61 replies to this topic

[InspectorG]

HGAK47, on 14 January 2017 - 02:52 AM, said:

Im curious why you wish to change ECM at all. Do you have a problem with it currently? I only ask because I use a fair few smaller mechs with ECM so I have a stake in it so to speak.

ECM hasnt really been a big factor in over a year now.

IMO: all lights should be able to equip one in compensation for the rescale...and still that is a very minor buff.

[Cy Mitchell]

El Bandito, on 14 January 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

You are behind times. Ever since the Kodiaks came out for C-Bills last year, I have not touched LRMs.

I certainly must behind on my reading as far as MWO gossips goes then. I could swear I read a post by you much more recently than last summer extolling the joy you find in pummeling some hapless sap with your barrages of LRMs.

[Mcgral18]

It is still the same Magic Jesus Box it's always been, but the 180 to 90M did make it almost a non issue for the Magic Jesus Field...because it barely exists for anyone but the carrier

Currently 0.025KM²
Down from 0.1KM²

A quarter of the area, but the same magical Dorito eating potential (RIP Doritos)


I'd much prefer the old radius, but with a Dorito Delay feature instead of hard locks, with the same lock delays it currently has.
Less of a hard counter to LRMs, more of a soft one


Alternatively, as an even easier implementation, change Targetingfactor to 0.5 instead of 0.25
TF cuts your sensor profile by the given number, so it's a quarter by default to target any Jesus Field covered mechs (read, 200M). A half multiplier instead gives you a 400M range to target mechs


Change that, and add a Dorito Delay for the carrier, and 400M default sensor range for anyone inside the Magic Jesus Field, you make it useful, while still not hardlocking LRMs as completely worthless

This method may not work for NARC (as right now it just removes the ability to target, not removing the NARC broadcast, the Magic Jesus Field at work)

[topgun505]

Your point? You can SEE the mech can you not? Oh ... look, an Arctic Cheetah. 99% likely you can correctly guess its weapons loadout. And regardless of what the loadout is .... you already know what to do. Go for the legs. You DON'T need an info readout to tell you that. As far as extending it to others. Seriously? The range is 90m. You practically have to be up another mechs rear end to keep them covered. Now when the range was much larger like before THEN it was an issue, but not now. As to not having info .... so what? There's what ... 18 mechs total with ECM ... 2 of which are behind a paywall or you can't get except from special events. And most of the remainder are not even close to being comp worthy mechs. There are FAR bigger things to be concerned about in this game.

El Bandito, on 14 January 2017 - 07:48 AM, said:

You forgot the biggest benefit ECM offers, which is info denial. The opponent will have no idea of your loadouts, and health for each section of your mech, until they break your ECM. That is far more crucial in combat than mere LRM/SSRM threat. Not to mention you extend the info denial to every ally near you, thus multiplying the effect.

[Mcgral18]

topgun505, on 14 January 2017 - 10:41 AM, said:

Your point? You can SEE the mech can you not? Oh ... look, an Arctic Cheetah. 99% likely you can correctly guess its weapons loadout. And regardless of what the loadout is .... you already know what to do. Go for the legs. You DON'T need an info readout to tell you that. As far as extending it to others. Seriously? The range is 90m. You practically have to be up another mechs rear end to keep them covered. Now when the range was much larger like before THEN it was an issue, but not now. As to not having info .... so what? There's what ... 18 mechs total with ECM ... 2 of which are behind a paywall or you can't get except from special events. And most of the remainder are not even close to being comp worthy mechs. There are FAR bigger things to be concerned about in this game.

I'll repeat:
The Magic Jesus Box functions exactly like it did when it was considered OverPowered
They just quartered the area and called it a day

[Variant1]

Can we please not gimp ecm any further? Its already olmost usless with its super small 89m circle, it doesnt need anymore nerfs.

If theyre gona change ecm then change lrms first.

[Mcgral18]

Variant1, on 14 January 2017 - 11:45 AM, said:

Can we please not gimp ecm any further? Its already olmost usless with its super small 89m circle, it doesnt need anymore nerfs.

If theyre gona change ecm then change lrms first.

No, change ECM first


They're the hard counter
The Magic Jesus Field specifically

[Variant1]

Mcgral18, on 14 January 2017 - 11:49 AM, said:

No, change ECM first


They're the hard counter
The Magic Jesus Field specifically

No change lrms. They are a magic wallhack aimbot. They promote terrible gameplay and turn the game into peek a boo warrior.
ecm was there to counter the overpoweredness that is lrms

[Mcgral18]

Variant1, on 14 January 2017 - 11:54 AM, said:

No change lrms. They are a magic wallhack aimbot. They promote terrible gameplay and turn the game into peek a boo warrior.
ecm was there to counter the overpoweredness that is lrms

But...LRMs are full Potato in terms of effectiveness



You don't balance by Potato

[Variant1]

Mcgral18, on 14 January 2017 - 11:57 AM, said:

But...LRMs are full Potato in terms of effectiveness

You don't balance by Potato

Any weapon is good and lrms are no exception. Its a team game so locks will olmost always be available. If the target takes cover either keep shooting or switch targets its not that hard to understand.

I think lrms are broken, which is why they should be reworked first so its fun to shoot and get shot by them, then we can make ecm like it should be in tt or something else

[BumbleBee]

ECM definitely was OP, now it is much closer to balanced. But I've always thought it was an missed opportunity to bring some much needed role warfare to the game.

I've always wanted something along the lines of;

lvl1 ECM = 1ton, 1slot, +50% lockon time, +50% Target info, cancels spread bonus to incoming missiles, affects your mech ONLY

lvl2 ECM = 2.5ton, 2 slot, lvl1 ECM Capabilities, reduce detection range by 50%

lvl3 ECM = 5ton, 4slot, lvl1+2 ECM Capabilities, 120m bubble effect

This way, you can bring a benefit to yourself for a small cost, or trade a sizable chunk to become an Electronic Warfare Mech protecting your team.


Possibly an extra ECM mode with ghost contacts.
Randomly selects 2 friendly Mechs per ECM lvl and produces a radar copy within a 90m radius of ECM carrier (120m for lvl3) for 30sec. Once timer is up, randomly choose another 2 and repeat. Maybe spawn each ghost 15secs apart from each other to stagger their disappearance and reappearance.
Ghosts imitate movement of ECM carrier.
Ghost can be targeted by the enemy as if it were real (has dorito) to draw LRM fire, make it appear on radar as though there are more targets to bluff the enemy as to the size of the opposing force

Edited by BumbleBee, 14 January 2017 - 12:49 PM.

[lagartx3]

El Bandito, on 14 January 2017 - 08:07 AM, said:

Then how about just make ECM work on the mounted mech only? I think that's fair on all accounts. As a bonus, LRMs will become less situational, without its own rework.

What about that, PLUS, a 10 seconds bubble that can cover a radius of 90m, with a recharge time of... 20 seconds???

[El Bandito]

lagartx3, on 14 January 2017 - 03:43 PM, said:

What about that, PLUS, a 10 seconds bubble that can cover a radius of 90m, with a recharge time of... 20 seconds???

Fine.

[Cy Mitchell]

You guys must call it the Jesus box because you are intent on crucifying those Mechs that need it as a feature to even make them viable. In its present state, it is far from over powered and reducing the coverage of it to 1/4 (which was needed) certainly drastically reduced its effectiveness.

Instead of reducing the effectiveness of ECM and those Mechs that need it to find some usage, how about increasing the effectiveness of a hard counter to ECM such as CAP or BAP? Increase the range to 100% boost for example and make players make the choice to equip it on their Mechs just like the players that choose to equip ECM.

I have seen streak boat pilots in Scouting complain about ECM and they did not even have CAP on their Mech at the time.

LRMers and snipers can equip and enhanced BAP/CAP if they want better lock and target information. They can also spend points in the future skill tree to upgrade target information gathering. Make the players make a choice to counter ECM instead of making it and a bunch of Mechs mediocre to the point that it will not be worth equipping.

ECM is not a problem in the game and has not been since the big ECM NERF. Just remember that, by far, the biggest group of Mechs that will be effected by another ECM Nerf will be the LIghts. Do they really need to be even less effective than they currently are?

Edited by Rampage, 14 January 2017 - 09:21 PM.

[impar]

Rampage, on 14 January 2017 - 09:17 PM, said:

You guys must call it the Jesus box because you are intent on crucifying those Mechs that need it as a feature to even make them viable.

Yep. Case in point:

Snowbluff, on 14 January 2017 - 08:48 AM, said:

Hellbringer- No ferro or endo. That like 5 tons, right? So their ECM weighs 6 tons.

[Baulven]

Snowbluff, on 14 January 2017 - 07:29 AM, said:

ECM is a big performance booster on modern aircraft as well. Doubt they weigh as much an engine or a cannon.

Also, you pay a mech tax with ECM. ECM mechs are always suboptimal in layout, outside of the Arctic Cheetah.

Also, every mech has C3 computers. The limitations imagined for the TT shouldn't always be expected to apply to the video game.

They are pretty light and none of them weigh one ton. Granted they get heavier as they get more sophisticated so it is possible to get to that weight in the future at some point, but that would be somewhere around generation 20 and miniaturization would likely have reduced that by that point

[Too Much Love]

ECM ghost hit and jam chance.

[Strelok7]

Ecm Charge?

no

[Trip Hammer]

El Bandito, on 14 January 2017 - 07:15 AM, said:

That's gonna be hard to sell to the table top purists. Targeting Computer at least had different sizes in lore depending on how many tons of weapons they are controlling. There is no mention of differently sized Guardian ECM, in contrast.

I can see your point (I started playing TT version in the late 80's myself) but with the changes that they have already made I figured it might be worth discussing.

[Trip Hammer]

BumbleBee, on 14 January 2017 - 12:47 PM, said:

ECM definitely was OP, now it is much closer to balanced. But I've always thought it was an missed opportunity to bring some much needed role warfare to the game.

I've always wanted something along the lines of;

lvl1 ECM = 1ton, 1slot, +50% lockon time, +50% Target info, cancels spread bonus to incoming missiles, affects your mech ONLY

lvl2 ECM = 2.5ton, 2 slot, lvl1 ECM Capabilities, reduce detection range by 50%

lvl3 ECM = 5ton, 4slot, lvl1+2 ECM Capabilities, 120m bubble effect

This way, you can bring a benefit to yourself for a small cost, or trade a sizable chunk to become an Electronic Warfare Mech protecting your team.


Possibly an extra ECM mode with ghost contacts.
Randomly selects 2 friendly Mechs per ECM lvl and produces a radar copy within a 90m radius of ECM carrier (120m for lvl3) for 30sec. Once timer is up, randomly choose another 2 and repeat. Maybe spawn each ghost 15secs apart from each other to stagger their disappearance and reappearance.
Ghosts imitate movement of ECM carrier.
Ghost can be targeted by the enemy as if it were real (has dorito) to draw LRM fire, make it appear on radar as though there are more targets to bluff the enemy as to the size of the opposing force

I posted something similar earlier but I like the way you fleshed it out a bit.