2015 - 03:59 PM, said:

Why have a feedback thread?

Paul is just going to do exactly what he said in the announcement regardless of our complaints and many of the other poster's much better solutions.

well, i personally hope that he will be at least accurate to touch bap or better won't touch it at all unless he wants to buff ecm

[Kenyon Burguess]

I'm all for the ecm range being dropped to 60m too, and i'll be nice and close before the ecm warning goes off when im behind a player.

[BadKimche]

This is not actually true. Modern systems today, good systems, do not blanket entire frequency ranges, this is self defeating. Modern systems intercept enemy signals, analyze them, and target them specifically. This is why I suggest almost the opposite for a fix. RADAR is electronic targeting and it's also line of sight meaning hills and buildings block it. It's an active sensor. The devs need to seriously define a mech's standard sensor suite and classify them as passive and active. IR is passive unless you want greater visibility and turn on active IR illumination. Of course now you are running a bright IR headlight that makes you stand out like crazy. The same would be true with ECM, Electronic Counter Measures are rarely passive, they are used to inhibit enemy sensors or produce false signatures. Creating a "perfect" bubble is unrealistic whether 90 meters or 180 cause the reality would be measured in hundreds of miles. But numbers of sensor systems effected, something that has a finite limit and is quantifiable and realistic, that is good direction to head for a solution. It's an interesting note, the more sensor systems and types an enemy force deploys, the less able ECM would be in stopping them all. So the more Streaks, Artemis, BAP, and just mechs in general, the more likely several of these systems will not be targeted by the ECM module and effected.

[Puresin]

sorry but now this means that a light can sneak up on my assaults even more quickly cause now i won't get signal interruption til they are right on me.

stop doing stuff that makes it easier for the lights. cause honestly right now with the way things are going you might as well get rid of all the weight classes and just have lights.

firestarter with 6 med pulse that can alpha.......ever tried to put 6 lasers of any kind in a dire?

stop doing NEW stuff and look at your game and how you have skewed it for the lights and put it back to lights being just that. LIGHTS. mediums being MEDIUM
lights should only be able to do light work..... right now look at how the scores go. heavies score highest usually followed by a light.

and before people mouth off about pilot skill, I drive everything from light to assault and can put up match scores of over 1000 in just about every mech i own.

I honestly can say this ecm and other stuff is just more so you can put lights right to the top as usual.

[Johnny Z]

Sounds good.

[Dagorlad13]

Puresin, on 16 July 2015 - 04:39 PM, said:

sorry but now this means that a light can sneak up on my assaults even more quickly cause now i won't get signal interruption til they are right on me.

stop doing stuff that makes it easier for the lights. cause honestly right now with the way things are going you might as well get rid of all the weight classes and just have lights.

firestarter with 6 med pulse that can alpha.......ever tried to put 6 lasers of any kind in a dire?

stop doing NEW stuff and look at your game and how you have skewed it for the lights and put it back to lights being just that. LIGHTS. mediums being MEDIUM
lights should only be able to do light work..... right now look at how the scores go. heavies score highest usually followed by a light.

and before people mouth off about pilot skill, I drive everything from light to assault and can put up match scores of over 1000 in just about every mech i own.

I honestly can say this ecm and other stuff is just more so you can put lights right to the top as usual.

Although I agree with you, since the last patch, hit detection vs lights is much better. The only light mech right now that still seems to take far more damage than it should is the Firestarter.

[Kerensky98]

I like it. 90m sounds good, if it works out I can see 60m being more realistic.

To all the people that complain ECM is overpowered:
Learn how to aim (LRMs can be shot without a lock too).
Look for targets instead of relying on the radar to highlight them for you.
Communicate with friendlies to tell them where enemies are.
If you don't have enough ECM on your team be the one to field an ECM light to help out, don't depend on others to support you if you're not willing to support them.
Field something besides Streaks and LRMs (see the above recommendation to learn to aim).
Pack a PPC to interrupt ECM.
Prioritize killing enemy ECMs.

[Thunder Child]

Kerensky98, on 16 July 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

I like it. 90m sounds good, if it works out I can see 60m being more realistic.

To all the people that complain ECM is overpowered:
Learn how to aim (LRMs can be shot without a lock too).
Look for targets instead of relying on the radar to highlight them for you.
Communicate with friendlies to tell them where enemies are.
If you don't have enough ECM on your team be the one to field an ECM light to help out, don't depend on others to support you if you're not willing to support them.
Field something besides Streaks and LRMs (see the above recommendation to learn to aim).
Pack a PPC to interrupt ECM.
Prioritize killing enemy ECMs.

The problem is, blindfiring LRMs only works if your target is Asleep at the controls. Even hitting an Atlas is like trying to hit a cat with a water balloon. Sure, you might get a lucky shot that splashes a bit, but a direct hit is highly unlikely. Personally, I would love it if LRMs had more of an Aiming Component to them, either with Crosshair chasing, or using Grenade mechanics (in both cases, flight speed would need to be buffed). I would LOVE LRMs that I could lob over hills without a spotter, by using Aiming "Skillz". But unfortunately, LRMs are best used by not taking them, and mounting Lasers or Ballistics instead.

[WVAnonymous]

Kerensky98, on 16 July 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

Prioritize killing enemy ECMs.

This is not very helpful when 4 to 6 out of 12 mechs on the other side have ECM.

Prioritize... what? You can't call a letter, they're all under ECM. Get the Griffin, no the Cataphract, no the Raven, no the Commando, no the Atlas, no it's one of the clan mechs!

Even with Autocannon, if you can't call a target, it's hard to focus fire.

[MechaBattler]

Gooodddd! Nerf it right into the ground! It just feels like you have to bring a hoard of ECM mechs.

I also like how they drummed out Paul for this nerf. Put him in front of the firing squad of fan hatred for nerfs. So as not to get any on Russ. xD

Edited by MechaBattler, 16 July 2015 - 05:44 PM.

[Nightshade24]

bad arcade kitty, on 15 July 2015 - 02:50 PM, said:

are you serious? you ruin the best tactical feature of ecm due to a lot of forum whining from the vocal minority

i just dunno... i am deeply disappointed in you

Well it may be true. I did kind of see massive derps how 1 team having ecm and the other team without it can ruin the whole game severaly...

As well as 1 game where I had missiles (not a strict missile boat, but had enough to be hindered by ECM) till I realized that 1 team in the centre of caustic valley was all under 1 ecm mechs protection, I played the game a long time and I thought it was at least 3

ECM's range is not only a hindrance to the enemy but to itself as well.... ever was a ECM mist lynx, raven, or what ever? wanted to be sneaky and sneak right past the enemy without being noticed only for as soon as you pop up behind them only to find all of them got there guns primed and ready at you because for 10 seconds they were on "Low signal" aka "Warning! ECM mech be near!"

It kinda sucks. ATM ECM is just a worse version of AMS that has unlimited ammo. (why I say it's worse = can be countered by tag, narc, bap, enemy ecm, uav, etc... and can't take out NARC missiles or SRM missiles as it flies to you. AMS can however take out narc, srm, ssrm, lrm's, as well as not be countered by the above)

Personally I think it is for the best. It is still working better then say MW4 or on TT, which doesn't even have the bubble nor protect you from SSRM's or LRM's.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Doesn't really alter the problems with ECM. They go far far deeper than just it's range.

It's a shame you only believe this now, instead of 2 years ago, when the community told you your ECM implementation was bad and there were literally dozens upon dozens of threads with the right ideas of how ECM should have been implemented.

Like here..
http://mwomercs.com/...cm-and-sensors/

Edited by DV McKenna, 16 July 2015 - 06:22 PM.

[Nightshade24]

bad arcade kitty, on 15 July 2015 - 02:53 PM, said:

>Further tuning will result in BAP ranges being reduced to closely reflect that of the new ECM range.

so you are going to nerf streaks? because it will hurt them, yes they will be able to get locks outside of 90m zone and outside of the new shrunk bap radius... but inside 200*1.25=250 meters (implying that bap still extends no lock zone by 25% and that zone remains the same 200 meters)... twice as slower

There is an overall change soon. For all we know the SSRM's will be able to guide like they do in MW4, where the segment of the mech you locked on the streak missiles will try to hit. (so if I aim at CT and fire, the streaks will hit mostly on the CT) instead of this random RNG-ish nature we got atm..

[Dao Feng]

Paul,

I'd like to highlight that...Reducing the BAP range will NERF streaks.

The greater the BAP range reduction the more significant the streak NERF, as streak mechs who run BAP have close to within the BAP range to lock on.

I'm not as aware of the BAP vs ECM range nuances as Bad Arcade Kitty.

All I have is my gameplay experience where:

Outside of BAP range = no locks on ECM mechs. (not considering tag)
Inside of BAP range = locks on ECM mechs (takes longer than non-ecm)

Please be aware of this as you consider potential changes to BAP ranges.

Thanks

Edited by Dao Feng, 16 July 2015 - 06:50 PM.