442 replies to this topic

[TehCable]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 12:58 PM, said:

...
ECM makes teamwork much, much more difficult.
...

To expand on my already expansive post above, this gets especially boring because I've noticed that 95% of games are now seeing the same tired opening move from a given starting position followed by the same tactics and same strategy match after match after match. There's no variety anymore. At least not with any pugs on your team. You can't afford to mix things up anymore. If things don't follow a predictable script, it's likely your team will get separated and fall apart.

Granted, that does not hold true for 8 man teams, but 8 man is even less fun than 4 man since the addition of ECM. Sure you can put together a diverse 8 man team, and run some different routes... but at the very least 1 in 3 matches you'll run into a homogenous pack of DDC's or a pack of torrenting Streak Ravens and get steamrolled. At less busy hours, I've had 8 mans get matched repeatedly to the same exactly cheese build 8 man group. It's not just that 8 man has more ECM, it also has no team balancing right now. I can't say I play much 8 man lately, but the times I have, it wasn't fun at all.

Either way, I'm bored.

[TehCable]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 14 January 2013 - 02:05 PM, said:

...the general diversity and flow of battles is simply no longer there.

I could not agree more on the topic of battle diversity. ECM has definitely had a net effect of making matches less diverse, more repetitive, less creative, less co-ordinated,

Information warfare used to be about using your head. Now information warfare is decided before the match starts when you pick your variant, and it runs on auto-pilot.

Where I disagree with you is in trying to fix ECM. I'm in favor of removing ECM completely. Nothing about it improves the game IMO. I suspect you feel the same way but feel reduced to bargaining.

[TehCable]

Anybody else remember scouting? That used to be information warfare. Now it's too dangerous to scout because you might suddenly run into a streak raven. Or if you're trying to scout in a streak raven, you might run into 2 streak ravens. So now the only good strategy is to huddle together in a single ball of 8 mechs. We used to be free to spread out, gather information, then regroup. We could use a scout to tap the cap and spread the enemy out. We could use a tag scout to rain LRMs. Now every match is huddling together like scared little ducklings and hoping we have the better numbers on the front lines when we find them.

[StalaggtIKE]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Anybody else remember scouting? That used to be information warfare. Now it's too dangerous to scout because you might suddenly run into a streak raven. Or if you're trying to scout in a streak raven, you might run into 2 streak ravens. So now the only good strategy is to huddle together in a single ball of 8 mechs. We used to be free to spread out, gather information, then regroup. We could use a scout to tap the cap and spread the enemy out. We could use a tag scout to rain LRMs. Now every match is huddling together like scared little ducklings and hoping we have the better numbers on the front lines when we find them.

No! No, other games have information warfare! No other games have scouting and spotting. Information warfare must be in a the form of a tiny device that does everything include countering itself..., that is true information warfare. /sarcasm

[Synra]

Wow, I was right.

This really did kill my interest in the game. I just realized that I haven't touched MWO in weeks now. I was frequently playing and loving MWO from early in the beta, right up until ECM was added. For the next two weeks after ECM was added, I was playing a lot less. Or rather I would try to play, but get frustrated by the ECM mechanic and log off early. When the Stalker patch went in before christmas, I read the patch notes and didn't see anything about removing or even nerfing ECM. Now here we are all these weeks later and I haven't logged in once.

Sure, I am curious to try the stalker, river city night, and the new conquest mode... but with ECM I just can't bring myself to bother. The game just doesn't seem fun anymore. What is the point of adding fun new features if you don't eliminate the one thing that's ruining all the fun?

Edited by Synra, 14 January 2013 - 06:36 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 02:38 PM, said:

Anybody else remember scouting? That used to be information warfare. Now it's too dangerous to scout because you might suddenly run into a streak raven. Or if you're trying to scout in a streak raven, you might run into 2 streak ravens. So now the only good strategy is to huddle together in a single ball of 8 mechs. We used to be free to spread out, gather information, then regroup. We could use a scout to tap the cap and spread the enemy out. We could use a tag scout to rain LRMs. Now every match is huddling together like scared little ducklings and hoping we have the better numbers on the front lines when we find them.

QFT

[fleshwoundNPG]

From what I understand ECM would LENGTHEN the lock time on SSRMs, not disable them totally.

Last match I was in, I shot my SSRMs a few times at a Centurion and a Dragon.

Then the pack of Ravens came.

They were never fired again.

[ICEFANG13]

Actually Guardian ECM does nothing to SSRMs, Angel ECM turns SSRMs to normal SRMs.

[fleshwoundNPG]

ICEFANG13, on 14 January 2013 - 11:16 PM, said:

Actually Guardian ECM does nothing to SSRMs, Angel ECM turns SSRMs to normal SRMs.

...and yet here I am with the target right in front of me, and the target flickers and therefore no lock.

No lock = SSRMs don't get fired, period

[ICEFANG13]

I am speaking from a TT perspective, ECM in game eliminate SSRMs entirely, nothing TT ever did.

[StUffz]

ICEFANG13, on 14 January 2013 - 11:51 PM, said:

I am speaking from a TT perspective, ECM in game eliminate SSRMs entirely, nothing TT ever did.

Half true. the Auto-lock kills SSRM as well because it does not allow you fire while ECM is active. In TT it does not tell anything that you cannot fire but more that SSRM are turned into SRM.

[ICEFANG13]

Which is exactly what I said in the post before that one...

[Inertiaman]

TehCable, on 14 January 2013 - 02:14 PM, said:

To expand on my already expansive post above, this gets especially boring because I've noticed that 95% of games are now seeing the same tired opening move from a given starting position followed by the same tactics and same strategy match after match after match. There's no variety anymore. At least not with any pugs on your team. You can't afford to mix things up anymore. If things don't follow a predictable script, it's likely your team will get separated and fall apart.

Indeed - this is much to do with the overdesign and size of the maps imo. My favorite maps in other games are generally the ones that support the most diverse play, and they in turn tend to be the least "designed" ones. i.e. no formalised choke points, large in size, with areas separated by height or terrain which offers lots of breakout fights without LOS of each other. I always return to the BF1942 maps as a classic example. El Alamein and Gazala simply wouldn't get within 100 miles of a game now yet offer endlessly varied assault and defence routes. Obviously low drawdistance was a factor with that engine but that's nothing that couldn't be continued here if the theme is right. Mars style dust storms and tropical mist etc.

I think the maps are great looking in MWO though, can't fault that (other than RCN which is horrible).

[StUffz]

ICEFANG13, on 15 January 2013 - 12:22 AM, said:

Which is exactly what I said in the post before that one...

As far as i unterstand your post above you are only looking at ecm as the main problem not considering that also it's a problem of the game design. In general ssrm should work the same as lrm target lock at short range.

[Buckminster]

fleshwoundNPG, on 14 January 2013 - 11:03 PM, said:

From what I understand ECM would LENGTHEN the lock time on SSRMs, not disable them totally.

Last match I was in, I shot my SSRMs a few times at a Centurion and a Dragon.

Then the pack of Ravens came.

They were never fired again.

This is probably the most frustrating thing. I have an A1 with 3 SRM6 in one arm and 3 SSRM in the other. One match I lost the 3 SRM6 arm early, and then came the ECM. I was a 65 ton target.

Sure, you can argue that I should tweak the build to make it so that I'm less susceptible to that sort of damage. I'd argue that ECM is overpowered if it completely bricks a weapon system.

[Inertiaman]

It's not tweaking much to split them evenly between arms :E

[Buckminster]

Yeah, but splitting them between the arms messes with the grouping. Having all 3 SRM6s in one arm makes for a nice tight group of missiles.

[Death Mallet]

The problem with ECM isn't the effect on missiles. It's the effect on regular sensors.

Got no sympathy for a 3 SSRM, 3 SRM build that gets screwed. You build a one trick pony, you should expect to be screwed if that pony trick doesn't work.

[Ugrak]

Wow, another amazingly fun game just ended in, well, about 3min, MAX!

River City Conquest, Dropship start, whole team running for the point in upper city.
When I get there turning around a building I see an atlas I cant target coming up the hill.
Shooting it a little with lasers, turning back around a building and running around it, then when I get back and around I see TWO MORE ECM Atlas'es and Im dead in a matter of seconds (other mechs there to ofc).
Apparently the team had light ECM's to.

Need I say that we had no ecm mechs?

[Buckminster]

Death Mallet, on 15 January 2013 - 08:56 AM, said:

The problem with ECM isn't the effect on missiles. It's the effect on regular sensors.

Got no sympathy for a 3 SSRM, 3 SRM build that gets screwed. You build a one trick pony, you should expect to be screwed if that pony trick doesn't work.

To be fair it's a two trick pony. Trick one - 18 SRMs to the face of heavys and assaults. Trick two - 6 Streaks to the lights.