33 replies to this topic

[Tincan Nightmare]

Ah this thread brings me back, to right around the point after ECM was first implemented and practically the whole player base (or at least the percentage that posted on the forums) went totally apeshit! Man people think they see rants and whine threads now, PGI's idea on how to put ECM into the game created such a firestorm they ended up reworking the forums itself, removing the general discussion area for a time. This arguement was actually posted (numerous times) back then, basically that if ECM was not a problem or OP, then why not allow all mechs to equip it, just like BAP? It's almost shocking that they are finally reducing the range of ECM now, since they didn't budge at all on their implementation of ECM back then, when they had so many players waving torches and pitchforks and burning PGI in effigy.

[stjobe]

Everyone should be able to mount ECM but ECM shouldn't be the Guardian+Angel+Stealth Armor+even more it is now. It should just be Guardian ECM - i.e it counters the bonuses Artemis, Narc, Active Probes (and TAG in MWO and eventually C3 if we ever get it) gives. That's it. No blanket lock-denial, no hard-counters, just removal of the bonuses that some pieces of equipment gives.

1.5 tons to counter the 0.5-2 tons of missile bonus equipment; not 1.5 tons to completely counter the 2-20+ tons of a complete weapon system, as well as doing a whole slew of other things - denying target information not the least.


(Total Warfare, p.134)

Edited by stjobe, 16 August 2015 - 01:52 AM.

[TWIAFU]

Yellonet, on 16 August 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

If everyone have ECM it would be fair. It would change the information war so that it takes more effort to target mechs with tag, narc and so on being more important.

Give it to everyone and we would see that 99% of them do not even know how to use it.

They would not be able to hit J just like not being able to hit R.

[Chados]

Getting rid of radar and red Doritos would drive new or non-competition players who don't play 18 hours a day out of the game, and then all you'll have left is a shrinking elite player base that'll get bored and move on to something else. It's damn hard for 50 year old eyes to see three pixels on a tiny laptop screen, which is what a sniper humping a ridge 1200 meters away looks like. Or flea-sized targets at 4-500 meters peeking over a ridgeline for 2/3 of a second. The game has a vertical learning curve as it is and a lot of folks don't have l33t k3wl top of the line computers with 60fps frame rates and huge monitors. It's hard enough to see the damn poptarters and hill-humpers sniping you with advanced zoom from across the map as it is. We don't have a real pilot's field of view. Radar gives the situational awareness that a tiny flat screen otherwise makes impossible.

ECM in its present form makes the game almost unplayable for new players trying to learn the mechanics without a lower tier level to start and learn from. Especially if you're using direct fire weapons or trying to blindfire LRMs. Poke your head above a ridge line for a microsecond in a mech without full elites and modules, and you immediately get focused down by fifty Clan ER lasers, gauss rifles, and ER PPCs you can't even see and that aren't showing up in radar so there is no way to know they are even there til you're dead. I've gone from 100% health to CT cored in less than two seconds just like that, several times, from pinpoint alphas fired by sniping Clanners from a kilometer away that were invisible to me. That's about as anti-fun as it gets, and a lot of people want it to stay like that because they already have the extremely expensive tools (advanced zoom, target decay, radar derp, etc.) that are very hard to get and that rewards that kind of gameplay, and if others were able to get into the game and play then they couldn't stomp PUG noobs so easily all the time.

ECM for all is not a bad idea, if it is properly implemented and if players can mount equipment-without having to pay six million C-bills per module and fully eliting three mechs first-that counters its effects with some chance of viability to all weapon systems and not just über-l33t, fully elited Clanner pinpoint alpha mechs with all module slots filled. BAP is a joke because you have to be inside minimum LRM range to use it, and UAVs cost in C-bills about what I make right now in a typical match without premium time, only last 45 seconds, and can be shot down by the enemy, making their use problematic. If BAP unmasked ECM at 360 meters (which I've read it is supposed to) that would be a huge help. Yes, I carry LRMs. But I like to work right behind the Atlas in the front line, and I take hits just like every other heavy mech. I die in almost every match-you'll typically find my smoking wreck where you find the assault graveyard-but I also average six assists in matches my team wins. I've learned that that is where the fun is: Where the brawlers are brawling. The current meta forces LRM carriers to beg for locks and hide on reverse slopes. I don't like to,play that way where I can avoid that. It's anti-fun. Close support means within 400 meters of the action and a lone Catapult is a DEAD Catapult. I want to get in where the action is and use direct fire techniques in support of the brawlers and indirect fire to defeat the humpers and poptarters.

Right now ECM is a magic invisible cloak that works for all time and denies all locks and all radar sight. That's something which in the 21st Century battlefield is nonexistent. Electronic warfare can be countered in real life. The most aggressive way is through a lock on jam mechanic that every third generation and up combat aircraft is capable of. I'd love to be able to see jamming strobes on my HUD from some trashborn ECM in Disrupt mode, switch to home-on-jam, and bring hardcore ALRM20 pain to that Loki trying to snipe me from 1200 meters away. As it is, if I can't use terrain masking to get in TAG range I have to hope a brawler closes to suicide range long enough that I can lock indirectly. ECM and the current sniping meta leads to cowardly tactics and discourages second line support mechs from getting in hard behind the front line and mixing it up. It's why the Atlases die hard when trying to lead a charge in PUG groups that no one will follow.

I'd also think that mechs, which out out a ton of heat, ought to be manually lockable via an IR or low-light-level television system. That's 1960s tech. This is 3050. If I can SEE the enemy visually or have line of sight to him then ECM ought not to shield him across the board. I ought to be able to lock his heat signature or his ECM emissions.

Frankly, I think that BAP and Artemis together ought to have pilot-selectable modes that put the pilot in radar, anti-ECM, or IR tracking modes. Each one could have its own drawbacks. In anti-ECM mode, the system only can see and lock on ECM emissions. With everyone able to mount ECM, radar derp would go the way of the dodo, requiring ECM cover to debuff radar, and ECM Disrupt mode and Counter modes could work the same way they do now. A LRM carrier hunting enemy ECM-equipped mechs would be vulnerable to the poptarters and snipers and marauding Arctic Cheetahs that aren't using ECM, because they wouldn't pop up on its radar while he's looking for ECM signatures. That would encourage sniper loving pilots not to pack ECM or to switch it off in some situations. And in IR mode, you'd be range-limited and on hot maps like Terra Therma the system might have issues distinguishing targets from background heat.

[BigJim]

Chados, on 16 August 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

Getting rid of radar and red Doritos would drive new or non-competition players who don't play 18 hours a day out of the game, and then all you'll have left is a shrinking elite player base that'll get bored and move on to something else. It's damn hard for 50 year old eyes to see three pixels on a tiny laptop screen, which is what a sniper humping a ridge 1200 meters away looks like. Or flea-sized targets at 4-500 meters peeking over a ridgeline for 2/3 of a second. The game has a vertical learning curve as it is and a lot of folks don't have l33t k3wl top of the line computers with 60fps frame rates and huge monitors. It's hard enough to see the damn poptarters and hill-humpers sniping you with advanced zoom from across the map as it is. We don't have a real pilot's field of view. Radar gives the situational awareness that a tiny flat screen otherwise makes impossible.

ECM in its present form makes the game almost unplayable for new players trying to learn the mechanics without a lower tier level to start and learn from. Especially if you're using direct fire weapons or trying to blindfire LRMs. Poke your head above a ridge line for a microsecond in a mech without full elites and modules, and you immediately get focused down by fifty Clan ER lasers, gauss rifles, and ER PPCs you can't even see and that aren't showing up in radar so there is no way to know they are even there til you're dead. I've gone from 100% health to CT cored in less than two seconds just like that, several times, from pinpoint alphas fired by sniping Clanners from a kilometer away that were invisible to me. That's about as anti-fun as it gets, and a lot of people want it to stay like that because they already have the extremely expensive tools (advanced zoom, target decay, radar derp, etc.) that are very hard to get and that rewards that kind of gameplay, and if others were able to get into the game and play then they couldn't stomp PUG noobs so easily all the time.

Now that's quite a vehement response, and quite possibly an unjustified one (although I do like some of your more in-depth ideas).
Sure, I can see how you might struggle to see certain mechs at certain ranges - hell, I use heatmode a lot, and I mean A LOT; I do it to work around poor mapping.

I play bog in heatmode 99% of the time due to the fog effects and horrible graphics in that map, I play HPG in heatmode about 50% of the match, due to the horrible greyscale and lack of contrast on the nasty deathstar texturing, and I use it a lot in all the other maps too, in order to see mechs & react faster to them when smoke & gunfire fills your view.

However, I don't snipe - I don't enjoy that gameplay, and I certainly don't want to keep some imaginary leet-tools (not that it should matter, but as it happens I don't - I'm also willing to bet my hardware is significantly worse than yours, or most people's on this forum).

I've been against the red doritoes and the horrible cartoon red bounding-box we get around targeted enemies since before I got in the game, way back at the beginning of closed beta.

I want to be able to sneak up on someone, to boldly flank and push on those snipers to bring my 20 & SRMs to bear, and *not* be made over half a click away just because a big red arrow hovering over my head, like a comedy question-mark hovering over the head of a confused guy, makes me stand-out for all the world to see.

It kills stealth, and I don't just mean your scary leet clan supa-snipers, I mean the flankers, the scouts, the brawlers, the skirmishers, everyone who has an interest in getting into a good position precisely because they're not packing all the ER/Gauss firing-line sniper weapons that would let them stand-off and shoot from range with impunity...

Why bother having these cool looking mechs if all you need to see are the red doritos and the red bounding-box?
It's like driving at night - You never see the cars, you just see the shape of the lights, and eventually you stop even looking for them, because you know that all you need to look for are the bright lights - right now, that's all we're doing, we're looking at the red cartoon-shapes and not the mech.

That's the reason why people consider ECM to be "op", because they need to look beyond the cartoon-red, and focus on the mech behind, and yes; That's harder. It's like that one car at dusk that doesn't have it's lights on, and all the other drivers hate him because he's harder to see, and they're slower to react to him - because they've stopped even looking for other cars and only look for the doritos - I mean headlights...

Edited by BigJim, 16 August 2015 - 08:58 AM.

[STEF_]

BigJim, on 16 August 2015 - 01:08 AM, said:

Idd.
I think the game would be orders of magnitude better if there were no red doritos at all, and you had to actually see an enemy with your eyes in order to know he's there.

If everyone having ECM is the only way to achieve that under the current circumstances, then I would consider it a price worth paying.

You should also explain what to do with the minimap, and also why clicking B during a match. For seeing the empty big void

Also you should explain why to click R, since there would be no lock at all.

Also you should explain why don't you go to play any FPS out there.

[BigJim]

Stefka Kerensky, on 16 August 2015 - 09:11 AM, said:

You should also explain what to do with the minimap, and also why clicking B during a match. For seeing the empty big void

Also you should explain why to click R, since there would be no lock at all.

Also you should explain why don't you go to play any FPS out there.

I used to, back in the day - I played UT99 (walljump for life), but it was UT2k4's vctf (vehicle capture the flag) that really got me into online gaming in a big way; and then later, mapping, modding and coding (hence the quote in my sig; It was on the Unreal box, when Epic shipped copy of the Unreal Editor with every copy of the game)..


I know what you mean about the minimap, and by extension, lock-on weapons. If they tried to make such a change now it would require a workaround for sure, and I don't expect it to change, just like there's many things in the world I think should be better but I don't think will change any time soon...

But I stand by my point - I think the game would have been better if we had to use our eyes more and rely on doritos & bounding-boxes less.

Locking-on? I don't know, from the start they could have handled it that you have to manually lock-on to an enemy in order to gain a lock/target-info/shared targeting... or maybe you or someone else with with tag provides a lock.

Minimap? Hell, if there really was just a void then it sure would make I dunno *scouting* and UAV-capable mechs very valuable wouldn't it?
(yup, UAVs could easily have been restricted to certain mechs, and damn if you wouldn't want one or two of those on a team, rather than a million ECM boxes)

Anyway, it's all just an engineering problem & all those need are engineers with imagination..

Edited by BigJim, 16 August 2015 - 09:27 AM.

[Chados]

I had to like Big Jim's post just for the red question mark quip. Well played, sir. Well played.

But I respectfully dissent. All-around HUDs showing target info are a staple in 4th generation combat aircraft. Fifth gen aircraft have helmet mounted 360 degree systems. In 3050 you'd think we'd have that much situational awareness.

Edited by Chados, 16 August 2015 - 09:32 AM.

[STEF_]

BigJim, on 16 August 2015 - 09:24 AM, said:

I used to, back in the day - I played UT99 (walljump for life), but it was UT2k4's vctf (vehicle capture the flag) that really got me into online gaming in a big way; and then later, mapping, modding and coding (hence the quote in my sig; It was on the Unreal box, when Epic shipped copy of the Unreal Editor with every copy of the game)..


I know what you mean about the minimap, and by extension, lock-on weapons. If they tried to make such a change now it would require a workaround for sure, and I don't expect it to change, just like there's many things in the world I think should be better but I don't think will change any time soon...

But I stand by my point - I think the game would have been better if we had to use our eyes more and rely on doritos & bounding-boxes less.

Locking-on? I don't know, from the start they could have handled it that you have to manually lock-on to an enemy in order to gain a lock/target-info/shared targeting... or maybe you or someone else with with tag provides a lock.

Minimap? Hell, if there really was just a void then it sure would make I dunno *scouting* and UAV-capable mechs very valuable wouldn't it?
(yup, UAVs could easily have been restricted to certain mechs, and damn if you wouldn't want one or two of those on a team, rather than a million ECM boxes)

Anyway, it's all just an engineering problem & all those need are engineers with imagination..

Locking an enemy with R is a cool thing, because you can transmit information to teamates: yes, this is a team based game, we know.
You can transmit info about the chassis, the pilot, the state of the mech, where it is damaged or cored, which weapons it has.

Why we should renounce all those good things


edit: and this is what makes mechwarrior games similar to battletech.
Even with double blinds rules, once a mech is spotted, you can have all the information you want.

Unless, as previously said, you prefer mechwarrior to be a FPS with robotto

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 16 August 2015 - 09:41 AM.

[Mawai]

Personally, I think the fact that IF every mech could carry ECM then EVERY pilot in their right mind would decide to do so ... is a strong indication that ECM as currently implemented is broken (and in my opinion always has been).

/rant on

Although I hate to say mean things about designers, whoever designed ECM in the first place and the folks who let them get away with it instead of speaking up and pointing out the obvious flaws while playing CYA and simply saying "Cool" could really use a wake up call. PGI needs a way to provide honest and anonymous feedback internally on design ideas before they are implemented since that way things like ECM might never have made it off the drawing board in their current format in the first place.

In particular, if Russ puts forward a suggestion, I think it is important that the entire development team be allowed to express an opinion without fear of reprisal.

/rant off

[BigJim]

Stefka Kerensky, on 16 August 2015 - 09:32 AM, said:

Locking an enemy with R is a cool thing, because you can transmit information to teamates: yes, this is a team based game, we know.
You can transmit info about the chassis, the pilot, the state of the mech, where it is damaged or cored, which weapons it has.

Why we should renounce all those good things

Indeed, it is very cool. And yes, wouldn't it be bad if we renounced such cool things? Good job nobody is advocating we lose all such cool things. Phew!

However, it's been a complaint made many times (funnily enough, never by me) that since every mech has the ability to transmit all the data, all the time, that we find ourselves at a point where scouts have no real purpose in this game.

Now, a scout, with the ability to transmit more data, more quickly, and more reliably?
Now that guy would have a real purpose in the game, and wouldn't mean renouncing any cool things...
Although that was never the point I was making - it's just a nice tangent to consider.

Quote

edit: and this is what makes mechwarrior games similar to battletech.
Even with double blinds rules, once a mech is spotted, you can have all the information you want.

Unless, as previously said, you prefer mechwarrior to be a FPS with robotto

In fairness, who cares about the rules of BT in this particular conversation?
It was played under a turn-based system with a turn representing 10-secs.. Do we expect MWO to become turn-based? Or for movement/firing/turning to have to wait 10-secs before you can take an action?

Of course the players of BT, who were stood over the table and had effectively a god's eye view had all the information to hand, it's the nature of the game.. It's an almost abstract representation of the first-person combat that the MW series also tries to represent.

However none of this really has anything to do with the notion that putting big red doritos over people's heads, and red bounding-boxes that mean you don't need to look for the enemy, makes for a lesser first person game..
And the natural extension of that logic, which is when you have equipment that sudenly removes that easy-view ability, then people are liable to go batshit crazy & call it "op" or label it a "jesus box"..


And perhaps I prefer a first person game with robotto? I don't really know what that means - I began with MW2, it was my first serious PC game that I fell in love with (after the flight-sim "A10 Cuba!"), and I've loved MW ever since.
Never played the tabletop game (although I played others in the past), so no - I guess the answer is no?

*edit* spelling

Edited by BigJim, 16 August 2015 - 10:31 AM.

[Mechteric]

ECM on every mech would be terrible. Just real bad. The worst actually.

[MechWarrior414712]

Personally I feel that, yes ECM should be available to every mech at this point, but in a nerfed form. Say, that the "normal" ECM doesn't give a bubble and doesn't disrupt enemy mechs. Only hides you from being locked on at longer ranges. Then give the current form of ECM (Call it GECM) to the select few, mostly to the awful robots right now.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Mystere, on 15 August 2015 - 11:01 PM, said:

Meh! I have yet to see this.

Then youre lucky. Game I had last night I got 30 damage in a warhawk b cause there was never a single person out of ECM as they had 8 on their side

Yellonet, on 16 August 2015 - 12:59 AM, said:

If everyone have ECM it would be fair. It would change the information war so that it takes more effort to target mechs with tag, narc and so on being more important.

Ya, cant have the game being fair

Except for lrm that is