2028 replies to this topic

[The Sliencer]

Is ECM supposed to prevent me from seeing own my teammates? Thats what seemed to be happening last night to me: I'm in the habit of allways checking the mini map to make sure I havent strayed, and I would sudenly find myself alone, turn tail and run, only to find my group was just arround the corner (and sudenly pop back onto the mini map)....

[nonplusultra]

If figured out the Problem with the ECM. There is an understanding mistake.

The notes says:

Quote

(reduces detection distance to 25% of normal range)

But it should be: "reduces detection distance by 25% of normal range" or
"reduces detection distance to 75% of normal range"

That is exactly like it was in Mechwarrior 4 where it worked perfect.

I hope we can all agree to that. Its easy to change and its right to do so!
There is no need to change to whole game or weapons just to balance ECM.


PS: The BAP should be the exactly counterpart to that. "Increase detection distance by 25% of normal range."

Edited by Chaser187, 05 December 2012 - 05:33 AM.

[Valrock]

Not sure if this suggestion has been posted, as I only took the time to read 4 pages. Still was a lot.

LRM boats should have a way to counter-act ECM from range. Scouts carrying TAG systems aren't any good unless they also have ECM, and its not very effective putting a TAG at range onto an enemy who you cannot even target. I get the stealth element, and not wanting to make missile locks as easy as before, but having to stare at a 90 ton enemy from 270 meters away, close enough to shoot him with medium laser, and not even being able to target him seems a bit wrong.

Also, BAP costs 400,000 to install, takes up 2 slots and 1.5 tons. Not a big ask for assault mechs who pack them, but a significant sacrifice for a hunchie with 2 LRM's and 0 spare weight. Doesn't seem fair that an item like that does not give any boost at all against ECM equipped mechs.

Val.

[Killashnikov]

OK here is my 2 cents. I like ECM. It makes sense, but limiting it to only a few mechs makes them all powerful, or at least overly critical to success. Give ecm to more mechs. 2. Figure out how you are going to make lrms work again. They are now an awful lot of wasted tonnage, as it takes too long to get lock and lock is too easily broken by terrain or ecm. Perhaps shorter flight time and shorter lock time?

Edited by Killashnikov, 05 December 2012 - 05:38 AM.

[Emery Radick]

ECM is great right where it's at people just need to learn to play as a team in a team based game. I've pugged, 4 maned and 8v8 since patch as it has been some of the best play of this game to date. Some people do not get that even in a pug you can type chat and just observe what your team is doing and work as a team. Even if you are not part of a "unit" this is still a team game and should be played as one, even while pugging.

Understand ECM, how it works and how to counter it is the key. Dumbing it down will only hurt the complex amazing game this can be. So many people forget the other ECM mech can hit "J" and like magic ECM is gone. Tag also works very well like this. Find the enemy ECM mech then tag him and focus fire.

Thank you PGI for this amazing patch. I know I have not been the nicest of consumer in the past but this has restored my faith in this amazing game and please if you read this do not listen to the QQing. Stand by your core group and keep this as a team based game like it should be.

[Thorn Hallis]

I'm ok with it. Besides the graphic effects I hardly notive it on the battlefield.

[Snib]

For PUGs:

Having a weapon system (ECM) that completely disable other weapon systems (guided missiles) without a possibility to counter is a very bad idea.

Then there's the thing of fast mechs being OP without streaks to stop them, but that's a netcode issue, not a problem of ECM itself.

Anyway, my Gaussapult absolutely loves it - everyone is stationary or walking in the open in tight groups. Don't even need to aim, just fire into the blob and score.

[Chuckie]

Wizard LoPan, on 04 December 2012 - 08:45 PM, said:

This ECM is one of the most horribly thought out ideas I've ever seen. The game has already devolved into 8-man groups of ECM lights with cap modules running past everyone, untargetable, and "unknockdownable" and protected from non-missiles by their lag shield, and getting on your base and capping it before anybody can get back, and any light of a balanced group that follows them gets shredded. Your only option to counter this, don't leave your base, making the game even more boring. And I don't want to play LightMechsOnLine-Cue-Benny-Hill-Music. But I am sure the light pilots, who already were enjoying their previously overpowered mechs, are loving life right now.

Sounds like someone hasn't come across the Steiner Scout Lances

[Elghinn]

The issues with the BAP is that is should not give 100% impunity to damage from 2 weapons to EVERYONE on your team within 180M. It should increase lock on time by 25%. Not 100% no lock, espically for those not carrying the carrying the item. If you want to give 100% to the Mech with it, maybe still seems powerful. Maybe 100% increased lock on time or 50%. But to the Mechs around it, it should only be 25% increased time to lock on. BAP should be a counter to this. Currently BAP does nothing to ECM. If ECM stays in its current form you will begin to only see those four mechs in PuGs. I would dare say only 2. The Commando and Atlas. Then in team games you will see a lot of gaussapults and gaussaphracts along side the Atlas DC.

To those that say don't rely on lock-on weapons, 1) then what is the point to having them in the game? 2) how are you going to kill the netshielded amd ECM sheilded Lights now with your slow turning Heavy/Assualt?

[Naeron66]

Xendojo, on 04 December 2012 - 08:33 PM, said:

Now that ECM is implemented they can actually work out how the counters should work, and implement them.

Rubbish, as we already have working BAP, TAG and NARC (though NARC is not good) they should have designed ECM in such a way that all of these did counter it to some degree.

The elitism in this thread is to be expected but still disappointing. Just because good players and good premades can do very well with ECM does not mean that you can expect everyone to do that well. We know teamwork is always pretty poor in PUGs and it always will be, nothing is going to change that but we need those players to keep the player numbers up.

ECM in its current incarnation is crushing solo players of average skill or less. A less powerful version of ECM that reduced missile effectiveness without nullifying it would still be a huge tactical element in team play but would give the solo players much more of a chance.

Paewen, on 04 December 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

If a mech has ECM and is in disrupt mode, have one of the mechs on your team with TAG sit 400m away and TAG the ECM mech so your LRMs can target them. Very effective counter to ECM.

Yeah, because your average solo-player in a PUG is going to be able to do that effectively. I can't use TAG that well on a reliable basis and I am slightly above average (by my estimation). Making better players much stronger vs average players is not something any feature should do.

Of course TAG needs LoS so all the target needs to do is duck behind cover.

Edited by Naeron66, 05 December 2012 - 06:15 AM.

[MercilessTRADER]

I like the ECM, and it makes the game MUCH more balanced. I think maybe tho the MECHs equipped with it should lose 2-4 slots or something. I would like to see more MECHs have it too, and more of a trade off to use it. Missleboating was way to easy before.. The team needed to apply pressure and the BOATer watched some basic cable and fired some missles, easily doing the most team damage... Now with ECM... I think our BOATERs score has come more inline with our squad. He still did 900 in a game last night and will when people isolate themselves and we break them down early, but the layer of coordination now needed to boat is much better..I like the fact you can also counter the ECM and send a mech in to do so. Enabling the boater to gets shots... Teamwork.. and No more Missleboating Impunity... I like IT!!

[Ghosttalker]

The idea of including ECM ist great, but it's much to strong. Making LRMs completely useless is not too fair for new players. So here are some changes for the ECM:

• it should just cover the own mech, not such a large area
  
• it should be time limited and have a recharge time
  
• there should be more effective counter measures against ECM
  
• ECM should not be available for assault mechs

[nonplusultra]

Quote

I like the ECM, and it makes the game MUCH more balanced.

Sorry that is absolutly not correct.

As i said: Just reduce detection distance to 75% of normal range an its fine!

[Agent of Change]

Killashnikov, on 05 December 2012 - 05:38 AM, said:

OK here is my 2 cents. I like ECM. It makes sense, but limiting it to only a few mechs makes them all powerful, or at least overly critical to success. Give ecm to more mechs. 2. Figure out how you are going to make lrms work again. They are now an awful lot of wasted tonnage, as it takes too long to get lock and lock is too easily broken by terrain or ecm. Perhaps shorter flight time and shorter lock time?

You just commented on the exact thing I was thinking about, allow me to elaborate my thoughts.

First off let me give my initial feedback and impression of ECM in two admittedly contradictory statements:

I really really like the concept, it was in fact a game changer. The flow of battle and rules of engagement changed, and finally streaks have some kind of draw back to counter their auto hit.

I'm fairly sure ECM (as currently implemented) is a broken mechanic. It fails to pass the "can i be successful with out it" balance test, it seems to be it has become essential as much as guns or the mechs themselves. As has been stated those with more ECM have been winning and if you don't have ECM well... good luck. If this was intended then mission accomplished (but even that creates some issues), if it wasn't then the effects and implementation of ECM needs to be addressed.

The primary reasons ECM is mission essential and why that's a problem are as follows:

• Without equal or greater numbers of ECM to your opponent any locking tech is largely useless and it becomes incredibly difficult to even coordinate target designation when you can't even get simple locks at a reasonable engagement range, so in order to compete you need at least as much ECM as your opponent.
  
• ECM is available on only a few variants of mechs which seems reasonable on the surface, except when you see that those variants are now the core of any force up top and including 7-8 out of 8 in many cases. So to counter per point 1 you too need to run 7-8 ECM capable mechs, which eventually reduces the current pool of mechs to run if you want to win to about 4 variants.
  
• In point 2 I mentioned the reduction of the "viable pool" because of ECM's effect, well a potential argument is to open it up at let anybody use ECM, this is actually a worse idea. If you let anyone have ECM almost regardless of it's effect everyone would, so you don't do that except... with the current implementation instead of a variety of mechs all running ECM (which I assume was what they didn't want) you have most mechs being run from 4 variants because of how powerful ECM is. Same issue but just with less variety.
  
• Why is everybody with ECM so bad... Well aside from the reduction in variety on the field, LRM's and Streaks become next to useless (yes you can still make it work but it becomes a liability waiting for that one mech you can be effective against) so an entire class of weapons may as well be removed from the game. This wouldn't necessarily be an issue if ECM wasn't so powerful.
  
• Because the meta is going to encourage as much ECM as possible, push people away from locking weapons, and generally create an environment where only short range engagements will be the norm, we will see basically two strategies. The sit and wait and the stealth cap. While neither is inherently base ECM has created the opportunity for interesting play and then went a ways to stifle it because you have to have it.

In conclusion I like the idea of ECM I think it needs some serious readdressing. As a rule if it is so good that most people would (or feel forced to) run 1 of four variants to field ECM rather than bring variety and personal preference there is a solid chance it is an essential thing on the battle field. If it is essential it's either too powerful or too restricted. If it is too restricted it need to have less of an effect on an entire class of weapons to have them remain viable.

Edited by Agent of Change, 05 December 2012 - 06:10 AM.

[Jacob Side]

Buzzkillin, on 04 December 2012 - 12:32 PM, said:

With the announcement of the long tom, surrounding yourself around an Atlas wouldn't be a good idea either. Hopefully as things are added and balance changes are for the better, the game will improve/

And where has the Long Tom been announced???? I've seen Garth say maybe too it and other odd ball weapons.
Nothing offically saying we'll have it.

[MercilessTRADER]

Its not so the game was more balanced before?? My boater was asking what ECM even did, mind you were playing PUG teams..

[Naeron66]

Elghinn, on 05 December 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

The issues with the BAP is that is should not give 100% impunity to damage from 2 weapons to EVERYONE on your team within 180M. It should increase lock on time by 25%. Not 100% no lock, espically for those not carrying the carrying the item.

I demand a 1.5 ton 2 slot item that makes my mech immune to Gauss Rifle fire from beyond 275m, and another that halves the effective range of Lasers.

If any such thing were added people would really complain, but add something that severely cuts the effectiveness of LRMs and Streaks and that is apparently fine. Streak Cats were in issue, but the solution would be to make boating less effective not make entire weapon systems less effective.

[Tuku]

Yes.... The commando is an annoyance with its streaks.....but....well so is the Raven 3L so I dont think that this should be changed. What should be done is you call out in chat. "ECM Mando ....get em!" Because if he is countering the ecm boat he is chasing then he can be streaked as well.

That said I love ECM....Hell even if they tone it down a bit so long as it keeps its Game Changer effects I havent a problem with it.

[RAGE Quarter]

I think it will take a little bit to see where the dust settles, but I'd say that overall I'm liking ECM as is, but I've seen mention a few tweaks that make sense.
A line of sight manual target locking mechanism would be useful ... place reticule on target then hit a triggering key ... etc.
BAP should have some advantage against ECM for the mech carrying it, not a total counter, but a little something.

Otherwise, I'm enjoying the sweet tears of all the missile boaters

[Tice Daurus]

Chaser187, on 05 December 2012 - 05:32 AM, said:

If figured out the Problem with the ECM. There is an understanding mistake.

The notes says:


But it should be: "reduces detection distance by 25% of normal range" or
"reduces detection distance to 75% of normal range"

That is exactly like it was in Mechwarrior 4 where it worked perfect.

I hope we can all agree to that. Its easy to change and its right to do so!
There is no need to change to whole game or weapons just to balance ECM.


PS: The BAP should be the exactly counterpart to that. "Increase detection distance by 25% of normal range."

Exactly. This is the problem ECM has right now and you'v nailed it on the head. ECM shouldn't reduce the range this drastically. If you are an LRM boat, if you once had a range of 1000 meters, now the range would need to be 750 meters before you can start to establish LRM lock-on.

ECM while I do like it, and it changes the game dramatically for tactical purposes, it makes the game of where you have to run with all of the mechs that have to have ECM OR you are going to have to have brawler or direct fire support mechs to get up close. LRM's with this have been drastically nerfed with this and this is what kills me the most with this. If I can see you in plain open side yet you and all of the enemy mechs are hiding in an ECM bubble say 1000, 900, 800 or 700 yards away, and you guys are in plain sight...I should be able to target you. I was standing in one match where I was standing in the open in plain sight 500 meters away unable to get any lock on because an entire team was in a 180 meter bubble and I got CORED by gauss cannons. This should not happen. I don't think increasing tag range is the answer to this either.

The ECM should reduce range from 100 percent of normal to 75 percent of normal. So LRMs go from 1000 meters to 750 meters. Now LRM mechs are closer and easier to hit.

If enemy jamming ECM comes within 180 meters of my mech, then my lock-on becomes useless. I will then need to find the ECM mech that is jamming me, kill it with other weapons or try to back out of range somehow to re-establish lock-on OR get another one of my mechs with ECM to counter their ECM jamming.

I think this would be the best way to balance the game.