AA has officially gone to far. [Archive]

Hamma

2013-02-09, 02:23 PM

MrZero

2013-02-09, 02:27 PM

I agree i cant even dogfight without getting torn up by aa usually

AnamNantom

2013-02-09, 02:35 PM

I'm usually an infiltrator. That's what I do. I sneak in, hack, plant mines, leave mines for other infantry to "discover" as well as snipe you from half way across a mountain range, causing you to second guess ever leaving your spawn room.

That said, I love the magrider and seriously love the Scythe. I used to fly my beautiful Scythe a lot. Now I'm more hesitant than when I think of using my Magrider.

Once the battle gets to a certain point, there's no reason to even deploy one. If the enemy is harassing my friendly ground troops by air AND has all their anti air out (which is much easier now since there's so much of it), game's pretty much over as far as vehicular combat.

So, give me a new way of hacking, and more things to hack because it really seems we are all grounded.

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2009/9/22/128980974984403309.jpg

Rolfski

2013-02-09, 02:35 PM

They recently increased composite armor for ESF's and did some nerfs to lock-ons as well. I suggest for this game to be played out a bit more before coming to any drastic conclusions about A2G balance.

Pella

2013-02-09, 02:37 PM

Speaking from a Pilot with lvl 3 ESF composite armour. [800 Certs]AA is just a deterrent and isnt to much bother when you have it.

But agree being forced into using composite armour and Flares is a problem.

And the new Render distance changes are much better. As AA Maxs can be easy picking on a second run in.

maradine

2013-02-09, 02:46 PM

I spend most of my solo time in an ESF, and most of my outfit time on the ground shooting at them. They are the two tasks I truly enjoy in PS2. I am happy with the balance between them. I'm sorry that not everyone is.

MaxDamage

2013-02-09, 02:47 PM

Good pilots are still ridiculously hard to kill. Aircraft should not be flying over big battles without plenty of support, or troops on the ground to kill those people looking up constantly. A gal might even have use to that end.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-09, 02:48 PM

I was playing some last night and air was swarming us in large coordinated groups. And therein lies your solution. You have to use air like people use aa, in a group as a coordinated effort. I am glad that the game has evolved this direction.

Pella

2013-02-09, 02:50 PM

Hamma

2013-02-09, 02:52 PM

It's evolved in the direction where everyone can use AA? Not quite the direction I'd call "Evolution" more like "Let's give everyone AA weapons"

Mox

2013-02-09, 02:53 PM

The only problem are the infantry lock on launchers and the aa base turrets. Everthing else is fine imo.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-09, 02:54 PM

Planetside 2 is Literally a Number game.

With up to 2k people on a map yeah in a lot of ways it is a numbers game. Even though we were able to get five dbm as aa we were swamped by air power. There was a point where our sundy was blown up and everyone was dead and there I was trading shots with enemy infantry and dodging lolpod attacks. It was a fine moment for fighting personally.

NewSith

2013-02-09, 02:56 PM

I can SS a nice picture right now, near Vanu Archives.

7+ Reavers, 2 Galaxies, 5+ Liberators. And all with different outfit tags.

EDIT: Okay, they got the cap and all flew away...

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 03:00 PM

First a disclaimer, I am primarily a flyer. Even my ground based outfit mates are starting to agree AA is starting to go over the line. Our air division is grounded most operations due to air - and you can't expect ground based infantry to take out ALL AA.

Anti Air has gone to a level in which air power is almost completely pointless. AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

Why is this? The only things that should have AA are dedicated AA roles. The Skyguard, The MAX etc. Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions.

Rail on me all you want - but this is taking out of a LARGE segment of the game many people enjoy. Coordination and combined operations should be rewarded, undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft.

Essentially the rash of AA being added ot the game is now making it fun for everyone on the ground and NOT fun for everyone in the air. There needs to be either A) More way to armor your aircaft or B) Remove AA from all the vehicles it doesn't belong on.

Wrong.

The game was NOT fun for infantry before. And it drove away most of the players.

Now the game is reasonable for infantry(and we still get killed by aircraft sometimes.) Hopefully people who left in disgust will return.

A better solution would have been to make aircraft terrible at killing infantry - but everyone complained about that suggestion so this is what you get.
The problem is the old way one or 2 aircraft could casually roam the map and kill everyone who wasnt in an organized large squad or zerg.
Thats not fun.
It should have been ESF - kill aircraft and some vehicles but not ground troops. And ground troops cant kill ESF.
It would have been more fun for everyone.

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:01 PM

I didn't even need to read any further than the title to say I agree. I know the general thrust lately has been infantry focused but I think they have swayed the fight far too much in that direction.

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:05 PM

Planetside 2 is Literally a Number game.

Absolutely this is true and I hope that changes. I have been watching TE's stream lately and they are hella effective against well pretty much everything. One thing I think can stem that is lowering shoulder fired effectiveness. It's one thing when you see a conglomeration of troops being mobile infantry against infantry but when they pull out the lock on's in numbers well its just all over.

I am not criticizing any outfit for performing such ops but balance is hard to strike when that option is available.

Tatwi

2013-02-09, 03:07 PM

I agree i cant even dogfight without getting torn up by aa usually

You can't dog fight because of A2A lock on missiles and the sad, if not utterly pathetic nature of flight in Planetside 2 (where folks simply slow down and pivot/turret in the air...). Remove the A2A lock ons and force air vehicles to maintain at least 20KPH to fire their nose guns and you may actually be able to dog fight in this game. Maybe.

Ground based AA doesn't feel that bad to me. Most of the time I fly I am killed by A2A rockets or stuff on the ground that simply doesn't render, so I have no idea I am sitting duck (like that Vanguard that shot me down yesterday - no idea it even existed. It simply was not there).

The trouble with air is that it capable of exceedingly disproportionate amounts of power per person. As such, it should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. The AA balance we have now requires pilots to be skillful and to work as part of a team. Nothing wrong with that.

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 03:08 PM

I agree i cant even dogfight without getting torn up by aa usually

Wouldnt it have been better if ESF couldnt kill infantry and infantry couldnt kill ESF?

Graywolves

2013-02-09, 03:09 PM

I have to disagree.

I'm not great at flying but AA still seems to only act as a deterrent. The only times I die to it is when I fly straight at it and try to kill it. I've also set up lots of AA nets before and yeah we dominate anything purple and blue in the sky if it gets too close. But we're roughly a squad that's eagerly awaiting aircraft. Even then a Galaxy has a chance at ramming us with a few Bursters and Annihilators. If a group around the same size of us attacked from air they had a fair chance of getting some kills.

We've dealt with groups that set up AA nets on a plataeu near our warpgate and we just flew a galaxy over and dropped on them. Flying a couple liberators low and ascending next to them would have been completely viable as well.

I'll be interested to hear from the dedicated flyer groups that coordinate with each other.

Alsoe the Ranger (new AA turret) is probably on par with the skyguard when people got refunds for it.

NewSith

2013-02-09, 03:10 PM

Wouldnt it have been better if ESF couldnt kill infantry and infantry couldnt kill ESF?

Don't go there, man, they will start with the senseless "XYZ axis dominates over XY any day!", giving "combined arms game" as the supplement for their argument. Basically saying, that it will be better, because "that's how it is supposed to be".

I was there, and there's no talking that out.

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:14 PM

They just need to lessen the effect from ground to air for everything except SG. Let a ground veh focus on air veh. I don't have answer for annihilator. That's a tough one.

TheSaltySeagull

2013-02-09, 03:19 PM

It's evolved in the direction where everyone can use AA? Not quite the direction I'd call "Evolution" more like "Let's give everyone AA weapons"

Well what exactly did you think was going to happen? When aircraft outfit A2G weapons they are able to engage EVERYTHING on the ground with a reasonable success rate. It is natural that in order to combat this that everything be given AA or you go back to being farmed by air simply because you have no means of defense.

I understand your frustration that in many cases a pilot cant go 30 secs without getting a lock warning but at the same time the abundance of AA is a natural response to how powerful and abundant aircraft are in this game. When every airframe is capable of mounting A2G weapons and when the majority of pilots elect to go for that role then it is necessary for ground units to bust out AA to deal with it.

If this was MY game I would simply remove A2G weapons from ESF and make them a pure A2A interceptor and have the lib be the only viable A2G platform. Then there is no longer a need to have an abundance of AA available to ground units and you can start cutting some of it out. But thats just me.

isilyan

2013-02-09, 03:21 PM

I didn't even need to read any further than the title to say I agree. I know the general thrust lately has been infantry focused but I think they have swayed the fight far too much in that direction.

Yup its an neverending flow of balance with a game of this size:rolleyes:

As an a Inf/Tank player i feel that the pendulum has tiltet a bit to much toward aa.

I feel that Lock-ons are the biggest prob in the current state of the game:evil:
But the AA turrets on the Sundy is just makeing a bad situration worse:doh:

Sry for bad spelling, a bit drunk:groovy:

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:24 PM

Yup its an neverending flow of balance with a game of this size:rolleyes:

As an a Inf/Tank player i feel that the pendulum has is tiltet a bit to much toward aa.

I feel that Lock-ons are the biggest prob in the current state of the game:evil:
But the AA turrets on the Sundy is just makeing a bad situration worse:doh:

Sry for bad spelling, a bit drunk:groovy:

No need to apologize for your state of mind. I agree with your assessment.

Forsaken One

2013-02-09, 03:24 PM

I hate to say it but before the game was Battlefield 2 levels of retarded Air stupidity.

Every tom, dick, and harry can pull a aircraft. This means every tom, dick, and harry needs to be able to pull AA. Also there needed to be more non lock on AA to counter aircrafts flare BS.

I'll accept the take away of MBT/Sundy/tower AA If aircraft have flares taken away.

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 03:27 PM

Don't go there, man, they will start with the senseless "XYZ axis dominates over XY any day!", giving "combined arms game" as the supplement for their argument. Basically saying, that it will be better, because "that's how it is supposed to be".

I was there, and there's no talking that out.

I have no idea what your point is other than you dont like my point.

Anyway one man flying aircraft should not be some sort of I win button against 1 man on the ground.(or actually against 3 as it was.)

You cant have basically unlimited one man aircraft that destroy infantry in 9 out of 10 engaments and expect people who like infantry to not quit.

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:30 PM

Here is my thread on official forums. They need to lower cont pop limits, it will be so much easier to balance things and provide directed fights. What we have now is just random unmeaningful fights where we can hopefully encounter something worthwhile every 2 hours or so.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/lower-cont-pop-limits.91897/

NewSith

2013-02-09, 03:32 PM

I have no idea what your point is other than you dont like my point.

I'm saying that the people will start arguing with you because they think that it's absolutely normal to have Aircraft raping everything. I disagree with that, in case you don't understand. And they will not even try to say that Aircraft is not OP.

Also, the only REAL reason AA became "OP", is the new spawnroom. Before the implementation of the thing any AA MAX or Lock-On launcher person would just get camped inside one of 2 doorways. Now they can actually get out and shoot. So the only real solution is to "deal with it".

Aaron

2013-02-09, 03:33 PM

I think the Annihilator might be what's complicating things. It destroys that choice of specialization that was supposed to be there. AV or AA? Now anyone who locks on to ground vehicles, might also lock on to air. I don't fly, but I can imagine that would be a contributing factor.

Also:

"Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions."

I'm not quite understanding that part. Do you mean that the default rocket launcher does too much damage, or do you mean dumb firing AA in general (flak) is too powerful?

AnamNantom

2013-02-09, 03:34 PM

Bocheezu

2013-02-09, 03:36 PM

It's very simple and has been mentioned many times: A2G balance has nothing to do with skill or teamwork requirement for one side or the other, it is simply

the number of flyboys that will leave because of AA
vs.
the number of groundpounders that will leave because of rocketpods

and there are way, way more groundpounders than flyboys in this game

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-09, 03:41 PM

Wasnt there a big buff on flak armor recently?

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 03:49 PM

Also:

"Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions."

I'm not quite understanding that part. Do you mean that the default rocket launcher does too much damage, or do you mean dumb firing AA in general (flak) is too powerful?

I think he meant the Striker should be weaker.
Which is kind of funny. If you are even occasionally dying to Strikers then you are hovering at extremely low level with no situational awareness.

I have killed one aircraft ever with a striker - he was hovering at wall level by a base 20 meters away from infantry trying to machine gun them. I think the pilot is the problem.

Memeotis

2013-02-09, 03:49 PM

Ruffdog

2013-02-09, 03:54 PM

Sundy didn't need the extra AA capability

Rockit

2013-02-09, 03:55 PM

I'm saying that the people will start arguing with you because they think that it's absolutely normal to have Aircraft raping everything. I disagree with that, in case you don't understand. And they will not even try to say that Aircraft is not OP.

Also, the only REAL reason AA became "OP", is the new spawnroom. Before the implementation of the thing any AA MAX or Lock-On launcher person would just get camped inside one of 2 doorways. Now they can actually get out and shoot. So the only real solution is to "deal with it".

Hey Sith, how is that Proton program going? TMA well yeah you better get in the game.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/31/atlas-launch-nasa-satellite/1879817/

Assist

2013-02-09, 04:16 PM

First a disclaimer, I am primarily a flyer. Even my ground based outfit mates are starting to agree AA is starting to go over the line. Our air division is grounded most operations due to air - and you can't expect ground based infantry to take out ALL AA.

Anti Air has gone to a level in which air power is almost completely pointless. AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

Why is this? The only things that should have AA are dedicated AA roles. The Skyguard, The MAX etc. Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions.

Rail on me all you want - but this is taking out of a LARGE segment of the game many people enjoy. Coordination and combined operations should be rewarded, undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft.

Essentially the rash of AA being added ot the game is now making it fun for everyone on the ground and NOT fun for everyone in the air. There needs to be either A) More way to armor your aircaft or B) Remove AA from all the vehicles it doesn't belong on.

Agreed, said that with the changes to the last patch. The AA before was fine as it was, then they added more possibilities for AA and gave more reason to play AA with the XP changes. I don't fly, I generally /rage at Air killing me, but they took it way too far.

It's the same with the tanks, I feel there's far too many ways to destroy everything. This game has turned and is turning into a game where everyone gets everything. Every infantry unit except for the Infiltrator can counter ground armor, and every air vehicle. I've been trying to get it across to people here but they just blow it off as me whining, this game is becoming less skill and strategy oriented every single patch.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-09, 04:30 PM

I remember tankside from beta, to me the game is better now. I remember air reaping all ground units not too long ago. To me this game is the closest to balance that it ever has been.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 04:34 PM

Well, look at it this way. AA in real life requires very little training to use. Anyone with a stinger missile can pick it up and use it if they had to, its not all that hard to figure out. Further more, all of the vehicles with the smaller anti air guns are similar to light anti aircraft guns now. Prime example of this is the Browning M2, which can be fitted to tanks. All of the anti-air in game makes sense. If you're the pilot that likes to get close and provide support, rather than doing quick runs through, you're going to have a really bad time, as you should. Also, on dumb fire rockets doing more damage, that can be explained from an engineering standpoint. Guided missiles and such ALWAYS require some sort of homing device, which means you will lose space where you could have otherwise fit more explosive. The only AA I'm not sure about is the flak, as we don't terribly use those today. But, its worth noting, aircraft fly in squadrons for a reason. If you're out on your own you should always expect to get punked.
Just my two cents

Mietz

2013-02-09, 04:35 PM

First a disclaimer, I am primarily a flyer. Even my ground based outfit mates are starting to agree AA is starting to go over the line. Our air division is grounded most operations due to air - and you can't expect ground based infantry to take out ALL AA.

Anti Air has gone to a level in which air power is almost completely pointless. AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

Why is this? The only things that should have AA are dedicated AA roles. The Skyguard, The MAX etc. Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions.

Rail on me all you want - but this is taking out of a LARGE segment of the game many people enjoy. Coordination and combined operations should be rewarded, undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft.

Essentially the rash of AA being added ot the game is now making it fun for everyone on the ground and NOT fun for everyone in the air. There needs to be either A) More way to armor your aircaft or B) Remove AA from all the vehicles it doesn't belong on.

Good to see you are coming around to the philosophy that not everyone should be able to do everything.

It's not like we repeatedly stated this during beta...wait, yes we did.

As long as vehicles and aircraft can be pulled by every "tom, dick or harry" the proliferation of their counters must also be homogeneous.
So, in effect, what you mean to say is: Bring back class/vehicle/pilot certifications.

And yes, I agree 100% Hamma.
Glad to see that you've seen reason.

CrankyTRex

2013-02-09, 04:46 PM

Totally agree there's too much AA now. They had a reasonable balance when they tweaked the damage on flak, and certainly giving people XP for damaging aircraft enough to drive them off was a great addition. That should've been all.

The problem will always be that air assets by their very nature are overpowered against ground targets, and attempts to blunt that always run into the same problem, wherein there are tons more people on the ground than in the air and they can respawn constantly, so their force is quickly multiplied to easily overwhelm any single air asset.

This game in particular exacerbates that problem because it is a quantity based game, and the rendering issues come into play in addition to having huge numbers of everything everywhere.

One of the other issues is that the unlock system creates additional internal balance gaps that frustrate people. For example, if you don't have flares or rocket pods, it isn't a whole lot of fun to fly an ESF because you can't do much to the ground targets and there are tons of things on the ground that can attack you in addition to the other fighters. (Or if you happen to be like me and prefer to engage in A2A combat and don't have them equipped anyway.)

I have always felt that the way to balance air power is not so much about nerfing the damage it can do or increasing the strength/amount of AA, but about giving infantry (to a lesser extent vehicles) ways of moving across areas that do not put them at risk of being attacked by air power.

Rockit

2013-02-09, 04:52 PM

Yeah I agree. My Russian friends excuse them.

Aaron

2013-02-09, 04:53 PM

Good to see you are coming around to the philosophy that not everyone should be able to do everything.

It's not like we repeatedly stated this during beta...wait, yes we did.

As long as vehicles and aircraft can be pulled by every "tom, dick or harry" the proliferation of their counters must also be homogeneous.
So, in effect, what you mean to say is: Bring back class/vehicle/pilot certifications.

And yes, I agree 100% Hamma.
Glad to see that you've seen reason.

If I could choose for things to be certification based, therefore specialized, I would choose that. I have counters for every situation.

HansGoddius

2013-02-09, 04:54 PM

As an Mossy pilot I see that the problems lie with 2 things in my opinion:
1. The missile lock on bug (I am suddenly destoryed). Really this needs to be fixed immediatly!
2. G2A missiles everywhere.
I don't mind the flak. I think you should keep it. I mind the skillless missiles. I think in a game like this it should be easier to defend against skillless shots (or rather make that missile weaker)
Make ppl hold on to that lock for the rocket to hit. Make the rocket have a turning radius limit (similar to Ace Combat). There needs to be better counters ONLY to fire and forgetting. Maybe a better flare that lasts longer against those who fire and forget but is weaker against those who stay locked on?

Eliphas

2013-02-09, 04:57 PM

A suggestion came up on the official forum, which I thought was quite good. It listed a range of ways to change the infantry rocket-launcher, ranging from wire-guided, nose-cam and a lock-on which required the soldier to keep his crosshair on the target. I thought the last suggestion was really good, because it makes using the environment as a pilot more useful, but it also puts whoever fires the missile at risk, and if the pilot being locked onto is fast enough, he can kill whoever is shooting at him, and the missile will lose its lock-on.

The idea of these weapon guidance systems is not bad. Heres the "but" to this, the reason for the fire and forget missile systems is so the shooter is at less risk. Considering the fact that an aircraft can gain elivation or lack there of and fly away from an area is a huge advantage. Not even a tank can go anywhere as aircraft can. I do not agree with the unchecked advantage of air carft. If you want to hover and kill ground units then use armor, stealth, or flares. This game is not the other shooters on the market that let you get an automated killing machine with a kill streak (COD). Should a person have to specilze in being anti air, sure. But to say if you want to fly around uncheck and not have to be "forced to use flares or any deterrent given to you in game" is a weak excusse.

MaxDamage

2013-02-09, 05:05 PM

Air was a problem.

People need to not forget that.

Binkley

2013-02-09, 05:07 PM

First a disclaimer, I am primarily a flyer. Even my ground based outfit mates are starting to agree AA is starting to go over the line. Our air division is grounded most operations due to air - and you can't expect ground based infantry to take out ALL AA.

Anti Air has gone to a level in which air power is almost completely pointless. AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

Why is this? The only things that should have AA are dedicated AA roles. The Skyguard, The MAX etc. Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions.

Rail on me all you want - but this is taking out of a LARGE segment of the game many people enjoy. Coordination and combined operations should be rewarded, undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft.

Essentially the rash of AA being added ot the game is now making it fun for everyone on the ground and NOT fun for everyone in the air. There needs to be either A) More way to armor your aircaft or B) Remove AA from all the vehicles it doesn't belong on.

As an infantry player that has been killed hundreds of times by air that I could not see or defend against, I give you zero sympathy. Your argument is weak and all I can think is, "welcome to the game". Air has been OP since I started playing in December and now that things are improved, the whining of the fly boys is music to my ears. You got killed by a Vanguard? Hahaha. Guess how many times I've been mowed down by a hovering Scythe firing its guns through a third floor tower door? Or rocket-pod spamming, or spawn camping, or, or, or. I can easily make a list much longer than yours. You don't like AA on a sunderer? Well let me tell you how un-fun it is to have an aircraft intentionally hover just above the maximum elevation of your basilisk gun and bomb the shit out of you.

As a noob FPS player, after a couple days of playing my K/D was less than 0.2 and I wondered about the mad skilz of those 8+ K/D guys on the leader board. Well I've improved a bit since then and I've also realized that those guys with the sick K/Ds are all pilots, and I was the guy supporting all their fun by being farmed over and over.

Has the pendulum swung too far? I doubt it, but if it has, good, it's your turn to make it fun for me.

Mastachief

2013-02-09, 05:09 PM

Have to strongly disagree here.

AA is perfect and should be left alone no longer are single ESF's destroying armour columns. Air when co-ordinated can dominate areas. The AA levels are now at ps1 levels just right. I have zero difficulties in my reaver or my lib when playing with my outfit and for that matter when fluttering around on my own.

Too long have flyboys had the dominance, now this is not automatically their right they feel that is wrong. I say no, i say this is balance. (as close as you will get in a game where everyone can do all things at all times)

Helwyr

2013-02-09, 05:17 PM

Sorry Hamma I just see a lot of Air hypocrisy in your arguments in this thread.

AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master.

Do you believe that aircraft should likewise require teamwork and combined arms to operate? If not, why are you applying this requirement on AA but not Air?

It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

This list would be impressive if it meant any one of those listed weapons can take out an aircraft on their own, but in reality other than Aircraft a singular unit of any of these is unlikely to destroy an air unit on its own that chooses to withdraw from the fight. So, all but aircraft require teamwork already to effective and otherwise are not much more than deterrent.

But here's the real eye opener, every single one of these units can be destroyed by a single Air Unit.. Infantry, MAX, MBT, Lightning, Turret, Sunderer. So essentially, this is a list of units that can defend themselves vs Air units, and they all have to specialize to do so, without which they can barely fight back never mind really deter or destroy an Air Unit.

I think if you Hamma want to really address the gameplay failing you seem to be having as primarily an Air player your going to have to look at the bigger picture of Air units relation to Ground units with everyone's interests in mind. Because essentially complaining that there's too many Ground players that can fight back and applying a teamwork and combined arms requirement on others but not yourself really isn't going to gain much traction with the rest of us.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 05:18 PM

Air was a problem.

People need to not forget that.

THIS +1

AnamNantom

2013-02-09, 05:59 PM

Absolutely this is true and I hope that changes. I have been watching TE's stream lately and they are hella effective against well pretty much everything. One thing I think can stem that is lowering shoulder fired effectiveness. It's one thing when you see a conglomeration of troops being mobile infantry against infantry but when they pull out the lock on's in numbers well its just all over.

I am not criticizing any outfit for performing such ops but balance is hard to strike when that option is available.

For the record, those who deal with them all the time... we know how to sabotage their tactics, and have fun doing it :D

KUKUGUY

2013-02-09, 06:29 PM

I fly solo a lot but I only get shot down when I slow down to lolpod infantry, so I learned to never stay stationary where there is a lot of AA. Otherwise AA can't get me. As for G2A lockon missiles, I usually just pop flare and run away

Eggy

2013-02-09, 06:45 PM

AV has gone to a level in which ground based armour is almost completely pointless. AV should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AV

Sunderer (3 * AV Guns)
MBTs
Lightnings (4 * barrels)
All the aircraft (except for galaxys)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
Decimators
The default, dumb fire launchers
Av max units (not so much)
Tower AV
Flashes
Mines (instagibbing vehicles by placing 2 mines on top of each other at the exact same positon, or even deploying them on top of the vehicle).
C4

The only ground based unit without AV so far is the sniper/recon.
And the icing on the cake is that the lightnings and MBTs have a weak point in the rear making it even easier to kill them.
Why is this?

I agree though. I dont feel that the sunderer needed any AA above and beyond the default bassalisk.

What SOE should have done is made the skyguard work and then removed both the annihilator and the A2G missiles. Relying on the new and improved yet to be released AV/AA weapons to keep the balance and making the ESF a pure fighter rather than a pseudo bomber.

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 06:55 PM

I'm going to respond primarily to Hamma's post but will eventually address some others who have posted here.

---------

The current state of AA is the result of letting the game development be dictated by CoD players, children, and other FPSers who prefer low-skill games.

Here is some evidence supporting my argument:

1. Flying requires skill. Since most of this "new generation" of gamers prefer low skill activities (eg point and click, maybe some tanking, no strategy involved) they are opposed to any air power.
2. They are opposed to air because most of them cannot fly successfully, get killed easily by air while on the ground, and get killed quickly when they try to fly.
3. It is only human nature to dislike those who do something well that you cannot do or to get angry when you get killed by something that you don't know how to kill. I don't blame them for that.
----
4. This dislike is part of what drives the nerf to air. The other part is this "new generation" likes to be self-sufficient to avoid the use of tactics (which is normally hard work which goes against their low-skill philosophy).
5. This desire to be self-sufficient stems from their experience in CoD, some other FPSes, and many other games (mainly console games). These games provide a individual experience and present challenges that can almost always be overcome by one soldier.
6. Since they are used to being able to overcome things by themselves they demand a counter for air that involves no tactics.
7. I don't blame them for this desire because it is the only type of game they know...however they do not realize that PS2 is a different game which is the problem.
------
8. Another aspect of their reasoning involves the overall age of the new generation. Most of the players are younger which is fine however they do not understand some aspects of history.
9. As anyone who has studied any war in the past 100 years they will tell you that air dominance is the key to winning any engagement. This is common warfare strategy.
10. This has always been common knowledge because air has always dominated ground for obvious reasons. In PS2 this common war strategy has been flipped on its head since the majority of the community does not understand that air should dominate ground especially if you are running around in the open or in a tank in the open with no cover and using no tactics (eg friendly aircraft) to counter it. This is exactly what people do though which is the funny part.
------
11. Since this group of people is the majority of the population in PS2 (and some posting in this thread represent this majority quite well)...they end up dictating game development to their liking which includes more AA and less air.

The developers are listening to the majority of their playerbase which is a good thing but unfortunately sucks for us veterans. This is the new form of online gaming.

Now that I have explained why these changes are here we can talk specifically about AA. In my opinion, AA was just about right at launch.

The goal of AA is to be a deterrent to hold off enemy air until friendly air arrives to handle it. Air should be the only true counter to air (this will never happen though due to the "new generation" remember...)
Around launch if you used tactics you could get a big group of guys to all pull AA, or get on turrets, or get on missiles and deter a large group of air. However this requires strategy, which again goes against the new age of gaming.

I do not think the amount of AA is a issue. The strength of AA is. I should not be able to sit on the top of a hill with a double burster MAX and kill a ESF in 10 seconds or less. Simply too powerful. AA should be a deterrent not the solution. This is coming from a pilot and MAX suit perspective. I have max armor on my reaver and still lose to AA often...even while using tactics to avoid it.

---------

On top of all of this I have hope because this is how a balancing act goes. At launch many people said air was OP so they buffed AA. Now AA is OP maybe they will nerf it. I am not a dev so I cannot say I just hope the balance comes someday.

I do know that buffing/debuffing AA and aircraft constantly is not the only solution. I have seen other ones floating around (such as clouds) that should be looked into.

I imagine I will get flamed by people in the "new generation" but any veteran who knows something about war tactics and has a long history in gaming will probably agree. If a vet out there doesn't agree I would love to hear from you.

MaxDamage

2013-02-09, 07:05 PM

I do not think the amount of AA is a issue. The strength of AA is. I should not be able to sit on the top of a hill with a double burster MAX and kill a ESF in 10 seconds or less. Simply too powerful.
You shouldn't... unless it's a bad pilot or half dead from lock-on missiles.

Do you even l̶i̶f̶t̶ use bursters?

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 07:08 PM

You shouldn't... unless it's a bad pilot or half dead from lock-on missiles.

Do you even l̶i̶f̶t̶ use bursters?

I use bursters all the time. I can easily take out a ESF with it. Do YOU use bursters?

Mind you I am mainly talking about ESFs who are fairly close (not ones at max altitude or 2000m away or something)

Thunderhawk

2013-02-09, 07:10 PM

Currently the game is not fun for me anymore, and have played it everyday since it was released, but now I barely am online for more than an hour a day and that's if I can be bothered to log in.

No, I dont think the game is shit, in fact, I think Planetside 2 is a great game, but right now, the way anyone can pull any form of AA at anytime means the skies are not fun to be in at all.

And before you go screaming about ESFs farming infantry, I am not talking about that, I am talking about the fact that some of us like to Dogfight but we never get to engage on any 1on1 with an enemy ESF without either our troops shooting him out of the sky or his troops shooting me out of the sky, all the while we've not even looking at the ground and are trying to have a proper dogfight.

------------------------------------
THE GAME NEEDS SPECIALIZATIONS
------------------------------------

For someone to be able to pull an ESF with Rocket pods, they need to be heavily invested in CERTS to that effect.

For every "Tom, Dick or Harry" grunt, they need to invest into AA to be able to get what we have now.

The Skies are no longer fun without 100's of LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK ....

FFS I hate it now, hate it hate it hate it......

No, enemies dont kill me, but I dont do anything with an ESF anymore apart from get one, fly for 4-5 minutes....LOCK, evade......LOCK, evade.... Kill 1, kill 2, Kill a MBT, DIE....

Critisize me all you want guys, ask me to L2P whatever, but if I wanna fly an ESF for longer than 5 mins I need to go to a Continent we utterly dominate and fly around our territory looking for saps to try and kill.

Yeah good fun, love it !! (/sarcasm)

Sunderers did NOT need an AA gun. (why have Skyguards and AA MAXs?)
MBTs did NOT need an AA gun. (why have Skyguards and AA MAXs?)

Annihialator: WHY ? - Why a weapon that nullifies the need to have the Hades or the Nemesis? Why a weapon that means one HA can be counter to both MBT and ESF.....

Constant Annihilator "Squads" taking up ridges and locking down a quarter of the continent.... Why do Lock on Weapons have so much range?

Revamp ESFs,

Have different lolpods for AV and it does fuck all damage to infantry.... Let the ESF get the Anti Infantry gun in order to shoot infantry, otherwise stay away form them....

Do this change and remove half the fuckin Lock on weapons from game, or reduce the lock on range....

To be honest, I am so fuckin fed up, i cannot be arsed to start thinking fo solutions anymore because they've all been discussed on these forums at length and ignored, ignored, ignored.

(apologies for the rant I had some drinks tonight and am just fuming from a boring ass session of PS2, where I spent most of the time screaming at the LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK)

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 07:13 PM

------------------------------------
THE GAME NEEDS SPECIALIZATIONS
------------------------------------

Yup. Agreed.

haha I enjoyed reading your post Thunderhawk...I totally feel the same way sometimes. Don't worry you are not alone.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 07:18 PM

Maniya

2013-02-09, 07:26 PM

If you expecting to do some damage on organized troops on ground with 2~4 aircrafts, then you are simply wrong and playing this game wrong way. Now its the time to coordinate with your full aircrafts squad to distract ground forces and force them to equip AA to support ground squads of yours. Working as intended for me. And not even close to official announcement that AA just cross the line.

EDIT* Only thing that bothers me now is, Annihilators, that how they work at current. Thats all.

maradine

2013-02-09, 07:32 PM

For someone to be able to pull an ESF with Rocket pods, they need to be heavily invested in CERTS to that effect.

This is an important debate. Important enough to not fill with hyperbolic bullshit. Pods cost just the same as every single anti-aircraft weapon.

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 07:33 PM

I'm sure you'll find Vets out there who do disagree with you. Solely on the point that they would have to destroy anti-air defenses so the fly boys could do their job. Also, smaller anti-air, the Stinger specifically, has been described as key to defeating air powers. In operation cyclone it was said to be the reason the Mujahideen defeated the Soviets. Fact is, anti-air, even powerful guided ones like the stinger, are cheap compared to most others. Their abundance should never be questioned. Also, while air superiority has been used to great success, it is not "necessary". Look at any of the battles and skirmishes that happen in the current war that lack any sort of air support. Also look at the Pentagon's simulation. It was a small scale war with China over Taiwan. And China would win. Our simulated kills were extremely high, and our air dominance not threatened. The issue was the Chinese ground forces, and the thousands of missiles they have would destroyed air bases, naval assets, and any/all of our ground forces. Ground based weapons won that simulation, not air superiority. That's straight from the Pentagon, if they think superiority won't matter, then please tell us your qualifications and why you're smarter than a military think tank.

The stinger has been known to be a major tool, yes. They are abundant and I am not questioning that. I'm not even going to go into how much they cost to fire, maintain, etc etc because I don't want to derail the discussion.

I never said air superiority was necessary, I said it is common knowledge that having air superiority is a basic tactic to winning a conflict.

It is no surprise that ground forces in China would win a simulation, they have a ton of troops to use that overwhelm almost any attack due to sheer numbers. Also, I am not pretending to be a military genius but I know the basics.

I am trying to make a point in relation to this video game. If you have 500 guys fighting for a base you should easily be able to repel a enemy air attack due to your sheer numbers (eg China). However ONE guy with ONE anti-air rocket wouldn't be able to do much. This is my point. In the game currently one guy can wreak havoc on enemy aircraft which is a problem.

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 07:34 PM

I don't have a problem with the power of AA guns, I have a problem with the boring gameplay that comes out of them.

In a fighter it's not too bad as long as you're going low, since you'll usually have something to dive behind. Most of the time you won't get killed by the AA but by the enemy ESF that sees your smoke trail after you've taken 1 second of AA fire. Even fighters eventually just have to give up because if the battle gets too big and there is too much AA fire you just can't go near it anymore.

In a Liberator it's just awful though at this point. You can't even really get close to a big battle anymore without getting shredded by AA fire, and the extra hitpoints aren't worth jack if the time they buy you is a fraction of what it takes you to turn around and get over the next hill that a fighter takes. (And that joke of an afterburner the Liberator has that also removes your flares isn't helping)

Galaxies... They have enough HP to make the trip to the target zone, they don't have enough HP to make the trip back to safety though, so they are just eternally stuck in their role as the disposable dropship.

The really big problem with AA is just that air units can't do jack shit about getting shot by AA. I'm not saying air units should be able to defeat AA, but they should be able to skirmish with them. Some of the bases in the game have substantial terrain features near them that allow aircraft to fly in and out of the AAs LOS pretty quickly, but the vast majority of them don't. If you're assaulting a tower that has 700meters of flat land in all directions there is nothing you can do to get within firing range before being too damaged to have even a slight chance of making it back home.

The thing that makes AA vs. Air just really shitty in this game is simply the fact that aircraft have no way of defending themselves. Evasive maneuvers don't really work, all the weapons are either lock-on or a huge cone of proximity fuse shells, so it's not like you can really dodge any of that in the sense of "see it coming and get out of the way", in fact I'd argue that with the Liberator or Galaxy you NEED to have the High G airframe just to be able to move quickly enough to get your whole building sized aircraft out of the path of a projectile you can see coming like a tank shell or dumbfire rocket. Against AA at best you can alter your heading all the time so that the enemy AA gunners have to average your movement instead of being able to accurately lead you, but that just reduces damage a bit, at the expense of all your ability to shoot back.
Anything bigger than a fighter is also just too huge and too slow to get a major benefit from terrain. There only are a few bases where the mountains around are so extreme that you could can hide Galaxies and Liberators in them, but for the most part the major installations are pretty free standing, so good luck getting anywhere near them.

Basically as far as I'm concerned if they want to make the air to ground game worthwhile they need to do one of two things:

Either think really hard about how to give aircraft the same duality between offensive and defensive play that ground units have, where you can forego attacking to move carefully through a dangerous area. This could be done in a variety of ways, like having some kind of cloaking mechanic that allows aircraft to hide in plain sight, some kind of "sky terrain" like clouds to hide in, change all the AA weapons to be heavily skill and counterplay based where the pilot can theoretically actively dodge absolutely everything you throw at him or some other way that gives you really involved counterplay against AA weapons.

Or they could say that they simply can't figure out a way in which pilots can avoid getting shot, and balance air combat in the same way that MMORPGs where you also can't avoid getting hit are balanced, by introducing a system that relies on mid air heals to give aircraft a chance to stay up there, like maybe having a Galaxy that has giant Nanite-dispensers in its side slots, or something like that. At least then both sides are playing a stupid numbers game.

Right now being in an Aircraft feels like you're being attacked by weapons that damn near can't miss, most of the time over terrain that gives you no way to get out of their line of sight, with no way to quickly recover even if you do break their LOS, and nothing you can really do to defend yourself.

The only saving grace to aircraft is that they still absolutely dominate when there is no AA around, or when the enemy has been sufficiently beaten down by ground units so that you can just move in for mop-up duties. In all honesty though, those aren't that fun either. Getting easy kills on people who can't fight back doesn't make me happy I'm in an aircraft, it just makes me think "Now that guy feels just as bad as I do when I try to participate in a big battle with lots of AA".

Rockit

2013-02-09, 07:39 PM

I tell you guys. Those guys in Romonia are so far in poverty It's just sad what they represent.

Eliphas

2013-02-09, 07:40 PM

I have to agree that there maybe some broken aspect to the fire and for get missiles. But it seems that most players are new to the PS2 concept. I only played PS1 when I found out about PS2 was in development. The first time I got into the thick of it in PS2 I got goose bumps and a "Oh my god this is F'n EPIC" feeling that I never received from any other FPS. I have been playing games since the early 90's and this game is the answer to my childhood dreams. I died alot but did not get upset becuase of the understanding that this is not a 16, 24 or 64 player lobby. This is why I defend the fire and forget weapon systems becuase of all the variables involved. Do I have all of the anwsers for balance....nope. Just the understanding that I am just one dude and not some crazy demigod and I like it that way.

maradine

2013-02-09, 07:43 PM

I've decided to do the next response as video. Partially because I have the footage lying around, and partially because I'll take any excuse to spend a few hours in FCPX.

ESF, Attack Runs, and G2A

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 07:45 PM

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 07:50 PM

I've decided to do the next response as video. Partially because I have the footage lying around, and partially because I'll take any excuse to spend a few hours in FCPX.

ESF, Attack Runs, and G2A (http://youtu.be/0I0ZdXQgAV8)

Excellent video. Despite saying you're not a smart pilot, you are. You know your capabilities. Some might say that's cocky of you not to repair...but, I value confidence in people. When you're confident for a reason as you are its even better.

Maniya

2013-02-09, 07:56 PM

I've decided to do the next response as video. Partially because I have the footage lying around, and partially because I'll take any excuse to spend a few hours in FCPX.

ESF, Attack Runs, and G2A (http://youtu.be/0I0ZdXQgAV8)

You can combine this with high approach dive bombing as well defends on situations. very nice video : )

maradine

2013-02-09, 07:59 PM

You can combine this with high approach dive bombing as well defends on situations. very nice video : )

I've found dive-bombing to be a one-way ticket to getting bounced by fighter cover, but the video floating around is a very nice demo. :)

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 08:00 PM

One guy with one anti-air rocket should still remain a match for a single fighter. Even a single miss that's close by can have disastrous consequences for an aircraft. Korean Air Line Flight 007 demonstrates that perfectly. The missiles fired by the Russians detonated a space off from the plane, and the shrapnel thrown did the damage. It caused damage to all sorts of systems, and eventually led to loss of control. The plane was doomed from something other than a direct hit. A single man can certainly threaten a few ESF's, but he can't completely destroy them by himself unless the pilot is stupid enough to return before repairs. Even a single ESF survives a hit. A single, albeit damaging, direct hit that causes a large portion of damage makes sense. Would you rather getting hit less caused loss of control, or nasty performance issues that lead to all sorts of problems? One vs one, the ESF can take it. You can kill a guy, be hit by a lock on missile and survive to tell the tale. Seems fine. Furthermore, everybody should invest in flares. Aircraft today are equipped with them for a reason. Helicopters, jets, loads of them. Be thankful the flares at least work, modern missiles may not be fooled by such a technique.

On a side note, there was a post here on the forums somewhere regarding dive bombing style tactics, that works extremely well, even against large groups of anti-air forces. Find that, and perhaps you'll boost your effectiveness.

One guy with one rocket should be a good deterant to a single ESF but he should not be able to kill a bunch of air or deter 5 ESFs. No, a single man cannot destroy a ESF with rockets but he sure can in a max or a turret quite easily.

I would rather be able to fly out of my warpgate without hearing lock lock lock lock lock. A ESF can survive a missile. That is great. Most of the time I see ESFs getting shot at by 4 missiles at a time plus turrets plus sunderers plus MBTs plus other aircraft. How much is too much?

Flares are great for one missile. Too bad you pop them once and get locked on 10 more times.

A highly skilled aspect of the game (AIR) is being too easily countered by a low skill aspect of the game (AA). This is what people call unbalanced.

Also I appreciate your suggestion for me to look at that tactics thread...however I already use many tactics and am very effective when using aircraft for their intended purpose. Still get shot down too quick.
I could point you in the direction of some guides to boost your effectiveness in making a forum post if you'd like?

PredatorFour

2013-02-09, 08:04 PM

Composite armour ftw:)

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 08:05 PM

I've decided to do the next response as video. Partially because I have the footage lying around, and partially because I'll take any excuse to spend a few hours in FCPX.

ESF, Attack Runs, and G2A (http://youtu.be/0I0ZdXQgAV8)

Your video is nice, but it's simply not truthful.

For one, you're in the Indar canyons, which is one of the regions in the game with the most verticality. It's one of the few regions where aircraft can avoid AA fire relatively easily by staying over the hills or diving into the canyons depending on whether the guns are top or bottom.

Secondly, your entire view of the situation is based on ESF attack runs, which are incredibly fast, can be executed very low to the ground, and with ESFs turn speed and afterburners they can reverse direction and run away incredibly fast. If you did anything comparable with a Liberator or Galaxy it wouldn't be 5 seconds in and out, 5 seconds is what you'd take just to turn the plane around.

The enemies you fight also aren't really using heavy AA equipment, it's just a bunch of annihilators. In the end when they get a few Bursters going you're getting beat up pretty damn quickly. While annihilators are annoying, it's not really the kind of dome of death AA coverage that really makes flying pointless.

What I see is a good demonstration of the ideal situation for fighters, but most of the time in the game you'll see something different, and even with what you were showing, one more Burster would have made even the successful and quick attack runs suicide.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 08:07 PM

Trying to tell me flares don't break all active lock on missiles and block all lock on attempts for a set time period? Even base flares give you enough time to get away. Also, your tact has changed from AA being too effective, to AA being to Abundant. We discussed that earlier. AA is abundant. It is the abundance that kills you, not the individual soldier.

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 08:15 PM

Also, your tact has changed from AA being too effective, to AA being to Abundant. We discussed that earlier. AA is abundant. It is the abundance that kills you, not the individual soldier.

My tact has not changed, AA is too effective...like I explained in detail in my original post. I am attempting to respond to your arguments in a way you can understand which seems to be quite difficult.

The strength of AA remains to be the issue. Burster MAXes, turrets, etc can shoot down multiple enemy aircraft very quickly. If a pilot goes into a area with 1 AA MAX they should be able to identify where he is, and have a good chance of taking him out. How things are currently the ESF pilot has no chance, MAX almost always win. The only solution is to bug out.

Now if a pilot flies into a area with 5 AA maxes he should get shot down...that is where abundance comes into play. I have no problem getting shot down when the enemy has a ton of AA and is using it appropriately. Obviously they have the advantage against one ESF. However, if it was balanced, the AA in this situation would be effective because there was more then one NOT because it was too powerful.

maradine

2013-02-09, 08:16 PM

Your video is nice, but it's simply not truthful.

For one, you're in the Indar canyons, which is one of the regions in the game with the most verticality. It's one of the few regions where aircraft can avoid AA fire relatively easily by staying over the hills or diving into the canyons depending on whether the guns are top or bottom.

Secondly, your entire view of the situation is based on ESF attack runs, which are incredibly fast, can be executed very low to the ground, and with ESFs turn speed and afterburners they can reverse direction and run away incredibly fast. If you did anything comparable with a Liberator or Galaxy it wouldn't be 5 seconds in and out, 5 seconds is what you'd take just to turn the plane around.

The enemies you fight also aren't really using heavy AA equipment, it's just a bunch of annihilators. In the end when they get a few Bursters going you're getting beat up pretty damn quickly. While annihilators are annoying, it's not really the kind of dome of death AA coverage that really makes flying pointless.

What I see is a good demonstration of the ideal situation for fighters, but most of the time in the game you'll see something different, and even with what you were showing, one more Burster would have made even the successful and quick attack runs suicide.

If I filmed the exact same footage on Esamir would you change your mind? If I filmed the exact same footage from the cockpit of a Liberator, would you change your mind? Are you entering into the record that these things aren't possible?

Further, yes, that was a wonderful run. However, it was far from a rarity. Sometimes, it's a shitty run for me. Combat is situational. I have never, however, felt that I was denied from participating in any battle. There's always an edge of coverage - you find it and fight.

Finally, yes, when they pulled enough AA dedicated to drop me, I dropped. And the Magriders moved in and cleaned them off the bloody map. We won the battle. Don't know how you're measuring, but I'd call that the point.

edit: I suppose we'll have to table the Esamir question until there's, you know, a fight on Esamir.

Binkley

2013-02-09, 08:19 PM

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 08:28 PM

This kind of condescension could only come from someone who doesn't play infantry. "We fly, that requires skill" Give me a fucking break. How can you think that succeeding as infantry is low skill? Infantry are soft. Pretty much everything kills them more or less instantly. So not only do we need to worry about dying 25 different ways without warning at any moment, but we are also tasked with doing everything thing of importance, namely capturing bases. Facing a myriad of threats, I need to cross open ground, avoid detection to out flank my enemy or destroy a generator, all the while keeping an eye out for air power that can insta-gib me without warning. On the rare times that I spot them first, I can pull out my lock-on launcher and attempt a shot. This attempt will result in a kill exactly never, unless the aircraft is already damaged, and attempting this shot will put me in grave danger by exposing me and my position and is a distraction to my primary mission. But it will often chase them off and if it didn't cost me my life, I can then continue on to my objective.

Yes, I can band together with other infantry to stand up to air power, that's called teamwork, and we are often successful. I don't think that should be removed from the game.

I play a ton of infantry, more then air actually. However infantry in this game requires less skill then flying a ESF does. I understand the kind of threats infantry face as I face them on the ground just like you do. The difference is when you die as infantry you just spawn again, when you die in aircraft you are on cooldown, it costs resources, etc etc. Plus I bet if you wanted to, you could attack a base on foot in a workaround way as to mitigate many of those threats, I know I do.

Just to reiterate, I never said infantry required no skill. I said low-skill. Point and click (which is what most people do in this game) is easier then flying a ESF. When you add in tactics, teamwork, etc etc to infantry combat it obviously becomes harder.

I would never want teamwork removed from the game if that is what you are implying. In fact it is the opposite, I desperately wish this game provided MORE rewards and opportunities for teamwork not less. Getting together to stand up to air power is exactly what should be necessary to deter air. One guy in a MAX suit should not be able to do it.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 08:30 PM

I am trying to make a point in relation to this video game. If you have 500 guys fighting for a base you should easily be able to repel a enemy air attack due to your sheer numbers (eg China). However ONE guy with ONE anti-air rocket wouldn't be able to do much. This is my point. In the game currently one guy can wreak havoc on enemy aircraft which is a problem.

One guy with one rocket should be a good deterant to a single ESF but he should not be able to kill a bunch of air or deter 5 ESFs. No, a single man cannot destroy a ESF with rockets but he sure can in a max or a turret quite easily.

I would rather be able to fly out of my warpgate without hearing lock lock lock lock lock. A ESF can survive a missile. That is great. Most of the time I see ESFs getting shot at by 4 missiles at a time plus turrets plus sunderers plus MBTs plus other aircraft. How much is too much?

Flares are great for one missile. Too bad you pop them once and get locked on 10 more times.

My tact has not changed, AA is too effective...like I explained in detail in my original post. I am attempting to respond to your arguments in a way you can understand which seems to be quite difficult.

The strength of AA remains to be the issue. Burster MAXes, turrets, etc can shoot down multiple enemy aircraft very quickly. If a pilot goes into a area with 1 AA MAX they should be able to identify where he is, and have a good chance of taking him out. How things are currently the ESF pilot has no chance, MAX almost always win. The only solution is to bug out.

Now if a pilot flies into a area with 5 AA maxes he should get shot down...that is where abundance comes into play. I have no problem getting shot down when the enemy has a ton of AA and is using it appropriately. Obviously they have the advantage against one ESF. However, if it was balanced, the AA in this situation would be effective because there was more then one NOT because it was too powerful.

I've attached some quotes by you that point out both strength, and abundance as issues. Your first seems to indicate strength is the issue, your second seems to indicate abundance. "10 more times..." Furthermore, I posted something on Korean Airlines flight 007 somewhere along the way. It illustrated perfectly how much damage shrapnel can do to aircraft, that perfectly explains MAX units with flak. As far as turrets go, you can look at the Phalanx CIWS. It destroys aircraft or missiles in less time than any of the turrets in planetside do. Aircraft are extremely fragile things, as demonstrated by bird strikes. A round of ammunition designed to bring down an aircraft should do just that without issue. Same for missiles. That is why ground troops need to target such installations.

Something you'll like, and probably agree with: I would support a missile designed to find, lock on and destroy anti-air. And not just turrets, but any sort of anti-air. In modern times we have such missiles for exactly that purpose. They typically destroy radar so AA missiles can't fire, but it could be modified slightly to accomplish more. ESF's would have to be modified, but I always support adding another set of slots to make it more customiseable. Or sacrifice some ammo capacity on your other secondary weapon to make room for them. That just makes sense to me.

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 08:32 PM

If I filmed the exact same footage on Esamir would you change your mind? If I filmed the exact same footage from the cockpit of a Liberator, would you change your mind? Are you entering into the record that these things aren't possible?

They are perfectly possible, I have footage of me running a Liberator with one person into and out of AA fire quickly enough to not die right here that specifically talks about flying low to the ground in a Liberator:

Rant: Using a Liberator wrong feels so right - YouTube

The reality is though, no matter what you do you won't be able to show me a video of any aircraft having a long, interesting fight with AA units. At the end of the day all you'll ever see is unavoidable damage and a run for the hills. Even if you're successful doing that, you eventually just start asking yourself why infantry gets to respawn from a Sundy just so they don't have to ever suffer more than a 10 second break in the action, but you have to spend a long time getting to a secure base and repairing.

Your aircraft being rendered un-fun by AA doesn't require them to kill you. It just requires them to limit the amount of time you spend actually fighting people to maybe 5% your actual time flying around.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 08:35 PM

I suppose we'll have to table the Esamir question until there's, you know, a fight on Esamir.

Come to Jaeger server, NC will give you a fight. :D I can be the target while you film a new video for him. Or, you know...I may try to shoot you down...

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 08:39 PM

I've attached some quotes by you that point out both strength, and abundance as issues. Your first seems to indicate strength is the issue, your second seems to indicate abundance. "10 more times..." Furthermore, I posted something on Korean Airlines flight 007 somewhere along the way. It illustrated perfectly how much damage shrapnel can do to aircraft, that perfectly explains MAX units with flak. As far as turrets go, you can look at the Phalanx CIWS. It destroys aircraft or missiles in less time than any of the turrets in planetside do. Aircraft are extremely fragile things, as demonstrated by bird strikes. A round of ammunition designed to bring down an aircraft should do just that without issue. Same for missiles. That is why ground troops need to target such installations.

Something you'll like, and probably agree with: I would support a missile designed to find, lock on and destroy anti-air. And not just turrets, but any sort of anti-air. In modern times we have such missiles for exactly that purpose. They typically destroy radar so AA missiles can't fire, but it could be modified slightly to accomplish more. ESF's would have to be modified, but I always support adding another set of slots to make it more customiseable. Or sacrifice some ammo capacity on your other secondary weapon to make room for them. That just makes sense to me.

The main issue remains to be strength. However when you have a ton of AA that is very strong abundance comes into the mix. The two issues are intertwined. Obviously more of something very powerful just becomes more powerful.

My point is that effectiveness of AA is the primary issue as in I do not believe removing sources of AA while still keeping them powerful is the solution.

I would love it if ground troops would target AA installations more...however the game doesn't reward teamwork like that enough in my opinion. When I am on the ground I try to drop a AA MAX or turret when I see one but most of my teammates are just after kills.

I would agree with you on the lock on missile for anti-air. I am all for making things more customizable and I think that would be fun to have.

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 08:48 PM

The main issue remains to be strength. However when you have a ton of AA that is very strong abundance comes into the mix. The two issues are intertwined. Obviously more of something very powerful just becomes more powerful.

Not really, for ground weapons there tends to be a point of diminishing returns. For example, if you're trying to hold a certain chokepoint with infantry you hit the point where more infantry simply isn't better. Friendly fire becomes an issue, enemies will start to grenade spam, and enemies will actively try to look for another avenue of attack.

For anti air however, every single anti air gun anywhere in the region can usually shoot at any aircraft that dares to go higher than 50 meters off the ground, so where are the diminishing returns there? It's just more firepower, and air also doesn't have chokepoints in the same way that ground does. A building with two entrances takes at least two people to defend, but aircraft never have the benefit of being able to take "another way in" if one way is too heavily defended. There is no such thing as shooting AA in the back.

maradine

2013-02-09, 08:48 PM

The reality is though, no matter what you do you won't be able to show me a video of any aircraft having a long, interesting fight with AA units.

Nor would I, because I don't think the nature of interaction you describe is necessary or particularly desirable. It's artificial and counter-narrative. I acknowledge it's what you want, and that's fine, but I don't.

Infantry gets to respawn from a Sundy just so they don't have to ever suffer more than a 10 second break in the action, but you have to spend a long time getting to a secure base and repairing.

Because infantry is the star of warfare, and the engine of territory capture. We are supporting roles, defined by our interaction with it.

Your aircraft being rendered un-fun by AA doesn't require them to kill you. It just requires them to limit the amount of time you spend actually fighting people to maybe 5% your actual time flying around.

I'm having a metric ton of fun. I'm sorry you, and others, aren't. I want you to have fun. But, not at the expense of me having fun. A game where air is just another unit, but coincidentally in the sky, is not fun. In that world, I go back to DCS:A-10 on Wednesday nights, or get drug back into War Thunder. So, it's find the synthesis, or someone's going to be unhappy. Currently, that's not me.

There is no such thing as shooting AA in the back.

Come on, dude. SGs have a 2 second TTK form the rear with rockets. You literally shoot them in the back from the approach they're not covering.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 08:51 PM

The main issue remains to be strength. However when you have a ton of AA that is very strong abundance comes into the mix. The two issues are intertwined. Obviously more of something very powerful just becomes more powerful.

My point is that effectiveness of AA is the primary issue as in I do not believe removing sources of AA while still keeping them powerful is the solution.

I would love it if ground troops would target AA installations more...however the game doesn't reward teamwork like that enough in my opinion. When I am on the ground I try to drop a AA MAX or turret when I see one but most of my teammates are just after kills.

I would agree with you on the lock on missile for anti-air. I am all for making things more customizable and I think that would be fun to have.

Aircraft are inherently fragile, that's why rain, ice and birds threaten them. Even military aircraft.

On targeting AA installations more. Perhaps with the update we'll see that. Aren't points awarded now for killing larger threats? I picked up a kill yesterday on a Max unit. I got the typical kill, the max kill, and something else that I thought was because he was so dangerous, or he had caused so much damage. It was like 300 points. If it was kill based, then there's not much you can do against AA units, because typically its not one guy killing everyone. Perhaps they can put a points bonus in for killing AA units based on how many friendly aircraft are around, how long they've been active, and how much damage they've done to aircraft.

Perhaps an equation like this would work. Points = (amount friendly aircraft per territory)x25 + (amount of damage done to aircraft by target)x(some value small enough to award a balanced amount of points) + (time active(seconds))x.25

How's that sound?

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 08:58 PM

I'm having a metric ton of fun. I'm sorry you, and others, aren't. I want you to have fun. But, not at the expense of me having fun. A game where air is just another unit, but coincidentally in the sky, is not fun.

I agree with you about not wanting to take away other peoples fun, but I'm not sure what you even mean by saying "air is just another unit that's coincidentally in the sky".

Making these quick attack runs with a ton of downtime in between isn't what all air needs to boil down to IMO. Air units in Planetside 2 maybe suffer because they are a hybrid between a jet and a helicopter. You like to use your fighter like a jet, and it's perfectly suited for that, anyone using it as a helicopter gets their shit pushed in though.

I see the appeal of having a strike craft that comes into a target area, drops a shitload of damage and then leaves. I just also see the appeal of commanding a gunship that hovers overhead an area and has a drawn out fight with enemies.

When you're talking about the Liberator it falls more on the gunship side, and it just doesn't do so well against all those weapons designed to kill something one fifth the size that does attack runs.
For example, the Dalton is technically a better anti tank weapon than Rocket Pods, but rocket pods can kill a tank in a single volley from behind, so a good fighter pilot can go for the quick kill and then run. With the Dalton it takes a couple shots, no matter how good your gunner is, so you can't go for a quick in and out in the same way, you need to have that staying power to really do your thing.

I want an aircraft that can loiter in the sky and have a good long fight with the enemy. I don't care if I don't kill tanks in 2 seconds or turn 10 infantry to ashes in a single volley. I'd be fine just firing Cobalts at them.

Right now aircraft get forced into attack run type gameplay, and that's also what forces aircraft weapons to be insanely strong to be effective at that, so the second an aircraft does have the freedom to stick around it becomes absurdly overpowered. I would much rather have an aircraft with much weaker weapons that gets to stick around and fight for a good long time.

At the very least I want the attack run gameplay to be more involved, not so heavily dependent on terrain that rarely ever extends beyond 20 meters high, and not so awfully one sided where a well placed AA unit on top of a tower or mountain can hit anything in the sky and you have no way to outmaneuver them or outsmart them or surprise them...

Come on, dude. SGs have a 2 second TTK form the rear with rockets. You literally shoot them in the back from the approach they're not covering.

I wasn't being literal about shooting an AA unit in the back, I meant that when you play as an aircraft there is no way to approach an enemy anti air position from a direction that they aren't ready for. Again the example of the building with infantry. If you know one door is heavily defended you go through the other door. If you know a base has heavy AA cover though you can't approach through another sky.

james

2013-02-09, 09:00 PM

AA is fine, the problem with PS2, is you can not SOLO period. This is game where the only thing matters is numbers, if you have more you win for the most part.

maradine

2013-02-09, 09:00 PM

How's that sound?

I'd prefer we look into things that already have precedent - We provide SGs and Bursters radar fire control, and provide pilots with passive radar designation of every one of them within 3km, and ALGMs that can target active sets.

When you're talking about the Liberator it falls more on the gunship side, and it just doesn't do so well against all those weapons designed to kill something one fifth the size that does attack runs.
For example, the Dalton is technically a better anti tank weapon than Rocket Pods, but rocket pods can kill a tank in a single volley from behind, so a good fighter pilot can go for the quick kill and then run. With the Dalton it takes a couple shots, no matter how good your gunner is, so you can't go for a quick in and out in the same way, you need to have that staying power to really do your thing.

So let's buff the Lib's composite back up. I wasn't particularly unhappy when they were much more durable.

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 09:01 PM

Aircraft are inherently fragile, that's why rain, ice and birds threaten them. Even military aircraft.

On targeting AA installations more. Perhaps with the update we'll see that. Aren't points awarded now for killing larger threats? I picked up a kill yesterday on a Max unit. I got the typical kill, the max kill, and something else that I thought was because he was so dangerous, or he had caused so much damage. It was like 300 points. If it was kill based, then there's not much you can do against AA units, because typically its not one guy killing everyone. Perhaps they can put a points bonus in for killing AA units based on how many friendly aircraft are around, how long they've been active, and how much damage they've done to aircraft.

Perhaps an equation like this would work. Points = (amount friendly aircraft per territory)x25 + (amount of damage done to aircraft by target)x(some value small enough to award a balanced amount of points) + (time active(seconds))x.25

How's that sound?

Yeah I've gotten a few of those "badass" kills that reward a lot of XP but it was totally random its not like I knew some dude was going to be a high threat kill so I was chasing him around. I wish they were marked somehow so everyone knew who to go after.

I like the idea of that equation. The XP debate and my opinions on it are a whole other can of worms but anything to reward more teamwork I'm usually in favor of. As long as players are well aware how much more of a reward you get for killing a AA MAX then I think it could work.

I would love to tie the rewards into resources somehow too, not sure how that would work.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 09:06 PM

I'd prefer we look into things that have already have precedent - We provide SGs and Bursters radar fire control, and provide pilots with passive radar designation of every one of them within 3km, and ALGMs that can target active sets.

Yeah, I mentioned something akin to that prior. But a simple xp modifier is very easy to add instead of new abilities and equipment. Perhaps a combination of the two. Implement the equation first, and implement the others when they're done being developed.

Yeah I've gotten a few of those "badass" kills that reward a lot of XP but it was totally random its not like I knew some dude was going to be a high threat kill so I was chasing him around. I wish they were marked somehow so everyone knew who to go after.

I like the idea of that equation. The XP debate and my opinions on it are a whole other can of worms but anything to reward more teamwork I'm usually in favor of. As long as players are well aware how much more of a reward you get for killing a AA MAX then I think it could work.

I would love to tie the rewards into resources somehow too, not sure how that would work.

It just seems certain things need to be encouraged, and points is an effective, not to mention easy, way to do it.

Now regarding tying it in to resources. How feasible would that be? You'd get guys like me who rarely use resources. At the end of my gaming session I purchase grenades and med kits, but not during. Tying it into resources would mean some people physically wouldn't get the entire reward.

ChrisLand

2013-02-09, 09:10 PM

It just seems certain things need to be encouraged, and points is an effective, not to mention easy, way to do it.

Now regarding tying it in to resources. How feasible would that be? You'd get guys like me who rarely use resources. At the end of my gaming session I purchase grenades and med kits, but not during. Tying it into resources would mean some people physically wouldn't get the entire reward.

Ya it definitely needs to be encouraged. Points work. I guess I am just a big fan of trying to make resources matter more. It may not be feasible in this situation, but I just really want this game to revolve around taking/holding territory rather then XP and anytime I see a possible opportunity to interject that philosophy I try to :lol:.

SGOniell

2013-02-09, 09:14 PM

Ya it definitely needs to be encouraged. Points work. I guess I am just a big fan of trying to make resources matter more. It may not be feasible in this situation, but I just really want this game to revolve around taking/holding territory rather then XP and anytime I see a possible opportunity to interject that philosophy I try to :lol:.

Not going to blame a guy for trying.

Helwyr

2013-02-09, 09:16 PM

[...] "We fly, that requires skill" Give me a fucking break. How can you think that succeeding as infantry is low skill? [...]

Unfortunately that's a lot of these Air advocates' attitude. They genuinely think Air is the most skilled play type and believe that balance is aircraft being hugely superior to everything else. As long as that attitude remains there's little point in really engaging with them in a rational discussion because it cannot be had.

The only reason I responded to Hamma, was that this is his website and he's very influential on PS2/SOE. One would hope reasonable enough to step back and see the big picture. I'd love to see some Air player come up with changes that improve their gameplay that was reasonable and addressed non Air players concerns, but not seeing it here.

Eduard Khil

2013-02-09, 09:18 PM

The problem (as usual) is that this game cannot stablish a defined number of AA, ranging from lock ons to flak and even AA HMG.

Anyone saying otherwise is biased or does not play on heavily populated servers, the thing with AA is that it really requires zero to no skill and anyone can do it, unlike aircraft which actually take practice to master (this logic is easily proven by people who whined about AA damage to have it buffed to this point), so instead of grabbing aircraft to fight back the opposition, people simply grab a gun on the ground that does extreme damage to them and spam away in numbers.

You can still fly but it is beyond unrewarding for the stress it causes and the skill it requires, being an aircraft these days is just being the farm as a vehicle which is why many have stopped flying, the skies are now filled with many others who do not fly and just kamikaze or use it as a taxi, they could keep this type of balance but they would have to make aircraft free and kill 80% of the cooldown timer.

The game was visually stunning, no less and definitely feels less epic than release, having massive dogfights while ground troops fought on the ground facilities on Amerish is long gone.

The annihilator is a whole other problem, lock ons should remain as they were on release, long chase routes, normal lock on timer and the damage they had.

Render distance is another problem.

The current problems are:

AA damage
The effectiveness of the AA HMGs
The TR vulcan (hah)

They need to tone down all of the above to deterent, since you get rewarded exp just for hitting people now.

The annihilator is just a weapon too good to be true, there will be no way to ever nerf it to standards without making it completely useless for a single person, they should refund it and get rid of it.

Timealude

2013-02-09, 09:30 PM

i knew it was gonna be a problem when i saw them add the aa guns for the sundy

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 09:39 PM

So let's buff the Lib's composite back up. I wasn't particularly unhappy when they were much more durable.

That may make Liberators more powerful, but ultimately you're just walking the number of AA guns it takes to screw the pilots back and forth when you try to tweak damage and armor.

I would prefer if other aircraft were the biggest threat to Liberators, but ultimately everyone needs to get a good fight out of the game. AA needs to be relevant, it just shouldn't be damn near automatically successful.

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 09:59 PM

That may make Liberators more powerful, but ultimately you're just walking the number of AA guns it takes to screw the pilots back and forth when you try to tweak damage and armor.

I would prefer if other aircraft were the biggest threat to Liberators, but ultimately everyone needs to get a good fight out of the game. AA needs to be relevant, it just shouldn't be damn near automatically successful.

You cant make ESF the primarypreditor for aircrafts when ESF are rather good them selves at farming infantry.

Ghoest9

2013-02-09, 10:02 PM

Yup. Agreed.

haha I enjoyed reading your post Thunderhawk...I totally feel the same way sometimes. Don't worry you are not alone.

Yes such as ESF should only be good at fighting aircraft.

After you do then you can make infanrtry bad at chasing away ESF.

Methonius

2013-02-09, 10:17 PM

MyOdessa

2013-02-09, 10:38 PM

As an infantry player that has been killed hundreds of times by air that I could not see or defend against, I give you zero sympathy. Your argument is weak and all I can think is, "welcome to the game". Air has been OP since I started playing in December and now that things are improved, the whining of the fly boys is music to my ears. You got killed by a Vanguard? Hahaha. Guess how many times I've been mowed down by a hovering Scythe firing its guns through a third floor tower door? Or rocket-pod spamming, or spawn camping, or, or, or. I can easily make a list much longer than yours. You don't like AA on a sunderer? Well let me tell you how un-fun it is to have an aircraft intentionally hover just above the maximum elevation of your basilisk gun and bomb the shit out of you.

As a noob FPS player, after a couple days of playing my K/D was less than 0.2 and I wondered about the mad skilz of those 8+ K/D guys on the leader board. Well I've improved a bit since then and I've also realized that those guys with the sick K/Ds are all pilots, and I was the guy supporting all their fun by being farmed over and over.

Has the pendulum swung too far? I doubt it, but if it has, good, it's your turn to make it fun for me.

Spot on.

I am discussed to see flyboys hovering at the spawn room door, firing on it without regard even for their own troops, at the same time, enemy's ESF flying near by, completely ignored by spawn camping flyboys. Most ESF I see do nothing but farm ground, very few do any A2A.
I have no sympathy for farming ESF, and it goes double for assholes in Liberators.

Rothnang

2013-02-09, 10:43 PM

You cant make ESF the primarypreditor for aircrafts when ESF are rather good them selves at farming infantry.

If Rocket Pods weren't the best weapon for killing Liberators I wouldn't see that big of an issue with it. Actually the latest Walker buff kind of made AA missiles a solid choice against Liberators, since it has in fact become pretty dangerous to hang around behind one.

It's not about making aircraft the only units capable of fighting each other, it's more about making AA vs. Aircraft into more of a serious fight that you can actually enjoy.

Has the pendulum swung too far? I doubt it, but if it has, good, it's your turn to make it fun for me.

This is exactly the attitude that keeps any serious improvements from being made because people just pollute all feedback with their personal hatred of "the other side".

Ultimately what both sides want is a way to have a serious fight with the other. The devs have settled into an absolutely lazy method of appeasement for both sides by creating a state of balance where both sides get screwed over and can't enjoy the game some of the time.

That's not in any way a good state for the game.

Binkley

2013-02-09, 11:02 PM

I want an aircraft that can loiter in the sky and have a good long fight with the enemy. I don't care if I don't kill tanks in 2 seconds or turn 10 infantry to ashes in a single volley. I'd be fine just firing Cobalts at them.

Here's how that sounds to me: "I want an aircraft that can loiter in the sky (no flying skill required) and kill lots and lots of enemies. I don't care if I don't kill tanks in 2 seconds or turn infantry to ashes in a single volley, just so long as they can't fire back at me effectively enough to make me leave."

Where do your elite flying skills come into play? "Loitering in the sky" farming infantry is exactly what Liberators and ESFs have been doing since game launch. It made for a bad game experience for all but the pilots and it needed to be fixed.

We are all spawned into the game as infantry. You are not a tank or an ESF, you are a soft fragile person. Complaining that infantry can respawn in seconds is silly, since you can also respawn in seconds mister pilot. Lost you ESF? Grab a Lib. Got shot down again? Try an MBT. Vanguard took you out? Try a Lightning? Tank mine did you in? OMG....must you..... go INFANTRY!?! Nope! Your ESF timer is up! Phew!

Vashyo

2013-02-10, 12:54 AM

From what I see air still dominates as long as pilots dont linger near the zerg, in which case they should be toast with so many things firing at them anyway, especially if there's not much planes in the air.

Not everyone has any AA anyways, reason people get a lot of AA, imo is because you pilots have had so much fun farming that everyone's just plain tired of it and want payback. (me included)

Also one issue nerfing AA is that if AA doesnt feel effective LOT OF PEOPLE WILL STOP USING AA and then we're back in the old system.

Airplanes are a power-tool when used right, just like tanks and they should take more skill to use, not the other way around.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 01:07 AM

Here's how that sounds to me: "I want an aircraft that can loiter in the sky (no flying skill required) and kill lots and lots of enemies. I don't care if I don't kill tanks in 2 seconds or turn infantry to ashes in a single volley, just so long as they can't fire back at me effectively enough to make me leave."

I don't see where I said that nothing can take me down or that I wouldn't have to keep moving to avoid getting hit. And yea, when a Liberator can just park over a base because nothing is shooting at it anyone down there is going to have a horrible time.

All I'm saying is that I'd much rather have an aircraft that can stay in a fight for prolonged periods of time but that engages ground targets with weapons that aren't horribly strong, as opposed to having the current situation where aircraft weapons are insanely powerful because aircraft can only stay in a defended area for seconds at best, and can be completely locked out of big battles very easily.

I personally really dislike vehicle weapons that kill infantry with a big blast radius, I would prefer it if vehicle mounted machine guns were the best choice for that, simply because it would be more interesting gameplay wise. Splash damage just renders the vast majority of all cover useless. When you're dealing with tanks you can somewhat strategize around it and position yourself on the crest of a hill, where the tank shells can't strike the ground below or a wall behind you, so they become neutered, but aircraft always shoot down, so there is never any way to position yourself to avoid the splash.

Hitting an infantryman from an aircraft with a weapon that has no splash is pretty damn difficult, but it can be done, and it's a heck of a lot more rewarding than getting a kill for just barely clicking the ground next to a guy.

We are all spawned into the game as infantry. You are not a tank or an ESF, you are a soft fragile person. Complaining that infantry can respawn in seconds is silly, since you can also respawn in seconds mister pilot. Lost you ESF? Grab a Lib. Got shot down again? Try an MBT. Vanguard took you out? Try a Lightning? Tank mine did you in? OMG....must you..... go INFANTRY!?! Nope! Your ESF timer is up! Phew!

You can spend your time in a vehicle of one kind or another pretty much continuously, that's true, but if you want to play with a Liberator or with a fighter getting them blown up or shut out of the battle isn't suddenly fun just because you can pull a tank. I consider myself a vehicle player and I still play more with infantry than with vehicles, because Infantry is simply more important most of the time. A Liberator that's just picking off stragglers somewhere is pretty much a nonfactor in a battle over a facility, but just a few extra infantrymen can make the difference between pushing the enemy back or getting overrun.

From what I see air still dominates as long as pilots dont linger near the zerg, in which case they should be toast with so many things firing at them anyway, especially if there's not much planes in the air.

We need aircraft that are more useful in big battles, but less overpowered in smaller encounters. I simply see no reason why aircraft should be locked out of the fights that matter and instead just be incredibly good at killing off enemies executing a small scale attack somewhere. No unit should only exist to bully people, but not be able to be part of a real fight.

Helwyr

2013-02-10, 01:33 AM

All they need to do for lock ons is make it more of a team aspect for it to be accomplished by giving the infilitrator a designator device that they plant on the ground similar to bf3 and when it targets air those are what the ppl can lock onto with their lock on weapons. That way ppl cant just spam away at whatever they want.

You might be onto something here, but not for AA, rather aircraft. Make all effective Air to Ground weapons require a man on the ground with a laser targeter to hit anything. Doesn't need to be infiltrator only, it could be in the leadership tree. For game balance you can make the laser as identifiable as the sniper trace except it lasts as long as the laser is painting the target.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 01:41 AM

You might be onto something here, but not for AA, rather aircraft. Make all effective Air to Ground weapons require a man on the ground with a laser targeter to hit anything. Doesn't need to be infiltrator only, it could be in the leadership tree. For game balance you can make the laser as identifiable as the sniper trace except it lasts as long as the laser is painting the target.

I think it would be great if really powerful air weapons that can wreak mass devastation would rely on target painting from the ground, because it would give ground units the ability to defend themselves from air attack simply by taking out the ground units that are painting targets.

It wouldn't improve the situation without substantial changes to AA though. Painting a target for a Liberator strike in a huge battle just wouldn't help you any if the Liberator can't deliver because it can't go anywhere near a place where you have half a dozen AA guns or more.

Aurmanite

2013-02-10, 01:54 AM

Planetside.

Terran Republic.

Striker.

/thread.

Ironside

2013-02-10, 02:45 AM

don't have a lot of sympathy for air boys after being farmed by lolpods,
i do understand however how continual lock ons piss people off, i've spent a bit of time in
MBT's and the continual locks from infantry that don't render titsed me off

RobUK

2013-02-10, 03:04 AM

I do not think the amount of AA is a issue. The strength of AA is. I should not be able to sit on the top of a hill with a double burster MAX and kill a ESF in 10 seconds or less.

You have to be kidding here.

You think a dedicated AA platform that can do nothing but kill one thing, and needs the support of an Engineer and considerable cert investment to be even worth using, is overpowered if it kills the only thing it can kill, in 10 seconds? :eek:

There is an AA problem in this game. But the AA MAX is not it. Not in a million years. Did you play Planetside 1? That game had real AA MAX's that could kill a plane far quicker than the neutered things that are in this game.

The problem with this game is that there is far too much AA. There are too many types of AA and everybody can use it. Just like everybody can use planes, which causes the over abundance of AA in the first place. The everybody can do everything design goal is what ruined Planetside 2.

It's too late now. But we tried to hammer this home to the PS2 devs right back as far as early beta. Planetside was perfect in that respect.

Helwyr

2013-02-10, 03:16 AM

The everybody can do everything design goal is what ruined Planetside 2.

It's too late now. But we tried to hammer this home to the PS2 devs right back as far as early beta. Planetside was perfect in that respect.

Vanu praise you for the truth you speak!

RobUK

2013-02-10, 03:21 AM

Secondly, your entire view of the situation is based on ESF attack runs, which are incredibly fast, can be executed very low to the ground, and with ESFs turn speed and afterburners they can reverse direction and run away incredibly fast. If you did anything comparable with a Liberator or Galaxy it wouldn't be 5 seconds in and out, 5 seconds is what you'd take just to turn the plane around.

Therein lies the problem.

I'm not picking on you, because a lot people have that self same mindset.

So many people complain about balance in this game from a solo perspective. This is a combined arms game that requires teamwork. A Galaxy or Liberator should not be flying around without support.

Why would you do anything comparable to what was seen in that video using a Lib or Galaxy without support anyway?

Bags

2013-02-10, 04:27 AM

now air knows how it feels to be dominated :lol:

i'd have sympathy for pilots if they had sympathy for anyone else

Emperor Newt

2013-02-10, 05:05 AM

The everybody can do everything design goal is what ruined Planetside 2.
Yep. Although I would not say it ruines/ed the game but it leads to severe balancing problems. And every patch they do with I vs V vs A balancing is just trying to fix the symptoms, not the problem. Balance will never be 100% perfect, but with the everybody can use everything it won't ever get close to this. The mindset does not work in combined arms shooter.

And if they want to continue with the everybody has access to everything philosophy, then please give us infantry loadouts. Which they didn't introduce because they didn't want to have everybody have access to everything...

PredatorFour

2013-02-10, 05:13 AM

So there's more AA...... so what It was needed. Your really telling me that ESF's ARE NOT STILL cert farming killing machines ?!? Cos they are! It's still easy to farm kills with them for sure.

AA is well balanced now. So you can't hover spam anymore ....big deal. So you have to fly in, kill and GTFO now before your dead .... big deal.

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 05:17 AM

now air knows how it feels to be dominated :lol:

i'd have sympathy for pilots if they had sympathy for anyone else
I kindof have to agree...
Now it might have been just because I was playing late on a Saturday night, but I was flying right next to the NC Warpgate close enough to get the out of bounds warning, and I didn't see AA as a problem...

Hell, I actually took down a Scythe in that run, which was a pretty long one all things considered, only ended by a Skyguard backed up by a Sunderer MAX and Heavy nest...
...Even then, it was because I was stupid and tried to take on the Sunderer with my nose gun...

I have to ask, do you people really get HOW to fly in combat?
You can't just go where ever you please, you have to be mindful of where the enemy has bases, and where they could be firing on you from.

haisho

2013-02-10, 05:27 AM

One factor that has to be remembered is the scale of the game.

Although I'm glad that AA is actually effective, it's far too easy to hit that critical mass where you have enough grounded AA to obliterate anything flying in less than 2 seconds.

Although the other factor is whether people can be bothered to learn how to fly an ESF for air superiority. The proportion of aircraft to ground infantry is rather staggering.

Figment

2013-02-10, 06:37 AM

It's evolved in the direction where everyone can use AA? Not quite the direction I'd call "Evolution" more like "Let's give everyone AA weapons"
Your problem then is not the variety and strength of aa weapons, which is fine tbh (there are no specific aa guns on Sunderers btw, just basic weapons), but the cert system ketting everyone have everything.

That I agree completely with and causes numerical issues with every type of unit, including ESFs as nothing is naturally restricted. Bassically, BR40 syndrome.

ChipMHazard

2013-02-10, 07:03 AM

While I cannot comment of how effective AA is atm. I do agree that there are too many AA options in the game. I do agree that AA should be a more defined role i.e. they should limit AA to units that are actually designed to be AA like the Skyguard and AA-MAX. Then again I do believe that there are too many multi-role vehicles in the game.

Rolfski

2013-02-10, 07:12 AM

As I said, we need more playtime after the latest patch but my first impressions is that I'm not unhappy so far with air balance. My only complaint is that composite armor is still the only viable upgrade to go in that ESF slot, without it you just die way too quickly to any AA.

Lafen

2013-02-10, 07:14 AM

The most scarry thing to me is not AA.

Its the render distance.

Meatball Mobeus

2013-02-10, 07:35 AM

Not going to lie, the broken AA lock warning had made me rage quit a few times. I could of sworn they said that they fixed it in the last hot fix.

SMGs were a nice touch, same with the UI changes. But there have been so many issues after the last patch that I'm really starting to loose my patience with SOE.

Baneblade

2013-02-10, 09:45 AM

I think some adjustments are needed, mainly stop giving a reason to need AA just to go outside. A2G Rockets are the reason everyone is bloodthirsty for AA. And you still can't win a 1v1 against air no matter what your composition.

Skyguard Lit vs any ESF = Dead Lit

HA with any lock on vs any ESF = Dead HA and an ESF that would have taken more damage from a shotgun.

The problem air is complaining about happens when you multiply the numbers involved. I've seen ESFs have little trouble getting at least one kill before being chased off by AA in big fights.

What I'm surprised I don't see more of is AA hunting Libs. Libs can take a lot of hits from AA and even with that they can still outrange it pretty effectively.

Seriously, Libs need to be the primary ground attack air unit with ESFs hunting Libs and other ESFs.

My recommendation is that the ESF Dumb fire rockets change into a laser guided bomb of sorts that needs to be lazed by an infil from relatively close range. Then remove all AA Flak weapons from the MBT and Sunderer, keep the Lit as the primary Air defense vehicle, remove the Annihilator and refund the SC or certs for it. Keep the Hawk, though. And the MAX AA. Have to be able to take out the Libs :p

maradine

2013-02-10, 10:48 AM

Skyguard Lit vs any ESF = Dead Lit

This is not my experience. Certainly true if the ESF can line up the rear approach, but if the SG see's him coming, the fighter's toast or out after the first volley.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-10, 11:03 AM

I really havent played after the buff to flak armor on aircraft, but I thought the balance was pretty good before that hotfix.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 11:38 AM

So many people complain about balance in this game from a solo perspective. This is a combined arms game that requires teamwork. A Galaxy or Liberator should not be flying around without support.

Why would you do anything comparable to what was seen in that video using a Lib or Galaxy without support anyway?

Explain to me how "support" would make a Liberator or Galaxy any less vulnerable to AA please.

I've said it a million times, Aircraft don't have any effective defensive play, and that makes teamwork for aircraft really ineffective. Let's say two HAs are facing a tank, they can see where the tank is pointing its gun, the HA who seems to be the target ducks into cover to avoid getting killed, the other one takes a shot. If the tank reacts to the damage and looks to that HA he goes to hide while his partner takes a shot. That's how they can effectively work together to bring the tank down. With aircraft, especially bigger ones than Fighters that doesn't exist, if you're under attack by AA you just take the damage. The only way having more aircraft with you is going to get you a better shot is if you simply rush in with all of them and accept whatever losses you take. That's not teamwork though, that's zerging in the truest sense of the expression.

And don't give me that idiotic "If you don't have ground troops who can kill all the AA you shouldn't be in the area" line again. That's the biggest load of bullshit that people keep bringing up to justify bad balance. If your ground troops can at will exterminate all enemy AA they have already won the fight, no air support required.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-10, 11:50 AM

Explain to me how "support" would make a Liberator or Galaxy any less vulnerable to AA please.

I've said it a million times, Aircraft don't have any effective defensive play, and that makes teamwork for aircraft really ineffective. Let's say two HAs are facing a tank, they can see where the tank is pointing its gun, the HA who seems to be the target ducks into cover to avoid getting killed, the other one takes a shot. If the tank reacts to the damage and looks to that HA he goes to hide while his partner takes a shot. That's how they can effectively work together to bring the tank down. With aircraft, especially bigger ones than Fighters that doesn't exist, if you're under attack by AA you just take the damage. The only way having more aircraft with you is going to get you a better shot is if you simply rush in with all of them and accept whatever losses you take. That's not teamwork though, that's zerging in the truest sense of the expression.

And don't give me that idiotic "If you don't have ground troops who can kill all the AA you shouldn't be in the area" line again. That's the biggest load of bullshit that people keep bringing up to justify bad balance. If your ground troops can at will exterminate all enemy AA they have already won the fight, no air support required.

The simple answer is to work with a squad of aircraft. Five reavers in the air are five different targets for aa to shoot at. Working out how air coordinates to attack a particualr target or bug out all at once is up to the players. Infantry has had to work together from day one. I am not sorry that the solo esf experience has been largely taken out of this game.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 11:56 AM

How can five reavers work together to approach an AA position without some of them having to die to allow others to get there?

Simply throwing more aircraft at a fortified position does work to some extent, on Mattherson where I play Goon loves to do that, they just pull one Liberator after the other, and we just sit there and keep killing and killing and killing. They do end up with control of the sky in some sense of the word, but none of them are spending more than a minute with their aircraft.

I don't consider that to be a worthwhile form of teamwork though, teamwork to me means you work together with other people so that you can all do better, not you participate in a mad Banzai charge and hope someone else dies.

Haro

2013-02-10, 12:10 PM

I've played as both pilot and AA infantry quite a bit, and I can understand Hammas' frustration. The main difference between piloting aircraft and driving tanks in environments rich with counter classes is how you engage. Tanks have the benefit of fighting mostly on the same level and at closer distances than aircraft, and can identify and hit dangerous targets like maxes and HAs pretty easily. It also has an advantage in that it can use cover to improve survivability, and is easily repaired.

Aircraft have few of these advantages, and that makes all the difference. Aircraft are usually attacked first by AA units, and most of the time has little cover, even in Indar's canyons. AA is meant to be a deterrent, but at the moment it's all but impossible for aircraft to be effective in this asymmetrical match up. I don't think it's really a matter of what aircraft go up against, but how. By the time an aircraft can get within range and identify a target, it is already behind in an engagement when it's target has likely already spotted it and started firing.

How can we fix this? I think a good argument could be made for small nerfs to AA. Maybe a slight damage or accuracy nerf to flak, and longer lock on times for missiles. But more importantly, I think it's important to help aircraft easily identify threats. Lock on missiles could briefly give away the location of the shooter. I use a hawk often and I can just fire missile after missile at aircraft who are unable to find me and who are thoroughly occupied with avoiding my missile.

Flak is a little trickier. On one hand, their fire is easier to trace, but they can still escape detection until aircraft get close, and unleash hell from nowhere. When I use a dual-burster max, I always run with a few outfit mates as maxes or engis, we wait until aircraft close and they usually don't make it out. We obviously can't a similar who warning for flak as AA missiles: one is fire and forget, and the infantry can (and shoud have to) displace after every shot. Flak, typically coming from maxes, tanks, or turrets, is usually not as mobile, and requires more time and continued fire. Instead, I think infantry, namely infiltrators (perhaps via an upgrade) should be ale to mark AA targets that show up on the HUD of aircraft. This gives aircraft the potential to target and destroy AA if they can take the initiative and strike precisely.

TLDR version:

Unlike tanks, who often engage AV classes and have a chance to overcome them, aircraft rarely engage AA on even ground. It's not a matter of damage and numbers, but of how they engage: aircraft need to be supplemented with target locations so that they have a chance to engage their targets and destroy them, rather than constantly getting harassed with lttle chance to strike back. Better spotting of AA units and HUD icons for locations of lock on signals could help this.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-10, 12:14 PM

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 12:23 PM

Better information would be helpful, that's true. It would be nice if ground units could somehow communicate areas that are a target to the aircraft, because it's very difficult for aircraft to even identify a target before being very close.

I still think the biggest issue is simply the fact that aircraft have no real defensive play. Like you said about tanks, they can take cover. A tank can exist in combat range with units that can kill it, stay there and fight them for any amount of time as long as it continuously manages to take cover and repair and is resupplied by an ammo carrier. An aircraft has no way of staying in the fight the second anything starts shooting back, it comes down a pure numbers game of how long you can stay and attack.

I know if it was me that the sg had targeted I would break off and repair, allowing my TEAM to be able to close and destroy the target before bugging out.
I strongly urge you to get a squad of air together and start working out the logistics of teamwork thats needed in ps2.

I've been part of air squadrons, and it just doesn't work like that. You have to keep in mind that concentrated AA fire absolutely melts an aircraft, you have maybe a second before you explode when they open up. You will take heavy losses before you're even close enough to identify the targets.
Even if you do spot all the AA units and open up on them, the amount of damage you can reasonably do is minimal. Even if you kill absolutely every burster in the squad and all their support personnel, it takes 10 seconds for their medics and engineers to respawn, and maybe a minute to revive all the MAXes, repair them and ammo them up. By contrast every fighter you lost is stuck with at least a 5 minute cooldown, realistically more like 15.

Any wave attack in this game is basically just a shock tactic that outfits might use to distract an opponent, fully expecting to lose all the vehicles involevd. It's something you can do if you never had any intention to keep the vehicle in the first place, but if you want to fly then the last thing you want to do is file directly into the enemy death cannons.
Maybe a MAX crash is effective sometimes, but that's also only the case if you're fighting in a space where vehicles can't enter, and the power difference between a MAX and a regular Infantry unit is immense.

maradine

2013-02-10, 12:25 PM

I've said it a million times, Aircraft don't have any effective defensive play, and that makes teamwork for aircraft really ineffective.

And the counterargument still stands - aircraft's inherent mobility is it's defensive play, largest non-nerfable advantage, and the prime reason for it's dissimilar play to everything else. You can not have something with unlimited battlefield mobility interact with the rest of the battlefield on the same terms as things bound by speed and terrain. It simply can't happen. Air is different, and it's interaction is different. To modify it to the point where it is interacting in the manner you express effectively makes it not air.

Crazydrunkcanuk

2013-02-10, 12:55 PM

I agree with Hamma 100%, i play infantry and air both and have given up on air.
I am 30th or so on mattherson server so im not complete garbage at the game but air is now the most irritating and all around useless thing do do in the game. You simply cannot support troops on the ground in any fight that matters and the constant beep from lock ons has made the game annoying and irritating whenever i log in. Every single area of the game is affected by aa now, you can't dogfight and ignore the ground either because of the lock ons. i will be quitting soon (yes you can have my stuff and l2p and all that jazz). Infantry can have their cod in space i guess, this game completely destroyed the planetside feel for me when aa was buffed over and over and over and the final straw for me was the annihilator. Our squads now require 7 heavies 2 medics and 2 engies on the ground, every heavy must carry the annihilator (sad) because its just so effective. We sit on a ridge and completely lock down all air and vehicle travel around us.
Thats not combined arms thats just silly. I will come back when it feels less like lockonside and more like planetside. I think kids these days just do not want planetside, the new generation can't handle a combined arms game so sony is catering to them. I had high hopes for this game but it its being destroyed every day by bad decisions. I will keep checking in from time to time to see if they fixed lock ons and flare timers for tanks and air until then, peace out auraxis.
Im a 45 year old gamer who can actually afford to buy everything sony would have sent my way but they will get no more from me until lockons for 5 year old slow kids are fixed.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-10, 01:06 PM

ShadetheDruid

2013-02-10, 01:18 PM

Stuff.

Clearly SOE needs to ban "kids" from the game. Even better, they should hire you to identify these "kids" based on your arbitrary conditions! Amazing idea!

maradine

2013-02-10, 01:38 PM

Binkley

2013-02-10, 01:42 PM

Ive said this before tech test and I believe it to be at its truest now. Air needs more room to operate. The 1000 meter ceiling is too short and doesnt allow an air only playground. The flight ceiling needs to be extended above aa so that air can gather, recon, have dogfights and generally not interact with ground units at every moment. So my solution would be to increase the flight ceiling to 2000 meters and allow an air only environment in ps2.

I was going to suggest this too. I understand the fun of dogfighting and do not want it killed off by AA from the ground.

I also suggest that flares should work differently, namely they should affect all rockets in the area, not just those after that particular aircraft. This would give air squadrons a new defensive option. For example, a squadron could have a flare dropping ESF fly behind a liberator a drop flares to protect it.

SwiftRanger

2013-02-10, 02:04 PM

I can understand the complaints from both sides, although I am primarily grounded on the infantry war.

My two cents of theorycrafting/summarizing things people have said here:

Problems:
- Lock-on launchers (A2A and G2A) being fire-and-forget is cheesy and requires no skill.
- One-shot-kill bombardments from a Liberator are cheesy and require no skill. It's pretty much the best way to farm kills aside of using HE-tanks.
- ESF rocket pods are still too effective (against vehicles and infantry) and don't require much skill to use either.
- Nearly every ground vehicle can equip AA flak weaponry making the use of a Skyguard superfluous and creating too much effective G2A in a single space.
- Air-to-air conflicts are happening too close to the ground and therefore they are being interrupted too much by G2A.

Suggestions to fix these things/spice up the air component:
- Ditch the fire-and-forget system of the lock-on launchers (A2A and G2A), instead require them to keep their croshair somewhat over the aircraft they are targeting. This could be enhanced with having a mini-cam for the rocket on the side (cert idea?). Aircraft which is locked on can avoid missiles when they do a barrel roll at the last second before impact when the one who is targeting doesn't have the missile targeted right at the centre of the endangered aircraft until the impact.

- Let air pilots receive a signal on the map (a flash or something like that) from where the missile is coming from, only for a second or so just when the missile has been fired.

- Since air-to-air isn't even possible in some locations, increase the flight ceiling or introduce low-hanging clouds, that could be your cover. Aircraft high in the sky shouldn't be as vulnerable to missiles/flak as when they're flying lower.

- Nerf rocket pod and Liberator bombing damage a bit. One-fly-over kills or one-bomb-shell kills are the primary reasons the hate for air (from mainly infantry troops) has grown so big (this thread is the definitive evidence of it). It still feels ridiculous even now.

- Skyguards should be the main AA vehicle, cut back or nerf AA options of MBTs and Sunderers. Perhaps the developers could make it so that AA on MBT's and Sunderers is rather shaky/less effective when they are on the move than when they are stationary. Skyguards should perform fine in both cases.

- Introduce an alternative carpet bombing role for the liberator. It should make a frightening sound and the bombs can only be dropped when the lib in question is flying fast and rather low in a straight line for a period of time.

EDIT: Binkley's flare idea isn't bad either imo.

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 02:23 PM

Then remove all AA Flak weapons from the MBT and Sunderer, keep the Lit as the primary Air defense vehicle, remove the Annihilator and refund the SC or certs for it. Keep the Hawk, though. And the MAX AA. Have to be able to take out the Libs :p
Dude, they've already nerfed the Anni once since the last patch, and it can't dumb fire anyways.

They've also tighten up the cone on acquiring locks, so it's not like we're just glancing at aircraft and getting autohits, you have to hold to get a tone to rock and roll!

I still think the biggest issue is simply the fact that aircraft have no real defensive play. Like you said about tanks, they can take cover. A tank can exist in combat range with units that can kill it, stay there and fight them for any amount of time as long as it continuously manages to take cover and repair and is resupplied by an ammo carrier. An aircraft has no way of staying in the fight the second anything starts shooting back, it comes down a pure numbers game of how long you can stay and attack.
Well there's your problem...

And the counterargument still stands - aircraft's inherent mobility is it's defensive play, largest non-nerfable advantage, and the prime reason for it's dissimilar play to everything else. You can not have something with unlimited battlefield mobility interact with the rest of the battlefield on the same terms as things bound by speed and terrain. It simply can't happen. Air is different, and it's interaction is different. To modify it to the point where it is interacting in the manner you express effectively makes it not air.
Do I need to repost my old comic?

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j65/Whiteagle/AAcomic.jpg

YOU ARE AN AIRCRAFT!
You aren't suppose to just drift there and tank damage, you are suppose to swoop IN, HIT the target, and swoop OUT!
No wonder you aerial assholes are complaining, you've been flying wrong the entire time due to poor counters, and now can't comprehend that you need to change up your game.

DON'T just sit still, at least not within 200 meters to the target, keep moving in wide arcs that take you along the front line for your attack run then head back to friendly territory to reload and repair.

I know you guys don't want to hear this oft repeated argument, but LEARN HOW TO FLY, you are no longer an invincible solo pwnmobile and are instead the fragile fast attack aircraft you were always SUPPOSE to be!

Zonna

2013-02-10, 02:47 PM

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 02:50 PM

order of AA should be IMO, 1) skyguard 2) AA max .....lock on troop launchers should be the pewpew scratch u weapons. if I remember correctly u had to use a skyguard or AA Max to bring air down in PS1.....troop carried launchers would just scare them away.
Which they are admittedly, you only do maybe 20% with an Anni...
After a five second reload and a three second target acquisition, a Pilot has to ether be stupid or outright over extending to be taken down by one.

Tatwi

2013-02-10, 02:54 PM

I remember tankside from beta, to me the game is better now. I remember air reaping all ground units not too long ago. To me this game is the closest to balance that it ever has been.

That's how I feel.

Last night I spent maybe an hour defending Vanu Archives as a default Ai/AA MAX. My one burster arm was the only AA on the landing pad sides (and perhaps in the whole base) and I was backed up by Engineers here and there. While I was able to scare off quite all of the attacking air (until the NC swarmed the place), I only shot down 3 ESF, all of which were either suicidal or stupid. Had I been dual burster I may have been able to destroy some of the slow rocket podders, but I would not have been able to fight back against the enemies that dropped in and I would not have lived about an hour on one life. Had I not run for cover at appropriate times, a single ESF would have easily killed me with rocket pods.

AA does it's job and it's no different than anything else in this game: Greater Numbers Always Win.

Isn't that the SOE slogan for the game?

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 03:19 PM

And the counterargument still stands - aircraft's inherent mobility is it's defensive play, largest non-nerfable advantage, and the prime reason for it's dissimilar play to everything else. You can not have something with unlimited battlefield mobility interact with the rest of the battlefield on the same terms as things bound by speed and terrain. It simply can't happen. Air is different, and it's interaction is different. To modify it to the point where it is interacting in the manner you express effectively makes it not air.

That argument makes absolutely no sense. By what you're saying, every time an aircraft is hovering somewhere, because there is no AA to put the clock on it, it ceases to be an aircraft.

Also the whole reason why the gameplay between AA and Air is crap is because mobility doesn't mean jack if the AA basically put a giant dome of death over a battle that you can't go in, no matter from where you approach it.

I don't see any problem with having aircraft that are designed to actually stay in the combat area and have a fight with people, I don't know why you're so adamant about aircraft needing to be designed to come in and have an operational time measured in seconds depending on how much AA the enemy has. I don't find that fun in any way, and I don't see how in the blazes that defines aircraft.

I don't mind if people enjoy playing their aircraft like a jet. I mind that everyone who wants to play their aircraft like a helicopter gets told that they are evil farmers for staying in an area for longer than 10 seconds and gets shut down with absurd AA that's meant to kill things that are doing a 10 second flyby.

There is simply no reason why we can't have it both ways.

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 03:21 PM

That argument makes absolutely no sense. By what you're saying, every time an aircraft is hovering somewhere, because there is no AA to put the clock on it, it ceases to be an aircraft.

Also the whole reason why the gameplay between AA and Air is crap is because mobility doesn't mean jack if the AA basically put a giant dome of death over a battle that you can't go in, no matter from where you approach it.

I don't see any problem with having aircraft that are designed to actually stay in the combat area and have a fight with people, I don't know why you're so adamant about aircraft needing to be designed to come in and have an operational time measured in seconds depending on how much AA the enemy has. I don't find that fun in any way, and I don't see how in the blazes that defines aircraft.

I don't mind if people enjoy playing their aircraft like a jet. I mind that everyone who wants to play their aircraft like a helicopter gets told that they are evil farmers for staying in an area for longer than 10 seconds and gets shut down with absurd AA that's meant to kill things that are doing a 10 second flyby.

There is simply no reason why we can't have it both ways.
It's called a Liberator... :rolleyes:

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 03:41 PM

Liberators can operate in an area with active AA for prolonged period of time now and its weapons aren't strong enough to be completely overpowered if it gets to spend some time over the target? Wow, thanks for letting me know that, I could have sworn it wasn't so.

LoliLoveFart

2013-02-10, 03:53 PM

Dunno if we will ever see an amicable air/aa balance. Someone is always going to be on the receiving end of a swarm of something. In the later days of beta and early release air was undisputed heavy weight champion of everything ever. You could even cap points without ever leaving your aircraft. Then the infantry and tankers spoke up in numbers. As we all know numbers speak volumes, the devs had to act. The question we should have been asking instead of pointing fingers is, is it actually possible to strike a fair balance?

I know personally in late beta early release playing infantry was about as fun as trying to spoon with a bear. The lack of air recently has improved my fun levels with the game, however those people who were "dedicated" pilots now seem to be in the same situation infantry was in late beta early release.

Pilots seem to think that ground needs to use teamwork to get rid of them, fair enough. I would like to see aircraft have to use teamwork to suppress ground.

Someone threw out the idea of the liberator being the only true A2G with ESFs being used to chase down libs and brave pilots maybe machine gunning infantry, I like that idea. A lot.

The flip side of that however is you would still have a ton of aa floating about. Remove aa off of MBTs and sundies. For god sake do something about lock on spam and maybe pilots and ground can finally stop slap fighting on forumside. 2 cents.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 04:02 PM

Personally I think the worst aspect of AA is that the definition of teamwork as it applies to AA is "get several people to do the exact same thing next to each other"

Right now the best way to provide air cover in a battle is to grab a bunch of burster MAXes and put them all in a big pile with some Engineers and Medics keeping them alive and supplied until their spawnpoint flips. Sure, that is a form of teamwork, but is anyone going to really argue that pulling that off requires any kind of serious strategy?

I'd much rather have a situation where individual AA units are dangerous, but putting a bunch of them in the same place isn't a winning move. You should have to spread them out to actually have good anti air cover.

NewSith

2013-02-10, 04:06 PM

I'd much rather have a situation where individual AA units are dangerous, but putting a bunch of them in the same place isn't a winning move. You should have to spread them out to actually have good anti air cover.

*cough*Lock-on*cough*weapory*cough*

Tatwi

2013-02-10, 04:25 PM

If honest, actual pilots really want to have a flight game with proper dogfights, they will ask SOE for this,

1. ESF's can't fire their nose gun unless they are moving forward at more than 30KPH.

2. When flying higher than 600m from sea level, ESFs are immune to ground targeting and flak damage.

3. Flight ceiling is raised to 2Km (it was 8Km in Star Wars Galaxies when they added atmospheric flight so... yeah).

3. Ground based AA height hard-caps (not horizontal range):
- MAX: 800m
- Rocket Launchers: 800m
- Sunderer: 1,000m
- Skyguard 1,500m
- Base Turrets: 500m

4. Ground target rendering for Liberators is disabled above 1,200m, leaving the 800m above for travel space and removing the ability to damage ground units from 100% safety.

5. Galaxies can "deploy" squad-spawning while flying up to 2Km high, however they will also be rendered to ground units at all times when doing so. While flack and rockets won't be able to hit them, their existence will at least be able to be communicated to friendly air units.

This effectively gives air units their own play space, where Galaxies, Liberators, and ESFs can form up and organize and where real "air to air" combat can actually take place. If this isn't what the "pilots" here want, then really all they are complaining about is that it's no longer possible for them farm free kills by raping ground units. Fair play is... wait for it... fair.

Baneblade

2013-02-10, 04:30 PM

BlaxicanX

2013-02-10, 04:34 PM

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 04:35 PM

Baneblade

2013-02-10, 04:39 PM

That's a terrible idea. BF3 adding that into the game ruined AA.

ESF's already have a lock on scrambling device. It's called: not loitering around in the sky above AA; move in quickly, attack quickly and get out of dodge.

Oh ye of little faith.

The complaint from the air is lock on AA. The complaint from the ground is dumb fire rockets.

One bird and one gopher with one stone.

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 04:41 PM

Oh ye of little faith.

The complaint from the air is lock on AA. The complaint from the ground is dumb fire rockets.

One bird and one gopher with one stone.
Indeed, this make Scout Aircraft viable as well, since Scout Radar takes up the same slot as Flares.

Baneblade

2013-02-10, 04:43 PM

Works for me. Not to mention it promotes old school dogfights instead of A2A missiles.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 04:47 PM

I approve of this option!

Ain't no shame in getting killed by a nose gun after all.

So you do see the virtue of aircraft with less firepower and more staying power afterall. :D

I think MAXes should have pretty short range as AA guns, given that they are infantry and can be deployed in places that Skyguards can only dream of.

Stuff that reaches out to 800-1500 meters isn't really feasible because of the render ranges. 400-800 is more realistic

Whiteagle

2013-02-10, 04:50 PM

So you do see the virtue of aircraft with less firepower and more staying power afterall. :D
Well yes, but that's because when I use rocket-pods, I fire them from as far away as possible!
A guy with a nose gun isn't going to be soloing a Flak turret however...

Baneblade

2013-02-10, 04:53 PM

And he shouldnt be, that is what Libs are for.

krnasaur

2013-02-10, 04:53 PM

before the last update we complained about how air was too strong and how AA did nothing...

Thunderhawk

2013-02-10, 05:05 PM

A scrambler that takes up the secondary weapon slot (leaving ESFs with Primary alone) is a stellar idea.

I approve

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 05:05 PM

Well yes, but that's because when I use rocket-pods, I fire them from as far away as possible!
A guy with a nose gun isn't going to be soloing a Flak turret however...

I don't even think the ability to take out armor is the problem, it's the fact that all the aircraft anti armor weapons also have a big splash radius that causes them to be too universally deadly.

I really like the tankbuster, because it's a weapon that can dish out a boatload of damage without being horribly overpowered. It doesn't kill entire groups of infantry easily, and its very short range, so using it is risky.

I'd like aircraft with more weapons like that.

MyOdessa

2013-02-10, 05:27 PM

BIGGByran

2013-02-10, 06:16 PM

I have the solution to everyone's issue:

Allow ESFs to put a Lock On Scrambling Device in their secondary weapon slot. They get immunity from Lock on AA and we get to actually enjoy having them in the fight.

I approve! Now with this, there is no need for flares. Those with ZOMGEZKILLPods can be easier to kill like how their pods can kill anything easily or atleast increase the CD of Flares or Reduce the duration of lock on disable of the flare.

Eduard Khil

2013-02-10, 09:21 PM

They should just leave it like it is, even though the game has hit rockbottom in populations, I am curious to see if this form of balance will keep what is left or go even lower, then perhaps this form of balance will start making sense with lower populations.

OCNSethy

2013-02-10, 09:43 PM

If some dude want to hurl his pods o'death at me, Im sorry, im going to counter with anything that will scare them away.

I actually forced a lib to crash last night. He was chasing me... yep, just me, around an outpost. He was no more than 50m off the ground... I could have spat at him.

I let go a couple of grounders and he went all crazy ivan and crashed into a hill.

Truely, he must have been bored. Since we already owned the outpost.

vVRedOctoberVv

2013-02-10, 09:49 PM

I will agree there is a plethora of AA, but as always, it depends on the enemy to actually properly use it. Sometimes, I've cruised over major battles for extended periods of time without so much as a shot fired my way. Other times, they are clearly spamming AA and it's instant death. Feels like most any other role, sometimes I can pwn in a tank, other times it's death. Tbh, it's more about whether or not people are specifically pulling those weapons.

As for the dumbfire rockets killing fighters, I do that on a fairly regular basis (have a Decimator, or whatever the big one is, insta-kill if I hit a fighter with it). Of course, it requires the stupid bastard to either land, or hover still/nearly still at close range, in which case he deserves to die. I've only ever been killed by dumbfires during/after landing, mostly because I don't HOVER OVER THE BATTLEZONE for long periods of time.

Rothnang

2013-02-10, 11:39 PM

Yea, I've killed several fighters with a Decimator too, but that's people that are really asking for it. I mean, there is hovering around a base and then there is hovering in place.

I don't agree that it's the same as other roles.

With a tank you have an extremely long range weapon, which outranges most of your counters, and lies outside of killing range for the rest. When a tank is faced with "instant-death firepower" it doesn't get excluded from the fight, it just has to move back until it's no longer in killing distance, but more support distance, where it can still lend its firepower to the elements of its forces, but not expect to do much killing on its own.

With infantry the only way to fully counter you is to deny you spawn capability by destroying/flipping your spawns or camping them with a vastly superior force. Getting camped sucks, but there is no way to ever make infantry unable to play infantry.

maradine

2013-02-11, 12:25 AM

ECM is far from the worst suggestion I've heard around here.

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 01:42 AM

maradine

2013-02-11, 02:14 AM

I don't really think its fair to people who have invested SC into missile launchers or pods. As usually I'm going to insist that we'd be better off changing the system in question to be more fun for everyone involved than implement stuff that tries to render it useless and frustrating to the people currently enjoying the advantage.

No one thinks a change effecting their preferred playstyle is fair. ECM as a secondary is an interesting idea, and worth discussion. It would certainly juggle the loadout metagame.

I'd also like to state, for the Nth time, that I don't find the current situation in the air to be particularly useless, nor frustrating. You'd think there weren't any pilots left in the sky, it's allegedly so bad. And yet, strangely enough, this is empirically not the case.

CrankyTRex

2013-02-11, 02:22 AM

I don't really think its fair to people who have invested SC into missile launchers or pods. As usually I'm going to insist that we'd be better off changing the system in question to be more fun for everyone involved than implement stuff that tries to render it useless and frustrating to the people currently enjoying the advantage.

Agreed, it doesn't really fix the underlying problem. The guys who spent certs/SC on A2A missiles get stuck in the same boat they are now and/or have to stop using them in order to be safe from the ground stuff. The rocket pod guys are pretty much unaffected since they can still strafe run.

It won't be much fun for people on the ground either since now it's a crapshoot if their lock-on missile launcher will actually lock-on to something. Who's going to be happy when half the time they go to lock-on to something nothing happens? Or worse, they fire and their missile never hits anything. It'll start a round of cries for instant kill missiles to make up for the fact that they don't always fire/hit.

psijaka

2013-02-11, 03:17 AM

ECM is a zero skill way of nerfing the lock ons and will really piss off those that have spent SC on them; would render them utterly useless. Fine tweaks are needed, not a sledgehammer, and we must bear in mind that the recent air vehicle damage XP is encouraging every man and his dog to take a pop at aircraft - perhaps this was overdone.

I would be fine with the following adjustments:

AA MAX - projectile velocity or range reduction - range seems far too long for an infantry flak unit (I took down a Lib at high altitude recently). But leave damage as it is; they should be able to punish close range hoverers and punish them severely.

Lock ons - perhaps much more accurate aiming during the lock on period needed, which needs to be maintained to get the lock. I haven't bought a lock on launcher, but my experiencce from Beta was that the AV lock on was not very discriminating; just had to point it in the general direction of enemy tanks to get the green square.

Skyguard - needs to be deadly; it's an AA tank after all.

AA turrets - again, these need to be deadly. It's not as if they are hard to take down.

But it's not a one sided thing. The problem with air-ground balance is that unrestrained air can cause such mayhem amongst infantry. Rocket pods especially. If these were less OP then maybe further AA nerfs would be appropriate.

Sturmhardt

2013-02-11, 03:43 AM

Yes plz. Nerf A2G and G2A so everybody can have a better time and doesn't die instantly.

.sent via phone.

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 03:47 AM

No one thinks a change effecting their preferred playstyle is fair. ECM as a secondary is an interesting idea, and worth discussion. It would certainly juggle the loadout metagame.

ECM pods are an interesting idea, the suggested implementation is just trying to counter one absolute with another, when absolutes shouldn't really exist in the first place.

I'd also like to state, for the Nth time, that I don't find the current situation in the air to be particularly useless, nor frustrating. You'd think there weren't any pilots left in the sky, it's allegedly so bad. And yet, strangely enough, this is empirically not the case

And I'd like to state that before aircraft took three solid rounds of nerfs in a row, and all their counters got three major buffs in a row I didn't find playing as infantry or a tank useless or overly frustrating. You'd think there wouldn't have been anyone still playing ground units with how much people were complaining. Yet, strangely enough, this was empirically not the case.

Trying to judge balance by how many people have given up on the game over it is like judging the distance to the car in front of you by listening for the crash.

Canaris

2013-02-11, 04:13 AM

You know I don't think the infantry would have been so Anti-Air (pun intended) if more of the ground based fights took places inside or at least undercover in bases where they can have some fun without being worried over 2 people in a vehicle capable of wiping out a battalion of players.

Air is it's own worst enemy, they want to be included in all fights all the time. But when you can just sit back and shoot massive explosive rounds at people who can't fight back or just constantly fly in and rocket pod over and over well then what did you expect the infantry players to do sit back and go "Hey it's okay we don't mind". No they are going to keep asking for more ways to counter. Which is what the dev's have given us.

I know some pilots just want to dog fight other planes or be troop transports and help out well I'm sad to say your cohorts who don't have ruined it for you.
If the dev's perhaps pushed the planes back into the sky some more, then infantry might not mind having our AA toned down.

Lord Mondando

2013-02-11, 05:04 AM

First a disclaimer, I am primarily a flyer. Even my ground based outfit mates are starting to agree AA is starting to go over the line. Our air division is grounded most operations due to air - and you can't expect ground based infantry to take out ALL AA.

Anti Air has gone to a level in which air power is almost completely pointless. AA should be a dedicated role that requires teamwork and combined arms to master. It should not be something any tom dick or harry can do. Let's take a look at all the different forms of AA (Correct me if I've missed some)

Sunderer (2X AA Guns)
Prowler (and MBTs)
Lightning (Skyguard)
And all the aircraft (which isn't extremely bad)
Annhilators
All the various ground based lock-on systems.
AA MAX Units
Tower AA

The only ground based vehicle without AA so far is the Flash.

Why is this? The only things that should have AA are dedicated AA roles. The Skyguard, The MAX etc. Dumb fire of AA weapons should not insta kill Aircraft - it should be just as damaging as the lock on versions.

Rail on me all you want - but this is taking out of a LARGE segment of the game many people enjoy. Coordination and combined operations should be rewarded, undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft.

Essentially the rash of AA being added ot the game is now making it fun for everyone on the ground and NOT fun for everyone in the air. There needs to be either A) More way to armor your aircaft or B) Remove AA from all the vehicles it doesn't belong on.

To a significant extent though these vehicles you seem to object to it being on, E.G mbt's and sundies, in making themselves 'AA' have to make themselves extremely vulnerable to infantry. The solution then if there being used as effective AA is the solution the PS2 community is loathe to explore, infantry screening.

Also the ranger... really ain't that great, i've experimented with it, its a poor mans AA max frankly, and entire field full of sundies and MBT's equipped with them, would still be worse than a single sundy driving around with a squad of AA maxes. Walker remains a weapon that whilst significantly improved is still only good at relatively close range.

I do not think the problem as serious as you make out, and even then. Your coming close to suggesting buffing air or nerfing AA as opposed to changing tactics, a stance I will always disagree with.

Lord Mondando

2013-02-11, 05:13 AM

Yes plz. Nerf A2G and G2A so everybody can have a better time and doesn't die instantly.

.sent via phone.

My problem with that is and important part of this games mechanics is that your going to have to get into situations where you simply have no chance, due to be outnumbered.

For example, a single ESF vs. a anhilator nest.

The fact that being instagibbed by 9 rockets is no fun for the ESF and that he cannot somehow overcome this nest by his valor and skill alone, if not an argument against the weapon being used in the nest.

As with IRL warfare, he should be avoiding such hardpoints. Making the game incapable of having hardpoints somewhat reduces it to a giant game of combined arms laser quest/tag.

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 06:02 AM

So let me get this straight...

Having an ESF, with Secondary weapon being an ECM, removing the ability to have Rocketpods (the main gripe by Footsoldiers and MBTs) and still leaving it vulnerable to Flack, so that it can be a pure A2A Dogfighter is apparantly unacceptable because its not fair on those that bought lock on weapons ?

Really? that's the argument you're making?

Are you saying that EVERY ESF will automatically put this ECM on and become a flying machine gun ?

You guys complain about lack of metagme, and when presented with differing options for having varying loadouts, deciding when to play dogfighting and when to leave yourself open to lock ons, you say it's not fair ?

You're still going to get ESF's with Rocket pods that are vulnerable to Lock on weapons, to satisfy the blood lust of the infantry, I really dont see why havign varying options for an ESF is a bad thing....

Variety is the Spice of life and all that.

psijaka

2013-02-11, 06:08 AM

PredatorFour

2013-02-11, 06:25 AM

Seriously AA is at a great place right now, it's balanced fairly. Anyone who thinks it is too much needs to get certed in the right area's or just practise more ingame.

VR Draco

2013-02-11, 06:40 AM

I would be happy as annihilator-infantry. Those targets which i CAN'T lock on, are no real threat to me. And those which I CAN lock on, they might get a problem for me.

I think that would be fine. Those dog-fight-boys get their dogfights without the great fear of ground-AA and with skill-based dogfight. And those who just want to farm infantry are vulnerable to this infantry. Everything fine...I realy like this idea...

Baneblade

2013-02-11, 06:48 AM

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 07:03 AM

Would you be happy in their shoes?

I have all lock on weapons, Annihilator and Nemesis (for Air) and I'd be happy with the idea that if I can't lock onto an air vehicle, it can't rocket spam me....

Seems like a fair trade off, as I am sure there will be others using Rocketpods still and they would be the ones the Lock on G2A weapons are aimed at.

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 07:14 AM

I have all of the lock on HA weapons and I came up with the 'ECM' idea. Hell make the thing standard and replace the AB tanks with it.

ESFs that aren't there to be farming the ground game are immune to shoulder mounted AA and the ground game doesn't have to deal with yet another rocket spamming Top Gun wannabe.

Even keeping flak weapons the same, shouldn't make ESFs want to immediately turn and run in most engagements generally. But if they stick around farming with the nose gun, then they are flak food... and deserving to be so.

Precisely, Its another form of putting the ESF into a different bracket, A2G, A2A with lock ons, Pure A2A with guns for machine gunning.

And if you even choose to farm infantry, hell farming with nose gun means you can't do a fast "straffing" run. Leaving you open to Flack.

---------------

The question still remains regarding Galaxies and Liberators, but the lock on weapons will still be able to hit those also, so it's harder to think of a solution for them, or a quick solution for that matter

McBane

2013-02-11, 07:15 AM

Even keeping flak weapons the same, shouldn't make ESFs want to immediately turn and run in most engagements generally. But if they stick around farming with the nose gun, then they are flak food... and deserving to be so.

Exactly! If you dare to fly close enough to effectively hit enemy infantry/vehicles with your nose gun, you are basically committing suicide (dead within 2 secs) due to all the flak coming at you (AA, Tank rounds, Gun fire). Hence, swapping rocket pods for ECM limits you to air targets.

Seafort

2013-02-11, 07:18 AM

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 07:25 AM

AA has a pretty good balance right now. I'm primarily infantry based with the occasional tank driving.

I sometimes get caught out and rocket podded if I'm out solo moving from base to base but most times I'm relatively safe as I can deter ESF and Libs with either my MAX or HA Hawk.

ESFs should not be going around solo. That's just asking for trouble and if you are you get what you deserve.

I have no sympathy for ESF or Lib pilots as they nearly ruined PS2. There are still many people not playing this game because of the way Air dominated everything.

There still needs to be limits in this game. Cert into a specialisation and stick with it. ESFs shouldn't be able to take out tanks, aircaft and infantry all with one weapon the same as infantry shouldn't be able to take on tanks and aircraft as well as infantry all with a single weapon.

The game has been dumbed down to the extreme where everyone can be everything providing you have time or money or both.

I think it's time for specialisation so lil Timmy can't have his cake and eat it too.

I think what is being discussed here right now is opening up a niche that currently doesn't exist in game, which is the pure A2A ESF with Machine guns, for those that just want to fight other ESFs when they are tired with all the Footzerging, or when they want to support the main push of the faction but only be A2A vs enemy ESFs.

We're not advocating nerfing anything, lock ons will still be able to shoot down ESFs that don't have ECM because they wanted to Rocket pod. So counter provided. We are just trying to discuss the validity of another option for pilots who aren't ground farmers, i.e. want to dogfight without constant LOCK LOCK LOCK LOCK

Baneblade

2013-02-11, 07:38 AM

The question still remains regarding Galaxies and Liberators, but the lock on weapons will still be able to hit those also, so it's harder to think of a solution for them, or a quick solution for that matter

Libs can engage outside lock range anyway and Galaxies have the hp to take the hits for an insertion, exactly what they were designed to do.

ShadetheDruid

2013-02-11, 07:46 AM

I'd love to have something like that (the ECM concept). I haven't really bothered with flying much since even before the patch, I just got sick of all the "dogfights" that basically involved an enemy chasing me with just A2A missiles.

Flak doesn't bother me so much. If I start getting hit by flak, it's time to leave the area, and there's likely not much I can do there anyway (being not very well equipped for A2G, I only really pick on ground targets if they're already badly damaged and I can finish them off). G2A rockets can be a pain, but I tend to be indifferent towards them, because at least I can use flares and actually have them do something. Being shot down by a competent ESF pilot or a skilled Lib tailgunner? Perfectly fine.

A2A missiles, on the other hand, just make me question why i'm rolling around with just a nose gun like a moron.

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-11, 07:49 AM

I support the ecm idea to take the rocketpod slot. I think this is a great compromise solution. But I dont think too many people will use it because the possibilities of farming infantry and getting massive amounts of certs in a short time are really only possible with the rockets.

Canaris

2013-02-11, 07:56 AM

psijaka

2013-02-11, 07:56 AM

I have all lock on weapons, Annihilator and Nemesis (for Air) and I'd be happy with the idea that if I can't lock onto an air vehicle, it can't rocket spam me....

Seems like a fair trade off, as I am sure there will be others using Rocketpods still and they would be the ones the Lock on G2A weapons are aimed at.

I've come around to your point of view here, Thunderhawk; perhaps ECM in the slot normally occupied by the rocket pods would be for the good of the game; anything to reduce rocket spam.

I've not bought the G2A lock on launcher myself, by the way, but there's bound to be complaints from those that have were ECMs to be introduced, even if the aircraft they can't target aren't the ones that are blasting them to bits.

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 10:33 AM

If an ECM pod that renders you completely immune to rockets is put into the game it will just eternally be the excuse for why lockon rockets get to absolutely pwn everyone else.

An ECM pod should provide some kind of reasonable missile defense to team members around you to encourage more team play in the air, but we should continue the discussion on how to make lock-on weapons less cheesy at the same time.

I'm still for changing missiles so they aren't fire and forget, but require you to keep the lock going while the missile is in flight or it just turns into a dumbfire rocket.

So an ECM pod could be a 100 meter aura that gives everyone inside a much smaller signature, so anyone guiding a missile to them needs to be much more precise (as in, the area around their crosshairs that counts the lock is much smaller). Or perhaps it could give a chance to any missile entering the ECM field to lose connection to its launcher and no longer be guided. Maybe you could even have an ECM plane that actually has a dedicated ECM operator who can highjack enemy missiles and make them fly somewhere else.

Loban

2013-02-11, 10:45 AM

The only problem are the infantry lock on launchers and the aa base turrets. Everthing else is fine imo.

One thing that definitely needs to KEEP AA is infantry (heavy assault, HA). Their sole job is to take out vehicles (ground and air). If you must nerf AA, do what Hamma suggested and remove AA from things that shouldn't have it to begin with (tanks and sundy). Tanks and sundys should not be able to take out air without support from AA support. If being attacked by air, a tank should have to have support from friendly air in the area or friendy HA infanty, same for sundys.

As Hamma said: "undefended Sunderers and tank columns SHOULD be easily dispatched by aircraft", and that defense should come in the form of infantry and friendly air. No one unit should be able to defend itself from all 3 areas (infantry, ground vehicles, air vehicles). It should need support for at least one of those areas.

Also, I only play heavy assault and I think rockets should cost resources. But to make them worth "buying" they may need to be buffed just a bit, maybe more damage or something. Or at least allow us to upgrade our rockets/launchers. I know this may sound OP, but if they priced the rockets correctly, it could work.

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 10:54 AM

you know honestly the only pilots I feel bad for are the Galaxy pilots, I wouldn't have an objection to seeing the Gals flak & explosive resistance buffed up some more but for the Liberator and ESFs they can suck it to be honest.
They had life far to sweet for to long and now they find the people on the ground were given teeth and claws, they rail and cry. I have no sympathy for them.

The problem you have here my friend is that you are just being bitter, you hate the Rockpod spammers as "we had it too good for too long" but then you don't grasp the fact that the idea of the ECM is to allow Fliers to completely ignore Infantry and just duel each other.

As Sledgecrushr said, a lot of Fliers will probably not use the ECM because it takes away the ability to spam infantry and get certs, but some of us whom dont really care for certs at this stage, and whom just want to find something fun to do in game, want to just be able to have proper dogfights with multiple aircraft and actually see who wins or who loses on a fair 1 v 1 fight (or ESFs vs ESFs) without having to worry about Ground troops just being a pain.

---------------

What you could do, is give us cloud cover at 1000 meters and no locks will hit from that high up, and extend the flight ceiling to 1500 meters and give us 500 meters of dogfighting space.

That works too, but not as elegantly as an ECM and it means most of the fliers will not really see the ground at all unless they're shot down.

maradine

2013-02-11, 11:27 AM

So an ECM pod could be a 100 meter aura that gives everyone inside a much smaller signature, so anyone guiding a missile to them needs to be much more precise (as in, the area around their crosshairs that counts the lock is much smaller).

While I don't think they have the spare server-side horsepower to calculate this per tick, I think it's an excellent approach to the actual meat of the mechanic. Another alternative would be an effective reduction in lock-on range of the seeker - craft under ECM can't be locked outside of 200m or so. The range check is already being performed and therefore this has no performance impact.

I'm also still on board with just raising the flight ceiling and changing nothing else.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-11, 11:29 AM

Quite sure there are counters to all the AA.

You may have to give something up to equip them though.

maradine

2013-02-11, 11:35 AM

Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, ECM craft should probably be auto-spotted and de-stealthed.

Eggy

2013-02-11, 11:42 AM

The problem you have here my friend is that you are just being bitter, you hate the Rockpod spammers as "we had it too good for too long" but then you don't grasp the fact that the idea of the ECM is to allow Fliers to completely ignore Infantry and just duel each other.

As Sledgecrushr said, a lot of Fliers will probably not use the ECM because it takes away the ability to spam infantry and get certs, but some of us whom dont really care for certs at this stage, and whom just want to find something fun to do in game, want to just be able to have proper dogfights with multiple aircraft and actually see who wins or who loses on a fair 1 v 1 fight (or ESFs vs ESFs) without having to worry about Ground troops just being a pain.

---------------

What you could do, is give us cloud cover at 1000 meters and no locks will hit from that high up, and extend the flight ceiling to 1500 meters and give us 500 meters of dogfighting space.

That works too, but not as elegantly as an ECM and it means most of the fliers will not really see the ground at all unless they're shot down.

Whilst I hate to be the one using the standard reply of "combined arms", its very apt here. Whilst I apreciate there are some fliers who want dog style fighting, this isnt WorldOfPlanes.

Very few of the suggestions in this thread have considered the game as a whole. Most in fact just make it easier for the fliers to pick and choose how they want to play, diping in and out of the combined arms at will.

Look at Hammas original list of threats to Air. Now add Mines, C4, Decimators, flashes plus possibly 1-2 other threats and you have the list of threats to all ground vehicles and some of them even have weak spots in the rear. If we suddenly add mechanics to stop lockon launchers working against MBTs (reflective armour) who actualy want to play WorldOfTanks, the game is going to get very broken very fast.

When we get the faction specific lockon launchers, the annihilator needs to be removed from the game or at least altered in some fashion.
The HA class needs to be altered so that the big guns and launchers all share a slot. So someone with a launcher has to make a choice to have only a pistol as a personal defence weapon.
A2G missiles/pods need to be atlered or removed so that an Air fighter is primarily(but not totaly) doing air fighting and the Air Bomber is being used to strike ground targets.
New nose/arm cannons get added that allow the fighters tp specialise to do fast paced straffing runs on armour columns, that will become more effective in larger groups.

CrankyTRex

2013-02-11, 11:53 AM

maradine

2013-02-11, 12:06 PM

So do I get my A2A missile certs back so that I can get the ECM jammer?

How much is it going to cost me, anyway?

What does a pilot do while they're waiting to get enough certs to get it?

Are you going to inform the general playerbase with some kind of noise or visual cue as to why their missile doesn't work on that particular fighter they're wasting their time trying to attack?

How does it affect other aircraft in the area?

Can a fighter with ECM basically hover in front of the one with rocket pods so you can't lock on to it?

What if an ECM guy just happens to pass near to or in front of a rocket pod ESF so you lose your lock every time you try to fire on it?

In order -

Of course not.

I don't see why it would be any different than any other weapon purchase.

The same thing everyone does while they're missing something they want.

I think that would be a very good idea.

TBD, but I'm not sure they have the spare cycles to have an area effect at all.

While that would be interesting and somewhat realistic, see above.

That would be super annoying.

ShadetheDruid

2013-02-11, 12:25 PM

I'm also still on board with just raising the flight ceiling and changing nothing else.

The issue with doing just that and nothing else is air combat would still just be "dance of the A2A missiles". Perhaps worse, because there's no terrain to try to use to lose people (or crash into, in my case).

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 12:33 PM

I'm also still on board with just raising the flight ceiling and changing nothing else.

The problem I have with raising the flight ceiling is that it will create a zone where ground units have no way of even being aware that an enemy is there purely due to rendering limitations. As of right now where the only meaningful interaction air can have with ground troops is to blow them to smithereens, that might not be too bad, since air has to come within AA range to have any effect. However the devs have repeatedly hinted at things like Lodestar-Galaxies and Squad spawn Galaxies being added back into the game, and those kinds of vehicles could potentially be insanely overpowered if they always had a guaranteed AA free zone.

I'd prefer clouds or something similar in the sky that allow aircraft to hide to avoid AA fire, but without being just an absolute 100% foolproof way of being directly overhead enemy AA without any chance of getting hit by it. For example, if there were clouds that moved with the wind you could wait until a big cloud is drifting for the enemy base, then hitch a ride in it to sneak up on them. That's much more complex than simply climbing to 1500 meters where they can't see you no matter what. Of course it would also eat more resources and be more complicated to implement.

What would also be cool would be if aircraft had some kind of stealth mechanic where they can't be seen by normal means, but you have to look for them with a sensor that works like a big spotlight - like what you'd have in a night raid in WW2. You'd also have scout planes that reveal enemies around them to the ground. Of course attacking would reveal you as well.

I don't want AA to be easily ignored, I just want it to be something that introduces a satisfying challenge to avoiding it, rather than it just putting the clock on you the second you come into a combat area.

RobUK

2013-02-11, 01:04 PM

As Sledgecrushr said, a lot of Fliers will probably not use the ECM because it takes away the ability to spam infantry and get certs, but some of us whom dont really care for certs at this stage, and whom just want to find something fun to do in game, want to just be able to have proper dogfights with multiple aircraft and actually see who wins or who loses on a fair 1 v 1 fight (or ESFs vs ESFs) without having to worry about Ground troops just being a pain.

Great

The same thing for tanks too please. We have to put up with a lot more "pain" than ESF's when you add in the Decimator, AT Mines and C4, on top of all the Annihilator spam and ESF and Libs.

I just want to get in my Prowler and fight other tanks :D

Tongue in cheek, but you can see where this kind of thing can go.

There can't be an air only meta game.

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 01:07 PM

I wouldn't use the proposed missile-immuntiy ECM because bursters are a ten times bigger pain in the ass than lock-on missiles, and just as abundant these days.

CrankyTRex

2013-02-11, 01:08 PM

In order -
Of course not.

Why not? It's a Catch-22. Either get the ECM and be able to dogfight, or don't get the ECM and not be able to dogfight. Having the ECM means not being able to use the A2A missiles, and having them means not being able to dogfight. (Not to mention not being able to use them on fighters who have ECM such that the things you can use them on are now the stuff most likely to be in an area you need the ECM.)

I would rather have A2A missiles removed entirely in that event and get the certs back for it.

I don't see why it would be any different than any other weapon purchase.

So 900-1000 certs just to be able to fly around? The flares only cost 50.

The same thing everyone does while they're missing something they want.

I thought these things were supposed to be side-grades? I mean, it's bad enough that an ESF with flares, A2A and/or rocket pods has a huge advantage over a stock one, but now just flying from point a to point b without being constantly locked on to is going to require certs, and potentially a ton of them?

Meanwhile anyone who wants to can jump into an AA turret at shoot at the planes with or without a lock-on rocket.

That would be super annoying.

Yes, it would be, and would probably happen all the time. One random fighter not even intentionally working against you could then completely circumvent having a lock-on launcher.

Once that happens, we'll be right back to the people on the ground being miserable and complaining.

Assuming that can somehow be avoided, I think we also run into the other problem of the ridiculous pendulum swings. Everyone has ECM so nobody uses the lock-ons. Then everyone stops using ECM because nobody has the lock-ons, and so everyone starts using the lock-ons again.

Redshift

2013-02-11, 01:23 PM

It's all down to the lack of a working cert system, everyone has ESF everyone has AA. Loads of ESF fly to a new base, loads pull AA, the ESF's die and then you get left with 30 AA instagibbing anyone coming near.

CraazyCanuck

2013-02-11, 02:00 PM

Totally disagree. AA is nothing but a deterent still. When aircraft can continue to hover and take out ground forces for a significant amount of time before being forced to bug out to repair, AA yet still requires improvement. Aircraft should be strafing, not hovering overtop and laying waste to ground troops and vehicles alike.

I have focused AA on my HA (annihilator), my Lightning, and my Max. I've only tried the NEW Ranger a few times so undecided on it, but thus far the TTK on aircraft is still not where it should be imo. It's improved, but with their speed and manueverability, aircraft should have less ttk then MBT.

Annhilator rockets are a huge pain in the arse. Their pathing is the biggest issue as they go all squirrly when fired off. I like that aircraft have countermeasures in flares and have the option of armor, but the rockets need improved speed as too often aircraft out run those rockets. Also putting on more armor, whether on the ground or in the air, needs to have reprecussions such as having the vehicles speed lowered.

Skyguard needs a slight dmg improvement as it still behind the max in TTK.

This past week I've seen more organized air squads. Liberators and ESF running together and that has made it even tougher to pull off a second shot before getting 105, 150, or lolpodded to oblivion. While not a great thing for the ground troops, kudos to those squads smart enough to reign in their resources and run them together.

Hamma mentioned AA turrets at bases. These should be the hardest hitters of all the AA. Attacking or coming within optimal firing range of any base should never be taken lightly. And any enemy air should never be able to hover or slow down in the vicinity of a base without serious risk. They should always be forced to get in, offload a volley and get out.

While the dedicated pilots now have a harder time then previously, more still needs to be tweaked to balance air/ground to make both equally enjoyable to play. But that may be a monumental task SOE may never get right.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-11, 02:04 PM

maradine

2013-02-11, 02:04 PM

Why not? It's a Catch-22. Either get the ECM and be able to dogfight, or don't get the ECM and not be able to dogfight. Having the ECM means not being able to use the A2A missiles, and having them means not being able to dogfight. (Not to mention not being able to use them on fighters who have ECM such that the things you can use them on are now the stuff most likely to be in an area you need the ECM.)

I would rather have A2A missiles removed entirely in that event and get the certs back for it.

You can dogfight, today, this very February. Effectively. I spend about a fifth of my player existence doing it, as per stats. Guns, missiles, and both. I have a 8TB array filling with the footage. I consider the premise of this objection invalid.

So 900-1000 certs just to be able to fly around? The flares only cost 50.

Flares are a one time impulse with a cooldown. ECM is, as described, is a permanent effect. Surely the utility difference here is obvious, and thus the price differential.

I thought these things were supposed to be side-grades? I mean, it's bad enough that an ESF with flares, A2A and/or rocket pods has a huge advantage over a stock one, but now just flying from point a to point b without being constantly locked on to is going to require certs, and potentially a ton of them?

Meanwhile anyone who wants to can jump into an AA turret at shoot at the planes with or without a lock-on rocket.

Every type of dynamic AA - the Skyguard, Walkers/Rangers, the second Burster arm, a SAM; was purchased on that price plan. Static turrets are two per tower, 0 - 8 per major outpost, and destroyed early in a fight. We are long past arguing that everything is a sidegrade. We know this isn't true.

Yes, it would be, and would probably happen all the time. One random fighter not even intentionally working against you could then completely circumvent having a lock-on launcher.

I'm not pushing for an area effect. I don't think it's viable in their current execution model.

Assuming that can somehow be avoided, I think we also run into the other problem of the ridiculous pendulum swings. Everyone has ECM so nobody uses the lock-ons. Then everyone stops using ECM because nobody has the lock-ons, and so everyone starts using the lock-ons again.

That, is a 100% player-driven metagame element. Ever been to a MTG Pro Tour?

Baneblade

2013-02-11, 03:08 PM

Using the argument of air isolation is pretty silly, and twice as pretty silly when you call for a parity situation for armor.

First of all, air isn't going to be truly isolated by the ECM. AA Flak will still roxor their boxors if they let it.

Second, armor isn't supposed to be isolated, its role is literally central to true combined arms warfare. Air combat is still air combat without any interaction with ground. Armor combat is armor combat when all ground forces are involved.

So basically air isn't getting any more or less isolated from its element as armor is with ECM.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-11, 04:24 PM

Is this ECM thing a suggestion so pilots don't need to worry about being shot down anymore when they get stupid close to ground units?

:rolleyes:

EVILPIG

2013-02-11, 04:34 PM

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51866

maradine

2013-02-11, 04:51 PM

Is this ECM thing a suggestion so pilots don't need to worry about being shot down anymore when they get stupid close to ground units?

:rolleyes:

Dude, I don't even know at this point. I'm argued out.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/showthread.php?t=51866

Oh good, another thread!

Baneblade

2013-02-11, 04:56 PM

Is this ECM thing a suggestion so pilots don't need to worry about being shot down anymore when they get stupid close to ground units?

:rolleyes:

No...

Thunderhawk

2013-02-11, 05:51 PM

Everything that can be said has been said now, I really don't know what more to talk about to be fair. Scroll up and look through a few pages :)

maradine

2013-02-11, 06:59 PM

Beers all around!

Rothnang

2013-02-11, 08:25 PM

No no, now it's time to write a bunch of idea topics. :D

SGOniell

2013-02-11, 08:32 PM

Beers all around!

Hey if you're buying, I'll take an Oktober Fest Lager.

CrankyTRex

2013-02-11, 09:05 PM

I'm not pushing for an area effect. I don't think it's viable in their current execution model.

Well we've all gone back and forth on everything else long enough, so this is the only thing left I'll pick out of that. Plus the other stuff is basically debating whether or not something is hyperbole/exaggeration. Obviously if it wasn't a significant enough problem for one side or the other, we wouldn't have all these threads on the matter. The "can'ts" or "musts" typically are just because "this becomes a significant (unnecessary) hassle" is a substantially longer description. :)

I don't think it would be an issue with it being AoE, but one of line of sight. If an ESF passes between you and the fighter you're aiming at, I'd expect that you'd probably end up losing the lock. Since the new ESF is jamming, you can't just lock-on it instead. Who knows what would happen to missiles already in flight too.

Since a lot of battles tend to involve fighters flying by each other and in circles around stuff, I could see a couple of randoms unwittingly making it very difficult just to get a lock, fire, and hit. I would certainly expect organized outfits to figure out they could hide fighters behind each other in this event too, though I must admit the idea of having all those guys flying in formations all the time is appealing.

Eduard Khil

2013-02-11, 09:51 PM

Lol, so many people are clueless as for how this game sees balance, to think that after almost 6 months of most you playing this game, you could have learned anything at all, devs included.

If you remove or hinder an aspect of this game, the side it is supposed to keep on check will grow bigger, the same could be said about overbuffing something else making the other side shrink smaller, it's a chain effect and an ecosystem.

Balance in this game for anything infantry uses, should do the least ammount of damage because of the area of occupation (50 guys in a 20 meter radius) and the monstrous numbers of people playing infantry ALLOW IT.

You cannot say "nerf/hinder lolpoders/libs to the ground", podding/bombing is a part of this game, without podders there would be no reason to even bring air support to a fight, it would not change anything to have a bomber class aircraft turned into nothing, they are the sole reason why air to air fighters exist, they are our farm, a huge chunk of this game's epic feeling during large battles is gone because there no longer are viable bombers in the game.

Annihilators have dumbed down the game to the point anytime there are large battles with tons of vehicles in them, there is no need to use anything else, why should you? AA maxes do not have rifles, and skyguards cannot shoot ground effectively, AA sunds contribute to the AA spam (pointless buff/addon) yet you can still kill them like nothing if you pleased, by dropping on top of them with mines.

Let us go back to when they butchered gravity in december, you knew mags were oped, what kept them at bay? opposing ESF/bombers and having a sound hill climbing/sliding, the gravity fuck up led to having the other 2 empires whine about the reality of it, patch comes, the other 2 MBT's are buffed, the mag is nerfed and Vanu bails the hell out of their empire seeking greener pastures, the reaver - another example - was reduced to nothing, other ESF pushed them to be played less thus allowing better control of the liberator offensives, cue lib whining, the result from this is not only the nerf of libs but the overuse of A2Am and G2Am, a buff given to try to keep the problem down with lower lock on timers, the next one is the silly buff given to the Airhammer making it the most powerful main gun in the game next to what used to be (pre rotary nerf) the mosquito, cause and effect.

AA damage is almost at mid-beta levels, we all know what happened then so, why was it brought back up again?

It is time you guys begin appreciating the lesser evil, if you ever wish to see this game have large epic battles like on release.

What exactly IS the problem? when SOE applies fixes/buffs/nerfs, they do not forsee the consequences of them, some are rather obvious and others are nearly impossible to predict.

Any change you see in this game today... reflects the next month, proven fact. (new discovery)

PS: ECM on this game would render lock-ons to nothing, do not make the problem larger than it already is.

Agendaside 2.

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 04:45 AM

The problems with AA as I see them:

1. Aircraft can't avoid flying into the range of AA without completely getting out of a battle for a region, because AA guns have longer range than aircraft, so they can just sit on top of a base to protect it, rather than having to be deployed in the field around the base (What a concept, then the whole "use ground units to counter them" thing would actually make some sense... whhhooaaaaat?!!)

2. You pretty much can't see AA units until they are attacking you. HAs and Bursters are incredibly hard to spot from the air. Even if they are rendered by some miracle, they are like 2 pixles humping on the horizon to you until they open fire. Skyguards are indistinguishable from other lightning variants at the range they can start shooting you too. Every single infantryman could be a medic or an HA with an Annihilator. You don't know until he shoots you.

3. Even if you have managed to gather intel on where all the near impossible to see AA units are, so you think you can avoid them, you're in for a nasty surprise when the enemies spawn in 10 more of them right underneath your butt. Good luck getting out of missile range in time if you didn't start at their maximum range, but right over them. Also enjoy all the smartasses on the forum telling you you made a mistake by going into a region with AA... or spawnrooms... or sunderers... or drop pods... or terminals...

4. The exact same weapons are used to shoot at the smallest, fastest and most agile combat vehicle in the game as are used to shoot at aircraft the size of a two story building which lumber through the skies without much capacity for evasive maneuvers. How exactly you're supposed to have any kind of worthwhile challenge fighting both types of aircraft with that weapon where it isn't either impossible to hit the first or impossible to miss the latter boggles the mind.

5. The new spawn rooms are great on the ground, but they have made the problem of MAX units behind shields ten times worse. I absolutely hate how cheesy it is to not only be denied a good fight by AA guns, but to have them camp in their spawnroom where not even anyone on the ground can hurt them. Even worse when they are on the new towers. Why why why did anyone think it was a good idea to put a top notch AA position next to a forcefield that you can simply shimmy through if it looks like anyone will have harsh words with you? Especially aggravating because the devs said over and over "we don't want the spawnroom to be a fortress where you can defend the whole base" ... guess that just didn't apply to air.

6. Annihilators have dumbed down this game in a really really obnoxious way. Seriously, if there is one weapon in the game where I wish it would just be removed it would have to be the Annihilator. Give people refunds for it, whatever, just get rid of that idiotic thing. It's the hight of skill-less spam weapon that becomes unstoppable if you just have enough people in one spot. There is absolutely nothing good about what this thing has done to the game.

7. There is no real counterplay to AA. You can't avoid AA unless you're just skirting around all the real battles and just kill a straggler or a ninjacapper here or there. If you actually do run into AA there is simply nothing you can do about it. You take your damage, and you have to fly home to repair it. There simply in't much more skill you can really apply to the situation. Fighters still have it better than Liberators of course, as per point 4 the devs have apparently elected to balance the AA weapons about it being somewhat challenging to hit a fighter with them, so a fighter can evade AA fire to some extent.

8. Aircraft have no fallback behavior for when they are outgunned. A tank for example can use its armor to overwhelm an enemy at close range, where its gun is very deadly, or it can use its great range to suppress and harass an enemy, if it knows that the enemy has too much anti tank firepower to allow the tank to get close. With aircraft that duality doesn't really exist, in fact, the devs have tried to scour it from the Liberator with crazy bullet drop and insane cone of fire on its weapons. If you're outgunned you can't skirmish with the opponent, you can only find another fight.

PredatorFour

2013-02-12, 05:08 AM

6. Annihilators have dumbed down this game in a really really obnoxious way. Seriously, if there is one weapon in the game where I wish it would just be removed it would have to be the Annihilator. Give people refunds for it, whatever, just get rid of that idiotic thing. It's the hight of skill-less spam weapon that becomes unstoppable if you just have enough people in one spot. There is absolutely nothing good about what this thing has done to the game.

Agree 100%, you run into 5/6 guys with these your dead whatever you are in. Needs to be more skill involved for sure.

Most of this thread though can be easily countered by air players.

1. Cert everything you have into composite armour.

2. Cert as much as you can into flares.

3. Dish out punishment with "OMGLOLZPODZ"

4. GTFO and repair.

5. Rinse / repeat

Thunderhawk

2013-02-12, 05:21 AM

I just wanted to say I am reading this still out of a sheer sado masochistic urge, but wont be responding as every post I see from here on can be responded to be just copy and pasting a response from a few pages ago.

If something new that hasn't been mentioned before pops up, I'll respond to that, but ain't repeating myself again and again.

Blinklys

2013-02-12, 07:06 AM

Just throwing in my two cents.

I love flying in my Scythe a lot, and I also use my annihilator a lot. So I'm on both sides of the coin. Flying these days can be a real challenge and also quite annoying because of all the AA and G2A lock-ons, but it is also very rewarding when you manage to stay alive and also dish out some damage to those pesky AA-units.

Just last night NC camped several AA Maxes, a Sundy and infantry on a mountain near the Vanu WG, and I had a blast fighting them from the air. Coming in low and hard firing off some lolpod rockets and then diving down into the canyons to evade incoming rockets, repair, rearm, find another angle of attack, taking damage and dealing damage. It was great. I rammed an AA Max and got both the max xp kill bonus and the roadkill bonus.

In the end I got i a Galaxy and flew it straight into their Sundy on top of that hill, jumped out, threw a grenade at the enemies trying to kill the remains of the Galaxy and killed off a few with my carbine. Good times.

Point is, yes the AA and lock-ons can be a real pain, but it can also offer some great and challenging fights. Heck, I think I'm becoming a better pilot because of this, even if I sometimes die a horrible death.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-12, 11:16 AM

No...

You sure? Because that's what it sounds like.

maradine

2013-02-12, 11:22 AM

Since apparently we're just looping now . . .

I've decided to do the next response as video. Partially because I have the footage lying around, and partially because I'll take any excuse to spend a few hours in FCPX.

ESF, Attack Runs, and G2A (http://youtu.be/0I0ZdXQgAV8)

I'm with Thunder - if we're just restating the problem over and over again, I'm just going to quote myself and sneak off to have a drink.

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 11:27 AM

The really big problem I have with everyone who describes countering AA with a fighter is that only a fighter can do those things well. You get into a Liberator or Galaxy and you're just too big and too cumbersome to come screaming in, drop some bombs and burn out of there.

Also the fact that your vehicle is so huge means you can't easily repair it behind the next hill like you can with a fighter. Even just landing on a pad isn't really a good idea if its near the combat zone. With a fighter if you land in the middle of the pad you can't be seen from the ground, so it's fairly safe. With a Liberator or Galaxy people can shoot you from the next base over still if you're on top of a tower, so you usually have to fly much further away to get resupplied safely.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-12, 11:29 AM

Since apparently we're just looping now . . .

I'm with Thunder - if we're just restating the problem over and over again, I'm just going to quote myself *** off to have a drink.

That's exactly how people should fly.

Really, the only time my group gets an ESF with our lockons, is if he hovers, lingers or approaches or leaves with out using the terrain.

Baneblade

2013-02-12, 12:10 PM

You sure? Because that's what it sounds like.

I use lock on rockets way more than I spend time in the air. I don't even gun Libs or jump in Gals. My Reavers tend to die hilariously out of control or asplode going out of bounds.

AuntLou

2013-02-12, 12:23 PM

I've been flying around in my Scythe allot lately and I have to admit I haven't had allot of problems w/ ground to air. If I do have any problem it's the HA lock ons(uber ranges), not the new vehicle weapons. I just stay away from the Crown / Crossroads area and I'm good to go. Maybe give it some time, they'll go on sale and it'll be an annoyance but for now it seem business as usual at least for me.

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 12:31 PM

Flak on Sunderers isn't that big a deal from what I can tell. I've faced off against a few Sunderers with it in my Liberator and it's not the Sunderer that causes you grief, it's the 5 guys with Annihilators around it that do, or the burster max that gets spawned in the second you show up.

maradine

2013-02-12, 12:36 PM

Why are you "facing off" with anything from the air?

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 12:52 PM

Your outfit gives you word on a Sunderer, you head there, if you find an angle to do a pass on him you make a run, tankbust him twice, he blows up. During that time he shoots back - you're facing off.

I'm just saying that adding AA guns to the Sunderer hasn't made that type of attack significantly less effective if he's just relying on those guns to protect himself. It's not effective when the Sunderer is surrounded by AA infantry or parked in a place where you can't make a run on him without starting to hover.

In reality, even if he is nestled in somewhere where you have to hover to get him, oftentimes getting down an active Sunderer is worth risking your Liberator if you're providing air support for an outfit.

DaPope

2013-02-12, 12:54 PM

FIX THE LOCK ON BUGS!!! I want to know if I have a missile tracking me or if I succesfully broke lock.

ECM (no more lock ons) in the secondary slot is a Brilliant idea! You give up your splash damage, lock ons, and high damage weapons for a chance to do more recon, Air to Air, dogfighting, and provide limited support to ground forces. I've never heard anyone complain that an ESF had an unfair advantage killing armor using only the main gun. It takes 4-6 passes to take out armor and that is assuming they don't get out and repair in-between. Also the ESF would still be vulnerable to skill based AA weapons. Seeing the response to this suggestion really showed who is actively looking at a balance option and who hates Air regardless.

The biggest advantage that armor has is the ability even under direct fire to exit and repair their vehicle. While they might not be able to repair it completely under direct fire they can often get it close to a stalemate.

Personally I like that nearly every vehicle has AA capability. A gun that requires someone to man it, aim, lead your target, and requires some skill is fine by me. It keeps ESFs honest and doesn't allow them to park behind someone. The range on these AA weapons should be limited but with a high RoF and decent damage so if an ESF gets too close it will hurt.

HAs having the ability to lock on to air and ground with unlimited ammo resupply is getting a bit silly. I like the idea of making it either Air or Ground. Also making the weapon do some real damage but at a cost. Similar to what we have currently for the AV mine. This way someone could carry 4-6, be dedicated as anti AV/AA, and do some very real damage. However they wouldn't be able to do it constantly. I think a long lock on and having to maintain sites on target would go a long way. To that end the missile needs to be a 1 shot kill vs ESFs and do about 50% to Libs. It would be expensive, require skill, but also a big reward.

I'd like to see the ceiling extended to 2,000 feet. To give people a reason to stay up that high I propose creating a Repair/Rearm option for Galaxies. This would help give them a purpose and a tool that could be used in coordinated combat. Now a squad could bring a Galaxy in the air to support the rest of the air units. The Galaxy would be an air equivalent of the Ammo Sundy. I could easily see swarms of ESFs around a Galaxy like this, it would be a great target for enemy ESFs as well because not only would it provide a lot of XP (make it 1000 like Sundys) but also a source for a great air battle.

*Just got my 1,000th kill with a Scythe this week! Each patch has brought new changes but I still love flying and have adapted to each. The most recent has made me play a lot more conservative but I can still get in and cause some damage!

KodanBlack

2013-02-12, 01:07 PM

I'm sorry, but I disagree with AA being OP, but I agree that there is too much of it running around. I also agree that AA should be dedicated to that task and used as part of a combined arms strategy.

However, when I look at the dedicated pilots who are complaining about this issue, and many of them have a KD of 2+, then I look at those who say they're dedicated infantry with KD's aroun 1.4 or less complaining about Lib farming and rocket pods, I feel like I want to side with my brothers and sisters on the ground.

That said, I also agree that, when unchecked, air should RULE the battlefield as it does in real life combat. Air is something the ground forces have to deal with and for a long time, ground forces where nothing but fodder and almost free XP for dedicated pilots anf Liberator gunners. Hell, I've jumped behind a Zephyr to get my KD up once in a while and farm some certs. It was easy to do. Even last night, with "OP AA" I must've killed about four or five guys and a tank or Sundy on just a few passes before being blown out of the sky.

Just as ground forces have to deal with air armed with rocket pods, Zephyrs and Daltons, pilots have to deal with lock on missiles, AA MAXes, turrets and Skyguards.

Just my two cents.

EVILoHOMER

2013-02-12, 01:13 PM

The problem wasn't Air being OP, it was the ground gameplay not having anywhere to fight in cover..

MrBloodworth

2013-02-12, 01:16 PM

ECM (no more lock ons) in the secondary slot is a Brilliant idea!

Not really. Its a head in the sand that the issue just might be a loose nut behind the yolk.

I find it somewhat funny that for a good while, Air suffered nothing like ground.

Infinity got Area denied by rockets, bombs and poop on a stick.

Tanks got Area denied by rockets, tanks, grenades, mines, C4 and small rocks.

Air just flew around like a nan cat in heat. Now there are tools to area deny aircraft, and they are enraged by the lack of impunity they once had. The best part is, they don't seem to realize that everyone but them needs to specialize in AA and do that near exclusively in order to take them out, STILL.

But you know, lets go ahead and add a thing in that lets them skip all the fun. :rofl:

Baneblade

2013-02-12, 01:31 PM

MrBloodworth, I don't think you have a firm grasp of cause and effect.

Shogun

2013-02-12, 01:36 PM

i haven´t played since the time when AA was nothing more than a joke, so i am looking forward to testing the actual aa, but i totally agree with hamma on the problem that every unit on the ground has AA. the stone paper scissors system from ps1 worked pretty good, but it is absent from ps2.
the main battle tanks should finally be revamped and changed back to ps1 style. ungunned driver seat (except vanu whose guns have to be swapped to recover the ps1 gamestyle) and a gunner who gets the maingun and a AI secondary.

the only vehicles with AA should be the lightning skyguard variant and fighter dogfight variants.
but the remaining AA should stay potent and remain a real evil threat to aircrafts.
using aa should feel rewarding and it didn´t, when it was just a "deterrent" because you had to be lucky to find a damaged aircraft and land the last blow. most of the time i encountered full health aircrafts and couldn´t kill any of them with a dual aa max.

so i agree that there should be less aa available, but don´t nerf the remaining aa in any way.

MrBloodworth

2013-02-12, 01:38 PM

MrBloodworth, I don't think you have a firm grasp of cause and effect.

I think I do. I also would like to note, I thought the state of air was ok before all the changes. But now that those changes are in, and people have been given the optional, and arguably necessary to be dedicated, tools to now finally fight back. Now is the time to claim the sky is falling? With the debris of aircraft that is.

We went through this same shit in PS1 over and over and over again. In every version of planetside, ANYTHING used in great numbers will be powerful. That's kinda the point.

You know what 50 annihilators can't beat? 51 aircraft. ( Technically its even less that that, like less than half )

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 01:52 PM

Sledgecrushr

2013-02-12, 02:01 PM

The missiles are a pretty classic part of a modern day battlefield. Fact is the have nerfed missiles recently, there acquire target timer was moved up one second. I think they are doing the job of thinning out the air zerg rather well.

ShadetheDruid

2013-02-12, 02:01 PM

Instead of trying to create a duality between aircraft that can be shot with missiles and aircraft that can't be shot with missiles it would make a heck of a lot more sense to just make missiles less of a cheesy idiotic mechanic in the first place.

It's probably a bit late for that, the bridges have already been burnt because of all the A2G annoyances earlier in the game's life. People would rather say "screw you" to the other "side" (I really have no interest in getting in the middle of it myself, really) rather than make a compromise.

Baneblade

2013-02-12, 02:13 PM

Instead of trying to create a duality between aircraft that can be shot with missiles and aircraft that can't be shot with missiles it would make a heck of a lot more sense to just make missiles less of a cheesy idiotic mechanic in the first place.

The ECM opens up new possibilities with the upcoming Lancer/Striker/Phoenix weapons.

For example, the Lancer could be a lateral remake of its PS1 progenitor. The Striker could be done the 'way the Annihilator should have been from the start' (active tracking lock on weapon, not fire and forget) with a feature that lets it lock on to ECM equipped aircraft (but perhaps at a slower rate). The Phoenix could be the laser guided warhead it was always supposed to be (not the wire guided compromise from PS1).

The existing lock on weapons still have their places and ECM won't change that. Any significant threat to infantry can still be locked. ESFs with the ECM are a relatively small threat to infantry, and are far easier to dispatch than rocket spammers.

Rothnang

2013-02-12, 02:31 PM

How does that make Lockon weapons any less annoying to anyone who isn't flying with ECM?

Your entire idea is "Lockon weapons are not fun to deal with, so let's use them to punish all aircraft except fighters without secondary weapons"

Screw that kind of thinking. You're just trying to use one broken ass stupid system as a bargaining chip to coerce people into giving up powerful aircraft weapons.

Baneblade

2013-02-12, 02:34 PM

Cause and Effect.

zulu

2013-02-12, 02:50 PM

I've only been playing PS2 for a short time, so forgive me if my assessment of the problem isn't as knowledgeable as those of other players.

I think the problem is that, when you're flying an aircraft, it's pretty difficult to feel like you're having some effect on the overall battle unless you're blowing something up. If you're driving an ammo truck Sunderer or playing a support class, there are obvious things you can do to help your team "win" (and, perhaps more importantly, earn experience) without necessarily killing anything.

Why this matters is because, since there is such a proliferation of anti-air right now (whether AA MAXes or Annihilators -- Skyguards and other vehicle-based AA are much less of a real threat because they're fewer in number) that you're often denied the ability to go near battles, even if you're just running in, blasting whatever you see in an instant, popping your flares and turning on your afterburners to leave. If you do make it to a battle, you're more or less trapped in a rather boring cycle of attack/get chewed up/run away/repair/repeat.

I tend to find -- and again this is based off of only a little more than a week of experience -- that the best battles for vehicles (air and ground) tend to be much smaller engagements, in which there's not nearly as much of a threat from hostile AA (though a dedicated MAX or Skyguard or several Heavies with rockets can effectively chase you away). A squad or two against the same number of defenders, maybe. In those cases your ability to affect the battle are very plain to see -- you soften up a Sunderer so that the rest of your squad can destroy it; you blow up a tank that is harassing your team; you chase away a Liberator that is destroying your armor support; you take out a cluster of infantry that is preventing your squad from advancing. That's pretty cool, speaking as either a pilot or an infantryman.

Maybe that's okay for everyone involved. Maybe we want big battles to largely just be infantry (and to a lesser extent armor), with air (if it appears) only playing a very minor part. I think it would be more fun if air vehicles could do more in bigger battles, but how to accomplish that is a pretty tough question. I'm not sure I like the ECM secondary weapon idea, largely because it only solves one part of the problem (giving interceptor ESFs protection so they can do their job largely free of ground forces). It seems to me like it makes an effort to compartmentalize the game (here's the air battle, and here's the ground -- don't mix unless you have to) rather than solve some of the deeper and larger issues.

Still, right now I think armor has it toughest, since they obviously aren't as mobile as either infantry or air, and they're vulnerable to heavies to a much greater degree (AND they're vulnerable to air). I think this is partly a byproduct of the Heavy class predominating on the ground.

I like the idea of making the heavy's rocket launcher take up a primary spot -- I think that would help diversify the enemies you see as an infantryman and also cut down on the threats seen by tanks and Sunderers. Going anti-vehicle would be a more conscious choice.

I also think an AA-suppression ability could maybe be given to Galaxies, giving them a larger role in big battles (whereas right now they seem to be limited to acting as dedicated stealth-capping squads' transports). Allowing them to fly above the range for most AA would mean that dedicated interceptor ESFs would have a much clearer role -- take out the Galaxy so that AA on the ground can more effectively attack close air support fighters and Libs.