ECM Balance Pass - November

EVE Technology and Research Center Upcoming Features & Changes
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101

Further to my previous post, I was thinking the following (which others have also suggested in this thread):

By making a special script for the sensor booster that allow the jammed ship to target the jamming ship, you would essentially achieve the same goal as with the current ECM mechanic but of course you will have to fit the sensor booster to your ship.

I think this is more balanced since it gives you a 100% counter to being jammed, but it also adds some fitting costs to the ship using it. However, given the flexibility of the sensor booster, I think this should be ok. It is always a choice how a ship should be fitted, but I think in the current state where there are no costs associated with targeting the jamming ship is just too unbalanced. Many of the other types of EWAR also has counters in the form of modules with associated fitting costs. Furthermore, I also think that a solution similar to this could also make ECM viable for solo players.

Additionally, as I mentioned in my previous post, think this could potentially also provide som additional options for balancing, since some of the balancing factors could be worked into the usage of the script rather than potentially having to balance each ECM ship individually.

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102

@Bouh_Revetoile
Just one comment. Assuming that by TP you mean target painter, I just want to say that this is not just a fleet tool.

It is of course also a fleet tool, no doubt about that but I use it all the time as a solo player when I fly my Golem.

On a side note, with ECM in its current state, I think that the ECM ships are the only EWAR ships that cannot be used by solo players in an EWAR capacity. Most of the other non-ECM EWAR ships have some application that benefits a solo player. Just a thought.

Fly safe.

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103

so im just here to say, i dont use ecm ships , but hey, as long as the games alive we alive.

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104

The changes now forces the e-war ships to be even more sniper like ships. My griffin just went up against an ares. Despite landing multiple jams it died because there was just not enough dps. There was absolutely no point of jamming it. If caught all e-war ships will lose the dps battle. Why even bother wasting middle slots on jams if you can’t even use it?

The low dps is still a problem. I can never compete solo. I heard the change meant you can lock the jammer but didn’t mentioned anything about shooting back. While I understand why people hate getting jams. This change just made ewar (jams) obsolete unless in fleet battle. As an e-war pilot this is not the change I was expecting. We already have to deal with the gamble of % of chance to land jams, low tank, and low dps. Our only defense back then was to warp off. Now if tackled we have no defense what so ever but to eventually succumb to the other ship’s dps.

The word balance implies there’s some kind of equality on both sides. Now it has severely tilted to the other side. Why did you have to go break it? Just to please people who felt helpless that got jammed? Well we had to warp off so can they. Now if we ewar pilot gets tackle it’s 100% over.

Don’t take my word for it. You will not need your charts and graph to tell you the ewar ships will drop in usage. They were already low it’s now going to be an all time low. This is not the right balance CCP…

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105

WOW this is a great suggestion. Giving the frustrated people a way to prevent jams by equipping a middle slot module/script (or a remodified sensor booster) so that if you wanting to gain ability to target and shoot back you have to lose something too in this case a middle slot. To BLANKET everyone this ability at zero cost to them makes no sense. Wished this idea came up at the roundtable when you guys discussed on “jam rebalancing”. It’s not too late to fix this!!!

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Hi, I’m a Griffin pilot for Brave.

First, I’m not going to lie. I flew Griffins because if I had to be miserable while stuck in TiDi hell, then everyone else should also. And they can fit a salvager and had a cargo hold that could fit all the salvage from a dead citadel.

I am all for the ECM changes, being jammed sucks.

That being said, adding fitting space alone will not fix ECM ships tank. To be a good ECM fit, you have to sac 4 mid slots and your rigs on a SHIELD tanked ship.

  • Griffins have 5 mids, or 1 plus 4 jams.
  • Blackbirds have 6 mids, or 2 plus 4 jams.
  • Scorpions have 8 mids, or 4 plus 4 jams.

If you are going to fix the tank issue, you should turn all the racial ECMs into scripts and move multi-spectral to a scriptable module. This would add 2-3 mid slots on every ECM since you only need one or two as you can script them to target what you are jamming.

Suddenly you can fit a real tank because you have more than one spare mid slot to work with instead of just fitting a MWD in your spare empty mid slot so you can have a really fast coffin.

For solo, ECM is dead. I don’t see anyway to change that with these changes and I don’t see it coming back. I also don’t see that being fixed in this update. Adding a secondary role of drone ECM might help but I think that should be done on it’s own.

The immediate issue should be looking at the problems with ECM ships (the required 4 mid slots to be useful) and get the ships to a point where they feel like you can fit modules to them without having to armor tank a Scorpion because you have more spare low slots than mid slots on a shield battleship.

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107

In regards to midslots, I’ve said essentially the same thing several times. A bunch of other people also voiced concerns and ideas along the same theme in a few of the feedback threads.

I don’t think scripting is the answer though, I think the game needs to be rid of the race-specific jammers and focus should be shifted onto the multis instead. I am aware that removes a bit of “unique flavor” from this EWAR and from EvE, but we should be honest with ourselves - a unique flavor for it’s own sake doesn’t do anyone any good, and may be actively detrimental to the game balance we’re striving for.

I say that because as long as racials exist, CCP is going to balance individual ship sensor strength against an expected jam from that specific racial jammer. Therefore we can streamline fitting options, enhance the expected tank of an ECM vessel, and ease balancing efforts by removing racial jams. And now that targets can lock you back, making jams less effective than damps, I don’t see any reason why the ECM mechanic needs to be kneecapped by requiring individual racial jams to stand a decent chance of landing a successful jam.

If we want scripts on the ECM modules themselves, since that is a theme with the other EWARs, I’d say we could consider a few options. We could have ECM strength/Optimal range scripts, or perhaps jam attempt strength/jam time set of scripts.

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108

Scripts allows for the keeping of racial flavour and trade offs at the expense of utility and flexibility.
Strength vs a particular sensor type at the cost of not touching the others is exactly the sort of thing scripts do on the other ewar. Because they turn all but one targeted attribute to 0. And for ecm that’s the 4 sensors being targeted.

Scripts is the best way forward to maintain flavour while resolving the fitting issue.

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109

Perhaps, but for some strange reason, a lot of people ask for that sort of script with an additional nerf of, “But let it take a minute or so to switch the scripts out”, which is why I dismissed it out of hand. As long as you’re not advocating for that, okay. Sounds well enough for me. Though it’ll be a shame to miss out on using some of the other attributes as variables.

110

So you want to have all your candy and eat it? You don’t get that kind of thing. Scripts which take a minute or two to switch out reward having scouts out to give you 60 seconds warning of what you are encountering without needing you to go through a whole refit procedure with spare modules of every race in hold, it would be a massive buff to ECM to give that, so a small downside of a refitting time is totally reasonable.
As for other script attributes… Scripts turn 1 attribute to 100% and all others to 0% that are scriptable. So how does your 0% range ECM strike you… useless right? Or 0% power? Also useless. There is no script that increases the range of your SD, TD, MD, or that increases the power of all the attributes it affects. The only sensible scriptable attributes on ECM are to treat the 4 sensor types as separate attributes and have those be the scripts.

111

An alternative approach could be making them a ‘Reactive ECM’ basically the same function as RAH with low strength evenly spread, but homing in to the correct target sensor over time with each cycle.

This gives time for someone with a sebo to switch scripts, but means the target is much more likely to be jammed if they don’t fit ECCM and don’t take evasive actions (warp out, launch drones etc).

This would also free up mid slots for more tank too.

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I’ll admit that is a possibility, IF it became the only ECM module. But it also means turning it off then back on for a new target would then mess significantly with the progress. Meaning scripts would actually be a superior choice here in most places.

You couldn’t keep it alongside as the other ones still existed they would be superior far too often.

113

I was trying to think of a more flexible balance with that idea.

Scenario 1)

Solo ECM
Pilot jams target, target can most likely still lock at first. Jam strength ramps up over time giving target the chance to respond earlier, but struggle to do so later. ECCM still helps (maybe balanced against ECM for a 50% jam chance at full strength).

ECM pilot has better tank for surviving the early engagement cycles, target has better chance in this time to respond.

Scenario 2)
Small gang combat. ECM pilot can fit 2+ ecm, but scarifices tank. Switching targets also has an impact as you say, but that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. It would differentiate good ECM pilots, and give targets tactics to use to confuse or hinder the ECM bunny.

Sceario 3)
large fleet combat. Load up as many ECM as you can fit because if you’re primaried you’re dead anyway. No functional difference to now.

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  1. Solo ECM is dead, it’s going to stay dead, and honestly, this “It doesn’t apply if they x you, just other people” should be added to TD, SD, & MD also, Ewar should be a group thing (two is a group), it’s not fun in 1v1 type situations.

  2. 6 of one half a dozen of the other.

  3. Depends, tank actually works if they aren’t applying the entire fleet to you but just a wing or squad on ECM killing duties.

115

In one post you say you want a radically different type of script which takes more than one server tick to switch out, then you say that you can’t comprehend a different type of script which doesn’t completely zero out other attributes because that’s not how scripts currently work.

We’ll start with that, and we’ll end with, “Again, you’re asking for an additional nerf other EWARS do not need to deal with, so the answer is no”.

116

i dunno, the powergrid of the Griffin still feels too low for anything. like, if you want to properly get the job done you have to Scram Kite which goes in the oposite direction of jamming at range and you are still low on tank due to no invul. at least the extra PG seems to net you enough to swap a MSE from Compact to T2 which is a slight boost in EHP. but yeah, no space for T2 Invul (gotta keept that Scram + Web going on).

if you want to go for long distance jams you dont have enough powergrid or cap to keep going with a MWD while still using long point and ECM + shield tank.

this is only from tinkering in Pyfa but yeah, the constraints of this ship dont give space for much. upping Powergrid to 30 would be a reasonable thing (?) not to mention looking at the capacitor potential.

117

I would really like to see the Griffin Navy Issue getting a revamp to help it deal with its new role. Maybe a tanking bonus?

As a fan of E-War in general, I am really excited to see how you guy’s choose to play with this concept. For example the creation of tankier ECM ‘taunt’ ships would be nice. I would also like to see ECM bursts get some love, I would really like to see a constant flow of lock breaking as a potential play style (with the ability to relock). Using it in conjunction with sensor dampeners could encourage more dynamic play style.

As many others have stated I would like to see the adoption of a secondary E-War system for the Caldari. This could be placed in the high slot or mid slot. As of this time there does not seem to be a direct form of E-War to counter drones outside of Smartbombs. The issue is that Smartbombs do not scale well with smaller ship sizes and will often cause issues with ship fitting.

With the proliferation of versatile drone ships (ability to gun up or gun down) and capitals with no direct E-War counter. Implementing a anti-drone E-War would benefit the game vastly.

Examples:

‘Projected or localized EMP’ - Issues an EMP burst that shut downs all drones in the radius of the E-War ship for 3-4 seconds / cycles every 20 to 30 seconds. Could also potentially just break the lock of all drones an act similar to old ECM in the fact that it perma jams them if the cycle lands. Alternatively, the EMP could also be projected onto a target ship and hit in a radius.

‘Focused EMP’ - Shuts down a single focused drone (allowing it to be picked off easily or just taking its DPS out of the fight).

‘Defender Guided Canister Missiles’ - Uses an unturreted high slot - fires a missile that breaks apart targeting multiple drones and dealing damage. (essentially a point defense against drones).

‘Drone Disruption Module’ - Focuses on the drone carrier and lowers the tracking, speed or effective range of the specific ships drones.

These are just lame ideas off the top of my head. I am sure the dev’s can come up with something more creative.

At the end of the day:
Tracking Disruptors? Could counter both turrets and missiles, but has no effect on drones unless actively applied to said drone. How many people fit five tracking disruptors to their ship?

ECM? Would usually be hard countered by drones. Could be individually applied to drones to disrupt them - but would come at a great cost to the E-War ship. Now ECM ships would be targeted by the drones anyway and further hard countered.

Neuts? Will not shut down individual drones from my knowledge. Will still effect the drone boat - but will have a drastically higher effect on Energy Turret / Hybrid Turret ships.

Sensor Dampeners? Simply prevents the drone boat from targeting its preferred target. The drones will still auto acquire some target of choice. If placed on target before the dampening they will continue to attack.

Target Painters? shrug I guess they help blow up drones or the base drone boat.

Edit: Also remove Racial Jams and add a script. (probably mentioned in thread already). At this point the benefit of using racial jams to balance target profile is no longer important.

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118

All people complaining, but this nerf to Jamming is so damn unfair. While other EWAR is unchanged jamming is down the nerfHammer. And plus Jamming have a % of failure, while other not.
I fear more a point from 50Km or a hyper cap drain than a Jammer.

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119

So after so many nerfs to ECM, including an whooping 20% stealth nerf made just by introduction of sensor strength skills, and also after this crippling last blow you gave it back 10% strength?!?!?!?! :joy::joy::rofl::rofl::rofl::joy::joy::rofl::rofl::rofl::joy::rofl:

Well this may be a good joke, but no, will not fix it back and the ECM ships will remain a crippled requiem for a long series of bad game design decisions…

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120

What about the Widow, you have basicly killed that ship.
Its not like you bring logistics with you when you blops someone, and it can’t even do its job any more.

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