Well one time I was blown up by Lussy Lou and I was in a blaster Ferox and he was in a Cerbarus with a long point, I was pretty helpless. I am not trying to be a smart ass with that comment, but it is all a question of degree and options.
Personally I think it makes little difference.
Everything is 0-1 in EvE, we can have the same argument for damps as we having with ecm now. Are they fair? (damps) We should talk about how ewar and counter ewar works, not just ecm. If you think ecm was niche anyway, why changing it now? It has countermeasure already. Everything has countermeasure, it is to some degree if we want to use it or not.
I don’t disagree with your point here, with sensor boosters and ECCM and the skills etc., but I think what you have to look at is the degree of change and what it causes. It is not so much is it fair but is there a counter. I am looking forward to the increased tank and less of the chance based stuff which makes it a lot more interesting for me.
For example I think that the Falcon alt is a bit more at risk, so that could encourage more people to do 1v1 or 1v1+Falcon. I think the Falcon will just have to be a bit more careful.
Make ECM anti-drone weapon. Enemy vessel still can point you even under ECM jam, but its drones will not respond to attack command. Enemy ship still can fire guns / missiles but his drones will not do you any harm.
Thats a fair point.
Makes me wonder why CCP are suggesting things the way they are now. Since when did they care about badfeels?
I do not think it is bad feels. I do not see the change as overall bad if they increase tank but more importantly get rid of the chance based jam which I really did not like for a long time. I tested it a few times and at some point the system decides that it does not matter how many jams you have you will not jam your target.
but 1v1 (when one of it is falcon) will make no sense because jamming single target won’t be useful, so it will perform as “regular” hull. Where are benefits (apart from better tank). 1v1+falcon would be possible with the other one logi repping falcon, but whos gonna fall for that?
you just want to refresh hulls possibilities. Like changing skills every patch in WoW to avoid staleness.
No one uses a Falcon to 1v1 as such. A Rook is not used for that either from my perusal of Zkill. The ECM boats are not really solo boats and the rook is not really used as one.
Some people might take the fight with the Falcon now because they can drive it off and then back to the main target.
Then they probably shouldnt state it is their reason for the change if its not what they mean.
Perhaps that is their reasoning.
I guess it probably is.
Ok, related question; do you think that there is or should be a move to get more people out of solo or small fleet and into Alliances? Two of the three changes feel like they are in that direction, and Im finding that soon Ill probaby have to either trust people or leave.
I do not think there should be, and I think that some people obviously think there should be. The game is generally better when played with others, and I have played solo, in small gangs and in big groups. I have solo content and small gang content in the largest AU TZ alliance and it is fun.
I did feel in the past that they were actively against people playing solo, but that was a feeling like you when they made changes that screwed over my game play. The problem is that they make overall balances changes that impact other areas.
I dont mind working around the changes tbh, but the thought of being pushed in a direction that I have no real choice in is just bugging me.
Id love to be in a big group, I guess I just dont play well with others.
I expect you will be OK with it, it just makes the Falcon a bit more active as an alt and a slight increase in risk and changes your target selection a bit.
You have to get used to that with Eve, it has happened to me a number of times, just let go of it and enjoy the game you play. I have changed what I do a couple of times now.
I have that issue at times, but I just grit my teeth and ignore the bullshite, but it does grate at times. I decided to sit in there do my bit and have fun with small gang stuff when they get past being dropped by supers 
Maybe some day Ill find a group thatll have me lol.
While ECM has been dumb since the beginning, this is a completely BS update.
ECM ships are ■■■■ solo, have been before the patch and will be even worse after. Broken ECM drones persist, while the ECM ship fleet effectivity is barely changed (without the ECM buff) - oh I can keep firing at one target that will easily tank my fire because logis (until the ship comes up to die). Yay, great, I am only 99.99% useless during the jam, not 100% useless. Assuming I am not in a logi of course, otherwise what, I guess I should repair the ship jamming me or what?
So, the purpose of the change is what exactly? Feel good that the big bad ECM is still broken in all the ways it was?
I hate ECM and believe it should be thoroughly reworked, but this dumb patch achieves nothing useful.
As a start: make ECM a highslot module that runs on ammo (different for various factions). Preferably make the SD etc too - ALL modules affecting other ships should be highslots. Frees valuable midslots to fit some tank and other misc stuff. This already fixes the “too squishy” and makes balancing ships easier. Want the boat to try jamming 4 ships? Give it 4 highs.
Now, make the ECM deterministic again. But not in the bad old way. A proposal for that:
Each second, ship regains 5% of the current sensor strength up to the max (could be a variable instead of a fixed number). Jammer decreases current sensor strength, until it becomes negative. Then the ship gets jammed. All targets are lost. Sensors are being “reset”: sensor strength jumps to 5x typically max value, while the scan range and resolution start at 0. Each second, sensor strength decreases 10% while the other 2 increase 10%, until the ship reaches “normal”. ECM is applied during that time as well.
The thing I like about the suggestion is that permajam is nearly impossible due to very high sensor strength after being jammed, while the time to jam is deterministic. Furthermore, ships with powerful sensors are very hard to get jammed due to sensor regen. All numbers subject to tweaking, though 10%/s seems ok enough, the ship is fully battle-ready after 10s and still needs to relock the targets (which it might start locking)
An example, ship with 20 sensor strength, jamming with 5 strength per 2 seconds.
The first second, jamming applied 5 points, ship sensor is at 15 strength. Ship regains ~10% of that in 2 seconds and gets to 16.5. Then 11.5->12.6 -> 7.6->8.3 -> 3.3->3.6 -> finally -something. The ship is successfully jammed. It loses all current targets and drops to 0 scan range/resolution. Then, keeping track of the other numbers too (sensor strength, scanres/range in percentage to max): (100, 0) -> (90, 10%) -> (81, 20%) -> (76, 20%)-ECM -> (68, 30%) -> (62, 40%) -> (57, 40%)-ECM -> (52, 50%) -> (47, 60%) -> (42, 60%)-ECM -> (38, 70%) -> (34, 80%) -> (29, 80%)-ECM -> (26, 90%) -> (23, 100%) -> (18, 100%)-ECM -> (19.8, 100%) - regeneration started as the sensor is below its typical max of 20 -> ETC.
Now, SD and ECM can be modified to become the same module. Preferably also make them in 3 sizes - frig/cruiser/bs sized module, like the other stuff. Caldari would have stuff short range and more powerful, Gallente would be long range and weaker: Gallente has short range blasters and drones Caldari would want to jam; similar for jamming long-range Caldari ships.
If they made it more like real ECM and it jammed Grid or Local that woukd make more sense.
Or even missiles. Gun turrets? Why?
Nothing is being missed. It is unbalanced to shut off an enemys targeting completely. There is no single other mechanic in the game that does this. Even damps allow you to lock something if you can get close enough. You know you are pulling straws here. Now ecm is vulnerable to counters from the ship it targets that aren’t merely drones and Eccm gained value as well by association. When ecm fires off more consistently as stated then Eccm will become more common also.
You are a part of the problem this change will solve. I’m gonna look at your kill board for a bit and see how much you need ecm crutches if at all. Have the feeling you don’t even use them.
I dont think you are replying to the right person. I havent successfully pvp’d in literally years.
And even then it was just stealth bombing probe ships.
But you are missing that a jammer who cant jam his own target is just silly, regardless of your opinion.
Before:
After:
Now the question: why will group have reason to ‘insta alpha’ ECM if there was none before? I would say it’s actually the opposite: jammed ship still has purpose (attacking and possibly destroying or forcing out one of enemy ships) when before the changes it was useless.