221 replies to this topic

[Corvus Antaka]

the big problem with PPC as a counter is that it only counters the mech with the ECM, so anyone inside the bubble/ECM stacking means your whole team either needs to bring PPC to insure you hit everyone. If the PPC gave radar on anyone shot by it, it would be a more viable counter perhaps.

overall my biggest gripe currently is the lack of ability to lock with missiles outside the 180m when you have LOS and "needing" a TAG.

[DocBach]

I'm still thinking ECM is way too much information denial for its size/cost.

This marathon gaming event showed me that the IFF removal is a HUGE issue. One, accidental fratricide is a huge risk and we have nothing to tell teams apart - no cohesive markings or whatever to denote a player as a team mate. In real war, we'd use glint tape/visible panels to designate "hey we're friendlies." In this we have nothing at all and I've seen many players hesitate to shoot inside of a bubble because they can't IFF.

Maybe a shoulder panel or something needs to be painted the team colors regardless of player custom camo?

Another big thing is a lot of players ignore gigantic fights happening under ECM bubbles. Yeah, with voice you can say "They are ALL in e5..." In a pick up game with no voice comms, people will happily mosey on past an epic battle because they've got no idea its there because their sensors are saying all clear.

Edited by DocBach, 25 February 2013 - 07:29 AM.

[Inertiaman]

Yeah whatever else changes, same-team id's should persist through everything. There is no good reason canonical, real-world or design-wise why this should not be the case.

[Jungle Rhino]

I still struggle to reconcile the canon slot/tonnage requirements of ECM when PGI have completely departed from the canon effectiveness of ECM. Surely the fitting requirements ought to be proportional to the in game effectiveness.

If PGI are going to insist on this absurd implementation of ECM they at a minimum need to balance this aspect of it.

[Ghostbear Gurdel]

well, with how good it is, 8 tons and 4 crits seems about right...

[Inertiaman]

It's a horrendous testament to the current abilities of MWOECM that your suggestion doesn't sound ludicrous.

[StalaggtIKE]

Critical Fumble, on 25 February 2013 - 06:47 AM, said:

What I meant back there was, I don't think they're intentionally trying to screw over everyone who doesn't play exactly like they do. I get a distinct "distracted professor" vibe from the group at times; like a scientist who's spent so much time in the lab studying something that they forget what its like to actually experience it in an uncontrolled environment.

I don't truly feel that PGI is a company hellbent on making the game miserable for myself and others. I just find that people, for whatever reason, seldom respond to sanity. Exaggerated rants get better results.

Quote

Like ECM, if you playtested it with voice - a perfectly reasonable thing to do to make sure it goes smoothly - the loss of map info would be a minor inconvenience. And after the fact, if you failed to try solo dropping much if at all, you wouldn't understand how crippling it can be without voice.

So, yeah, its bad, and they desperately need to have some of their team be pug experts if they want that as a part of their market share; but I don't see how anyone intelligent enough to actually piece together this kind of software could rationalize intentionally making this a "No headset, no Razor, no service" type environment.

Agreed. The fact is ECM affects pugs and premades disproportionately. ECM negates all built in tools to allow solo players (pugs) the ability to coordinate effective counter attacks. I find that ECM isn't as much of a challenge as it is a teamwork inhibitor on pugs. I think it boils down to pov. Some of the testers need to play game in its vanilla state. With no added "flavors": no TS, Mumble, Ventrilo, macros or fancy input devices.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 25 February 2013 - 12:42 PM.

[Bilaz]

DocBach, on 25 February 2013 - 07:07 AM, said:

I'm still thinking ECM is way too much information denial for its size/cost.

This marathon gaming event showed me that the IFF removal is a HUGE issue. One, accidental fratricide is a huge risk and we have nothing to tell teams apart - no cohesive markings or whatever to denote a player as a team mate. In real war, we'd use glint tape/visible panels to designate "hey we're friendlies." In this we have nothing at all and I've seen many players hesitate to shoot inside of a bubble because they can't IFF.

Maybe a shoulder panel or something needs to be painted the team colors regardless of player custom camo?

Another big thing is a lot of players ignore gigantic fights happening under ECM bubbles. Yeah, with voice you can say "They are ALL in e5..." In a pick up game with no voice comms, people will happily mosey on past an epic battle because they've got no idea its there because their sensors are saying all clear.

color panel wont do. Most tiresome and troublesome part of shooters is target recognition. You stare at monitor full of pixels, knowing that some pixels do want to kill you. That 5 glowing dots.... yes, clearly a catapult. oh and that dot, half a screen away is... atlas... no, stalker. And i was so glad - how cool i thought, here you dont have this constant pixel hunting - clear target designations, nice and clean. So wrong i was, and so unhappy now. I dont mind termocamping from time to time, but all the time, every match - no thank you. And to be honest something is off in termo - i dont like the way it looks so fuzzy - some augumented reality to help distignishing friend from foe, different parts and edges of robots - would be good, given that its *the most important mode* now.
As for iff - yeah, recently almost killed friendly... in the back... and i hate to shoot blues. Would also like to see some solution.

Edited by Bilaz, 25 February 2013 - 01:25 PM.

[BR0WN_H0RN3T]

It's poor strategy on pgi's part, specifically the fact that they've overcommitted with ecm and now don't want to fix it but rather bring in new partial counters to it. They don't want to fix it for fear of appearing fools...but now they really look foolish for not doing anything. Over-design is a bad design. Always.

[FrostCollar]

Brown Hornet, on 25 February 2013 - 02:27 PM, said:

They don't want to fix it for fear of appearing fools...but now they really look foolish for not doing anything.

Unfortunately, this trend is not new. Remember when double heat sinks were balanced so they weren't mandatory on essentially every mech?

[DocBach]

FrostCollar, on 25 February 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Unfortunately, this trend is not new. Remember when double heat sinks were balanced so they weren't mandatory on essentially every mech?

wait, when was that? I remember them being even worse.

[FrostCollar]

DocBach, on 25 February 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

wait, when was that? I remember them being even worse.

They didn't.
*Rimshot*

[Twisted Power]

O you guys... You make me laugh. However witty banter probably won't get through to PGI.

Kind of disappointed at this whole thing. Premium time is out today-ish. Don't feel like playing again for a while.

MWO was supposed to be my great mechgame to play religiously until 2020. Guess not.

[TigrisMorte]

arghmace, on 22 February 2013 - 05:13 AM, said:

Make Guardian ECM do what it's supposed to do.
Add Angel ECM to the game.
Add Null Signature (and/or Stealt Armor) to the game.

Fixed.

<snark>But don't you know this isn't Table Top so they have to ignore all math and testing that went before. It simply is not possible that the rules worked because they were carefully developed and tested. It can only be because there was a top down view and dice. Plus then you could neither move nor fire but once every 10 seconds because there is no means to adjust time period from one kind of simulation to another.

I mean if it were only a matter of lighted pixels being hardly different from a physical miniature and that random is implemented in what way is possible given the medium you'd have a chance.

Unfortunately, no. Since anything is different you can only take names and dates. </snark>

Edited by TigridMorte, 25 February 2013 - 05:17 PM.

[TigrisMorte]

Twisted Power, on 25 February 2013 - 04:52 PM, said:

O you guys... You make me laugh. However witty banter probably won't get through to PGI.

Kind of disappointed at this whole thing. Premium time is out today-ish. Don't feel like playing again for a while.

MWO was supposed to be my great mechgame to play religiously until 2020. Guess not.

in memorium to possibilities, (raise glass with you brother.)
Died a little inside when I realized they were mechassault fans.

[Inertiaman]

So it took three months for this thread or another before it to reach page 2.

Just so you know - that's not because anyone thinks MWOECM is working properly...

[Flapdrol]

I'm afraid Piranha doesn't give a damn about gamebalance. Took them ages to reduce heat on the large energy weapons, while the true cause of them not working right is the way heatsinks work. Either that or they're just incompetent.

Ever since ecm came out they've just ignored all the feedback on it, in fact they ignore all the gamebalance feedback. I dont know why I keep bother posting in it.

Edited by Flapdrol, 26 February 2013 - 06:44 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Flapdrol, on 26 February 2013 - 06:43 AM, said:

I'm afraid Piranha doesn't give a damn about gamebalance. Took them ages to reduce heat on the large energy weapons, while the true cause of them not working right is the way heatsinks work. Either that or they're just incompetent.

Ever since ecm came out they've just ignored all the feedback on it, in fact they ignore all the gamebalance feedback. I dont know why I keep bother posting in it.

Because you care

[Jungle Rhino]

What I hate the most about the whole sad situation is that if we have enough guys online for an 8-man then I'm stuck with driving a COM-2D because none of my preferred mechs are viable choices if you actually want to be competitve.

People talk about balancing matchmaking based on ECM - hang on a second isn't this the tail wagging the dog here? If a single system is so overwhelming that people seriously propose it affect matchmaking then it is clearly broken beyond beleif.

...and yes I've just had another sh1tty night of being circled to death by Ravens and generally unable to participate in any semblance of mech warfare other than whack-a-mole as another 3L flashes by. Don't know how much more of this I can take.

[Caleb Lee]

StalaggtIKE, on 24 February 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:

@Critical Fumble: This isn't about difficulty. The game is coercing everyone to conform to a particular playstyle: 4man over TS. This is how the devs play it (as seen on twitch.tv) and most ECM fanboys. Getting around ECM isn't an issue, all one must do is join a TS or equivalent voice server. This leaves ECM with only blocking guided missiles, which is fairly easily remedied with direct fire, TAG and/or PPC. So NO, ECM is not a hurdle. I don't join a game, see ECM and think darn I can't use my LRM. Instead I see a majority of the enemy team wandering around in the open and being unable to communicate this to my team without much typing and clarification. Where as before I would simply cycle through the targets with my 'R' key. Perhaps I come from an old school of thought, but if you're dumb enough to be in the open, I think you should suffer consequences. In a way ECM is making the game more accessible, by allowing players to have success with bad movement and disregard to cover.

They aren't forcing anyone to play in a particular play style, online gaming has done that for years. It's a simple fact that players working together on comms, especially if not PUG and are a unit, will trounce a group of randoms 90% of the time. The exceptions are typically a really, really bad unit and competent PUGs on the other side. I've been playing online games since about 1998 and from Quake on up this has held true.

The issue is a broken system. ECM's 3n1 features with no realistic counters completely nerfs lock on weapons, ability to communicate and designate targets. Those are probably the two biggest issues I have, as even on TS/Vent how do you communicate you want to attack a particular mech? Lance Leader: Target that DDC coming over the hill. Response: Which one?

Being in the open they do get punished if the opposing team has direct fire weapons. PPC, Gauss, UAC/AC, ER-LL etc... Sadly, LRMs fire suppression is no longer there unless a scout gets within TAG distance and then hey... 'Bitching Betty' announces to them they are being targeted now. Go figure...