105 replies to this topic

[Muffinator]

Advanced sensor range does not make a significant difference vs ecm - I have been giving it a good go but it is not that helpful even when I really try to keep them in range. Best case scenario is I get one extra volley off but then they close the bubble again.

Every time I meet more than one ECM light I die, no matter how many teammates I have with me or what loadout I have.

[DTheSleepless]

FIX.

THE.

3.

L.

Seriously. Lights are fun to play rrrrright up until you run into a 3L, which just smokes them handily. The 3L would be overpowered to begin with, but the netcode and the jacked up hitboxes just make it worse. These things are a pain in the arse to kill.

I'd really like to see what the stats turn out to be for these things after the tournament weekend.

[Guarditan]

Do the developers really have a learning curve? I hope so but i dont see it.

How can it be that ecm is still completely too strong? Its been month since ecm was implemented...

Overall i think:
-lasers are a little too weak. It's too easy too spread your dmg over bodyparts. Especially against fast moving mechs.
-ppcs are really strong now. With the heat buff of the last patch and the emp-effect now there are often used.
-Ballisticweapons are very strong. In particular the ac20 and the gauss. Their ability to pinpoint their massive dmg is over the top. My atlas cuts with his ac20 through other mechs like through butter.
-srm: too strong in my opinion. ams is not a real counter, ecm neither and if you reached the right distance you do massive damge even though you cannot really aim for bodyparts.
-lrm: the biggest loser for month. Beside the effect that lrms normally dont hit with the full swarm, they now have to many counters like obstacles (hide behind a building or a hill and your are safe), losing the lock, ams and of course the worst of all ecm. Playing a lrmoriented mech is at the moment a pain in the ***.

A thing i also do not understand is the fact that i can launch lrms without a lock. Why? I can't launch streaks this way. So if you hit the wrong mouse key you are wasting missiles and because of their minium range they don't do any damage this way. The only thing this is good for is frightening noobs.

I think if you get the ecm fixed most problems would be solved. Then there are only tweaks.

At the moment i'm only playing ecm mechs and this is fun but when i switch back to my awesomes i'm really getting sick of this game.

Edited by Guarditan, 24 February 2013 - 05:02 AM.

[Canine]

I'm very concerned with the new patch, my entire merc group is also concerned.

The new ELO matchmaking does not seem to be weight based which has led to a massive drop in enjoyability. We understand that the new system is undergoing ongoing changes and we respect that but I have chosen to say something as many are threatening to stop playing the game due to the following issues.

Pop-tart snipers: There is no issue with them in principle however due to the current overusing of the PPC and the Gauss rifle this tactic is becoming increasingly common. The issue lies with the damage these weapons can do with no spread combined with the accuracy of the targeting system, we cannot figure out why firing a weapon when airborne is as accurate as firing in the air. Surely firing in the air should incur some penalty to accuracy and we believe this deserves looking into.

Weight over skill: The current matchmaking system is based on the ability to win which should correlate highly with skill and obviously does. I'd define skill as a combination of accuracy, teamwork and tactics and if anyone of these is abused then they have increased the ability to win without necessarily being skilful. What we're noticing since the patch is a general shift to heavier mechs culminating in lots of Atlas D-DC and 'Striker' Builds (what we call heavy damage dealing mechs) and far fewer light mechs. In general lights are useful to scout, take out other lights and (in groups) act like vultures to pick off anyone who strays from the herd. However now there is less reason to scout as ECM bubbles are overly useful. A reduction in the number of lights leads to a reduction in the number of medium mechs as their primary targets are light mechs. The reason for this is if you have 8 Atlas D-DC you don't need to scout, you don't need information, you just need to stick together in a tight group. We know you guys play the game as well as developing it so try it, get 2x4 man groups and run solely Atlas D-DC preferably with PPC's, Gauss rifles and LRM's and stay close. Using this tactic it does not matter what the enemy does so please look into this, we understand that artillery strikes are on the way but RIGHT NOW the game is not fun compared to 2 weeks ago. After thinking about it long and hard the only solution we could think of is to remove the ECM capability from the D-DC because it will reduce the effectiveness of the D-DC and increase the use of the light mech via scouting and ECM.

Please address these issues as the company I'm with is 250 members strong and these views are common amongst the vast majority.

[Warge]

Just happend: enemy Catapult without armor, my CDA-3C has 4 MG and 1 ER LL. I couldn't kill this damn Catapult! Even any Commando in this situation - could have ran to kill more.
What's the reason in CDA-3C except option 2 AC/2 + 1 ML? What's the reason in MGs?

UPD. MG still useless as before. Even 4 MGs...

Edited by Warge, 24 February 2013 - 07:14 PM.

[Rumrunner2]

Totally agree.

After the massive boosts for ballistic and PPC, Laser could take a small buff now.
And DHS 1,4 is still to week.

[Twisted Power]

Well there are a lot of new people in these threads about ECM but, if PGI is not going to listen and respond soon I'm just going to take a break from MWO once my premium time runs out. The new ELO where we drop vs a group of 4 DDC atlas and we have 1 assault mech on our team and 0 ECM... yeaano.

I do not know what my ELO is but if getting a higher ELO means I have to play against MORE DDC's and 3L's I might as well never drop in anything other than an 8 man. I already don't drop in 8 mans much as my entire merc group hates it. So now you are forcing me to drop in 8 mans like games.

Really done with all this stuff and having a 0 response other then basically "deal with it". My issue is the game play. It has just been worse with each patch it has never once gotten better after the ECM implementation. If you do not see my posts around after tomarrow it is because I am no longer going to bother posting... or playing.

Edited by Twisted Power, 25 February 2013 - 01:05 PM.

[WolvesX]

ECM is still overpowered in my opinion:

1.5 tons 2 slots... well, just compare it to BAP or AMS.

If AMS would be ECM, it would shoot down 20 rockets from each salvo or so.

ECM:
Clocks ALL friends mechs inside 180m, 50% slow down on lock on, 25% target info.
Has 2 modes and only counters itself. No skill needed to have the basic effect.

(Soft) COUNTERS:
PPK / ER PPC 7 tons, very much heat generation. Skill shot, only 4 secs.
ADV. SENSOR module, 2000k only give 70 meters+ not a reall counter.

If ECM would be like BAP ready to use on every mech, I would use it on all mechs. 1.5 tons for pure win.

ECM also isn't good for the viarity. DDC is the only viable AS7. L3 the only RVN.

---

The medium mechs are just too big. The 3d models are to big and too easy to shoot. TBT & CN9 are as big as a AWE, while -30 ton. They are just too easy to hit.

[DocBach]

Twisted Power, on 25 February 2013 - 12:47 PM, said:

I do not know what my ELO is but if getting a higher ELO means I have to play against MORE DDC's and 3L's I might as well never drop in anything other than an 8 man.

Teams will drop whatever is the best -- but in solo ELO I can tell you that the higher you get, the less outright cheese builds you'll find. The top players actually play with skill, more than over the top cheese. The second place Heavy guy played with two chassis -- a Catapult with dual ER PPCs and medium lasers, an SRM6 and an LRM10 and his other ride was a Dragon with an LB10X, 4 medium lasers and an SRM6.

It's the people telling you to learn to play, ECM is fine that can't succeed without crutches and handicaps that abuse the system with kraft cheesiest builds.

[z3a1ot]

My humble opinion:

- slightly increase cooldown for srm4, srm6 and ssrm2
- modify the ssrm2 trajectory so you cant hit a mech that is out of your sight or even behind you (ssrm2 always hit when you have lockon no matter where the enemy is), make it a hit when enemy is in your field of vision.

This way we could see less some of the certain builds that are considered OP.

[Darkblood]

It´s been said before, but just to increase statistics: the combination of ECM and Streaks is still giving lights that can use it an unfair advantage (PPCs kinda solved the D-DC problem, but most people can´t hit lights with them). I would suggest:

(1) Streaks should target a random part of the body, including arms and legs, that´s more on par with TT balance and doesn´t give an unnecessary advantage to this weapon (the only real thing about it should be saving ammo). They also need to lose lock way faster than they do (in TT you still have to roll those dice and is as hard as any weapon to aim, no easier like it is here). On the other side, you should be able to dumb fire it.

(2) After 1, ECM will be already much less OP. But I would also remove some of the cloaking abilities. If a blue-team Mech has line of sight to a cloaked red-team Mech AND is outside the bubble (and thus in communication with his team), the red-team Mech should show on map. There´s no eletronic counter measure against range finding lasers or simple parallax cameras (or even simple pilot-to-pilot communication). The red-team Mech would still be protected from missiles (maybe even longer time to lock) and we would no be able to have detailed information (load out, damage, etc...).

I think this is a major issue that is taking variety out of the game. I´ll be probably around for the long run here (I like this game a lot), but it is hard to see some friends (who I though would be around too) leaving because of that.

Edited by Darkblood, 26 February 2013 - 04:56 AM.

[Flapdrol]

Here's an idea

change some of the weapons and systems to make the useless ones useful and the overpowered ones less powerful.

Nah, I guess it's all working as intended aint it? Seriously, changing a few numbers, how hard can it be?

Edited by Flapdrol, 26 February 2013 - 05:20 AM.

[Blandtastic]

ECM is magic - what's next, fireball?

ECM was never intended to be this all powerful. If it really worked the way the developers seem to think it does, then no one in the preceding games and board games would have used anything else. It was meant to be a combat asset not a game defining CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY. The game is slowly turning into a LARP fest with people getting certain modules to cast spells. The justification from the devs seems to be something on the order of "whatever it's magic and awesome and works that way cause we say so f***you!"

"ECM!"
"PPC!PPC!PPC!PPC!"
"ECM!ECM!ECM!"

Preposterous.

Better to make it harder to detect and lock on to targets with this equipment installed than making a magical force field that completely, utterly unbalances the game. I don't care what kind of ECM you are running, if you are driving a 20+ ton war machine powered by fusion engines and generating a metric f*** ton of heat and radio energy then nothing will keep you invisible forever, especially in the open. Ever Heard of radar?

Right now I have zero chance of finding or targeting an enemy for more than two seconds. Even when using a BAP or NARC or TAG. Nope, the ECM zeros it all out. So now, I have to drop with a team that A) has said component and uses it in a specific way. If I want to drop into a game by myself and my team doesn't have this, I lose.

Really? The way this really works is the team that has a better picture of the battlefield wins. It's all about controlling the hilltops and knowing where the enemy is using recon and stealth. Real stealth, not a CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY. So, here is how this is fixed: keep the mechanics of hateful invisibility intact for the mech mounting the system but ONLY the mech mounting the system. Instead of hiding everything around it, make it slightly more difficult to target mechs in the envelope. That is an easy fix that would remove the ECM overbalance as it is.

Also, make it expensive to purchase and hugely expensive to maintain. Say 5 million C-bills to purchase and 500,000 to fix. Maybe even 100,000 per match per use. Current systems cost millions of dollars a copy and require expensive, meticulous care from highly trained specialists or they do. not. work. Also, they are very delicate so instead of a PPC powering down an ECM for a few seconds, perhaps it might be better for it to be destroyed outright whenever struck by a PPC.

Now, I could drop with a mech that has this mounted, but I refuse to play cheese. I think the only way to truly get better at games like this is steady, consistent practice of the basics: heat exchange, fire control, situational awareness and movement. I utterly refuse to use ECM until it is changed to something more in line with previous game engines. it just feels cheap. I get smeared a lot, but I can sleep at night knowing I am not playing cheap.

Terrain is becoming more and more important. Less about rushing an objective and more about using terrain features to your advantage. I love this. Using terrain has become far more important than it was before. Now it is less "crush the enemy and see them driven before you with our Atli" and more "where can I use terrain to my advantage in advancing on the enemy?" "Is it wise to crest that hilltop?"

SRMs and LRMs are difficult to balance. Let's look at what these systems are and try to remember what they are based on before screaming that they constantly be nerfed. Otherwise, nobody is going to pack these weapons. Which is a shame, seeing how integral they are to the game balance. First, let's think on what these weapons are based on.

SRMs are basically rockets. And rockets are hugely destructive. Just ask anyone who has been on the business end of a 5 inch Zuni rocket. Some assembly of said witness required. 'Nuff said on that. SRMs are unguided rockets that deal tons of damage short range. Nothing wrong with that. I say keep it as is.

LRMs are a little trickier. My solution to this would be to change the targeting mechanics completely. Instead of using the targeting like we have now, maybe change it so you cannot target as easily unless the opposing mechwarrior is in the open or targeted by scouts with NARC or TAG or something. Maybe make it so the missiles have a better chance of hitting the more centered you are with the target reticle the entire time they are in the air. This easy change would make it more of a weapons system and less about spamming missiles on a target you can't even see.

I like the targeted and incoming missile warnings. And the new startup sequence. Awesome. Makes me feel like I'm driving a monster truck made of biceps.

Edited by Blandtastic, 26 February 2013 - 06:18 AM.

[Blandtastic]

So, basically, make ECM like what the military uses camo netting. Camo netting, contrary to popular belief, does NOT make the stuff under it invisible. What it does do is use tiny pieces of metal woven into the fabric of the netting to slightly obscure the protected item from casual spotting and air to ground recon with cameras and radar. You still can see that there is something under it. You can tell if it's a truck - just not what kind of truck. A troop carrier? A gun truck? POL fuel truck? Who knows? And that is the point. However, camo netting does NOT obscure IR, Magnetics, or radio in any way. Finally, a really good fix to ECM would be to make an ECM duel. Say, one mech with ECM uses a specific set of keys or actually has to type in a set of code to nullify the enemy ECM for a short period of time. Take out the magic and put in the skill again.

[MustrumRidcully]

There's still a lot to do. I won't talk about energy and heat for this, though, even if I am not happy yet with all the weapons.

Streak SRMs.
Lower their rate of fire by about 30 to 50 %. Currently, the guaranteed-hit ability of the Streaks means they hit much more often than equal-sized regular SRMs do. But is that really just worth a 0.5t weight increase? In the table top, this weight increase was deemed worth only thea bility to not produce heat or lose ammo on a miss! To reflect this, lowering the rate of fire will lead to a similar number of hits over time as an SRM2 would have.

ECM
Instead of making targets immune to missile locks, have it cause a 75 % chance for every homing missile to lose its target (veering off) on the last 90m and raise the locking time by 75 %.
TAG and Narc would improve this to a 25 % missile loss and a 25 % increased lock time. (This means neither ECM nor LRMs are ever completely worthless.)

Narc
Double the amount of ammo per ton.
Targets protected by ECM should still be targetable at least if a NARC is on them.


MGs, Flammers, LB10-X AC
MGs, Flamers, LB10-X AC share one thing with LRMs and SRMs. They tend to spread damage a lot.
LRMs are now dealing 80 % more damage than they were in the table top per missile. SRMs deal 25 % more damage than they were in the table top. MGs, Flammers and LB10-X AC got a crit buff.
Do you really believe a 25 % to 80 % damage buff is equivalent to a crit buff?

The LB10-X AC is bad particularly in the way that its spread also makes it impossible ot actually use its range. It's range is not much better than that of an SRM launcher, but the weapon weighs almost four times as much, and it's damage is lower
Start at least with a 25 % damage buff, or find a way to make the spread constant, not increasing, with range.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 26 February 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[TroglodyteJB]

A few balance comments.

ECM
ECM continues to be the elephant in the room; it's simply the most effective component you can put in a mech, period, and when you start comparing components on a per ton or per slot basis it looks even better. I have a lot of problems with ECM, but first I think it's worth acknowledging what it does right: PG set out to make a game where information was critical, and I think the ECM is a great example of how they've done that. In principle, I LOVE the ECM. In practice, it's strictly better than any other option and that's a problem. Given that it breaks the rules for equipment and applies on a variant-by-variant basis rather than being pinched on tonnage or crit slots, this funnels players into a small subset of variants rather and nukes diversity. (Frankly I've never understood the BT restrictions on ECM; had I designed it would have taken massive critical space but applied to anything, with the idea that any mech can carry bulky ECM hardware).

As PG is probably tired of hearing, ECM is quite powerful and it dramatically shifts the dynamic of the game. When I last stopped playing MWO sometime last year, it was before the introduction of ECM when it was LRMs and Lasers or ****. Obviously the metagame has shifted, but critically, ECM does not have the same drawbacks as the LRM or Laser boat builds that dominated early OB. Those mechs were built for their task; ECM mechs are only marginally less powerful than non-ECM variants (and in the case of the 3L, sometimes they mount above-average weaponry for their class even with an ECM!).

While I like what ECM has done to missiles, there's some crazy features. Disrupt mode both masks friendlies and cripples enemies in the bubble; why? It seems like those can be justified in the fluff as fundamentally different tasks, which would allow us a third mode, Disrupt/Cloak/Counter. Cloak would perform masking functions; Disrupt would perform the "disconnect" functions to enemies as it does now, but not cloak allies; and Counter would work as it does today. This is one of the biggest issues I have with ECM. In a crowded knife fight, ECM changes the balance of the battle significantly by simultaneously masking allies and muting enemies.

Another really strange decision that has balance and logical implications is that ECM-cloaked enemies cannot be targeted AT ALL by any means save a TAG. Again, why? You're telling me that my mech cannot get the range on an enemy in my LOS if ECM is up? That's simply not plausible. Perhaps armor analysis or even missile locks are not possible when an enemy is in an ECM bubble, but if I have continuous LOS on the target, I should be able to tell my team where they are if I'm not inside the bubble myself. "Soft locks" that did little beyond share position would go a long way towards making ECM less brutal.

A few other spitball suggestions: mark ECM mechs whenever they're in LOS. Call it "triangulating the static" or something like that. That actually segues into my next point: ECM should have some sort of liability associated with it if it's going to be as good as it is. If ECM carriers were highlighted, to a greater or lesser degree (anywhere from an icon when they're in LOS to marking them on the map all the time), then ECM would not always be strictly best and it would function as intended-- as a support tool. This also dovetails nicely with the idea that PPCs and TAGs should function as a counter to ECM; often, they simply don't work because pinning down the ECM carrier is difficult when they aren't marked when they aren't fully targeted. Again, soft-locks could help here.

Finally, ECM-stacking is nonsense. If you're in a Counter bubble, you should be completely free of ECM cloaking. How this one made it through testing boggles the mind.

Oh, and by the way, when developers post that there is "a counter" to ECM and list TAG, it either means you're insulting our intelligence or revealing your ignorance. A hard counter should be merciless against the item it is designed to counter but weak against everything else; TAG is not. It's a tough sell to convince us that a single-target LOS-required weapon is the ideal counter to ECM, which requires no LOS, no hardpoint, and no target tracking.


PPC Changes
Love them, just wish they went further. Giving PPCs a home is a cause near and dear to my heart, and blasting through ECM is a great way to increase viability. Unfortunately, the heat generation means that I have to bring a ton of heatsinks, and the minimum range on the non-ER version means that I'm bringing as much ML as I can squeeze into the chassis to get some close range defense. Despite an effort to make heavy use of these, I find myself preferring the Gauss for it's massively superior heat management and higher damage.


Critseekers
I've been trying to deploy Flamers and MGs everywhere I go and in some unorthodox configurations, and I'm just not sold on them yet. Strictly non-lethal weapons are an interesting concept (and these basically are nonlethal) but in practice it's very difficult to strip enough armor off an enemy to expose enough internals to let the critseekers cripple them, making these little better than incidental point-farmers instead of viable tools to help win the game. I do enjoy my single head-mounted flamer on my Hunchback, though.


NARC
So the NARC is fixed to do what it should have been doing all along, just in time to remain utterly useless against ECMs. Pass. Maybe if it disabled an ECM when it was attached to a mech carrying one it would be equippable, but as it stands now it's a waste of space.


Missiles
Cautiously concerned about SRM damage and crit potential. My buddies are rocking splatstalkers (with some laser support) and the broadside damage seems absolutely ruthless. Combining superb spike damage with a massive number of crit rolls is a recipe for component destruction in one weapon.


Conclusions

• ECM remains disturbingly powerful and is, in it's current state, shortening the life of the game. It's immensely troubling that developers continue to fail to acknowledge the manifest issues with ECM. (And this is coming from someone who LOVES the idea of ECM!)
  
• PPC changes are great but I still prefer other options for high-damage shots.
  
• Critseeker changes are interesting but not viable as a tactic to win matches if the engine cannot be crit.
  
• NARC sucked, sucks less, still unusable.
  
• SRMs seem very strong and I have my eye on them.

Edited by TroglodyteJB, 26 February 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[Mawai]

Raven-3L is still overpowered compared to all other light mechs.

Raven-3L has ECM. SSRM, high speed (150kph+) and decent armor.

It will usually defeat all other light mechs in any encounter.

In addition, it provides the area of effect benefits of ECM to all nearby team members ... on top of its superlative maneuverability and damage potential.

The only feature lacking is jump jets and they only make a modest difference.

[Mawai]

SSRM and LRMs are only in a sort of balance due to the existence and effects of ECM. WIthout ECM both LRMs and SSRMs are overpowered compared to all other weapon systems. This makes it very difficult to adjust ECM since these weapon systems will also require adjustment ... however, this kind of adjustment is required since the presence of ECM in any match is not guaranteed ... so the game balance varies greatly depending on what mechs and equipment happen to be in a match.

[Inertiaman]

Reduce srm damage, increase srm heat?

[Aleksander Wernersson]

Dozens of head-shots, pinpoint sniping PPCs that melt my center torso with one or two hits...
Since last patch I feel my Cat like its made of glass. I wanted a better PPC too, but I think its much too strong now - it seems to dominate the game.

Edited by Postman, 27 February 2013 - 12:21 AM.