The difference is that the other player has not lost the ability to target the guy doing the jamming. Even if the jam lands (which, yes, is still RNG), he’s got the ability to at least fight back one of targets attacking him. That takes away the pain point. And while it’s binary, it’s binary in a one vs. one way that I think is acceptable to most players.
Thus, I think this change fixes the immediate problems with ECM.
Is it perfect? No. In a perfect world, there would be 20 clones of CCP Rise working together to redo the mechanic from the ground up. We don’t have that, so I’m okay with a small fix.
You’re missing the point about what I mean when I say “it works 100% of the time.”
I’m not saying it’s a perfect counter 100% of the time. I’m saying that when I push the button, it does what it’s supposed to do and that helps me. Whether it helps a little or a lot, I don’t get the feeling of complete frustration that I can’t do anything to stop what the other guy is doing to me.
Even if I push the ECCM button, there’s a solid chance that it’s going to have no impact and I’m still going to be jammed and left twiddling my thumbs for twenty seconds or more.
It’s not my “beloved” change. I didn’t come up with it, and it wasn’t an issue I identified as being critical. I simply agree with it.
There’s still range and a host of other things, not the least of which is bringing some friends along, that the other guy has to deal with before he can win the fight.
“I’m saying that when I push the button, it does what it’s supposed to do and that helps me. Whether it helps a little or a lot, I don’t get the feeling of complete frustration that I can’t do anything to stop what the other guy is doing to me.”
is how all the people who use ECM solo feel right now, could we try to come up with anything that will allow it even limited use in solo?
Those points were made based on your misunderstanding what I meant by “they work 100% of the time.” There’s no reason for me to address them because you’re right - but they also aren’t what I was talking about.
You know…what if the SEBO worked at a much shorter cycle (4 seconds perhaps?) and re-rolled the jam chance at every interval? You’d have a decent chance to break the jam by using that action. And maybe the overheat could reduce cycle time to 3 seconds, giving you more opportunities to break that jam. Regardless of this current ECM situation, is that something that would make you feel like you had more agency?
How is it possible that my understanding is flawed when it is your own admission that the only acceptable standard you have for a counter to ECM is a single module you can toggle that makes it completely ineffective?
Feel free. If folks have ideas on how to use it in solo, I’m all ears. I’m going to pass on that the successful jam breaks locks so you still have to relock the jammer even if you can still target him back idea. If there are other ones, I’m happy to pass those on.
I would also like to hear about potential ways to buff tanks and DPS for specific ship types, which I’ve asked for about a dozen times and I think maybe one person has mentioned.
I think you’re putting words in my mouth. I’m not suggesting creating a counter to ECM that works every time - I’m pointing out that the mechanic is all or nothing, which is different from most other mechanics in the game and that’s what contributes to why folks hate it.
as for buffs anything to work with would be nice on the GNI for example, i did not have the dps to break the tank of another navy issue frig (forgot which GNI is my 2nd navy to the VNI also like i said my weaponry skills suck) but thats cause i have to try and fitt some kind of tank to survive, so i tried a medium ancillary shield, with what i could fit i can only survive for 7 charges x 3 seconds each, keeping in mind i was testing the ecm burst with webs/damps/etc looking for some kind of combination i was kinda training ECM for high risk high reward solo.
It’s also because it’s gradual, and because it’s not all or nothing. If it was an RNG that one shot would blow up the other guy or miss completely, people would be complaining.
Khan noted that it’s both the binary nature (all or nothing) as well as the RNG coupled together that make this such a frustrating mechanic. That’s the thing - if the roll lands right, you can’t target anything for 20 seconds minimum. That’s an eternity in a fight. And there’s nothing you can do, at that point, but try to get away or die. That’s why folks are frustrated by it.
But it is all or nothing. Either you deal X damage per shot, or you do not.
As has already been pointed out in the other thread, reducing the cycle time to 10 or even 5 seconds would alleviate the problem you complain about, but you have explicitly rejected this because it is both RNG based and there is, by your own definition, no 100% counter.
Hell, I’d even be on board with allowing ships to fire on other ships without a target lock but with massive penalties to indicate the difficulty of hitting a moving target in three dimensional space.
I appreciate that you’ll do so, but in my last sentence I was really asking you, you personally, if that would give you more feelings of agency when you’ve been jammed. In that regard - if ECCM was altered in that fashion, would you be more willing to equip it on fleet ships, and would you feel like you had more agency as you’ve defined it.
And again, I’m asking this regardless of whether or not this ECM change stays or reverts. Just in general, you verses ECM in either form, do you as a pilot of considerable experience feel better with that as an option?
You’re glossing over a significant balance problem it created just to defend the rushed and incomplete nature of it.
Very simply, it’s two questions:
What module do I activate to counteract a target painter?
What module do I need under this change to fight back against ECM?
There’s your problem: this change makes countering ECM trade-off free. If you fit that cap booster, you can’t fit that extra shield resist. If you fit that MJD, you can’t fit a point. If you don’t fit to counter ECM, you can still counter ECM.
It’s not balance. It will never be balance as long as fighting back against ECM is cost free.
If it was merely a change you “went along with”, it shouldn’t be hard for you to say “OK, yeah, it should require you to give up something”. I have yet to see anything from you that accepts that the cost-free fight-back is wrong and problematic.
If it were a property of Auto-Targeters, Sebos with ECCM, AND Signal Amplifiers all, it wouldn’t be an issue. Because to fit any one of three counters (to be able to shoot back), you’d have to give up something else.
That right there is the problem: no ship can fit a counter to everything, but right now, everyone can counter ECM with 0 cost.
If the SEBO had the chance to break the jam before the jam completely cycled, I think that would probably make me more likely to use it if I expected to face jammers. I think if the SEBO just gave me a better chance to not get jammed on the next cycle that wouldn’t be as effective.
I haven’t rejected anything. I just don’t think it’s as good a fix to the issue as this one is, and I freely admit that I’m looking at it from the perspective of the defender, not the attacker, since the defender is the one who needs the help under the old system.