Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I was posting an example to illustrate my point rather than a proposal I would like to see implemented.

My personal feeling is that ECM is arguably fine as is (with the exception of ECM drones). No new skills are needed, nor are nerfs. I wouldn't mind seeing it addressed, but only if it is done in such a way that it retains whatever power it currently has and becomes more interesting. But in this case, as in the case with all of these changes, what I would like as a player is irrelevant. CCP Fozzie has his own vision for how things aught to be in the game, and good or bad the players will adapt.

If ECM is to be nerfed, and this is only the beginning of that process, I would like to see something powerful and interesting take its place. This first step, however, indicates that this is not in the cards. So be it.

This is such a big gang member view. When you have 4 people in your gang, and a falcon can perma jam all 4. Id say its survivability is pretty ******* good!

I've yet to see anyone give a coherent, let alone convincing, argument for the introduction of ECCM-like skills. All they do is change the weighting on a dice roll. They don't give players new abilities (in the sense of options where the player makes a positive choice which determines their actions).

Of course you're always likely to have some mechanics which boil down to:

but good game design will still leave room for the size of x and y to be determined by players' choices.

EVE already has that mechanic with respect to ECM: ECCM modules (& less commonly T3 electronics subsystems and/or gang links). I can decide whether or not to fit one, but I'm also free to change that decision before, after, and even during a fight. Whatever I choose will involve making sacrifices elsewhere and in EVE more than other games you also have the intel-war and heavy, heavy meta-gaming. These are all, IMO, good things.

Passive skills which do nothing but give a buff to any and all ships (of a particular race) regardless of ship type, fitting, gang-composition etc. are not good things. If everyone has to train them then a flat reduction of ECM strength achieves the same thing without unnecessarily punishing new players with more important skills to train, or heavily cross-trained characters (who aren't all 100m SP + bittervets).

On top of that there are all the other concerns (e.g. the impact on scanning) which have been raised. I won't repeat them since their force is quite clear:

With all these potential pitfalls, the case for ECCM-like skills needs to be very strong. So far it has not been made at all.

Two lines of argument I would accept:
- Introducing these skills is not actually about ECM. It's actually part of the general trend towards making generalisation/cross-training harder.
I don't like this, but it's a fair argument. If it's this then CCP should just say so.

- The skills are actually paving the way for a new ECM mechanic (perhaps reducing the number of targets you can manage?) and will play a more active role after the final changes.
Again, I think this order would be a bad idea but as an argument it's sound.

Previous post edited for clarity. Most of those skills have an additional function such as enabling the fitting of new/better modules or letting the player do things to more people at a given point in time.

Actually I'd have no objection if CCP wanted to remove e.g. Spaceship Command (though a Rank 1 skill which gives 2% agility / level and starts at level 3 on every new character is not a problem worth fussing over).

There are lots of other things which could be said here (making mistakes in the past is no reason to repeat them in the future; possibly the upheaval of rectifying a bad design can be more trouble than its worth etc.) but all of that is detracting from the main point:


It would be much more interesting to hear why you think new skills are a good thing (if you do think that) rather than circling around the background motivation for my position.

That's why I think the best fix to ECM would be a way to make sensor strength, or at least ECCM, more useful in a general case.

@OT : in fact, we agree then, except that Ihave more faith in CCP. :-)

After the change, ECM will still be crazy good. Even if it beats the odds and hits, it can change the course of battle because it is an all-or-nothing kind of effect. Instead of being incrementally effective, ECM use is either devastating or laughable.

ECM really targets two aspects of targeting: max number of targets, and the ability to reacquire a target lock. Presently, if successful, max targets is reduced to 0, and by definition no new targets may be locked.

It was briefly mentioned before, but what if partial success were possible? I may not achieve complete success on a jam cycle, but suppose I am able to break 4 out of my target's 6 locks? And since I wasn't completely successful at jamming, maybe the target can reacquire locks after 10-15 seconds, instead of the full cycle. I should be able to fit scripts that either boost the number of target locks that I break or boost the length of time I prevent my target from reacquiring locks.

This concept could be extended to drones as well, though the effects should be significantly diminished; if partial successes are possible, drones can be scaled in this manner, as opposed to the present time. A new drone module could be scripted to affect ECM drone characteristics as well.

ECM should also affect the target's drones since, in theory, the ship is still controlling the drone's activities; drone targets should be valid "targets" for ECM modules and drones. FoF drones could be a cute counter, making me think of the bullets in Who Framed Roger Rabbit :)

* Note, affecting drone targeting should only happen in the context of POS ECM balancing (read: nerfing), since that is the only counter to POS ECM available to w-space C4-C1 residents.

The difficulty for a full jam could even be increased to make it more difficult in light of partial successes, particularly since a completely successful jam should ultimately reduce max targets to 0, force your drones to lose their targets as well, and prevent you from reacquiring any target lock for a full cycle.

The proposed racial ECM-defense skills need not be implemented (for all the reasons already mentioned). ECCM would be more generally useful as ECM is no longer all-or-nothing. Unbonused application might be useful in a GTFO mechanic, as you might get lucky and break the lock of the person scramming you.

Same question to you as I posted to Nova Satar above:

Why do you think that introducing new skills to boost sensor strength is a better solution than simply further reducing ECM strength?

Bear in mind that the 'new skills' route:
- Is significantly more demanding for new players
- Is significantly more demanding for heavily cross-trained players
- Will effect probing to such a degree that Devs will need to monitor it and perhaps adjust the probing formula at a later date

So you really need to have a much better case than 'If you hate getting jammed ... then train the skills' (I'm sure there are plenty of players who love getting jammed and thus will not need to train these skills )

Please introduce more skills that HAVE to be trained so I can be competitive.

How about "Ship Acceleration", which allows you to go from 0 to max speed 5% faster per level? Gotta be a rank 6 Cha/Mem though.

I got one!! "Cargo Sorting", allows you to move an additional 1k m^3 per drag, and we need to limit all weight drag operations artifically down to 1k m^3 base so this skill makes sense!!

And for the lolz, lets add "Racial Dictation", which allows you to speak each race's language, since you only know your own. Rank 5 allows you to understand everyone just like right now!!

Give me a break.

Fly a Caldari Missile Boat and carry FoF Missiles in the Cargo, ECM can't stop that, there's your answer. And ECM does not need removing from the game quit whining about ECM, i love listening to people like you throw tantrums about ECM because I use it quite a lot , and it is how I counter better fitted ships. It is in the game for a reason, to be used.

Yeah a new learning skill, just like Long Range Targeting, Signature Analysis, etc. is a learning skill.