2028 replies to this topic

[Das Wudone]

suggested change to ECM: increase detection range from 200m to 400m to mechs inside the ECM bubble and 300m to the ECM carrier. this change should give LRM users a chance to unload their missiles but at a closer range. (and lesser "buff LRMs cos they're rendered useless due to ECM" threads)

[Nightwinder]

My thoughts on ECM and effected systems after playing both my Cataphract & Raven

• Targeting range should probably be increased to 400m to help decrease the amount of games playing out like ships passing in the night and let those poor ******** with LRM's contribute to the fight.
  
• Beagle Active Probe needs to be useful. ECCM functionality, even for single target or within a very close range may give people a reason to actually mount it.
  
• Streak SRM's need to be able to fire without a target lock, launching like a standard SRM-2

The feel of running around and toggling between ECM & ECCM functionality is amazing however, I've been duelling Commandos, flicking over to Counter mode to paste them with Streaks, then hammering it back onto Disrupt in order to get cover my team again.

Most entertaining moment has to have been strolling in front of a 6xSSRM A1-Catapult and watching him backpedal frantically however.

[Xander Pappyson]

Harrison Kelly, on 06 December 2012 - 03:32 PM, said:

I just don't know this is going to be true. Look, I love TAG, even in its current state, and I've had one on my LRM Mech for at least a month now. With these proposed buffs, I can't justify ever possibly trying to use TAG at 750 meters.

Food for thought:
1) At 750 meters, it takes less than a second for a gauss shot to hit you. If you need longer to line up a shot, that's fair, but once the shot is fired 1) your enemy has very little warning and 2) you can back away immediately.
2) At 750 meters, LRMs will take about 3 seconds to reach from launcher to target. At this range, you must keep your laser on the target for the ENTIRE duration of the flight. This is three times the standard burn time of a Medium Laser, IIRC, and you can't take the pipper off your target at all. Also, your Mech must be completely exposed for 3 times the time required to snipe someone with a Gauss/Large Laser.
3) As soon as you fire, your enemy immediately gets a notification of incoming missiles, during which all he has to do is duck behind cover or otherwise break the TAG lock.

How is this exactly going to help LRMs at long range again?

What? LRMs were never meant to go face to face with direct fire weapons. It is about time they play the role they were designed for. We are only now getting closer to the true role of each weapon and mech. I for one am glad for the change. So, to answer you question, you put the TAG on a fast light or maybe med (remember there are 8 players to a team, A TEAM), and you have your fast TAG while moving, AT 750m it is extremely hard to direct ballistic hit a light. You, as the LRM, SUPPORT role mech that you are, will be somewhere else and rain the pain on the TAGed bad-guy. It kind of all fits together as the (hopefully 12) member team game that it is.

Edited by Xander Pappyson, 06 December 2012 - 06:29 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

A key point here is that prepatch the matches where very good, POST patch they are much much worse, generally 8v8 inclose whoever focuses fire quicker wins or "cap and win" again.

I was actually having fun before the patch, with the exception of the streak boats, and now, well, I'm back to grinding for cbills and waiting for a fix for what the game has turned into, a big yawn fest.

We've gone from LRM warrior to ECM warrior.

This mainly applies to 8 man groups. 4 mans and PUGS are fine, just cause the overarching strategy of 8 people in a giant ECM shield isnt happening yet.

Edited by Colonel Pada Vinson, 06 December 2012 - 06:32 PM.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Ixis, on 06 December 2012 - 04:38 PM, said:

I'd just like to say that I think the dev's have got the balance just about right with the ecm,it does negate the problems of streak cats if you have one fitted which is all for the good and helps prevent multiple missile boats from nuking half your team while hiding behind cover at 1000m.Also once the ecm mech moves more than 180m away from the rest of the team they become visible again,which if you happen to be running a ecm scout thats what you should be doing anyway.The ecm pod doesn't protect you from direct fire so once the other team gets eyes on then you become vulnerable, I like the fact that scouting isn't a suicide mission anymore and the enemy doesn't just flatten your from range with lrm's and the first time I had a streak cat try to run away from my raven I laughed so much I nearly missed killing him.Having said that having ecm fitted does make you the prime target for the other team and if they have an ecm mech your visible when he gets close enough so it's by no means a god-mode addition,as for light ecm mechs being even more deadly to assalt mech's,tell me about it.I own 3 atlas's,beam weapons still work on ecm mechs and if he doesn't have ecm then so do your SSRM's.ECM is a game changer,it makes people think about how to work around the problem and taken out the mindless "mash the missle launch button" style of play that we have been seeing and steered the game back towards rewarding skillfull play.HUZZAR

you've never used an LRM boat obviously cause there is no mashing, you have to hold locks in order to have some chance of hitting with such slow missles which means you're going to all sorts of trouble to pick out a target that's not going to get cover in time or you'll watch salvos wasted on buildings hills and the ground every time. ecm has killed alot of those oppotunites which makes lrm's dead weight now. it's right to stop anything being overpowered but it's not right to kill them off entirely. that makes boring sameme gameplay.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 06 December 2012 - 06:33 PM.

[Cpt Jason McCarthy]

Azantia, on 06 December 2012 - 06:10 PM, said:

If you play in PUG groups : Dont comment on ECM. A bunch of mechs running around like chickens with their heads cut off who on average do not understand the game, mech builds or team based tactics (I said on average, yes some of you lone wolves "get it", you are the minority.) is not a good basis in which to judge the true effects of ECM.

Thank you very much for all you hate and elitist mentality !

This mentality is sooooooo goooood, just shitxing on every people face that want to play this game ... the normal way ! RedBull way Yes ! You are an example ! PGI should hire you to make this game better for you and ... you !

Now I can leave this forum for good, in peace. Thank you very much again. These are my last words on this forum ...

[SpookShow]

After thinking on it some more I like the way ECM works but PGI should limit it to two mech variants. My choice would be the Raven and a commando variant. To even cut down on the amount of ECM I would also like to see it added as a pilot skill elite unlock and have to purchase a 5 mill module unlock and make the ECM equipment very expensive. This would cut down the amount of ECM spam and put it more in line with BT tradition.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Xander Pappyson, on 06 December 2012 - 06:29 PM, said:

What? LRMs were never meant to go face to face with direct fire weapons. It is about time they play the role they were designed for. We are only now getting closer to the true role of each weapon and mech. I for one am glad for the change. So, to answer you question, you put the TAG on a fast light or maybe med (remember there are 8 players to a team, A TEAM), and you have your fast TAG while moving, AT 750m it is extremely hard to direct ballistic hit a light. You, as the LRM, SUPPORT role mech that you are, will be somewhere else and rain the pain on the TAGed bad-guy. It kind of all fits together as the (hopefully 12) member team game that it is.

never happens in pug gameplay mate and using tag yourself is suicide so... just don't make up scenarios that a: relies on others being the perfect helper, and b: gameplay that puts others out so it never happens.

[DeaconW]

Sears, on 06 December 2012 - 03:24 PM, said:

8v8 is cool, though, tbh it basically boils down to 6 DD-Cs and 2 commandos for a win. Ecm Blob and back cap. And the classic way to counter a blob was LRMS, but they don't work so well any more.

This is the entire problem that for some reason the ESM fanboi's seem to be ignoring.

Edited by DeaconW, 06 December 2012 - 07:37 PM.

[Tex Arcana]

Sorry PGI, but if you wanted to introduce a unblanced tech that will quickly make new players leave and go play WoT (Their Camo system makes more sense): ECM is it.

DeaconW, on 06 December 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

This is the entire problem that for some reason the ESM fanboi's seems to be ignoring for some reason.

That's because (I'm willing to bet) many of the Pro ECM'ers are close range combat types who don't think there should be punishment for that style of combat.
I'm really sick of the rants about "Bring an ECM Mech then" etc. etc.
I just started playing MWO before ECM was introduced, and want to grind Hunchies to Mastery.
I had a good spread of weapon types between them; but now the game is forcing me to go all short range (Not going to use a loadout that in most battles is rendered useless for most of the fight).
Plus I'm seeing far to many battles where one side has no ECM and the PUG rapes are just getting worse.

Edited by Tex Arcana, 06 December 2012 - 06:52 PM.

[DeaconW]

Shadowpunisher, on 06 December 2012 - 06:34 PM, said:

Thank you very much for all you hate and elitist mentality !

This mentality is sooooooo goooood, just shitxing on every people face that want to play this game ... the normal way ! RedBull way Yes ! You are an example ! PGI should hire you to make this game better for you and ... you !

Now I can leave this forum for good, in peace. Thank you very much again. These are my last words on this forum ...

Ironic that your attitude demonstrates exactly what Azantia was talking about. Go to Hawken. Don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.

[JudgeDeathCZ]

My feedback here:
If MWO is SUPPOSED to be as close to TT as possible.Can some find me any f*cking word about lowering sensor range by 75(or 80)%?I can't find any word about it on sarna.net or in any rulebook(maybe i don't have all but still...).I didn't played TT for more than 10 years so maybe smthing changed in time.
IMHO its just Mechwarrior feature AND it worked nice since it was lowering sensor range by 50(or 75)% with passive sensors on AND it was counterable with BAP which was not in range of ECM(180m).Now its mostly considered like OP bcuz of this.

[Sundiver]

Working as intended. Don't change a thing.

[Vulix]

I think how ECM functions is fine, but I believe there needs to be a higher cost towards equipping it. Right now too many people can casually load ECM and still create a very powerful mech they can play very aggressively with. It is almost a no-brainer to run ECM right now if you can afford it, and I believe it shouldn't be such a trivial decision. Make it cost more slot\ton wise

[Tex Arcana]

DeaconW, on 06 December 2012 - 06:49 PM, said:

Ironic that your attitude demonstrates exactly what Azantia was talking about. Go to Hawken. Don't let the door hit you in the rear on the way out.

I would say that Azantia needs to use better language in getting his point across then.
Because PUGS are the backbone of any game that wants to grow and flourish.
If a tech sucks in PUG play, in such a manner that it turns new players away from the game (such as ECM in it's present form): Players like Azantia will have to kiss their Elite-level playhouse goodbye.

Vulix, on 06 December 2012 - 07:00 PM, said:

I think how ECM functions is fine, but I believe there needs to be a higher cost towards equipping it. Right now too many people can casually load ECM and still create a very powerful mech they can play very aggressively with. It is almost a no-brainer to run ECM right now if you can afford it, and I believe it shouldn't be such a trivial decision. Make it cost more slot\ton wise

And make it equipable on more than a handful of mechs. Unless you want to see a battlefield with only the ECM Mechs on it.

Edited by Tex Arcana, 06 December 2012 - 07:03 PM.

[Zombie SixNine]

ArmageddonKnight, on 04 December 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

ECM's on light mechs has made them even more of a PITA to kill than they were previosly. Add on to the fact that light mechs also do to much dmg to heavier mechs imo ..makes them extremly OP. i've played light mechs ..and they are a joke ..you can pritty much beat any other heaveier mech ..evem more so now if you put on a ECM.

SSRM's used to be a good idea ..even one of them on an otherwise laser or projectile mech helped deal with the pesky light mechs that would constantly be to fast for you to hit. Now though you cant lock onto them ether.

Light mechs need their hardpoints limited to light weopns only ..no more medium pulse laser ..or large laser. .or ppc's etc. Then make these light weapons do even less dmg than they currently do. This will make it so lights can only really dmg vs other lights and make them be used for their intended prupose .. Scouting.

Other than that however. ECM seems like a good anti ML boat at close range ..which is good.
I just know that currently light mechs should ether a) not be able to use ECM (which is silly imo as they are for scouting and should be able ot use EW) or b ) be made so they do very very little dmg vs heavier mechs via weapo limitations ..which is much more realistic.

qq

[JudgeDeathCZ]

ArmageddonKnight, on 04 December 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

ECM's on light mechs has made them even more of a PITA to kill than they were previosly. Add on to the fact that light mechs also do to much dmg to heavier mechs imo ..makes them extremly OP. i've played light mechs ..and they are a joke ..you can pritty much beat any other heaveier mech ..evem more so now if you put on a ECM.

SSRM's used to be a good idea ..even one of them on an otherwise laser or projectile mech helped deal with the pesky light mechs that would constantly be to fast for you to hit. Now though you cant lock onto them ether.

Light mechs need their hardpoints limited to light weopns only ..no more medium pulse laser ..or large laser. .or ppc's etc. Then make these light weapons do even less dmg than they currently do. This will make it so lights can only really dmg vs other lights and make them be used for their intended prupose .. Scouting.

Other than that however. ECM seems like a good anti ML boat at close range ..which is good.
I just know that currently light mechs should ether a) not be able to use ECM (which is silly imo as they are for scouting and should be able ot use EW) or b ) be made so they do very very little dmg vs heavier mechs via weapo limitations ..which is much more realistic.

Or...they just repair hitbox/netcode so i can hit them with my lazorz/ACs

[Gaeb]

ECM is great and has improved gameplay. Played both with (2D, DDC) and without (SP, 4X) in a number of matches, pug and 4man. I like what it's done to the game. I can't fathom all the whining.

A TAG range buff would be welcome, I fooled around on my quasi-lrm boat (with TAG) and the short range is sort of frustrating. That said, I could still use my twin LRM 20's so ... not sure what all the whining is about.

[DrVulcan]

First off, I would like to state that my group and I feel that ECM is fantastic overall, and has added much to the game.


We also feel that you guys are doing a fantastic job with Mechwarrior and look forward to play it for years to come.

With that said,after careful consideration of interaction of various balancing options and discussion with my group, I would like to suggest the following:

1) BAP allows the BAP user targeting of ECM mechs within the ECM field. The targeting time will still be effected by the ECM field however you will be able to target them.

1b) BAP provides an additional +5% range in targeting overall

2) BAP is limited by Mech chassis, similar to how ECM and Jump Jets are now, however much less limited than those are currently.

3) NARC is active for the at least (3) minutes, with up to (5) minutes depending on play testing, and works through ECM.

4) TAG no longer works through ECM, and its range remains what it is currently as of the 12/4/12 patch.

5) ECM creates a base of 1 heat for the mech operating it.

6) PPCs create a HUD disruption, where you lose your aiming cross-hairs for T+-2 seconds.

7) PPCs have a -0.5 or -1 heat reduction per round.

8) Double HS gain +0.1 to their heat dissipation rate.

9) SRM 'lag' fire time is reduced to be on par with ACs, however base fire spread is increased by 5%. Artimus spread does not suffer from this '5%' nerf (making more of a difference in artimus SRMs).

10) Pulse Laser Length of Fire is reduced by 5%, to further increase viability with heat of weapons with a tighter spread.

I feel that the above should make for a more enjoyable experience overall.

Edited by DrVulcan, 06 December 2012 - 08:34 PM.

[MacKoga]

ECM is great, but it exacerbates the difference between people using voice chat/microphones, and those who type or do not talk at all. Addressing this will resolve much of the ECM complaints.