Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

I am going to respond to individual points as i can through out the day.

DEV Alf wrote:

The reason why we thinking about changing some parameters of the ECM is we always see forum topics, ingame chats, reports about how strong it is, how OP it is.
Also we are not really like the possibility of making a player totally blind, and unable to shoot back. Ew is somekind of CC (CrowdControl), it should buy time, lower the threat, provide better control of damage you recieve but should not be able to negate it completely, from any source( per player - and we also want to keep the differences between bots). We also want it too keep worthy of using it.

So we have a vocal problem that we want to review. I do not know how long you keep history on your servers but I would hope that some sort of metrics are being generated to put meaning behind the statements.

For example: query the database metrics to learn the following. i.e. Garagaj's heat maps but a statistical record of the player fight.

Out of a fight how many bots had EW equiped. how many modules per side? How many e-war modules per bot? Which bot type had which e-war?

Then out of all of that e-war how many targets where hit by it? How often where they hit?

How does this picture compare in a 5 vs 5 to a 10 vs 10 and so on.

Depending on how much data you track from combat and how  it is tracked you could generate some very in-depth heat maps and analytics to paint the role of e-war. This will help give you a clear understanding of whats happening.

I believe that players are wanting a 'escape' mechanic more than anything. A way to overdrive their ECCM for more strength while burning accumulator or their sensor amps possibly at the cost of durability.

But again as you create easier play and escapes for most players you further enable the hardcore players.

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27 (edited by Syndic 2014-05-30 16:41:13)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

DEV Alf wrote:

The reason why we thinking about changing some parameters of the ECM is we always see forum topics, ingame chats, reports about how strong it is, how OP it is.

Also we are not really like the possibility of making a player totally blind, and unable to shoot back. Ew is somekind of CC (CrowdControl), it should buy time, lower the threat, provide better control of damage you recieve but should not be able to negate it completely, from any source( per player - and we also want to keep the differences between bots). We also want it too keep worthy of using it.

The buff-debuff with the ecm strength on successful ew hit  is aimed to achieve this, by lowering the chances of each following ew in given timeperiod. However with little awareness you can play around it, and still be able to ecm and suppress reliably but less often on the same target, and you should have to switch between targets to bring your EW to its maximum potential. It is some form of diminishing returns and it can be seen in many games (even for damage)

The idea of the extension is simple, with a given amount of EP spent you can slightly lower the chances of being hit by EW. We working on the modification of the extension so it should provide this bonuses to the ECCM only.
We recieved feedback manytimes that we shouldn't nerf stuff, instead make other stuff better. We intend to make ECCM better.

But eventually the problem is the reliability of the EW is too high, which is achieved by the tunings. We also working on this that the tuners should work differently. We like the idea of more drawback, flat increase, maybe flat percentage increase, or even cycletime increase, these are all a good option, but it doesn't mean that any of it will be made for sure.
We also thinking about the racial radartypes, that would bring another layer of complexity which I like, but we fear that some of the EW modules would become highly situational.
Also keep in mind that we don't talk about only fleet compositions, we have to take the funfactor of individual players into account.
(and in the future all of the tunings and similar modules will be revised)

DEV ALF,

ECM in it's current state is definitely not a problem. The ECM Tunings are potentially problematic, as I mentioned elsewhere the easiest way to solve them is to either change the percentage and add a disadvantage to fitting them, or simply make the disadvantage something relevant like 50% cycletime increase.

With 1 ECCM fitted in the current state, natural ECM success chance is as follows;

- Vs Light/Assault/Mech - 175/73.5 = ~50-55%
- Vs Zenith/Vagabond - 200/73.5 = ~45-50%
- Vs Heavy - 155/73.5 = ~60-65%

With 2 ECCM fitted in the current state, natural ECM success chance is as follows;

- - Vs Light/Assault/Mech - 250/73.5 = ~30-35%
- Vs Zenith/Vagabond - 275/73.5 = ~25-30%
- Vs Heavy - 230/73.5 = ~30%

The most important thing to remember is there is a lock-time for the robot being jammed (2-3 seconds with 2 SAmps), and a cycle time of flat 10 seconds for ECM.

So there is already a way to make ECM ineffective. It requires trading damage tunings for sensor amps and ECCM's. I've done it for years now and I simply do not care about enemy ECM, I call them as the last target and most of the time they escape.

If your concerns regarding EWar are that 2+ players can shut down 1 Player, then you're not really trying to balance EWar you're trying to balance people working together, and I'm sorry to say you won't be successful at that. In the long run, 50 people will beat 10, and it will not be fun for the 10. Any mechanic that gets put in to benefit the 10 can also be exploited by the 50 to gain an even bigger advantage.

The overall game balance is currently perfectly balanced - all robots are useful, viable and offer a plethora of customization both for the individual and for group. If you touch EWar, pelistal robots become the new FOTM. If you touch EnWar, nuimqol bots become the new FOTM. And everything else will be relegated to marginally and situationally useful.

What is being stated in forums, tickets, whatever is that EWar is too strong against Heavy mechs. But that's what it is supposed to do, otherwise Heavy mechs have no counter in-game except more heavy mechs and more remote repair.

It's entirely your prerogative if you want to balance the game according to forum posts, tickets, etc. I personally view it as metagaming the Developers into adjusting the game according to a player faction's strengths and weaknesses, but if that's how things will be done then that's fine everyone will adapt.

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Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

READ THIS

Tyrone Biggumz wrote:

FROM a New players eyes .....


Just finished Reading 90% of this ... after your done reading ... think .. WHO will this have the largest impact on ... NEW PLAYERS LIKE ME ... but O snap .. look the kid dosent have the points to drop into ECCM skills banked up like the vets do ... this will honestly just make the vets that much more powerful because now i cant fit out a light ECM bot and jump into the fight to at least give a hand by "target Jacking" someone .. now i will be forced to try my shakey clammey noobish hoof foot hands at some other way to assist .. O but wait ... guess what the Noob already has his points into ECM so now i must wait even longer to fit out something new .... SIGH... so in that span of time while the new steam User waits for points the vets become even stronger ... .. honestly the ECM was one of the best ways to shut down a vet but not any more ... .. CONGRATZ on the expanshion of power gap and handing vets a Beta and Gama outposts on a plate stopping our most effective counter ...

READ AGAIN.

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Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Back when we had 50 v 50 fleet fights ewar wasn't overpowered. We didn't have ewar tunings. So if anything the ewar tunings is where you start instead of trying to change the entire system.

When debugging any issue always start simple and move up the ladder.

John 3:16 - Timothy 2:23

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Lemon wrote:

rhetorical question to the DEVs about statistics

remember last time i asked for that? 
the answer was somethinge like "not worth the effort" from DEV Zoom,
and the typical "what do you care" answer from CIR...

I share the sentiment, that "crowd control" abilites that can completely shut down someone (no matter if he was prepared or not) have no place in a PvP game.
Some time ago, NPCs using ECMs and Demobs got drastically reduced for the very same reason in PvE.

and all those arguments that you can come with dual sensor amps and eccms to trade tuning slots... how exactly does that help those who are bound to use bots with less then 3 headslots, or not even the fitting extensions to do so? and thats not even counting in the gap between those with endless supply of T4 equip, and those who have to run in T1 or T2 because they don't have the power to replace that.

ah, forgot, the role of new player in PvP in fleets is... suicide demob (ewar)

now, when ALF talks about negative gameplay experience elements for new, and not so new player - he would need to rebalance the game from ground up, starting with rethinking must-have modules to "enjoy" basic gameplay (sensor amps, lwf) , and fatal errors, aka mixing weaponsystem" (min-maxing from the first minute)

...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

I can very quickly and very practically explain and demonstrate that EWar cannot completely shut down someone. Alf, give me 10 minutes on the test server and you will understand.

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Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Annihilator wrote:

ah, forgot, the role of new player in PvP in fleets is... suicide demob (ewar)

Nope.  Not even close.  Day one in PHM you get your first bot and its not a suicide demob bot.

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33 (edited by DEV Zoom 2014-05-30 19:29:44)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

I would really love to know the logic of how some people get from balancing changes to losing all your EP roll

The game evolves, things change, balancing WILL happen all the time. This doesn't happen because we want to screw you over, this happens because we always strive for a better gameplay experience.

ps. and before we start throwing around silly numbers, we have 9 extensions that are in any way connected to these changes (detection/masking/ecm/suppressing). Even if you have ALL of those at level 10, that's not even half a million EP. But this really shouldn't be what we're discussing here. If you don't want to help with balancing that's fine, but please post your panic attacks somewhere else, thank you.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Syndic wrote:

I can very quickly and very practically explain and demonstrate that EWar cannot completely shut down someone. Alf, give me 10 minutes on the test server and you will understand.

since you have bolded that - you say that you cannot completely shut down someone who has no eccm fit, and no armor plate on a heavy mech, assault or industrial bot, that is not supported by anyone, and has not maxed out extension in locktime ?

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

35 (edited by Tund Bungler 2014-05-30 19:40:36)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

DEV Zoom wrote:

I would really love to know the logic of how some people get from balancing changes to losing all your EP roll

The game evolves, things change, balancing WILL happen all the time. This doesn't happen because we want to screw you over, this happens because we always strive for a better gameplay experience.

ps. and before we start throwing around silly numbers, we have 9 extensions that are in any way connected to these changes (detection/masking/ecm/suppressing). Even if you have ALL of those at level 10, that's not even half a million EP. But this really shouldn't be what we're discussing here. If you don't want to help with balancing that's fine, but please post your panic attacks somewhere else, thank you.


I DO have all of those at 10. You're forgetting all of the support skills that are pretty much only important to max ewar pilots. But of course you dont know this because all of these 'tickets' you get are from people who dont play (Anni) or people who lose one fight and run to fill out a ticket.

Its getting real old when you just casually dismiss all of these legitimate complaints without addressing a single one.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Tund: I didn't forget anything, but feel free to list all the extensions that you think are ONLY useful for EW pilots.

And next time someone comes with support ticket conspiracies the post will be deleted without notice, even if it has other ontopic content.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

-1 stacking debuff.  Those mechanics sucked in World of Warcraft.

I have a real example why this is dumb.

I am in my cam fit with guns.  I go 93 kph.  I kill an argano.  But a castel mk2 is chasing me with his OP detector/demob fit. Now the OP detector can only see my masked Bot at 300 M.  I run a direction but he goes 99 and O go 93.  I start running but he's already sub 300 gaining ground.  I'm half flagged burning for the alpha gate.  The way it currently works I would reflag on the castel apply ewar and keep him off me long enough to hit the alpha gate then avoid the rest of the fleet till my flag drops.

With this change the castel mk2 will always catch and hold combat ewar.

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38 (edited by Burial 2014-05-30 20:45:25)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Lemon you yourself said your ideal group is 3-to-1 ratio between EW bots and DPS.. I wonder why. lol

// Someone suggested to nerf the range of EW. I think that's good suggestion. Right now it's really easy to outrange any bot thrown at them, and combined with speed and no LOS it's pretty hard to kill them. I don't think you need to mess with strengths too much, just make sure ECCM actually works without sacrificing most of your head slots to get marginal results.

TL;DT
- NEXUS! This needs to come down to 15%.
- ECCM needs a solid buff. It extension based it needs to be at least 3% per level, bringing it to 97,5.
- Reduce EW modules optimal range from base 350m to 200-250m and introduce small additional buff to Vagas/Zeniths.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

DEV Alf wrote:

The reason why we thinking about changing some parameters of the ECM is we always see forum topics, ingame chats, reports about how strong it is, how OP it is.

This is bad indicator, you need to ask at least all of us what we think, and you see many people say it isnt overpovered.

The problem is, if you touch the EW now you will change many many things on the battlefield, I wouldn't do that.

We dont have big Balancing issues because the PVP is happening and I dont see big complains from anybody.


There was a problem about spark, and that had many feedback, if something really really wrong you will see, now I dont see that much problem!
Try to focus further element, improvements.

Energy to Earth!

18.01.2014. [12:57:58] <BeastmodeGuNs> after that i remembered all those warning about 1v1 you lol, and i found out why xD

40 (edited by Syndic 2014-05-30 20:44:05)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Complex Jamming Electronics
Jamming Electronics
Efficient ECM technology
Long Distance Electronic Warfare
Sensor Suppression
EWAR NEXUS
Special Ops Robot Control

Those 6 should definitely be reimbursed.

Perhaps you don't understand the problem entirely, its entirely marginal that our 1/10 accounts is screwed up now when compared to the newbie players who spent their few points into EWar because that's how they wanted/were told to.

Tomorrow when you implement this those newbies will discover their EP is worthless because they invested it in skills that were valid yesterday, invalid today. I don't think many of the newbie players will be happy giving you 10$, hell there's less and less people online so the retention ain't brilliant to start with.

Me, Lemon, Balfizar, Tund, Ville are some of the most experienced and most successful FC's in this game. With these changes I personally wouldn't take any ewar in fleet except a demobber, and I would honestly be suprised if the other guys took any actual EWar to a fleet fight.

I gave you the numbers and gave you the heads-up. EWar bots will be a liability and it will open a door to a whole load of unbeatable combo's only EWar could counter previously. Don't say I didn't tell you.

But you do what you want (as always), just don't say I didn't tell you this time too. smile

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41

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Rage Blackout wrote:

We use Ewar effectively and opponents do not.

That doesnt make it imbalanced

EW should not create an invisible shield for an attacker or defender. Like everything there should be draw backs for using EW currently there are not drawbacks and only incentives to put as much EW on the field of battle as possible.

We used mobile teleports just as every one could but because of their "OPness" the system was brought back into balance.

Just because you like using something doesn't mean it doesn't need to be balanced. Currently this is a game of who brings the most EW to the field of battle and that person / side wins.

There needs to be more balance than that.

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Euripides ~ Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Bertrand Russell ~ War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

42

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Syndic wrote:

said stuff ...

people can downgrade now so no reimbursements are needed.

Tux ~ Kill the messenger, he was part of it all along.
Euripides ~ Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Bertrand Russell ~ War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Tux wrote:
Syndic wrote:

said stuff ...

people can downgrade now so no reimbursements are needed.

We will still reimburse extensions IF we remove them from the game or their effect is drastically altered. But this is considered offtopic here from now on.

44 (edited by Rex Amelius 2014-05-30 21:37:22)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Burial wrote:

- NEXUS! This needs to come down to 15%.
- ECCM needs a solid buff. It extension based it needs to be at least 3% per level, bringing it to 97,5.
- Reduce EW modules optimal range from base 350m to 200-250m and introduce small additional buff to Vagas/Zeniths.

These are far too drastic and there is no need to make sweeping change. Small ewar bots would become TOTALLY USELESS. You just don't like the Zenith Mk2 because it can get 1000 range. However, that is needed for Gamma Turrets.

If anything range-wise changes it should be Bot Bonus specific. Above are ridiculous light ewar killing nerfs.

And ECCM does not need 3% - outrageous

Sparking to other games

45 (edited by Syndic 2014-05-30 21:41:01)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

EW does not create an invisible shield.

EW is a web at best that can be stretched, countered and broken.

Fielding EW already removes 4/5/6 guns you could be fielding, that's a huge disadvantage.
Nevermind they could be fielded as logibots to RR & transfer energy.

How do you counter logibots without EW? Walk into firing range of blap-mesmers and hope you bring their shield down before they spider energy to each other? Too funny.

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Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Sounds like interesting fleet compositions will emerge if the nerf is done right.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Burial wrote:

Sounds like interesting fleet compositions will emerge if the nerf is done right.

Or if the population continues growing (which it is). Seriously, let the game shake out with the bigger population before getting heavy handed.

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Is it still growing? I've been eyeballing Steam chart for couple of weeks now: http://steamcharts.com/app/223410

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Can we slow down on the doom & gloom posting. Alf created multiple threads to request feedback and open dialogue on this. He could have easily dropped back in to balance with rapid changes being implemented.

@ Burial & Anni

If the dev's had those statistics that already exist on the API in a mild form you would see a golden trend. ALL of my fleets have 3-5 DPS that equate to 3/4 of the damage in a entire flight and did 3/4 of the killing blows.  Once I have my dps I just run everything else under the sun (generally what keeps them alive the easiest)

If e-war was such a problem I would need to actually use more than a few dps bots wouldn't I?

I can agree to the idea of modifying tuners and possibly introducing some sort of 'active' counter to demob/ECM/suppresion that can be pushed as a 'oh *** button'. This would require substantial drawbacks (accum/durability loss) and a good 2.5-3 minute cooldown. (WoW PvP trinket?)

It would break the perma jam but this is equally as deadly if not more than the current situation in the hands of a vet.

@ Tux

It was never about how much EW on the field but who you forced your enemy to e-war that won the fight.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

50 (edited by Rex Amelius 2014-05-30 22:12:05)

Re: ECM / EW tuners / Supressors / ECCM

Burial wrote:

Sounds like interesting fleet compositions will emerge if the nerf is done right.

opposite is true. Take ewar out of the equation and now we have DPS, Rep, and Energy.

Tug-of-War is boring sport.

This game needs to ADD dynamics, not remove them.

Sparking to other games