235 replies to this topic

[Stormur Herra]

I think the Atlas having it is critical. Your light ECM mechs shouldn't be hanging out with your slow mechs waiting for the enemy to come at them.

[Stargazer86]

Stormur Herra, on 05 December 2012 - 10:22 AM, said:

I think the Atlas having it is critical. Your light ECM mechs shouldn't be hanging out with your slow mechs waiting for the enemy to come at them.

Why not? This should be one of the disadvantages of using it in this fashion. If you want to keep your team cloaked, the light mechs have to give up their ability to run around and scout. It's an important choice to make. Either you keep the enemy team blind, or you give info to your team. Not both. Allowing players to do both by giving Atlas's ECM is making things far too easy.

[Stormur Herra]

Because ever light I caught doing that I put SSRMs into while his team mates shot vaguely in my direction. Then when they were ECM-less I went back to jamming them, while providing targets for LRMs and just straight up wrecking them myself.

For a light mech standing still is death.

[Harrison Kelly]

AlexWildeagle, on 05 December 2012 - 09:13 AM, said:

I don't use ECM and had multiple matches last night where no one on the team did.

Only difference I've seen is a lot less missile useage. Missiles are finally being used as support and not easy mode.

ECM rocks! Overpowered? NO WAY! It's just the easy mode crowd crying.

Really? Missiles are easy mode, but ECM takes a ton of skill, amirite?

Man, I wish I had a 1.5 ton piece of equipment that could invalidate the things I dislike most about this game.

[Adrian Steel]

PurpleNinja, on 05 December 2012 - 05:22 AM, said:

Working as intended, even if unbalanced.

Basically, yup.

PGI makes an official statement on ECM's balance:

[Devilsfury]

Like most have stated, if you have 3+ ECM on your team and the team your facing does not, its an easy win. No way around it. For the trolls, go into a match with 0-1 ECM and the team that has 3+ will mop the floor with you with ease. So basically you are FORCED to have lots of ECM to win. End of story!

[Veah]

Forcing people to think again. Never thought that ECM would affect the strategy of gameplay so dramatically, but I like it.

[Belkor]

Phingers, on 04 December 2012 - 10:06 PM, said:

Seriously unbalanced.

1.As players are learning they are switching to those mechs that can use ECM. At this stage early tactics the team that aint all wearing ECM will be stomped.......it will be driven home by the 8 man teams who target the few players with ECM first.

2. Any lock missiles are useless currently in game as everyone switches to ECM teams. Currently Missiles are pathetic.

3. the game is DE_EVOLVING currently into slug fests with the teams with less lag easily able to dominate laggy teams with the SLUG FEST OF LASERS AND BALLISTICS in your face from a SEA of Atlas, Cicada and Ravens

As a founder I have gone from having fun....to face palming, smacking my head into keyboard.

Slugfests full of lasers, ballsitics AND SRMS creates a far superior game to a game full of unskilled streak cats and LRMS.

Devilsfury, on 05 December 2012 - 12:45 PM, said:

Like most have stated, if you have 3+ ECM on your team and the team your facing does not, its an easy win. No way around it. For the trolls, go into a match with 0-1 ECM and the team that has 3+ will mop the floor with you with ease. So basically you are FORCED to have lots of ECM to win. End of story!

More ECM doesn't affect SRMs, ballistics or lasers so what is the problem? Are you one of those sad players that rely solely on streaks?

Edited by Belkor, 05 December 2012 - 08:59 PM.

[Jeye]

I do not think they are balanced but they are a nats whisker away from being a solid game mechanic. As they are now though they do not feel correct. Maybe they should weigh more or maybe them making your mech un-targetable is just a step to powerfull.

I do really like the direction it's taking the game play however I'm hoping they will be revisited next patch.

[wanderer]

Zarcuthra, on 05 December 2012 - 08:37 AM, said:

Again I'll say it.... I played 20+ matches of 8v8 last night... And our team ran lrms and streaks just fine....that WHILE countering the enemy ecm. It is doable. ECM does not make Lrms or streaks unusable.

So in other words, ECM is required, and the group with the strongest ECM gets the benefits while the other team gets hosed.

Let me add in another post here and paint a slightly less grim picture- one where ECM is useful and does what it needs for MWO without acting as a blunt instrument of binary yes-or-no wholesale disabling of guided weapons. Here's how ECM would work in my world, and why.

First off, Streaks. In TT, Streaks that get ECM jamming fire as normal SRMs instead. Implement this in MWO- if the Streak user is in a hostile ECM bubble or firing with a targeted but ECM-shielded target, Streak racks do not attempt lock-on but instead dumb-fire.

Anyone think a Catapult with six normal SRM-2's that it had to pay an extra half-ton each for, firing expensive ammo is OP? No? Grand. We've just solved how MWO ECM renders Streaks a "do nothing under ECM" weapon without allowing them their magical seeking abilities in any way shape or form vs. ECM.

Now, LRMs. A weapon that canonically is designed to NOT be hosed by ECM when fired with it's normal, robust, and rather dumb (by modern standards) guidance system. However, ECM plays merry hell with any advanced guidance systems or 'Mech-to-'Mech sensor assistance.

LRMs in MWO fire to 1000m with a spotter. Have ECM negate this and bring the maximum range down to 600m when firing on a target under ECM- DETERMINED AT THE TIME OF FIRING, roughly the norm for LRMs in TT. Double lock times from the standard LRM base- no lock reductions from any source apply. Halve the time it takes for a lock to fade if the crosshairs leave the target.

LRM carriers can no longer stand off and fire at incredibly long ranges- and further, the LRM user will still need to be close enough to get a target bracketed (see below). ECM negates NARC, Artemis, AND TAG bonuses entirely. No more binary "If it's TAGed, ECM doesn't work, if it isn't, magic missile shield!". The LRM carrier must still be close enough to get a target bracket. What's up with that, you ask?

Alter the way ECM blinds normal R-targeting. The current 200m range for a flickery HUD would still apply. Out to 450m, a 'Mech under ECM is still R-targetable, but has no actual data beyond "Yep, it's not a friendly". No damage readouts, no "what 'Mech is this" or a list of what it's carrying- none of that. The only real use is it points out a 'Mech is there- and to give LRM users the ability to lock and fire (at the aforementioned penalties).

With BAP, the user only changes those targeting ranges to 250m/600m. BAP doesn't trump or counter ECM, it only slightly mitigates it's effects.

These changes still mean ECM draws people into closer fights- and that includes LRMs. No more massive bombardments from huge distances where brawlers can't accurately respond- but also ECM no longer means fights are limited to extremely close ranges where LRMs are utterly useless in any form whatsoever, and ECM/ECCM no longer delivers a massive advantage to the side with the heavier ECM presence, while still serving as an effective tool for players. Streak racks are countered without being utterly useless, as they should be- ECM serves as protection and turns Streak missile racks into overweight (and small) SRM launchers, but not 1.5 x number of Streaks worth of completely dead weight.

[Khobai]

Quote

These changes still mean ECM draws people into closer fights- and that includes LRMs. No more massive bombardments from huge distances where brawlers can't accurately respond

Except thats part of battletech/mechwarrior. Whether you like it or not, long-range fire support should be part of the game setting.

The problem with PGI is that they only deal in extremes. We dont need an extreme where LRMs crush everything or an extreme where LRMs are rendered completely useless by a 1.5 ton magic missile invisibility shield. What we need is a middleground where LRMs are both useful and not overpowered.

ECM needs to be massively nerfed. LRMs still need to be slightly tweaked. Simple as that.

Edited by Khobai, 06 December 2012 - 06:16 AM.

[wanderer]

Garth Erlam, on 05 December 2012 - 09:01 AM, said:

Disruption Mode:
* Slow down weapon locks by 25%
* Slow down target gathering by 25%

If I can't target the 'Mech to begin with, weapon locks and target info gathering are a moot point- and since ECM reduces those ranges to 25% of normal, it means I can't even begin to lock outside of about 200m. Further, Streaks in ECM can't lock, period. Oops.

See my previous post for how to bring this back into the range of sanity.

[AlexWildeagle]

Harrison Kelly, on 05 December 2012 - 10:48 AM, said:

Really? Missiles are easy mode, but ECM takes a ton of skill, amirite?

Man, I wish I had a 1.5 ton piece of equipment that could invalidate the things I dislike most about this game.

Yes missiles are easy mode, at least they were. You stand back 1000M away and launch. Sometimes you lose lock but most the time you get this rainbow of missiles that would strip and kill a medium/heavy mech easy, even through cover.
ECM is limited to less then a handful of mechs that are either light and fast or assault and slooowwwwww. So the medium and heavies still get out in the open. ECM can also be used to counter enemy ECM....imagine that, tactics...wow.
Missiles before ECM were way out of whack, not because they were OP but because they were overused because they were the easiest and safest way to get points/wins/kills. Now missiles are once again the support weapons they were always meant to be. nouarenotrite

[wanderer]

Khobai, on 06 December 2012 - 06:11 AM, said:

Except thats part of battletech/mechwarrior. It always has been.

The problem with PGI is that they only deal in extremes. We dont need an extreme where LRMs crush everything or an extreme where LRMs are rendered completely useless by a 1.5 ton magic missile invisibility shield. What we need is a middleground where LRMs are both useful and not overpowered.

And that's why I have my solution. People didn't howl bloody murder about LRMs when they had a max range of 600m (OK, 630m) in closed beta- in fact, they complained that the short range made them more easily exposed to return fire. Cue the buff that gave us 1000m fire. LRMs at 450-600m aren't going to crush everything, because like before- when the LRM carrier is easier to hit or close with, it's now something a direct-fire or even brawl-focused design can go after and not feel like it's helpless to deal with the incoming fire. ECM under that proposal isn't the magic missile invisibility cloak- BAP mitigates it and ECM no longer utterly renders non-TAG LRM use moot, merely tougher. That's what we need from ECM use- like AMS, it should make missiles harder to use, not impossible.

[Bishop Steiner]

Except it's not. I proved it for several hours running last night. We came, saw multiple ECMs, and conquered.

And here is HOW:
http://mwomercs.com/...a-big-fat-myth/

or for those too lazy to click and read: Tactics beat Toys, every time.