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Do you feel ECM is a good game mechanic?

Author
KFenn
State War Academy
Caldari State
#21 - 2011-11-21 01:45:18 UTC
The Offerer wrote:
Except Target painting is not a primary e-war for any race.

So what about all the bonused Minmatar hulls?

Commanding Officer of the Treacle Tart Brigade

Krios Ahzek
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#22 - 2011-11-21 01:48:48 UTC
ECM kinda sucks, it has no stacking penalty and its main function is to make the target unable to fight and have fun.

 Though All Men Do Despise Us

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#23 - 2011-11-21 01:51:27 UTC
The problem with ECM is that it is… well… all kinds of ECM. It include all the effects you'd expect from an ECM system, whereas the other ECM-like ewar types (damps and TDs) only do certain parts of the collection of effects you see from ECM. They are subsets of ECM, whereas ECM is all of it at once.

Now, as much as I tend to bang on about “RL is irrelevant”, let's look at what Earthly ECM actually does to see what I mean with the above: it produces noise that makes it hard to locate and lock on to a target (scan res damping); it creates false signals and returns that means you can't get proper target separation until you get close enough to filter out those returns (lock range damping); the same false returns make it hard for weapons guidance systems to predict the motion of the target (tracking disruption). ECM in EVE generates massive versions of all of these things to the point where it's actually more a bit of directed EMP than “real” ECM.

I wouldn't really say that ECM Is good or bad, as mechanics go, but it supersedes the other forms in a way that isn't quite conducive to good “ability balancing” or “ability spread”, and that is a problem in and of itself (albeit a rather different one than the potential overpoweredness of ECM).

Personally, I've always been partial to ECM being more proper electronic warfare or communications jammer: disrupting things like drone bandwidth, or maximum target numbers, or messing with the overview and brackets. Or maybe something more akin to a virus: making weapons fire at the wrong thing, or having some random chance of turning on (or off) modules. Anything really, as long as it is not what damps or TDs offer.
The Offerer
Doomheim
#24 - 2011-11-21 02:36:01 UTC
KFenn wrote:
The Offerer wrote:
Except Target painting is not a primary e-war for any race.

So what about all the bonused Minmatar hulls?

That's a secondary racial E-war for Minmatar.
A secondary E-war is something unknown to Caldari.

Minmatar: Web, TP
Amarr: Neut, TD
Gallente: SD, warp disruptor range
Caldari: ECM
Asuri Kinnes
Perkone
Caldari State
#25 - 2011-11-21 02:58:41 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
I don't want this to turn into a giant debate. I just want to see to know how everyone feels about this game mechanic. Do not go one about what part of the current mechanic needs to be changed or anything like that. The question is simple:

Do you think the current ECM mechanic is good and if not; would you like to see it replaced with something completely new?

I love ECM, think it's fairly balanced, I usually fit accordingly.

Bob is the god of Wormholes.

That's all you need to know.

Tamiya Sarossa
Resistance is Character Forming
#26 - 2011-11-21 03:04:06 UTC
You know, applying the typical stacking nerf to ECM strengths applied to the same ship would really help fix a lot of the problems, and be a large boost to ECCM. In fleets, you can cut incoming DPS just as much by spreading out your jammers, but jamming the hell out of one target isn't as effective anymore. Fleet effectiveness unhurt, fitting ECCM against ECM is slightly more effective, win win?
mkint
#27 - 2011-11-21 03:07:05 UTC
To understand how awful it is consider how it compares to other ewar. No other ewar can completely remove someone from a fight. No other ewar has a permajam. Ecm isn't the iwin button it used to be but it is still a sh!t mechanic.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

mkint
#28 - 2011-11-21 03:10:43 UTC
The Offerer wrote:
KFenn wrote:
The Offerer wrote:
Except Target painting is not a primary e-war for any race.

So what about all the bonused Minmatar hulls?

That's a secondary racial E-war for Minmatar.
A secondary E-war is something unknown to Caldari.

Minmatar: Web, TP
Amarr: Neut, TD
Gallente: SD, warp disruptor range
Caldari: ECM

Fail. Look at ship bonuses again both t1 and t2. Paints are minnie primary ewar.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

XY Zed
#29 - 2011-11-21 03:41:57 UTC
What if we just make ECM jam its owner if he fails to jam, but only if the target has ECCM and this is also chance based.
Elrich Kouvo
Doomheim
#30 - 2011-11-21 04:21:20 UTC
Like'em just wish Winmatar had something similar.
Dream Five
Renegade Pleasure Androids
#31 - 2011-11-21 04:51:09 UTC
Don Pellegrino wrote:
No. There's a reason why highly competitive games have no "stunning" mechanics. It removes a huge part of the player skill/experience influence and instead can make fights depend on the outcome of a random numbers generator.

This game NEEDS a mechanic to neutralize high value targets, but ECM (eve's stunning) is a terrible way to do it. It also scales terribly, a Falcon in a 5v5 can easily keep 3/5 enemy targets permajammed while in large battles ECM is close to useless.


Try (20 scorps + 80 tempest) vs 100 tempest and see who wins :)
DarkAegix
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#32 - 2011-11-21 05:07:05 UTC
Other ewar weakens ships, while ECM completely disables them.
Countering the ewar of other races gives your ship benefits, such as increased lock range or a capacitor booster. ECCM doesn't improve your ship.

Here's a thought. Which ship is more useful in a fleet fight?
a) A Maelstrom which is neuted, tracking disrupted, sensor dampened, scrammed, webbed and target painted
b) A jammed Maelstrom

Well, a) could attack close range targets, and alpha a few mid-range enemies.
However, b) can do nothing.

Maelstrom a) has 3 ewar ships on it.
Maelstrom b) has 1 ewar ships on it.

ECM needs fixing.
OT Smithers
A Farewell To Kings...
Dock Workers
#33 - 2011-11-21 06:54:42 UTC
I agree that it sucks to be jammed. It sucks enough that pretty much every other PvP game out there has all but done away with this as a mechanic.

However...

Right now Caldari pilots have the Drake, Tengu (if they have rich blood), and ECM boats. Further, ECM boats give up everything else to do what they do, including DPS and tanking. Where other recons, for example, are combat ships, the Falcon is exclusively a support ship.

I would be perfectly happy to see ECM removed from the game if it meant a complete reworking of the Caldari ship and weapon lineup. I doubt that will happen.

Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#34 - 2011-11-21 07:28:54 UTC
It's a bad mechanic and it should be replaced as soon as someone can come up with something better.

2 things to bear in mind when thinking up a replacement

(1) Caldari don't have any secondary E-war specialisation like the other 3 races have.
(2) They're supposed to be the E-war specialists, and they should have the best and most effective E-war

Most people seem to come up with alternative ideas for ECM along the lines of "sends a stern note to the target's mother asking her to get him to knock it off" or "shouts 'Hey you kids get off my lawn!'".

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016

Hannibal Ord
Fer-De-Lance
#35 - 2011-11-21 07:41:33 UTC
The Offerer wrote:
KFenn wrote:
The Offerer wrote:
Except Target painting is not a primary e-war for any race.

So what about all the bonused Minmatar hulls?

That's a secondary racial E-war for Minmatar.
A secondary E-war is something unknown to Caldari.

Minmatar: Web, TP
Amarr: Neut, TD
Gallente: SD, warp disruptor range
Caldari: ECM



Quoting this to show just how much this is fail.
Vachir Khan
Rugged Ruff and Ready
#36 - 2011-11-21 08:02:28 UTC
ECM in and of itself is fine but 14+ jam str on a Falcon is too much. Lowering BB and scorp to something like 6.5-7 and Falcon to 10 would be a lot better. It would still dominate in a 1v1+falcon scenario but you can't stop that anyway. In smaller gangs they wouldn't have the fight changing capability they have now.
de votso
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#37 - 2011-11-21 08:36:23 UTC  |  Edited by: de votso
The Offerer wrote:
KFenn wrote:
The Offerer wrote:
Except Target painting is not a primary e-war for any race.

So what about all the bonused Minmatar hulls?

That's a secondary racial E-war for Minmatar.
A secondary E-war is something unknown to Caldari.

Minmatar: Web, TP
Amarr: Neut, TD
Gallente: SD, warp disruptor range
Caldari: ECM

This!

For me, running in a titan with its doomsday and running in a falcon, scorp or even a griffin has the same effect, either I leave or I die. There is no reliable counter and no other single form of EW can make that same claim, so I'm asking CCP how is that a balanced mechanic?

The world of eve will be a better place when ECM is given a stacking penalty and affects only the maximum number targets the victim's ships can lock back. also give Caldari EW boats a secondary bonus to missile launcher disruption (Explosion velocity/Radius or such).
Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#38 - 2011-11-21 08:46:30 UTC
mkint wrote:
To understand how awful it is consider how it compares to other ewar. No other ewar can completely remove someone from a fight. No other ewar has a permajam. Ecm isn't the iwin button it used to be but it is still a sh!t mechanic.



Oddly enough I recall fitting 4 damps on a Myrm JUST to f over a guy that I knew was going to bring a scorpion to the party.

He got no jams, mission accomplished.....mainly because I doubt he could target more than 30km.
Written Word
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#39 - 2011-11-21 09:02:35 UTC
Its not very balanced for small scale warfare, like less than 5 people per side.

As gang sizes increases however, its just another interesting wrinkle as well as being the only true counter to enemy logistics.
Dibsi Dei
Salamyhkaisten kilta
#40 - 2011-11-21 09:22:31 UTC
Written Word wrote:
Its not very balanced for small scale warfare, like less than 5 people per side.

As gang sizes increases however, its just another interesting wrinkle as well as being the only true counter to enemy logistics.

ECM could use a rework as an anti-logistics weapon. That way it wouldn't completely shut down small scale battles.