AA, dogfights and farming

[texico]

One of the problems I found with PS1 was the triangle of AA, Airchav and ground infantry. The nature of AA largely destroyed a lot of over-battle dogfights and made it difficult for airchav focused on destroying other air vehicles to perform. Basically as soon as AA locked on to a mossie, it had to afterburn away immediately or it'd likely be destroyed.

But on the other hand, farming was too easy, and so AA was necessary otherwise infantry wouldn't be able to step outside without getting mowed.

Does anybody else think PS2 should find a way of dealing with this better, so that air chav fights can be preserved above battlefields, but won't be rampantly able to mow ground targets? The easiest way I can think of dealing with this is to make sure the flight ceiling is out of range of AA, but at the same time make AA very very deadly if the aircraft is near.

Imo PlanetSide 1 didn't do a good enough job of preserving dogfights between airchav, and I hope PS2 can improve on that without jeopardizing ground battles due to farming.

[Azren]

Flight physics are going to be very different, no way to tell how it will turn out.

[Metalsheep]

The only way to lessen softie farming in an aircraft is so make it so that Aircav cant hover. Or shoot while hovering/going slow&low.

Softies will always be vulnerable to aircraft when AA is not around, unless they make Jammers proximity burst like Flak :D It was always epic to Jam a hovering mossie/reaver. They were really vulnerable to small arms fire once they couldnt instagib you.

[BigBossMonkey]

Well one thing going in its favor is if they're wanting to dogfight they will have a weapon loadout for that that may not work very well at killing infantry.

Also, you can't put flight ceiling too high up where they cant reach it with AA otherwise Libs will reign if the other empire(s) have the air at lower altitude locked down.

[PoisonTaco]

Make it a CERT spec you can go where you can hover. You can target infantry and ground vehicles but you are a sitting duck for AA fighters.

[Grognard]

Does anybody else think PS2 should find a way of dealing with this better, so that air chav fights can be preserved above battlefields, but won't be rampantly able to mow ground targets? The easiest way I can think of dealing with this is to make sure the flight ceiling is out of range of AA, but at the same time make AA very very deadly if the aircraft is near.

Imo PlanetSide 1 didn't do a good enough job of preserving dogfights between airchav, and I hope PS2 can improve on that without jeopardizing ground battles due to farming.

I'd think countermeasures would be a good start; flares, chaff, AMS systems. Should allow for more/better dogfighting situations, but it will only last so long... Flight dynamics that allow for shaking missles if you really turn n burn.

Thats all I got.

[Warborn]

Does anybody else think PS2 should find a way of dealing with this better, so that air chav fights can be preserved above battlefields, but won't be rampantly able to mow ground targets?

I think they've done what they need to do to solve it. First, they've given fighters either effective air-to-air weapons OR air-to-ground weapons. Second, flying looks like it's fun. Vehicles move much faster and it looks like an actual arcadey flight game so hopefully it will actually be fun to dogfight. And... that's kind of it. If air-to-ground fighters get chewed up and spat out by air-to-air fighters, then you no longer need very strong ground-to-air weapons for infantry or even vehicles.

As for hovering, aircraft camping doorways is dumb as hell. It's about as far from what should be a viable tactic for aircraft in a game as possible. I would not mind at all if hovering was something you had to toggle and doing so disabled your weapons, so that it's only useful for landing/taking off purposes. Fighter planes floating around in mass numbers outside of buildings waiting for someone to open the door is not gameplay I think they should encourage.

I'd think countermeasures would be a good start; flares, chaff, AMS systems. Should allow for more/better dogfighting situations, but it will only last so long... Flight dynamics that allow for shaking missles if you really turn n burn.

Thats all I got.

The answer to stuff like strikers is to not have stuff like strikers. Perfectly accurate homing weapons fired against air targets by infantry is a bad idea. It was necessary in PS1, but a better designed game wouldn't have required it to be necessary. Infantry should not be so easily targeted by aircraft in this new Planetside, and as a result they should not have strong anti-air weapons at their disposal. The lightning, configured for AA, is apparently taking the place of the skyguard, and that seems enough for me. Make it a deterrent to aircraft, but leave the job of clearing the skies to people flying fighters.

[CutterJohn]

Only thing wrong with the PS1 relationship is Infantry had no effective counter to air. Solution is an effective counter, not to make air worthless vs infantry.

[Metalsheep]

Only thing wrong with the PS1 relationship is Infantry had no effective counter to air. Solution is an effective counter, not to make air worthless vs infantry.

I heard in the test servers they had something called the "Jamlet" which sounds like a rocklet rifle that could fire Proximity Jammer grenades on Aircav.

Why this was never added still confuses me. I'd rather have the Jamlet than a bunch of the other AA stuff added.

[Figment]

I heard in the test servers they had something called the "Jamlet" which sounds like a rocklet rifle that could fire Proximity Jammer grenades on Aircav.

Why this was never added still confuses me. I'd rather have the Jamlet than a bunch of the other AA stuff added.

Problem was they made it work on normal stuff as well. Especially Wall Turrets became useless, but other vehicles couldn't even approach infantry anymore... The impact of dozens of people bringing them to a fight was huge.

Why they didn't just make a short range (50m) AA proximity only version with extremely low accuracy akin to the Flaklet out of it, we'll never know. At 50m, it'd been quite a bit better than a grenade against air, but a grenade would have a more reliable angle and it wouldn't have been much better than a Thumper EMP then either.

Instead, it had Rocklet range and accuracy.

[Erendil]

Only thing wrong with the PS1 relationship is Infantry had no effective counter to air. Solution is an effective counter, not to make air worthless vs infantry.

Yep. The Lancer was semi-decent against Mossies if you were good w/ it. And multiple Strikers were good at scaring away timid Mossies but they didn't stop a dedicated AB'ing farmer.

Problem was they made it work on normal stuff as well. Especially Wall Turrets became useless, but other vehicles couldn't even approach infantry anymore... The impact of dozens of people bringing them to a fight was huge.

Why they didn't just make a short range (50m) AA proximity only version with extremely low accuracy akin to the Flaklet out of it, we'll never know. At 50m, it'd been quite a bit better than a grenade against air, but a grenade would have a more reliable angle and it wouldn't have been much better than a Thumper EMP then either.

Instead, it had Rocklet range and accuracy.


IIRC the Jamlet had a 400m range too. It was devistating to BFr's since they were big, slow moving targets. One Jamlet user on a base wall could effectively perma-jam a BFR (not that that's necessarily a bad thing mind you. :D BFR pilots didn't like it so much tho...)


To the OP, here's my thoughts:


Give infantry air-burst jammers
Give infantry AA the ability to kill stock-level Air Cav in a reasonable amount of time, w/o reloading if possible
make all AA MAXes flak/airburst-based (no lockon or FAF)
don't let lock-on weapons reach high altitude, only flak from wall turrets, Lightnings, and AA MAXes
limit the quick-escape potential of afterburners when engaged from low flying speeds
give Air Cav ECM/chaff as an upgrade


In doing the above, high altitudes would be relatively but not completely safe since they wouldn't have to deal w/ lockon, infantry could jam and scare away farmers, and air cav couldn't AB to safety right away after every farm attempt but could break lock via chaff if they get caught at low-mid altitude.

[Warborn]

These are an awful lot of hoops to be jumped through. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to simply make fighters not very good at targeting infantry at all? If fighters are more about killing vehicles or other aircraft, and not very good at hitting small targets like infantry, then you can skip the entire circus of balancing infantry anti-air with aircraft countermeasures.

Make infantry hard to hit by doing fun stuff like eliminating the ability for fighters to hover around shooting people, and voila, infantry no longer require weapons which are good at shooting down planes.

[CutterJohn]

I heard in the test servers they had something called the "Jamlet" which sounds like a rocklet rifle that could fire Proximity Jammer grenades on Aircav.

Why this was never added still confuses me. I'd rather have the Jamlet than a bunch of the other AA stuff added.

Simpler solution: Bullets tend to do not nice things to delicate flying machines. Infantry small arms should tear up hovering aircav. The short range would keep it from being crazy.


These are an awful lot of hoops to be jumped through. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to simply make fighters not very good at targeting infantry at all? If fighters are more about killing vehicles or other aircraft, and not very good at hitting small targets like infantry, then you can skip the entire circus of balancing infantry anti-air with aircraft countermeasures.

Make infantry hard to hit by doing fun stuff like eliminating the ability for fighters to hover around shooting people, and voila, infantry no longer require weapons which are good at shooting down planes.

Vehicles and infantry are tough to balance too, so lets just avoid the problem and have vehicles not really able to hurt infantry, and take AV weapons from grunts.

And come to think of it, Air and Vehicles are tough to balance. Lets just avoid those problems and not give air good weapons to kill vehicles with, and not give vehicles any AA. Yeah, thats great gameplay.

[Warborn]

Vehicles and infantry are tough to balance too, so lets just avoid the problem and have vehicles not really able to hurt infantry, and take AV weapons from grunts.

And come to think of it, Air and Vehicles are tough to balance. Lets just avoid those problems and not give air good weapons to kill vehicles with, and not give vehicles any AA. Yeah, thats great gameplay.

Pretty constructive post you got there.

The point is that not everything needs to be good against everything else. Should everything on be an equally viable target for everything else? Is it a bad thing if some vehicles aren't good at killing infantry? I don't see it as a bad thing if MBTs aren't good at killing infantry at all, but are good against ground vehicles. Or if infantry aren't good against aircraft, but are good against other infantry or vehicles if they can get close to them.

It's about synergy. Combined arms. Relying on team mates to fill the gaps. That's the point of them axing the supersoldiers of the original game and making classes with distinct roles. That mentality should extend to vehicles, too. If you want to kill infantry, X vehicle(s) are good at that. If you want to kill aircraft, Y vehicle(s) are good at that.

It's hardly a novel concept in other games, I don't see importing the idea into Planetside 2 as something to be avoided. On the contrary, requiring people to use an array of vehicles to be well-rounded, or exploiting a lack of capacity in enemy forces by using a certain type of vehicle or whatever, sounds like pretty good gameplay to me.

[Forsaken One]

I have to admit I hope that air does not get chaff, flares, or anything like it.

EVERY Battlefield game I've ever played Air both jets and helis were ridiculously overpowered and stupid.

Fixed gun emplacements to deal with AA which were auto blown up 99% of the time, God mod flare spam BS, and they tended to be so fast that the placement guns missiles/bullets were outrun by them.

Only Battlefield game that ever did Air decently was BF2142 but then in a patch they "raised the flight ceiling" so now the gunships in that game are total bullshit able to rape stuff from outside AA and sight range.

I think Planetside did Air and anti air balance decently. (you know, other then the whole air camping doors and stuff thing.) Air was decently killable as it should be. They should not be battlefield style "wait in line to auto pwn with plane" flying godmode BS that take a whole team on the ground to take down just one of them.

[Warborn]

They specifically mentioned flares during on of the Q&A sessions where they discussed vehicle customization. Not quite clear whether it'll be for evading any homing stuff fired from the ground or if it's expressly for avoiding heat-seeking missiles from enemy fighters.

[Brusi]

One of the problems I found with PS1 was the triangle of AA, Airchav and ground infantry.


Air-Chav, or Chav-Air?

http://forum.holidaywatchdog.com/General-Chat-Welcome-Aboard-Chav-Air-Thread-11045.html

[CutterJohn]

The point is that not everything needs to be good against everything else. Should everything on be an equally viable target for everything else? Is it a bad thing if some vehicles aren't good at killing infantry? I don't see it as a bad thing if MBTs aren't good at killing infantry at all, but are good against ground vehicles. Or if infantry aren't good against aircraft, but are good against other infantry or vehicles if they can get close to them.

So not only should all aircraft not be good at killing infantry, but tanks shouldn't be either. So the only thing you want to be any good at killing infantry are.. Lightnings and other infantry?

Should we just ditch the concept of vehicles completely so we can have infantry battles without interruptions?

Not all vehicles need to be identical at every role. However, not being identical does not mean there must be a superior and inferior. Sniper rifles and HA are both anti infantry weapons, but they have much different roles, both with their strengths and weaknesses.

It's about synergy. Combined arms. Relying on team mates to fill the gaps. That's the point of them axing the supersoldiers of the original game and making classes with distinct roles. That mentality should extend to vehicles, too. If you want to kill infantry, X vehicle(s) are good at that. If you want to kill aircraft, Y vehicle(s) are good at that.

Thats why you are limited in what weapons you can carry. If you want to kill vehicles, X vehicle WEAPONS are good at that. If you want to kill aircraft, Y vehicle WEAPONS are good at that.

I see no reason why aircraft shouldn't be good at taking on infantry, nor infantry taking on aircraft, so long as they bring the right kit. Combined arms does not mean rock paper scissors. The infantry units and vehicle chassis have quite a bit of variation. You can pick whichever suits your playstyle and objectives the best.

[Death2All]

Flight physics are going to be very different, no way to tell how it will turn out.

I'll have to agree with this point. The mechanics for flying will be much more different than how they were in PS1.

You won't be ever to hover around and become a floating death machine...At least a stock aircraft. I remember hearing you could unlock hovering deeper down the skill tree for aircraft. But I guess we'll see.

Either way, with the changed mechanics and increased TTKs in general with the game, I don't think too many aircraft will get away with Mossie/Reaver farming like they did in PS1 so long as there's sufficient AA.

[Coreldan]

As for the hovering, VTOL is still there for most likely every aircraft. Hovering was mainly a byproduct of the same VTOL.

I think I talked about this with CutterJohn on IRC and we thought about some "energy" bar kinda thing, which would be consumed by basically using the VTOL-engines. This way you could also hover around, but only for a short while before the energy/whatever runs out.

Cos the fact is, they cant take away VTOL without breaking the game and they can't remove hovering completely as long as VTOL is in place.

They specifically mentioned flares during on of the Q&A sessions where they discussed vehicle customization. Not quite clear whether it'll be for evading any homing stuff fired from the ground or if it's expressly for avoiding heat-seeking missiles from enemy fighters.

The only time I remember them talking about flares, it has been about illumination flares, not the "IR Flare" kind of thing BF3 for example has. That said, I'd be fairly sure the IR flare kinda things will make it into PS2 as well, but I'm fairly sure what we know about any flares at this point were referring to the ones that light up the battlefield during the night.

[Redshift]

make the chaffs have a minimum height to deploy (or be effective). Low level farming chavs will be far more vulnerable.

[beekergunship]

Even as a dedicated air cav dude, I really don't like just sitting and spamming doors. I'd rather be shooting something in the open instead of playing peek-a-boo. One way to hamstring the pilots enough is to give a transition period between hover and normal flight. Therefore, you can hover only in situations that are normally safe (repairs, awaiting orders, landing). If you had to egress out of missile range you most likely won't make it in time as the hover mode is transferring to cruise mode.

[ringring]

I may be unusual but there is nothing in PS that really annoys me, apart from someone placing an ams at the backdoor.

I quite like the solution to the problem put given by the originator, ie raising the flight ceiling abovew the level where AA is effective.

As for the problem with Libs, well they are gunships now and if they can hit from way-up-there then good for them. The counter for defenders is simply a defending aircraft.

I don't think there is a need to get complicated about this.

The DEVS have said that flight mechanics are going to be more realistic this time. However, one of the good things about PS1 was how easy it was to fly an aircraft and it was less easy to become good at dogfighting, which I never did. So I hope the DEVS will strike a happy medium of making aircraft accessible and more realistic.

[magnatron]

you know i never liked how they handled hovering in ps1. i fully feel hovering should be there but id like to see it work kinda how it does IRL.

basically aircraft that can hover (vtol jets/helicopters) can not stay in the exact same spot hovering. it basically cause's the air to begin to circulate around the aircraft forcing the aircraft to apply more and more power to maintain the hover. eventually the air will get moving at the top speed the aircraft's engines are capable of overcoming and the aircraft will fall from the sky and crash.

the solution to this is to consonantly keep the aircraft moving a small amount so your using air that isn't moving.

hehe im no programer so i really have no idea if or how one could implement this in a game, but it seems like a really easy way to stop door camping with aircraft and not screw the VTOL function. and it might stop those VTOL dogfights as i wasn't a fan of those myself but i may be alone on that one lol.

[Revanant]

O
Imo PlanetSide 1 didn't do a good enough job of preserving dogfights between airchav, and I hope PS2 can improve on that without jeopardizing ground battles due to farming.

http://www.vintagejewelrysupplies.com/4087-6555-large/small-wings-oxidized-brass-29mm-.jpg + http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Chav_scally.jpg/250px-Chav_scally.jpg = Airchav

[Warborn]

So not only should all aircraft not be good at killing infantry, but tanks shouldn't be either. So the only thing you want to be any good at killing infantry are.. Lightnings and other infantry?

No, and I don't much care to get into this tangent as it is unrelated to what this thread is about. My point was that the issue of making infantry and fighters equally able to kill one another is predicated on the idea that infantry should be a viable target for fighters, and vice versa. I'm saying that's not necessarily the case. Not everything in the game needs to be a viable target for everything else. I believe the game would benefit from air-to-ground rockets for fighters being designed around killing tanks, and anti-vehicle weapons infantry get be short range, inaccurate, and not at all designed to destroy air vehicles in flight.

To maybe make an analogy, fighters should be like jets from BF3 and infantry anti-air should peak at using an RPG to fire madly into the sky. Fighters should move too fast to realistically target small infantry most of the time, and should be too fast and non-threatening to warrant having AV ammo wasted attempting to hit shoot them down.

Thats why you are limited in what weapons you can carry. If you want to kill vehicles, X vehicle WEAPONS are good at that. If you want to kill aircraft, Y vehicle WEAPONS are good at that.

Not at all, and this is something we already know to be the case. Will tanks be well-suited to killing aircraft? Will liberators be well-suited to killing fighters? Not every vehicle necessarily needs to have a load-out which makes it a foil to something else in the game. I think assuming that fighters need to be lethal to both infantry and tanks is an assumption that doesn't need to be made. Not every vehicle should be expected to have a weapon that can attack any target with significant lethality.

you know i never liked how they handled hovering in ps1. i fully feel hovering should be there but id like to see it work kinda how it does IRL.

Making hovering kind of shaky is one possibility, but I don't think it would go far enough. Fighters should under no circumstances be able to camp doorways. That is not the kind of gameplay they should be facilitating. It sucked in every way in PS1, and this game would be worse-off having it make a return. Strafing: yes. Hover-whoring: no.

[Chaff]

Raising the flight ceiling seems like a good idea that would facilitate more dog fighting.
************************************************** **************

REAVERS were annoying/lame when camping doors - usually a tower fight/siege.

LIGHTNINGS were also effective spamming tower doors.

The only times a LIGHTNING or REAVER could camp tower doors was when the attackers had some sort of numbers advantage.

The fact that a REAVER or LIGHTNING could be used in LAME gameplay does not mean either vehicle should be nerfed of that ability.

It's the PILOT of the vehicle that needs to be nerfed.

We had regular bullets and AP bullets in PS1. There should be "camping" bullets in PS2.


BTW - I was GUILTY of lobbing my share of Lightning shells into towers. When I chose to do it - I was bored. I was LAME for doing it. It is what it is.

Guys who choose to camp in a way that is LAME & mindless...could get shot with "camp" bullets....turning any vehicle they pilot for the next 24 hours HOT PINK ...... so everyone who saw them would want to shoot them down.

ALL EMPIRES could freely shoot ANY PINK VEHICLE to get XP and Kill points.

(I know this ain't feasible - but it illustrates my point)

[wasdie]

I think the fact that we'll be fighting over the entire land, and not just for bases, will naturally solve that.

Now air cover will be more important than ever and there won't be chokepoints where all of the AA can just sit.

[Warborn]

Lightnings were junk at camping doors. Easy to hit with jammer grenades and easy to hit with decimators. And of course lame gameplay should be designed out of the game as best as possible. That's what designing the game is all about. The tools players have at their disposal should be all about contributing toward fun and challenging gameplay for err'body.

[CutterJohn]

Not at all, and this is something we already know to be the case. Will tanks be well-suited to killing aircraft?

They get AA turrets. I concede the possibility that the 'AA' turret will be more of a dual purpose turret designed for use against aircraft and vehicles, leaving the tank still focused on ground vehicle combat but adding some modest measure of protection vs air.

Will liberators be well-suited to killing fighters?

Won't be much point to the rear turret if it can't protect you from fighters.

Not every vehicle necessarily needs to have a load-out which makes it a foil to something else in the game. I think assuming that fighters need to be lethal to both infantry and tanks is an assumption that doesn't need to be made. Not every vehicle should be expected to have a weapon that can attack any target with significant lethality.

No, not ever vehicle needs to be capable of every role. But you're trying to rid entire groups of units from having any effective weapons vs other entire groups of units. No AA for any infantry class, no AI for any air vehicle. I've seen no good reason for that restriction, no case for how it would actually improve gameplay beyond 'not wanting to get farmed', which is specious reasoning at best.

[Warborn]

No AA for any infantry class, no AI for any air vehicle.

I said no effective AI for fighters. Part of the justification I specified already is that liberators have basically one job that I can tell, and it's killing ground targets from the air. Making fighters very competitive at that role by making them good against infantry and against vehicles strikes me as something that would go a long way toward making the liberator have less of a niche, just like in Planetside 1.

The point is, as mentioned, giving vehicles niches. Not every vehicle need be equally effective at every job. Just like how not every infantry class should be equally effective at every job. You should have to use certain vehicles to perform certain functions. If you want to shoot down aircraft, you should have to use either AA lightnings or fighters. If you want to shoot infantry from the sky, you should use a liberator. Yadda yadda.

I'm not advocating that you absolutely not under any circumstances be able to kill infantry with a fighter, only that it be tricky to manage and entirely eclipsed by liberators, such that if you are facing a lot of enemy infantry but you control the skies you wouldn't bother with air-to-ground fighters, you'd grab a liberator. Seems like that's what they're aiming for.

It doesn't seem like such a crazy idea. It's kind of how lots of different types of games work already. You know, the idea of having "counters"?

[BorisBlade]

Make it a CERT spec you can go where you can hover. You can target infantry and ground vehicles but you are a sitting duck for AA fighters.

People miss this alot, most everything they keep calling "certs" are not certs, just unlocks. There is ZERO specialization as far as certs or "talents" they are all just unlocks. Early in the game its kinda like a spec since you dont have time to get it all yet but eventually you get everything and you dont have to give up somethin you have to get another thing, you just keep gettin more and more.

The only real specialization in PS2 past the early months will be what you specifically put on each vehicle when you get it at the term or what weapons you equip in your loadouts. All the "cert" things are just unlocks that absolutely everyone will get and can have have every single cert all at the same time, aka not specialization at all.

Personally i think its a bad idea. They should instead let your earn points as you level to let you specialize in various trees etc with a cap on how many total points you can get. Then you get real differentiation and specialization not just boring unlocks where everyone gets everything like br40.

[CutterJohn]

I said no effective AI for fighters.

Infantry should not be so easily targeted by aircraft in this new Planetside, and as a result they should not have strong anti-air weapons at their disposal.

You were quite ambiguous about it. I admit I should have asked for clarification.


I still disagree that the infantry classes deserve no AA weapons. Fortunately, that seems unlikely to occur. MAX units are being treated like heavy infantry in PS2, rather than weird infantry/vehicle hybrids with unique rules, so even if its just limited to MAX units, it will be present. But I see no issue with handheld AA for other infantry classes capable of carrying AV, nor with mossy/reaver/scythes having decent AI capability.

It doesn't seem like such a crazy idea. It's kind of how lots of different types of games work already. You know, the idea of having "counters"?

Having counters does not mean having strict rock paper scissors unit compositions. I can counter aircav with AI weapons by pulling a vehicle, an aircraft, or anything with AA. Regardless of what weapons you fit, something will counter you.

[Dov]

Simple: Very very high max altitude. Let the fight get out of AA range as well as air-ground attack range. I hope they make the sky A SKY in PS2.

[CutterJohn]

Simple: Very very high max altitude. Let the fight get out of AA range as well as air-ground attack range. I hope they make the sky A SKY in PS2.

Question: Why are aircraft so special that they deserve a place they can be immune to ground fire? I'm sure tankers would love being able to have vehicle fights without aircraft interfering.

[Warborn]

If aircraft are so high up they can't be hit from the ground I imagine they'd be unable to hit ground targets themselves. It would be unfortunate to have good dogfighting ruined by ground-to-air flak.

[CutterJohn]

If aircraft are so high up they can't be hit from the ground I imagine they'd be unable to hit ground targets themselves. It would be unfortunate to have good dogfighting ruined by ground-to-air flak.

And it would be unfortunate for good tank fights to be interrupted by air to ground AV. Can tanks sink into the ground so that they can be immune to air?

[Warborn]

Nevermind.

[Aractain]

Why does this happen in Planetside so much? The pilots think they are entitled to superior gameplay than everyone else. What is with that?

Good gameplay comes from interesting interactions between units (people) on the battlefield. The idea that AA should be a deterant is like saying aircraft should nible at tank armour so that the drivers don't go AFK.

[HoovesMcG]

I think the fact that we'll be fighting over the entire land, and not just for bases, will naturally solve that.

Now air cover will be more important than ever and there won't be chokepoints where all of the AA can just sit.

THIS ^

I was going to just reply with that argument, But you beat me to it. This coupled with raising the flight cieling will faciltate a lot of dog fights and teh flight physics will make those dog fights winnable by tactics. Very exciting stuff.

[Traak]

Why does this happen in Planetside so much? The pilots think they are entitled to superior gameplay than everyone else. What is with that?

Planes are Planetside 1 welfare.

Oh, and no planes being able to strike anywhere, with any weapon, that is out of range of AA is a good addition.

[Warborn]

Why does this happen in Planetside so much? The pilots think they are entitled to superior gameplay than everyone else. What is with that?

It's just how planes work in real life and in most games, and people who've played a fair number of games about aerial combat come to expect it I think. Whether it's something arcadey like Crimson Skies, or something hyper-realistic like IL2, the idea of planes being able to soar above the action and be sort of in their own world is pretty well-established.

Personally I'm hoping that's how it works. Let ground fire be a threat to fighters which are strafing or other aircraft flying low for some reason. Otherwise I'd really prefer if they made dogfighting a fully realized sort of experience, and allowed aircraft to determine their own fate. It's how I'm used to thinks working in most other games, and it'd be just swell if it worked that way in PS2.

[Chaff]

.
I have little against pilots. I'm all for game elements that will facilitate and increase air-to-air combat. Those that want to be fly boys can rule the skys.

There is a large percentage of players who prefer ground combat - and would probably be just fine with zero aircraft.

There are plenty of flight sims and aerial combat games already.

I'd like planes - especially the fighters - be more powerful and untouchable the HIGHER they fly. My shallow preference for PS2 would be that fighters get 90% of their kills vs other aircraft.

The Gal and Lib should be most vulnerable to fighter aircraft and highly specialized and somewhat limited (in numbers) ground AA units.

I like ENG, tanks, and ground vehicle and infantry warfare far more than stuff up in the air. I'd take naval warfare over air warfare. That's just my preference.

I want air in PS2. I want it potent and FUN for those who prefer flying. Let the planes RULE the skies.

I hope ground AA is sufficiently capable of repeling significant air intrusion into major ground battles. Handheld infantry AA ? I would be fine with a limited ceiling on infantry held AA weapons. Ground HA should have lethal AI, strong AV, but strong AA for infantry doesn't seem realistic to me. AA capable of taking down low-level fighters should be limited to MAX, base turrets, and AA-specialized vehicles.

High altitude bombing should still be an option - which would primarily be vulnerable to fighter pilots - or, Heavy ground AA (built by ADV ENGies (w/hard-to-earn advanced certs).

Potent AA needs to have limits. A Lightning with specialized AA, AA base turrets, and perhaps field-deployable fixed heavy AA.

Perhaps the field deployable AA would require a choice before the ENG constructs it - FLAK - which would primarily be for high altitude or LARGE (slower) aircraft.
Or, there'd be a more rapidfire Phalanx AA - deadly against LOW-flying air and a decent deterrent to mid-altitude air.

I prefer 90% of the action be between ground forces. The 10% that choose the pilot route - I hope there's enough air-to-air to keep them happy.

[Firefly]

Why does this happen in Planetside so much? The pilots think they are entitled to superior gameplay than everyone else. What is with that?
Ever met a jet pilot?

[beekergunship]

http://i.qkme.me/365w7w.jpg

[Raymac]

I haven't read the whole thread, but just wanted to drop my 2 cents.

As someone who loves and spends most of their time in a Reaver, I fully believe and support the idea that AA should trump air and be able to essentially create "no-fly zones". This makes air-to-ground combat much more tactical as well as balances aircraft.

I hate using real life comparisons for a video game, buuut in real life, the first order of air strikes is to take out the enemy's anti-air capabilities because once you establish air superiorty, you have a major advantage. I like that concept for Planetside as well.

[Knightwyvern]

I haven't read the whole thread, but just wanted to drop my 2 cents.

As someone who loves and spends most of their time in a Reaver, I fully believe and support the idea that AA should trump air and be able to essentially create "no-fly zones". This makes air-to-ground combat much more tactical as well as balances aircraft.

I hate using real life comparisons for a video game, buuut in real life, the first order of air strikes is to take out the enemy's anti-air capabilities because once you establish air superiorty, you have a major advantage. I like that concept for Planetside as well.

Agreed. Air power is always a very strong advantage, and it should be in PS2 as well. It should have decent counters though. Effective AA, and perhaps a longer vehicle timer for Aircraft than for ground vehicles?

The problem a lot of people are having here I think is thinking of the Reaver and Mosi in PS2 as strictly fighters. They are meant to be more than that. They handle like fighters at high speeds, but can somewhat hover and behave like helicopters/VTOL at low speeds. They are meant to combine Air Superiority (one loadout) with Air Cavalry (a second loadout.) Air Cavalry is supposed to be a powerful anti-ground option, against vehicles as well as infantry. I'm of the opinion that infantry should be somewhat vulnerable to a friggin Apache gunship. Meaning, having to rely mostly (not entirely) on other aircraft or ground vehicles to fend the Air Cav off. This is the RPS aspect of PS2 I feel. However, stick a AA weapon on your lightning or Vanguard and it should be a pretty effective deterrent against air. There is nothing more satisfying that beating a skyguard in your Reaver. I want that challenge.

Sorry about the WOT, lol. TL;DR: Aircraft are powerful, so have powerful counters, but not excessively so.

[Traak]

The power of single-person aircraft should be countered by equally powerful single-person AA vehicles.

If the AA vehicles require 2 people to be fully powerful, then the planes should also require a gunner and pilot to be fully powerful.

Balance.

[Whalenator]

Imo PlanetSide 1 didn't do a good enough job of preserving dogfights between airchav, and I hope PS2 can improve on that without jeopardizing ground battles due to farming.

TWO WORDS:
FLARE SPAMMING

[ratfusion]

I was very impressed by how well balanced air combat and air to ground interaction was in PS1. I can not imagine a better solution. PS1 gave all skill levels a role in that fight, and didn't make any other role obsolete.

Be careful with what you ask for, it'll be very difficult to improve on PS1 in this arena.

[Traak]

Simple: Very very high max altitude. Let the fight get out of AA range as well as air-ground attack range. I hope they make the sky A SKY in PS2.

Yeah, if they make it a glass ceiling, then career women might feel uncomfortable playing.

[Warborn]

Be careful with what you ask for, it'll be very difficult to improve on PS1 in this arena.

It will actually be amazingly easy to improve upon it and you can look at basically every other game on the planet which features multiplayer involving aircraft and infantry to see how it could be done better. I believe PS1's hilariously bad aircraft implementation was at least in part due to the fact that the engine was so limited, which meant they couldn't have anything really resembling enjoyable flight mechanics. As that won't be the case for PS2, they immediately change the game by making aircraft function vaguely like aircraft.

[Forsaken One]

It will actually be amazingly easy to improve upon it and you can look at basically every other game on the planet which features multiplayer involving aircraft and infantry to see how it could be done better. I believe PS1's hilariously bad aircraft implementation

lol.... have you ever played a battlefield game? PS1s balance of air Vs everything else even with the door camping is 10,000% better then anything the battlefield games ever did.

If the battlefield games did Planetside air this is how it would go.

#1 everyone has to be air, airs too overpowered not to be air so wait in line at the vehicle spawner to get air.

#2 Airs so overpowered that if there is a long line to get air proceed to teamkill everyone in the line, the overpoweredness of the air is a fair exchange for all that grief.

#3 learn to fly and keep your air in the sky, grats you just gained any and all "skill" you will ever need, oh, don't forget to press X to spam your flares for god mode should anything even try to take you out, pressing X takes a LOT of skill.

#4 don't worry about dieing to anything anymore, you see you're in a fighter jet that has mach 3 speed, (faster then even a guns bullets in the game), but you also have the roles of not only a fighter jet but a bomber comboed into one. but don't worry, your bombs have the size of a whole PS1 base just in case you miss.

#5 don't worry about effective AA, as there will never be effective AA in the game, ever. The pilots will also bullshit that flying takes skill and so will also bullshit that the air is not overpowered and so should be very hard to kill.

[Eyeklops]

you know i never liked how they handled hovering in ps1. i fully feel hovering should be there but id like to see it work kinda how it does IRL.

basically aircraft that can hover (vtol jets/helicopters) can not stay in the exact same spot hovering. it basically cause's the air to begin to circulate around the aircraft forcing the aircraft to apply more and more power to maintain the hover. eventually the air will get moving at the top speed the aircraft's engines are capable of overcoming and the aircraft will fall from the sky and crash.


Wait..what? You got some references for that? I would think the In Ground Effect would negate that, if the effect your describing exists at all. The main reason a Harrier cannot hover too long is overheating of the turbofan engine.

Reference (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0123.shtml)

[Eyeklops]

Question: Why are aircraft so special that they deserve a place they can be immune to ground fire? I'm sure tankers would love being able to have vehicle fights without aircraft interfering.

1. If an aircraft is so high up you can't hurt him, and he can't hurt you, why would you care?

2. On your logic: Why are infantry so special that they deserve a place they can be immune to air fire? (Hint: Infantry can go indoors)

[Ragotag]

Aircraft ought to have the ability to take on Infantry effectively *if* equipped accordingly, but not both ground and air targets at the same time; role selection should be heavily enforced.

Regarding hovering aircraft, just make Infantry AT weapons highly effective verse aircraft that hover within range -- doorway camping problem solved.

Regarding Infantry AA, a single Infantryman should *not* be able to take out aircraft with a single AA missile IMO, but a small group of Infantry equipped for AA who coordinate their AA attack verses a specific air target (volley fire) should be made highly effective. This would encourage more coordinated team play on the ground.

[Eyeklops]

If people are really worried about hover spam


Make flying dual mode. Your either flying, or hovering, and everybody can tell which is which.
Create a time based transition between states. Hypothetically say, 3 seconds for an aircraft to ramp up/down between states.
Give a bonus to ground infantry against hovering air. A few examples:

Increased lock-on speed
Increased damage
Higher velocity for projectiles locked-on too hovering targets



You won't see too many pilots that will want to hover spam if you balance it right.

[RovingDeath]

Ever met a jet pilot?

Ugh... Too many. The C-130 guys are so much cooler.

[JHendy]

Pretty constructive post you got there.

The point is that not everything needs to be good against everything else. Should everything on be an equally viable target for everything else? Is it a bad thing if some vehicles aren't good at killing infantry? I don't see it as a bad thing if MBTs aren't good at killing infantry at all, but are good against ground vehicles. Or if infantry aren't good against aircraft, but are good against other infantry or vehicles if they can get close to them.

It's about synergy. Combined arms. Relying on team mates to fill the gaps. That's the point of them axing the supersoldiers of the original game and making classes with distinct roles. That mentality should extend to vehicles, too. If you want to kill infantry, X vehicle(s) are good at that. If you want to kill aircraft, Y vehicle(s) are good at that.

It's hardly a novel concept in other games, I don't see importing the idea into Planetside 2 as something to be avoided. On the contrary, requiring people to use an array of vehicles to be well-rounded, or exploiting a lack of capacity in enemy forces by using a certain type of vehicle or whatever, sounds like pretty good gameplay to me.

I actually agree with this, pretty strongly.

Start giving every individual class and vehicle the ability to counter every single possible threat that it may encounter and you'll end up with homogenised roles and uninteresting gameplay.

Different classes and vehicles each need to have their own, very obvious strengths, weaknesses and niche abilities.

I'm frightened by over-customisation.

[Warborn]

If people are really worried about hover spam

The worry isn't that we can't think of a solution, the worry is that the developers won't view it as a problem requiring a solution. It would be an easy thing to fix, but if the PS1 developers thought a half-dozen aircraft camping doorways like a bunch of cats waiting outside a mouse hole was good gameplay, who's to say the PS2 developers don't see it the same way?

[Whalenator]

Altitude degradation when hovering.
Of course this wouldn't affect spawning planes because they would still have the ability to cruise off almost vertically like they did in PS1.