31 replies to this topic

[Adrian Steel]

Nurgz, on 09 December 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

I suggest you learn how to adapt to the situation rather that whine about how bad a player you are OP.

[Snuglninja]

SpiralRazor, on 09 December 2012 - 11:00 AM, said:

"If you ever look at a choice and say, "Obviously everyone should take this," or "I would never take this," there's probably something wrong with how they've been balanced. "

-Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer and Feargus Urquhart.



And this is where we are at now with ECM. Not just ECM though, but ECM is the main culprit and the most identifiable offender currently. IE, every mech that can run ECM, runs ECM, and every mech that cant run it, wishes they could. Every competitive 8 man runs as many as they can.

Or do you just think those two guys dont know what they are talking about?

cmopatrick, on 09 December 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

well, i disagree with your use of the original quote, because i do not believe ECM is op. do i have it on my 3L, yes. have i dropped with the 3L much lately? No, i'm working on my jenny levels in this profile and don't have enough cbills in the other to have a 3L yet.

are there problems with ECM and the current netcode? sure seems like, but that is not the ECM (just like a number of other things are/were not). i drop mostly pug these days, just because my time is usually tight, so don't blame my opinion on winning in a team... i lose as many as i win these days. so? we play on tiny maps where tactical thinking is limited... how does something that introduces more complexity hurt the game? if anything, i have had a bit more fun since it was added (and again, my 3L on this profile is already in the Master slot and i can not afford one in my other profile) so i don't see the grief.

perhaps i should ask what you run... what chassis and loadouts? what do you feel ECM breaks so badly that you are now unable to have fun when it is around? is this about lag (i can understand that), or a favorite weapon (not so understanding), or your k/d ratio (i am afraid i could care less about that)?

i guess i have read enough posts in the last few months that state as fact things that i have not seen... perhaps i'm just not competitive enough or too much a BT canon fanboy (or whatever some folks call me)... so i welcome a honest answer and will consider it in the spirit offered (though flames, i will ignore).

(edit for spelling)

I disagree but still I run it , but don't need it ********?
It is not a matter to me of needing it or not, to me it is not no where near battletech canon plain and simple.It turns a game into a first person shooter. If they waited to introduce ecm , balanced 8vs.8 they would have found out that neither lrm or ssrm are op.
IF either were op for pug play why invent a piece of equipment so far out of bt canon instead of fixing it?

[MustrumRidcully]

Levesque, on 09 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

I like that opening quote quite a lot. Can we apply it to DHS at 2.0, something people are crying for a great deal?

Yes, it applies to double heat sinks as well.

Of course, sometimes you want equipment to be more powerful. I mean, when Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson invented levels and +2 swords, they fully intended this to be desirable features you always take over no level and +1 swords.

Double Heat Sinks have the advantage of being available to everyone, so it may present an upgrade/leveling path for the game.. ECM doesn't have that. If it's an upgrade, it's one only a few take - that's like saying that some classes are allowed to go to 2nd level, but not all. (And hey, Gygax and Arneson did something like that as well, introducing level limits and sh*t... later editions of their game didn't do that anymore. I'll forgive them for that, because they were the first to make the mistake, and they also were the first with a lot of good ideas.)

[LionZoo]

I think one of the most annoying arguments I've found to people disputing the power of ECM is stating that they're still getting kills and doing a ton of damage even without ECM. Okay, we get it, you're God's gift to Mech piloting, but your example does not directly address whether ECM is OP or not.

Rather, whether ECM is OP or not needs to be determined by in-game statistics (some of which only PGI has the data for). These include:
(1) How often does the team with more ECM win?
(2) How often is ECM equipped on a Mech that can equip ECM? (Going by my own personal impression of users of the game, that's about 100%).
(3) The overall kill-rate and death-rate, spread across all users of the game, of ECM equipped Mechs against comparable versions of the Mechs that don't have ECM. (This is somewhat more difficult, especially for the Raven 3L which has different chassis attributes from other Ravens.)

Some players are awesome pilots, and they can do great without ECM. However, that doesn't mean a piece of equipment isn't OP. Just because Michael Schumacher (look him up if you don't know him) in a Honda Fit can drive faster than me in a Lotus Elise on a racetrack doesn't mean that the Honda Fit is balanced against the Lotus Elise for racetrack driving.

[Adrian Steel]

Let's pretend they allowed all mech variants to use ECM. Who in their right mind wouldn't find the 1.5 tons and 2 crit slots to squeeze it in? I'm willing to bet 90% + of the player base would do their best to use it. 2% will be running very specific tight builds for which they'll sacrifice the use of ECM, and 8% will be clueless.

Really guys? Is it that hard to see that it's OP in and of itself?

[verybad]

cmopatrick, on 09 December 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

well, i disagree with your use of the original quote, because i do not believe ECM is op. do i have it on my 3L, yes. have i dropped with the 3L much lately? No, i'm working on my jenny levels in this profile and don't have enough cbills in the other to have a 3L yet.

(edit for spelling)

So you're saying that you wouldn't put it on a Jenner if it had ECM available? I know I certainly would.

If ECM is available to a mech, people WILL take it. I like ECM, I think it should stay, but it needs a better counter than itself.

Edited by verybad, 09 December 2012 - 02:44 PM.

[BlackIC]

I dont see all ECM loadouts in game.

BTW, send someone with an ecm set to counter in and neutralize the ecm advantage if you like.

Just another tool that only fits a few limited chasis with a combination of hardpoints I am not a huge fan of.

[Ryebear]

Ill preface that ECM needs some tweaking, ideally it would be something like; ECM nullifies the 15% range bonus from BAP, but BAP allows targetting of ECM protected mechs at >800m. Fairly simple, an available counter to all. Im not sure if it does this already, but TAG and Narc should allow indirect fire of LRMs by having dumbfired LRMs home in on the nearest TAG/Narc.

That said, I dont see ECM in every match, and I still die from LRMs. But ECM is new and novel, people are trying it out, seeing how it fits in game. When I see a Commando marching at 60kp/h along with the bulk of the team, I can clearly see the inexperience of the playerbase as a whole with using ECM.

Once people are a little more comfortable with and fully understand ECM, I imagine you will see less of it and it will be used better (the Atlas cloaking his team, the Ravens, Cicadas and Commandos countering the enemy team's ECM while harassing.

[SpiralRazor]

Mmm...no, unless it is changed it will be used exactly as it is now by the most competitive 8 mans...and in PUGs it will be a complete RNG crapshoot.

Id imagine though that 4 mans with ECM lights/capture modules griefing pugs is the most annoying offender.

[Red squirrel]

Khobai, on 09 December 2012 - 11:21 AM, said:

It's game design 101. If youre going to give players different options then every option needs to be equally viable.

Right now taking a variant with ECM is not equally viable to not taking a variant without ECM, so theres no reason not to take a variant with ECM.

Especially if you put the ECM on the best variant (e.g. COM-2D 3 missle hard points)
But then someone pointed out the ECM is just on the most expensive mech.
I'm just happy they limited ECM to 4 mechs. Imagine else.......

[Arcturious]

Watched a few games on Twitch this morning where Garth and the NGNG guys were playing some matches.

Pretty much every game they were under ECM vs the opponents. They won well over 50% of the games they played.

In fact watching it, I didn't really notice ECM affecting their play at all, from what I could see they pretty much did the same things with ECM as without.

I find this to be pretty typical of my own experience also. If I was to do a statistic analysis I am confident it would show that other factors actually made more impact than ECM. Such as which team has more members with a high ping. Which team has more light mechs, which team has optimised builds with max EXP etc.

Yes there are two or three games I can remember where ECM was a real annoyance but no more than say when I come up against a 4 man packing all LRM and I can't step out from behind cover without being shot down. Or a 4 man with all ranged AC picking you apart etc.

Because that's basically what ECM is showing - if you have 4+ mechs all designed around a same / similar play style those 4+ mechs will likely win. ECM is the sync dropping of the PUG land. It's one of the few things that are always useful to a team no matter what match you enter. If you bring guass and everyone goes in and brawls you are disadvantaged. If you bring LRM and everyone leaves you unsupported and you get eaten by a scout etc.

Does this mean ECM is over powered. Of course not. It does mean that the game is incomplete, more features will be added. More game modes etc. ECM is like being on the middle of a bell curve. It just makes you match the average. It leaves out a majority of opportunity for excellence and diversity and instead creates conformity. The way to combat this is to adapt and overcome.

Edited by Arcturious, 15 December 2012 - 12:24 AM.

[Kreisel]

Really, balance is about how good something is when compared to it's other options available are.

Lets compare equipment you can put on your mech that doesn't take up a weapon hardpoint...

• ECM: 1.5 Ton, 2 crit slots, all friendly Mechs within 180 receive all it's benefits, Decreases sensor range to 25% of default (from any number to 200 always), Prevents missile locks at under 180, missiles can not lock without sensor lock (i.e. impossible at 200 or beyond, without a spotter who can stay in narrow 20 window of distance between themselves or the target or TAG) has mode to counter itself, defeats BAP, ARTEMIS, NARC, TAG under 180. Increases time to get sensor lock to the next level by 50%, blocks hostile mechs from communicating with their 'friends' if within 180...
  
• BAP: 1.5 Ton, 2 crit slots, Increases sensor range 25% (to 1000 from 800 by default) completely Nullified by ECM, Decreases time to get sensor lock to the next level by 25%, can get a sensor lock on shutdown mechs under 180.
  
• ARTEMIS: Decreases misslie lock time for LRM, makes missiles group tighter together. Completely Nullified by ECM
  
• AMS: 0.5 tons+1 or more ton ammo. Attempts to shoot down hostile missiles that have a lock when they come within 200 of your Mech. Ammo can run out/risks exploding
  
• A heatsink: 1 ton, Cools 0.1 Heat per second, increases heat threshold by 1, effectiveness increased 20% by Skill tree. Doubles take 3 slots cool 0.14 HPS and increase threshold 1.4
  
• CASE: .5 tons per side, Prevents ammo explosions from taking out center torso in addition to the side torso, side torso, arm and everything in them are not protected. Does not 'buffer' chance to crit items. Will not save an XL engine Mech from destruction.
  
• Jump Jet: Weight varies. 1 crit slot, increased effect from more than 1 not implemented in the game. Allows Mech to lift into the air, 'jump' over or onto obstacles or soften it's falls.
  
• a Ton of armor: protect you from a set number of points of damage to a predetermined location. Has a max you can place on each part of the mech, based on Mech tonnage.

When compared to the other options of what you could be doing with that 1.5 Tons and

Lets look at what you can do for equipment if you give up a hardspace:

• TAG: 1 ton, 1 crit, decreases missle lock time, makes missles group tighter, nullifies effects of ECM on a single mech it's targeting, only if TAGer is outside 180 'bubble' only effective when held on the target.
  
• NARC: limited ammo, keeps sensor data on hit target for 15 seconds, possibly still lost if they go out of line of sight due to a glitch, makes missile groups targeted at NARCed mech tighter. LRM's can take up to around 15 seconds to travel to max range. Nullified by ECM.

Still nothing holds a candle to how much benefit you could from taking the ECM instead. AMS and BAP are especially outclassed because it's easy to see how ECM covers all of their features and more.

Other examples of unbalanced gear:

• Endo-Steel: 14 Crit clots, negligible increased repair bill costs. significant extra tonnage freed up. very limited number of builds need enough crit space this becomes a drawback.
  
• Ferro-Fibrous: 14 Crit slots, never frees up as much tonnage and endo-steel would on the same chassis. Massive increase in cost to repair armor.
  
• Standard Structure: saves 14 slots, but takes 10% of mechs total weight as oppose to Endo's 5%. Very few builds can come up with the weigh to need all those slots without major tonnage savers, such as significantly smaller engines or XL engines+ double heat sinks in heavier mechs. In many cases if you could not fit it because of space restrictions due to endo, you can not fit it due to weight restrictions without it.

This isn't to say EndoSteel is bad, or OP, but it is NOT balanced by having viable alternative options in most cases. Endo seems about right, but FF needs some kind of edge to make it worth considering ever taking it instead of Endo and very few mechs need that extra crit space at all, so more useful things to use to do with crit space that doesn't require large weight investments or need a hard point would also balance out endo somewhat.

Heat Sinks are another case where doubles are simply better, the alternative has no (or verrrry limited) situations in which it competes. and in some ways this might be since other features have not been implemented or have been put in the game in such a way that it ignores them. 5% increased cooling in the water, if you have heatsinks in your legs or not is one example.