442 replies to this topic

[Blitz Krieg]

The team with ECM can call targets, the team without can't

HUGE advantage in that regard. Coordination wins in this game, and ECM makes enemy coordination a lot harder. All for 1.5 tons.

[MadPanda]

ECM can be dealt with. Problem is that it's a Raven that is carrying the ecm. Light mechs already have an advantage with their lag-shield, ecm only adds to the problem but is not the sole cause.

[StUffz]

I see the aggressive attitude here however I can currently live with the fact that PGI is not answering open public for the next few weeks. But I hope at a time the answer is coming.

[Monky]

Tag is near useless against ECM teams because any ECM team will simply use cover to advance if they don't have noodles for brains. Once they get to 180 your tag is useless, lag shield makes ballistics/SRM a joke, SSRM are hard-blocked and LRM can't do anything at that range, so your only option is to exclusively use lasers. Further, as mentioned above, the 'competetive' advice is to sit at your base with your back to a wall the entire match.

If you guys can't see that is terribly broken, I don't know what to tell you. Of course, I know you can see that it is, and just want to have more time to exploit it for easy wins and the lulz.

Edited by Monky, 10 January 2013 - 01:09 AM.

[Quardak]

got the same with 3 ECM-Raven... All your tips about shooting are useless cause you can`t get a single Raven as a Target.
You only see 3 of them running in wild circles around... every time you look away you loose the Targetinfo so all of you shoots gets mixed over 3 Lag-Shield Mechs. You maybe get one Mech to Orange Armor but i see how a 2-Raven +1 Commando-Party takes a whole 8 Man-Group out of game (Forest). The lights die first (our Commando lived only 10 second against 7 Streaks and 5 Lasers)... they vanish... come back over another hill and the next go down.

It`s like cheating. But in an online Game you will always have Kiddis who like to win OVER all.

[Tolkien]

I call my and other Raven 3Ls the Craven 3L because the current state of the game reflects it well: (http://www.thefreedi...nary.com/craven craven [ˈkreɪvən] adj cowardly; mean-spirited )

I am very much of the opinion that ECM does too many good things to the carrier, and Craven swarms are the consequence of the more broken abilities of ECM, such as hard countering SSRMs and LRMS. Had it been implemented as a sensible soft counter by making locks slower we wouldn't be in this situation but here we are.

Until ECM ceases to be the swiss army shotgun of electronic warfare I highly encourage everyone to get in a Craven 3L and ride the snake. Here's my recommended Craven 3L loadout:

1) Engine, XL295 - You want to move fast since that makes you damn hard to hit. PGI are still advertising for a lead network programmer so lag shields will probably be strong for a few months to come yet. If ECMs didn't monkey hammer guided missiles this wouldn't be a problem, but for now it's a very strong defense.
2) ECM - you need to keep the enemy guided missiles off of you since they are the only weapon that will reliably damage you, that effect alone makes the 1.5 tons worth it, but ECM will do so much more in team fights. It is a force multiplier for the side that has more of them and a force divider against the side with less, so for this reason more is always better!
3) 2x Streak SRM2s - you have ECM so you get to use these while you're opponents don't. You might have to travel in a wolfpack with 2-3ECM to ensure you have superiority but don't worry, since ECM is a hard counter the team with N+1 will always have all of the advantages and none of the drawbacks - another brilliant hard counter, like the missile locks above.
4) 3x medium lasers - these are your primary damage source for dealing with any big dumb targets (aka non-cicada mediums,heavies,assaults). Thanks to role warfare assault mechs are not unstoppable battle fortresses, but instead they are the dopey fat kid in the class to be towel whipped at every opportunity - the Craven is simply nature's towel bearer.
5) 12x double heatsinks - more would be better as shutting down is a death sentence* (unless you have ECM superiority in the area, then they probably won't notice, or won't know for sure you are an enemy raven and often don't shoot you! LEWL...)
6) Endo steel is necessary to fit everything in
7) Take 2x tons of SSRM2 ammo placing them in the foot and in the head. If those locations are taking internal damage you have bigger problems anyway.
8) Place the ECM and the DHS that doesn't fit in the engine into the right or left torso. The DHS is there in case you take internal damage, so the criticals won't take out the ECM immediately. Another option is the foot that doesn't contain ammo, as losing a leg is fatal anyway.

I recommend the following fire groupings:
group 1: chain fire SSRM2's. Some people prefer group fire, but I actually prefer chain firing them since it allows you to do bombing runs on enemies that dramatically reduce their targeting accuracy: When you start to move into their field of view fire once, then as you pass their central axis fire again. One of the launchers is a NARC single tube, so it will fire one rocket then another. The point is to spread your fire out over your pass so that you maximize the duration of their disorientation and make hitting you even harder than it normally would be. Once you've mastered the missile strafe timing you can start to add lasers into the pass to fill gaps or to increase the duration/severity of their disorientation.

group2: Two arm mounted medium lasers group fired. These are your maneuverable pair of lasers so they are useful for light hunting as well as precision damage on the enemy.

group3: One torso mounted medium laser. This laser requires you to align your torso to the target so you need to practice using it effectively. Avoid the temptation to run straight at the enemy to line this up though, it's more of an opportunity based extra stab. Also your heat management should revolve around using or not using this 3rd laser. Once you have double basics unlocked you should be able to fire the streaks and 2x arm mounted lasers on a nearly continuous cycle, but the 3rd med las will still push you over the top.

Even without any pilot efficiencies unlocked you will be a killing machine. Getting the hang of locking streaks is tricky but it's worth it to practice, and remember to lead your target with your lasers. Your primary duty is to kill the enemy scouts, especially those with ECM! Once they are down you can proceed to dismantle the remainder of the enemy team.


So what is the role of this build?:
Well, on paper you are a fast scout, but due the the netcode and ECM hard countering guided missiles you are a great deal more. Why? Well let's look at what is going on:
1) You're damn fast and maneuverable, this means you are hard to hit and can get to where you need to be in a hurry.
2) You've got decent firepower, but also your speed and agility lets you direct it very effectively - does that awesome have a bad left rear torso? well then run behind him....
3) If you have local ECM superiority (travel in a group N+1 is always better than N) you are extremely efficient at destroying enemy lights since your guided SSRMs will still cut through their lag shields. As long as you have ECM superiority you don't need to worry about theirs. On paper medium mechs are supposed to be predators of light mechs, but in practice lights are much better light counters.
4) You can serve as an excellent escort for your team - try to keep them all under the invisibility cloak as they advance so only an optimist with a TAG system will be able to get the occasional missile volley through. Cover still works though so LRMs usually aren't a problem unless your teammates are asleep. Similarly most maps are so choked with cover that direct fire weapons aren't a concern as you move up, as long as your team is smart/awake.
5) If you stick with your team during a firefight you are also the hub of the "electronics warfare" system. The ECM is the swiss army shotgun of EWAR, and by keeping local ECM superiority you can ensure that only your team will be able to avoid friendly fire, and to target the most damaged/vulnerable enemies.
6) If there's an enemy TAG on the field that the special needs mechs (assaults) on your team keep staring into and hurting their eyes, you can knock it out of the fight by getting within 180m of it. Another glorious hard counter. I'm not 100% sure but I think it even prevents the mech carrying the TAG from actually benefiting from it when they're in your bubble. This is a bit like having a fire extinguisher that bursts into flames if it gets within 10 feet of a fire....

Your'e not convinced?
Well I did some testing by dropping with a friend on skype - we counted up our ECMs and their ECMs and looked if there was a correlation between more ECMs and winning....
http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__1709146
long story short, I can say with >99.999% confidence (statistical confidence, not hypberbole or feelings) that the team with more ECMs is more likely to be the winning team. I can also say with >97% confidence that the team with at least 1 more ECM than the enemy is at least 2x more likely to win. On paper this is horrifically imbalanced, to the point of questioning the results even though I was there and collected all of the data myself. I've asked Garth for some sample data taken at random so I can remove myself from the equation, but for the time being this is the only statistical study of ECM effects I am aware of, and it clearly shows that ECM is not just influencing the match, but deciding it in most cases.

Good luck and remember - I know this build is cheese, but as beta testers our job is to break the game, not to play by some sort of moral code and only use "fair" combinations. It's the devs job to make a fair and fun game and I believe they slipped up badly with ECM - now I pilot a Craven 3L to help highlight this. In the meantime, if you want to help focus the attention of the devs on this, please give this a read http://mwomercs.com/...96#entry1712396 and if you like the question please "like" it, as well as post in the ask the devs 30 thread politely to ask them to answer it

See you on the battlefield - hopefully in your shiny new death bird Craven 3L.

Edited by Tolkien, 10 January 2013 - 02:44 AM.

[John MatriX82]

ECM can be dealt with, but it's ridiculous that in premades you have to rely on D-DCs and Ravens 3Ls, sometimes you see Cicadas.

ECM must come back as it was in previous games, affecting only the bearer and not the entire team as it is now.

[twibs]

Things ECM does that are less noticeable:

-Make the team focused fire harder
Without the defining A or B symbol over the light, calling out targets becomes whole lot harder and almost impossible without voice com.

-Make your own fire focusing harder
Without the target data you cannot guess which part of the enemy is weakest and where you should aim. Top that with the lagshield of the light, even if you aim for a shoulder or leg, you cannot be certain that part will be the most damaged one.

[Magnarr]

Yeah I agree on most of the above. Four RVN-3L in a pre-made is a ridiculous loadout, taking advantage of the current situation and makes for a very unbalanced drop. However, in doing so an equal number of lights are to be expected on the other side.

In all fairness though in some future update, that side should ideally also include a similar offset pre-made group in such a situation including a combo of CMD/RVN also using ECM. Only way to make a battle even is to stack both sides with the same advantages of targeting capability and voice communication.

Sure, some say "just hit 'em with lasers". Yeah right. Might get one down. I admit I was involved with a drop of folks all using 3L's while we were advancing them, and we referred to ourselves humorously as the "Murder of Crows" for those two admittedly despicable evenings. Four people in voice communication all using ECM-capable lights will wipe an opposing team hands down EVERY time without a similar opposition.

Each called out target is downed in seconds in that situation. It really is ridiculous.

Mainly (from being on also an un-advantaged side as well in the same situation), is the team's inability to focus fire on a called target. There is none. Just "the one on the right" - "no, left, E7, they're on me". *explode*.

[Argent Usher]

Uhmm well i'll play a

[Tolkien]

I've put together a Craven 3L build guide to help new players take advantage of the current state of the metagame especially ECM.

http://mwomercs.com/...ech-hands-down/

Please take a look and let me know what you think

Edited by Tolkien, 10 January 2013 - 03:14 AM.

[DTheSleepless]

ECM is part of the problem but not actually the biggest.

The problems are lagshield, which prevent even direct fire weapons from popping Ravens, and their wonky hitboxes. The Raven is too hard to hit, all ECM does is make sure you can't use the one weapon that wuold be able to deal with them despite the bad netcode: SSRMs.

I promise you, once they fix the netcode and add collisions back, the good 3L players will still be a problem, but all these flavor-of-the-month morons that just want to play on easy mode will be in for a rude awakening.

[steelblueskies]

DTheSleepless, on 10 January 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

ECM is part of the problem but not actually the biggest.

The problems are lagshield, which prevent even direct fire weapons from popping Ravens, and their wonky hitboxes. The Raven is too hard to hit, all ECM does is make sure you can't use the one weapon that wuold be able to deal with them despite the bad netcode: SSRMs.

I promise you, once they fix the netcode and add collisions back, the good 3L players will still be a problem, but all these flavor-of-the-month morons that just want to play on easy mode will be in for a rude awakening.

do call the players when they get that going on, since adding a system that makes it irretrievably worse in the interim before that other bit gets fixed was a good call and all.

notes the hiring for network programmer vacancy *still* up.

yep. smart moves.

[The Mech behind you]

The more battles I fight the more I start to think it's not the ECM that causes the problem. It's the mech that equips the ECM. I mean anyone fears that ECM-Cicada? No? Why not? It has ECM.

The problem is the light mechs that can equip an ECM. They also benefit from their speed (lagshield) AND they can equip Streaks. 2 Streaks for the RVN-3L, even 3 for the COM-2D. So a pack of 3-4 Ravens or 3 Ravens and a Commando can easily kill a PUG Team on their own. It's almost impossible to hit them with lasers, SRms or guns and your guided weapons are useless against them.

Take away the lagshield and they will fail if they try to run into your whole team. I have a RVN-3L too. But mine is doing only 92 kph and has SRMs instead of Streaks, because I don't enjoy that cheat build. It's too easy to kill sth. I get easily cored if I run into a whole group of mechs. But if I play smart I still can score kills and survive.

ECMs aren't the reason for those godmode lights but they need to be tuned down, I agree. They have too much abilites for a 1,5t piece of equipment compared to all the other electronic equipment.

P.S. What's the problem with ECM equipped Atlas? They're so big and slow you can't miss them. You could even dumbfire your LRMs on it and even hit it. If there's an ECM-Atlas on the other team, focus fire, tell the Gauss snipers to take care of him or send in your lights to kill it (they lights are lagshielded anyways )

[StUffz]

steelblueskies, on 09 January 2013 - 07:11 PM, said:

don't you get it yet? ecm was an attempt to add further add gating to exp and cbill awards without actually coding in limitations.

just one more magical function baked into it's design.

meanwhile at the end of my first week away from mwo.. (been trying to get a testing group together for stat collection, been coming up dry).

Whats wrong about it to get extra exp and for playing as a team supporter and TAG/NARC the enemy? You also get exp for firing at a mech and destroying component parts.

twibs, on 10 January 2013 - 02:19 AM, said:

Things ECM does that are less noticeable:

-Make the team focused fire harder
Without the defining A or B symbol over the light, calling out targets becomes whole lot harder and almost impossible without voice com.

-Make your own fire focusing harder
Without the target data you cannot guess which part of the enemy is weakest and where you should aim. Top that with the lagshield of the light, even if you aim for a shoulder or leg, you cannot be certain that part will be the most damaged one.

With the first point I agree that voice com makes a lot things easier. That's why I would always advise to search for a fixed group and play with them. It makes a lot of the games easier and you really play with tactics and coordination. wide more compared to play with random drops.

last point I disagree with the first part. As long as you dont rush with the complete group into the enemy, you can still see and guess who your enemy is. Along with voice com coordination you should move your mech so far that you are in a better aiming position

Edited by StUffz, 10 January 2013 - 03:41 AM.

[Jukebox1986]

gamingogre, on 10 January 2013 - 12:24 AM, said:

ECM is overpowered partly because the counter tools don't work or work well enough. Ever since the change, the only way I can do well is to NOT RUN MISSILES other than SRM. After reading about how OP the ECM is, I tried a catapult with 2LRM15, 3ML, and a tag. It took 3-4 times as long to get my basic skills as it did with any of my other mechs.* The reason I am not affected so much by ECM with my other mechs is that they are all ballistic/laser combinations. It is clear to me that on a practical level ECM broke the game balance.
*100% of my play time is with random drops. (i.e. pugging) I am sure organized 8 or 4 man drops are a different game.

Im sorry to quote myself in this case, but i dont want to write the same stuff all over again...

Janus Wealth, on 09 January 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

Besides the Fact, that ECM is still overpowered, i dont get the rant over LRM´s. I run an 4xLRM15 Stalker when i go in 8-man matches as well as going 4-man or simply going alone.

My average damage is 700. Sometimes its just 400, sometimes its 1000+ but i never had a problem since TAG has gotten 750 m range. I just dont get it.

My advice to the Dev´s would be splitting the Power of ECM more. Like:

Mode 1 - the bubble
Hides everyone in Range of 180 Meters from Radar and getting locked on by LRM´s and streaks, but if your inside the Bubble, it has no effect on you anymore. Counter = Tag

Mode 2 - dirupt enemy lock at short range
Every mech inside the 180m bubble loses its ability to lock, loses its radar and gets interferences. Counter = Narc (narced targets gets a "can always get locked on"for a short time)

Mode 3 - counter
Counters the nearest two targets with ECM inside 180 m. counter = none

This would make a huge difference in playing with ecm. You can hide, you can disrupt, but you need to play different. Counter needs to get stronger, or ECM en masse will still be the way to go for everyone. It makes sure that even with less ECM, you can still nullify the opponments ECM. ECM would need to be played a lot smarter than now.

[Alex Wolfe]

Good thing about ECM is that, while it is way too powerful for its size and weight (magical AoE null sig for free)... it prevents the game devolving back into INCOMING MISSILE Online. LRM boats with their alpha damage in hundreds, as well as the raidboss (6ssrm2 A1) are still in the game, unchanged from the time they were utterly dominating the metagame. ECM keeps them in check by making people less likely to carry those configs.

Raven has its own bucketload of issues (lagshield and wonky hitboxes), which makes the chicken half-invincible with streaks out of the equation... and the existence of ECM as a whole makes it mandatory, and ECM-less mechs inferior. This isn't good.

The problem is, with ECM nerfed, guided missiles would also have to be completely rebalanced, or we're all back in the space trenches again. Spamming M1 for 1000 damage is way too good times to come back.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 10 January 2013 - 03:47 AM.

[Tolkien]

steelblueskies, on 10 January 2013 - 03:27 AM, said:

do call the players when they get that going on, since adding a system that makes it irretrievably worse in the interim before that other bit gets fixed was a good call and all.

notes the hiring for network programmer vacancy *still* up.

yep. smart moves.

I completely agree with you - ECM is a clumsy bandaid to LRMs and SSRMs, and worst of all it hasn't fixed them, it's just made the team with ECM superiority have exclusive access to them.... ugh.

I hope that they convert the hard counters that ECM has into soft counters - like ones that make ECM affected mechs take longer to lock their missiles, but not the current binary system. Even then LRMs will probably need a damage nerf so ECM is not mandatory.

[Taizan]

Perhaps the OP is talking about a certain clan or team that tend to repeatedly drop as a 4 man team with all ravens and then basically have a field day with their opponent, just to abuse the system. One or two ECM ravens can be dealt with by most PUGs, but 4 of them are nigh invincible as it is impossible to counter ECM.

[Bad Brad Keselowski]

When I have 3 or more ECM-Ravens spawning in my team in PUG-games, I try to shoot them in the leg and if not possible anywhere where I can hit them with my AC/20. I have absolutely no problem with that, since they are destroying other ppl's gaming experience with deliberate intention.