The latest EVE Online dev blog is all about the upcoming October balance pass, which will focus on reworking the Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) mechanics, rebalancing interdiction nullification, making changes to warp disruption field generators, and more. One of the major changes coming in the October balance pass is a reworking of the way that ECM and systems-jamming mechanics operate.
Right now, CCP doesn’t seem satisfied with the way ECM works, regardless of whether players are on the giving or receiving end: “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.” Although the devs feel “it’s important to preserve and even improve the role ECM plays as one of the few disruption tactics for logistics and other forms of support,” they also want to make jamming more satisfying for users and less frustrating for victims “by giving ECM more consistent behavior while also toning down the helplessness that comes with being jammed.” As the first step toward that goal, the ECM mechanics are being changed so that jammed players can always lock onto the ships that are jamming them, allowing them greater agency in responding to the threat.
Also on the table are changes to interdiction nullification, which comes in response to the commonly held belief that “nullified combat interceptor fleets, like the very popular Claw doctrines, feel terrible to fight against and don’t have any clear counters.” CCP’s solution to the problem is to remove interdiction nullification from combat interceptors while leaving it in place as part of the bonuses for fleet interceptors. The devs hope that “this preserves the unique role Interceptors play as scouts and tacklers while introducing more significant tradeoffs for the powerful tool of nullification.” For the full details on the changes to ECM and interdiction nullification, plus information about recent changes to warp disruption field generators and the upcoming force auxiliary and capital balance tweaks, you can check out the full dev blog on EVE’s official site.
