A Wee Balance Scenario: AA vs Aircraft [Archive]

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 03:05 PM

This thread:
http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=41178&page=6

raised the question of whether or not Aircraft are "overpowered".

This makes me want to understand what we mean by overpowered.

Aircraft are obviously inherently powerful in that they are the quickest objects in the game and can ignore terrain and can carry various mission-specific armaments. So an aircraft that encounters a tank without its AA support, or a lone infiltrator moving between bases, or an HA equipped only with a heavy rifle, or an AI Max should expect to win. Seems only fair?

However, a soldier with an AA weapon equipped should, in my opinion, have a 50/50 chance of killing a one-man aircraft in a one to one fight where neither has the jump on the other. So the ground soldier saw the aircraft coming and had a chance to achieve lock-on no later than the aircraft could target him.

Where the resource investment is higher, the reward should be a shortening of the odds in your favour. So a fully manned Galaxy Gunship should usually kill a single AA unit, and more (cheap) AA needs to be fielded to match the (expensive) GG.

Now, I know the dynamics of the real battlefield are much more complex than this, but does the basic idea that every unit should have a hard counter not go a long way to ensuring we all have the most fun in the game?

Thoughts?

Rumblepit

2012-05-13, 03:08 PM

i dont think this will be a issue at all now that all the armor can be equipped with AA

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 03:09 PM

They are if they can see infantry with ease, whether directly, or through auto radar.

Rumblepit

2012-05-13, 03:17 PM

They are if they can see infantry with ease, whether directly, or through auto radar.

goes both ways for air and armor. if a aircraft wants to run with a AI loadout then they will be gimp against other craft and armor.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 03:21 PM

goes both ways for air and armor. if a aircraft wants to run with a AI loadout then they will be gimp against other craft and armor.
What exactly constitutes an AI loadout for an aircraft?

Rumblepit

2012-05-13, 03:26 PM

What exactly constitutes an AI loadout for an aircraft?

not sure,,, but higby said there will be 3 loadouts.... armor , air and infantry .

his reaver is speced for armor, ill be rolling the same.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 03:30 PM

i dont think this will be a issue at all now that all the armor can be equipped with AA

I hope this is the case. Still, we need to see the TTK of the various AA weapons before we know for sure.

What I'm interested to know is if the idea that in a given fight "equal numbers, , equal situation and equal resource investment in equipped weapons" should lead to 50/50 chance of winning.

I'm asking this because I feel that PS1 did not apply this idea evenly, leading to situations where you could feel quite helpless against a specific threat and you could only ask/hope that fellow soldiers would go and grab the counter to beef up numbers and balance things up.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 03:33 PM

not sure,,, but higby said there will be 3 loadouts.... armor , air and infantry .

his reaver is speced for armor, ill be rolling the same.

Well, I don't think that rockets designed to kill tanks should magically not work well against infantry, they should be deadly if they hit. Of course, if AA loadout means you get lock-on missiles, those won't lock onto infantry, naturally.

But anyway, if rockets, for example, is how you spec against armor, as I say, they should be deadly to infantry that they hit, the key is not providing Robin Hood spotting that lets the aircraft see the infantry easily.

LZachariah

2012-05-13, 03:35 PM

I don't want to dive toooo deeply into this topic, as I don't think that this thread will lead to any major adjustments to the game's pre-established balances, but I will say that I don't think that an infantry soldier with an anti-air weapon should have a 50/50 chance at defeating an aircraft. A 50/50 chance implies that the two combatants are on equal ground, but the game's cost-system indicates that they're not considered equal; aircraft cost resources to construct/summon, arming a infantry with an anti-air weapon does not. Since one setup is free and the other costs finite resources, it makes sense that the aircraft should have an advantage. However, I definitely believe that an infantry soldier wielding an anti-air weapon should narrow the power-disparity between them and give the infantry a much better chance of survival.

~Zachariah

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 03:38 PM

However, a soldier with an AA weapon equipped should, in my opinion, have a 50/50 chance of killing a one-man aircraft in a one to one fight where neither has the jump on the other. So the ground soldier saw the aircraft coming and had a chance to achieve lock-on no later than the aircraft could target him.

I don't know, I think that that would make infantry OP. Aircrafts should always have an upper hand in 1 vs 1 situation vs infantry imo since the investment when buying in aircraft is higher from the start, so there no need for 50-50 chance when mossie or reaver confront single soldier with RPG. Also infantry will always be more numerous in practice and someone will always carry RPG since it's useful for more than just AA. Of course I advocate that single infantry unit don't show up on plane radar so you'll be tough to spot if not on open clear terrain. Anyway when plane get shot down by infantry it will be pretty annoying since it is the cheapest way and if chances were as you suggest 50-50 I must tell aircraft would pretty much suck imo. I probably will myself play ground troops but I think that specialized AA vehicles and emplacements/turrets should be bane to aircraft not measly foot soldiers. Hand carried AA weapons should be cheap and crude AA countering method more as an emergency measure or ambush attack than as something that gives you equal chances in eye-to-eye encounter.

Rumblepit

2012-05-13, 03:38 PM

I hope this is the case. Still, we need to see the TTK of the various AA weapons before we know for sure.

What I'm interested to know is if the idea that in a given fight "equal numbers, , equal situation and equal resource investment in equipped weapons" should lead to 50/50 chance of winning.

I'm asking this because I feel that PS1 did not apply this idea evenly, leading to situations where you could feel quite helpless against a specific threat and you could only ask/hope that fellow soldiers would go and grab the counter to beef up numbers and balance things up.

i see your point.... but they will cost resources, more then av weapons im sure so this has to be taken into account. people wont be as wreckless as they were in planetside with their armor and aircraft so this mite effect it aswell.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 03:39 PM

Graywolves

2012-05-13, 03:48 PM

Infantry AA have the advantage of using terrain to hide between shots if the terrain is cooperative. There is then an advantage if there is more infantry AA than aircraft and they are relatively spread, even in the open an aircraft will have trouble taking down multiple soldiers while being blasted away from different directions.

A ground vehicle with AA should dominate an aircraft. For an aircraft to take out a vehicle AA they should like infantry against aircraft have to use the terrain and poke at the vehicle while trying to avoid damage.

A2A would probably be the most dangerous for aircraft.

Sabot

2012-05-13, 04:06 PM

Every unit does have a hard counter. With the customizations, that unit may vary, but it exists in the game, and it's just a matter of using appropriate tactics to efficiently counter whats thrown at your army. That and player skill.

Infantry can wield AI, AA and AT. Ground vehicles can wield AI, AA and AT. Aircraft can wield AI, AA and AT. Only thing that can mess it up is imbalances and cheating.

Edit: seems I was AFK for a little too long and this post came like... an hour in the thread. Meh...
And as a side note.... most aircraft are shot down by infanty units. Hard to see due to not showing up on radar, before it's too late and the missile is on it's way. PS however doesn't reflect real life 100%.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 04:15 PM

Every unit does have a hard counter....

Infantry can wield AI, AA and AT. Ground vehicles can wield AI, AA and AT. Aircraft can wield AI, AA and AT. Only thing that can mess it up is imbalances and cheating.

Agreed, and happy to see the changes that are being made in this area. My question was more about how hard the counter should be. So should 1 infantry with AA have a 50/50 chance of taking out a one-man aircraft in a fair fight ?

And if not 50/50 then how close should the odds be?

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 04:19 PM

Agreed, and happy to see the changes that are being made in this area. My question was more about how hard the counter should be. So should 1 infantry with AA have a 50/50 chance of taking out a one-man aircraft in a fair fight ?

And if not 50/50 then how close should the odds be?

Infantry be 1 to 1 with a vehicle just because they have spec'd AV/AA? No, I don't agree with that at all.

Unless you're assuming the infantry is able to take cover and pop out to take shots as part of a "fair fight".

Trolltaxi

2012-05-13, 04:34 PM

If the infantry takes only his AA weapon, he pretty much sacrificed all his chances against anything else - therefore he deserves a fair chance against the aircraft.

If you take a look at PS1 - TR ESAV, the Striker was pretty useful against enemy air. A full clip was not enough against a mossie (almost, but no) but it often scared them away. A not full health mosquito had to think twice of his attack. If there were 2 strikers in range - well it wasn't a farming ground for him anymore.

Infantry OP? "I certed a veichle and I'm not supposed to farm infantry???!!!44!!"

What was the mossie's cost? 3 cert points. The striker? 2 for MA and 3 for AV, that makes 5 points (or if you didn't need the 2 for MA, it is still 3 cerst vs 3 certs - memories are fading). And still the infantryman with the dedicated AV weapon needed 6 seconds to empty the 5-clip striker, reload (2.5 seconds?) and fire again. The mossie TTK on rexo was about 1.2-1.5 seconds. For less cert points. Not even mentioning the bail at full health (the pilot) after the mossie took the 5 rockets - that leads to another flamewar...

Yes, certing aircraft was quite cheap and you received great power for the small price. That's why I don't have problem with infantry playing on even ground when he decides to focus on one aspect and sacrifices his other abilities.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 04:47 PM

It's not about that. It's about vehicles are supposed to be higher on the food chain and infantry shouldn't be carrying around weapons that are as powerful as you would expect an AA vehicle to be.

Now, understand that time to kill factors into this as well. I am not saying that an infantry should not be able to solo kill an aircraft. What I am saying is that giving up your assault rifle is not an excuse to get a weapon that's as devastating to an aircraft as an AA vehicle would be expected to be. However, if you want to give up your assault rifle to carry an AA weapon and extra ammo for it, that's different.

In other words, you could carry an assault rifle, a couple of mags, and an AA weapon, and enough ammo to kill the weakest aircraft(let's say it took two mags of AA ammo to kill whatever the weakest aircraft is). OK, so you give up your assault rifle and now you can carry 10 mags of AA ammo, enough to kill say, a Mossie, five times over. But the key is, you are indeed more powerful against aircraft for that choice, but it's over time, rather than suddenly you have a weapon that will kill that same aircraft with one mag.

Ceska

2012-05-13, 04:48 PM

Well, I don't think that rockets designed to kill tanks should magically not work well against infantry, they should be deadly if they hit. Of course, if AA loadout means you get lock-on missiles, those won't lock onto infantry, naturally.

But anyway, if rockets, for example, is how you spec against armor, as I say, they should be deadly to infantry that they hit, the key is not providing Robin Hood spotting that lets the aircraft see the infantry easily.

There a difference between a direct hit, and a "splash-damage" hit. AI rocket should have more splash damage than AT rocket, but much less effective against armored target. And AT rocket should have more or less no splash damage.

And I really don't believe that a direct hit with a rocket from a reaver is an easy one.

It's not about that. It's about vehicles are supposed to be higher on the food chain and infantry shouldn't be carrying around weapons that are as powerful as you would expect an AA vehicle to be.
mag.

A vehicule should definitely be more powerfull. But as we know, very few flying vehicule existing know can sustain a direct hit from a rocket and still flying. In my mind, a 2 man team with a AV weapon should be able to take down the reaver/mossie/sythe.
I really hope vehicule will be powerfull, but also kind of fragile

sylphaen

2012-05-13, 05:39 PM

There is no doubt that air vehicles are the most powerful type of weapon available.

Let me brainstorm a few things linked to that weapon:
- fast movement
- movement in 3 dimensions unimpeded by terrain
- no weather conditions preventing its use
- quantity unlimited both in time and numbers (we have yet to see how restrictive resources and spawn timers will be)
- heavy firepower
- hard to hit from the ground
- need for dedicated weaponry to counter air targets (i.e. AA)
- no need for dedicated weaponry to farm ground targets from air
- no heavy logistics required to maintain such a weapon
- even with planetside scale, maps still not large enough
- players want to dogfight
- players don't want to wait for action
- etc...

There are certainly many points I miss and many points you may not agree with. My main idea is the following:
when there is such a powerful weapon available (essentially, flying tanks) and if you want to offer a combined-arms game experience set within the technical limits of PS2, how would you prevent aircav from dominating everything else ?

It's one thing to call for common sense and support the idea that aircav should naturally stay dominant and all others should stick with being moving targets; personally, and regardless of one's favourite gameplay, I think it's not a question of why aircav should be at the top but HOW should it be integrated in the game.

I want PS2 to be fun for everyone and above all, I want everyone to have a diverse choice in how they want to play the game in order to have fun.

So to conclude this post, I'll simply say that balancing aircraft is about defining under which context and to which extent (i.e. roles and limits) this gameplay style should be used; then nerf accordingly.

Flying tank vs. ground tank: if one is too strong, there is no need for the other. (fyi, I want to play with ground tanks, not be forced to another playstyle)

Ale

2012-05-13, 05:52 PM

As long as the AA takes aim to use I'm all for it being highly effective.

Balancing Infantry to 1v1 aircraft is a complete joke though... unless they do something like make the Decimator equivalent one shot ESF's, which would take extreme skill, luck or an oblivious pilot. That would keep the hover spammers at bay without ruining the piloting experience.

Lock-on missles should be limited to AA maxes, static base defenses that require upgrades to deploy and an operator to fire, and extremely deep vehicle tech tree choices. Any lock-on missles need to be identified as ground based or A2A for pilots as they come in too.

Keep lock-on AA out of the hands of infantry. In such a high density game the constant lock on warnings will be maddening enough. Infantry could have other AA deterents, anti-material rifles like the lancer, dumbfire ESAV's that do more damage to air, the aforementioned one shot deci and flak rounds for underslung launchers and any thumper / rocklet type weapons, the ability to direct fire the pilot out through the cockpit glass, etc.

Believe me, all of the above would prevent me from farming a TR footzerg much more effectively than the slow, creeping migraine that was the only threat from every one of them carrying a striker.

Grognard

2012-05-13, 05:55 PM

This thread:
...
raised the question of whether or not Aircraft are "overpowered".
This makes me want to understand what we mean by overpowered.
...

Now, I know the dynamics of the real (gaming) battlefield are much more complex than this, but does the basic idea that every unit should have a hard counter not go a long way to ensuring we all have the most fun in the game?

Thoughts?

I agree on the basic premise, yes. My eyebrows were starting to raise, until I read the highlighted section, which therefore leads me to agreement.

As an example, simple things like infantry being able to go into structures can balance out ignoring terrain, as far as mobility, in my opinion. So, given that the dynamics, and variables, are complex, I agree that a hard counter goes a long way to balance things. At least as a baseline to wrap all the other not-so-obvious variables around.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:02 PM

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 06:09 PM

I want PS2 to be fun for everyone and above all, I want everyone to have a diverse choice in how they want to play the game in order to have fun.

Flying tank vs. ground tank: if one is too strong, there is no need for the other. (fyi, I want to play with ground tanks, not be forced to another playstyle)

Yes sylphaen, I agree here. It's about the fun factor for me too. And there's no fun if you're up against an aircraft and even if you're carrying the designated AA weapon you just have no chance.

Keep lock-on AA out of the hands of infantry. In such a high density game the constant lock on warnings will be maddening enough.

As a grunt my job is to stay alive, not to worry about your mild headache.

As a pilot, your job should be to use skill, choose the correct approach angle so we can't see you out of the sun or pop up from behind those trees so we don't get a chance to use our AA. But if we see you coming and if we have AA, we deserve to be able to kill you in the interests of the fun of the game.

Don't get me wrong, as I said earlier if I don't have AA then as a grunt I'm going to die against a plane. But if I have AA, then the least I want is a fighting chance to kill you.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:11 PM

What difference does cert cost make? It should be about proper balance on the battlefield.

Don't get me wrong, as I said earlier if I don't have AA then as a grunt I'm going to die against a plane. But if I have AA, then the least I want is a fighting chance to kill you.

A fighting chance doesn't mean 50/50. And we can't forget that for the most part, vehicles won't be able to capture the capture points. That is an advantage of infantry that cannot be disregarded.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:17 PM

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 06:20 PM

What difference does cert cost make? It should be about proper balance on the battlefield.

Balance, but also fun. If I've spent as much on my basic AA as the pilot has on his basic plane then we should have an equal chance to kill each other if you leave skill out of it. In other words skill should make the difference (and of course you had the luck to be carrying AA as a grunt), not the simple "Aircraft trumps everything" that certain types of balance would lead towards.

So clearly I'm making assumptions about the cost of equipment, but since I believe it is safe to assume we will all have the chance to have a basic mossie/reaver/scythe in our posession on day 1 then that won't be much more expensive than an AA kit imo.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:21 PM

Balance, but also fun. If I've spent as much on my basic AA as the pilot has on his basic plane then we should have an equal chance to kill each other if you leave skill out of it. In other words skill should make the difference (and of course you had the luck to be carrying AA as a grunt), not the simple "Aircraft trumps everything" that certain types of balance would lead towards.

So clearly I'm making assumptions about the cost of equipment, but since I believe it is safe to assume we will all have the chance to have a basic mossie/reaver/scythe in our posession on day 1 then that won't be much more expensive than an AA kit imo.

I disagree. Infantry should not be able to 1 to 1 toe to toe an aircraft period, and cert costs don't change that. Otherwise vehicles mean nothing. I don't even fly in integrated battlefield games but I recognize that aircraft can't just be flying infantry.

Understand, however,that I also think there should be some separation between aircraft and infantry in that infantry should not be easily seen by aircraft, and there should not be any of the autoradar Robin Hood stuff that gives pilots the ability to know where the enemy is beyond their own skill and situational awareness.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:27 PM

What difference does cert cost make? It should be about proper balance on the battlefield.

Because its not balanced if it costs me $15 to have you killed while it costs you $30 to do the same to me.

A fighting chance doesn't mean 50/50. And we can't forget that for the most part, vehicles won't be able to capture the capture points. That is an advantage of infantry that cannot be disregarded.

True, but that is an inherent feature. When I say inherent this is what I mean:

And we can't forget that for the most part, infantry won't be able to attack from the air. That is an advantage of air units that cannot be disregarded.

Infantry capture points when that is their purpose. Do you suppose an AA/AV infantryman is going to storm a capture point? No, because their purpose is to take out air or land units. Air units kill stuff, but not all stuff at all times, and that is their purpose.

sylphaen

2012-05-13, 06:29 PM

Infantry should not be able to 1 to 1 toe to toe an aircraft period, and cert costs don't change that.

And that's basically the whole design problem about PS2. How do we want different playstyles to interact ?

What if that infantry player was a Heavy who equipped a weapon and dedicated to AA ? Once that guy is deployed on the field and far from any equipment terminal, he cannot switch classes and is pretty much entirely dedicated to AA. Should he be able to kill an air vehicle ?

Conversely, should the air vehicle equipped with AI be able to waste any trooper around including heavies ? How often should they need to reload ? How fast should they be allowed to switch equipment ? How much resources should switching equipment cost ?

All those decisions are part of balance but as I try to say, it's all about the design intention and less about how it ends up implemented.

Sorry if I reused your example but it's only to further explain upon my previous post and not to judge whether a trooper should or should not be able to shoot a plane down.

EDIT: if I may help to focus the discussion with one question:
what do you guys think would be a fair situation for both the aircraft and AA players and for what reasons ?
(yes, to avoid stating it later, this thread IS a theorycraft exercise because we know oh so little :) )

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:31 PM

Because its not balanced if it costs me $15 to have you killed while it costs you $30 to do the same to me.

I don't think real life money is going to factor into this. But you've made me realize something else: If I'm driving along in my aircraft that I spent a ton of in-game resources to spec out into whatever I spec'ed it out to, did it cost you a lot of resources to customize your infantry soldier into AA? Probably not. Why should a X resources spec'ed aircraft die easily to a .2X resources infantry?

Also, I daresay, even AA infantry might get involved with capturing. PS1 captures were hacking, PS2 will be about physical presence on the capture point. Even AA soldiers can help with zerging them. More often than not they won't, due to KDR-centric play, but they could.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:34 PM

I disagree. Infantry should not be able to 1 to 1 toe to toe an aircraft period, and cert costs don't change that. Otherwise vehicles mean nothing. I don't even fly in integrated battlefield games but I recognize that aircraft can't just be flying infantry.

Stingers beat the Russians. Don't forget that for infantry to menace an air unit they have to lose their ability to menace other infantry or ground units.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 06:36 PM

I don't think real life money is going to factor into this. But you've made me realize something else: If I'm driving along in my aircraft that I spent a ton of in-game resources to spec out into whatever I spec'ed it out to, did it cost you a lot of resources to customize your infantry soldier into AA? Probably not. Why should a X resources spec'ed aircraft die easily to a .2X resources infantry?

I'm using basic AA against a basic (assumed to be cheap) one-man aircraft for this example.

I agree that if the pilot has spent resources on flares, jammers, etc. then the grunt is rightly toast unless they've invested in the anti-countermeasures they should also have access too.

But in the interests of fun, the fictional basic AA grunt should have a fighting chance against a basic, unupgraded aircraft.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:39 PM

I'm using basic AA against a basic (assumed to be cheap) one-man aircraft for this example.

I agree that if the pilot has spent resources on flares, jammers, etc. then the grunt is rightly toast unless they've invested in the anti-countermeasures they should also have access too.

But in the interests of fun, the fictional basic AA grunt should have a fighting chance against a basic, unupgraded aircraft.

A grunt spec'ed to AA isn't basic though is he?

Anyway - the other question becomes, what do you have to give up to carry all those flares/jammers? I don't mean what does it cost, I mean, does it take up space that limits your rocket ammo, etc?

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 06:39 PM

There is no doubt that air vehicles are the most powerful type of weapon available.

Let me brainstorm a few things linked to that weapon:
- fast movement
- movement in 3 dimensions unimpeded by terrain
- no weather conditions preventing its use
- quantity unlimited both in time and numbers (we have yet to see how restrictive resources and spawn timers will be)
- heavy firepower
- hard to hit from the ground
- need for dedicated weaponry to counter air targets (i.e. AA)
- no need for dedicated weaponry to farm ground targets from air
- no heavy logistics required to maintain such a weapon
- even with planetside scale, maps still not large enough
- players want to dogfight
- players don't want to wait for action
- etc...

True, but most of the things mentioned are inherent to air vehicles by their definition and are usually balanced out by other inherent traits to them.

Let's say fast movement and movement in 3 dimensions unimpeded by terrain are balanced by the fact that these vehicles are hardest to learn to maneuver properly and pose highest danger if failed to do so (you will rarely kill yourself when driving a ground vehicles - so impediment by terrain to aircraft is perhaps rare but mostly is fatal when it occurs). Also your movement will be restricted from covered areas like domes and caves and even if you enter them you'll be sitting duck there. When it comes to "weather" conditions those aren't preventing use of anything else in the game also. However playing during night for flyers will definitely be harder to adjust to then let's say for tank drivers. And so on, almost every such advantage has a drawback or high skills requirements at least.

Good pilots should be much appreciated by the rest - I myself for instance never played the role of pilot in any multiplayer shooter with aerial combat included, it was simply too much of a bother for me and yes they should be rewarded by being most powerful 1 to 1 units for going through the whole shabang of mastering them. Also you must think of target priority - as a pilot you're a high priority target for everyone, as footsoldier you're lowest priority target so making infantry have equal chances to aircraft is just silly. Aircrafts will mostly be engaging one another or tanks, adding a serious infantry threat to them would simply make their life a living hell. Anyway we'll be playing an MMO so there will probably be enough friendly pilots backing your side up and dealing with enemy aircrafts.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:44 PM

I don't think real life money is going to factor into this. But you've made me realize something else: If I'm driving along in my aircraft that I spent a ton of in-game resources to spec out into whatever I spec'ed it out to, did it cost you a lot of resources to customize your infantry soldier into AA? Probably not. Why should a X resources spec'ed aircraft die easily to a .2X resources infantry?

Bad analogy on my part. I forgot about the cash shop stuff. In my first post I stated that assuming CERT costs were equal, there should be an equal chance of taking out your opponent.

There is no way to know the resources costs at this time, and countering with an assumed fact doesn't go anywhere. That said, things that fly cost more, regardless of how well they are flown.

Also, I daresay, even AA infantry might get involved with capturing. PS1 captures were hacking, PS2 will be about physical presence on the capture point. Even AA soldiers can help with zerging them. More often than not they won't, due to KDR-centric play, but they could.

Yes, he may, but if he did he would be foolish and not likely to survive.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:49 PM

That said, things that fly cost more, regardless of how well they are flown.

Well, the reason that I used an assumed cost of spec'ing was that apparently, and I guess we won't know for sure until E3, but apparently, unspec'ed vehicles don't cost anything.....which I disagree with, of course, as you ought to be able to deny to the enemy vehicles by denying the resources.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 06:51 PM

Good pilots should be much appreciated by the rest - I myself for instance never played the role of pilot in any multiplayer shooter with aerial combat included, it was simply too much of a bother for me and yes they should be rewarded by being most powerful 1 to 1 units for going through the whole shabang of mastering them. Also you must think of target priority - as a pilot you're a high priority target for everyone, as footsoldier you're lowest priority target so making infantry have equal chances to aircraft is just silly. Aircrafts will mostly be engaging one another or tanks, adding a serious infantry threat to them would simply make their life a living hell. Anyway we'll be playing an MMO so there will probably be enough friendly pilots backing your side up and dealing with enemy aircrafts.

As you say, good pilots should be good pilots because they've put the time in to learn how to fly well. That includes picking up the nous to attack from the sun, from unexpected angles, to pop up from behind trees. Simply sitting at the "wheel" of a basic plane should not give better than 50/50 odds of beating a footsoldier equipped with any relatively modern AA weapon. Any other weapon and the grunt dies, but AA should give him a chance.

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 06:54 PM

unspec'ed vehicles don't cost anything....

I don't think this is true. Maybe in "game" currency/credits but there will be different resource types beside that and I clearly remember I heard Higby saying that by denying enemy specific resource type you'll be able to prevent them from producing certain vehicle type or something like that.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 06:56 PM

I don't think this is true. Maybe in "game" currency/credits but there will be different resource types beside that and I clearly remember I heard Higby saying that by denying enemy specific resource type you'll be able to prevent them from producing certain vehicle type or something like that.

I certainly don't want it to be true but it's how some people are interpreting it. As for "vehicle type", if you can pull a basic tank for free but not spec it into an AA tank, then technically that vehicle type (AA tank) has been denied even if a basic tank is free.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 06:59 PM

I don't think this is true. Maybe in "game" currency/credits but there will be different resource types beside that and I clearly remember I heard Higby saying that by denying enemy specific resource type you'll be able to prevent them from producing certain vehicle type or something like that.

Perhaps some of the common pool vehicles cost nothing? The ATV obviously should cost very little if anything at all. The Flash and the Lightning, who's to say.

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 07:06 PM

I certainly don't want it to be true but it's how some people are interpreting it. As for "vehicle type", if you can pull a basic tank for free but not spec it into an AA tank, then technically that vehicle type (AA tank) has been denied even if a basic tank is free.

Listen from 3:15 PAX East 2012 - Planetside 2 Interview with Matt Higby - FPSGuru.com - YouTube

;)

Edit: An embarrassing confession by the interviewer included there.:p

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 07:09 PM

Perhaps some of the common pool vehicles cost nothing? The ATV obviously should cost very little if anything at all. The Flash and the Lightning, who's to say.

The lightning will be a relatively cheap AA platform and should be a viable counter to aircraft when it's out in the field. However, when you're defending a base it will be next to useless as its manoueverability will be negated. In that scenario, the viable AA will aqlso not be a static turret - a static turret will be a coffin to AV. The viable AA for a base defence will be either a Max or an AA-equipped grunt.

sylphaen

2012-05-13, 07:18 PM

True, but most of the things mentioned are inherent to air vehicles by [...] playing an MMO so there will probably be enough friendly pilots backing your side up and dealing with enemy aircrafts.

Oh definitely and that's what I meant by my main point being about how we want to define the roles/range of action for each class/vehicle rather than attempting to tackle the problem from a "X needs to be buffed because so and so" perspective.

I mentioned weather because in the real world, I imagine it to be a big factor for air vehicles (much more so than ground vehicles). I could be wrong, I don't know and never worked in anything related to aerospace. So to me weather was to a 3D movement vehicle, what forests were to ground vehicles in PS1.

Let's say that as designers, we want troopers to have some possibility of movement but no way to retaliate vs. aircraft, we could change the maps and offer more ground cover (thick forests, canyons, bases, roofs on bridges, etc...). Now let's say that we want aircav to be able to hunt this infantry when they are AI-spec: we can give infrared optics to see in forests, missiles that hit through bunker roofs, etc...

To me, what's important is the intent and the balance comes after. In PS1, the greatest equalizer was the jammer. It made vehicles/troopers interaction really good imo. It could force vehicles to stay far away but at the same time, it did not overpower ground vehicles. It also naturally increased the advantage of troops over vehicles in places were troops were naturally advantaged (forests, bases, higher ground). However, when troops were where they were not designed to be (i.e. roads, plains, bare ground), vehicles could easily pick them off.

What you say is right, we will definitely need good aircraft players to have a fun game and what may seem like a witch hunt against aircav is actually a healthy discussion about balance concerns. Without good AA options, what's the need for ace pilots when any dummy can align a good shot and rocket spam ?

I want challenging aircav play because I want outsanding players to stand out. I want challenging grunt play because I want good squads with successful leaders to show what they're capable of. I also want challenging ground vehicle gameplay because it's what I love the most and I also like challenges.

The key is to bring all of that together so that each of those "ecosystems" can live concurrently on a relatively small battlefield and all be fun to play !

I try to convey my vision and hope for PS2 but it's hard to share and explain ideas... Anyways, I hope you see what I mean. What I really want is for this game to be fun for everyone and every kind of player. I want it to be AWESOME !

EDIT: and sorry for the long post... I got carried away.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 07:19 PM

Listen from 3:15 PAX East 2012 - Planetside 2 Interview with Matt Higby - FPSGuru.com - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTbZJVJLTE0)

;)

Edit: An embarrassing confession by the interviewer included there.:p

Hey, I agree, based on how Higbee tells it there, vehicles should cost something even for a basic one. But some people are saying they think otherwise.

What's the embarrassing confession? Being a Vanoob?

Graywolves

2012-05-13, 07:29 PM

This game is supposed to be competitive.

If you could just hop in a vehicle and dominate all infantry the game would not be very competitive.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 07:29 PM

Hey, I agree, based on how Higbee tells it there, vehicles should cost something even for a basic one. But some people are saying they think otherwise.

I would still say that anyone who wants to will be flying in a basic aircraft within an hour or two of beta starting. And even if the grunt can pull AA in the first minute that slight "couple of hours" advantage should not give the pilot an "I win" button against said grunt. If it took several weeks to earn enough credits for basic wings then fair enough, the plane should have more armour than an A-10. But if it's a few hours of in-game time that's not enough imo to justify large over-power against hand-held AA.

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 07:34 PM

I try to convey my vision and hope for PS2 but it's hard to share and explain ideas... Anyways, I hope you see what I mean. What I really want is for this game to be fun for everyone and every kind of player. I want it to be AWESOME !

EDIT: and sorry for the long post... I got carried away.

Yup, we all do want that I believe. No need to apologize we're here to do that.

Hey, I agree, based on how Higbee tells it there, vehicles should cost something even for a basic one. But some people are saying they think otherwise.

What's the embarrassing confession? Being a Vanoob?

Well you herad it fromthe MAN himself. For confession part: yup that's it. :rofl: :vssucks::trrocks: Just teasing.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 07:35 PM

I would still say that anyone who wants to will be flying in a basic aircraft within an hour or two of beta starting. And even if the grunt can pull AA in the first minute that slight "couple of hours" advantage should not give the pilot an "I win" button against said grunt. If it took several weeks to earn enough credits for basic wings then fair enough, the plane should have more armour than an A-10. But if it's a few hours of in-game time that's not enough imo to justify large over-power against hand-held AA.

I think the answer is indeed as you say: I would rather aircraft were expensive enough to justify being that hard to kill - at least you know, if you get 3-4 guys together to kill some aircraft, that you will be hurting them in the resources department. I would rather they be expensive enough to justify this, than they be cheap or free but weaker.

Unfortunately I think we can pretty much be assured they will go for cheap and weaker, because they don't want anyone to be unable to pull a vehicle and be forced to go infantry. I am not saying this because it's complimentary, either, I think you ought to be able to deny vehicles to the enemy.

Powerful but expensive enough to be denied to you, that's the key, but it probably won't be that way.

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 07:39 PM

I would still say that anyone who wants to will be flying in a basic aircraft within an hour or two of beta starting.

Yeah probably, but haven't you been listening - by flying (buying aircrafts) he'll have to sacrifice resource otherwise available to purchase cert/sidegrades for his character. Since his baseline consumption of resources will probably be much higher it's only fair that he has better 1 on 1 chances with anything in the game (except special AA vehicles and emplacements of course where it should be around equal). That's fair tradeoff if you ask me.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 07:41 PM

Yeah probably, but haven't you been listening - by flying (buying aircrafts) he'll have to sacrifice resource otherwise available to purchase cert/sidegrades for his character. Since his baseline consumption of resources will probably be much higher it's only fair that he has better 1 on 1 chances with anything in the game. That's fair tradeoff if you ask me.

I think it's interesting if certs cost resources, but certs are permanent, so after a while, they won't affect you, as you will have them earned. Certainly the basic ones, I'm sure there will be enough to keep you busy for months.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 07:44 PM

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 07:48 PM

Yup, agreed. The more expensive a vehicle is in terms of resources and manpower the harder it should be to kill. Ideally the truly hard-hitting vehicles (e.g Galaxy Gunship) will only achieve maximum killing power with a full, large crew, thus encouraging teamwork. And the pilot of a basic mossie/reaver/scythe will have to take his chances against the grunt behind a tree on the nearest hill holding a basic AA weapon.

Well, rumor holds that there will be a certain maximum resources, so that you can't just sit around soaking them up.

So, I would say, that in order to pull a Galaxy Gunship, it should cost so much that if you did, and died quickly say, 3, maybe 4, times in a row, without doing something significant to regain resources, it will drain you. Is that expensive enough?

The question however, is, how long will it take to refill your resources? It's got to take at least 2 hours to be effective, I would say. (Based on my little microscopic example, that would mean 30 minutes of resources-gathering-dedicated gameplay to pull another GG).

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 07:56 PM

I think it's interesting if certs cost resources, but certs are permanent, so after a while, they won't affect you, as you will have them earned. Certainly the basic ones, I'm sure there will be enough to keep you busy for months.

But you could be buying them for years from what they've said. Dedicated infantry will thus definitely unlock important certs for them much faster then dedicated pilots will theirs. After 1-2 years maybe that tradeoff won't affect you as much as you suggested but I'd be surprised if it happened only couple of months into the game.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 08:00 PM

Well, rumor holds that there will be a certain maximum resources, so that you can't just sit around soaking them up.

So, I would say, that in order to pull a Galaxy Gunship, it should cost so much that if you did, and died quickly say, 3, maybe 4, times in a row, without doing something significant to regain resources, it will drain you. Is that expensive enough?

The question however, is, how long will it take to refill your resources? It's got to take at least 2 hours to be effective, I would say. (Based on my little microscopic example, that would mean 30 minutes of resources-gathering-dedicated gameplay to pull another GG).

Your examples are reasonable, at least in my current mental projection of how the game will work! Of course, a large outfit can rotate the purchaser or otherwise share the cost, so they can keep high value assets active at all times. But the other empires then need to be just as organised or they pay the price.

Back to my OP then - basic aircraft should be counterable by basic hand-held AA. That will maximise my fun as a grunt and encourage the airchavs to upgrade to the more expensive option up the cert tree, by which time the grunt has managed to gather enough resources for an AA-magrider, keeping the battle even. And so on and so on....until we're all flying 6-man GG's against swarms of AA-equipped MBT's in the most amazing mixed-arms combat you've ever seen!

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 08:05 PM

Your examples are reasonable, at least in my current mental projection of how the game will work! Of course, a large outfit can rotate the purchaser or otherwise share the cost, so they can keep high value assets active at all times. But the other empires then need to be just as organised or they pay the price.

Back to my OP then - basic aircraft should be counterable by basic hand-held AA. That will maximise my fun as a grunt and encourage the airchavs to upgrade to the more expensive option up the cert tree, by which time the grunt has managed to gather enough resources for an AA-magrider, keeping the battle even. And so on and so on....until we're all flying 6-man GG's against swarms of AA-equipped MBT's in the most amazing mixed-arms combat you've ever seen!

OOPS...I forgot about that, rotating the purchaser...at that rate they could pull 20 in a row, maybe it should cost between 50 and 75 % of an individual player's resource pool.

Although I would like to see a Squad Shared Purchase thing so that it could be split across squad members.

Timealude

2012-05-13, 08:11 PM

There is no question that a single manned flyer with an AI kit can mop the floor with infantry, regardless of their kit (AA/AI/AV) because its a dmg to health equation.

So why is it a question at to whether a single infantryman with an AA kit can take out a single manned craft or not?

If the pilot's AI kit (assuming the AA kit is stock) costs 3 certs, and the infantryman's AA kit costs 3 points, shouldn't they be equal in damage potential to their specific target?

Head to head: AI flyer vs AA infantry would go to whoever is the better shot and whoever got the drop on the other, since their damage output to their specific target should be equal (assuming identical cert costs).

whose ever the better shot doesnt just come into play, you also have areas they are, take for example:

You have a mossy and you have a NC with a phoenix rocket (for those that havent played planetside, its cam controlled guided rocket. If they both were scaled to the same damage, then all you would have to do as a infantry is hid within the rocks and fire till the mossy either had to retreat or was destroyed. In every shooter I have played, when you are fighting aircraft you want to stay out of wide open areas and shoot from cover as much as possible. That is a strategy which would go right to what T ray said on the FPSguru interview. It all boils down to skill, you dont need to make the damage between AA infantry and aircraft the same, You just need to (and im sorry to say this.) learn how to play better that way you have a better chance against them period. The same can go against the people complaining about the GG. Just because it can hammer a courtyard doesnt mean there isnt a better way to take it down. You have 3 infantry men with strikers and I can tell you that galaxy will run before it completes one pass.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 08:12 PM

OOPS...I forgot about that, rotating the purchaser...at that rate they could pull 20 in a row, maybe it should cost between 50 and 75 % of an individual player's resource pool.

Although I would like to see a Squad Shared Purchase thing so that it could be split across squad members.

No need for an oops imo! If an outfit is so well organised they can keep fully-manned major assets like GG's in the game at all times then they deserve all the rewards they win from that. It just means the opposition need to be as well organised. And the whole game benefits from that.

If we see good balance at all levels, this game will just rock!

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 08:14 PM

OOPS...I forgot about that, rotating the purchaser...at that rate they could pull 20 in a row, maybe it should cost between 50 and 75 % of an individual player's resource pool.

Although I would like to see a Squad Shared Purchase thing so that it could be split across squad members.

So others can use vehicle you purchased straight away? I thought they said you could leave your vehicle outside of a base for a reasonable period of time without fearing someone will jack it. After certain period you're away others could take it not before so that wouldn't be effective method if what I said was true. People within an outfit will have to diversify enough to achieve overall maximum efficiency, or at least that how I believe would be the best.

Stardouser

2012-05-13, 08:15 PM

No need for an oops imo! If an outfit is so well organised they can keep fully-manned major assets like GG's in the game at all times then they deserve all the rewards they win from that. It just means the opposition need to be as well organised. And the whole game benefits from that.

If we see good balance at all levels, this game will just rock!

Yes, but if they are so cheap that a 5 man squad(or 6, however many people are in one) can pull 20 in a row, they might not necessarily have to be that skilled or organized in order to do it. If a squad is drained after pulling say, 8, and they have to spend 30 minutes recovering enough to pull another one, that means that they also need to stay alive a certain length of time getting kills or whatever.

TL;DR: If they are too cheap compared to the overall squad(since as you say they can rotate purchaser), even a lesser skilled squad will be able to buy one too often relative to their skill.

So others can use vehicle you purchased straight away? I thought they said you could leave your vehicle outside of a base for a reasonable period of time without fearing someone will jack it. After certain period you're away others could take it not before so that wouldn't be effective method if what I said was true. People within an outfit will have to diversify enough to achieve overall maximum efficiency, or at least that how I believe would be the best.
That I have no idea but even if you can't assign your purchase to someone else, people will just have to learn to be pilots in order to operate at maximum squad resource-use efficiency. Surely they will either allow people to assign the vehicle to another pilot, or have a squad resource sharing function, or something.

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 08:20 PM

So others can use vehicle you purchased straight away? I thought they said you could leave your vehicle outside of a base for a reasonable period of time without fearing someone will jack it. After certain period you're away others could take it not before so that wouldn't be effective method if what I said was true. People within an outfit will have to diversify enough to achieve overall maximum efficiency, or at least that how I believe would be the best.

Point taken. I was implicitly assuming the same model as PS1 - you could choose levels of vehicle access, something like:
1. yourself only
2. squad only
3. empire

And rotation could certainly be done with that model.

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 08:28 PM

Point taken. I was implicitly assuming the same model as PS1 - you could choose levels of vehicle access, something like:
1. yourself only
2. squad only
3. empire

And rotation could certainly be done with that model.

Wow, I didn't know that was the model - it's great actually. Every day I learn something new about PS1 what makes me regret I didn't try it when it was going through free trial phase. Damn those cursed mechs that drove me away from it!!

Toppopia

2012-05-13, 08:32 PM

What if you hopped in the aircraft/vehicle then squad mates hopped in, then you hopped out of pilot/driver seat, could a passenger change to the pilot/driver seat or was that a locked position to everyone except the person that called the vehicle?

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 08:32 PM

Wow, I didn't know that was the model - it's great actually. Every day I learn something new about PS1 what makes me regret I didn't try it when it was going through free trial phase. Damn those cursed mechs that drove me away from it!!

Yeah, PS1 got a lot of things right, but balanced AA/Aircav wasn't one of them. Hence this thread. Was interested to see how vehement the reaction against the idea of powerful hand-held AA would be :)

Immigrant

2012-05-13, 08:46 PM

Yeah, PS1 got a lot of things right, but balanced AA/Aircav wasn't one of them. Hence this thread. Was interested to see how vehement the reaction against the idea of powerful hand-held AA would be :)

Well you definitely have the better perspective at that but I nevertheless think that AA/Aircav balance should be as close as RL situation. Few functional base AA guns with decent gunners should keep all of the aircav away so they would need ground assistance before pounding the place, next vehicles with AA should have all things considered 50-50 chance against AV equipped aircrafts and infantrymen with hand-held AA guns should be there just a a last resort and useful in larger numbers primarily against slower/larger aircrafts like Galaxies. (if my military concepts are slightly outdated please don't mind since I mostly play WW2 games).

Mechzz

2012-05-13, 09:12 PM

Well you definitely have the better perspective at that but I nevertheless think that AA/Aircav balance should be as close as RL situation. Few functional base AA guns with decent gunners should keep all of the aircav away so they would need ground assistance before pounding the place, next vehicles with AA should have all things considered 50-50 chance against AV equipped aircrafts and infantrymen with hand-held AA guns should be there just a a last resort and useful in larger numbers primarily against slower/larger aircrafts like Galaxies. (if my military concepts are slightly outdated please don't mind since I mostly play WW2 games).

my bold! Turrets were not previously a viable AA option since they were sited on the walls of a base. They were the first things removed by the arriving MBTs and it was a brave engy that tried to repair one during an active base fight. Base fights quickly became infantry fights as the courtyard could not be defended against aircav/tank combination.

Now, if the AA turrets were placed inside the base perimeter and not somewhere every tank could reach that would be OK. Failing that, hand-held AA should be a reasonable way to discourage basic aricraft.

Sorry, I'm wandering a bit as its late.

Thanks to all contributors to this thread so far - it's helped me get something off my chest that had gotten me wound up on another thread.

Pyreal

2012-05-13, 09:22 PM

Yeah probably, but haven't you been listening - by flying (buying aircrafts) he'll have to sacrifice resource otherwise available to purchase cert/sidegrades for his character. Since his baseline consumption of resources will probably be much higher it's only fair that he has better 1 on 1 chances with anything in the game (except special AA vehicles and emplacements of course where it should be around equal). That's fair tradeoff if you ask me.

Buy certs with resources? Source please. I thought certs and side-grades were bought with xp, or set to train like EVE.

proxykalevra

2012-05-13, 09:27 PM

what i really want to know is how hard it will be to refit a aircraft. in ps1 i used to just hit half speed on my reaver and fly low over/around the air pads and that was more than enough time to snag a personal loadout.

even though i am a pilot i hope there is at least a 3-5 sec refit time because otherwise i can just keep changing wep load outs to suit the battlefield making air cav way op in ps2...

i mean basically i could do a high altitude recon flyby refit if i have the wrong weps (say i show up with aa weps to take control of the skies) then i switch with a quick flyby to say av (skyguard turret on a tank) come back wtfbbq the tank, and if i keep getting missile locks from infantry a quick flyby refit to ai and i can fight them too...

i dunno about anyone else but from what i have seen i feel like a good pilot (especially in those nightmare groups of 10-20 outfit flyboys) are all that you need.... but i was also air cav in ps1 until the day my sub ran out.

edit:
pyreal i think he means that pulling a vehicle from a base might consume resources... because i am prety sure certs are xp unlocks... not sure if i like that idea or not.... seems like being able to pull aircraft from many bases would make them better in that regard too because of the low travel time of aircraft....

Purple

2012-05-13, 10:13 PM

i think we will see the balance of aircraft and AA change alot during beta.

Udnknome

2012-05-14, 01:18 AM

What exactly constitutes an AI loadout for an aircraft?

Perhaps Napalm?

proxykalevra

2012-05-14, 01:45 AM

Perhaps Napalm?

ooo i like this idea... tho i think that would probably be napalm rockets (pretty big splash of napalm or some other killing substance....) but it would be cool to see lib's drop napalm bombs....(i might have just grown some wood.)

off topic: is it true that home made napalm is equal parts gasoline and orange concentrate? that was in... fightclub i think.

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 01:50 AM

even though i am a pilot i hope there is at least a 3-5 sec refit time because otherwise i can just keep changing wep load outs to suit the battlefield making air cav way op in ps2...

I have to say that I wouldn't deny aircav a quick refit. Grunts can pop up to a terminal and hop classes, and can also get ammo drops in the field.

What I would mind, as a grunt, is having no viable way to kill you when you are in a basic aircraft and I have basic hand-held AA. If I can't kill you with it, then don't give me an under-powered leaf-blower and call it AA.

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 01:53 AM

ooo i like this idea... tho i think that would probably be napalm rockets (pretty big splash of napalm or some other killing substance....) but it would be cool to see lib's drop napalm bombs....(i might have just grown some wood.)

off topic: is it true that home made napalm is equal parts gasoline and orange concentrate? that was in... fightclub i think.

Napalm would be a cool visual, (for those not burning in agony :) ), but iirc there are currently no bombers in the game?

And "napalm " = NAPthenic/PALMitic acid. It's a heavy, sticky residue of oil processing, so no orange juice!

Toppopia

2012-05-14, 02:45 AM

ooo i like this idea... tho i think that would probably be napalm rockets (pretty big splash of napalm or some other killing substance....) but it would be cool to see lib's drop napalm bombs....(i might have just grown some wood.)

off topic: is it true that home made napalm is equal parts gasoline and orange concentrate? that was in... fightclub i think.

To make napalm, get petrol and polystyrene, you need alot of polystyrene though, had heaps of it and only made a small bucket full of it. From like a few years of buying stuff and hoarding it under my bed. Then my brother burnt himself because he lit it but it had an invisible flame to it. So have fun making it :lol:

Immigrant

2012-05-14, 04:00 AM

Buy certs with resources? Source please. I thought certs and side-grades were bought with xp, or set to train like EVE.

Sorry it was a bit late. Not sidegrades exactly in narrow sense of that word but you'll be able to unlock new stuff/equipment (rifles, pistols and everything else - I believe these were unlocked with certs for weapons even though they were bought in bundles in PS1) permanently for use with same resources used for buying consumables like grenades, medkits and all vehicles for that matter if I understood correctly. Assuming that prices will follow common sense buying tanks or aircrafts should strain your budget more and thus postpone the rate at which you'll be able to acquire new personal weapons what is a fair tradeoff imo. Investing more in that areas and having baseline consumption higher (I'm sure that equipping rifles you once unlock won't cost anything yet buying tanks you bought permit/certed for will drain your resource everytime you call one in) and that shuld will leave with much narrower combat spectrum when forced out of vehicle of your choice than someone who is playing as dedicated infantry. If you add to that the fact they will almost certainly have their personal arms skills much lower than people playing infantry that will be quite enough.

Source: FPS guru interview I posted on page 3.

Virulence

2012-05-14, 05:41 AM

sylphaen

2012-05-14, 07:30 AM

The question isn't, "Should an infantry dude be able to take down an aircav unit by himself if he brings AA?"

The question is, "How small or how large should the margin of error for aircav be in Planetside 2?"

Exactly. There is no need to get into balance specifics if we have no idea of what the big picture should be.

To make sure we all talk about the same thing, you should explain your train of thought before getting into specifics. Otherwise, we get a string of opinions on certain issues that are not even using the same assumptions.

Of course, it would be much easier to get onto specific balance issues if beta had started already. (and even then, knowing what the design objectives are would help to assess whether a mechanic is balanced or not)

e.g.: if an AI max is meant to own infantry and be vulnerable to AV, no one should bother complaining that it's OP vs. infantry or vulnerable to AV.

Unfortunately, we can only guess the devs' design for each class/unit and try to judge if it meets the objectives. The most important part of the discussion, IMO, is the design part and less about the implementation part. But yeah, we haven't had many clues about that except that aircav will rock.

We haven't had any tips about what should AA's role be either: should it actually destroy air vehicles or only decrease the time they can spend in an area before blowing up ? How costly should it be for an empire to maintain AA defense ? Is it meant to be static (at bases, galaxies) or mobile ? Is it meant to be stronger around bases or in the field (e.g. kill weapons on bases vs. deterrent weapons on the field) ? And as Virulent says, how much room for error for aircav pilots ? how much room for error for AA defenses ? Which of those 2 should scale better ? Which AA should be best: base turret, lightning, AA max or heavy ? Best at what: killing or area control ? How are those things meant to interact in the grand scheme of things ?

Many many questions like that... I'm much more interested in hearing everyone's opinion about design that how a one on one encounter between one grunt and one air vehicle should work out. We are not even stating where that encounter is taking place ! There is a big difference between base, open field and semi-open fields (e.g. forest canopy, canyons, etc...).

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 07:45 AM

...We are not even stating where that encounter is taking place ! There is a big difference between base, open field and semi-open fields (e.g. forest canopy, canyons, etc...)...

I do agree with a lot of what has been said in the last couple of posts. We can't tell until we play the game how it will "feel" playing any given role.

The simple proposition (1 Grunt v 1 Aircav) was intended to focus the discussion (not that that ever stops anyone around here :doh:).
It was also intended to remind the vets that some AA in PS1 was so lame it didn't deserve the name and to see if there was any depth of feeling around that. And there is some depth - a few comments earlyish in the thread seemed to support the idea that basic AA should be able to stand up against basic Aircav (think Stingers v Hinds in Afghanistan in the '80s). So it's not about asking for an OP hand-held AA, just one that puts the lowly foot soldier on a somewhat even playing field against the mighty aircav.

oh, and there was some thought and description given to the location of the encounter. It was something like "assume the grunt has time to lock on to the aircav before the aircav can open up on him" which, given any reasonable level of electronic sensors is entirely feasible imo. It was stated that if the grunt doesn't have AA or gets surprised by the aircav, etc. then the grunt dies.

So this thread was never meant to be a big spreadsheet/overall game balance exercise, just a wee question to float an idea and see where it goes.

Figment

2012-05-14, 07:58 AM

What I often find the problem with people stating aircav should pwn is that they do this with two things in mind:

(1) Entitlement: I paid more points / I have a certain type of weapon / spend more time => I should be more powerful
(2) Single aircav scenarios.

The problem with (1) is that this is exactly opposed to the idea of competitive play. Competitive play is about being able to compete with one another on a fair playing field.

What is fair is relative.

For instance, you might say that infantry can dodge attacks by taking cover. With a TTK of around 1-1.5 seconds from aircraft on infantry, the question is whether that is a fair assumption.

For one, is cover present?

Second, how much advance warning and reaction time does infantry have?

Third, how long does it take to draw, aim and unload the weapon?

Fourth, how many chances does infantry get to do step three and how many chances does aircraft get to do upon infantry what they don't want to have done upon themselves? (How long before aircraft are gone, how long before you can fire again, how long before aircraft can fire again?)

Fifth, how many defensive and escape options does aircraft have themselves? (Countermeasures, ease of escape, access to repairs, etc)

If you're being fair, you should find that even if infantry can instakill aircraft with one shot, the aircraft still has the upper hand.

Please try to remember how fighting aircraft is as infantry in PS1 with a Flaklet. And try to figure out why nobody bothers to use it at all since it doesn't make any impact whatsoever.

And also ponder that simply going inside is not a solution. Yes, it stops you from being killed by the aircraft, it also stops you from reaching any objective you had in mind.

Aircraft should IMO be about 30% the strength of ground vehicles, since they get huge mobility advantages. They should be at severe disadvantages when engaging AA units and should not even consider taking on an AA unit without this in mind:

Classic Movie Line #31 - YouTube

AA being the one holding the Magnum.

The problem with (2) is that aircav never comes alone, but virtually always in swarms of 5 to 20. AA will not come in those numbers as the majority of people on the ground are focused on firing at others on the ground: infantry vs infantry, tank vs tank and tank vs infantry. Only a sixth or less of all units on the ground can be expected to wield AA, though if it was 8% in PS, it was a lot.

If you have 100 people, say 20 people play aircraft (more do, but let's entertain this thought). On the enemy team, 20 people also play aircraft. These people fight 100% of the enemy, including AA and aircraft. That leaves 80% of the people playing infantry or tanks. In many cases, these aircraft users expect to alone be able to take out what, 6 tanks and some infantry? That's not uncommon is it? So that's 6-12 players they expect to kill one on 6-12, simply because those would not have AA.

So if you want to play on the ground, it is most likely you'll encounter enemies of the type infantry or armour and those units are relatively slow and therefore more continuously present. That means you equip for that. Then when the aircraft suddenly appears over the hills using its speed, mobility and terrain advantages, you don't have the time nor the numbers to counter them with a lot. AA is for dedicated players and they should therefore have a large amount of control over their area and expect to be outnumbered consistently. And since they can only fight ONE target, they should be significantly more powerful than aircav.

In PS1, they even required more numbers of AA dedicated players in vehicles due to the Skyguard being a driver + gunner. How can you possibly demand that on your own you'd have at least a 50% chance against two players? Doesn't that imply that those two players are better off in air of their own!? Yes it does! Because two airborne players would have a 50% chance on their own already against this aircav, get an extra wingman AND can take on ground targets as well! They just became what, 400% more efficient than if they drove a 50-50 two crew AA unit!

Meanwhile they expect 20 units to dedicate their entire game around fighting aircraft from the ground up, as that would both be extremely boring (couldn't fight 80% of the players) and some even have the nerve to then demand a 50-50 chance, because they'd somehow be more important, skilled or paid more for their vehicle.

At the same time, they'd have a 50-50 chance against other aircraft (rock meets rock), while ALSO being able to kill ground units. So even if you have 20 AA, you may still lose.

NOBODY IS GOING TO PLAY AA IN THAT CASE. Since you'd either always be useless or at most on par, provided you get the drop on the other, which is unlikely since you are more stationary and bound by terrain than aircav. Meanwhile, everybody else who is not AA on the ground gets killed by air. So they too consider to go play aircav. As a consequence (and this happened in PS1) virtually everybody will be in aircraft. Look at the long lines of solo-player aircav at the vehicle pad.

Aircraft should focus on applying their advantages other than firepower, tbh. Particularly speed and ambush. In a direct and sustained confrontation, they should IMO always lose. Aircraft should IMO be about hit, evade and run. Air that takes damage should IMO simply die and learn to fly and stay the hell away from AA zones.

Immigrant

2012-05-14, 08:49 AM

Competitive play is about being able to compete with one another on a fair playing field.

I agree with most of thing you said and yes even RPG wielding AA infantry should be able to one-shot slight aircraft like mosquito if they manage to get a clean shot. However that doesn't mean that they'll have 50-50 chance against them. AA emplacements should be the on the other side of the spectrum and represent a bane to any aircraft, and AA vehicles somewhere in the middle.

I think that the term competitive play is a bit abused in this case. It should mean that actually that vehicles of same power type should have equal chances when pitted face to face -that should mean that i.e. newb pilot and an seasoned one flaying a light aircraft have the same chances in dogfight (unlike many other games where they get huge damage and armor bonuses with leveling up and upgrading). If every single vehicles should have overall equal chances against everything else and infantry also then what's the point of making vehicles and aircrafts in the first place? :huh:

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 08:52 AM

Kipper

2012-05-14, 09:48 AM

Big long above post assumes one team brings air-cav to a party and the other team does not.

Control of the sky is in reality (and should be in game) a massive advantage - but not something that's easy to get and maintain. It's going to be pretty fluid and dynamic so it will be easier to operate air over friendly territory than it will over enemy territory - because in friendly territory, you have more troops providing AA against fighters, closer repair and re-arm facilities, and quicker reinforcements.

You don't need to kill enemy AA or air units to capture a base. You need to kill the active defenders - the ones who are going to shoot you for trying to take their flag. If you bring air and they don't/can't, then they are going to have a much harder time of it than you are. If they bring air and you don't/can't - you're going to have the hard time.

If you both bring air and its AG, then its going to balance out, but with so much AG flying about - squads comprising AA (either ground launched or aircraft) will form to counter them, then squads on the other team will come to counter those, and so on.

What will start as a small skirmish will escalate into a bigger battle by virtue of the fact that every move one team makes will be countered by the other team bringing an appropriate response. When one team runs out of responses, players or talent, they lose the fight and withdraw.

Expect empires to have some level of Air Superiority around their own internal territory, and less so the closer you get to the front line.

I do beleive that way, WAY too much thought is going into stuff that just isn't presently known to anyone except the devs atm.

Khrusky

2012-05-14, 09:56 AM

I completely agree with Figment. I was thinking about writing a long post myself but I'm glad he saved me the trouble.

One thing I would add though is that I would prefer it if AA was not excessively damaging but was essentially invulnerable to air strikes. I'm not sure how you could do this but maybe some sort of anti-missile lock device such that you have to engage with dumb-fire weapons at long range against hard armour. The AA weapon should do a lot of damage but there should be some room for the aircraft to slightly harass the fringes of the area protected by the AA. I just prefer area-denial against aircraft rather than aircraft getting ambushed whilst flying past woods or something.

Big long above post assumes one team brings air-cav to a party and the other team does not.

While your scenario will be true in the full battles, the majority of battles anyone will fight will probably be skirmishes among smaller groupings of people.

In this scenario, vehicles and infantry should be able to reasonably prepare to engage aircraft rather than being just screwed. The main problem I have with your scenario is that you assume that aircraft will be dogfighting all of the time, but in reality both will be clashing and withdrawing, probably travelling across the battlefield all of the time. Just becasue no-one has won air superiority yet doesn't mean that all of the vehicles on the ground should be vulnerable to random strafing runs from aircraft. If a squadron of aircraft skirts to one side of your empires air support, and manages to dodge the first barrage of fire by using afterburners or something, they shouldn't then be able to wipe out the entire armoured column if the guys on the ground brought AA. AA should be a guarantee against getting totally destroyed by aircraft. It should be powerful enough to ensure that if a group of aricraft choose to engage it that they take heavy casualties, thus deterring this from happening.

AA should be numerically balanced (i.e. it takes 1 person manning AA to counter 1 person in an aircraft) but because of the extreme versatility of aircraft AA should be a proper hard counter.

Kipper

2012-05-14, 10:12 AM

I would prefer it if AA was not excessively damaging but was essentially invulnerable to air strikes.

AA is the first thing that you attack if you want to establish air superiority. You're looking at it the wrong way.

AA is going to be more deadly against larger, slower aircraft like galaxies and liberators - I think it will stop them operating, as AA will have an advantage against them.

So if you want to fly big aircraft - you'll need the ES aircraft to make quick, precise strikes against AA (or ground assault) in order to allow them in.

If they choose to ignore the AA and go after actual attackers/defenders that are capturing territory, they'll find they are operating in a more risky environment, and that they won't be able to hit as hard as the libs and gals. If they choose to go after the AA, then the active part of the attacking/defending force aren't under threat.

Purple

2012-05-14, 10:28 AM

if you all think a single infintry to hold its own agenst an aircraft, then do you also think a single infintry should hold its own agenst a tank? i understnd that tanks have to go around terrian how ever they also get the luxery of not having av having a clear shot at them all the time.

i dont know if anyone here who think aircraft should be killed by a mean look has ever played in an aircraft in ps1 but it was anything but op. in a reaver it took all 16 of your missles to hit a softy or max to kill them. not to mention that there was always AA the Tr had flack which would down you quickly and the VS could fly while fireing death bolts which could take you down without reloading and the missles flew faster then you with an afterburner.

the think about aircav is it worked so well do to teamwork because you could focus fire. aircav was not op because in a large battle people would see a large amount of aircraft and think to themslefs "if i had AA i could get a few kills" this effects aircav you couldent see it in ps1 well because all that was keeping you down was a 5 min timer. in ps2 you should see your effect on aircav even with weak air defences due to people only being able to pull a few in a row.

Khrusky

2012-05-14, 10:48 AM

AA is the first thing that you attack if you want to establish air superiority. You're looking at it the wrong way.

AA is going to be more deadly against larger, slower aircraft like galaxies and liberators - I think it will stop them operating, as AA will have an advantage against them.

So if you want to fly big aircraft - you'll need the ES aircraft to make quick, precise strikes against AA (or ground assault) in order to allow them in.

If they choose to ignore the AA and go after actual attackers/defenders that are capturing territory, they'll find they are operating in a more risky environment, and that they won't be able to hit as hard as the libs and gals. If they choose to go after the AA, then the active part of the attacking/defending force aren't under threat.

I see the balance of forces slightly differently. I don't think that aircraft should be able to establish air superiority on their own.

The balance as I see it should be AA beats aircraft, aircraft beats AV tanks, AV tanks beat AA, all as hard counters. There would also be another addition of fighters beat air-to-ground, air-to-ground beat AV tanks, such that air-to-ground units would work with ground units to maintain their own AA superiority, and that by dogfighting with the enemy aircraft, you affect air superiority both by numbers flying and also the affect that has on the relevant ground troops.

I feel that my balance of power means that more people will actually work with each other, rather than having air units able to do everything.

laelgon

2012-05-14, 10:54 AM

AA for an infantryman should be a secondary weapon in addition to your basic assault rifle. You should not be able to become completely useless at killing other infantry, people are using that as an excuse to have overpowered AA weapons.

This. This. A thousand times this.

Battlefield 3 had it right that engineers still carried effective assault weapons in addition to AV/AA weapons. What they got wrong was how overpowered the AV weapons were when spammed against other infantry. If the person in the aircraft isn't using flares, evading, or engaging the ground unit I would fully expect the infantry to be able to take it down in a few hits depending on the nature of the weapon (flak/rocket/etc).

lolroflroflcake

2012-05-14, 10:56 AM

I think infantry are OP they can carry AA/AV, are super cheap, can duck behind cover or in buildings thus becoming invincible at least temporarily and almost always come in swarms.

People seem to forget that this is a combined arms game. You are supposed to get dominated by certain things especially if your just herp-derping around by yourself outside on foot or in a lone vehicle or dicking around in airplanes over enemy armies.

Air Cav is supposed to dominate people on their own or groups said aircraft gets the jump on, they really dont have the endurance for anything else. If you nerf them further then there is really no point in aircraft. You find your getting your ass kicked by some douche bag in an airplane, then stick around with someone who's competent in a skyguard or make friends with a pilot of your own or hell just make sure your sticking with a whole swarm of infantry or AA maxes. But do not nerf aircraft or buff AA theres gonna be so many guys with AA on the ground and so many airplanes hunting for other aircraft that planes will be dropping like flies without any unnecessary "balancing".

Kipper

2012-05-14, 11:03 AM

I see the balance of forces slightly differently. I don't think that aircraft should be able to establish air superiority on their own.
.....
I feel that my balance of power means that more people will actually work with each other, rather than having air units able to do everything.

Air units will have to work together to establish air superiority.

In order to open up the area to galaxies and liberators, first you're going to have to clear enemy fighters, then you're going to have to clear any ground based AA.

That's going to take several aircraft with different load outs and mission profiles.

You'll need aircraft set up for intercept to clear enemy planes, then patrol to keep them clear, then air-ground to clear AA, only after all this has happened can you actually get around to the serious business of attacking valuable targets.

Of course, air will clean up if it sees an enemy infantry squad or tank column without protection in friendly territory, but in a full on battle its a whole bunch more complicted and long winded.

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 11:29 AM

if you all think a single infintry to hold its own agenst an aircraft, then do you also think a single infintry should hold its own agenst a tank? i understnd that tanks have to go around terrian how ever they also get the luxery of not having av having a clear shot at them all the time.

Yes, infantry should be able to kill tanks and that is not unreasonable. Have you ever seen what a Javelin can do to an MBT? Whether they will be able to do so in game or not depends on balancing decisions made by the Devs. Heck, they could allow AV rounds to pass through 10 tanks and instakill each of them if they wanted. In reality we need them to strike a balance that leads to enjoyable gameplay for both sides.

i dont know if anyone here who think aircraft should be killed by a mean look has ever played in an aircraft in ps1 but it was anything but op. in a reaver it took all 16 of your missles to hit a softy or max to kill them. not to mention that there was always AA the Tr had flack which would down you quickly and the VS could fly while fireing death bolts which could take you down without reloading and the missles flew faster then you with an afterburner.

I played PS most recently in March. A VS AA Max could not kill a Reaver with a full clip unless the Reaver was caught hover spamming. If the Reaver had any headway at all, it could easily afterburner away from the AA rockets. Also, the issue being discussed is not that aircav had a long TTK, it's more that infantry in general (and VS in particular) had no effective hand-held AA. So the long TTK didn't matter - you were dead because you had nothing to fight back with.

dm Akolyte

2012-05-14, 11:42 AM

The issue with aircraft in Planetside 1 (and in BF3) is that aircraft are incredibly difficult to use to their full potential. And so aircraft are given a very high potential power, but since most players can not tap fully into this potential, an average player ends up with an average amount of power.

AA usually has the opposite problem. AA is super easy to use (Locks on to a target, Fire and forget missiles, etc.) and so the weapons themselves must be relatively low power.

And so, the power dynamic that occurs is that an AA user can handily wipe the floor with a relatively unskilled pilot, but the truly skilled pilots are virtually untouchable. Someone with a sparrow easily reaches their maximum potential--there is little effective difference between an experienced and unexperienced sparrow user--and this potential is simply not good enough to deal with good pilots.

And so, the problem with AA vs. Aircraft in these games is that as someone with AA, your effectiveness is largely not determined by YOUR skill, but by the skill of the pilots. This is an incredibly frustrating dynamic, and one of the main reasons I quit playing PS1.

Kipper

2012-05-14, 11:48 AM

You don't attack a tank with a knife, you bring your own tank.

Exactly, if you're being farmed by a particular type of unit in a particular situation, find out what counters that unit in that situation - and bring that to the party.

If you're running 30 infantry across a field and you get farmed by enemy air cav, don't blame them - blame your own air cav for not covering you.

Xyntech

2012-05-14, 12:03 PM

I think the thing people don't like about fighting against aircraft is that it's often so much of an all or nothing type of situation.

You get spammed by a reaver, but then you don't see the 10 minutes he keeps flying around unable to attack much of anything due to constant lock-ons scaring him off. The aircraft runs and heals whenever it survives some damage, but it runs and hides a lot of the rest of the time as well.

From the sounds of it, aircraft are more fragile now than ever, so I don't think it's time to worry about them just yet. It sounds to me like they will only be farming extremely stray, stupid, unprotected stragglers, with the rest of the time spent trying to stay alive long enough to do something useful.

Also, the issue being discussed is not that aircav had a long TTK, it's more that infantry in general (and VS in particular) had no effective hand-held AA. So the long TTK didn't matter - you were dead because you had nothing to fight back with.

Well, actually the NC had no effective hand held AA. The Striker was the best deterrent, but the Lancer was the best hand held AV gun for actually (potentially) killing an aircraft.

The Pheonix was just shit. The NC were severely gimped on AA, at least early on before the Skyguard.

If you're running 30 infantry across a field and you get farmed by enemy air cav, don't blame them - blame your own air cav for not covering you.

One unit should not be the only effective counter to itself.

Although, that being said, I am strongly in favor of aircraft being one of the best AA units in the game, along with tanks being one of the best anti tank units in the game and snipers being one of the best anti sniper units in the game, etc etc.

I also agree that aircav should be able to take out AA, but it should be difficult, and also risky, even with superior numbers. Your first choice to take out enemy AA should be tanks and other AV platforms that are harder for AA to take out. Taking out enemy AA with your aircraft should be a last resort, only used when there are fewer AA units, with far too many other units supporting them preventing your tanks from getting in close.

The game needs hard counters, but those hard counters shouldn't ever be guaranteed wins. Skill, tactics, surprise, and superior numbers should always be able to turn the tables in an otherwise bad situation.

kaffis

2012-05-14, 12:16 PM

I think the answer is indeed as you say: I would rather aircraft were expensive enough to justify being that hard to kill - at least you know, if you get 3-4 guys together to kill some aircraft, that you will be hurting them in the resources department. I would rather they be expensive enough to justify this, than they be cheap or free but weaker.

Unfortunately I think we can pretty much be assured they will go for cheap and weaker, because they don't want anyone to be unable to pull a vehicle and be forced to go infantry. I am not saying this because it's complimentary, either, I think you ought to be able to deny vehicles to the enemy.

Powerful but expensive enough to be denied to you, that's the key, but it probably won't be that way.
Exactly. Because I doubt they'll want to present you with a game where, "Here, you can specialize to be an awesome, focused pilot!!! Oh, you got shot down. Better pound ground for a while to be able to do what you've focused your resources and specializations on... Sucks to be you for the next two hours!"

Thus, the majority of the time, it has to be assumed that, on average, a skilled pilot will earn enough resources in his aircraft to afford a new one later, or at least, very nearly so.

Given that, you have to look at the infantry vs. aircraft without resources being a major consideration. It will come down to one guy vs. one guy. And neither's *chosen* playstyle (remember, infantry is a choice, not a "gee, I'm too broke to afford to play the *real* way" matter) should trump the other's.

Instead, what they choose to bring to the table, counter-wise, should be the heavy contributing factor to tip the scales.

Bottom line: it shouldn't require an entire squad of AA-equipped heavy assault infantrymen to take down a lone pilot. So I'm really alarmed at how many people are nodding at each other about statements like "no, an AA infantry guy shouldn't be anywhere near a 50/50 chance against a pilot." That's a bunch of pilots looking for god-mode. Either that, or people assuming that said pilot, once he *does* run the misfortune to happen across half a dozen guys with AA to take him out (killing 5 of them in the process!), has to run around doing grunt-work to earn a plane again.

Neither are good design decisions, IMO.

If you want vehicles to be powerful and meaningful against infantry, they need to be multi-crewed, so you're talking 2-3 guys in a vehicle against multiple infantrymen working together.

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 12:22 PM

Well, actually the NC had no effective hand held AA. The Striker was the best deterrent, but the Lancer was the best hand held AV gun for actually (potentially) killing an aircraft.

The Pheonix was just shit. The NC were severely gimped on AA, at least early on before the Skyguard.

I always assumed the Phoenix was decent, but I didn't play TR or NC enough to find out for sure. Sounds like we were all in the same boat in that case, since the Striker drew the comment that its worst effect was that is caused migraine in enemy pilots due to constant lock on warnings.

One unit should not be the only effective counter to itself.

Although, that being said, I am strongly in favor of aircraft being one of the best AA units in the game, along with tanks being one of the best anti tank units in the game and snipers being one of the best anti sniper units in the game, etc etc.

I also agree that aircav should be able to take out AA, but it should be difficult, and also risky, even with superior numbers. Your first choice to take out enemy AA should be tanks and other AV platforms that are harder for AA to take out. Taking out enemy AA with your aircraft should be a last resort, only used when there are fewer AA units, with far too many other units supporting them preventing your tanks from getting in close.

The game needs hard counters, but those hard counters shouldn't ever be guaranteed wins. Skill, tactics, surprise, and superior numbers should always be able to turn the tables in an otherwise bad situation.

This.

And of course, at the end of the day we'll test it to heck in beta. But I do carry a torch for the idea that if they give AA to infantry it should actually be capable of the "anti-" part :)

Kipper

2012-05-14, 01:14 PM

One unit should not be the only effective counter to itself.

Of course, and that's not what I meant - having your own fighter screen is just one effective counter to enemy aircraft. Packing shoulder mounted AA, engineer built turrets, Lightning Skyguards are all options too.

What I'm trying to say is - if you fail to provide ANY counter, however you prefer to do it, you should expect to die. Not just to aircraft, but to whatever it was that arrived that you failed to anticipate. That's what combined arms is all about.... its about bringing the rock, paper AND scissors to a fight so you can answer whatever it is you come up against.

From what we've heard, PS2 is going to provide effective counters to everything with everything else - tanks will be able to fit AA,AG,AI, aircraft will be able to fit AA,AG,AI, infantry will be able to spec AA,AG,AI... so there's loads of choices for diverse play.

Also - what was said about aircraft spending most of their time running, hiding, or not shooting is also true. Bummer as it is when they find you, most of the time they're flying around looking for something that's worth attacking that has no defence. Organised teams will probably keep air-cav at bases and towers and call them in to specific situations/map markers as opposed to just randomly patrolling, which will be the domain of solo players more likely.

And of course, at the end of the day we'll test it to heck in beta. But I do carry a torch for the idea that if they give AA to infantry it should actually be capable of the "anti-" part :)

I hope that infantry AA won't be super deadly to aircraft being used properly, as there's likely to be quite a lot of them and quite difficult to spot and hit individually. The purpose of infantry AA should be to destroy idiot pilots who try to hover-farm, and either scare off others, or force them to have to attack at high speed where they'll be far less accurate and far less deadly.

Xyntech

2012-05-14, 01:27 PM

Bottom line: it shouldn't require an entire squad of AA-equipped heavy assault infantrymen to take down a lone pilot. So I'm really alarmed at how many people are nodding at each other about statements like "no, an AA infantry guy shouldn't be anywhere near a 50/50 chance against a pilot." That's a bunch of pilots looking for god-mode. Either that, or people assuming that said pilot, once he *does* run the misfortune to happen across half a dozen guys with AA to take him out (killing 5 of them in the process!), has to run around doing grunt-work to earn a plane again.

Is a guy with a Decimator guaranteed to kill a AI MAX? No. The AI MAX still may come out on top.

But with a little skill and tactics, the infantry can devastate the MAX.

The same should be true for an AI aircraft facing down an AA infantry. Both are designed to fight each other, so it should be closer to 50/50, but the more powerful unit types will always have an edge.

In general, I think it should go something like: infantry < MAXes < aircraft < tanks

Infantry vs infantry with AI weapons = 50/50

Infantry vs MAXes with AV and AI weapons respectively = 45/55

Infantry vs aircraft, with AA and AI weapons respectively = 40/60

Infantry vs tanks, with AV and AI weapons respectively = 30/70

or something like that.

The reason for this is due to how hard they are to obtain, and how hard they are to get around to important locations. By obtaining I mean spawning btw, I'm not referring to resources.

Infantry can spawn anywhere, so they are very easy to obtain. getting around isn't too hard either, since they can spawn anywhere and ride in vehicles as well.

MAXes can spawn anywhere, and can sprint, but are otherwise slower and are unable to drive vehicles.

Aircraft are extremely easy to get around due to their speed, but lockon AA and paper armor can make it very hard for them to go where they are needed.

Tanks are slow as shit and can only spawn in certain areas.

So basically, something like a tank deserve a lot more effectiveness than aircraft or infantry, due to how hard it is to get them to places that matter.

I'm not saying aircraft should just be farm mobiles, but it's a complex formula.

Hopefully PS2 has more cover for infantry, so that it is that much harder for aircraft to pick them off and that much easier for infantry to make ambushes. There should always been room made for skill to overcome slight statistical disadvantages.

This is only intended to show how I think balance should be when both targets spot each other at the same time in a one on one fight. There are always other factors, like how quickly that infantryman will be back in the fight versus that aircraft/tank/etc, which is why balance isn't so straight forward.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 01:32 PM

Kipper

2012-05-14, 01:41 PM

I think a good trade-off here is that infantry AA can lock on to an aircraft but the missiles are restricted by speed or range (probably range).

If an aircraft spots two AA soldiers out in a field and decides he's going to slow down to a hover and pick them off, they should be able to own him for being dumb.

If on the other hand, the aircraft has to approach at high speed to allow it to get away from the inevitable missile, it will probably miss anyway so stalemate, nobody wins.

If the infantry are good, they'll know to get and hold a lock, and fire at the most optimal time to have the best chance of a hit (likely just as the aircraft passes overhead).

If the pilot is good, he'll be able to aim and fire whilst travelling at full speed, or at least know what angles/terrain he can use to outsmart a missile.

I think a good AI infantry vs a good solo air-cav should more likely result in nobody killing anyone rather than one side always killing the other. If one side isn't good, they lose.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 01:46 PM

If an aircraft spots two AA soldiers out in a field and decides he's going to slow down to a hover and pick them off, they should be able to own him for being dumb.

I really hate to bring this up, but it's relevant here: If we have 3D spotting, ESPECIALLY if you can 3D spot for yourself(jets in BF3 can just hit Q and anything within a couple of inches of their nose, evne if 300m away, will get spotted), then aircraft won't have to slow to a hover, 3D spots will allow aircraft to strafe things they can't actually see, so they won't have to slow down. And the reason that matters is, if AA is too limited in range, aircraft will fly in and out of that range before you can fire.

Xyntech

2012-05-14, 01:47 PM

I think a good AI infantry vs a good solo air-cav should more likely result in nobody killing anyone rather than one side always killing the other. If one side isn't good, they lose.

This would be good.

Anyone who thinks an AI specced aircraft shouldn't be able to farm some unprotected non AA infantry is out of their mind (Traak).

But I would like to see AA units given more of a chance to use skill to even the odds, as well as seeing two units who are specced against each other but who are both very vulnerable (like infantry and aircraft are vulnerable) end a lot of their fights in draws more often than kills.

Kipper

2012-05-14, 01:54 PM

I really hate to bring this up, but it's relevant here: If we have 3D spotting, ESPECIALLY if you can 3D spot for yourself(jets in BF3 can just hit Q and anything within a couple of inches of their nose, evne if 300m away, will get spotted), then aircraft won't have to slow to a hover, 3D spots will allow aircraft to strafe things they can't actually see, so they won't have to slow down. And the reason that matters is, if AA is too limited in range, aircraft will fly in and out of that range before you can fire.

Well, range is a balance thing that can be tweaked, as would be the speed of the projectile.

Also, if you're moving fast - even if you see something, it's going to be harder to hit.

Your HUD on an aircraft (or your infantry's visor as we're in the future) is probably going to be able to put a target marker around things that need to be shot at, so seeing stuff is not likely to be the indicator of whether you can hit it or not... more like how straight you can shoot.

....As long as you can't see things through other solid objects, I've hard that happens on BF3 and it sounds dumb.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 02:00 PM

Well, range is a balance thing that can be tweaked, as would be the speed of the projectile.

Also, if you're moving fast - even if you see something, it's going to be harder to hit.

Your HUD on an aircraft (or your infantry's visor as we're in the future) is probably going to be able to put a target marker around things that need to be shot at, so seeing stuff is not likely to be the indicator of whether you can hit it or not... more like how straight you can shoot.

....As long as you can't see things through other solid objects, I've hard that happens on BF3 and it sounds dumb.

No, actually, being able to see through opaque cover was a BC2 problem. BF3 made it so that the spot won't show through solid objects. Note however, that it does show through one or two odd things that it shouldn't such as smoke.

kaffis

2012-05-14, 02:08 PM

I think that in a toe to toe scenario, it should take 2 AA infantry to reach a 50/50 chance against whatever the weakest air unit is. Of course, many situations will not be "toe to toe", if the infantry are able to take cover behind trees/rocks etc, they will be able to get additional shots off and reload before the aircraft finds them, in which case a single infantry has a good chance. On the other hand, if aircraft catch you out in the open, that most certainly should not be a 1 to 1 situation.

And I'm not a pilot in any game I play, either. I just think that if they are paper tigers, it's bad for the game.
This is what I'm against. One guy shouldn't be able to effectively fight odds that *outnumber him* when his enemy is specifically equipped to fight him.

If the guy in the aircraft feels vulnerable, he should bring friends.

It's not that I want to see aircav end up weak, or scared of their own shadow. I just want to see them working together in teams, just like every sane infantryman will have to.

All of these suggestions that a lone aircav should have an even chance against MULTIPLE AA-equipped infantrymen is essentially saying that "aircav should flat-out win against anything less than a full squad of diverse infantry." And that's a load of BS. Because now, you've got squads of 10 infantry running around, with 2-guys dedicated to AA, and they've got an *even* chance to not just be slaughtered by a lone plane. And they're still royally screwed if a plane and his wingman come sniffing around.

I'm all for stalemates or no-kill outcomes when discussing 1v1, for the record, so long as when kills do happen, they don't heavily favor one side of the equation.

Kipper

2012-05-14, 02:15 PM

All of these suggestions that a lone aircav should have an even chance against MULTIPLE AA-equipped infantrymen is essentially saying that "aircav should flat-out win against anything less than a full squad of diverse infantry." And that's a load of BS. Because now, you've got squads of 10 infantry running around, with 2-guys dedicated to AA, and they've got an *even* chance to not just be slaughtered by a lone plane. And they're still royally screwed if a plane and his wingman come sniffing around.

The way I see this is that if the aircraft gets the drop on the squad of 10 infantry, he wouldn't know what it was composed of - so he takes one run, probably doesn't hit anything, gets two missiles up his tailpipe which he evades, and is then too scared to come back because next time, he's expected.

Again, the smart pilot stays away from that situation knowing that they were packing AA, the dumb/brave pilot goes in for a second run and maybe hits something, maybe doesn't - maybe gets shot down, maybe doesn't.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 02:17 PM

This is what I'm against. One guy shouldn't be able to effectively fight odds that *outnumber him* when his enemy is specifically equipped to fight him.

If the guy in the aircraft feels vulnerable, he should bring friends.

It's not that I want to see aircav end up weak, or scared of their own shadow. I just want to see them working together in teams, just like every sane infantryman will have to.

All of these suggestions that a lone aircav should have an even chance against MULTIPLE AA-equipped infantrymen is essentially saying that "aircav should flat-out win against anything less than a full squad of diverse infantry." And that's a load of BS. Because now, you've got squads of 10 infantry running around, with 2-guys dedicated to AA, and they've got an *even* chance to not just be slaughtered by a lone plane. And they're still royally screwed if a plane and his wingman come sniffing around.

I'm all for stalemates or no-kill outcomes when discussing 1v1, for the record, so long as when kills do happen, they don't heavily favor one side of the equation.

I'm not saying it should take a full squad to equal an aircraft. I'm saying that perhaps, it should take 2 infantry to equal the weakest aircraft, and 3-4 to equal more powerful aircraft. A squad is 10, 3-4 isn't even close to a full squad. And remember, I'm talking about a situation where a single aircraft catches you out in the open with zero cover. If it takes 3 AA infantry to equal an aircraft out in the open, 1 infantry in cover would be the equal of an aircraft(although he might have to reload a couple of times to do enough damage to kill).

And also, if 1 infantry is able to equal 1 aircraft even if he is out in the open, what's going to happen with AA vehicles? Are they going to be the equal of 20 aircraft?

Mechzz

2012-05-14, 02:33 PM

And also, if 1 infantry is able to equal 1 aircraft even if he is out in the open, what's going to happen with AA vehicles? Are they going to be the equal of 20 aircraft?

hehe! Now there's a thought....

But seriously, no, of course not. A basic AA vehicle would be more like an infantryman carrying his own cover. (and I've assumed basic grunt vs basic aircraft all along so far). Of course upgrades would change things (think flares, better sensors, more gun barrels, etc. should shift the balance).

This isn't a "nerf the aircav" thread - it's a "give the grunt a chance" thread. I have zero interest in boring "I win" button gameplay. I want skill to play the major role. Giving the grunt a chance means the pilots have to earn their corn.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 02:42 PM

hehe! Now there's a thought....

But seriously, no, of course not. A basic AA vehicle would be more like an infantryman carrying his own cover. (and I've assumed basic grunt vs basic aircraft all along so far). Of course upgrades would change things (think flares, better sensors, more gun barrels, etc. should shift the balance).

This isn't a "nerf the aircav" thread - it's a "give the grunt a chance" thread. I have zero interest in boring "I win" button gameplay. I want skill to play the major role. Giving the grunt a chance means the pilots have to earn their corn.

I don't think it's boring I win gameplay at all. Infantry should be getting to the battle in Galaxies or Sunderers, that's cover; and once they are at the battle, there should be cover. Being in cover should basically triple the effectiveness of an AA soldier. Infantry need to simply learn not to run around in the open. Of course, this takes us into a discussion of, will they provide enough rocks,trees, bushes, random buildings, etc? because obviously, if there isn't enough cover in the game world, it's not really fair for me to say "learn 2 take cover".

Figment

2012-05-14, 03:43 PM

Kipper, this is not Air Superiority Game, this is a game where each type of unit's playstyle should be respected. Please stop thinking this from a Pure Pilot perspective, it's frustrating my sarcasm-toning-down-straps. Aircav is already powerful by being able to fly. It doesn't need pulverizationpowah.

Otherwise, why don't we just replace infantry with NPCs? I mean, they're cheap, worthless pieces on the battlefield, right?

How about air superiority should be established by the taking out of AA, BY GROUND UNITS?

There's a thought, aircraft having to work TOGETHER with ground units to be succesful. And before you go "OHMYGODWOEISMEITSHOULDONLYBETHEOTHERWAYAROUND!!!11 !!1", think of how hypocritical you are being. You are basically saying infantry, ground vehicles are secondary players and AA are tertiary players. They are all players. They are all entitled to getting a good chance of kills and aircav already have extra chances. They don't need to be pampered, they should be challenged by hampering them in other fields if they get advantages in some. And they got plenty. Countermeasures, agility, speed(boosts), height, element of surprise, attack angle, sun in the rear, battle overview, you name it. THEY got everything. Why should they also get extreme firepower instead of light/medium firepower, tops?

The ones who got it hard and require planning and skill, are those on the ground. BECAUSE they don't have options. Take off the pilot suit and look up at the sky and realise how confined you are in comparison.

kaffis

2012-05-14, 03:54 PM

The way I see this is that if the aircraft gets the drop on the squad of 10 infantry, he wouldn't know what it was composed of - so he takes one run, probably doesn't hit anything, gets two missiles up his tailpipe which he evades, and is then too scared to come back because next time, he's expected.

Again, the smart pilot stays away from that situation knowing that they were packing AA, the dumb/brave pilot goes in for a second run and maybe hits something, maybe doesn't - maybe gets shot down, maybe doesn't.
And this is an example of stalemates favoring one side. The smart aircav player never dies unless he jumps a squad including 5 AA, and he gets a few kills before getting away. That's not fun for infantry.

As for cover vs. no cover -- not the point. I'm talking about equal footing situations. If you feel the equal footing should entail the grunt having cover available, and the aircav having afterburners and countermeasures.. that's fine. The point is that they're both similarly prepared.

As for "infantry should be arriving to battle in Galaxies and/or Sunderers" -- that sounds like somebody planning to be the AV/AA equipped fighters, to me. Because those are vulnerable to air, too, and if you kill them, you kill the passengers.

As for protests of "but I'm only talking about 2-3 AA, why are you talking about full squads of infantry?" It's very simple. No sane squad (or smaller group of soldiers) is running around with every infantryman comprised of the same class, let alone the same equipment. If my buddy goes "Hey, let's get 3 guys together with AA and go plane-hunting!!" My reply is "Okay, but we're going to need another half dozen guys with AV and AI so we're not sitting ducks to everything else..."

Keep in mind, carrying AA is severe hindrance in your capability to combat other types of enemy, and infantry is the *least* able type of unit when it comes to engaging on your own terms, because you can't outrun anything. This makes single-loadout-spam very ineffective and a complete crapshoot.

Figment

2012-05-14, 03:55 PM

I'm not saying it should take a full squad to equal an aircraft. I'm saying that perhaps, it should take 2 infantry to equal the weakest aircraft, and 3-4 to equal more powerful aircraft. A squad is 10, 3-4 isn't even close to a full squad. And remember, I'm talking about a situation where a single aircraft catches you out in the open with zero cover. If it takes 3 AA infantry to equal an aircraft out in the open, 1 infantry in cover would be the equal of an aircraft(although he might have to reload a couple of times to do enough damage to kill).

And also, if 1 infantry is able to equal 1 aircraft even if he is out in the open, what's going to happen with AA vehicles? Are they going to be the equal of 20 aircraft?

So basically you're saying that if a balanced squad consists of infantry, it should be made up 100% out of AA units to fight of 3 aircraft.

When do they get to shoot at infantry? Or tanks?

And what if the enemy bring 10 aircraft? You'd need 20-30 infantry with AA? That's ridiculous, that leverage cannot be compensated for with however much cover you bring. TTKs on infantry are insanely fast, they only get a second to defend themselves, don't expect them to last 10 seconds to return fire, they don't have that kind of time. If they survive for 5 seconds, then the aircraft will be gone before it is shot down. That's how fast air is.

Kipper

2012-05-14, 03:55 PM

Kipper, this is not Air Superiority Game, this is a game where each type of unit's playstyle should be respected. Please stop thinking this from a Pure Pilot perspective.

I didn't say it was, and I'm not.

What I am saying though is that a single AA infantry shouldn't be a serious threat to a fast-flying aircraft because of lock times and missile speeds. Likewise, a fast flying aircraft shouldn't be a serious threat to a single infantry because of aiming times and target size and mobility.

The likely outcome as far as I can see is that both parties will fire and both will miss most of the time; unless one of the has a skill advantage or gets lucky.

If the aircraft slows down, it gets the chance to make a better shot, but increases the chance that it will also be hit.... and an aircraft taking missile damage is at least going to need a serious repair job, if not get shot down completely - which, even if it got the infantry - is still a net loss for the flyer, because he spent resources to pull his aircraft and lost them, infantry spent nothing/less to get their missile.

That's thinking from a balance perspective - not all engagements have to end up in one side being killed, they can simply end in both sides not being able to sufficiently affect the other and withdrawing.

If the air unit is using machine guns or dumb fire rockets against a very small, mobile target - the chances of hitting it are quite low. When he comes in for his run, the infantry don't have to run far to get out of his way (and bearing in mind they, unlike vehicles of any kind - can change direction instantly). As the aircraft crosses overhead, infantry can turn and lock missiles onto his tailpipe.

Even if air units get lock on missiles, I seriously doubt they'd allow them to lock onto infantry.

Figment

2012-05-14, 04:00 PM

If Aircav have 100 hitpoints, maybe. Unlikely situation though.

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 04:06 PM

So basically you're saying that if a balanced squad consists of infantry, it should be made up 100% out of AA units to fight of 3 aircraft.

When do they get to shoot at infantry? Or tanks?

And what if the enemy bring 10 aircraft? You'd need 20-30 infantry with AA? That's ridiculous, that leverage cannot be compensated for with however much cover you bring. TTKs on infantry are insanely fast, they only get a second to defend themselves, don't expect them to last 10 seconds to return fire, they don't have that kind of time. If they survive for 5 seconds, then the aircraft will be gone before it is shot down. That's how fast air is.

If they bring that many aircraft, they won't have any infantry to capture flags.

Again, take cover. Infantry out in the open should not be 1 to 1 against aircraft, and again, aircraft will(or at least should, in the event it doesn't get done this way) cost more resources.

Infantry should not be 1 to 1 deadly to aircraft, and aircraft should not see infantry on radar or 3D spots. That's the way to balance it.

And again, and I can't stress this enough, the AA weapon should be a secondary weapon carried by an infantryman. Infantry should not be able to stop carrying an assault rifle and then use that as an excuse to make their AA weapon more powerful.

The idea that infantry should be able to outduel aircraft 1 to 1 is preposterous.

By the way, just in case we're not on the same page, and this goes for the entire thread, I am not talking about AA MAXes. If you guys are thinking of AA MAXes, yes, those should be pretty powerful against aircraft. If you are NOT talking about AA MAXes, and you are talking about lighter AA troops, then what are you saying? That an AA MAX should be equal to 5 aircraft?

Stardouser

2012-05-14, 04:24 PM

Dude there are no "flags" in Planetside. The objective is to hack a control panel in the basement of a base. Vehicles exist to support infantry; to get them from one place to the next and to make sure they can go from local spawn to base. That's incidentally also exactly why they need to be more powerful than infantry, at least in the open.

I am pretty certain they said there will be capture points that you capture with your physical proximity in PS2. They may not be called flags but they aren't hacked either(that doesn't mean there won't be ANYTHING that's hacked).

Kipper

2012-05-14, 04:25 PM

Dude there are no "flags" in Planetside. The objective is to hack a control panel in the basement of a base. Vehicles exist to support infantry; to get them from one place to the next and to make sure they can go from local spawn to base. That's incidentally also exactly why they need to be more powerful than infantry, at least in the open.

He's talking about PS2 which as far as we know so far, uses a capture-the-flag system to make hexes change hands so that there are many small fights going on around a complex rather than just everyone focusing on reaching a central point.

Timealude

2012-05-14, 06:05 PM

The ones who got it hard and require planning and skill, are those on the ground. BECAUSE they don't have options. Take off the pilot suit and look up at the sky and realize how confined you are in comparison.

wouldn't it take just as much skill by a pilot to avoid getting shot down by AA or enemy fighters? I mean if you think about it, Air will have more of a disadvantage when they are in more urban and terrain heavy area then a wide open area because Air has no defense against ground units. They don't get cover (Unless your an extremely good pilot that can weave in and out of terrain to block AA weapons) like infantry do.

Timealude

2012-05-14, 06:08 PM

Also fig, I get from both my thread and this one..that you dont really like aircraft very much in planetside :P

Kipper

2012-05-14, 07:46 PM

Figment

2012-05-14, 08:08 PM

wouldn't it take just as much skill by a pilot to avoid getting shot down by AA or enemy fighters? I mean if you think about it, Air will have more of a disadvantage when they are in more urban and terrain heavy area then a wide open area because Air has no defense against ground units. They don't get cover (Unless your an extremely good pilot that can weave in and out of terrain to block AA weapons) like infantry do.

If air has a 50-50 chance as some here keep wanting, it doesn't take skill, no. Then you can beat everything on the field with at least an on par level with a single unit. That's bad design.

Urban terrain is quite handy for air, because they can fly low and block line of sight with those on the ground with ease. Try fighting aircraft in PlanetSide caves. They're the most confined there, yet the most powerful unit available in caves.

Largely due to the absence of effective AA (only flak works and only TR have AA flak in appropriate quantities, two mossies will kill two flaklet users, and finding one flaklet user is hard enough, because it requires more certpoints than air, is less effective, doesn't work on infantry (which you encounter along with aircraft consistently! The two together covering each other make it impossible to fight back or even get out of a building!) and is unusable since pilots bail from aircraft or afterburn away if they do get damaged heavily).

Aircraft are less powerful in the open field, because they have no where to hide. Hell, an aircraft can hide from you by going to the other side of the tower or base you're in the door opening or along the walls off.

I don't think you ever even tried to fight aircraft with a Flaklet, or you wouldn't make such a strange comment.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 12:52 PM

I was thinking about this. I think that the FIXED AA TURRETS at main bases should be DEVASTATINGLY powerful, although with limited horizontal range. So powerful, in fact, that aircraft simply do not wander into their range unless they either know what they are doing, or they know that they've got ground troops in position to take them out(tanks, infiltrators with C4,etc). This would provide an excellent spec ops mission by the way - destroy AA in advance of a target.

And, appurtenant to this discussion, flight ceiling. In one of the videos I saw a drop pod with a range to ground number showing "1200". It seemed like it was pretty high up. I think the flight ceiling should be that high too, let's just say, a 1500 flight ceiling(I assume the measurement was meters). The vertical range of fixed base AA as I have described should be 1200. This means aircraft can fly high over a base safely, or they can fly low around a base(meaning, using mountains for cover), but if they try to attack a base without sending in grunts, they are dead.

Naturally, aircraft will be free to fly between main bases a lot more freely. Mobile AA would still exist but they would remain only as powerful as they are currently planned to be.

So what do you think? Should main base AA be so powerful that it is a bona-fide target all on its own?

roguy

2012-05-27, 12:57 PM

I think the flight ceiling should be that high too, let's just say, a 1500 flight ceiling(I assume the measurement was meters). The vertical range of fixed base AA as I have described should be 1200. This means aircraft can fly high over a base safely

1) Why would that even be necessary?
2)You need to be able to shoot at Galaxies and Liberators as they fly over.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 01:00 PM

1) Why would that even be necessary?
2)You need to be able to shoot at Galaxies and Liberators as they fly over.

Yes, but not if they fly up in the upper 300m of the flight ceiling where you can't get them from the ground, and I will tell you why:
1. That high should be a sufficient distance upward that Galaxy Gunships and Liberators cannot see to shoot anything on the ground.
2. Galaxy transports can drop troops from that high, but I am assuming that you can only respawn into a deployed on the ground Galaxy. That means, a Galaxy at 1500 m can drop the 11 guys it carried, and that's it.
3. There has to be some situations where fighter patrols are necessary.

But OK, so you don;t want that little area of 300m at the top of the ceiling to be safe, fine. Suppose it doesn't exist. Do you like the idea of making base AA extremely powerful, though? So powerful that if no one takes it out you simply don't fly over the base?

KTNApollo

2012-05-27, 01:11 PM

The math will be balanced to the best of SOE's ability, but math only goes so far. Player skill is the determining factor when it comes to a one on one confrontation.

roguy

2012-05-27, 01:11 PM

That means, a Galaxy at 1500 m can drop the 11 guys it carried, and that's it.

That's what happened in PS1 and i don't see where the need is to change it? Was it a problem? How does this idea make things more fun?

3. There has to be some situations where fighter patrols are necessary.

They always were in PS1 regardless. Aircraft would just run off when they started feeling the heat from AA only to come back after, you needed planes to run them down. Galaxies and Libs were very difficult to destroy before they dropped their load by base AA, unless they were intercepted sooner by fighters.

LegioX

2012-05-27, 01:13 PM

This all comes down to 1 simple solution.

***Get air superiority of your on*****

Do not rely so much on ground AA to blanket you from AI or AT guns from aircraft. Organize a group/squad/or whatever to provide CAP over your attacking or defending force. Simple.

For me, my plane will be spect out for 1 purpose only. Killing other enemy aircraft.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 01:15 PM

That's what happened in PS1 and i don't see where the need is to change it? Was it a problem? How does this idea make things more fun?

They always were in PS1 regardless. Aircraft would just run off when they started feeling the heat from AA only to come back after, you needed planes to run them down. Galaxies and Libs were very difficult to destroy before they dropped their load by base AA, unless they were intercepted sooner by fighters.

First of all, the idea is, making base AA more powerful. As far as I could tell, you disregarded that main idea, because you only quoted the flight ceiling part, in order to attack the appurtenant idea of a small out of range zone at the top of the flight ceiling, which would be necessary because of the sheer lethality of AA that I am suggesting.

As for why the AA should be more powerful, that's to provide a more strategic game.

This all comes down to 1 simple solution.

***Get air superiority of your on*****

Do not rely so much on ground AA to blanket you from AI or AT guns from aircraft. Organize a group/squad/or whatever to provide CAP over your attacking or defending force. Simple.

For me, my plane will be spect out for 1 purpose only. Killing other enemy aircraft.

This isn't ALL ground AA. It's main base AA only, and only a short range around those main bases, and there are only what, 3 main bases per continent?

Also, this will mean that there are more aircraft flying around in the areas between the bases since they have to keep clear, giving you(who say you will go air to air always) targets to kill.

roguy

2012-05-27, 01:31 PM

First of all, the idea is, making base AA more powerful. As far as I could tell, you disregarded that main idea, because you only quoted the flight ceiling part, in order to attack the appurtenant idea of a small out of range zone at the top of the flight ceiling, which would be necessary because of the sheer lethality of AA that I am suggesting.

As for why the AA should be more powerful, that's to provide a more strategic game.

Strategic in this sense meaning rock/paper/scissors.
So essentially, you propose revamping game mechanics (and working ones at that) in order to force feed your spec-ops mission gimmick?

So instead of giving people a choice of going after a tank column to relieve ground troops, or AA for air support. You just want to force them to go for AA?

-Should you take out the pawn or the queen in a given situation? That's strategy.
-Being forced to take out the queen because she'll kill everything is either hand-holding game mechanics or just you getting cornered by the other player (but not in this case because they didn't get any viable option as to the amount of OP AA).

I'll just add that "spec-ops missions" is a real fancy name for "hot-dropping to take out the generator" that we already had in PS1.

So as I was saying, the Idea changes everything, but improves and adds nothing. Try again.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 01:50 PM

1. I am unsure if you realize that this is regarding the large, heavy turrets at main bases only, of which I believe there will still only be 3 per entire continent, and for which this would basically mean that the fixed main base AA would only cover(just a guess) 5% of the continent's area? Certainly less than 10%.
2. This isn't revamping game mechanics. This is increasing the power of a specific fixed unit.
3. If the enemy attacks you with tanks and you have to spawn with AV weapons to deal with it, is that "forcing"? If not, why is this "forced"?
4. How often do you have an entire enemy tank column defending a main base, so close to the base that they would fall under the protection of this AA? And grouped together so tightly that "column" accurately describes them? Either way, I don't know that what you say about "forcing" you to go after the AA is as bad as you sound. It means you send in ground troops before you send in air, and if no one takes out the turrets, air will be in a bad way.
5. I was more assuming spec op missions such as attacking the towers and directly applying C4 to the turrets themselves. If there's a generator, there's that too. And it doesn't always have to be "spec ops" mission. Tanks volley firing at the AA turrets does the job as well.

roguy

2012-05-27, 02:07 PM

2. This isn't revamping game mechanics. This is increasing the power of a specific fixed unit.

Increasing flight ceiling, rebalancing vehicles and turrets (wich leads on to balancing how easy/hard it is to sneak in and take them out, possibly redisigning bases for that purpose).

That's definately changing the rules of the game and by extension, the game mechanics.

3. If the enemy attacks you with tanks and you have to spawn with AV weapons to deal with it, is that "forcing"? If not, why is this "forced"?

Your idea is certainly forcing me not to attack the tanks first, or forcing me not to go after that galaxy spawn. It forces the base team to defend their AA, instead of choosing where to allocate their troops.

There's no strategy in: "YOU ATTACK AA GUNS FIRST, EVERYTHING ELSE = LOSS"

5. I was more assuming spec op missions such as attacking the towers and directly applying C4 to the turrets themselves. If there's a generator, there's that too. And it doesn't always have to be "spec ops" mission. Tanks volley firing at the AA turrets does the job as well.

Like I said, we already had that!

Serpent

2012-05-27, 02:14 PM

I prefer less hard counters to certain units. AA is obviously decent against Aircraft, Rocket launchers can be good against BOTH, however.

Using a flak cannon-type gun (like the TR MAX) is obviously one of the best AA guns, as it will do good amounts of damage and can't be blocked or avoided unless out of range, in which case the aircraft makes itself obsolete.

For balancing, aircraft should be able to have a slight advantage over infantry with AA guns, however, 2 infantry could probably give something like a mosquito a hard time (if we assume that, similar to BF3, jets/helis take only 2 rockets to take down).

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 02:19 PM

1 Increasing flight ceiling, rebalancing vehicles and turrets (wich leads on to balancing how easy/hard it is to sneak in and take them out, possibly redisigning bases for that purpose).

That's definately changing the rules of the game and by extension, the game mechanics.

2 It's certainly forcing me not to attack the tanks first, or forcing me not to go after that galaxy spawn. It forces the base team to defend their AA, instead of choosing where to allocate their troops.

There's no strategy in: "YOU ATTACK AA GUNS FIRST, EVERYTHING ELSE = LOSS"

3 Like I said, we already had that!

1. I don't think raising the flight ceiling is a drastic change. Besides, there is no rule that game mechanics can't change, especially if hardware limitations were the reason for the original ceiling.
2. This does not make it "attack AA first or lose". There are a multitude of tactics and strategies that remain, including taking the base with purely ground forces. Aircraft can still carefully participate, including patrolling around the siege area to cut off reinforcements. It does change the strategic landmap though, if it didn't I wouldn't have any interest in it. How is "bombard helpless base with aircraft" better?

Main bases shouldn't be "paper tigers" that get steamrolled anyway.
3. Since we had it before, it's hardly a change to be worried about, then? I am seeking to change how it factors into a base fight, is all.

IMMentat

2012-05-27, 02:54 PM

I expect 1 person aircraft to be deadly but fragile. Hit and run.
I expect Lock-on AV to put the hurt on less mobile threats like the Gal gunship, liberators, tanks or solo pilots blinded by the kill.
I hope that the flak guns for maxes becomes a common pool weapon (with aircraft needing to move aroud a lot more to avoid getting focused, 3 second lock-ons will be difficult).
I want specialist setups to be brutal againt their intended target but have sensible downsides against other targets.

e.g.
AV rockets - small damage radius (indirect hits deal little damage), long reload. (get in launch ze missiles then run away while you reload and choose the next target)
AI rockets - even area/splash damage, low damage per-hit, burst fire? (saturate an area for a few seconds then run away).
AA/AV missiles - lock on, fast speed, no dumbfire, 1-2 shots then reload. (target, release then fight/flight with guns)

1 on 1 an AV trooper should be able to fend off or kill any single person vehicle. Non AV should have less diect means of persuading vehicles not to get to close (base turrets, deployable turrets, friendly AV troopers, mines, C4, etc).
2-man vehicles should be dangerous (more firepower, better protected weakspots and able to shrug off a lone troopers return fire) depending on setup ofc, any AI vehicle should pose a serious threat regardless.
Beyond 2 person vehicles it should be staying power (survivability/hitpoints/armour), setup/customisation variety and a greater number of fields of fire that determines threat, not simply a bigger gun.

If a player wants to solo in a 2-man vehicle then the reduced mobility and increased size (compared to a 1 person variant) should make them more vunerable to hit and fade tactics.
If SOE have any sense then vehicles will have physically limited turret and vehicle turnspeeds not reduced mouse sensitivity for those functions.

Xyntech

2012-05-27, 03:10 PM

If SOE have any sense then vehicles will have physically limited turret and vehicle turnspeeds not reduced mouse sensitivity for those functions.

Yeah that was incredibly broken in the first game.

Just put in a fixed maximum turn speed on turrets and vehicles, along with MAXes. Then leave it entirely unrestricted on infantry, or at most make it possible to turn really quickly as every other infantry, like 180 degrees in .2 seconds.

Probably one of those bullshit locked in things that couldn't be changed in the first game though. Thank god for forgelight.

roguy

2012-05-27, 03:52 PM

1. I don't think raising the flight ceiling is a drastic change. Besides, there is no rule that game mechanics can't change, especially if hardware limitations were the reason for the original ceiling.

I mentioned 4 changes, you take one then say it's not a big deal while not knowing what it entails.

There's no rule about changing game mechanics, there's wisdom in not changing them for the sake of changing them. So far, all your idea does is restrict strategy and handicaps the attacking faction. All you've mentioned would give us LESS choice and LESS depth. How many times do i have to say this?

2. This does not make it "attack AA first or lose". There are a multitude of tactics and strategies that remain, including taking the base with purely ground forces.

Who the hell wants what remains? How about, let's just keep what we have or add more.

It does change the strategic landmap though, if it didn't I wouldn't have any interest in it. How is "bombard helpless base with aircraft" better? Main bases shouldn't be "paper tigers" that get steamrolled anyway.

You still havn't bothered trying Planetside 1 have you? You'd probably make up the 15€ (or whatever) subscription on all the saved electricity from typing on the forums while not knowing what you're talking about.

That may pass off as unnecessarilly harsh but you've gone to the point of addressing imaginary problems in order to suggest already implemented features while only having a quick jist of back-of-the-box features of the franchise. The root of the problem is there and there's no other way to say it.

You played BF2, yeah, I get it.
Planes were overpowered in BF2, yeah, I get it.
Planetside wasn't BF2 and bases wern't "helpless".

3. Since we had it before, it's hardly a change to be worried about, then?

No, you're not reading. I said 2 things:

1) Nerfing aircraft/buffing AA doesn't make anything strategic, it just takes options away from the players' hands.

2) Your "Spec-ops mission" thing, wich, as I understood it, was most of your reasoning to buff AA, already existed in PS1 WITHOUT OP turrets.

Add 1) and 2) together and you'll understand that there's no reason to consider your suggestion.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 05:43 PM

First off, I have indeed tried Planetside 1. Obviously it's too late to go back and and spend 5 years playing it, and yes only played about 7 days worth, but I have tried it, so, if you would excuse me for saying nothing further on that.

With that said, it seems you have gotten the impression this is all for the purpose of creating a special operations mission. That isn’t true.
So:

1. This is for buffing AA at fixed main bases only. I am only saying this because you are referring to it as "buffing AA", which in my mind includes all AA. And I don't consider it a nerf of aircraft, but if you want to consider it a nerf of aircraft relative to 10% of the game area(the airspace over the main bases), fine, I concede that much.

2. The purpose of this is not just to create special operations missions. I threw that in as an extra benefit mention, and if that’s confusing, well, sorry. And I’m well aware that that already exists in Planetside 1. So, let me be clear: I know that exists in PS1, but it hardly seems to be highly important. I am suggesting it become even more important. Feel free to disagree with the value of making it more important.

3. So, now that we are clear that the “special ops” stuff was secondary, the outline of the main purpose of this is as follows:

a. It will create a situation where cooperation between air and ground matters more. Currently, there’s no reason why you cannot simply have all 300 people in your attack force spawn Reavers to sweep across a base and then bail as infantry to get the flags. I am not saying that that is an optimum strategy, but I am suggesting this in order to help it be even less optimum than it already is. You may disagree that it’s valuable to try and enforce this level of cooperation, that’s fine.

b. If defenders can keep their AA up, it will keep away constant bombardments. I did not play PS1 during the golden age, and there’s no way to do so now, but from what I did see, I never saw base defenses play a major role. And engineers doing repairs will be even more important.

c. This will encourage air outfits and squads to make a greater effort to intercept ground convoys in the transit areas between bases. Frankly, this is probably the most important of all the reasons. I only wish we could make the continents 15km X 15km for the same 2000 people, which would double or triple the transit times, making the chances of fighting between bases even more likely, but we can’t do that, at least not for Planetside 2, so there’s no point even asking.

d. And, pursuant to C, since ground attack aircraft will be making extra effort to patrol between bases, that gives players who want to do air to air dogfighting a chance to perform combat air patrol roles.

e. Furthermore, it will increase the value of feint attacks. That means, let’s assume that Main Base X is behind the lines and we are not going to attack it, we’re actually going to attack somewhere else. Since the AA is so valuable at a main base, sending in a team to blow it up will possibly cause the enemy empire to overallocate defenders while we attack elsewhere , in other words, adding urgency in the enemy’s mind for such a feint tactic.

f. Aircraft will still be able to attack either the AA directly, or other things inside a base, but they will need to use tactics such as flying over the base at maximum height and then dropping straight down in a dive attack. While I believe that the fact that base AA will be looking more horizontal than vertical should be more than enough to permit this, to bolster that, the firing arcs/blind spots can also be designed to make them slightly weaker to a dive attack from directly above, to ensure that this tactic has a chance. They could also fly low using terrain as cover from the base AA, and pop up to destroy targets.

g. It will make bases more defensible against Galaxy drops(forcing Galaxies to drop outside the base and make attackers walk in). Although my experience with Galaxies is limited, people have also said that when 20 come in hot, it's damn hard to shoot even 1 down. You may disagree that this is a valuable thing to cut down on, of course.

I think that, at the very least, the above is enough to demonstrate that I have not suggested this just for the sake of changing it. You may disagree that these changes would enhance the game, that’s fine. I am not actually sure that any strategies are lost, though certainly, haphazard, unorganized air attacks would become less wise. Though, if as hinted at in A, an all Reaver type attack is made a lot less likely to succeed, I won’t mourn the loss of that strategy.

Also, someone in IRC suggested that maybe the AA would only work like this if upgraded at heavy resource cost. There’s that, as well.

Lastly, I wanted to respond to the idea that this handicaps attackers. First of all, my goal is the reasons I listed, and I am not seeking to handicap attackers. Secondly I disagree, that this does handicap attackers, though certainly it does change the tactics required to attack. There are also two things that overpower defenders or handicap attackers that I don’t agree with:

1. Jump pads overpower defenders and relieve the defenders of any responsibility to deploy where they are needed. I am only mentioning this as respects defense vs offense, not trying to start a jump pad thread.

2. Drop pod squad spawning(instead of simply appearing on the ground by your squad leader): I am only mentioning this as it relates to offense vs defense, not trying to start a drop pod thread. But, as we know, drop pods will give away your location, as well as your squad leader if you drop by him. Since defenders will be able to spawn at all the spawn locations in their base,and therefore, be unlikely to use or need Squad Spawning, this is unlikely to affect a defensive force. It therefore handicaps attackers.

Also, I predict that Beta, when it hits, will reveal some other factors that handicap attackers/overpower defenders. For example, as I said, defenders will be unlikely to need squad spawning, so they will respawn at their own spawn tubes. However, I suspect that Squad Spawning, very important to attackers, will have a heavy respawn delay. Spawning at deployed Galaxies might have a delay relative to defender respawn timers as well.

Purple

2012-05-27, 06:05 PM

i just want it so a solo air unit can survive AA and have fun by themslefs if they choose.

Raka Maru

2012-05-27, 07:15 PM

Aircraft should rightly be scared s***less when AA is around. Just like a foot soldier should take cover when an AI speced plane shows up and you are not speced for AA.

That being said, I like the powerful base AA idea a lot. I'm wondering if the hard point turrets are empire controlled or modified by engies. This would mean base turrets won't be useless annoyances any more, but a force to be reckoned with. Defenders should have the advantage when well dug in. CE, upgraded turrets, well positioned troops, etc...

If these base turrets are done right, no lone planes or tanks should stand a chance against an engie upgraded manned base turret.

roguy

2012-05-27, 07:47 PM

1. This is for buffing AA at fixed main bases only. I am only saying this because you are referring to it as "buffing AA", which in my mind includes all AA. And I don't consider it a nerf of aircraft, but if you want to consider it a nerf of aircraft relative to 10% of the game area(the airspace over the main bases), fine, I concede that much.

I meant base AA turrets and "10% of the game area" is really selling it short, the majority of engagements happened around bases. Either because there was nothing to do other than ambush people travelling from base to base, either because you were encouraged to fight inside base SOIs (spheres of influence) for base capture XP (the only experience in-game that counted towards Command Rank) .

I know that exists in PS1, but it hardly seems to be highly important. I am suggesting it become even more important. Feel free to disagree with the value of making it more important.

I agree with making it more important, I don't agree with what I view is an expensive compromise.

a. It will create a situation where cooperation between air and ground matters more. Currently, there’s no reason why you cannot simply have all 300 people in your attack force spawn Reavers to sweep across a base and then bail as infantry to get the flags. I am not saying that that is an optimum strategy, but I am suggesting this in order to help it be even less optimum than it already is. You may disagree that it’s valuable to try and enforce this level of cooperation, that’s fine.

That trick would work once, maybe twice until the other pulled AA maxes and aircraft of their own. But I see how some could view that as a problem. Max rushes, tank zergs and a flock of 10 galaxies were just as hard to counter, so it wasn't just limited to reaver spam.

b. If defenders can keep their AA up, it will keep away constant bombardments. I did not play PS1 during the golden age, and there’s no way to do so now, but from what I did see, I never saw base defenses play a major role. And engineers doing repairs will be even more important.

Base turrets were crap, yes. Do base turrets need a bigger role? Ok, I'll agree with that. But the only difference here is that instead of engineers keeping the AA turrets up, they kept the AA maxes up.

c. This will encourage air outfits and squads to make a greater effort to intercept ground convoys in the transit areas between bases. Frankly, this is probably the most important of all the reasons. I only wish we could make the continents 15km X 15km for the same 2000 people, which would double or triple the transit times, making the chances of fighting between bases even more likely, but we can’t do that, at least not for Planetside 2, so there’s no point even asking.

I'd like the 15kmx15km conts too. As i said previously, one of the main issues with fighting outside bases was missing out on capture/defense XP, remove the stupid SOIs (wich they did for PS2 thankfully) and IMHO/IME you're good to go.

d. And, pursuant to C, since ground attack aircraft will be making extra effort to patrol between bases, that gives players who want to do air to air dogfighting a chance to perform combat air patrol roles.

Back in '04 I always had my hands full in my mosquito, so i don't think PS lacked dogfighting.

e. Furthermore, it will increase the value of feint attacks. That means, let’s assume that Main Base X is behind the lines and we are not going to attack it, we’re actually going to attack somewhere else. Since the AA is so valuable at a main base, sending in a team to blow it up will possibly cause the enemy empire to overallocate defenders while we attack elsewhere , in other words, adding urgency in the enemy’s mind for such a feint tactic.

Well that's neat, I'd still rather have something other than buffing base AA to make it worth blowing up aside from the generator, because if the generator went down > no more spawning > no overallocation.

f. Aircraft will still be able to attack either the AA directly, or other things inside a base, but they will need to use tactics such as flying over the base at maximum height and then dropping straight down in a dive attack. While I believe that the fact that base AA will be looking more horizontal than vertical should be more than enough to permit this, to bolster that, the firing arcs/blind spots can also be designed to make them slightly weaker to a dive attack from directly above, to ensure that this tactic has a chance. They could also fly low using terrain as cover from the base AA, and pop up to destroy targets.

I'm suddenly agree-ing more and more, but you don't need a flight ceiling for this.

g. It will make bases more defensible against Galaxy drops(forcing Galaxies to drop outside the base and make attackers walk in). Although my experience with Galaxies is limited, people have also said that when 20 come in hot, it's damn hard to shoot even 1 down. You may disagree that this is a valuable thing to cut down on, of course.

100 maxes, 100 reavers, 50 tanks = different vehicles, same problem.

Stardouser

2012-05-27, 08:01 PM

I'm suddenly agree-ing more and more, but you don't need a flight ceiling for this.

I don't know what you mean by this? I wasn't saying that there should be a flight ceiling, because there already is one(in PS1, anyway, I can only assume there is one in PS2), but that, if the flight ceiling is too low, that it should be made high enough that aircraft can fly over the AA's reach, but that doing so would put them so high, that they would not be able to attack ground targets from that height. That is not an essential aspect of increasing the base AA power, but, I do think it would be more fair than aircraft having to be completely unable to fly over a base.

Ohhhhh....another thing that could be done with such a high flight ceiling is, there could be a layer of sporadic clouds(depending on dynamic weather). Dogfighting over the clouds or fleeing through clouds...

Also, another thought. What if the way the AA is powered up is not by making them have insanely powerful lock-on missiles, or extreme low TTK projectile cannons, or making them too hard to destroy, but have the same AA units as they have now, and put more of them in? For example...each one of those towers at Zurvan Amp Station, however many AA turrets they've got now, add 2 or 3 more per tower(which, if there 5 towers, means adding 10 or 15 more AA turrets). This would have the additional effect of making this change only work if people actually use the towers; and it would require more engineers to repair them.

Edit: I only saw 2 AA turrets on one of the towers, but there's plenty of room to add 3 more it seems. 5 turrets per tower, 25 total across all 5 towers, that means it would take a full 25 gunners, plus however many engineers, to actually make this happen.