164 replies to this topic

[Monky]

I currently feel as though ECM is OP, I can't even consider running non ECM builds on my Cicada 3M which was not the underpowered chassis. I'd be crippling myself unnecessarily, even 1.5 tons of armor or weaponry isn't worth as much as the ECM is.

It needs to lose the no spotting thing - I don't mind it slowing locking down and info gathering, but targeting is an essential game mechanic. I can understand cutting you off from your team's info grid if you're inside the enemy bubble and it isn't countered, but your own personal targeting should still work, maybe at an even further reduced efficiency for locks/info sniffing. Keep the Artemis/BAP/NARC countering, BUFF NARC and BUFF BAP, let TAG do what it does. Then it would be perfectly acceptable to say 'Yeah I want this to buy time against missile strikes and make the enemy have a harder time getting good info on my team' or 'no I think I'd like an AMS better' or 'I could really use the firepower/armor etc more'.

[Kousagi]

I didn't read all 5 pages, so if someones already said this, sorry, but OP, you be wrong on so many counts.

First, the null signature system blocks Heat not radar. So, if you turn on your heat vision, you can see a ECM mech. So its not a null signature system. Only thing ECM is blocking is the radar from obtaining a lock on, but it does not stop you from seeing them with your eye balls, or using heat to see them far easier at distance.

ECM's effects on LRM's are not in TT because LRM's in Table top do not lock on at all, they are dumb fire missiles with No guidance system. Artemis does give them some guidance but its not a full on guidance system, which is even stated in the canon for the LRM's.

ECM's effect on streaks is covered by the Angel ECM, Which that is the only effect they are taking from that system to put on to the normal ECM, since the angel counts as two ECM/ECCM. Which I think is kinda fine, they slightly bend that to fit it in, to act as a deterrent to boating streaks.

The only part of ECM that they added was the reduced sensor detection range, which has no standing in TT, cause detection range stuff really is not even in TT, unless its a hidden unit, but thats the whole camo system and powering down and stuff. Plus we have Lost a TT rule as well, as anything that the ECM kills when it is in 6 hexs also kills anything that passes through that 6 hex's. So if a mech is 20 hex's away on one side, and its friendly is 20 hex's away on the other side of the ECM, then they are cut off in the C3 network, cause their LOS of each other pass's through a ECM field.

Oh, also OP, why are you not bitching about everyone having Free C3? In Table top, that system costs weight/crit. We should not even be sharing data without it.

[Weaselball]

OP speaks the truth.

[Odins Fist]

Streeter, on 07 December 2012 - 06:16 PM, said:

the fact you can get a lot of damage out and make kills doesnt mean the ECM is not OP. Not sure if trolling or really that thick?

.
Nice try a parting shot... FYI i'm not thick, and you can keep those comments to yourself, I was polite enough to not "TRY" an insult anyone, but..
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ECM is not OP, if you think so you're "WRONG" so stop crying over me, and if you find it too difficult to adapt to the battlefield, and can't realize that situation on the field is "ALWAYS" fluid, then perhaps you should try something like "Hello Kitty Adventure Island", and leave people that don't have problems countering lights with "ECM" alone..
.
Adapt and overcome, or uninstall I guess... You're bad luck, not mine..

Edited by Odins Fist, 07 December 2012 - 07:06 PM.

[The Cheese]

Odins Fist, on 07 December 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

"Hello Kitty Adventure Island"

Link please.

[FireDog]

The Current MWO ECM with area protection should weigh much more, 6-10 tons and be deployable on a few mechs. A 1.5 ton ECM package should be limited to self protection only and be deployed on many type of mechs.

Today's warplanes have personal self-protection ramming gear on most all aircraft but a few aircraft like the EA-6B Prowler and F-18 Growler have dedicated Jammers weighing several tons which can provide area protection and limit the ability of search and target acquisition radars to see aircraft dozens of miles away. I used to actually work with Electronic Warfare systems with the Navy and the current MWO ECM do not make sense.

Edited by FireDog, 07 December 2012 - 07:23 PM.

[abda123]

The Cheese, on 07 December 2012 - 07:09 PM, said:

Link please.

It isn't an extant game, it's a south park reference from the episode "make love, not warcraft", when butters said that He's playing
"[color=#333333]Hello Kitty Island Adventure" and not "WoW"[/color]

[Kousagi]

FireDog, on 07 December 2012 - 07:17 PM, said:

[color=#222222][color=#222222]The Current MWO ECM with area protection should weigh much more, 6-10 tons and be deployable on a few mechs. A 1.5 ton ECM package should be limited to self protection only and be deployed on many type of mechs.[/color][/color]

[color=#222222][color=#222222]Today's warplanes have personal self-protection ramming gear on most all aircraft but a few aircraft like the EA-6B Prowler and F-18 Growler are dedicated Jammers weighing several tons which can provide area protection and limit the ability of search and target acquisition radars to see aircraft dozens of miles away.[/color][/color]

ECM is following TT rules, and kinda follows how real world jammers work.

ECM that we currently have is more akin to duke/guardians on track/wheeled units, then Fixed wing based jammers. As the Prowler/Growler is a dedicated jammer that is able to jam ground based units, As it uses directional antennas to jam stuff. If i remember correctly it can jam two different targets at once with its directional antennas. They have some crazy range too.

[Parnage Winters]

Odins Fist, on 07 December 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

.
Nice try a parting shot... FYI i'm not thick, and you can keep those comments to yourself, I was polite enough to not "TRY" an insult anyone, but..
.
ECM is not OP, if you think so you're "WRONG" so stop crying over me, and if you find it too difficult to adapt to the battlefield, and can't realize that situation on the field is "ALWAYS" fluid, then perhaps you should try something like "Hello Kitty Adventure Island", and leave people that don't have problems countering lights with "ECM" alone..
.
Adapt and overcome, or uninstall I guess... You're bad luck, not mine..

Adaptation by not using a weapon system(see ya lrms). That's the quickest solution and the least problematic. I could run TAG/force my buddies to run it and work around the inherent problems of it and hope that my targets dont' run with ECM.. or I could just do anything else short of running mass flamers and machineguns and forgo the whole issue.

Please explain to me how that's good game balance. Seriously. Next you'll be telling me 3rd person view will make the game more new player friendly.

[Belkor]

As a non-ECM heavy mech PUGer, I've had no problems at all when my team don't have ECM and the enemy team does. My team still wins most of the time. ECMs seems balanced to me as it simply causes people to diversify their builds instead of relying on pure lock-ons as a crutch.

Edited by Belkor, 07 December 2012 - 08:21 PM.

[CoolLew]

I agree with the OP
I am big into Battletech history and cannon, and ECM is not used correctly in this game. I understand that some rules have to change because of the nature of the game, but I don't like this.

[Hathoria]

Belkor, on 07 December 2012 - 08:20 PM, said:

As a non-ECM heavy mech PUGer, I've had no problems at all when my team don't have ECM and the enemy team does. My team still wins most of the time. ECMs seems balanced to me as it simply causes people to diversify their builds instead of relying on pure lock-ons as a crutch.

As a non-ECM heavy mech PUGer, I've had a TON of problems when my team doesn't have ECM and the enemy team steamrolls us. My team loses most of the time. ECMs seem horribly unbalanced to me as it simply seems mandatory and completely destroys the scout / LRM synergy teamwork mechanic.

But seriously - I lost like 75% of my games today my team never had ECM and the enemy team always seemed to have 3-4 (noooo joke)

[Belkor]

Hathoria, on 07 December 2012 - 08:36 PM, said:

As a non-ECM heavy mech PUGer, I've had a TON of problems when my team doesn't have ECM and the enemy team steamrolls us. My team loses most of the time. ECMs seem horribly unbalanced to me as it simply seems mandatory and completely destroys the scout / LRM synergy teamwork mechanic.

But seriously - I lost like 75% of my games today my team never had ECM and the enemy team always seemed to have 3-4 (noooo joke)

If you lost 75% of your games, I highly doubt they were simply because ECMs disrupted targeting ability of LRMs. Relying on that excuse is a crutch. The OP said mechs without ECMs are "second class citizens" and that is completely false:



I reiterate, I don't use ECMs and have been on teams without ECMs while the enemies had ECMs. ECMs are definitely not as overpowered as claimed. They have been completely insignificant in my battles.

Edited by Belkor, 07 December 2012 - 09:58 PM.

[multiplesanta34]

All ECM should do is increase lock on times and maybe give off that fuzzy radar effect in close, that'd be worth 1.5 tons, and would still make AMS necessary in a heavy LRM environment. The stealth effects should be farmed out into another component like the one the OP described.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Here's to hoping Piranha actually reads threads like this and will admit that they messed it all up. This thing needs a firm nerfbat hit. Either that or things like the BAP need a serious improvement. BAP, NARC, and Artemis don't even do anything anymore. They aren't just handicapped; they're entirely thrown out. There's now no reason to even use them. LRMs are also useless because, in addition to already being a weak weapon, enemies will almost always have at least 1 ECM stopping lock ons.

[Streeter]

Odins Fist, on 07 December 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

.
Nice try a parting shot... FYI i'm not thick, and you can keep those comments to yourself, I was polite enough to not "TRY" an insult anyone, but..
.
ECM is not OP, if you think so you're "WRONG" so stop crying over me, and if you find it too difficult to adapt to the battlefield, and can't realize that situation on the field is "ALWAYS" fluid, then perhaps you should try something like "Hello Kitty Adventure Island", and leave people that don't have problems countering lights with "ECM" alone..
.
Adapt and overcome, or uninstall I guess... You're bad luck, not mine..

*facepalm*

Im using the ECM and getting the huge damage and kills with the junk Raven. Im not the one getting killed by them, Im using them and decimating all, so I guess I have "adapted"

I give up trying to make my point. I think I could get 10 times the damage you did in your atlas and you still wouldnt understand if something was OP or not

[Mordin Ashe]

Tilon, on 07 December 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

...

Thank you for being constructive and rise difficult questions in polite matter! +1 for your posts.
Current ECM is rather far from what it was in TT. That isn't actually a problem, since when finished, this game will be different from TT rules in many ways, but allways for the sake of gameplay and fun. Right now, PGI introduced many things that may be further used to make the game more fun to play. Why don't we get two LRM modes, one for indirect fire and one for direct fire? Why we don't get the same for streaks? Why can't BAP get some of the cool stuff, as ECM has? So many things introduced, now just balance them a bit.

[FrostPaw]

Edanomel, on 07 December 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:

So how could NARC possibly be used to counter ECM when their purposes are completely different?

I was suggesting the ECM mode that can be toggled to counter ECM was put inside the NARC system instead, because right now ECM does too much for it's tonnage and nobody can find a reason to use NARC for it's tonnage and ammo cost when TAG works just fine at countering ECM for less tonnage and no ammo.

You can argue a fake ECM in a fake world shouldn't work in a way you don't understand but to be honest, I don't really care, none of it exists beyond the excuse for a game that is supposed to be fun for everyone not just those exploiting specific equipment.

[HC Harlequin]

http://mwomercs.com/...65-what-is-ecm/

[Tolkien]

Bump for Truth.

I like the idea of ECM knocking out artemis, narc, etc, but it should not be a hard counter to other ECMs nor should it be a hard counter to indirect fire.

The AOE Null Signature system has to go.