Dev Blog: October Balance Pass!

@Darwien_Deninard
Ok. I was not aware how ECM burs function in detail. However, I just feel that there needs to some effect on the jammed ship with respect to the jamming ship. This does not seem to be the case with the current balancing proposal. So I guess it is about finding the right balance.

If the decide to go though with the current balance proposal, I guess they should use the same to e.g. sensor dampeners and tracking disruptors in order to level the playing field. Just a thought.

Understand your intention and appreciate it. Note - non-burst ECM requires lock on the other ship. A DTS to counter the weakest interceptor (sensor strength) has about 27% chance (with a multi spectrum ECM) AFTER targeting and locking.

A DTS would fit cloak (otherwise cannot use MWD+cloak) that is minus 35-40% scan resolution. So I have just calculated … with my relatively high skills and faction module it would take 11.47 second to lock on an interceptor … then I could click on ECM that would give me a low chance to break lock.

@Darwien_Deninard

Ok. Thank you. I am not into all those detail. However, my intention was not just revolving around DST. That issue was brought up by @nomadd79.

My thought was more concerning ECM ships. I guess that ECM is most effective on ECM hulls. As it should be.

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the old ways of bypassing bubbles in ns in non-nullified ship; fit a cloak, even it gimps your lock speeds, jump thru a gate and pray you can cloak+pilot your way through a bubble + camp. then after 5-50mins of cloaky drifting away (provided they don’t decloak and kill you), warp to a celestial within dscan range of the ‘out’ gate, cloak again, dscan, wait for the all clear on the out gate, warp, jump, rinse, repeat, until your where you want to be.

once you arrive to your desto, gl completeing your mish. your the fish, and pvp in this game revolves around hunting YOU…or anything else that moves(undocks).

nullification was a nice addition for ppl like yourself, and many others, because it suddenly gave us all a method of movement that didn’t also include a terribly high chance of dying along your journey. ppl kno this, and that’s part of why there is support for this removal of nullification. do note, that most of the supporters wanting the removal of nullification on the ‘combat inty’ Also want it removed from All inty. even if it takes multiple ‘balance passes’.

I once spent a full week in a cloaky vexor making ping bm’s in ns along the route to get to our rental system. years and years back. it sucked. but, once the bm’s were made, it Felt safer than just jumping gate to gate. in reality, its just plain unfun unless your the gate camper. and those poor sobs get bored waiting for the ever decreasing # of muppets to jump into them for their untimely demise.

tracking is not an issue. with tetryon you have the same tracking as a light ion blaster (mid tier) with antimatter. This change will only hurt the damavik, it does not need a 3rd mid, much less at the cost of a low.

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I’ve also used the damavik a good deal for solo pvp and I completely agree with what ignacio said. Swapping a low for a mid will completely kill this ship, it does not need range control - the stats on the disintegrator allow it to track at close range as well as reaching up to scram range and beyond. The damavik wins fights by lasting long enough to spool up to incredible dps numbers for a frigate, and guess what happens to that once you remove a low?

If there is anything the damavik needs is a slight buff to base armor. put it somewhere between the slicer (725) and the cruor (740).

Also the reason it’s not being used much is due to its price. 100m for a frigate that is forced to fight in scram range by design is a lot. why spend that much when you can get a worm for 70m

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Listening to the discussion on open coms right now, has the question been answered about bouncing the ‘ecm taunt’ back and forth between two ships, just like two infinipoint HIC’s swapping tackle back and forth?

If Ship A jams you, you can only target ship A. Ship B then jams you, as you are locking ship A, succeeds, and ship A immediately drops the jam so you cannot target it any more…

its hard to say if they’ve considered A lot of things before announcing this.

its why I say its at least a little bit absurd. they need to scrap this and not start over imo.

and just for the record, I don’t even USE ecm 99% of the time. but I Do have a few cheapy griffins to pass out to newbros or alpha chars, even tho its like pulling teeth. nobody likes to climb into a 1-shot-and-your-dead kinda ship. =(

I particularly enjoy the argument about instalock camps finally being able to catch Combat Interceptors, in the same breath that ECM is broken…it’s like they keep treating the symptoms instead of addressing the cost of running a sensor booster.

Jams last a set cycle length. Meaning they have that 20s to lock and shoot A even if B jams them at 10s. But yes. If you can bounce the jam with never missing a jam cycle and never mucking up kudos to you that will work to some degree.

I just had my point proven again by someone that pretty much does nothing but solo PvP.

He doesn’t like ECM because he doesn’t want to use slots to fit counters to ECM and doesn’t want to bother training the skills (like Sensor Compensation) to V to give him a better chance of countering a “chance-based” mechanic.
It doesn’t match “his playing style”.

So the problem is not that there is “no counter” to ECM.
The problem is people just want to be able to press F1 and win every time so they go for gank when fitting their ships and do not take into consideration that their opponents may fit their ships differently.

And then when someone gets a lucky jam on them it’s “Waaaaa - ECM is OP. Get rid of it !”

What will be next ?
“Waaaa - armor tanks are too OP ! Nerf them because I don’t want to fit my ship to be able to fight them. Waaaaa.”
“Waaaa - those ships fly too fast and I can’t track them and I don’t want to fit webs or tracking enhancers so that means those ships are OP and have to be nerfed ! Waaaaa !”
“Waaaa - Warp Core Stabs let people warp away from me and there is NO COUNTER to that so that means they HAVE to be nerfed NOW because I don’t want to fit other modules to try and shut them down because that doesn’t fit my playing style. Waaaaaa.”

Seriously.
Why not just say to **** with it and nerf every ship in the game so that everyone is flying exactly the same ship with the same mods.
Because no matter how many things you keep nerfing, there will always be those that will still whine because there is something that they don’t want to deal with or don’t want to use or don’t want to train so they’ll cry that it too has to be nerfed because “waaaaa - I tried to press F1 and I didn’t insta-pop everything - waaaaa”.

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The concern is they are willing to push through all these changes, because ‘they need to happen’ but they hold back FAX rebalance, something else that needs to happen, because they need more time to balance it.

No one has said that there is no counter to Ecm (excluding out of context quotes which were part of a larger conversation).
What has been said is that once you are jammed there is no action you can take. All other ewar you can take actions to get free of it in some way or mitigate the effects.
ECM is unique in that once you are jammed you are jammed for that time. there is nothing you can do at that point. and the lack of agency for the player is bad.

I ask you what do you do vs a Keres that drops three bonused targeting range scripts on you in their damps?

What can you do in that situation that you cannot do when a Kitsune jams you, when the Keres is sitting 45 km off?

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to add, the concern is that they will take more time to ‘balance’ fax, and then when they announce a ‘fix’, it will oddly resemble any once of these ‘fixes’. terrible.

I mentioned it before, this does nothing to instill confidence, and breaks far far more than it even Claims to fix.

…still wondering how well jams are going to work shutting down ganks in hs…esp vs sebo’d nado/oracle/talos. they Do often count on that 2nd or 3rd or 4th shot. even stealthbomber lock fast enough to share some pain with a jam ship now, before concord arrives. for the gankers it means bring 1 more ship + kill 1 more ship. for anyone trying to stop the gank, it means lose your ship. unless concord gets there in time? lol

ps: bumping is fine, nothing to see here, working as intended. :wink:

how do you break a scram? or a web? or a disruptor? how do you mitigate the effects of a target painter? what are your options when you are damped and unable to lock the damping ship? what do you do when you are shooting guns that Never hit because you are disrupted. missiles that never hit because you are disrupted? what do you do when you are neuted?

don’t use jams as an answer for any of these things, or you will be contradicting yourself. <<<<<THATS the problem here.

relatively new words in relation to ‘balance’ like ‘agency’ or old words like ‘fun/unfun’ and ‘helpless’ and ‘feelings’ does nothing to argue pros or cons of a change.
go ahead ppl, respond by telling me ‘agency isn’t a new word relating to balance’.
I will like AND bump the post, just for helping prove my point.

Slingshot their orbit. Burn towards them or away from them. Reduce angular velocity. Pulse modules or turn off cap hungry modules. Power down Mwd for a sudden cap infusion. And these are without having any of the traditional counter modules.
Are these “good” actions likely to work. Often not. But they are actions with potential to work.

Agency is not a new word also. It’s an old word. I assume you know what it means right?

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Then why do any of those methods not work vs jams?

Warp out……

So with nuets you can pulse cap heavy modules… really the bonuses on a curse and sentinel are enough to drain your cap to nothing meaning wait for it wait for it “you can’t even warp away”. Edge nuets pre nerf now instead of an edge they are the only solo ewar game in town. Talk to a curse solo hunter they will all say the same thing: if they can’t dead cap you they pretty much lose. They count on dead capping you and just waiting for the drones to eat your passive shield, armor and hull and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.

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But you can target the enemy who is neuting you. And knowing that you’ve yellowboxed the guy who’s rendered you helpless and about to die…man that’s all the difference in the world.

Okay, that was biting sarcasm.

I think you can still warp away, since get regain at least 1j per tick, and neuts hit you like every ten seconds or so. If we’re taking all forms of…alternative warfare (since they’re not all classified as “electronic warfare”) in a vacuum, you can still warp away both with neuts and ECM.

If we’re being quite honest, neuts are ECM aren’t similar, but they are about equal. With ECM, assuming it succeeds, there’s still a lot you can do. You can focus on managing your tank and propulsion, especially in regards to moving outside the jamming ship optimal, or positioning yourself so when the ECM wears off and you hope for a failed ECM roll, you are in prime position to lock and attack the jamming ship. Technically, everything you have on your ship still works, you just can’t effect other ships in that particular moment.

With neuts, you can lock the enemy, which still helps if you have projectile weapons, missiles, or drones as your main weapon source. Though technically, you might not, if your ability to target the enemy was dependent upon a sebo which isn’t working anymore. But you can’t rep, you can’t prop, and any active resist mods shut down. You’re a sitting duck for most intents and purposes, with a meager ability to lash out at your attacker as you get piddled away.

But in both instances, again assuming these things in a vacuum, you can warp out and take a breather, then jump back into the fight. Though with neuts, you might be out of the fight longer since it will take a while for your cap to recover.

So there’s different things you can do in either instance. It’s a situation of “six of one, half-dozen of the other” sort of thing.

You want to know the one and only difference that really matters here? The CSM many (many) posts above admitted as much - people are actually making the fitting sacrifices to equip a cap booster. This is probably because most fits exceed energy regen capacity, so to be at top fighting form, you need to cap boost. That means when neuts come along, you already have a counter against them. But people are NOT doing the same for ECM. Despite the fact that a sebo provides lock range, lock speed, and ECM boosting effects all at once, they refuse to use it and would rather whine on the forums.

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