ECM Balance Pass - November

Worth adding to this, that countering ECM boosted your ship’s stats and made you stronger, while countering warp scram handicaps your ship.

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Battleship pilot:
My arty battleship was scram/webbed by an interceptor. Nerf ceptors.

Ceptor pilot:
My ceptor got insta-blapped by an arty battleship from 175km away. Nerf battleships.

Yup, someone got roflstomped and they went out, picked the runt of the litter, and beat the hell out of it in revenge :rofl:

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The actual quote from the Dev post about the October balance pass allows you to insert any in-game item you want to nerf - It’s fun, Try it out - just replace the the highlighted words

“As a victim, watching your ship die while jammed without anything you can do about it feels bad. As an ECM user the system doesn’t feel great either when you get unlucky and miss a lot of jams.”

Edit - I used “cargo scanned” in another post and unintentionally started a 3 page rant

Does all ECM modules include ECM bursts, Standup ECM burst projectors and the Target Spectrum Breaker

https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Special:RecentChanges

Stuff changes all the time.

You don’t even use ECM.
Stop trolling CCP.

Its okay to point to the killboard to show people they are wrong…

Whining daily about ECM even though you have never died to it or used it.

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I cant upvote you enough[quote=“Johnny_Punisher, post:22, topic:115696, full:true”]
ECM has been a mechanic in Eve for the past 15 years or something. It has always been annoying and most players have hated it. Could we at least try for a year or two how Eve would play out without it being a pain in the ass?

Please give the ecm ships some other ability that isn’t RNG.

And those that complain that ecm doesn’t work in solo situations: Remote repairs also don’t work in solo situations and nobody complains about that.
[/quote]

@Sebs_Pride
Except that it is very difficult to compare logistics ships and EWAR ships.

Logistics are specifically designed to support others while gaining no advantage themselves from their own remote repairs.

In general, EWAR ships on the other hand normally do gain an advantage from their own EWAR (increased signature from target painters, being harder to hit from weapon disruption, being slower to target / untargetable as a result of remote sensor dampeners).

Unless all EWAR ships get the same treatment as the Caldari EWAR ships, i.e. removing the advantage of their own EWAR, I do not think it is fair to compare logistics ships and EWAR ships. This is another reason why I think the ECM change is just a poor design.

Normally, victims of EWAR will have to do an effort to fight off an EWAR ship, but in the case of ECM the roles seem to have been turned around. Suddenly it is the ECM ship that needs to do a serious effort not to be destroyed (as per October devblog) - the jammed ship can freely target the ECM ship at no cost in terms of fitting or other penalties, and CCP seems extremely reluctant to provide any serious buffs to ECM ships that will improve survivability (I think the current buffs are quite insignificant in providing any survivability).

I know that it is annoying to be jammed and of course the mechanic should be balanced. However according to CCP Rise the power of ECM already was toned down (both in this thread and on the EVE Vegas stream) and I think that even if a jam only succeeded only in 1% of the time people would still be complaining about it! Additionally, most of the discussion about ECM focus on the victims “feeling bad”, most seem to ignore the bad feelings coming from the frustration of missed jams!

As noted earlier in this thread, I think a balance could have been achieved by adding a sensor booster script that would have allowed the jammed ship 100% chance to target the jamming ship. This script could then have included some penalties for the jammed ship as well as the cost of fitting a sensor booster - whether to fit it or not is a fitting choice.

And I think that like the other factions Caldari EWAR ships should have a second type of reasonably powerful EWAR that benefits the EWAR ship itself.

Currently, Caldari EWAR ships are worthless to solo players in an EWAR capacity and the is a deviation from the general state of EWAR ships (which normally gain an advantage from their own EWAR).

Actually, for me personally the ECM change does not matter much since I am only rarely flying any ECM ships anyway, but it its current state ECM is useless to me. However, I am just reacting to what I think is a rushed, poorly conceived, unbalanced game design. While ECM should be balanced, I do not see this is currently the case.

Yeah, solo ecm is useless, but they dod bring up the point that being ecm was a awful experience for everyobe and they wanted to change that. As a minimatar player that has target pointers hearing ecm complain how their ewar is bad now makes me giggle.
Its STILL used more than target painters.

@Sebs_Pride
Had the Caldari EWAR ships had a second type of EWAR (like the Minmatar has stasis webs, Gallente has warp disruption/scrambling, and Amarr cap warfare (technically not an EWAR type)) I do not think that I personally would have had a big problem with it, but since ECM is the only type of Caldari EWAR the Caldari EWAR ships suddenly become useless to solo players.

And to be honest I think the focus of the ECM change was the bad feelings of the victims, not the users of the ECM - although CCP/CSM may try to convince the EVE community otherwise.

CCP can do whatever they want since it is their game, but the just cannot expect that all players to agree with them and therefore should expect criticism.

Personally, I am not going to quit or anything over this since ECM is not an important part of my gameplay, I just think that CCP could have done this much more elegantly.

Edit: Maybe CCP should have asked the EVE community about suggestions to changing ECM before deciding and making the change. In the CSM notes it seems that this was an idea that came up at a CSM session and not much time was spent on it before deciding to make the change. To be honest I do not know since I was not at that session, but the CSM notes only mention the ECM change briefly in a few words which is why I interpret this as something that was not spent too much time on.

ECM no longer does. The existence of Logistics shows that a ship does not have to benefit itself in order to be viable. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to point at the presence of logistics as an example.

Now, I’m with you on the Ewars that lock you down getting a very similar treatment, TP’s ‘could’ be given the treatment even but they don’t really need it since they don’t stop you acting, TP’s really should not have been considered Ewar, but I think CCP ran out of ideas for a real Ewar for Minmatar. I think SD, TD & MD being treated in a similar way of not protecting yourself would be very interesting for the game.

P.S. The Script doesn’t work, no other ewar made it compulsory to have a particular module in order to be able to do ‘anything’. There was active piloting counter-play possible, even if it was hard. ECM did not have active piloting counters. Also the community has been asked for YEARS about ECM, because it’s been an issue ever since it was introduced.

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While true, that’s also forgetting the RNG element. In that, you didn’t have to fit a counter or do anything in particular for the EWAR to just not have any effect whatsoever on you. It’s also forgetting that unlike certain aspects of other EWARS, ECM got dramatically less effective as you upshipped. Inherit sensor strength meant more failed jams natively, plus a higher base value to boost via the module to make jams even less likely. Compare that to turret disruption and sensor damps, which both scale upward nicely.

Let me explain. If you’re in a battleship and someone disrupts your already-atrocious turret tracking, good luck hitting the broad side of a titan. If you’re in a battleship and someone damps your targeting resolution, it’ll take you until next downtime to lock a target.

Now, if you want to talk about EWAR immunity, currently you have to spend over a billion isk to obtain a ship that has it for one reason or another. On top of that, to really get that immunity, you sometimes do have to install a specific module you have to train up specific skills for, and activate that module which makes you in many ways immensely more vulnerable to other hostile forces. CCP just handed out partial ECM immunity to every pilot in any ship. Asking CCP to limit their generosity to players who made a tiny investment into their ship fittings is the barest of requests compared to the windfall CCP otherwise granted.

@Nevyn_Auscent
It is true that the ECM change significantly changed the way ECM works which I think is bad since it removes the Caldari EWAR ships from the design that is used for EWAR ships of the other factions (i.e. gaining an advantage from your own EWAR). Currently, ECM is in a strange place because ECM does not directly provide support like logistics either since ECM is restricting the enemy rather than benefitting the allies directly. Furthermore, currently (even with the upcoming changes to Caldari EWAR ships) the Caldari EWAR ships are not well suited to the role they have been pushed into since they are still no tanky enough. But that is another matter.

As for piloting options, there is the possibility to move into the falloff of the ECM ship where the jamming power will be reduced significantly the further the jammed ship moves away. However, given the random nature of ECM it is not fool-proof, but it should be remembered that neither are the jams.

As for fitting options, no module is compulsary, it is a fitting choice. Given the random nature of ECM you may stay unjammed even without any counter-modules fitted. Most of the EWAR types have counter-modules and to be honest I do not think that having a specific anti-ECM script for the sensor booster is much different than having an ECCM script today. Given the flexibility of the sensor booster in terms of scripts, I do not see this as a big problem.

Anyway, you are of course entitled to your opinion.

As for treating some of the other factions’ EWAR in the same way ECM was treated would help leveling the playing field. And if the Caldari EWAR ships could get a second type of EWAR that could also benefit solo players then there would be some balance between the factions.

What does that help when you either have to gimp your tank for ecm mods or gimp the ecm (more then it already is now) for tank.
At least in the past you could use the widow to keep a carrier locked down, but now your pretty much instadead

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How about in stead of these garbage changes to ECM making it useless, give it something different that actually makes ECM useful again like it used to be. Because the people that are complaining about the changes against them are the pilots that took the time and effort to learn the skills, knowing the benefit of doing so. The people that are for all the changes are the ones the cry about getting locked out but are too lazy to fit any ECCM to combat this situation.

What if we were to try a doughnut like Optimal Range though for ECM?

- Example:

  • Say Falcon without any ECM buffing fit can lock @ 60km with no mods, but ECM only successfully locks out without RNG between 40-20km? This keeps his victim with the ability to try and burn away or towards his ECM target.

  • Meanwhile the Falcon will have to actively keep distance and not just lockout and lock down and make his target and auto killmail.

  • This could also make the mods give bonuses to Optimal range, only extending the ring to different ranges. Maybe have other bonuses making the lockout Optimal Range a larger width, but at a heavy CPU and/or Scan Resolution penalty for using these. Still having an inner area of the Falcon’s range that can be penetrated to ECM use.

  • This would be keeping in mind that the ECM would be functioning as it were before the lock back feature if you are stuck within the Falcon’s Optimum Range, otherwise the ECM is fighting a low RNG to try and lockout for a cycle outside or inside the Optimal Range.

Let me know what you guy think? Its different in my eyes and a compromise that can be balanced to make EWAR ships useable without making them just docked trophies of a better time for EWAR…

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If you’re going to stick by this, please at least soften the range penalty on the griffin navy issue, or have it work like the old ecm. ANYthing to make its bonus useful for the scram-range fights it finds itself in.

-Give minmatar ewar boats bonus to tracking links in exchange for TP bonuses

-Give rook/falcon/widow bonuses to target painters

-People become happy; minmatar ships have more fun in gangs and rook/widow become stronk liek russian tank

-Profit

@Catherine_Laartii
That is definitely one option. The Golem already has bonuses for target painters so it would not be a completely new concept.

Change the nature of ECM from stopping a person from locking someone out of the fight to the reverse of target painting. If I ECM you, I reduce my signature radius to you massively. That makes locking me up take longer and then hitting me possible but reduces the incoming damage greatly. It would also be consistent with the Gallente-Caldari enmity. One likes to get in close and face rape; the other fires off at a distance and reduces incoming damage substantially. And it would offer target painting as a possible counter.

ECM never did stop someone from joining a fight, that was a mistake in the DEV Blog.

There are 4 skills and ~30 items to counter ECM.

Anyone “locked out of a fight” skilled/fitted wrong.

It was user error.

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