Bad ESF pilots and good ESF pilots. Thinking about the whiners.

[Ghoest9]

I was using the Hawk the plast couple of days and watching how different ESF pilots fly.

There are a lot of bad ESF pilots. And yes its fun to shoot at them. You wont kill most of the bad ones but youll get a hit and chase them away. Which seems about fair. The bad one cant kill me and I cant kill them.
There are a few really bad one though who fly in circles absorbing shot after shot till they die - Im not even sure what they are doing.

Then there are the ok pilots. They dont do anything clever but they are good shots usually or they have the sense to only attack when they have counter measures up. If you try to go one on one with them they win. But against multiple guided rockets they know to bug out.

And then their are the good pilots. You dont kill these guys.
1 - They move fast low to the ground taking strafing shots and frequently hitting. You almost never see these guys long enough to get a lock.
2 - They use team work. 3 or 4 guys simultaneously flying smart attacking the same small area is really lethal.

You need a fairly large force just to drive these guys off.
Im not complaining - these are skilled smart players taking whats available.
They cant take out a massed force but they can stop a squad or 2 that isnt well equipped from moving from an out post to a main base or a similat opperation.



I think anyone whining about AA should probably trying playing ground forces just so they get more opportunities to see what the good pilots do.

[zulu]

I think anyone whining about AA should probably trying playing ground forces just so they get more opportunities to see what the good pilots do.

A bad pilot would likely be spending most of his time on the ground, anyways.

[Satanam]

What is this supposed to be? I hope not a "nerf the ESFs" thread, because if this game needs one thing, it's not a nerf on ESFs. And I don't even know why people want a nerf on it, as your TTK is way lower while on a MBT or infantry than on an ESF. If you're using AA lightning and you know how to play it, you win. Unless the ESF pilot cover himself, but Indar has lots of open areas that you can't easily cover.
There are people complaining about ESF team work with Hellfire Rocket Pods (I'm not saying you do, I'm saying I heard people crying about it) that "they are OP". Yeah, OP just like a bunch of MBT shooting an outpost to farm some certs, or OP just like a group of AA MAXes/AA lightnings.
Anyway, I'm not saying you're complaining, I'm just... Saying. :p Actually, it seems to me that it's just a thread to talk about just what we can read: difference between bad and good players, then don't worry about what I said.

[BlaxicanX]

What is this supposed to be? I hope not a "nerf the ESFs" thread

Read his post and you'll find out.

[phungus]

I consider myself a B grade pilot, and I only go after air for the most part. It's still AA MAXes that kill me most of the time. Take from that what you will.

[Mox]

The problem is that there are way too many lock on launchers out there. As you say its not deadly. Skilled pilots can hide or performe evasive manouvers. Nevertheless, also skilled pilots are more or less constantly under lock on. Thats a huge problem because you can position yourself as needed to perform enough kills to make piloting ESFs a worthy thing. Therfore i suggest to reduce the range of lock on launchers drasticaly.

[Figment]

The problem is that there are way too many lock on launchers out there. As you say its not deadly. Skilled pilots can hide or performe evasive manouvers. Nevertheless, also skilled pilots are more or less constantly under lock on. Thats a huge problem because you can position yourself as needed to perform enough kills to make piloting ESFs a worthy thing. Therfore i suggest to reduce the range of lock on launchers drasticaly.

...So they become even more useless?


I had a squadron of aircraft flying overhead yesterday. Three missiles out of 40ish lock attempts hit, no kills. Why? Because either they broke lock before the lock actually occured, the remainder dodged and ignored it with a simple button press.

In fact, the only aircav I actually killed was Ostbahn with an AV dumbfire missile.

[almalino]

...So they become even more useless? Three missiles out of 40ish lock attempts hit, no kills.

My AA misses usually always hit unless flair is used BUT I almost never get a kill because pilot just fly away, repair and attack again.

The only time when I relaly kill planes is with Vanguard main anti tank canon because it is one hit kill for smaller aircrafts :)

Do not hover in front of mine Vanguard people.

[PredatorFour]

Empire specific launchers will help. Can't wait for the shitstorm of rage the phoenix will bring to anyone unfamiliar ( or familiar infact) of it from ps 1;)

[Baneblade]

I'm a really bad pilot, I have only actually died to the enemy once, the other times I suicide into stuff.

[Qwan]

Im a ok pilot, I do fly when I get a little froggy, but when I first started I was so bad I would die while in line trying to spawn air. It takes time to get used to the controls, and you have to set them up as well. Since the release of this game my suicides have dropped and im actually getting kills.

Ive never believed that air was over powered, it was all about having the proper equipment for the job. If we were having air issues we would get maxes or maybe a sky guard. I will admit though initially we didnt have the equipment, the skyguard was bugged, the max didnt do enough damage, and the sundy was a sitting duck. Now though its gotten better, I never thought that air was overpowered, but as gamers we find things that work and we use them, and at the time air just didnt have any thing that could stop them. But now that they fixed the sky guard, locking rockets that work (kinda), and beefed up the max now, and the sundy actually has some type of air defence, air isnt a problem anymore. Its actually the fly boys crying.

[KesTro]

Too much AA spam imo. if you want AA you should dedicate AA not have everyone and their mother rolling AA. But thats just the state of the game currently, what are we to do?

I guess roll MBT's and get people to cry about that more and forget about ESF's.

[Figment]

My AA misses usually always hit unless flair is used BUT I almost never get a kill because pilot just fly away, repair and attack again.

The only time when I relaly kill planes is with Vanguard main anti tank canon because it is one hit kill for smaller aircrafts :)

Do not hover in front of mine Vanguard people.

I've easily killed more aircraft with AV turrets and machine guns of some sort than AA G2A missiles.

I mean fine, the flare makes the lock on rocket miss. But it shouldn't prevent reacquisition of a lock. What's the point of having that stealth cert then if you can stop lock ons entirely and deny lock ons better with the flare?

[Assist]

I'm a really bad pilot, I have only actually died to the enemy once, the other times I suicide into stuff.

Pretty much the same.
I use my ESF as my AA method. Lock-on Rockets + Hailstorm allows me to cheese all the ESF's who Rocket Pod cheese me on the ground, only thing that dominates me in the air is good ESF pilots and the Liberator.

[Pella]

Lock on. Wait 3 Seconds "Press" F = Profit.

I cant remember the last time i lost an ESF to G2A missile's.

[SolLeks]

I have never felt that air was really that OP. the rockets splash needed to be toned down a bit yes, but other than that, we really just needed 2 things to happen (and both have, + a lot more).

1 - Time for the game to develop a bit.

what I mean by this is, we needed more than a month (first air nerf was about a month in) for people to buy / cert AA weapons.

2 - A reason to shoot at the air

Before we got exp from hitting air, it was a fairly unrewarding job. now we get exp for damaging air so its not bad.

now we have such a proliferation of AA, its hard to do anything to support your ground troops without a mass amount of air, or the enemy having no AA pulled.

My outfit normally has just a squad or two on non weekends (we do get up to about a platoon on the weekends). We do not have that many people to let more than a few go up in the air, so normally its just myself and one other pilot (on the weekends we can normally get about 5 in the air). you could say "have the ground take out the AA" and we try, but often, by the time the ground does take out the AA, the enemy sundie is dead and there is no more attacking forces / defending forces. the other problem right now is, it is a better use of troops to just have everyone on the ground, pulling AA as its needed. we can get it from sundies, towers, outposts and bases. Anyone that flys into our area gets taken out of the air near instantly because we actively watch for air and many of our heavys keep AA missiles out, and calling out air as we see it in TS3.

right now, air is useless in large fights and small fights with a coordinated group and it will distory in small fights with no enemy AA or in huge mass.

I am not sure how to balance this, but in my opinion, this does not seem right.

[Sledgecrushr]

I have never felt that air was really that OP. the rockets splash needed to be toned down a bit yes, but other than that, we really just needed 2 things to happen (and both have, + a lot more).

1 - Time for the game to develop a bit.

what I mean by this is, we needed more than a month (first air nerf was about a month in) for people to buy / cert AA weapons.

2 - A reason to shoot at the air

Before we got exp from hitting air, it was a fairly unrewarding job. now we get exp for damaging air so its not bad.

now we have such a proliferation of AA, its hard to do anything to support your ground troops without a mass amount of air, or the enemy having no AA pulled.

My outfit normally has just a squad or two on non weekends (we do get up to about a platoon on the weekends). We do not have that many people to let more than a few go up in the air, so normally its just myself and one other pilot (on the weekends we can normally get about 5 in the air). you could say "have the ground take out the AA" and we try, but often, by the time the ground does take out the AA, the enemy sundie is dead and there is no more attacking forces / defending forces. the other problem right now is, it is a better use of troops to just have everyone on the ground, pulling AA as its needed. we can get it from sundies, towers, outposts and bases. Anyone that flys into our area gets taken out of the air near instantly because we actively watch for air and many of our heavys keep AA missiles out, and calling out air as we see it in TS3.

right now, air is useless in large fights and small fights with a coordinated group and it will distory in small fights with no enemy AA or in huge mass.

I am not sure how to balance this, but in my opinion, this does not seem right.

Saturday afternoon on Connery. We were in a huge fight on Indar and we were facing off with the TR. The TR air was working really well together that afternoon. I think that was probably the leadership of TRG there but they were kicking our ass. What they were doing was coming over us ina single file and rocket strafing our positions. Very effective.

[SolLeks]

Saturday afternoon on Connery. We were in a huge fight on Indar and we were facing off with the TR. The TR air was working really well together that afternoon. I think that was probably the leadership of TRG there but they were kicking our ass. What they were doing was coming over us ina single file and rocket strafing our positions. Very effective.

like I said, Air is only great in areas that have 1, no AA or 2, a massive amount of air (and being TRG, I am sure it was the 2ed)

[Satanam]

Read his post and you'll find out.
I did, but sometimes people start talking about something that can be useful if well used, and then they just start saying it's OP. I also said that I wasn't stating he was saying ESF are OP or something. ;)

Let's remember ESF we pilots need to deal with not having a mate that will repair you when you get hit, and that we'll often get hit by 3 AA base turrets (the other one will be hided by the tower) plus the MAXes, AA lightnings, etc. The game is fine right now, and with the Prowler balance will be even better balanced.

[MrBloodworth]

I hereby ask that any thread with a giant bias and derogatory condemnation of others in the title be stricken from the forums.

[zulu]

like I said, Air is only great in areas that have 1, no AA or 2, a massive amount of air (and being TRG, I am sure it was the 2ed)

I wouldn't say there has to be no AA for air power to be effective, but the amount of AA needed to effectively deny air to the the enemy isn't very high.

(At this point, I'm sure someone will bring up the OP's point: there are ways to get around AA as an ESF, and hence anyone who feels like AA is too strong is a "whiner." Yes, a good ESF pilot can run along the ground and attack targets, but in my experience (no, I'm not an especially good pilot: I'd consider myself roughly average, but I've spent a good amount of time in an ESF) that's not always possible. Indeed, I don't even think it's possible in the vast majority of ground-attack situations you'll find yourself in. It's a good tactic when dealing with groups of infantry or tanks that are in the open, but against a more scattered force, or when attacking a base, this isn't very effective. You might think those situations are ones in which AA plays a lesser role, but MAXes right now have a huge range, and so a few of them can cover for even a more dispersed force.

Beyond that, I don't think that the experience of newer players and newer pilots needs to be discounted with what amounts to "learn to play." There's nothing fun about beating your head against the learning curve, and playing ESFs in the ground-attack role involves a lot of investment in certs and practice already. And, yes, the point of the game is to create an environment in which the players can have fun.)

But, to return to this point about AA -- dealing with a group of dedicated AA is difficult if you're in an ESF, but up to a certain level it's also very fun. If ground forces aren't willing or able to destroy an AA nest (pretty common, given the fact that any AA nest is going to be right in the middle of whatever its enemy needs to attack), fighters and libs have to work to suppress or destroy AA guns. You have to work in concert to have a good chance of destroying the enemy without losing your own fighter. Attacking in quick succession usually does the trick, though with enough AA guns around (I'd say if there are three or more dedicated AA platforms -- Skyguards or MAXes), it's very unlikely you'll be able to destroy one of the guns without losing a fighter. Fair enough when dealing with Skyguard Lightnings, but it's more than a little annoying to see a MAX get revived and repaired after you and your team spent a good amount of time and effort in attempting to destroy it.

Since the update that nerfed lock-on launchers a bit, I haven't seen nearly as many Annihilators around, and when I do it's relatively easy to lose the lock. The much larger threat comes from flak cannons, and particularly bursters. I would like to see the range on burster canons reduced, making them more of a local-area AA rather than one's best option when dealing with fighters or libs flying at any range or speed.

Ideally, I think the lock-on time for launchers would be drastically reduced, but their effective range would also be reduced. Lock-ons would be good against fighters that are making low strafing runs, but not effective against Liberators or air-superiority ESFs. Skyguards could have their range extended and perhaps given an option (perhaps a chassis upgrade?) that would improve their top armor a bit and allow them to deploy, similar to the Prowler anchored mode. Skyguards really should be the best ground-based AA units in the game, rather than being distinctly inferior to MAXes.

If the devs did some combination of the above, I think we might see a more interesting AA game, instead of the burster-MAX-dominated situation we have now. It wouldn't get at the annoyance of simply resurrecting MAXes, but that's a larger issue that perhaps creates for a more interesting ground game, anyways.

I hereby ask that any thread with a giant bias and derogatory condemnation of others in the title be stricken from the forums.

It's not very constructive, is it? But it is a good way to get views.

[SolLeks]

I agree with ya Zulu.

[OCNSethy]

I dont fly, I cant fly... Im crap at it, so I dont even try anymore. No point in padding someone else's K/D with my scalp :)

I have much respect for all the flyboys / gals, the good and the bad. Keep in mind, the 'bad' ones may still be learning their trade. Please remember that we all started off as newbies at one stage.

[MrBloodworth]

Please remember that we all started off as newbies at one stage.

F-That, you are apart of the master race or you are a whiner!



:rofl:

[OCNSethy]

F-That, you are apart of the master race or you are a whiner!



:rofl:

Which master race did you have in mind... we have so many? :)

[MrBloodworth]

Which master race did you have in mind... we have so many? :)

The best one, OBVIOUSLY! :brow:

[phungus]

AA MAXes are the best air superiority item available. Any yahoo who takes 5 minutes to figure out how to lead them is 20x more effective at controlling airspace then dedicated A2A ESF pilots who have put in 100s of hours learning to manuever these things, as well as the 1000s of hours usually spent flying in other games.

Anyone complaining about lock ons at this point isn't flying an ESF, or just really needs to focus on basic evasion. Lock ons haven't been a problem in some time.

The AA MAX in it's current form is increadible overpowered and ruins any A2A gameplay. I spend almost all my time trying to shoot down enemy planes, either as a mossy with A2Am, or a reaver with AB pods and a shotgun. I try to stay at flight ceiling, but on most of indar AA MAXes still kill you up there, and even on the southern part of the continent whenever you swoop down to engage enemy air, AA MAXes will kill you.

Things are better when you lolpod and fly close to the ground, you can usually use terrain and other obstacles more effectively to block AA MAXes and still get kills against infantry and even some armor. But AA MAXes just devestate and usually outright destroy any A2A ESFs, A2A ESFs seem to be the main target of AA MAXes simply due to how A2A ESFs operate.

I don't know if this is intentional, good or bad, but it is the way things work now. Personally I think it sucks, but that's because it ruins my experience, so I am incredibly biased. But if I had my way I'd double AA MAX dps and cut their range in half so they could more effectively engage ESFs that are attacking ground targets and work more like close infantry support, but they would stop killing A2A ESFs that are only interested in engaging other aircraft; it would also stop the AA MAX from completely dominating the skys as they currently do with their ridiculous range.

[Whiteagle]

The AA MAX in it's current form is increadible overpowered and ruins any A2A gameplay. I spend almost all my time trying to shoot down enemy planes, either as a mossy with A2Am, or a reaver with AB pods and a shotgun. I try to stay at flight ceiling, but on most of indar AA MAXes still kill you up there, and even on the southern part of the continent whenever you swoop down to engage enemy air, AA MAXes will kill you.

Phungus, you are over extending...

One of the biggest issues I have with AA whiners is that they don't realise their mobility requires them to have greater situation awareness... which includes knowing where on the map the enemy is currently.

For instance, if you fly ANYWHERE near the crown and your faction doesn't own it and every adjacent hex, you are going to melt.
I'm not a good ESF pilot, but I can survive long enough to get three or four strafing runs in just because I bother to land and look at my map every once and awhile.

[phungus]

I'm not a good ESF pilot, but I can survive long enough to get three or four strafing runs in just because I bother to land and look at my map every once and awhile.

Why are you strafing enemy air? If you're not talking about engaging aircraft then we are comparing apples and oranges.

[Ruzy]

I REALLY wish that suicides would credit kills to the last person to damage them.

[camycamera]

i am a bad pilot.... but that is only because i only have the machine gun on the ESF, and because i have no flares of sorts. thus, i suck; haven't killed anyone yet in an ESF. god damn, some pilots are bad because they haven't certed into all the good stuff yet, like me...

[OCNSethy]

I REALLY wish that suicides would credit kills to the last person to damage them.

Lol why? You having a hard time finding XP in this game, bro?

[Whiteagle]

Why are you strafing enemy air? If you're not talking about engaging aircraft then we are comparing apples and oranges.
I'm not strafing enemy air, you are chasing enemy air into there territory and getting shreaded by their allies!

If your main complaint is that you are getting shot down by ground AA as an A2A fighters, then you are probably over committing to a target and end up chasing the rabbit right into the Briar Patch.
Hell, a smart outfit will put a guy in the air just to bait someone like you over their AA nest...
You have to know when to fold them man, otherwise you'll end up losing everything going for the brass ring.

i am a bad pilot.... but that is only because i only have the machine gun on the ESF, and because i have no flares of sorts. thus, i suck; haven't killed anyone yet in an ESF. god damn, some pilots are bad because they haven't certed into all the good stuff yet, like me...
Dude if you want to get the hang of flying aircraft, invest in some zoom optics and provide covering machine gun fire from behind your front lines.

Yeah, your not going to be as effective as a good ROFLPODDER, but if you keep your eye peeled you might just end up giving somebody a much needed assist.

[zulu]

If your main complaint is that you are getting shot down by ground AA as an A2A fighters, then you are probably over committing to a target and end up chasing the rabbit right into the Briar Patch.


Not quite -- AA isn't really limited to the enemy's back yard. Flak turrets aren't a huge worry as a pilot -- they're annoying at the start of a battle, but they tend to disappear quickly.

But Burster Maxes (and, to a much lesser extent, Skyguards) get deployed on the front lines pretty quickly if anyone on the other side knows what they're doing. And their range isn't exactly short.

I don't think anyone is complaining that you can't, say, fly into depths of enemy territory with impunity (but for the most part you can, actually, provided enemy ESFs don't notice you).

I don't think the problem with AA is as enormous as it was a few weeks ago, though it's occasionally pretty vexing. Beefing up composite armor helped a lot. Reduction in range and angle for lock-on weapons did a lot, too. A small reduction in range for bursters would be good so long as it was answered with an increase in range for Skyguards. Burster MAXes right now are mobile, hideable, resurrectable, inexpensive, and stronger than Skyguards... why would anyone take a Lightning before that?

I think most of the problem is related to range rather than damage from AA guns right now. The devs haven't approached AA guns in a very systematic way, and so we have something of a kludge right now with four different systems (HA launchers, vehicle secondary guns, MAXes, and Skyguards) all attempting to duplicate one another rather than each providing a different aspect of air defense.

If I were designing this from scratch, I'd probably have those four systems each designed to deal with different types of threats. Launchers and secondary guns would be more for low-flying, high-speed ESFs (quick lock-on times, short range, etc.), MAXes would be for targets hovering higher over the battlefield (slower ROF, range probably only a few hundred meters up) and Lightnings would be more of a do-everything master AA gun (high ROF, long range, but stuck in a tank that can be blown up). The cheaper AA (launchers, MAXes) would have the advantage of being easily-deployed, but they wouldn't be as effective at taking out high-flying targets or those very far away. Lightnings, however, would provide a very large hemisphere of effective defense.

But, seeing as all of that is unlikely to be introduced, I'd settle for a small nerf on range or damage for Bursters or another buff for composite armor. Close to balanced right now, but the predominance of bursters creates certain problems (just as the predominance of lock-on launchers were more of a problem than the individual damage from them) that could be easily solved with a relatively small nerf in order to make other options more worthwhile, I think.



Hell, a smart outfit will put a guy in the air just to bait someone like you over their AA nest...
Indeed. The other day a guy deconstructed his burning fighter on me (another issue that needs to be solved ASAP) right as he led me over a small AA nest.

There are very smart ways to bait pilots, just as there are smart ways to bait tank drivers (Sunderers) or bait infantry (running into a hallway you just mined). Everyone wants XP.

But the fact that AA can be used in smart ways doesn't have much bearing on this conversation. It just means that some people are a bit more clever than the standard player.


Dude if you want to get the hang of flying aircraft, invest in some zoom optics and provide covering machine gun fire from behind your front lines.

Another option, I think, that would likely be more satisfying than occasionally machine-gunning a burning tank that drives into the midst of your zerg, is to just play air superiority behind your own lines as much as possible. You'll still have to run from any dedicated AA, but if you fly around a small group of friendlies and attack enemy fighters and liberators, you can earn XP at a reasonable pace.

The standard nosegun isn't great for this, but it does the job. The A2A noseguns are significantly better, and at 250 certs aren't insanely priced like the A2G rocket pods (which are perhaps justifiable at 1000 certs because of their versatility, but that's still a lot of certs).