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Balance change for ECM: Not chance-based, not max-target-based
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djentropy Ovaert
The Conference Elite
The Conference
#21 - 2014-02-14 22:20:31 UTC
Altrue wrote:

On the other hand, the jam would take time to be effective and force the ECM ship to commit to the fight, plus the second you are not ECMed, you get all your targets back.



Seems like a heavy nerf to me - at least for a ship class that only has one real defense - cloaking up or GTFO the grid as quick as possible when things don't go right. Forcing them to commit is a pretty heavy nerf....
Dolorous Tremmens
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#22 - 2014-02-15 05:39:26 UTC
Zakeus Djinn wrote:
Whoa... this is brilliant! Perhaps we could have two different ECCM modules, one that increases maximum Sensor strength, and one that increases sensor regen? I would suggest that they would be scripts, but then you would load the sensor strength boosting one first and swap to regen once you had taken ECM hits essentially giving you both at the same time.


Ah, but its an effect/second, so you wouldn't have time to switch scripts, you'd lose the use of the module while you reload. Have to commit to one script or the other

Get some Eve. Make it yours.
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#23 - 2014-02-15 06:48:13 UTC
This is better than our current mechanic.

However it doesn't solve the base issues of ECM.
ECCM still does not provide a boost to your game play unless ECM is used on you.
And ECM can not be countered via skilled piloting unlike TD's or SD's which can be countered by piloting tactics.
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#24 - 2014-02-15 17:37:43 UTC
Nevyn Auscent wrote:
This is better than our current mechanic.

However it doesn't solve the base issues of ECM.
ECCM still does not provide a boost to your game play unless ECM is used on you.
And ECM can not be countered via skilled piloting unlike TD's or SD's which can be countered by piloting tactics.


True that ECM cannot be countered via piloting, but all mechanics are not the same and cannot be exactly the same. If there was a solution I'd like to include it though.
Oh and for the record it does provide a small boost to your game play in the form of resistance to combat probe scanning.
Too few ships however are able to cap themselves so thats bad. Maybe making this cap easier to reach would be a good idea for sniping ships?

djentropy Ovaert wrote:
Altrue wrote:

On the other hand, the jam would take time to be effective and force the ECM ship to commit to the fight, plus the second you are not ECMed, you get all your targets back.



Seems like a heavy nerf to me - at least for a ship class that only has one real defense - cloaking up or GTFO the grid as quick as possible when things don't go right. Forcing them to commit is a pretty heavy nerf....

You can always tweak the stats of the ECMs or the ECM ships to balance that. As it stands currently this "all or nothing" has forced ECM ships to commit their med slots on ECM, and minimze their presence on field by warping off as soon as needed. However, if you tank a bit your ships you can actually be pretty resilient, for instance a blackbird can reach 10k raw shield with relatively good resists and still keep two ECM.

I feel like having more than three ECMs on a ship is a bad strategy anyway. It was caused by the fact that the target is jammed for 20 seconds. If sensor dampeners worked the same way, maybe we would see the same things happening.

So to me it would be a heavy nerf to a tact that was bad for your tanking anyway.


Dolorous Tremmens wrote:
+1
I like it. No RNG, still breaks locks, and is counterable if caught in time. Your eccm idea is also scriptable, more sensor strength for a ECM brick tank for small gang warfare, or more Sensor strength regen speed.

How would you manage multispectrals, and bursts?


Scripts would be awesome yes :)
And I would recommend buffing the low slot ECCM but maybe thats just me.
Well multispectrals would work just as now, meaning better efficiency than a racial ECM on a wrong ship, worst than a racial ECM on the right ship.

ECM brusts would consider the current sensor strength of the target to determine the probability of breaking the lock. Really nothing different from now, except that a ship with its sensor strength weakened by, say, a flight of light ECM drones but not yet at 0 (example: if your drones only make the strength of the target decrease of 0.25/sec) would be likely to be affected by the ECM burst.
For the rest it wouldn't really change anything, because I remind you that ECM burst is wrongly named since it doesn't work like ECM at all.




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Sigras
Conglomo
#25 - 2014-02-15 18:37:03 UTC
what if ECM bursts hit everyone in range for a large amount of negative sensor strength, like everyone in range gets -25 sensor strength instantly, but it wouldnt apply a -5/s that a normal jammer would

Still working on counter play options for ECM... I still think any mechanic that leaves a player with 0 options is a bad mechanic
Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#26 - 2014-02-15 22:58:51 UTC
I like ECM as it is, I don't think it needs any changes as there are significant counters in game.

It takes balls of steel to warp into a battle in a blackbird, it's paper thin, no real offensive power, all it can do is jam and given that there will always be someone out there who is not jammed you can die really quickly.

You take your chances. ECM is underpowered if anything all ECM ships need a buff, not a nerf or a new convuluted mechanic that guarantees the ECM ship will die in a fire the instant it appears.

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...
Sigras
Conglomo
#27 - 2014-02-16 02:07:45 UTC
While it may take balls to warp into battle in a blackbird, but it takes neither skill nor whit to sit cloaked 70 km from the battle in complete safety and decloak at the opportune moment to jam the opponent when they cannot fire back, nor does it take any skill to warp in at 130 in a scorpion which is neither in danger nor is it fragile.

It is well known that randomness is bad for competition. Again, its the reason people intentionally turn off random crits when playing competitive TF2.
Anomena
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2014-02-16 03:21:32 UTC
While I do agree that it would be great to be relieved of the randomness of ECM. I feel though that this suggestion is, well I'm not quite sure how to put this, but "incomplete". I'm of the belief that ECM needs an large overhaul and not a "change" seeing that CCP would be unlikely to do anything about the remaining issues in ECM if they were to implement this.

First of all I think that one issue (as mentioned earlier in the thread) is that ECCM only counters ECM and is useless in all other cases combat related cases (counter against combat scanning is hardly something useful on a normal pvp ship since any chum can just bounce between safes and make new ones along the way). I think this problem is especially large in cases of small gangs/solo roams where you don't have logi or similar and every fitting slot is very important for your combat capabilities. That in combination with the fact that ECM is virtually useless on unbonused hulls (an exception would be EC-300) so that in most cases you will not be against any ECM thus wasting one valuable slot, or if you come up against a dedicated ECM boat in which case it's doubtful that one ECCM would help. Just to point out, I assume that the relative balance will remain the same which is why I assumed that ECM on unbonused hulls would remain as useless as it currently is.

My second issue with ECM would be that I believe that the mechanic itself is poorly designed. It's extremely binary, either it doesn't affect your or you are completely and entirely shut down (except for internal modules such as repair units etc). It's a very boring game mechanic. Especially with the changes suggested, if you were to get jammed here (and you don't have a bunch for friends with remote ECCM) you might as well write "gf" and get a cup of tea and hope that your "enemy" gives you the pod express home since that jam won't go away for as long as you're alive (I believe this is how it would work, yes?).

I hope that I made myself clear enough, it's damn late over here so I hope that I'm not just rambling. On a small side note I think it's weird that ECM is the only module without stacking penalty while its counter (ECCM) has got these penalties.

djentropy Ovaert wrote:

For reasons that I cannot explain, this just does not feel right. I need to find someone much better at math then me to verify this. That seems awful high.

Someone good at math - take a stab at this? I would think you need a proper probablity calculator, like the one at... -snip-

The numbers are unfortunately correct. EC drones are (in my opinion) completely and utterly broken. They deserve a kick to the teeth before being put down like the mad dog that they are.
Aliventi
Rattini Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#29 - 2014-02-16 07:03:43 UTC
What is wrong/unbalanced with ECM currently?
Sigras
Conglomo
#30 - 2014-02-16 07:25:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Sigras
There are really two things that make ECM a bad mechanic:
1. No Counter Play Options
2. Randomness

1.
A bad mechanic is one that effectively takes a player out of the game. All mechanics should increase the number of options and decisions both players have to make, not just the one using the mechanic but the one that it is being used against too. This is called counter play and is discussed more in length by extra credits in this video

A dampened player has several options; he can target someone closer, burn to try to get in range of his original target, attempt to leave the field, or burn in range of the damping ship and attempt to take it out.

The same goes for a tracking disrupted player.

But a jammed player has two options:
1. leave the field
2. pray to RNJesus that they dont get jammed another cycle.

If they're also warp disrupted, they may as well get up and make a sandwich because thats exactly how effective they'll be until they get unjammed.

IMHO, reducing the number of targets isnt the answer though because for the most part, you're only really shooting at one person, and maybe you're tackling another, so while reducing the number of targets a logistics ship can have would be very effective, reducing the number of targets a megathron can have will have basically no effect until you reduce it to less than two.

2.
Randomness is a bad mechanic. While I feel this is always true, it is especially true for a competitive game. It creates the possibility for you to lose the game without it being your fault. Look at the difference between chess and risk. In Chess there is no randomness; if you make a bad move, you made a bad move and you get punished for it. In Risk, no matter how well you plan things out, you could be Alexander the great and there's still a slim chance that a small 4 man squad will annihilate your defensive position of 12 men and overrun your territory.

This is the reason competitive games like Starcraft, and Chess have absolutely no randomness, and even in TF2 on competitive servers they turn off random crits..
Aliventi
Rattini Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#31 - 2014-02-16 07:39:06 UTC
There is nothing wrong with ECM: A substantiation with numbers
Version 1.0.3 10/21/13
By: Aliventi
A work in progress. To be refined as more "ECM is OP/wrong/bad" threads pop up.


If you step back and take a look, ECM is arguably the least destructive of the EWAR varieties with the exception of TPs. A sensor dampener can lower a ship's targeting range to the point that it can't lock anything. Tracking disruptors lower the tracking on a ship to the point it can't actually hit anything. How frustrating is it that you can lock a target, but you can't track well enough to even hit it? Of course, TDs don't work against logistics, EWAR, or missile boats. That would make TDs less effective than ECM.

In other words, ECM, damps, and tracking disruption all have the potential to remove enemies from the fight. ECM and damps prevent you from locking, and TDs prevent your guns from doing anything effective. ECM is balanced in the way that it has a non-trivial chance of outright failing none of the other EWARs have. In fact SDs, TDs, and TPs never miss. ECM effects lasts 20 seconds whereas SD and TD effects last for as long as the module is activated.

Another balancing factor is that ECM is a mid-slot module in a race that is purely shield tanking. The other three races can fill their mids with EWAR and put together a reasonable armor tank. It is no mystery that this is why the CFC celestis fleets are so successful. They are combining never miss EWAR with a bonused ship that can tank long enough for logi to rep them. Caldari ships can put together a tissue paper armor tank at best.

One more reason ECM is less effective than the other types of EWARs is that to be effective in all situations a ECM ship needs to fit 4 specialized modules compared to the 1 generalized module that TDs, SDs and TPs enjoy. This means that tank is often sacrificed to reacha bare minimum of effectiveness.

"That is all fine and dandy," You say "but ECM is still too powerful". Why don't we take a look at some numbers?

Take a T2 Minmatar jammer. The ECM Phase Inverter II has a Ladar jam strength of 3.6.
Jammer vs Rifter: 3.6/8 sensor strength = 45% chance of a jam or 55% chance of doing nothing.
Jammer vs Stabber: 3.6/13 sensor strength = 27.69% chance of a jam or 72.31% chance of doing nothing.
Jammer vs Hurricane: 3.6/16 sensor strength = 22.5% chance of a jam or 77.5% chance of doing nothing.
Jammer vs Tempest: 3.6/20 sensor strength = 18% chance of a jam or 82% chance of doing nothing.

See? hardly anything wrong with ECM. Even against the most basic frigate it will fail more times than it will succeed. Imagine if your guns, hardeners, point, MWD, etc. had that fail rate. *shudder*

You see your issue is not truly with ECM. Your issue, is in fact, with the ECM bonused hulls. Take a Falcon with all level 5 skills fit with racial jammers, 2 Sensor Distortion Amps, and one ECM strength rig and let's look at those numbers again.

All level 5 Falcon vs. Sensor Comp. 5 ship:
Jammer vs Rifter: 14.2/9.6 sensor strength = 100% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Stabber: 14.2/15.6 sensor strength = 91.02% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Hurricane: 14.2/19.2 sensor strength = 73.95% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Tempest: 14.2/24 sensor strength = 59.16% chance of jamming

That really isn't OP at all. Considering the vast amount of training one has to accomplish to become a perfect Falcon pilot. In comparison the time it take to train a racial sensor comp to 5 or fit an ECCM module is trivial. In addition a Falcon has a tissue paper tank, a non-trivial chance of missing a jam, and unlike the other forms of EWAR it doesn't last forever.

Now you are likely to bring up a rather painful point in small gang and solo PvP: The ECM drone. Why don't we take a look at those?

EC-300 drone strength is 1.
Jammer vs Rifter: 1/9.6 sensor strength = 10.41% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Stabber: 1/15.6 sensor strength = 6.41% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Hurricane: 1/19.2 sensor strength = 5.23% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Tempest: 1/24 sensor strength = 4.16% chance of jamming

EC-600 drone strength is 1.5.
Jammer vs Rifter: 1.5/9.6 sensor strength = 15.62% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Stabber: 1.5/15.6 sensor strength = 9.61% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Hurricane: 1.5/19.2 sensor strength = 7.81% chance of jamming
Jammer vs Tempest: 1.5/24 sensor strength = 6.25% chance of jamming

Neither of those scream OP at all. "Now that isn't the real story" you exclaim "Most ships have 5!" True:
(How to calculate: Link calculator: Link (P (X>=1)) is the important number)

5 EC-300 jam strength 1:
vs Rifter: 42.28% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Stabber: 28.19% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Hurricane: 23.55% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Tempest: 21.02% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
For 25m3 of drones these do seem a touch too powerful. I would recommend a reduction in jam strength down to .75.

5 EC-600 jam strength 1.5:
vs Rifter: 57.22% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Stabber: 39.66% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Hurricane: 33.40% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
vs Tempest: Or 27.58% chance of jamming with 5 drones.
For 50m3 of drones these seem very well balanced for their size.

You see in the grand scheme of things ECM is neither OP, broken, wrong, out of place, or any of the other things people claim ECM is. It is merely a different and perfectly valid form of EWAR. It is high-risk high-reward, only truly effective on bonused hulls (as it should be) which at best can manage a tissue paper tank when fitting jams, and doesn't last forever like the other forms of EWAR. All things considered, it is perfectly in line with the other forms of EWAR. What's so wrong with that?
Sigras
Conglomo
#32 - 2014-02-16 10:39:18 UTC
I didnt say that ECM was overpowered, I said that ECM is a bad mechanic. You should not put things into the game that make people helpless, as extra credits pointed out in the video I linked which you didnt watch. Good game mechanics increase the number of decisions both players have to make.

That said, if you think that a TD makes your guns anywhere near as ineffective as ECM does you're just dead wrong.

With a TD on me, I can modify my flight pattern and try to outmaneuver you to land clean hits as your transversal drops. Please tell me more about how my piloting skill can help me when I'm jammed?

With a sensor damp on me, someone still has to be in range to tackle me. I may not be able to shoot at who I want to, but I can still shoot at someone in the fight. Please tell me more about the options that are left open to me when I'm jammed.

Honestly one of the biggest problems is that it has such a huge effect. In small gang warfare, 20 seconds might as well be forever because chances are you'll be dead before the jam cycle ends.

Ok, lets just look at your numbers for a second. You say a perfect falcon has a 59.16% chance to jam a tempest. And lets suppose the falcon runs 6 jammers. That means he has a 99.536% chance to jam at least one battleship when he decloaks. Doing a little math that means that he has an 80.89% chance to jam out at least three battleships...

All of that aside, you still never answered my second point which is that randomness is a bad thing to have in a competitive game.
Loki Feiht
Warcrows
Sedition.
#33 - 2014-02-16 13:28:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Loki Feiht
+1 but Aliventi does have a good point.

Just add sensor strength to the list of ship scanner abilities to read instead.

More NPC - Randomly Generated Modular Content thread https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=220858
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#34 - 2014-02-16 16:03:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Altrue
Aliventi, despite his long copy pasted post, doesn't make any point regarding this change.

I'm not defending the idea of vastly changing the way ECM works, strong sides and weak sides of ECM would remain unchanged, or more precisely, if anything needs to be done about ECM balance, I'm not part of it. Thus any argumentation about whether or not ECM is OP or bad is pointless here.

My change is about keeping ECM more or less the same than now, meaning a reduction of max targets to 0, with the same stats and the same modules. However, its goal is to remove the random part, for something with more predictability and a gameplay that doesn't rely on warping off as soon as something threatening is in close-proximity.

Or as it was pointed out a few posts above this one, this change is to remove the randomness of ECM, and its absence of counter. (And no, ECCM isn't a counter yet, since you can still be jammed regardless of how many ECCM you use).

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