117 replies to this topic

[Bors Mistral]

Make one ECM counter two ECM, and require two ECMs to counter one counter... countered.

[Khobai]

Quote

ECM is NOT unbalanced.

Except that it is. It does the same thing as null signature system, for your entire team, for a fraction of the weight and crits, and doesn't reduce your heat dissipation.

Tabletop was unbalanced as all hell, and even they had the sense not to add an item that powerful to the game. So thats truly telling right there.

[Huovi]

Hit from PPC disables ECM x amount of time, hits from PPC can be stacking? Even with some slight chance to fry whole ECM.

[kilgor]

BAP shouldn't counter ECM outside of the ECM field, but within it, it should possibly allow the 'Mech with BAP to function as if they had regular sensors only, so no Artemis or NARC still. Or, at the very least, reduce the ECM effects.

Based on using LRMs, there's been plenty of opportunities to use them and direct fire actually does work, so they are not useless. So, what did I do, I looked to see where enemy LRMs were firing from, I zoomed in, and fired over there without any lock on. It sure surprised the 'Mech who was under the ECM cloak. I have TAG equipped as well and I disable it from the fire rotation when outside of the ECM and enable it inside so I hit better.

Edited by kilgor, 06 December 2012 - 06:10 AM.

[Taryys]

My immediate thoughts are

Perhaps increase the time it takes for the red triangle (targeting) to appear to say like 5 - 10 seconds of visual contact which gives some stealth and simulates a sense of sensor jamming, and then have it just increase the time it takes to gain a lock and read tactical data. Have it break the ability to share targets while within the radius. It should disable Narc and Artemis, but TAG should not be affected at all. Have ECM reduce sensor ranges by 25 - 50% or so instead of the 75% that it is now.


Allow BAP and the sensor module to work as they do by decreasing the time delay brought on by BAP/Sensor module.

BAP and the sensor modules will then have a place in scheme of info warfare.

[Bishop Steiner]

Khobai, on 06 December 2012 - 06:03 AM, said:

Except that it is. It does the same thing as null signature system, for your entire team, for a fraction of the weight and crits, and doesn't reduce your heat dissipation.

Tabletop was unbalanced as all hell, and even they had the sense not to add an item that powerful to the game. So thats truly telling right there.

Except it's NOT. Unbalanced means it is inherently unable to be overcome by existing means, and therefore changes the game. ECM can and IS defeatable. Just because you you are either too lazy or stubborn to adapt tactics and builds to do so (wouldn't be a StreakCat pilot, perchance, would you?) doesn't make something unbalanced. I defeated it virtually every match last night. Our LRM boat rained hell with aplomb on their ECM covered butts.

[Khobai]

Quote

Except it's NOT. Unbalanced means it is inherently unable to be overcome by existing means

No thats not what unbalanced means at all. Something can be considered unbalanced if it removes potential options from the game. LRMs are dead right now because of ECM. They are blatently inferior to all other weapon systems. That is a provable fact. I can do way more damage than any LRM boat in my brawling mech against an enemy team that uses ECM competently.

Something can also be considered unbalanced if its cost isnt equal to its effect. In the case of ECM the cost is that it only ways a mere 1.5 tons and the effect is gamechanging. The cost of ECM is not proportional to its effect so its unbalanced.

Again the goal isnt to make ECM useless. Its to find a balance where both ECM and LRMs are useful. Currently weve only seen one extreme or the other (LRMs overpowered or LRMs useless).

Edited by Khobai, 06 December 2012 - 06:26 AM.

[kilgor]

It's funny how people complain about ECM'd 'Mechs capping a base. Is it so bad to not take any damage and incur repair costs? Also, there's a thing called defense.

[wanderer]

Khobai, on 06 December 2012 - 05:34 AM, said:

You clearly dont understand how ECM works.

ECM doesnt cancel out another ECM until its within 180m. So the sensor range reducing effect of ECM currently doesn't get countered by anything. Each BAP on your team should cancel out the sensor reducing effect of one ECM on the enemy's team.

Eh. BAP in TT actually has no effect, other than telling you "Crud, I be jammed over here!". I have no problem with BAP < ECM in MWO- IMHO, it should just reduce the effects in some level (see my prior post) and the sensor range-reduction effect needs to have more gradation than "inside 200m, you flicker, outside 200m, you get nothing". BAP letting you get a "Hey, there's a target over there" at 600m even if you get no other data makes it useful enough, and still represents ECM's ability to screw up a Beagle probe.

[Khobai]

Quote

Eh. BAP in TT actually has no effect, other than telling you "Crud, I be jammed over here!". I have no problem with BAP < ECM in MWO- IMHO, it should just reduce the effects in some level (see my prior post) and the sensor range-reduction effect needs to have more gradation than "inside 200m, you flicker, outside 200m, you get nothing". BAP letting you get a "Hey, there's a target over there" at 600m even if you get no other data makes it useful enough, and still represents ECM's ability to screw up a Beagle probe.

Yeah but BAP in the other mechwarrior games is the counter to ECM.

[Bishop Steiner]

*rolls eyes*

Why I even try to use reason with people.

FINE.

ECM is horribly overpowered wah wah wah. I guess my Unit is just that much better than everyone else then (damn we must have joined BWC!) since we defeated multi-ECM at every turn last night.

Must suck to be one of the unwashed masses.

Khobai, on 06 December 2012 - 06:26 AM, said:

Yeah but BAP in the other mechwarrior games is the counter to ECM.

Who gives a ***** about the other MW titles? This is not THEM. They were done far from the source mateial, and the goal here is to emulate TT as close as possible. The sooner you stop worrying about what MW4 did, the sooner you might actually enjoy THIS game.

[Duvanor]

This is not the other MW games Khobai, so stop complaining.

[kilgor]

It's the other way around. The Guardian ECM is supposed to counter the BAP. To counter the Guardian ECM, the Bloodhound Active Probe was developed by Comstar in 3058. Then of course, there's the Angel ECM, which counters the Bloodhound Active Probe.

Edited by kilgor, 06 December 2012 - 06:34 AM.

[Sen]

how to fix ECM. . hmmm. . .

/remove missile, insert laser and A/C. Learn to shoot.


"ECM: you cannot fix what is NOT BROKEN"

Sure, it's a semi troll. . but I wanna fan the flames, I'm becoming extremely intoxicated off the sweet taste of a million Streak cat pilots crying in the wilderness

[Mercules]

Kobold, on 06 December 2012 - 01:47 AM, said:

ECM isn't the problem. Nearly every aspect of ECM is just fine, and pretty fun, EXCEPT for its interaction with lock on weapons.

This suggests that the problem is with the lock on weapons.

http://mwomercs.com/...-dont-add-band/

YES! Convert!

Our team last night had great fun pulling off ambushes by using ECM. 3-4 mechs flanking and not being detected until they come in on you from behind and FF down the fire support mechs from close range really does make a battle interesting. Numerous times on Frozen City last night we were able to flank the enemy and successfully put them in a crossfire while disrupting their line.

Previously they would have received a "sensor blip" when we popped into the edge of they LoS and would have swung around for a better look. Last night we rushed across an open channel where I had spotted a Guasscat hanging back and then came in behind him. We hit him hard and fast with 4 mechs and he evaporated. Moved on to clean up the next one, and the next one as the rest of our team pushed over the dropship. I have to thank them as they took the most punishment and did a good job keeping the other team interested in the dropship.


Could this be done before ECM? Yes. Was it easy? No. Usually a fire support mech was back and up high and could spot us flanking on the small maps. So this just didn't work. Without our little red "flags" and the beep of a new sensor contact people get focused and miss us. For this I LOVE ECM, I just don't like how it completely borks Indirect Fire Support or even Direct Fire Support with LRMs and is a binary equation for Streaks; on = I win & off = you win.

[CDLord HHGD]

My 2 cents:

ECM vs ECM cancellation in a 1:1 ratio is bad imo. Shouldn't matter how many mechs field ECMs, should only affect an area and ahould only need one mech to cancel out that area. I can see this degenerating into who fields the most ecm equipped mechs to counter the other team full of ecm equipped mechs. It really puts those of us who drive mechs without ECM at a disadvantage. And I'm talking more of a disadvantage than desired (because some disadvantage is warranted).

Should only take one friendly to cancel out ECM effects in a radius no matter how many enemy ECMs are there. TAG/NARC/BAP should also penetrate the ECM field. TAG and NARC should cancel ECM for the team and BAP should cancel out ECM only for the mech targeting with BAP.

[Minoxen]

I am a great fan of the suggestions to make the PPC effect ECM bearing mechs by disabling it for a certain time. Like I've said before there definitely should be more counters to all of the systems.

[Vapor Trail]

The only time in TT that BAP would have been really powerful was if you were playing double-blind rules. That is to say, if you didn't have LOS to it, you couldn't see it. BAP could hide behind a hill and "see" mechs on the other side... and thus allow an LRM equipped mech to drop LRM strikes on them without exposing either the shooter or the spotter. It did this even for shutdown mechs (hidden units).

Guardian basically killed that. Instead of "here's the mech, shoot it" you got "well, there's something somewhere over there, but it's giving you the raspberry."

Never played with Bloodhound or Angel, but I expect they're more of the same, Bloodhound burning through Guardian, and Angel saying "No info for you!" to Bloodhound.

So far, ECM is significantly different from TT. Not that different is necessarily a bad thing in this case, but it IS significantly more powerful than the TT version. LRM mechs in TT could still fire on targets in ECM AoE... but they couldn't use (or get benifits from, to be more precise) special targeting systems such as Artemis. As a matter of fact, indirect fire ALSO worked with ECM active, IIRC. Don't have my BT Compendium handy or I'd check (really should get that thing scanned into a PDF...

ECM also shut down stuff like TAG if the LOS went through the bubble, not just into. Basically you could have a TAG unit outside an ECM bubble and a target unit outside the bubble, both on the same side, but with LOS going through the bubble, and TAG would not function (on that target).

My point here is that the Devs have chosen to deviate from the TT rules to produce a game changing piece of equipment. and currently there's really no meter stick to measure its performance against. For me, it seems way too powerful for the mass... but since it's only equippable on certain mechs that kinda balances out...

But there's no real way of usefully mitigating the effects. TAG worked as "Terminal Guidance." It's a PITA to use as an all up targeting system. Basically you have to lase the target before the missile launcher locks, HOLD the lase for the entire time of flight (while Betty calmly informs the target pilot that he has missiles incoming as soon as they launch (and therefore lets him inform the entire team that there's a scout somewhere near)).

IF you manage to coordinate a salvo from all your LRMs (provided that someone has brought them to start with), AND hold the lock for the entire time of flight, AND the opponent doesn't have easily available cover... you're rewarded with a single LRM strike on an ECM shrouded target.

Which better be effing devastating because you're also likely to be down one scout mech in short order...

I find the Risk/Reward calculation for the above operation to be pretty iffy in 8v8.

With Group+4, I'm thinking that you're just not going to have the firepower to make it workable unless you're really heavily loaded on LRMs... and in the current environment I do not think that is conducive to victory.

Attempting it in PUGville?
BWAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I can imagine that call for fire...

Spoiler

"Heavy Two, this is Ferret Four. Prepare for fire mission, coordinate slug in ten seconds."

"What?" "Huh?" "Shut the heck up." "..."

"Ok... one of those days. Shoot the pretty red box with LRMs."

"LRMs? What're those" "Who brings LRMs anymore?" "You can't tell me what to do!" "..."

"ANYONE with LRMs fire on the lased target, please."

...A single LRM 5 fires.

"Oh that's just effing PERF-..." (BOOM).

Edited by Vapor Trail, 06 December 2012 - 07:20 AM.

[Lyrik]

Don't nerv ECM. Buff or introduce some light counters to ECM.

With Tag you coult highlight one mech in a ECM bubble. BaP reduces some effects of ECM. And a PPC should disable a ECM module for 2 seconds. etc. That would give the players would option to build their mechs.


( And I don't f***** care about what TT rules says here. The flair is more important than some numbers. Aka the damage number of a small laser can be 10.000 instead of 3. As long it still does less damage than a medium laser )

[Duvanor]

Of course ECM does not block LRM locks in TT. LRMs in TT don't get a real lock. They are semi-guided. The guided missiles in MWO are a boost by PGI. So let them give us some toys to counter these gift. You still can shoot unguided LRMs like in TT.