90 replies to this topic

[Marcus Tanner]

If the devs like Paul actually believe that Beagle and ECM are of roughly equal value, then they must be very bad at their job.

If they believe that it is healthy in a game like this for two pieces of equipment of equal cost to have wildly different levels of effectiveness, then they must be very bad at their job.

If they believe that chassis restriction is a good way of adding a "cost" to an item in the context of this game, then they must be bad at their job.

There are simply so many ways in which this iteration of ECM violates principles of Game Design 101 that I'm flabbergasted. Paul couldn't have appeared less qualified if he were proud of not knowing who the President of Uz-beki-beki...beki-beki-stan-stan is.

stjobe, on 15 December 2012 - 02:39 PM, said:

I just had an eye-opener in another thread which made me understand why some people dislike ECM so much; the poster in question boldly stated he cannot distinguish friend from foe without the red and blue triangles above them.

As baffling as that seem to me, and as much as it saddens me, it does explain a bit of the disconnect between my own experiences with ECM (doesn't affect my game very much) and some other players (claims it's destroyed their game completely).

I just wonder if it's very common to have such low situational awareness that one cannot distinguish friend from foe without having them marked with coloured triangles?

I've had a couple drops without a HUD. I usually distinguished friend from foe by what mechs weren't shooting at me, and which mechs they were shooting at.

It can get really confusing with lights in a furball, though.

Edited by Marcus Tanner, 15 December 2012 - 06:01 PM.

[JTAlweezy]

How ECM should work.

When it comes to ECM, jamming and disruption there are typically three designations.

Electronic Warfare
Electronic Attack
Electronic Protection

Right now, ECM is far outside the reasonable abilities of any ECM equipment.

The ECM in game is fulfilling 3 of the categories listed above. Even within reason and science that is highly unlikely and impossible.

Right now it functions as a Radar jammer, a Radar disruption, and Protection for the Mech equiped with it.

When a Mech gets within Range of my Mech, I should still be able to lock on, unless he is performing an Electronic Warfare Attack on me.

This means he is using a Directed Energy Weapon, designed to disrupt the function of my Mechs Radar Abilities. This would keep my mech from being able to Lock, target, and pickup other Enemy Targets on Radar. In order to overcome my Radars ability to lock, He would have to have equal power output directed at my mech to keep me from locking.

As it stands ECM (Electronic Counter Measures), should be designed to provide electronic protection for the Mech equiped with it. This means that unless I am directing my Radar at him, I should not be able to see him, lock onto him, ot target him. However, if my Radar is pointed Directly at him, and within a specific range, I will still be able to target him and lock on, UNLESS, he is performing an Electronic Warfare attack on me, in which case, all of my mechs sensors, lock on abilities and targeting abilities are then nullified.

For the most part, ECM in this game should do 2 things,

Provide stealth for mechs moving from 180 - inf range of enemy mechs. Unless someone gets within 180m of this mech, he will not show up on Radar, nor will you be able to lock.

The mech equiped with ECM, will have to target a mech specifically, and engage a Directed Energy attack on his mech to disable his weapons capabilities, IE: locking, tracking targetting whatever.

I have a bit of homework left to do to cover the basis of this but I would assume that is it for the most part.

For clarification, Electronic Warfare and Electronic Attack are similar but with some differences.

This is all info that can be optained from wikipedia, it is also accompained by my RL experiences in the USMC MAGTF, I was a systems admin for 5 years stationed with a Radar Unit. everything about ECM in this game screams, NOT POSSIBLE! At least within electro magnetic theory.

[JTAlweezy]

tag has not yet worked to counter ECM so idk what they mean by counter.

[ICEFANG13]

TAG counters ECM if you can keep it on target and not die to the ECM target. It allows you to target the mech, but it doesn't get bonus TAG to missiles. You must stay in the area, 180-450, if not, it doesn't work.

Or use ECM, the only true counter to ECM, genius no?

[unwary]

ICEFANG13, on 15 December 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

TAG counters ECM if you can keep it on target and not die to the ECM target. It allows you to target the mech, but it doesn't get bonus TAG to missiles. You must stay in the area, 180-450, if not, it doesn't work.

Or use ECM, the only true counter to ECM, genius no?

I found this to be rather true, TAG and BAP do not counter ECM at all. ECM can only be countered by another ECM. Hence why the team with more ECM mechs tend to win more.

[ICEFANG13]

ECM counters BAP too, so the best way to beat ECM is ECM. This is so stupid.

[Belisarius1]

unwary, on 15 December 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

I found this to be rather true, TAG and BAP do not counter ECM at all. ECM can only be countered by another ECM. Hence why the team with more ECM mechs tend to win more.

That's not really true. Most of the ECM 'mechs are terrible in a straight-up fight, the big exception being the AS7-D-DC. An all ECM team can be beaten by one with lots of strong direct fire (and good pings), because the ECM chassis aren't astounding.

It's still a terrible mechanic, though.

---

Edited by Belisarius1, 15 December 2012 - 08:13 PM.

[ICEFANG13]

The Raven-3L is the best scout, the Commando-2D is the best Commando (and comparable to the Raven), the 3M Cicada is not the worst at all (the 4 ballistics is so much worse, and the 3M isn't bad). None of the ECM mechs are the worst, but much closer to the best.

[WardenWolf]

I think whether ECM is 'perfect' - or even 'decent' - can be easily determined from how many people run it. If it is balanced, we should see slightly more of the ECM-capable mechs than other variants... but not massively so. If it is imbalanced, we will see far more of those 4 variants than any others (save perhaps trial mechs, in PUGs). So what I would ask of PGI is this - and in fact I did ask it in the latest Ask the Devs, and we'll see if Garth answers:

"What sort of balance are you seeing in the number of ECM-equipped mechs vs Trial mechs vs non-ECM customized mechs these days?"

It feels to me, from playing several games since the last patch, that there is a definite over-representation of the ECM mechs... which is a pity, since it means a lot less is being seen of all the other great variants PGI's artists have put effort into. It also means that ECM *must* be overpowered - otherwise people would not feel the need to run so much of it.

My solution is described here:

http://mwomercs.com/...28#entry1559928

[Bad Andy]

ECM is incredibly powerful in it's current implementation but the real issue is that only 4 mechs can mount it and no weight matching in 8 mans, why would you ever run an awesome when you can run an atlas d-dc? why run any light mech except a commando 2d or a ravel 3L?

[Corvus Antaka]

Bad Andy, on 15 December 2012 - 11:12 PM, said:

ECM is incredibly powerful in it's current implementation but the real issue is that only 4 mechs can mount it and no weight matching in 8 mans, why would you ever run an awesome when you can run an atlas d-dc? why run any light mech except a commando 2d or a ravel 3L?

Because you use only direct fire weapons. Otherwise, you are exactly right, since only ECM counters ECM. The only other option is to take LRM's with a spotter mech, but then when you look at the lack of options to coordinate PUGS & the mechs they bring pre-match, that just isn't viable unless you run TS, which if this game wants to work also then needs to change.

[JTAlweezy]

ICEFANG13, on 15 December 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

TAG counters ECM if you can keep it on target and not die to the ECM target. It allows you to target the mech, but it doesn't get bonus TAG to missiles. You must stay in the area, 180-450, if not, it doesn't work.

Or use ECM, the only true counter to ECM, genius no?

Okay that makes sense, but outside of 180 I can still see and target the mech without TAG. And the tag expires so quickly its pointless. If i have to waste tonnage for a counter. It better damn well be fool proof, or its just more dead weight, no pun intended.

[Monky]

It is perfect if you can use it. Because you can literally only be hard countered by another ECM user.

If you can't, you're screwed against a light or cicada and had better be packing some heat against an atlas.

Not saying it's unwinable, I've seen non ECM teams beat ECM loaded teams, but on the whole the group which makes best use of ECM seems to win. This is all from PUG play.

What that says to me is that either more STRONG counters are needed, or ECM is needing a tune-down. I suggest a tune-down to avoid having to significantly rework every single piece of e-war equipment. I would suggest removing the 'cloaking' field, and just making protected units take longer to 'sniff' for loadout info and longer to lock missiles onto.

[TehCable]

I hate ECM so much. I have an elite CPLT-A1 and an elite Jenner-D as the only two mechs that I own. Both feel pretty much worthless since the introduction of ECM.

I took a break from the game when they took away 8 person groups, and when they added back 8 person groups I came back to find that none of my mechs were viable anymore. I'm in a position where I need to buy a Raven-3L with MC just to enjoy the game again. I don't like my current mechs enough to want grind up the C-bills.

My personal situation aside, I hate that Guardian ECM makes it completely impossible to fire streaks. If ECM is allowed to disrupt streaks at all, it should turn streaks into dumb fire SRM, or delay lock, or decrease the range for lock. Completely disabling my weapons, on top of everything else ECM is doing, is ********. I hate that streaks work so well for mechs carrying ECM. They should not be allowed on the same mech. There's no counter, and there's nothing balanced about it.

This incarnation of ECM does too much for too little cost (in terms of weight and crit slots), and is arbitrarily limited to too few variants. It's completely unfair to people who have invested time and real money into the game to just suddenly introduce a must-have item that can only be equipped on 4 specific variants. If it's going to be so powerful and game changing, then it needs to be an option for all variants with a real cost in terms of weight, heat, and/or crit slots. In closed beta, a change this big to the game balance would have come with getting my MC back. I've basically been forced to start the game over on one of the now must-have variants, except this time without the benefit of the MC I paid for. No thanks. I'll be watching the patch notes to decide whether I ever want to play again.

Edited by TehCable, 17 December 2012 - 04:26 PM.

[Gremlich Johns]

Tolkien, on 15 December 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

Similarly 'IFF - Identify Friend or Foe' equipment http://en.wikipedia....n_friend_or_foe is literally a system where a friendly unit is required to send back a coded response or it is considered to be an enemy.

Situational awareness is not automatic in real life nor in a game absent some sort of marking or team colour. This was taken away by ECM.

And IFF would operate at a frequency not affected by the MWO ECM suite (because IFF isn't radar, it's radio) permitting continued identification of your teammates.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 17 December 2012 - 04:42 PM.

[ICEFANG13]

Well, although I am in the ECM is OP crowd, since ECM does counter the ability to text to teammates, I suppose it does cancel radio, at least what the game has for radio.

[Stingz]

ICEFANG13, on 17 December 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

Well, although I am in the ECM is OP crowd, since ECM does counter the ability to text to teammates, I suppose it does cancel radio, at least what the game has for radio.

They shouldn't really do that, since it isn't going to stop people(and me) from using voice chat to work around it.

[AlexWildeagle]

If you just want a yes or no

YES

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

ICEFANG13, on 17 December 2012 - 06:32 PM, said:

Well, although I am in the ECM is OP crowd, since ECM does counter the ability to text to teammates, I suppose it does cancel radio, at least what the game has for radio.

Wait, what? You're joking, right?

[AlexWildeagle]

While it isn't perfect, things are a heck of a lot better then they were without it.

If you want it more like TT then LRM boats and streakcats must be made more like TT. Balance these mech loadouts FIRST, then we can talk about modifying ECM.

Krzysztof z Bagien, on 18 December 2012 - 04:25 AM, said:

Wait, what? You're joking, right?

Well since my last match we had 2 ECM units each performing different functions and we could all chat (via ingame window) to each other he is either trolling or clueless.