2028 replies to this topic

[Calzo]

The team with the most ECM wins. ECM absolutely kills variety.

Edited by Calzo, 08 December 2012 - 04:38 AM.

[MadaO]

When I jampack my mech with non-locking weapons, ECM becomes irrelevant to me. I could play the game without knowing ECM existed and I'd do decently. It simply neutralises a quarter of the players who use missiles, which would be good news for people like me. Which is probably why there are a lot of people who say ecm is "just fine".

If they tweaked Gauss damage to just 5, three quarters of the players would giggle with joy. Some would even lobby it is a great tweak. It doesn't mean it is a reasonable one.

Missiles have been tweaked to excellent balance before ECM was introduced. Now it presents a harsh difficulty affecting only a group of players using weapons which have already been balanced.

[DTheSleepless]

MadaO, on 08 December 2012 - 04:49 AM, said:

When I jampack my mech with non-locking weapons, ECM becomes irrelevant to me. I could play the game without knowing ECM existed and I'd do decently. It simply neutralises a quarter of the players who use missiles, which would be good news for people like me. Which is probably why there are a lot of people who say ecm is "just fine".

If they tweaked Gauss damage to just 5, three quarters of the players would giggle with joy. Some would even lobby it is a great tweak. It doesn't mean it is a reasonable one.

Missiles have been tweaked to excellent balance before ECM was introduced. Now it presents a harsh difficulty affecting only a group of players using weapons which have already been balanced.

Not true. Streaks were ridiculous; about the best thing ECM has achieved is that it's mostly killed off streakcats and helped get rid of easymode Jenners.

The problems with ECM don't seem to be the missile lock issue. It's that ECM perpetuates itself (negated 1-to-1) and completely disables sensors even when you have direct LoS. ECM just does too much, and cloaking everything within a 180m radius is what's resulting in these huge Atlas base rushes.

PGI's implementation needs to go back to the drawing board. Sure, my dual ER PPC Raven isn't terribly affected by ECM. But it's a dual ER PPC Raven. Do we really just want the game to be ECM brawls punctuated by stupid mechs like mine sitting on a hillside dropping damage here and there?

[Carmaga]

After playing about 5-7 minutes, 5 mechs were left. 3 mechs on my team, 2 mechs on the enemy team. One of the enemy was capturing the base. But we continued to fight against the Raven. Guess who won?

Enemy: Raven with ECM
Our Team: Centurion (me), Cataphract, Awesome

One by one Raven took down Awesome, then Catapract, then Centurion. He used streaks and lasers. We were all running circles. It's really a balanced game. You cannot use ballistics on close range: they always miss on moving target (yes, I tried to anticipate the movements and shoot 'ahead'), you cannot use LRM's or streaks, cause of ECM. Only way to gun it down is by lasers. So the outcome was quite predictable with ballistic builds we had.

Edited by Carmaga, 08 December 2012 - 05:48 AM.

[Lugh]

Retar'd mode; Off. Passive brain sensors; Engaged. Error loading passive brain sensors, abort, retry, fail?


--Seriously people, devout 1 laser slot tag if you want to use streaks....

[Tikkamasala]

Carmaga, on 08 December 2012 - 05:39 AM, said:

Enemy: Raven with ECM
Our Team: Centurion (me), Cataphract, Awesome

One by one Raven took down Awesome, then Catapract, then Centurion. He used streaks and lasers. We were all running circles. It's really a balanced game.

Why did you post this in the ECM feedback thread? The issue is clearly not related to ECM but "lagshield", too slow torso or mech rotationspeed and lack of skill on your team.

[Redistribute]

ECM is a definite game changer. Missle Boats are frustrated (including Streak Cats). But more importantly, my Yeng-Lo-Wang is now back to the original medium range assissin - AC/20 2 med lasers. Before I had re-worked it to be a Gauss/ERLL config, as I was dying before I could close in. Brawlers love ECM.

[Carmaga]

Tikkamasala, on 08 December 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

Why did you post this in the ECM feedback thread? The issue is clearly not related to ECM but "lagshield", too slow torso or mech rotationspeed and lack of skill on your team.

You shouldn't judge people and their skills without seeing it first.

You can tell in 2 minutes after a match has began will your team lose (this is when you play as pug with random teams). And it's related to ECM feedback cause of the ECM available mechs. How about we put ECM on Jenner who is more protected with "lagshield"? I'm just saying that ECM should be postponed from variants that are already protected by lag issues.

Atm. when I see a Raven with ECM, there's no point to engage: I can keep up with Raven in speed and mobility (well, almost, running 104kph) but I can't do much damage with 2 medium lasers (yes, it's my fault that I'm using medium lasers on a ballistic variant). Maybe I should go back to Jenner (or build a new Raven) and hunt those Ravens down: problem solved.

Edit: this all is different when you have pre-made and coordinated (4 & 8 men) teams and you're in TS. Jam that raven and KABOOM he's down in 3-4 seconds with a target lock.

Edited by Carmaga, 08 December 2012 - 06:24 AM.

[JT Black]

Greetings,

ECM was much needed and I am much happier now since is introduction.

It opens a whole new range of tactics.

Kind Regards,

JT

[Jyi]

Carmaga, on 08 December 2012 - 06:06 AM, said:

You shouldn't judge people and their skills without seeing it first.

You can tell in 2 minutes after a match has began will your team lose (this is when you play as pug with random teams). And it's related to ECM feedback cause of the ECM available mechs. How about we put ECM on Jenner who is more protected with "lagshield"? I'm just saying that ECM should be postponed from variants that are already protected by lag issues.

I can keep up with Raven in speed and mobility (well, almost, running 104kph) but I can't do much damage with 2 medium lasers (yes, it's my fault that I'm using medium lasers on a ballistic variant). Maybe I should go back to Jenner (or build a new Raven) and hunt those Ravens down.

Good luck with that. Jenner loses to Raven now every time, as long as the Raven has ECM. Which is good.

The problem in ECM isn't that it's generally too good. The problem is that there's no effective way to counter ECM. Counter-mode only counters 1 enemy ECM, so the whole game becomes a battle of which team has most ECM. This needs a change!

ECCM should counter every ECM inside its bubble, and the ECCM-bubble should be bigger: 200m maybe even 250m. That way the ECM-wars would end. 1 scout could counter the enemy Steiner Scout Lance alone, but that would make him an easy target too. On other hand, scout vs scout battles would be more varied, as you wouldn't need to have 2-3 ECM-scouts to counter the enemy team's 2+ Ravens. It would make Jenners good again as well, as long as they would have a Raven or Commando to support them. Not to mention other variants of Ravens besides 3L and Commandos besides 2D.

It is a simple solution that doesn't sway away from canon too much, doesn't break ECM, doesn't make ECM even more confusing by adding weird rules and keeps the game tactical and makes ECM require more skill. The added radius of ECCM would make it easier to kill bad scouts and give advantage to good scouts. It would also make missile boats more valid again, as 2 scouts with ECM + ECCM could, if well positioned, remove the whole enemy team's ECM-bubble.

[Snuglninja]

Lugh, on 08 December 2012 - 05:44 AM, said:

Retar'd mode; Off. Passive brain sensors; Engaged. Error loading passive brain sensors, abort, retry, fail?


--Seriously people, devout 1 laser slot tag if you want to use streaks....

I thought tag didn't work inside the 180 bubble of ecm? SSRM has a range of what 240? so there is a ring of 60m you have to get in stay in to lock?

[Stingz]

Snuglninja, on 08 December 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

I thought tag didn't work inside the 180 bubble of ecm? SSRM has a range of what 240? so there is a ring of 60m you have to get in stay in to lock?

Anywhere between 180-450m TAG will light up the ECM-Cloaked target. PUGs can't really trust trust others enough to use it, takes LRM users, and a spotter to have full power.

[Xendojo]

Been on the team with no ECM many times now. Been on the team with no ECM and won many times also. It is a definite advantage but it's not game-breaking. Good aim and coordination still wins.

[Marcus Tanner]

Team or not, in the hundred or so games I've played post-patch I have yet to see someone TAG a target in an ECM field long enough for LRMs to make contact.

It just hasn't happened.

In non-ECM games the scout only needs to have TAG on the target for the last second or possibly less in order for it to work, where losing the TAG and re-TAGing happens once or twice in flight with a good TAG scout without really losing much in terms of TAG effectiveness. With ECM around, that "once or twice" means the target lock is lost and the flight of missiles is wasted. Either that or the TAG unit gets caught within 180m for some length of time and the target lock is lost again.

Knife fights between lights almost exclusively happen within 180m, so TAG is no help there.

Note that the range of TAG here is irrelevant to the spotter/LRM dynamic. It would only help where the one with TAG is the one with the LRMs. TAGing for yourself is of course less tactical, less interesting and farther from canon than the pre-ECM situation. Even then, holding the TAG on target enough to acquire and account for flight time is feasible only on slow mechs in the open, unless the player is a spectacular shot.

[SGT Unther]

The only thing I have a problem with is that another ECM is the only direct counter to another ECM. I think Beagle Active Probe should be able to reduce the effectiveness of ECM, not directly counter it. Like for example reduce the bubble by 50m and be able to detect ECM mechs at about 400m.

Right now only 4 mechs can carry ECM and only those 4 can counter each other and it`s reducing the variety of the battlefield, so if BAP can reduce the effectiveness of ECM we might start seeing more variety again.

[wimaxhighping]

<p> </p>
<div>It is automatic translation.</div>
<div>I think you need to overheat the ECM.</div>
<div>For example, it is required to cool for 15 seconds after using 15 seconds.</div>
<div>Cause I think ECM is too strong, and some that there is no time limit to the ECM.</div>

[Snuglninja]

I disagree SGT ecm should stop bap,narc, and artemis, that in itself is pretty good. It should not hide targets from radar or stop lock on.

[arghmace]

SGT Unther, on 08 December 2012 - 07:36 AM, said:

another ECM is the only direct counter to another ECM.

Exactly. We have a powerful and chassis restricted equipment. Surely it has a counter? Yes, it does. Oh, goody. What, the counter is the same restricted equipment? What happened to rock paper scissors? A rock isn't supposed to beat a rock, we need paper here.

[MeerKatV]

Marcus Tanner, on 08 December 2012 - 07:32 AM, said:

Team or not, in the hundred or so games I've played post-patch I have yet to see someone TAG a target in an ECM field long enough for LRMs to make contact.

...

Note that the range of TAG here is irrelevant to the spotter/LRM dynamic. It would only help where the one with TAG is the one with the LRMs. TAGing for yourself is of course less tactical, less interesting and farther from canon than the pre-ECM situation. Even then, holding the TAG on target enough to acquire and account for flight time is feasible only on slow mechs in the open, unless the player is a spectacular shot.

I couldn't agree more - I've taken TAG off all my mechs except for 2 that have LRMs.

The only way I can see TAG really working for a scout /LRM boat combo [PUG game] is for the TAG flag to last a few seconds after you lose track of the enemy mech. Re-acquiring the target without friendly LRM mechs breaking lock would then be easier.

But then, that would make NARC useless. On the other hand, NARC is pretty much useless already in a battlefield filled with ECM mechs anyway.

Edited by MeerKatV, 08 December 2012 - 09:09 AM.

[JagdMeister]

I won't rant. BAP should counter ECM for the BAP carrier, and those bennis should later pass to the team when C3 comes on line.