1017 replies to this topic

[Jungle Rhino]

It is really very simple to determine whether ECM is overpowered or not.

If ALL mechs in the game could fit ECM would they?

[Roadkill]

Jungle Rhino, on 13 January 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

It is really very simple to determine whether ECM is overpowered or not.

If ALL mechs in the game could fit ECM would they?

Yes. Absolutely. 100%. I would not drop in a mission without ECM equipped if it were available on every Mech.

The corollary: Ignoring the use of Trial Mechs, how often do people currently use ECM-capable Mechs without equipping it? My guess would be far less than 10% of the time. I would not be a bit surprised if it were less than 1%, and that those instances were new players who were unaware of what it is and what it does.

My own personal experience, which is essentially worthless as evidence because it's just one anecdote, is that I have seen exactly one ECM-capable Mech that wasn't using ECM. It was a Commando, and it confused me so badly that I thought I was mis-remembering which Commando can use ECM. Since ECM's introduction, I have never seen a Raven 3L, a Cicada 3M, or an Atlas D-DC that wasn't equipped with ECM.

[Kmieciu]

Jungle Rhino, on 13 January 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

It is really very simple to determine whether ECM is overpowered or not.

If ALL mechs in the game could fit ECM would they?

When I play on a 4-man team our strategy is to achieve ECM superiority on the battlefield, and then spam the enemy with LRMs

[Asha Catari]

From my observance: If they have no ecm on their team many players will just disconnect at the start of the match.

I was wondering why I had so many disconnects on my team (I only PUG and was piloting dragons and hunchbacks at that time) right at match start. In another now-closed thread somebody stated this happened because people see no sense in playing without ecm. So I have been piloting my ecm raven from there on and saw an immediate and reliable drop in disconnects from 70 % to 10 %.

StalaggtIKE, on 08 January 2013 - 05:49 AM, said:

Every game has divulged into this. At the start of the match everyone is looking around for an ECM ally. Once they find him, they clump around him and follows were ever he goes. Sometimes into certain doom.

And if they do not find an ecm on their team they just disconnect it seems.

[Doktor Totenkopf]

Tolkien, on 12 January 2013 - 05:43 AM, said:

snip

Personally I just want some raw match data released to the community so we can pick it apart with a fine toothed comb and see if the fellow who made offered up data showing machine guns decide match was actually blowing smoke

This in my book would be the only possible solution. Even if you, I or anyone else plays 1000 matches these numbers must pale in comparision to the actual number of played games. I wish you all the luck in your campaign.

[Schranz]

Asapiophobe Vortex, on 19 December 2012 - 02:51 AM, said:

They could take ECM out...

Or you could learn to aim with something that doesn't lock on your target automatically...

/Trollface

Well if my lasers actually hit what i was aiming for, or my srm's would fire when i press the button and not half a minute later,.. maybe it would be more fun.

I think a lot of people prefer direct fire as it gives that "boom headshot" feeling but if i look at my own playstyle now, the only reason i was boating ssrm's is because i got sick of lights circle-lolling around me with a major lagshield that made me target air as if i was in a spaceshooter...

And still for 1.5 tons you get all those functions, **** i think even the radar scramble/stealth for the whole team is a bit much if i have to choose between my team getting an extra gauss or ac20 or a little "iwin" box i take the ecm,..

If that is how they are planning this game, plz give my cat an AMS that can counter balistics and lasers too,..

o and under two tons with unlimited ammo

[kapinga]

ECM or NO ECM what just happened???ok so im standing in upper river city behind one of them walls with the screen tring to lrm my enemy , and then i hear cannon fire to my left rear no message thwt base is being capped. i turn around and there are 3 heavys with ecm coverage on my base shooting my mates. so i move a little from behind the screen to my left rear and then they appear on my radar what the F %%%K
DEVS., you guys are seriously overpaied for what you do. at least give everyone ecm or make it so it wont work close in i.e. from behind a wall you can see you enemy by sight but not on you screen less than 10 meters away .PLEASE. you devs have this game way out of wack. get it together or i wont play as much and will probably give up on you guys for ever doing the right thing.and then will go back to my other game even if it is boring at least its right no one sided bs. THINK ABOUT IT DUDES!

[ICEFANG13]

kapinga, on 14 January 2013 - 08:38 AM, said:

ECM or NO ECM what just happened???ok so im standing in upper river city behind one of them walls with the screen tring to lrm my enemy , and then i hear cannon fire to my left rear no message thwt base is being capped. i turn around and there are 3 heavys with ecm coverage on my base shooting my mates. so i move a little from behind the screen to my left rear and then they appear on my radar what the F %%%K
DEVS., you guys are seriously overpaied for what you do. at least give everyone ecm or make it so it wont work close in i.e. from behind a wall you can see you enemy by sight but not on you screen less than 10 meters away .PLEASE. you devs have this game way out of wack. get it together or i wont play as much and will probably give up on you guys for ever doing the right thing.and then will go back to my other game even if it is boring at least its right no one sided bs. THINK ABOUT IT DUDES!

Sweet, that sounds like the game we played against each other, my team is not holding back anymore, we are sick of ECM and we are abusing it like crazy, you should too, apparently that's all they care about.

[RowanE83]

How about we just give ECM a uptime & cooldown. The effect is too strong for too little effort. Applying a cooldown means a team needs to monior and earn their ongoing coverage.

[TehCable]

After having a few weeks to adjust my play style to ECM, I'd like to update my complaint. Now that I've moved to only using direct fire weapons, the lock-breaking is not my biggest complaint anymore. I'm back to racking up big damage and XP numbers in most matches now, so my ECM gripes are less about being butt-hurt.

Now my problem with ECM boils down to one simple complaint:

ECM makes teamwork much, much more difficult.

And that is a serious problem for the general level of fun. This is a team game. Co-operation is critical.

It was bad enough that Piranha completely failed to integrate voice chat by not providing a way to find a group of players that are actually using C3.

It is bad enough that the friends list and group interfaces barely work and are completely unusable for anything other than putting together a group that has already been formed through third party software like Teamspeak.

It is bad enough third party software is the only way to co-ordinate targets with your team during a fight.

On top of these major barriers to teamwork, they decided to add ECM.

You used to be able to get some loose team co-ordination going with pugs via text chat. Not anymore. Not if the other team has ECM. As soon as the fighting starts, nobody seems to know where friend nor foe is. Uh oh, this brawl isn't going my way, it sure would be nice to know which direction friendlies are so I can regroup... nope, just screwed. Well that wasn't fun.

Now let's get on teamspeak and find some randos with mics. Maybe now we'll be able to co-ordinate. Too bad 80% of players on teamspeak still can't use the grid system to relay location information. I've been begging for help with Raven Alpha in Echo Six for 2 full minutes, but none of the 3 people that can hear me see anything on their mini-map over there, so they can't seem prioritize what they hear over what they see. It also seems to be the case that nobody can tell me their grid location no matter how many times in a row I ask. Stop saying you need help with Foxtrot and tell me where on the map he is. I can't see Foxtrot because he's a full 200m away from me. I would love to help you, bro, but the game trained you to talk a certain way, then suddenly made that lingo completely irrelevant. Don't even get me started on focus fire. If the other team has 2-3 ECM units, focus fire is dead (unless you're playing with really, really good communicators).

Okay, so much for playing with randos. Now I need to wait around on teamspeak for an extra 10 minutes to find players I recognize as competent. And that's just to make 4 man remotely enjoyable. I've still got 4 pugs to deal with, and the best I can do to accomplish something resembling teamwork with the pugs is type a general strategy and then follow the pugs around the map when they ignore what I wrote. If we lose visual on each other, we might get split for the rest of the match. I'd love to try out some creative tactics, maybe attack from an unusual angle, or, god forbid, call a retreat when an all out brawl is going poorly. But if I try to do any of that, I'm basically just abandoning the pugs because those poor ******** can't fight and read at the same time.

Okay, well, damn, I guess I need to get an 8 man group together if I want to do anything remotely interesting. But wait, 8 man teams are averaging more than 4 ECM mechs. Now NOBODY knows what the hell is going on. I played with one named group (which for this discussion will remain un-named) that refused to admit that 8 man was all about ECM. I tried to convince them we needed more ECM, but their counter-argument was that they could take any ECM mech in a 1 on 1 brawl. Yeah, let's see how that works out for us. We spend the whole time completely unco-ordinated. We start out grouped together pretty well, but as soon as ECM takes out our mini-map, we're chasing targets in different directions, then getting in trouble and not being able to find help.

Alright, let's get serious. Clearly, what I need is a truly organized team if I'm going to be able to execute any real strategy. Alright, let's spend weeks building up a clan full of great players that have been playing since closed beta and all have ECM mechs. We'll build a solid group, and be able to see the map and make interesting maneuvers together. This is going to be fun! Oh wait, we have a mostly homogenous group because we only had 4 viable variants to choose from, and we only really like 2 of them. We have 6 Atlases and 2 Ravens, and we win every match without even trying. The only thing less fun than this is being in an 8 man group and running into this.



In summary, before ECM, I enjoyed taking command. Whether on teamspeak or just using text chat, I could co-ordinate interesting strategies that most players hadn't seen before (on 2 different maps, E6 is my favorite rally point). I could scout ahead without completely losing track of the rest of the team. I could ask for help and get it. I could save somebody's *** when they needed it. I could out flank other pre-mades. That **** was all FUN.

Now if I take command of a group, I can't do anything creative without an 80% chance of getting half my team killed.

ECM has ruined this game.

Your move, Piranha.

Edited by TehCable, 14 January 2013 - 01:18 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

<snip>

I agree wholeheartedly. This implementation of ECM really screws up Information Warfare and scouting (the truly stand-out great features of this game), and removes the enjoyment from PUG dropping.

I remember facing 8-man premades with PUGs with no weight class limits - it was damn hard, doable but unlikely. 4-man premades vs. PUGs with weight matching was a pretty enjoyable interim step (from either side), and evened the field quite a bit. But trying to counter any organized team with ECM is bordering on the impossible with a PUG drop. I can mostly handle it in a four-man, where voice-coms make up the difference, but in a PUG... it was always bad when half your team wandered off and died silently, now they just disappear once a Raven or D-DC comes by, and you have no idea what the enemy numbers are or where. Even if you turtle you can't dispatch a scout for info unless it's carrying an ECM.

ECM has really taken a lot of tactics and fun out of the game.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

RowanE83, on 14 January 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

How about we just give ECM a uptime & cooldown. The effect is too strong for too little effort. Applying a cooldown means a team needs to monior and earn their ongoing coverage.

PGI has brought a finished product (ECM) to an unfinished game. I think the only solution is to roll back ECM until balance has been restored. The force is definitely too strong with this one! A million voices cried out to me and were suddenly silenced. Does this sound familiar?

[Solis Obscuri]

Brown Hornet, on 14 January 2013 - 08:40 PM, said:

A million voices cried out to me and were suddenly silenced. Does this sound familiar?

I used to play PotBS.

[Dawnthieve]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

*snip*
Now if I take command of a group, I can't do anything creative without an 80% chance of getting half my team killed.

ECM has ruined this game.
*snip*

Thanks for the effort of voicing my thoughts on the information-warfare-based effects of ECM. Though you scare me a little with your mind-reading skills.

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

Your move, Piranha.

Edited by Dawnthieve, 15 January 2013 - 10:52 AM.

[Ransack]

Quote

We have added a few new Modules to boost your Target information that I am sure will be popular, Target Decay Rank 1 and 2, as well as Sensor Range Rank 2. A must for those LRM boats still feeling the pain from ECM.

Thanks PGI, my boycott continues. How much am I expected to buy and slot to counter this nonsense.

Edited by Ransack, 15 January 2013 - 11:25 AM.

[TehCable]

Please vote in the poll on this topic in Suggestions:

http://mwomercs.com/...-communication/

[RANSARI]

My buddy started running tests today and I'm sorry to say: It's TRUE. ECM increases your odds of winning exponentially!

[Thomas Covenant]

There needs to be a non-passive, non direct-line-of-sight counter, to ECM. (because light mechs are fast)

Its kinda like Pokemon. ECM is grass type. Light mechs are water type. Direct line of sight weapons are fire type.

You put ECM and Light mechs together, tag lasers, ppcs, and lasers may be a good counter, but the light mech aspect neutralizes the advantage.

C'mon we learned game balance when we were 8.

*Disclaimer: technically psychic type were broken op in gen 1, so maybe pgi is in gen 1 of MWO too.

Edited by Thomas Covenant, 05 February 2013 - 05:08 PM.