317 replies to this topic

[DocBach]

My deal with Pilot Modules is they cost millions of c-bills and about 1000 games worth of GXP to unlock - ECM is a hard piece of equipment, and needs other hard pieces of equipment to counter and be countered by.

[Koniving]

To
KuruptU4Fun


Beagles should:

DocBach, on 28 December 2012 - 12:00 PM, said:

-Identify ECM Ghost targets as being false targets
-Identify the boundaries of the ECM bubble if they encounter ECM within Beagle's 150m scan bubble
(Total Warfare, pg 134)
"Active probes cannot penetrate the ECM's area of effect. The probing unit would notice it is being jammed, however"

However, that doesn't state that BAP "can" sort it out. But since BAP can tell it is being jammed, it could be feasible that it would reduce the number of "ghost" targets being transmitted to allies. This way it does not negate the additional purpose that Tag receives through this.


----------
To

DocBach, on 31 December 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

Ghost signatures might not even have to be placed, it could be just random targets that pop up when the opponent is hitting R.

It could be like, "Target Alpha!"

"...which one??"

Random targets and ghost signatures would essentially be the same thing. In either case there would be more than one "Target Alpha" arranged in different patterns for each player so that unless one is tagged, or in your line of sight, you need to do some guess work.

I find that better than "OMG he's right there but he's invisible!" I get plenty of Schrodinger's 'Mech from the Raven 3-L.

Edited by Koniving, 31 December 2012 - 01:30 PM.

[ltwally]

DocBach, on 31 December 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:

My deal with Pilot Modules is they cost millions of c-bills and about 1000 games worth of GXP to unlock - ECM is a hard piece of equipment, and needs other hard pieces of equipment to counter and be countered by.

I'm not saying that the only solution to ECM ghosting should be a Pilot module. I'm saying it'd be cool if Beagle could do it, and there was also a Pilot Module.

To me, Pilot Modules are more about flavour than power. Like you said, they're expensive and time-consuming to achieve. And they mostly add little things -- but those little things help customize your play-style. Flavour.

*shrug* But that's my thinking. Maybe it's a terrible idea.

[ltwally]

Koniving, on 31 December 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

Beagles should:
... TT rules ...

In the case of ECM, I think TT is a pretty good place to be -- if Beagle & Narc were actually useful in this game, that is.

For the case of Beagle & Narc, I honestly do not feel that TT is quite good enough to justify their presence. Especially for the light mechs that are most likely to be carrying them.

Mind you, I'm not advocating they be super-duper-overpowered like ECM currently is. Their usefulness should be conditional, and now pure awesome (again, like ECM currently is). Just beefed up to the point that they start getting used -- to the point where you would likely see 1 of each in most games. If you started seeing more than 2 of each in games, regularly, it's probably become overpowered.

[Trauglodyte]

Unfortunately, as cool as "ghost units" might be, that would be a Hell of a coding project and even a bigger one to balance out. Making every unit Alpha would be cool but even that might be too much. It would be something to ponder. If nothing else, it would force people to shout out, "Target Atlas Alpha closest to..."

ECM is pretty much ok as it is. We just need to remove the sensor/lock-on functions and then we're ok. At that point, you remove the buffed range of TAG and you improve NARC to have a momentary non-los lock-on function that lasts until it is destroyed (25%?) or until the mech location is destroyed. THEN, you just need to buff BAP to be the appropriate scouting tool that it is designed to be. Add in the missing modules that Ohm data mined and we're fine.

ECM honesty was used as a stop gap against the proliferation of missiles. AMS wasn't enough and too many mechs were boating them. Streaks were 100x worse than normal LRMs and both of the missiles are doing too much damage compared to their TT values. So, instead of buffing AMS and nerfing missile damage (remember when everyone bitched when LRMs were dropped to 1.5?), they tossed in the lovely little sensor range nerf and anti-lock on nerf into ECM. If missiles were appropriately balanced, and that is definitely another target, and ECM just prevented Artemis, TAG, and NARC benefits plus slowed sensor information gathering and slowed lock on acquisition, would anyone be complaining? If we all had the ability have a Seismic Sensor add on so that you could hide behind a rock and "feel" mechs coming, would we be complaining about the supposed Null signature addition? Hell, for that matter, would every 8v8 match boil down to who's group of Atlai and Ravens was better than the other? No! Unfortunately, we are all the victim of our own craving to maximize everything. So, PGI took the fastest route to fix the problem instead of fixing the problem. Now, we still have OP Streaks that can turn 90s in 100th a second and Streak lock-ons that aren't broken by LOS (due to their addition to the LRM C3 system) and games where, if you don't have ECM or if the opponent has one more ECM then you do, you're hosed.

[KuruptU4Fun]

What I believe is that PGI should be looking to this category in Sarna to further IW:
http://www.sarna.net...gory:Technology

Things like the Remote Sensor and RS Dispenser. The Look-Down Radar; the Boomerang (spotter plane). These devices can counter things like ECM "ghosting".

[Trauglodyte]

KuruptU4Fun, on 31 December 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

What I believe is that PGI should be looking to this category in Sarna to further IW:
http://www.sarna.net...gory:Technology

Things like the Remote Sensor and RS Dispenser. The Look-Down Radar; the Boomerang (spotter plane). These devices can counter things like ECM "ghosting".

From Ohm's datamining of modules:

Vision - Vision mode disruptor, Vison Mode Enchancement
Sensor - Hide Damage, Instant Signal Loss, Oribtal Scan, Adv Sensor Range, Target Info Gathering, Seismic Sensor, Adv Seismic Sensor, Megnetometer
Support - Friendly Defense, Unit Vision Modes, Airstrike Accuracy, Artillery Accuracy, Control Link, Drone, Advanced Drone
Target - Multi Target, Multi Target Rank 2, Targeting Delay, Disrupt HUD, Disable Comms, Target Decay, Target Decay Rank 2, Control Link

The options are there and PGI has them on their board. Its just a matter of them adding them and when. I don't know if they're being delayed because they want to see how ECM plays out, because some of them are related to time line issues, if the coding is that horrible, etc. Like I said, if we had these and ECM was pulled back a bit, there would never have been any issues.

[DocBach]

Trauglodyte, on 31 December 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Unfortunately, as cool as "ghost units" might be, that would be a Hell of a coding project and even a bigger one to balance out. Making every unit Alpha would be cool but even that might be too much. It would be something to ponder. If nothing else, it would force people to shout out, "Target Atlas Alpha closest to..."

Ghost targets could be as simple as when you are cycling through targets you get some that have no target information, ever - because they don't exist. Just a bit of extra targets you need to filter through to get to the real ones.

This would make getting targets to lock on with for LRMs and Streak missiles more difficult, but not downright impossible as it currently is. However, since the ECM has to switch modes to generate the ghost target, it leaves them vulnerable to advanced LRM guidance like Narc and Artemis, which balances it out a bit if the enemy manages to find them through the fake targets.

Edited by DocBach, 31 December 2012 - 02:10 PM.

[KuruptU4Fun]

DocBach, on 31 December 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

Ghost targets could be as simple as when you are cycling through targets you get some that have no target information, ever - because they don't exist. Just a bit of extra targets you need to filter through to get to the real ones.

This would make getting targets to lock on with for LRMs and Streak missiles more difficult, but not downright impossible as it currently is. However, since the ECM has to switch modes to generate the ghost target, it leaves them vulnerable to advanced LRM guidance like Narc and Artemis, which balances it out a bit if the enemy manages to find them through the fake targets.

In fact that would be the easiest way to do that. No need for them to even reflect on your mini-map either.

[ltwally]

Trauglodyte, on 31 December 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Unfortunately, as cool as "ghost units" might be, that would be a Hell of a coding project and even a bigger one to balance out. Making every unit Alpha would be cool but even that might be too much. It would be something to ponder. If nothing else, it would force people to shout out, "Target Atlas Alpha closest to..."

I don't see why it would be so difficult to code, though I would agree that they have plenty other things that should have priority over this.

Quote

ECM is pretty much ok as it is.

I suppose that depends on your definition of what "pretty much ok" is...

Quote

We just need to remove the sensor/lock-on functions and then we're ok.

Turns out your feel for what needs changed is pretty much the same as those of that say ECM is pretty much broken.

Whatever.. as long as it gets fixed.

Quote

At that point, you remove the buffed range of TAG and you improve NARC to have a momentary non-los lock-on function that lasts until it is destroyed (25%?) or until the mech location is destroyed. THEN, you just need to buff BAP to be the appropriate scouting tool that it is designed to be. Add in the missing modules that Ohm data mined and we're fine.

Sounds like a plan. Can we get PGI to hire you? Or at least listen to all of us saying the same thing? *sigh*

Quote

ECM honesty was used as a stop gap against the proliferation of missiles. AMS wasn't enough and too many mechs were boating them. Streaks were 100x worse than normal LRMs and both of the missiles are doing too much damage compared to their TT values. So, instead of buffing AMS and nerfing missile damage (remember when everyone bitched when LRMs were dropped to 1.5?), they tossed in the lovely little sensor range nerf and anti-lock on nerf into ECM. If missiles were appropriately balanced, and that is definitely another target, and ECM just prevented Artemis, TAG, and NARC benefits plus slowed sensor information gathering and slowed lock on acquisition, would anyone be complaining? If we all had the ability have a Seismic Sensor add on so that you could hide behind a rock and "feel" mechs coming, would we be complaining about the supposed Null signature addition? Hell, for that matter, would every 8v8 match boil down to who's group of Atlai and Ravens was better than the other? No! Unfortunately, we are all the victim of our own craving to maximize everything. So, PGI took the fastest route to fix the problem instead of fixing the problem. Now, we still have OP Streaks that can turn 90s in 100th a second and Streak lock-ons that aren't broken by LOS (due to their addition to the LRM C3 system) and games where, if you don't have ECM or if the opponent has one more ECM then you do, you're hosed.

I never had much problem with LRMs to be honest. Between AMS and simply hiding behind objects... But that's me.

However, I also have little problem with nerfing the damage factor on LRM -- as long as LRM allows a mech to sit back safely while spotters provide targeting data, I have no problem with LRM not being exceptional.

As far as AMS goes... I honestly think it's just fine. I takes care of a goodly number of incoming LRMs. The smaller the number, the better it does. When there is a massive swarm, it gets overloaded. I actually like that. It feels good and balanced to me.

As to S-SRM, I feel SRM / S-SRM damage was at a good place. I do not like straight SRM due to their horrid spread beyond point-blank. In my experience, S-SRM's only become problematic when you're facing more than 4 or 6 tubes. In-other-words: StreakCats. Personally, I advocate a diminishing return on S-SRM to balance that out: as you add more and more S-SRM launchers it becomes progressively less good. That also should not be super difficult to code. Balancing it out would take some trial and error... but when you're done, you've got a system in place that's ready to handl S-SRM-4 and S-SRM-6.

Just my 2-cents.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Trauglodyte, on 31 December 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

From Ohm's datamining of modules:

Vision - Vision mode disruptor, Vison Mode Enchancement
Sensor - Hide Damage, Instant Signal Loss, Oribtal Scan, Adv Sensor Range, Target Info Gathering, Seismic Sensor, Adv Seismic Sensor, Megnetometer
Support - Friendly Defense, Unit Vision Modes, Airstrike Accuracy, Artillery Accuracy, Control Link, Drone, Advanced Drone
Target - Multi Target, Multi Target Rank 2, Targeting Delay, Disrupt HUD, Disable Comms, Target Decay, Target Decay Rank 2, Control Link

The options are there and PGI has them on their board. Its just a matter of them adding them and when. I don't know if they're being delayed because they want to see how ECM plays out, because some of them are related to time line issues, if the coding is that horrible, etc. Like I said, if we had these and ECM was pulled back a bit, there would never have been any issues.

@Traug a lot of those reflect the things I'm finding on Sarna. So yes we simply need to wait to see how things play out.

[KuruptU4Fun]

The only hard path I feel ECM needs to be reigned in against immediately is it being able to counter SSRM's. But something does need to be able to counter them, a FLAK or CHAFF module maybe.

[DocBach]

If anybody remembers the Wolcott missions from Mechwarrior 2 Mercs abd the ECM pods that were everywhere that you hasd to cycle through to find actual targets, thats sort of how I imagine ghost target mode functioning.

[Kai Lae]

DocBach, on 31 December 2012 - 02:08 PM, said:

Ghost targets could be as simple as when you are cycling through targets you get some that have no target information, ever - because they don't exist. Just a bit of extra targets you need to filter through to get to the real ones.

Personally I'd rather see for each mech with ECM set to ghost target, you get 1 random target appearing on enemy sensors. What would happen is that a target with a random letter would appear and last for like 30 seconds, fade out, and be replaced by another one in another location for another 30 seconds.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Kai Lae, on 31 December 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Personally I'd rather see for each mech with ECM set to ghost target, you get 1 random target appearing on enemy sensors. What would happen is that a target with a random letter would appear and last for like 30 seconds, fade out, and be replaced by another one in another location for another 30 seconds.

so kinda like the hopes of the fat guy at a speed dating event?

[DocBach]

Kai Lae, on 31 December 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Personally I'd rather see for each mech with ECM set to ghost target, you get 1 random target appearing on enemy sensors. What would happen is that a target with a random letter would appear and last for like 30 seconds, fade out, and be replaced by another one in another location for another 30 seconds.

I like that idea, where a ghost target presents itself on your sensors, so if your savvy and pay attention you can tell "hey, there's no way that radar signature could be real because nobody has LOS on that location" you can disregard, but I think the ghost target projecting several at one time would make it more useful, especially at confusing LRM/Streak locks, because you have to go through them to find the target you actually want. It would be a soft deterrent against missiles like PGI wants, but to use it you would have to surrender your immunity against Narc and Artemis, so if they do find you you'll be in for a world of hurt.

[Koniving]

Trauglodyte, on 31 December 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

(Good opinions. But on the following)
"Streaks were 100x worse than normal LRMs and both of the missiles are doing too much damage compared to their TT values."

Think I want to address that tidbit. Although it is true that LRMs, SRMs and Streak SRMs are doing more damage than their table top versions, they are "under powered" if you were to convert everything back to table top. From when you joined you probably do not know this. However it was decided very early in the closed beta (June was when I joined and evidently they were talking about this as if it already happened) that all mechs would have "double armor" implemented. It was decided because mechs died too quickly and it wasn't "fun." AC-20 was absolutely devastating. Gauss Rifles impossible to deal with. Lasers shredded mechs. Every weapon killed mechs within a few shots and armor was like paper.

So there was a buff to armor simply called "double armor." Mechs survived longer. It seemed great. But the long range missiles were pathetic after the double armor. You could stand there, show your enemies your gyro (moon them) and even dance in the missiles as they came down on you. Who cares? It was like a mech walked up to you with only 1 machine gun. You would hear things like "Pfft, what moron uses LRMs?" So it got buffed to 2. It was getting there but people still didn't take them seriously. It got buffed to 3.

Suddenly no one was laughing anymore.

Two Atlas mechs going solo against 8 mechs of a mixed set of chassis were able to shred all 8 players with two sets of LRM-20's each within the first 3 minutes of the match. (Disconnects were frequent due to some graphical changes and many of those joining the game had no "minimum system requirements" to base themselves on, so they would try to play on their little WoW laptops.) Having been one of those victims I, too, found myself guilty of a very angry letter to support. The only feedback letter to MWO that never received a reply I might add. Otherwise PGI's been great at rapidly responding to me.

LRM damage gradually phased back to 2 as the founder's program started. The LRM boating got popular with new players that couldn't think of anything better to do than use missiles. As the new players trickled in, the laughing stock weapon became a big hit. Then the forums flooded: "OMG it's so overpowered!"

The SRM also got a proportional buff at around the same time. Not sure what to as no one really used it. Around that time though I got my A-1 Catapult and tried LRM boating, then SRM boating. Combine deadly SRMs with jump jets and you have the epiphany of "win." The A1 cat started becoming popular. They were soon nerfed to the 2.5 damage per missile they are now. I -- as well as some others -- decided to try the Streaks which did not get the original buff. They were weaker, but not having to aim was proving useful. Locks lasted long enough to fire missiles while running away from enemies. They were weaker than SRMs but still useful due to the homing (they did 2.0 damage). Seemed great. People cried. Then PGI slapped everyone in the face saying "Streaks weren't doing their intended damage. We buffed them." Now they're doing 2.5 damage. Then everyone cried -- except the streak catapults who frolicked happily. Then PGI said "Streaks now hit 100%." ...some gamers just went missing altogether.

ECM was rushed out to quell the complaints about Streaks more so than LRMs with Artemis. It's half-baked. We know this.

But back to the point of this post. LRMs and Streaks are about or less-than-equal to a proportional table top value when you consider the "double" effectiveness of our armor. Although to make everything else about right, AC-20 would need to do 40 damage, Gauss would need to do 30 damage, etc., etc., etc. So in the end, table top isn't quite everything. Streaks wouldn't be that big of a threat if the AC-20 did the full damage of an AC-20 (since double armor effectively renders it to be an AC-10). But no one would be happy then. Brawls are more fun when they last a while.

---

It's not an easy coding project. But it would be easier than working a software rendering picture-in-picture into a game engine that was not designed to have picture-in-picture rendering. The real issue isn't necessarily coding the feature, but hack-proofing it server side. After all like anything else, if it were handled client-side, we could edit our files and bam, "what ghosts?"

The real "easy" way to do this is to remove the benefits of Artemis from LRMs against ECM-covered targets without removing the ability to lock onto them. Allow lock-ons on ECM targets and those that they protect. But otherwise keep all other functionality as is. But that would be too simple of a solution -- and a little too similar to the rule book. Plus it would negate a lot of the cool stuff they worked on for it.

The other easy way to solve it was in an earlier post of mine. Every ECM is on a high value mech, right? DDC Atlas with its 3 missile hardpoints. Commando with its 3 missile hardpoints. Raven 3-L with its 2 missile hardpoints.... Put it on the variants with the lowest strategic value. Commando 1-B with 3 laser 1 missile? It's the mech everyone hates since it requires skill and aiming. Give it ECM. See it get fielded. Raven 2x with the gimp arm, no jump jet, no ballistic, one missile? Bam, give it ECM. See people actually buy it and not be overpowered anymore since the mech itself is not a huge streak-totting threat. Same with the Atlas, put it on the lowest value one. It's just another simple way to solve our ECM woes.

However the easy ways to solve it are no fun. Besides I rather like the idea of ghost images. Coming up with it on my own, and then receiving a message from DocBach who said to bring the idea here -- and seeing that there actually is mention of ghost images in the rule book -- just makes me feel good. That and of course I like the flickery screen. Gimme that plus ghost images and at least I'll have a chance. The whole "I'm right in front of you and you can't relay anything to your friends" gimmick sucks.

It's like Ultra AC-5. I liked being able to manually unjam my weapon. I got pretty good at it. Automatic is great, but I could manually unjam one faster. Keep the automatic unjammer but allow for the manual option as well for emergencies.

Edited by Koniving, 01 January 2013 - 01:04 AM.

[HC Harlequin]

http://mwomercs.com/...cm/page__st__40

[ltwally]

@Koniving: That was a pretty good post, and a good read for those of us that weren't there for all of that.

I also appreciate fresh ideas on the situation, though I may not agree with yours specifically.

Personally, I think ECM should be rolled back to TT, while Beagle & Narc should see boosts. If ECM is not valuable enough after that, then give ECM a minor buff, rinse and repeat until there is balance. I also think ECM, as a defensive system, should be available to all. Beagle, as a scout tool, should be reserved for light mechs and Cicada.

But that's me. Either way, it's good to see fresh ideas and good feedback. Thanks.

Edited by ltwally, 01 January 2013 - 07:53 AM.

[Teralitha]

Devs.... save yourself from this coding nightmare, and just implement ECM and BAP the same way MW4 did... Hey its even open source... just go in and use copy/paste the lines of code...

Edited by Teralitha, 01 January 2013 - 08:21 AM.