EVE General Discussion

Yep, all that and especially this. I keep at least one on hand in nearly every ship and ready to overload. ECM ships are defeatable, unfortunately laziness isn't. The list could be twice as long, and the tears the same nontheless out of lack of game tactics understanding.

best answer ever to a nerf ECM whine

Too bad that this line of argumentation only ever proves that something is in desperate need of being nerfed…

…and anyway, the whole “random stun” effect of ECM means it manages to combine two inherently awful game mechanics in one and needs to be changed anyway.

And that may all be true.

My point is that the instant you hear the “bring some of your own” argument, you know that whatever it is you're talking about is up for the chop. It means we have an apex-predator kind of situation, and those are deeply undesirable in a working game. It was the same situation (and the same argument) we saw with nanos, with supercaps, with neuts, with… [etc]. It has become an increasingly common argument for leaving ECM alone, and that really only points to one thing: it will not be left alone.

12km medium neuts work super well as a counter to 71km Logi reps!

ECM is awesome never get rid of it, we need ships like this to keep 0.0 warfare interesting and work agaisnt the blob. And yes there is a counter to ECM ships sniper ships that fire at over 120km, once a scorps jammer range goes beyond 120km there effectivness really drops off. Solar and co knew this so they bought a small sniper wing to attack the scropions. However the Gypsy Band bomber fleet spotted this and decided to take out the sniper wing first. If they hadnt done this then most of those scorps would probably have been dead Scorps in the end

The single biggest problem with ECM is ECM alts that solo players use to either retreat from a fight or use to in 1v1's to ensure they can either win the fight or run away if needed too. ECM however is and should remain a perfectley viable tactic in a big fleet fight

…except not, since bringing your own logis doesn't let you deal with the problem of the enemy having logis. Quite the opposite, in fact — it just means nothing happens.

If they bring everything, then yes, bringing more of everything is perhaps the best solution, but as luck would have it, everything is also being nerfed, if the forums are to be believed.

No, it's not poison — it's stun: it's leaving the player without control for 20 seconds. It is not a matter of “freaking out” but of being frustrated with the mechanics, and it's not good design in any sense of the word.

On top of that, there's the random and binary nature of the effect, and the vast scope of that effect, all of which are also points of bad design. It provides no room for gradation and counter-gradation, but rather operates on a statistical effects, which is far harder to balance and to provide options for (or against). It also obsoletes numerous other forms of ewar.

There is, all in all, pretty much no redeeming features of the ECM mechanic in EVE. It's just bad, through and through.

Sure it is. It has all the traits of the rogue weapon, such as poison. It doesn't paralyze, fof is one such counter. Drones are another. This has all been mentioned already. Snipers are out of range just in like other mmo's. Like poison, it has the psychological effect as poison delivers in other games, mostly being helplessness to those who choose to be unprepared to counter it. Thus impending death or run away. ECM is quite brilliant, and such as in other games that have rogue skills, it's quite disliked. We want everything simple like WoW, predefined skill sets and limited pieces on the chess board. No thanks.

…except that it holds all the properties of stun and none of poison: it does no damage but leaves you unable to take any of the offensive measures you'd normally be able to do. Drones don't help because they must be targeted while you have a lock (which you don't). FoFs are not a counter because they are limited to a few weapon systems, for which they are truly awful. Sniping is just a case of not being around for the effects to matter, which isn't really a counter since the effects are still just as devastating.

The “excellent” (read horrible) effects you're after could be had through other means if that's what you're really after, but ECM is not the way to do it because of its fundamentally flawed mechanics of application, effect, counter, and overlap with other, supposedly equal effects. So no, even if it had the effects you think of (which it doesn't), it would still have no redeemable features.

Obviously. Why else would you argue in favour of a mechanic that reduces the useful parts of the game; that employs fundamentally flawed design principles for the ease of implementation; that removes gameplay and relies on affecting the player rather than the game itself. None of the simplistic mechanics have a place in a game that prides itself on complexity and choice, such as EVE.