96 replies to this topic

[Vechs]

At every point I've talked about ECM, I've said over and over that by far the worst thing it does is how it removes all your HUD indicators for friends and enemies, and removes your minimap.

I could give 2 Terathian nalrat turds for what ECM does to LRMs and Streaks, I don't really care about that.

Far and away the most broken thing about it, is for 1.5 tons it totally destroys all UI / minimap information.

[Hoshi Toranaga]

ECM is the most game breaking thing and unfun they could do.
However we currently make some funds, as ROFLstomping with a team of Raven 3Ls works nicely in 4-mans. So when they hopefully remove this abomination we will have loads of cash or we will quite MWO in a month with loads of cash in our accounts...

[Yagyu]

Here's another "no" vote from a laserboat Cat player.

I check the forums every few days to see what's been said about ECM, but I haven't (and won't) log in until I see ECM dramatically altered in some fashion, due to the issues described by TehCable and others.

ECMOnline isn't fun as it stands, so I'm voting with my feet - I'm going to play things that are fun. I hope it gets fixed, I've loved Battletech in its various incarnations since... well, since before Battletech (TT from FASA) even existed. I'd like to be able to come back to a game that I can enjoy for a long time.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck, PGI.

[Buckminster]

Logged in this morning.
Grabbed my Founder's Cat (2 ARLM15s, 4 ML), jumped into a match, got pecked to death by a lag-shielded Raven 3L.
Logged out.
Played Minecraft.

[Necroconvict]

TehCable, on 15 January 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

With a heavy heart, this will probably be my last forum post. It's been fun, and I'll miss Mechwarrior.

I have seen no serious effort to improve team communication in a long time, and I think it's a shame. A lot of you have probably played with me on Teamspeak, and I've received a lot of invites to merc corps. This post isn't about butt-hurt over not doing well at the game. My KDR and W/L are good, and I never even cared about stats. This is about the game not being fun for me anymore. What did I enjoy about the game before? Taking command.

I think it's a shame that most of the discussion on ECM has focused on the issue from the wrong angle. Most of the anti-ECM posts that I've seen focus on balance issues, TT, and suggested tweaks. While those concerns are valid, the real reason ECM is bad for the game is that it nukes what little information sharing we had. I used to run solo with pugs sometimes just to strengthen my mini-map awareness. It made me a better player to make sure I always knew where my teammates were and what my positioning should be. I was even able to co-ordinate fairly well with the pugs via text chat, really only lacking a way to designate focus fire targets. Now the mini-map is useless in most fights, and even on teamspeak, focus fire is often impossible because teammates often can't see the target letter that was called.

The bottom line is that the game wasn't ready for ECM because there wasn't enough communication in place to begin with. The C3 integration was botched for one simple reason: there was no way to find other players that were actively using it.

* My first suggestion is to add a lobby text chat so we can find each other for groups based on our own parameters.

* My second suggestion is to add a simple checkbox that says "Match with C3 users only." If pugs could match-up with other mic users, a lot of my gripes would go away very quickly. You're forcing us to either play a very not-fun 8 man group game, or play with pugs. It's not hard to fix it so we can talk to the pugs.

* My third suggestion is to add a way for the player that takes command to designate focus fire targets in a way that highlights them to teammates. It's not enough for a commander to be able to set a location on the map (which, btw, takes way too many clicks, and can't really be done while fighting). Add a single key press that designates the currently selected target as Primary target (and another key press that designates the currently selected target as a secondary target). Friendlies should all see a gold triangle over the primary target instead of a red triangle. The targeting box around it should also turn gold. Some other color could be used to mark secondary targets.

* My final suggestion is to, at least temporarily, pull ECM. It is, IMO, a step in the wrong direction for the game right now. A fun game is one that has multiple competing strategies in use, and ways to co-ordinate those strategies with your team. Since the addition of ECM, I have seen less co-ordination, and I have seen every match reduced to a single strategy: a ball of death where nobody scouts and the team sits scared hoping to have the best numbers on the front line when the enemy is found. That's not fun. For information warfare to be fun, we need MORE information. ECM is a step in the wrong direction because it reduces information.

Again, this isn't about being butt-hurt. I'm not losing matches; I'm just not having nearly as much fun anymore. Pretty much every match is the same now. Each starting position has 1 (some have 2) widely accepted opening moves. If you're on a 4 man team and try to call any other play, you're likely just abandoning your pugs and splitting your team. Once split, ECM makes it nearly impossible to regroup. It's impossible to communicate anything to pugs once the fighting starts because almost no pugs can pay attention to team text chat and fight at the same time.

In conclusion, add features that improve team communication and remove features that destroy team communication. You can't have information warfare without having information to begin with.

Farewell Mechwarrior. I hope your devs stop ignoring the community on ECM, and I hope they manage to turn this information gameplay trend in the other direction while there's still a community interested in the game.

Well enjoy, but that does sound a bit ********* over communication. Most pugs can't read during battle though because most pugs can't read.

[Necroconvict]

I have a mech with ECM, I never use it. The team I play with often has at least one to two guys using ecm, to protect our core group, and to mess with the enemy ecm. For us it only limits the amount of LRMs that get fired in a match. It also seems to have stopped teams from running 3-4 LRM boats in almost every single game. Then of course there is Tag, and Narc...

I enjoy myself here, and I am a fairly old school player. I have been around since the Battletech Center in North Pier Mall in Chicago. Back in the early 90's. Now that was a place to chill.... as long as your wallet could afford, $8 for 10 minutes of play lol!

[Gremlich Johns]

Stormwolf, on 16 January 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

For people curious about how ECM is supposed to work:

You should caveat that as "For people curious about how ECM is supposed to work in BT"

I've used ECM for real and it doesn't work like this at all.

Oh, and if my eyeballs work and the opposing mech isn't painted with dual-tex camouflage, I should be able to see it. This cloak stuff is baloney.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 18 January 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[Jale]

Well written, however, "SCOUT C3 specialization" ( just for scout mechs ) combined with Command Console ( commanders ) should be able to create link with scout and their commander while scout is under ECM pressure ( if ecm effect are is 180m then higher pressure would be at 100m radius from ECM). That way scout get its role and commander does.
Simply put: Battlegrid is place for tagging enemy so commander role would be more demanding and will require more skill and time and with that we wont have scenario where every lancemate would have commander specialization.

Edited by Jale, 18 January 2013 - 04:26 PM.

[Rvannith]

TehCable, on 15 January 2013 - 05:00 PM, said:

And while we're at it, I'm hoping that the above poll definitively disproves the notion that the devs have that we are a "vocal minority." The only vocal minority I've seen are the people that defend ECM.

Where have the devs called people unhappy with ECM a "vocal minority"?

[ICEFANG13]

Read one of the 3 links he posted in this thread (page 1 to 2 I think), he said it.

[TehCable]

Necroconvict, on 18 January 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

I have a mech with ECM, I never use it. The team I play with often has at least one to two guys using ecm, to protect our core group, and to mess with the enemy ecm. For us it only limits the amount of LRMs that get fired in a match. It also seems to have stopped teams from running 3-4 LRM boats in almost every single game. Then of course there is Tag, and Narc...

I enjoy myself here, and I am a fairly old school player. I have been around since the Battletech Center in North Pier Mall in Chicago. Back in the early 90's. Now that was a place to chill.... as long as your wallet could afford, $8 for 10 minutes of play lol!

I see the argument a lot where people say "ECM is not OP because I have ECM mechs, and I don't even like to play them." The misconception behind every one of these posts is that ease of play and fun of play are the same thing. That is not even close to the truth. In fact, in my opinion, the game is generally more fun the more difficult it is. The more skill required of the player, the more satisfying when you get the gameplay mastered. Thus, it kind of supports my argument that ECM is not fun if you say you have ECM mechs, but choose not to run them. That just means that you don't enjoy running them. Others elsewhere on the forums have argued that ECM should go away or be nerfed because ECM is OP. That is not my argument. I do agree that ECM is OP; however, that is not my complaint. If ECM were OP and fun to use, I would be all over that **** like an only moderately successful Hollywood actor on a street prostitute (third attempt to find a term for "street prostitute" that the forum doesn't censor). If your ECM mechs were fun to use, you'd be using them. I was a streak cat pilot for chrissake. That **** was easy AND FUN. There was still some player interaction involved in using speed and jumpjets to dodge direct fire like a chicken with it's head cut off to the point that you could barely face the right direction to hold lock... and still hold lock. It was OP, but it had a fun play style that came with it. With ECM, there is no fun. You don't even have any control over it other than toggling between automatically blocking info and countering somebody from blocking your info. It's not fun to use, and it's not fun to be affected by. In fact, there's no enjoyment in using it, but there's a serious decrease in how much your opponents can enjoy the game because they can't see their mini-map, and they can't work together. That's a net negative on the fun scale.

So can we agree that the fact people choose not to use ECM is not an argument in favor of ECM being in the game?

It's an easy button that doesn't even require pushing a button, and it makes the game less fun for the people on the other team. I want to communication. I want to take command and not get frustrated because very few people even look at the minimap anymore. Why get in the habit of looking at it if you can't rely on it? The devs said they wanted ECM to force people to play smarter. As an unintended consequence, they dumbed down the game.

If I typically ran 8-mans, I probably wouldn't be so bothered by it, but I almost never drop in 8-mans. I guess the other problem is that I rarely find an 8-man on Teamspeak that isn't some clan group that mostly just chats about their personal life and treat talking game strategy as an after-thought. Before, I always had more fun with numbered dropships full of lone wolves than an 8-man clan team because random people seemed to take the game more seriously and spend less time just chatting. The lone wolves know how to ready up between matches and just play the damn game. Now I don't really enjoy dropping in numbered dropships either because they're mostly 4-man with pugs, and pugs are impossible to take command of (only since the addition of ECM). Pugs these days never look at their mini-map, even when they aren't under ECM, because they have learned they can't rely on it. Much better to just focus your attention on the enemy mech directly in front of you right? (wrong) I guess I'm not fully explaining how much less fun pugs are now, but it's kind of hard to describe the round-about way ECM has destroyed the variety and strategy of battles.

Edited by TehCable, 18 January 2013 - 09:48 PM.

[TehCable]

Rvannith, on 18 January 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

Where have the devs called people unhappy with ECM a "vocal minority"?

I'm sorry, I don't remember specifically where I heard that. It was probably in a podcast, but I can't remember for sure. I do remember reading a few different forum posts that were indignant about being called a vocal minority. There's been too many posts to keep track of where they all are. Sadly, almost none of the ECM posts have come from development, so I'm pretty sure it was from a podcast or a second hand source.

[TehCable]

Jale, on 18 January 2013 - 04:24 PM, said:

Well written, however, "SCOUT C3 specialization" ( just for scout mechs ) combined with Command Console ( commanders ) should be able to create link with scout and their commander while scout is under ECM pressure ( if ecm effect are is 180m then higher pressure would be at 100m radius from ECM). That way scout get its role and commander does.
Simply put: Battlegrid is place for tagging enemy so commander role would be more demanding and will require more skill and time and with that we wont have scenario where every lancemate would have commander specialization.

It would need to be at least possible to fight and assign targets at the same time, otherwise it would not be worth using vs calling targets verbally on 4-man teamspeak groups. The odds are significantly low that more than 1 in 4 pugs would focus fire the correct target, thus if it costs you your own skilled DPS, it wouldn't be worth using. The battlegrid interface for assigning map locations requires too many clicks and takes up too much of the UI to be usable during combat.

Edited by TehCable, 19 January 2013 - 12:36 AM.

[ICEFANG13]

Paul Inouye, on 16 January 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

You're assuming we don't read the forums (which the majority of us DO) based off your interpretation of this?

A: It's hard not to have it affect one at all; generally it just makes people around the office less likely to read over the forums. I still do though, and for every negative/unrealistic expection filled post, there are dozens of PM's, emails, and threads that are the opposite. Also, we're dealing with long-time fans of a very old IP, so we expect people to be passionate. If I could have any one thing though, it would be the understanding that: A) we're barely a year into development, and the poor guys are usually here till 10-11pm, so the 'you're just lazy' posts are unnecessary and flat out wrong. [Garth]

I personally go through the forums every day (including weekends and after work). I know you're all clamoring for information but there's a time and place for every bit of info we release. Hot topic: ECM... yes... I've got a write up on our stance on the situation but I will not release it until I can confirm 2 features I want in the game before I do so.

All I can say right now is please be patient. Contrary to what a vocal minority might think, we are not ignoring you.

[TehCable]

Oh right, I had forgotten that use of it, ICEFANG. That is not the developer statement that I was referencing though. There was somewhere that a developer had actually said that the outcry against ECM was from a vocal minority, and that the development team didn't see what the problem was with ECM. The reference you linked to above was all the more infuriating only because they had used the phrase "vocal minority" in reference to the forum community again. Hell, maybe they're even right that the entire forum community is just a vocal minority of the the player base as a whole. I know I almost never came to the forums back when I was happy with the game. It was still infuriating to be called a vocal minority because we're not a minority of the forum community. You can say vocal minority about anything said on the forums because the forum posters as a whole are the minority out of all players of MWO. But out of active forum users, ECM haters are clearly the majority.

PS - The "vocal minority" statement was probably from about a month ago. From more recent statements by dev, it seems like they at least understand that there is a problem with ECM. When I was complaining about them calling us a vocal minority, there were no forum posts from devs about ECM, so weeks old statements were all we had to go on at the time.

Edited by TehCable, 18 January 2013 - 10:22 PM.

[Jale]

TehCable, on 18 January 2013 - 09:59 PM, said:

It would need to be at least possible to fight and assign targets at the same time, otherwise it would not be worth using vs calling targets verbally on 4-man teamspeak groups. The odds are significantly low that more than 1 in 4 pugs would focus fire the correct target, thus if it costs you your own skilled DPS, it wouldn't be worth using. The battlegrid interface for assigning map locations requires too many clicks and takes up too much of the UI to be usable during combat.

Agree, BUT, someone suggested that we can only enter match with c3 client on so that we use c3 exclusively and devs are looking something like that. Plus i don't think that Battlegrid is complete right now it needs more modification and upgrades and more commands like being able to put more commands at one ( and did you know that you can pan and zoom in battlegrid, omg!) calling air support and stuff... Devs stated that one of the commanders main tool for communication will be battlegrid that is more advanced so you have to be oriented by that.

One more thing i would like to add for player that follows the command showed on the his battlegrid that he should be able to gain experience, and commanders big xp resource would come from giving commands (the more lancemates follows your directions more xp you gain).

Edited by Jale, 19 January 2013 - 03:41 AM.

[Jale]

we need bigger maps IMO

[Rvannith]

ICEFANG13, on 18 January 2013 - 10:10 PM, said:

Thanks, I was under the impression he meant that people who were irritated about the problems with ECM were being called a vocal minority, rather than that, in which he says that people thinking they don't CARE about how unbalanced ECM is, are a minority... when most of us have faith that they'll do something about it.

[Commodore Perspicuous]

I'm going to go ahead and say I skimmed through the thread... It's late and my eyes don't want to read anymore, so I didn't read it all. Thus, I apologize if I stray from the point or my suggestion has been stated by someone else already. I voted "yes" because I like the potential tactical options that ECM brings to the game. As for communication, I understand the concerns and dislikes, but the few times I have had the chance to run premades with friends I have actually found that I enjoy those aggravating moments when you have to deal with a 3L 2D one-two ECM punch to the middle of your Lance. That isn't to say that I enjoy being blinded, but that I do enjoy the depth it tries (key word) to add to the game in that it creates a plausible combat scenario where you and your team have to deal with an incredibly non-ideal situation (if that makes any sense to anyone else).

With that said, I do agree that the current ECM package is too much and my suggestion is this: keep each of the functions but split it up between different components. Have different pieces of equipment that can perform EITHER the lock slow umbrella OR the lock stopping jamming OR the radar jackery, etc. Limit it so that an ECM capable mech can only equip one of those options. Of course, tweak each option as the game needs for balance. You would still see groups that benefit from the same coverage as we see now, but in order to complete the current umbrella they would have to organize and run an ECM specific variant per ECM benefit that the team wants. This would come at the cost of other variants and what they have to offer, though I'm sure some would say in cases like the COM-2D and SDR-5D, this isn't a big sacrifice. However, that may change down the road as we see the variety of mechs expand. There should also be a factor in the match-making process limiting each team to only being able to drop with one mech representing each ECM variant. In my opinion, this would add another (though probably fairly static) layer of tactics to the game as you would have to identify which mech is carrying which ECM element that most vexes your team and plan to focus it and/or protect which ECM element on your team gives you the greatest benefit against their makeup. The overall benefit being that, unlike the current state, once a particular element is destroyed it no longer effects the duration of the match.

So that's my two-cents on the topic... I'm still new here and I don't understand most of the technical thought and jargon that goes into this stuff, but I just wanted to share my thoughts and try to feel important on the internet for a minute. I hope this makes sense and apologize for any ramblings (it is rather late) and apologize if it mirrors any previously made suggestions (I have tried to keep somewhat abreast of the discussion, but that's not necessarily saying much as I generally hate forums).

[thisisxerxes]

Wun, on 16 January 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

New players are rarely on voice comms. The current state of ECM preventing random PuGs from communicating at all puts them at a huge disadvantage and has got to be scaring new players away.

So, I'm a new player - just started the other day. Today I learned I'm a filthy freaking PUG, and that for other people this game is something more than a melee of total strangers aimlessly throwing themselves at eachother. I learned this, from browsing the forums. From a new player's perspective, this game gives absolutely no indication that there are teams out there, on voice-comms.

Take a look at what SOE have done with Planetside. Right from the very get go, there's clear in-game visability of squads, their position, their members. If you see someone in the game, you can just invite them into your outfit. Bam. Suddenly you're friends. MWO, for some reason, keeps everything a secret. I don't know what the plan is post-beta, but right now...