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I hope I got your attention by the catchphrase. If you already started reading, please continue, don't be afraid of the wall of text you don't need to read it all. Summary comes up front . I will show why ECM in badly implemented at the moment and what ECM should do.
Please if you support my idea, comment on this post to keep it up and come to the Devs intention. Please if a Dev is reading this, a short notice on you are working on ECM, taking this kind of feedback into account, would be nice.
Table of content
1. Summary (Please read at least this, if you don’t bother reading all – still worth the read)
2. Motivation (what ECM should do to MWO)
3. Analysis (what ECM is doing to MWO at the moment)
4. Battletech ECM (how ECM is implemented in Battletech)
5. Reallife modern ECM (what is ECM today)
6. Suggestion on ECM in MWO
1. Summary (Please read at least this chapter)
The introduction of ECM in MWO changes the gameplay massively. It should provide more tactical options, but as it is unbalanced and supports overpowered tactics it does the contrary. In regard to this we will have less tactical choices and less Mech choices due to the need to run ECM.
Most of the problems come down to the issue that the current ECM implementation in MWO makes target acquisition and tracking very hard. So the idea is basically to reduce the effectiveness of ECM in a logical and canonical way. This is done by my suggestion:
- Not effecting target and information acquiring at all.
- Only effecting information forwarding and receiving while affected in the short range of an enemy ECM (may prohibit, LRM indirect fire target acquisition).
- Neglect the targeting bonus of BAP, ARTEMIS and NARC. No effect on TAG.
- LRM and SRM can be shot on ECM covered targets, but loose tracking ability once inside the short ECM range, and will therefore just fly to the targets last known position (means SSRM work as SRM inside the ECM range).
- Mechs with ECM on will provide a blur blip information about their rough position on radar and battlegrid once inside 1000m range. This is due to sensing an ECM signal somewhere distant. If the ECM mech can be targeted directly the normal radar/battlegrid target handling takes over, until direct target information is lost again.
- No ECM counter mode needed any more, due to less effective ECM in the first place.
- Provide more mechs with the ability to use ECM.
- Make the pilot able to switch ECM on and off.
2. Motivation
ECM was introduced in MWO as a new tactical component. It should provide more options and make some mech variants more attractive which were not attractive before. Also it should be easy to handle and understandable especially for new unexpierenced players, as MWO is already really complex for someone new to mechwarrior/battletech. At least this is what I would have in mind as a developer. Therefore let’s define some goals what ECM should do:
- Goal1: Provide more tactical depth in gameplay.
- Goal2: Help to balance all kind of weapon systems, support systems and mech chassis.
- Goal3: Be easy to understand and handle in Game for people using ECM as well as people being affected by ECM.
- Goal4: Don’t discourage new players by their effects or complexity.
- Goal5: It should fit in the canon.
- Goal6: Make the community happy with a good game and therefore earn money to PGI.
3. Analysis
ECM is new to the players so the analysis cannot be based on months of experience, but I try my best to see if the goals are matched. Please understand this is my personal point of view as well as of some friends of mine. To understand my point of view I am a old Battletech and Mechwarrior veteran. I play mostly in well-organized teams, but sometimes in PUGs as well. Most of the time I am a competitive player.
On Goal1 (Provide more tactical depth in gameplay):
At first glimps there is a new tactical option to run or not to run. It gives advantages with a cost of installing the system on a mech. If the pros and cons are well balanced this would be true. Imho ECM based tactics are way too powerful at the moment, at least if a well-organized 8 player team are running them. This will effectively lessen the tactical depth, as you will be forced to do an ECM based tactic to be successful.
I need to go in a bit more detail here. An example: Use 6 ECM Atlas (LRM, Gauss and Close quarter weapons) to camp and defend your own base and 2 fast ECM Scouts (incl. TAG) to be there eyes. With good communication the enemy will have a really hard time to have any chance in winning, while your team will most likely not loose and have a chance to kill the enemy, if they come to your base, or camp the enemies base with the 2 scouts if the chance comes up). Yes I know there will be counter tactics for this. But my point is to be successful there will be very less tactics that are not based around extreme ECM usage. This on a long term makes the gameplay boring if only very few tactics are worth using.
Verdict on Goal1: Tactical depth gets worse.
On Goal2 (Help to balance all kind of weapon systems, support systems and mech chassis):
Directly based on the verdict of Goal1, the mechs using ECM are way more important than other mechs. As ECM is limited to some chassis, which I feel is basically a good idea to give some unattractive chassis a push. This will limited your mech chassis and layout choices very much. Also the usefulness of other systems and weapons are effected big time. Example: LRMs are mostly useless now in an ECM heavy battle. Which some might find positive while others dislike it. Imho ECM has too much of an effect on the usefulness of other systems and should not be a major balance factor of weapon types.
Verdict on Goal2: Unbalances Weapon Systems, limiting choice to less systems and mech chassis.
On Goal3 (Be easy to understand and handle in Game for people using ECM as well as people being affected by ECM):
It is easy to handle, as you just install it and have two modes to toggle. Good there, if you think both modes are needed. Imho the counter mode is only included as the Devs found out that the disrupt mode is too powerful and to give something to counter it. This proves as arguments for my Analysis on Goal1 and Goal2 as well.
Is it easy to use yes, but also easy to understand? If you just read the command chair section about ECM you can see how large the introduction was. This is the first hint that it is hard to understand. Second hint is lots of questions and discussion about it in the forums. Third I get lots of discussion ingame of the kind “Am I know affected by the ECM or not? I thought I would, but was not, or was I?”. It is not easy to understand how it works in general and even more important it is hard to see ingame how you and your team as well as the enemy is affected by it at the moment. This might become better if more people get used to it, and maybe there are also some bugs that create implausible effects. Still my verdict stands as follows.
Verdict on Goal 3: Too complicated as designed and too hard to understand in game how some effects work out. It creates a lot of questions and frustration.
On Goal4 (Don’t discourage new players by their effects or complexity):
The verdict of goal 3 holds true here as well. New players already have a hard time to learn the game, if now the additional layer of complexity by ECM comes on top it gets even more confusing and frustrating. Sadly I don’t have feedback from new players on this. So I just estimate it to be like this.
Verdict on Goal4: See verdict on goal3. It will chase new players away.
On Goal5 (It should fit in the canon):
Disclaimer: My research on ECM in mechwarrior/battletech is not deep enough, any help there is appreciated. If you read the general description of ECM it fits in well. If you start to compare it to the ECM rules of tabletop battletech it starts to differ. The MWO implantation of ECM would mean in tabletop that you could remove ECM covered units from the battlefield as there would be unseeable. Makes no sense in a tabletop game, does it? See more on this issue in chapter 4.
Verdict on Goal5: Depends on point of view. Good in canon general, bad if you see it by tabletop rules.
On Goal6 (Make the community happy with a good game and therefore earn money to PGI.):
There is a lot of discussion about ECM going on. Some are happy of the sideeffects of ECM (e.g. SSRM Boats are nerfed), but there are definitely a lot of unhappy customers. I fear that the unhappiness will increase tenfold once my analysis on Goal 1 (limitation in tactical depth) and Goal 2 (limitation in systems and mech chassis) comes true and to the minds of players.
Verdict on Goal6: Already some unhappiness in the community, most probably will rise with time.
4. Battletech ECM
Disclaimer: My research on ECM in mechwarrior/battletech is not deep enough, any help there is appreciated. Based on Sarna.net:
“An ECM covers the area around the unit on which it is employed, disrupting sensors and communications.”
On this general description this is what MWO ECM is doing. What does this mean in detail? The Tabletop rules may help here:
“The use of an ECM suite is to nullify the effects of other electronics, such as missle beacons, active probes and fire control systems. It can also cut a unit off from a C3 network. Optional rules for defeating other ECM and generating ghost targets exists.”
This looks like MWO ECM is doing most of this. Imho the real problem is that in MWO the ECM does way more than in a tabletop game would be possible. It hides unites. We need to understand that this would not be possible in a tabletop game. We need also to understand that MWO may should differ from the tabletop rules if needed. The problem here is that MWO implemented something new that is a big gamechanger and imho a gamebraker. Also it is arguable that a C3 system is already installed on all mechs in MWO, even so I have no reference on this.
My point here is, that making ECM affected units untargetable makes the biggest difference and has the biggest impact on gameplay. There are no battletech references that ECM should affect units outside the ECM range.
5. Reallife modern ECM
It is helpful to understand what ECM really does and is capable of today. I need to note, that I do not know everything about today’s ECM, but it should be enough to support my point.
ECM in general is an (electronic) system that should help yourself or your units in protecting them from enemy detection and targeting. There are different kind of systems that do this like jammers of radar/targeting systems or chaffs to fool enemy target systems. Most ECM systems are designed to affect a special kind of enemy system. There is no general ECM system jack of all trades. Examples are radio communication jammers, or chaffs to generate target duplicates for magneto-target systems/heat target systems.
Imho the problem with MWO is, that as implemented the ECM is highly sophisticated working against all kind of target systems, while the mech targeting systems are not very sophisticated and easily countered by the ECM. This makes the ECM in MWO very powerful, especially for the little cons it provides.
To prove my point let’s see what it does and how sophisticated it needs to be:
- No target tracking for rockets. – The rocket target tracking system (whatever it is, likely radar based and guided by the targeting mech) has to be countered by the ECM. Probably with a radar jammer. Problem here is that the rockets seem to be very stupid as they also loose tracking if a mech powers down.
- No target locking for rockets. – As above the rocket target tracking system has to be countered by the ECM system, but not only in close proximity but all the range of LRM target acquisition. So the jammer should have a very large range.
- No target locking of enemies under ECM cover. – It is unclear how identifying and locking a target works, but the ECM needs to jam those systems on the max range, while it makes no sense to me why it should be possible to do this between 200m and 180m.
- Cancel information from team mechs within affected enemy ECM. – The communication of those mechs (most likely radio frequency based) have to be jammed by the ECM. Most likely the own communication would be affected as well, or a very good FF system needs to be in place. But the own communication is not affected and we need to assume both teams have the same systems which would cancel each other out.
- Gathering of target information is slowed. – We don’t know how the target information is gathered in the first place. If information from the enemy mech are tapped in, than those information would need to be better protected by ECM or jammed. If the mech targeting system is gathering the information by itself (optical information, heat measurement, etc.) it should not be affected by the enemies ECM.
6. Suggestion on ECM in MWO
With all this in mind, let me try to give some advice how ECM could be changed. I like to take the above established goals into account. Please understand I don’t say that my suggestion is the best solution and there are a lot of variations possible.
What ECM should do:
- Provide a jamming range (e.g. 180m but imho less than that) for target tracking
- Any rockets entering the jamming range will target only the last know enemy position.
- If you shoot SSRM within the jamming range they will only flight in a straight line without guidance, just like SRM.
- Negate the positive effects for targeting of BAP, ARTEMIS and NARC within the jamming range. TAG is unaffected and also keeps rockets guided as long as the TAG hits the target.
- Any rockets entering the jamming range will target only the last know enemy position.
- Provide a jamming range (e.g. 180m but imho less than that) for communication.
- If you enter the jamming range you can still target the mech and gather target information for yourself.
- If you enter the jamming range you cannot forward or recieve any target information to/from your teammates, therefore LRM indirect fire cannot lock on targets, if the information is provided by a mech effected by enemy ECM.
- If you enter the jamming range you can still target the mech and gather target information for yourself.
- Show mechs with active ECM when within a certain range (1000m) on the radar/battlegrid even if no line of sight exists. This is due to catching an enemy ECM signal. Ideally this signal on radar/battlegrid would be uncertain blipping up on slightly different places to only give a rough estimation. Once the mech with ECM on is visually targeted the normal rules of target information are applied.
- Make ECM available to a lot more mechs, maybe not to all, but give it to a wider range.
- Make the pilot be able to turn ECM on and off.
- Do not reduce target acquiring range to 25%. Target acquiring range is unaffected. Enhanced target acquiring range of BAP is unaffected as well.
- Scrap the Counter-mode completely. Reason: It makes the ECM System a lot harder to understand, and if the ECM less effective you don’t need a counter for it anymore.
- Information gathering of targets is unaffected. But Information forwarding (maybe later for C3-Systems) by teammates affected in the jamming range will not be available.
On Goal1 (Provide more tactical depth in gameplay):
This is difficult to estimate. It will provide more tactical depth just as in providing additional options. The question is, will it end up to be overpowered and therefore a “must have” in limiting options like the original MWO ECM version? I am confident that it does not, or at least not that much. The reason is, that the ECM is less powerful and also with more negative effects.
Verdict on Goal1: There should be more options for tactical depth.
On Goal2 (Help to balance all kind of weapon systems, support systems and mech chassis):
Directly based on the verdict of Goal1, the mechs using ECM should not be mandatory, and there should be more mechs with ECM available in general. It still has an effect on weapon systems, but the effect should be less as the ECM usage should be less. Imho it still has a slightly negative effect on system balance, but it should be way smaller than in the original MWO ECM implementation.
Verdict on Goal2: Still slightly unbalances Weapon Systems, but with less effect as ECM is less powerful.
On Goal3 (Be easy to understand and handle in Game for people using ECM as well as people being affected by ECM):
No counter mode needed should make it way more easy to understand. It would come down to just being affected by a friendly ECM and/or an enemy ECM. This also means the ingame information for being affected is less complicated.
Verdict on Goal 3: Still makes MWO more complicated, unavoidable if you want more tactical depth, but less complicated than the original MWO ECM implementation.
On Goal4 (Don’t discourage new players by their effects or complexity):
The verdict of goal 3 holds true here as well. New players already have a hard time to learn the game, if now the additional layer of complexity by ECM comes on top it gets even more confusing and frustrating. As described above the complexity is less but still existing, therefore a system to teach new players need to take ECM into account (e.g. provide Newby-only matches with limited options).
Verdict on Goal4: See verdict on goal3. It will chase new players away, needs to be addressed by other means.
On Goal5 (It should fit in the canon):
No real big change here in regards to the original MWO EMC implementation.
Verdict on Goal5: Depends on point of view. Good in canon general, bad if you see it by tabletop rules.
On Goal6 (Make the community happy with a good game and therefore earn money to PGI.):
I really hope this ECM system will overall bring something in MWO and won’t be figured unfair or not understandable. Otherwise my wall of text would be just wasted.
Verdict on Goal6: Unpredictable, maybe your feedback in this thread can help. What do you think about this?
Final word:
I am no native speaker, please be kind on my English skills. As you can imagine I care a lot about MWO, otherwise I would not be bothered to write this wall of text. Therefore I am hoping I can do some good to MWO with this forumthread and hope on your support if you are likeminded.
Thank you for reading
Regards
Gori
Edited by GoriKarafong, 12 December 2012 - 12:05 AM.
