39 replies to this topic

[ObsidianSpectre]

I don’t think I need to convince most people that ECM is overpowered. One light heatless module that hard-counters so many other modules and has many effects that can only be countered by itself, yadda yadda yadda.

PGI has also stated before that they had a problem with missile boating’s impact on balance, but not individual missile modules. I think this is the reason they’ve been dragging their heels on addressing ECM. I’ll also admit that without ECM, missile boating would probably be the most OP thing in the game. So here’s a suggestion to fix both ECM and missile boating. My suggestion is not perfectly lore friendly, but gameplay > lore.

Roll ECM balancing suggestion #323567:

1) Split the current ECM into separate modules for their effects.

- Guardian ECM: Slows missile lock time. I’m thinking 3x for the mech it’s on, and 2x for nearby friendly mechs.

- Shroud ECM: This is where the hiding effect goes. Reduces detection range on enemies on bearing and nearby friendly mechs by 75%. I think this is a bit much, but it’s the current value and it can be tweaked later if that’s true.

- Disruption ECM: This is where the close range disrupt effect goes. Any enemies in the area of effect lose targeting & HUD information from their allies, and their allies lose information from them. Instead of preventing missile locks though, this would prevent receiving detailed targeting information – enemies can’t see what weapons you and your allies are carrying, or which parts of the armor are weakest.

- ECCM: This is where the counter effect goes. Shuts down any ECM or ECCM effects from the targeted mech. Does nothing else on its own.

2) Create an Information Warfare hardpoint, similar to AMS hardpoint, where ECM/ECCM modules can be placed. Later on, things like Recon drones could also go here. I'd also suggest things like the Beagle Active Probe go into this slot (and maybe buff it a bit to bring it in line with the other information warfare modules listed).

3) Allow many more mechs, possibly most or all to have 1 Infowar slot. Certain mechs which are supposed to be dedicated electronic warfare platforms (I’m thinking of the Raven) can have more than 1 slot.

4) For missiles, require a separate lock-on for each missile system you want to fire. You will continue to acquire locks until you have one for each missile system you carry, but can only fire as many missile systems as you have locks off cooldown. Locks don’t need to be tied to a specific missile system until fire-time, to prevent added complexity if you carry multiple types of systems. You don't lose the lock when you fire, that lock will just go on cooldown for as long as the missile system that used it does. If you’ve ever played the Armored Core series, this is how locks work in that game. This isn’t perfectly realistic, but gameplay > realism.

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I think that will bring both ECM and Missile boats down to a better place in game balance. I don’t believe there’s too much dev work to do here, since presumably most of these functions are already written. I expect the missile lock change to be the most dev-expensive.

---------

Expected Effects:

- This nerfs missile boating without nerfing single missile systems, or rendering missile boats completely unviable. You can still run an A1 with 6x streaks, but it’s going to be a lot harder to get them all on cooldown at once, especially against lights. This nerfs missile boating proportionally to how many missile systems you carry and expect to fire at once.

- A player’s weapon modules are never rendered completely useless by ECM. There’s nothing in the ECM modules I listed that completely shuts down locks, so the situation where one or many mechs can be rendered completely useless just by an ECM mech being nearby won’t happen anymore. They might have a much harder time with their missiles, but they won’t be completely useless.

- Increases mech build diversity. The builds that were invalidated by ECM will become viable again, although not as powerful as they were. Builds that have arisen since ECM will also not become unviable. Allowing many more mechs to carry ECM means that 8-man team builds won’t need be based around incorporating or countering Raven 3Ls and DDCs.

- Increases 8-man team build diversity. Along with allowing more mechs to be viable, there’s more strategy involved in coordinating ECM choices amongst 8-man teams and figuring out how that affects overall strategy and tactics.

- Increases tactical depth and role warfare. Because each of the ECM modules has a single specific job instead of the current situation where one module does it all, there’s more room for tactical maneuvering and decision making to maximize your electronic warfare capabilities while minimizing the enemy’s.

- Decreases chance of PUG team imbalances. Right now, sometimes one PUG group will drop with 6 ECMs, and the other will drop with 0 and multiple missile boats. This isn’t a very fair match. Under this proposal, this kind of imbalance won’t occur nearly so often as it’s much more likely that any given PUG team will have at least some ECM effects on their side since most mechs can carry it, and even if they’re not matched, it won’t ever completely shut down half the team. Allowing every or most mechs to carry at least one module would mean that you can at least get the ECM effect that’s important to you on your own mech.

- Provides developers a lever to balance missile boating. Even if missile boating aren’t perfectly balanced right after implementation, this should give developers an easy way to adjust the balance by tweaking lock-on times. If they need to add an extra half of a second lock-time, it isn’t going to matter much to someone with only one missile system, but it will seriously hurt the A1 streakapult.

- Provides more room for future development. I could easily come up with another half dozen electronic warfare modules to stick into information warfare hardpoints, and I imagine the devs could too. This also creates some more room for pilot tree modules.

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While this might not wind up being perfectly balanced, I think this will be much better than the current situation, and balance should be achievable from there just by tweaking values in a database.

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Tl;dr: Split up the ECM module into separate components, allow ECM on more mechs, and require separate locks for each missile system a player wants to fire.

edit: Adding poll, removing PPC portion. Sorry, can't add public poll to existing topic, and apparently editing causes a bump, so I don't want to recreate it now.

Edited by ObsidianSpectre, 06 March 2013 - 05:48 PM.

[Obikirk]

A good idea and a well written post! Do you think there should be a limit on the number of modules an ecm mech can carry, or could they just be of sufficent size/weight that youd have to make sacrifices to carry all 4? Im not sure suggestion 4 could work with the current lrm mechanics (i.e. you can fire them without a lock) but I think it could be a step in the right direction. Also thinking in terms of lrm defense, Isnt guardian pointless if you have shroud? I suppose it would give you protection from spotters...

[ObsidianSpectre]

My opinion is that most mechs should be limited to only 1 module, with maybe some exceptions.

On guardian vs. shroud, they do protect better against different things. The shroud would protect better against LRMs, assuming you can avoid getting tagged and stay far enough away from any enemies to get targeted, or if any spotters get close you have a friend that can disrupt them for you. The guardian would be better against streaks, especially for lights, and would buy you time when doing things like moving between cover. I think they both support different play styles.

The point about dumbfiring LRMs is a good one, and one I didn't think of when typing that thing up. It could be solved by dumbfiring when you try to fire without any locks off cooldown, or just by adding a toggle. In the scheme I proposed, the ECM toggle isn't needed anymore, so that could be hijacked for this purpose.

[WiCkEd]

Seems like the goal is accomplished simply by disallowing ECM to prevent weapons lock. The time stack for missile modules seems like a great system but I'm not sure why they only attain lock in sequence. In it's current state it does make sense that all of your weapons receive their targeting date from your HUD, so I've gotta ask for what reason would multiple weapon system only be allowed your targeting data on a 1-at-a-time basis. Perhaps just increasing the lock time to reflect the number and type of missile tubes being fired to a proportionate number would satisfy the balance with a more "makes sense" solution. I.E. 4 LRM-5's have the same lock-time as 2 LRM-20's; however that lock time is double that of a single LRM-20 system. Fiddling with the lock-on time requirement based on number of missiles requiring guidance makes sense, but having each system locking in sequence seems a bit odd and unexplainable. ECM/ECCM as multiple modules seems a bit excessive. Forcing to declare pre-battle whether you're in Disrupt or Counter mode would satisfy the balance pending that the former changes to lock-on required weapon systems is implemented as well. Would this satisfy the issue with a simpler and slightly more canonical solution?

[ObsidianSpectre]

WiCkEd, on 01 January 2013 - 04:47 AM, said:

Seems like the goal is accomplished simply by disallowing ECM to prevent weapons lock. The time stack for missile modules seems like a great system but I'm not sure why they only attain lock in sequence. In it's current state it does make sense that all of your weapons receive their targeting date from your HUD, so I've gotta ask for what reason would multiple weapon system only be allowed your targeting data on a 1-at-a-time basis. Perhaps just increasing the lock time to reflect the number and type of missile tubes being fired to a proportionate number would satisfy the balance with a more "makes sense" solution. I.E. 4 LRM-5's have the same lock-time as 2 LRM-20's; however that lock time is double that of a single LRM-20 system. Fiddling with the lock-on time requirement based on number of missiles requiring guidance makes sense, but having each system locking in sequence seems a bit odd and unexplainable. ECM/ECCM as multiple modules seems a bit excessive. Forcing to declare pre-battle whether you're in Disrupt or Counter mode would satisfy the balance pending that the former changes to lock-on required weapon systems is implemented as well. Would this satisfy the issue with a simpler and slightly more canonical solution?

I think that having indvidual locks would lead to a better gameplay experience - it's easier to reduce an enemy mech's effectiveness, but more difficult to shut it down completely. For similar reasons, it'd probably also be easier to balance correctly. I also think it'd add a bit more tactical depth to the game ("do I fire this one LRM15 now, or do I wait until I can fire all of them?"). The canoncal arguments don't bear much weight with me, but PGI could just claim that proper fire control systems are lostech. All that said however, your idea of scaling lock times with missile systems sounds easier to implement and would probably be good enough.

On ECM, I think it really does need to be broken up. Declaring pre-battle whether you're in disrupt or counter mode is essentially doing the same thing anyways, and it's been pointed out that current ECM is already non-canonical. Breaking it up makes everything easier to balance, easier to tell where the balance problems are, and adds tactical and strategic depth to the game. I'd also be excited about the future development opportunities it'd provide - once it's broken up and more/all mechs can carry it, there's no reason not to keep adding more information warfare functions as dev time allows. I'm going to be disappointed if whatever solution PGI goes with for ECM doesn't involve breaking it up into multiple modules.

Edited by ObsidianSpectre, 01 January 2013 - 05:16 AM.

[WiCkEd]

You're probably in for some disappointment.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Yeah, probably.

[Kobura]

Wow this is great!

Means we'll never see it...

[ObsidianSpectre]

I'm not even going to try to disguise it. Shameless bump is shameless.

[StalaggtIKE]

This is a nice idea, though a bit lengthy and creates a lot of new techs, to solve a few problems. I rather go the route of simplicity. This would hopefully mean we get a fix sooner than later.

Simply have ECM and missiles closer resemble TT rules. ECM was never meant to be an all encompassing anti-everything, thus its light weight and critical slots. In BT lore, it was simply there to remove the advantages provided by electronic warfare devices such as BAP, Artemis, NARC and C3. It's weakness being its small range of 180m. It did not provide any stealth; that is for later tech such as Stealth armor and Null Signature System. All of which are heavier and caused heat, while activated. For ECM I propose the following change:

• Remove the stealth bubble; add stealth armor and null signature!

It will continue to do the following:

• Disable enemy bonuses from BAP, Artemis and NARC to all allies within 180m ECM bubble.
  
• Disable enemy's targeting data, lock-on and location of his allies within 180m ECM bubble.
  
• Distort enemy's minimap causing a low signal within 180m ECM bubble

One of the things that MWO's version of ECM has done is eliminate missile spam, more specifically LRM and SSRM. It has worked as a band-aid. These are issues that should also be addressed. I propose the following changes:

• LRM - no lock-ons without LOS or painted target from NARC/TAG (which will work without los). Of course ECM will continue to remove the target sharing benefits of NARC or TAG within bubble.
  
• SSRM - each tubing must require a lock-on in between each shot/volley. So you can no longer continue with a chained barrage of missiles if target escapes your targeting retical.

Source: Guardian ECM Suite, Stealth Armor, Null Signature

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 02 January 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[Vincent Lynch]

The ECM split is an excellent idea! Also, the "infowarfare hardpoint".

I don't think that streakcats need a nerf though. As I have pointed out in several threads before, they do so much less DPS than most other A1 builds even without increased lock time. Because of that, I did not even make my A1 a pure streakcat before ECM. Also, on very short distances, most lights are already able to outrun SSRMs by circling. Just SSRMs should spread more.

Please also note, that the original poster's solution for longer locking times would not even work, as everyone would just chainfire. Because then you would technically fire always only one launcher at once.

[topgun505]

Something far simpler. Make ECM and locking weapons (i.e. LRMs and SSRM systems) mutually exclusive equipment. So ... if you have ECM, you can't mount any streaks, etc.

Makes sense in the respect of the ECM as portrayed is blanket jamming all possible frequencies ... so it stands to reason it would screw with your own electronic systems that require a lock on a target as well.

Although ... I'm not against the idea of splitting the ECM into separate modules as well.

[StalaggtIKE]

topgun505, on 02 January 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

Makes sense in the respect of the ECM as portrayed is blanket jamming all possible frequencies ... so it stands to reason it would screw with your own electronic systems that require a lock on a target as well.

Realistically one would know what frequencies they're jamming, thus use the unjammed frequency.

[Kittamaru]

Why not simply make it that, instead of needing a separate lock per missile system, you have a cooldown per tube? So, for example, if I run an Atlas with 2x LRM 20's, but only have 5 missile tubes on the actual mech, it will fire five missiles, run the cooldown, fire five more, run the cooldown, fire five more, run the cooldown, then fire the final five, and the weapon itself will cool down. Maybe make the tube have a cooldown of half the weapons RoF even?

[Skyfaller]

ObsidianSpectre, on 01 January 2013 - 03:15 AM, said:

I don’t think I need to convince most people that ECM is overpowered. One light heatless module that hard-counters so many other modules and has many effects that can only be countered by itself, yadda yadda yadda.

PGI has also stated before that they had a problem with missile boating’s impact on balance, but not individual missile modules. I think this is the reason they’ve been dragging their heels on addressing ECM. I’ll also admit that without ECM, missile boating would probably be the most OP thing in the game. So here’s a suggestion to fix both ECM and missile boating. My suggestion is not perfectly lore friendly, but gameplay > lore.

Roll ECM balancing suggestion #323567:

1) Split the current ECM into separate modules for their effects.

- Guardian ECM: Slows missile lock time. I’m thinking 3x for the mech it’s on, and 2x for nearby friendly mechs.

- Shroud ECM: This is where the hiding effect goes. Reduces detection range on enemies on bearing and nearby friendly mechs by 75%. I think this is a bit much, but it’s the current value and it can be tweaked later if that’s true.

- Disruption ECM: This is where the close range disrupt effect goes. Any enemies in the area of effect lose targeting & HUD information from their allies, and their allies lose information from them. Instead of preventing missile locks though, this would prevent receiving detailed targeting information – enemies can’t see what weapons you and your allies are carrying, or which parts of the armor are weakest.

- ECCM: This is where the counter effect goes. Shuts down any ECM or ECCM effects from the targeted mech. Does nothing else on its own.

2) Create an Information Warfare hardpoint, similar to AMS hardpoint, where ECM/ECCM modules can be placed. Later on, things like Recon drones could also go here. I'd also suggest things like the Beagle Active Probe go into this slot (and maybe buff it a bit to bring it in line with the other information warfare modules listed).

3) Allow many more mechs, possibly most or all to have 1 ECM slot. Certain mechs which are supposed to be dedicated electronic warfare platforms (I’m thinking of the Raven) can have more than 1 slot.

4) For missiles, require a separate lock-on for each missile system you want to fire. You will continue to acquire locks until you have one for each missile system you carry, but can only fire as many missile systems as you have locks off cooldown. Locks don’t need to be tied to a specific missile system until fire-time, to prevent added complexity if you carry multiple types of systems. You don't lose the lock when you fire, that lock will just go on cooldown for as long as the missile system that used it does. If you’ve ever played the Armored Core series, this is how locks work in that game. This isn’t perfectly realistic, but gameplay > realism.

---------

I think that will bring both ECM and Missile boats down to a better place in game balance. I don’t believe there’s too much dev work to do here, since presumably most of these functions are already written. I expect the missile lock change to be the most dev-expensive.

---------

Expected Effects:

- This nerfs missile boating without nerfing single missile systems, or rendering missile boats completely unviable. You can still run an A1 with 6x streaks, but it’s going to be a lot harder to get them all on cooldown at once, especially against lights. This nerfs missile boating proportionally to how many missile systems you carry and expect to fire at once.

- A player’s weapon modules are never rendered completely useless by ECM. There’s nothing in the ECM modules I listed that completely shuts down locks, so the situation where one or many mechs can be rendered completely useless just by an ECM mech being nearby won’t happen anymore. They might have a much harder time with their missiles, but they won’t be completely useless.

- Increases mech build diversity. The builds that were invalidated by ECM will become viable again, although not as powerful as they were. Builds that have arisen since ECM will also not become unviable. Allowing many more mechs to carry ECM means that 8-man team builds won’t need be based around incorporating or countering Raven 3Ls and DDCs.

- Increases 8-man team build diversity. Along with allowing more mechs to be viable, there’s more strategy involved in coordinating ECM choices amongst 8-man teams and figuring out how that affects overall strategy and tactics.

- Increases tactical depth and role warfare. Because each of the ECM modules has a single specific job instead of the current situation where one module does it all, there’s more room for tactical maneuvering and decision making to maximize your electronic warfare capabilities while minimizing the enemy’s.

- Decreases chance of PUG team imbalances. Right now, sometimes one PUG group will drop with 6 ECMs, and the other will drop with 0 and multiple missile boats. This isn’t a very fair match. Under this proposal, this kind of imbalance won’t occur nearly so often as it’s much more likely that any given PUG team will have at least some ECM effects on their side since most mechs can carry it, and even if they’re not matched, it won’t ever completely shut down half the team. Allowing every or most mechs to carry at least one module would mean that you can at least get the ECM effect that’s important to you on your own mech.

- Provides developers a lever to balance missile boating. Even if missile boating aren’t perfectly balanced right after implementation, this should give developers an easy way to adjust the balance by tweaking lock-on times. If they need to add an extra half of a second lock-time, it isn’t going to matter much to someone with only one missile system, but it will seriously hurt the A1 streakapult.

- Provides more room for future development. I could easily come up with another half dozen electronic warfare modules to stick into information warfare hardpoints, and I imagine the devs could too. This also creates some more room for pilot tree modules.

---------

While this might not wind up being perfectly balanced, I think this will be much better than the current situation, and balance should be achievable from there just by tweaking values in a database.

---------

Tl;dr: Split up the ECM module into separate components, allow ECM on more mechs, and require separate locks for each missile system a player wants to fire.

I like the ECM suggestion but there is one critical flaw in your missile changes: Missiles already have minimum range and the maps are too small.

Hence, if the lock time is too long or if there is a delay to re-lock, even using a single LRM becomes pointless. The enemy mech would be on top of you and inside the minimum range before you fired a second time.

Thing is, LRMs were never a problem. People complain a lot about them because they don't a 'chance' to fire back at the LRM mech....but they conveniently forget that once in close range the LRM heavy mech is utterly fubard against his own superior weaponry. LRMs can be defeated by simple use of terrain and now by ECM itself.

A simple and elegant 'slight nerf' to LRMs is to simply make them re-lock after firing them.

SSRM in canon DOES have a delay in lock time depending on how many SSRM's the mech carries. If memory serves me right its like 1 second extra lock time per every 2 launchers equipped. That makes the streak-cat have 3 seconds extra lock time.....and once the missile is fired it needs to be re-locked.

[Stavinsky Elyas]

Skyfaller, on 02 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

I like the ECM suggestion but there is one critical flaw in your missile changes: Missiles already have minimum range and the maps are too small.

Hence, if the lock time is too long or if there is a delay to re-lock, even using a single LRM becomes pointless. The enemy mech would be on top of you and inside the minimum range before you fired a second time.

Thing is, LRMs were never a problem. People complain a lot about them because they don't a 'chance' to fire back at the LRM mech....but they conveniently forget that once in close range the LRM heavy mech is utterly fubard against his own superior weaponry. LRMs can be defeated by simple use of terrain and now by ECM itself.

A simple and elegant 'slight nerf' to LRMs is to simply make them re-lock after firing them.

SSRM in canon DOES have a delay in lock time depending on how many SSRM's the mech carries. If memory serves me right its like 1 second extra lock time per every 2 launchers equipped. That makes the streak-cat have 3 seconds extra lock time.....and once the missile is fired it needs to be re-locked.

In fact in the tabletop the rule is not about having a longer locking time, it's that every SSRM you interlock add +1 to the dificulty to acquire a lock, making almost impossible to interlock more than 2 or 3 SSRM for the same shoot. Except if you are Kai Allard Liao or some ultra Elite Clan warrior.


Remembering that a 'basic' inner sphere pilot was having some 4 or 5 gunnery skill, shooting at a target
at long range while running was meaning starting with a value of : 4 + 4 (long range) + 2 (running) = 10
To those 10 you have to add the other value (terrain, interlocking, target moved distance). And you have to
beat or equal that number with 2 D6. Meaning you have to reach 10-11-12 to hit, and that value of 10
is not taking into account your target speed and many other factors.

So knowing you have already +1 for every new SSRM in the interlock (2 missile = +1, 3 missiles = +2, so 6 missiles = +5) you have no way to manage a shoot even at a target that stand still 270m away from you, as the basic shoot of 6 SSRM would need to beat 15 with 2D6.

Edited by Stavinsky Elyas, 02 January 2013 - 03:42 PM.

[Sh4nk0h0l1c]

like !

[ObsidianSpectre]

Vincent Lynch, on 02 January 2013 - 12:16 PM, said:

Please also note, that the original poster's solution for longer locking times would not even work, as everyone would just chainfire. Because then you would technically fire always only one launcher at once.

In the OP, locks go on cooldown with the weapons that use them and can't be reused until they come off.

[Attalward]

I like your suggestion a lot.

[Pachar]

This whole thing sounds amazing to me. Please do this or something very very very very very very similar.
Most especially the EW hardpoint with multiple things to put in the hardpoint.