EVE General Discussion

basically this. I understand my exact proposals probably aren't exactly correct, but I think it's time to say "no" to the band aid fixes already and get the job done right.

And no, the 100% chance to -1 target slot would not be any less useless than any of the other ewar types. But the point is that ewar should be the rock/paper/scissors. Guns is guns is guns. They can be balanced, but there's only so much you can do. But if people started bringing brutix fleets because they were the most effective ship in the game at shutting down drake fleets, we'd be on to something. And a brutix/cane mixed fleet should always beat an equal number of drakes. (maybe even give all T1 ships a small racial ewar bonus once rock/paper/scissors is established?)

Only way I see that happening without completely starting over from scratch is through ewar. Yes, weapons probably still need to be adjusted a little more, but I don't think that is the key to a more permanent solution.

This! If you get in close enough to fire your blasters our target should be in BIG trouble fast. You take incoming fire all the way in and that risk should be rewarded with a massive alpha strike.

-CJ

Uh, I don't think you were paying attention.

All Gallente ships were buffed in both speed and agility.

If you weren't so busy whining, you might have noticed.

And all races have wasted bonuses. Gallente isn't special in this respect.

Minmatar alone:

Typhoon = Large Proj ROF bonus wasted 95% of the time, since it became 5/5 instead of 4/4.
Bellicose/Recons = TP is LOL, Huginn Heavy Missile/Projectile bonus + split Turrets with 3 Lows is LOL.
Scimitar - tracking links FTL
Mastodon/Prowler - Active Tanking?

And how exactly do target painter modules remove 6 or more ships from a fight single handedly with a single boat?

How many tracking enhancers do you need on a single target to be invulnerable from attack?

How many damps boats do you need in a fleet to completely shut down an opposing fleet?

So, maybe T2 ECM should be -2 targets (most ewar that's ever useful on any target due to stacking penalties is 4 or 5.) But ECM is broken. It's unbalanced and that it remains the way it is in the game is a major sign of dev incompetence. And arguing "omg, my ECM solopwnmobile might no longer be all-poweful" is the most incompetent argument you can make in favor of it.

edit: but this isn't a 'nerf ecm' thread... this is a 'balance the races' thread. Back on topic, does anyone else think the core of the balancing should be focused on the rock/paper/scissors ewar philosophy? Or what kinds of ewar vs guns changes would need to happen to balance the races?

Yeah, the secondary ewar for caldari... The technical description for that would be "a toughy." Granted, according to my initial idea, secondary ewars would need to be shuffled around between races to make more sense... maybe something that affected the target's weapons, like reduce the targets rate of fire or alpha or something? Would also make an interesting counter to minmatar alpha fleets (caldari primary ewar vs gallente, secondary vs minmatar to make the rock/paper/scissors work out.)

edit:
proposed ewar rock/paper/scissors changeup (that would p!ss off a whole lotta people until they realized it makes more sense)

gallente - damps (caldari) neuts/vamps (amarr)
caldari - ECM (gallente) webs (minmatar)
amarr - tracks (minmatar) scrams (gallente)
minmatar - paints (amarr) ??? (caldari)

FYI the work needed to rebalance ECM so that it remains competitive in today's gameplay (no, your proposition would make it even worse than TP's) is, by far, too much for the benefits it would bring to the game as a whole. ECM brings the role of force multiplier to the game and in that role it is perfectly balanced. The ECM, as a concept however, is what makes it somewhat overwpowered.

As it is, nerfing str on them would make them too weak, you can't increase their range, and nerfing their range even further would make them impossible to use.

the only two ways to make ECM more bearable are either boosting the other ewar forms, or removing ECM from the game entirely. Besides that, it's a mechanic that works exactly as it says in the box.

And by this, you mean "omg, my wtfsolopwnmobile will be balanced in line with the other ships! no way!"

Actually, I'm not particularly against 1 ewar ship shutting down multiple targets (i.e. force multiplication). The reason I'm particularly against ECM as it exists is because it's not balanced. No other race has a force multiplier at all if judged by the same standards. No other race has an ewar where the only defense of against it can completely fail to do it's job. No other race has an ewar where the mere threat of the possibility of encountering that ewar forces the defenders to decide if they will waste a slot on a defensive module that doesn't really do anything. And finally, ECM kills opportunities for creative fleet compositions and tactics (and rock/paper/scissors.)

Problem with the ECM is that it's tied to rng and there is very little you can do yourself to influence whether or not you get jammed. ECCM of course helps you, but it has the problem that it's very difficult to get the feeling whether it's working or not - with sensor boosters you can see immediate increase in your targeting range for example, but with ECCM you don't get any notifications when it successfully helped you to resist incoming ECM. Probably a lot of the hate the ECM receives is due to the fact that the target feels out of control of the situation, that he\she is essentially the victim of the rng and all they can do is hope that they aren't jammed.

As I just spent 5 minutes thinking about this, I feel confident on proposing the following: Change the mechanics to such that instead of rolling the dice to see if target is jammed, the time you are jammed depends on target's sensor strength and total (stacking penalized) jamming strength on the target.

Jam time in seconds = 20*jam strength / sensor strength (or whatever time is appropriate, 20 seconds is just the current one)

Obviously this would require rebalancing jammer strength. Jammed target could also receive a boost to their scan resolution after the jam timer ends so that they can actually lock something in between jam cycles, especially if they are larger vessels like battleships or even capitals. Additionally, you could always throw in maximum time for jam cycle to prevent permajamming.

Various good sides compared to current systems are that it would be predictable and make any plans against it (or using it) easier vs hoping that the rng gods are favorable to you today. It would also make ECCM feel more useful as you could easily see it working. Stacking penalties would be easier to implement than on current change-based system. Also, ECM would still be a force multiplier, vastly reducing incoming dps from heavier ships.

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by that I mean that is perfectly balanced in the role that is supposed to occupy, which is being a force multiplier.



the design itself however, is ovepowered, and unfortunately, beyond removing it or making it totally useless. any change that you might impart on them will either bring no significant change, or make them too good or too bad. ECM is pretty much a "yes/no" type of tool with random probabilities of hitting "yes" or "no". Basically a force multiplier attack of the denial type.

make it hit too much on "yes" and it becomes OP. make it hit too much on "no" and it becomes useless, and keeping with this design there is really no other way to balance it any further. So in the end, you either remove it, or rework the mechanic from the ground into something totally different that it is today. And in keeping the "denial attack" we would hit on this very issue yet again, because people don't like to be locked out of a fight, so in the end we would have wasted dev developing time to reach the same conclusion we have nowadays.


your solution, posted on another post, would totally remove the "force multiplier" role of ECM, making it a hindrance no bigger than a TP, since you would need to focus all your ewar in a single ship, and make it totally useless vs ships like logis that can lock 10 targets. And "creative fleet composition and tactics" is a bit relative. It is possible to make a creative fleet with ECM, that can beat a bigger fleet with no way to counter it, and that's what ECM is supposed to do.