I think Air Vehicles are incredibly imbalanced.

[Rothnang]

I'm a Liberator pilot, and i'm getting really annoyed with how ESFs are once again at the top of the food chain of air.

In Beta it was pretty much clear that the Liberator had nothing to offer that an ESF couldn't, and that two or three ESFs would beat a Liberator in every conceivable way by a mile, despite needing the same number of players.

We had a brief period where Liberators were awesome, and their raw ground attack power made them a force to be reckoned with. Of course this unfortunately happened entirely at the expense of infantry, and even during that time ESFs were killing Liberators with ease. Liberators were genuinely better at farming infantry for a while, which is an unfortunate thing to be best at, but it gave them a reason to exist. These days we're pretty much right back to the old way where ESFs are just better at everything.

You know how I judge what kind of state the Liberator is in: I just set one down at a warp gate and count the minutes until someone gets in. It used to be 30 seconds about, now you have to practically beg people to fly with you.


When you compare the two aircraft on their various characteristics:

Cost and player requirement

ESF: 1 player does everything, aircraft costs 200 resources. On minimum income you can pull 4 in a row.

Liberator: 2 players to reach about 90% of its potential, 3 players to utilize it fully, but at least one of those players will get hardly any XP because he's sitting in a seat that is only important when you're already in mortal peril and has little offensive value. Aircraft costs 300 resources, on minimum income you can pull 2 in a row.

ESF clearly wins.

Ground Killing power

ESF: Rocket Pods have some of the best burst damage in the entire game, and are lethal to all ground targets. The ESFs nosegun can also be used against ground targets effectively, and is relatively easy to bring to bear since the ESF can hover with its nose pointed downward for extended periods of time pretty easily. Rocket Pods achieve significant sustained damage as well when "hover spamming", but this tactic puts the ESF at considerable risk, and the relatively small ammo count makes it not overly appealing.

Liberator: Carries an array of ground attack weapons for different situations. None of them achieve anywhere near as much surgical accuracy as properly used rocket pods and can't easily be used against the back armor of a vehicle. They tend to have longer range and can be used from higher altitude. Only the tankbuster achieves burst damage that's comparable to rocket pods, but has shorter range and less accuracy, and requires the Liberator to fly in ways an ESF is more suited to. The sustained damage a Liberator can inflict on an area is much higher than what an ESF can achieve, but both aircraft need a clear sky to attempt this.

I'll call this even, they both have their advantages for ground attacks.

Air Killing Power

ESF: The ESF can easily attack all other aircraft. It is significantly faster than the other aircraft, so they can't escape the ESFs attack. The Rotary gun will destroy a Liberator in 3-4 clips. An ESF can be highly effective in aerial combat even while having rocket pods fitted, which can also be used against aircraft at short range. Only Galaxies present a serious challenge to single ESFs, since there is no angle of attack on a Galaxy except right underneath its chin where not at least 2 of its guns can shoot back at an attacker, and it takes too long to kill to withstand its defensive weapons until it is destroyed when it's fully crewed.

Liberator: A Liberator can defend itself from aerial attacks fairly effectively, using its back gun, front gun and sometimes even bellygun. A Liberator can be a highly effective air to air vehicle with a good gunner in a Shredder. The tankbuster can destroy ESFs in less than a second, but is very difficult to get a good shot with. The back guns are lackluster at aerial combat, even the Walker which is a dedicated anti air gun. Overall a fully crewed Liberator with an explosive shell bellygun is not a match for a skilled ESF in an aerial battle, though is quite capable of dispatching novice pilots. It can destroy other Liberators quite easily, and is also able to destroy a Galaxy on its own, since its powerful front gun can easily hit the huge Galaxy.

The ESF takes this category too, by a some margin. It can 1on1 ESFs and Liberators quite easily, but it can't 1on1 a Galaxy. The Liberator can 1on1 Liberators and Galaxies, but falls victim to skilled ESF pilots easily without a very specialized setup. Since ESFs are far more numerous than Galaxies and ESFs don't need to compromise their ground firepower to have superb anti air firepower this goes to the ESF.

Speed and Maneuverability

ESF: The fighter is the fastest and most agile vehicle in the game, bar none. It comes with an afterburner that will raise it's speed to about 150% for several seconds standard. The ESF is significantly better than the Liberator at hovering in positions where its nose is pointing up or down, giving it a huge advantage at both using front weapons to attack ground targets, and engaging from all angles in aerial combat.

Liberator: The second fastest vehicle in the game, but not in any way agile. A tank can outmaneuver a Liberator easily although it can't outrun one. Stopping a Liberator and getting it moving in the opposite direction at full speed takes several seconds, and you either have to move for a significant distance in the original direction to make a curve, or stall the vehicle in mid air for several seconds to turn on the spot. Flying with the nose pointed up or down for extended periods of time isn't possible in the Liberator, since it's much slower to adjust its altitude or position to sustain such flight.

ESF walks away with another easy win.

Survivability

The ESF is the hardest target in the game to hit by a fairly large margin. It's not only an incredibly fast vehicle that can move in very erratic and unpredictable patterns, it's also a very small vehicle that gives people relatively little to aim for. The only weapons that really excel at hitting ESFs are airbursting munitions and lockon launchers. Automatic weapons are decent at hitting ESFs, but a large percentage of shots will still miss unless fired at extremely close range. The biggest factor that gives the ESF superb survivability is its ability to outrun any enemy in the game except for some other ESFs. Unless you kill the ESF right away or engage it while its already damaged the chance of destroying it before it escapes is very low.

Liberators are a huge target, and their movements are considerably more predictable than those of an ESF since it can't change direction abruptly due to its momentum. In order to make itself a difficult target a Liberator has to be far away from the person shooting at it. At ranges that an ESF still presents a challenging target at the Liberator is a relatively easy target for all weapons in the game except some of the slower launchers. The Liberator is vulnerable to all the same weapons as the ESF, including lock on launchers and air burst munitions, which are nearly impossible to miss with against a Liberator. A Liberator can outrun all vehicles except for the ESF or another Liberator. What it lacks in avoidance it makes up for with a generous cushion of hitpoints, but not so much that it can shrug off damage like a Galaxy. Horror stories of Liberators having way too much armor are mainly born of people trying to take them down with extremely low DPS lock on launchers.

Overall the ESF wins this category by a small margin. It will die faster when attacked, but an ESF is so fast that another ESF is its only predator, all other things that can kill it can be avoided. The Liberator is nice and sturdy, and can still run from just about any ground threat, but it has a huge target on its back, and any single ESF can catch up to it and kill it.

Combat scaling

ESF: The ESF takes combat scaling fairly well. It's extreme focus on avoiding enemy fire instead of absorbing it with hitpoints allows the ESF to effectively operate even if there is a lot of enemy firepower in an area. Mistakes are less forgiving in a big battle, but a skilled pilot can move in and out of a battlespace at extreme speed and avoid retaliation all together while still taking effective shots. Some terrain doesn't allow ESFs to make effective runs in large battles. For example the free standing crown gives ESFs no approach vectors to the target, so their ability to withstand combat scaling becomes compromised in such scenarios.

Liberator: The Liberator does not handle combat scaling well. Since it relies on its hitpoints pretty much entirely to survive attacks, it has no real way of handing overwhelming firepower. Also, since the true strength of the Liberator is sustained damage it not only start losing any bit of survivability advantage it may have held over an ESF with its hitpoints, it also loses any firepower advantage it may have held in larger fights where it's simply impossible to stay in the area for extended periods of time.

The ESF wins this one too. It simply does better in larger battles as long as the target area isn't completely exposed, at which point it does just as bad as the Liberator, not worse.



The ESF wins out in most of these categories, and I just don't really see what the point to the Liberator is anymore.

Air combat is pretty much a gimme for ESFs right now, they just rule at it, the only thing they can't take down 1on1 is a Galaxy, and when I say 1on1 I mean 1on5 of course. They can easily down a Libeator, which IMO is absurd, since even a specialized tank killing lightning tank which has no other capabilities is still not up to par with an MBT, so why should an ESF that can kill tanks and infantry just fine be able to easily go up against a Liberator as well?

ESFs are simply too strong. They can take on any other unit in the game by themselves and win pretty much, and a group of really good ESF pilots will actually operate in a squad - which at that point just becomes overkill. A Liberator is in dire straights against a single skilled ESF, but pretty much guaranteed dead against 2 or 3, which is a situation you frequently encounter simply because when 3 completely unrelated ESFs see a Liberator render on the Horizon they all go "Aha, 2000 XP" and start heading your way, knowing you can't escape.

Liberators are damn near pointless in big battles now, not just because ESFs are such a huge threat to them that they can't be effectively deployed as long as the opponent has a significant airforce, they also simply can't inflict any meaningful damage to the enemy while under AA fire. A Liberator is only really devastating when it can stay in the area and shoot multiple times, which it can't when its taking tons of damage it really can't avoid. After the bullet drop was added back in for Zephyrs and Daltons (which by the way was removed in Beta as part of their effort to actually make the Liberator viable compared to ESFs) you don't even have the option of effective high altitude bombing anymore. I mean, huge drop you can handle, slow projectiles you can handle, but huge drop and slow projectiles on the same weapon, when you're forced to fire at 500+ meters to even have enough time to kill anything? nuts.



Since people are going to make the argument that ESFs are meant to destroy Liberators easily, let me preempt that by saying: I wouldn't mind if there was some kind of interceptor type aircraft that specifically exists to knock down bombers, but that's not what an ESF is. An ESF is an air superiority fighter, interceptor and close air support plane all rolled into one. It can take on ground targets. It can take on other fighters. It can take on Bombers - all at the same time, and all with relative ease. That's not even remotely fair for one single one-man vehicle to wear that many hats and make them all look good.

What the air battle should look like: Air superiority fighters to challenge interceptors and escort the bombers/gunships. Interceptors to destroy the bombers. Close air support planes to provide pinpoint firepower on the ground when the bombers/gunships aren't fast or precise enough.

[Rothnang]

I just realized that my thread title sounds like caveman speak because I forgot a word.

[CasualCat]

I like a lot of what was said. I should add it seems to me that a lot of the AA buffs/air nerfs were balanced around the ESF with pods vs AA and not so much Libs vs AA.

IE bursters needed stopping power to counter the burst damage potential of rockets/pods, but a Liberator generally lacks that burst damage or ability to quickly extricate itself from suddenly hostile airspace.

Now if the Liberator is there before the AA Max that is different (ie over a tower/spawn), but going into a zone with already present AA is problematic.

A simple start might be to revert the drop/speed changes on the Dalton and maybe the Zepher while leaving everything else in place. Then tune from there.

[OmegaPREDATOR]

Your right but you forget something :
- PS2 is a MMOfps

You can't find somebody to come with you ? Find friends ingame who enjoy be gunners.

ESF is a trouble for you ? Find an outfit, you will find gunner and AA ESF defense (as we get in my outfit).

I pass half my time in infantery and libertor are really anoying and can defeat or force to cover one or two squads. And they are so strong that is really hard to destroy them fast (they fly away really fast when in trouble).

The other half I'm in ESF and they are still hard to destroy and can make lots of damages (with walker or dalton :huh:).

So for flying safe, fly with other players (frinds, outfit or in the middle of zergs) and you will be able to play more.

PS: it's BECAUSE OF liberators (and rockets pod) that infanteries have now so many AA guns and for ESF it's really painful to always be lock near every where by squads with to many AA launchers who destroy fast (except when you run away quicly). And because of what ? Bacause Liberators have been kings for camping infantery (as you said) and to strong to be defeat by 2 AA MAX :(

[Sledgecrushr]

I am much happier with my liberatorsince I certed afterburners. I havent played since the new esr have been put into the game so I dont know what flying is like now.

[CasualCat]

I am much happier with my liberatorsince I certed afterburners. I havent played since the new esr have been put into the game so I dont know what flying is like now.

I'd say if going near TR flares are required. If your flares are on cooldown you don't want to be near their infantry.

Against TR the striker seems to work very well with the bursters. The bursters can cover most things, and if you get in render distance of the bursters to attempt to remove them you're then in range of strikers.

I've not had the same sort of layered defense troubles with NC, and can't speak to going up against the VS.

[ChipMHazard]

I just realized that my thread title sounds like caveman speak because I forgot a word.

Let me fix that for you:p

My opinion on the matter is what it's been for a very long time. Basicly all vehicles in the game are too versatile. ESFs are the most obvious example of this.
Personally I believe that all vehicles should have a clearly defined role with added versatility gained by use of secondary weapons (except the ESF which should not have access to both the nosegun and rocketpods.) But what I want is most certainly too late, taking into account the amount of time and effort put into the vehicles as they are now.

[psijaka]

Was on the receiving end of several Liberator attacks this morning; they certainly don't seem underpowered from an infantry perspective.

But I do see where you are coming from regarding the comparison with the ESFs.

[ThatGoatGuy]

I admit I'm a rocketpod whore, but I too would enjoy it if ESFs were meant as an AIR DEFENSE ONLY. What I mean is that the only belly gun available would be A2A missiles, though the AI nose guns should still be available. That way people would have an effective reason to pull a lib.

Suggested certs on a lib:
Composite armour
Afterburners
TankBuster: Zoom (Lvl 1 is fine)
Zepher: IRNV
Walker: Zoom (LVL 1) OR Bulldog Zoom (Higher levels are better)
As said before, flares are a given when going up against TR

Other than that, ESF certs are pretty obvious with faction specific rotary and rocket pods, defense depends on personal preference (<3 auto repair), and flares are absolutely necessary no matter what on an ESF (My main is TR and I still use flares every time).

[ThatGoatGuy]

Can you delete this post chip? This one, the one I'm speaking in. I posted twice :P

[Rbstr]

I agree air balance is screwed up. But I think your conclusions are mostly wrong.
Right now, AA is balanced to take out the air-tank that is the Liberator. Which have an order a magnitude more health than an ESF. Everything has AA and it's all way more deadly to an ESF than a Liberator. A lib can hit from far away enough to render busters mostly useless.

To characterize eh Dalton or Zephyr as worse than rocketpods is ridiculous. As is being upset it can't deal with aircraft very effectively. All of the comparisons are fatally flawed because they aren't supposed to do the same things. It's role is to be a gunship. If it's protected it deals far more punishment with much greater staying power than an ESF is capable of.

I'd much rather a much more agile Lib with less HP and a general reduction in AA power.
And also make the gunner turret point forward so ti can be used as less of a loitering craft and more of a helo-gunship sort of thing.

[Ghoest9]

A simple start might be to revert the drop/speed changes on the Dalton and maybe the Zepher while leaving everything else in place. Then tune from there.


wrong

The solution to over powered ESF is NOT to increase to power of Libs.

[Ghoest9]

ESF should have never had AtG rockets. They should have even had an AtG gun.

Thats basically the problem.

[CasualCat]

Right now, AA is balanced to take out the air-tank that is the Liberator. Which have an order a magnitude more health than an ESF. Everything has AA and it's all way more deadly to an ESF than a Liberator. A lib can hit from far away enough to render busters mostly useless.

To characterize eh Dalton or Zephyr as worse than rocketpods is ridiculous. It's role is to be a gunship. If it's protected it deals far more punishment with much greater staying power than an ESF is capable of.

I'd much rather a much more agile Lib with less HP and a general reduction in AA power.
And also make the gunner turret point forward so ti can be used as less of a loitering craft and more of a helo-gunship sort of thing.
A lib can hit from far away, but there is significant drop/travel time (unlike pods) and if the lib can hit something flak can hit the Lib unless you're talking about lone vehicles out in the field. With that drop/round travel time little vehicle movements significantly increase TTK.

His descriptions of the Pods vs Zepher/Dalton are pretty spot on. If (really big if) the Lib can linger they can do a higher amount of sustained damage. Many times it can't linger though.

The Lib has more health than an ESF, but it is bigger, slower, and less agile making it an easier target.

That ESF has less health but can many times find fast approaches to not only hit but kill tanks Libs can't get near.

[CasualCat]

wrong

The solution to over powered ESF is NOT to increase to power of Libs.

There isn't a single solution. That is a potential solution for the Lib not the ESF.

Since the drop changes there have also been changes in splash radius, spawn rooms allow firing skyward, flak has been buffed, and new AV/AA weapons have been introduced.

I think we could try reverting just the drop and leaving everything else to see how it fairs.

The complaint often about the Libs before were farming spawns. Drop isn't really impacted by that because you have to be close to the infantry for them to render anyhow. When you're close enough to farm a spawn with a Lib drop is pretty irrelevant.

What it did do is make the intended anti-ground vehicle role more of a PITA while not fixing the camping issue.

They said at one point they wanted Libs to be more over their target. I'm not sure how that makes camping better, but the problem with that is it has a big #$% cone below the aircraft where the gunner can't actually shoot.

[Stardouser]

I admit I'm a rocketpod whore, but I too would enjoy it if ESFs were meant as an AIR DEFENSE ONLY. What I mean is that the only belly gun available would be A2A missiles, though the AI nose guns should still be available. That way people would have an effective reason to pull a lib.

Suggested certs on a lib:
Composite armour
Afterburners
TankBuster: Zoom (Lvl 1 is fine)
Zepher: IRNV
Walker: Zoom (LVL 1) OR Bulldog Zoom (Higher levels are better)
As said before, flares are a given when going up against TR

Other than that, ESF certs are pretty obvious with faction specific rotary and rocket pods, defense depends on personal preference (<3 auto repair), and flares are absolutely necessary no matter what on an ESF (My main is TR and I still use flares every time).

ESFs should fly faster, hover be less viable and therefore rockets be less viable, and instead have laser guided bombs that require teamwork/lazing. That would move lobs up the chain on ground attack without actually removing it from EsF.

[Ghoest9]

There isn't a single solution. That is a potential solution for the Lib not the ESF.

Since the drop changes there have also been changes in splash radius, spawn rooms allow firing skyward, flak has been buffed, and new AV/AA weapons have been introduced.

I think we could try reverting just the drop and leaving everything else to see how it fairs.

The complaint often about the Libs before were farming spawns. Drop isn't really impacted by that because you have to be close to the infantry for them to render anyhow. When you're close enough to farm a spawn with a Lib drop is pretty irrelevant.

What it did do is make the intended anti-ground vehicle role more of a PITA while not fixing the camping issue.

They said at one point they wanted Libs to be more over their target. I'm not sure how that makes camping better, but the problem with that is it has a big #$% cone below the aircraft where the gunner can't actually shoot.
A "potential" HORRIBLE solution.

Nerfing the snot out of aircraft vs ground was the best thing that happened to PS2 since release.

[CasualCat]

A "potential" HORRIBLE solution.

Nerfing the snot out of aircraft vs ground was the best thing that happened to PS2 since release.

Your horrible and biased opinion.

How about addressing the points rather than just trolling.

[Assist]

Liberators are still top of the food chain. Best AA, best A2G, and best killing power.

You're wrong about the air killing power, the Dalton/Zephyr are the two best AA guns in the game. Turn the bottom of your Liberator in the general direction of the ESF's(180 degree firing range), and all you need is one shot for that ESF to go down. Compared to the ESF, which needs three sets of Rocket Pods, 4 reloads of it's AA gun, or 6 AA lock-on rockets.


You're wrong about the Air to Ground power as well, the Dalton/Zephyr reward ridiculously higher score/min than the ESF's against Infantry. Given the survivability of the Liberator, INCLUDING the ability to take hits and to stay at near max draw distance from it's targets, you cannot put the ESF above it for ground power. Also, averaging out the score/min for the Pilot and the Gunner in the Liberator is completely irreleveant as your main argument is about BALANCE. There is no comparison to the damage output of a Liberator and the damage output of an ESF. The Liberator kills infantry 10x(Zephyr) as fast as an ESF and kills ground armor 2x(Dalton) as fast. It's not even close to being similar in damage scale, the Liberator does way more and if your argument in this thread is balance than using score/min averaged across two players shouldn't even be discussed. If you have a problem with that then you should be complaining about the score distribution of the overpowered Liberator.


You said a tank can outmaneuver a Liberator? Seriously? If both are on the ground and the Liberator isn't moving, MAYBE the tank can outmaneuver it then. But honestly? A tank can outmaneuver a Liberator? What game are you playing ?

Also, you really think the ESF is just flatout better than a Liberator right now? Tell me then, do you run for cover when you see three ESF's? What about when you see three Liberators? There's no way in hell you're ever going to convince me that 3 ESF's have anywhere near the power of 3 Liberators or even 6 ESF's to 3 Liberators.

Your complaint about big battles is really a moot point as well. Tanks don't survive in big battles right now either, shit most Sunderers don't survive in big battles. No armor survives in big battles. But to be completely honest, the only vehicle in the game that is still extremely effective in big battles is the Dalton Liberator, owning ground armor from distances that ground AA cannot even reach.


I suggest you talk to some of the good Liberator Pilot/Gunner tandems on Waterson, as they take on 3-4+ ESF's in their Liberator, because they understand the value of the Dalton/Zephyr as an AA gun.

[Ghoest9]

Your horrible and biased opinion.

How about addressing the points rather than just trolling.

NO.

This was a thread about imbalance between aircraft - a good subject.

Various people though are just using it as subversive platform to buff Libs vers ground troops.
If they want to go down that road - then were going to talk about how relieved the majority of the player base has felt since the nerfing of AvG.

[CasualCat]

Liberators are still top of the food chain. Best AA, best A2G, and best killing power.

You're wrong about the air killing power, the Dalton/Zephyr are the two best AA guns in the game.

You're wrong about the Air to Ground power as well, the Dalton/Zephyr reward ridiculously higher score/min than the ESF's against Infantry. Given the survivability of the Liberator, INCLUDING the ability to take hits and to stay at near max draw distance from it's targets, you cannot put the ESF above it for ground power. Also, averaging out the score/min for the Pilot and the Gunner in the Liberator is completely irreleveant as your main argument is about BALANCE. There is no comparison to the damage output of a Liberator and the damage output of an ESF. The Liberator kills infantry 10x(Zephyr) as fast as an ESF and kills ground armor 2x(Dalton) as fast. It's not even close to being similar in damage scale, the Liberator does way more and if your argument in this thread is balance than using score/min averaged across two players shouldn't even be discussed. If you have a problem with that then you should be complaining about the score distribution of the overpowered Liberator.


You said a tank can outmaneuver a Liberator? Seriously? If both are on the ground and the Liberator isn't moving, MAYBE the tank can outmaneuver it then. But honestly? A tank can outmaneuver a Liberator? What game are you playing ?


Dalton/Zepher are good against air if they can score hits.

You talk about score/min vs infantry and then talk about max draw distance. Max draw distance you aren't hitting infantry. If you're hitting infantry then you're in range of many other threats.

Yes, Zepher is absolutely great at taking out infantry. There is no denying that.

The Dalton isn't 2x faster at taking out tanks though and that isn't even factoring in the ease at which ESFs can hit the rear of tanks. You're way way off on it being 2x faster. The further the Liberator gets from its target hitting becomes much much harder too. So again at the Max range you mentioned before hitting with the Dalton is actually difficult. Also factor in that it takes 2 people to use the Dalton effectively. Whats the TTK of 2 ESFs vs 1 Dalton Lib on ground armor?

You have less than 100 Liberator kills, less than 50 vehicle kills with the Liberator, and less than 11hrs in one. When is the last time you flew or gunned a Liberator?

Survivability of the Liberator is overstated.


Not sure what he means by a tank outmaneuvering a Lib, though he could be talking about tanks avoiding Dalton damage at range. At range due to drop and projectile speed, a maneuvering tank is difficult to hit/kill.

[CasualCat]

NO.

This was a thread about imbalance between aircraft - a good subject.

Various people though are just using it as subversive platform to buff Libs vers ground troops.
If they want to go down that road - then were going to talk about how relieved the majority of the player base has felt since the nerfing of AvG.

Part of that balance is that one aircraft can effectively take on ground vehicles and another is less effective at it many times.

You said ground troops. I don't think it needs any help versus infantry. It needs a quality of life buff versus ground vehicles. The drop impacts ground vehicles much more than infantry.

You haven't said how drop even impacts ground troops though. I don't believe it really does. It does have a substantial impact on its ability to hit vehicles though.

[Assist]

Dalton/Zepher are good against air if they can score hits.

You talk about score/min vs infantry and then talk about max draw distance. Max draw distance you aren't hitting infantry. If you're hitting infantry then you're in range of many other things.

Yes Zepher is absolutely great at taking out infantry. There is no denying that.

The Dalton isn't 2x faster at taking out tanks though and that isn't even factoring in the ease at which ESFs can hit the rear of tanks. You're way way off on that. The further the Liberator gets from its target hitting becomes much much harder too.

You have less than 100 Liberator kills, less than 50 vehicle kills with the Liberator, and less than 11hrs in one. When is the last time you flew or gunned a Liberator?

Survivability of the Liberator is overstated.

Do you need me to link you the Vehicle kills of Dalton Liberators? How about the kills/hour?
Sorry, it's not even close.
Dalton is at least 2x as fast at taking out tank**S** compared to the ESF, which everyone argues is overpowered right now. If your complaint is that ESF's do too much damage to rear armor of tanks I'll completely agree, but you appear to be using their damage as the measure for which the Dalton lib should be doing.
Also, when's the last time you had an ESF take out three tanks in a row, without having to do multiple passes? It doesn't happen, ESF's do not stick around that long, and if they try to they get shot down by the tank and/or infantry.. Dalton Liberators have no issues taking out multiple armored targets because they don't need to do multiple passes, they can hover in spot way up in the air out of AA range and not be bothered.

Your comment about Zephyrs I don't quite understand. The downside to the Zephyr is you have to be in render distance of infantry, which I think is quite fair. Considering the videos out there of Zephyr Liberators taking out 50+ infantry in less than 3 minutes.

If you want the Liberator to be better against air, there will be no ESF's out there ever. As they are right now they're the most deadly vehicle to ESF's without even having a third gunner. Right now the Liberator is the best vehicle for every situation, except being a spawn point. There's not a single vehicle with more ground power, air power, or dominance of an area.

[Assist]

It's interesting to me that you guys feel that the Liberator is not strong enough. It's not tanky enough, it's not useful in small or large battles. It's not maneuverable enough, it's not fast enough, it's not balanced.

I've argued it's not balanced since release, and I think it MAYBE is finally starting to hurt the Liberator. That has more to do with the abundance of anti-vehicle weapons that have been implemented since release. This has effected ALL vehicles though, not just the Liberator.
The problem with the Liberator is you cannot make it stronger without it becoming even more unbalanced to air or ground. I personally feel the biggest reason for this is the design. The Liberator should of been a bomber, not a gunship of mass destruction. The cannon on it makes it far too strong. They should of had an AA cannon, an A2G cannon, and an AV cannon. All three of them should of had different maneuverability's, the AA having the most and the A2G having the least. The problem is they can all shoot where ever they want, whenever they want, and there's not exactly a 'limited' variable in the equation anywhere. You give the Liberator more of a fixed cannon, make it require a bit more skill and coordination to use, and you can then buff the armor/damage.

As it is right now, if they buff the maneuverability it'll become stupid. Liberators doing passes like ESF's is just dumb. The damage cannot be buffed, as it's too strong already, when you kill things faster than they can react then increasing the damage is not a good idea. The armor could be buffed, but only if it comes at the reduction of the cannon turret maneuverability. If the armor is buffed and the damage stays the same, we're going to see tons of Liberators flying in low in battles with their Zephyr's destroying everything before they can react(similar to the first 3 months of the game).

[CasualCat]

Do you need me to link you the Vehicle kills of Dalton Liberators? How about the kills/hour?
Sorry, it's not even close.
Dalton is at least 2x as fast at taking out tank**S** compared to the ESF, which everyone argues is overpowered right now. If your complaint is that ESF's do too much damage to rear armor of tanks I'll completely agree, but you appear to be using their damage as the measure for which the Dalton lib should be doing.
Also, when's the last time you had an ESF take out three tanks in a row, without having to do multiple passes? It doesn't happen, ESF's do not stick around that long, and if they try to they get shot down by the tank and/or infantry.. Dalton Liberators have no issues taking out multiple armored targets because they don't need to do multiple passes, they can hover in spot way up in the air out of AA range and not be bothered.

Your comment about Zephyrs I don't quite understand. The downside to the Zephyr is you have to be in render distance of infantry, which I think is quite fair. Considering the videos out there of Zephyr Liberators taking out 50+ infantry in less than 3 minutes.

If you want the Liberator to be better against air, there will be no ESF's out there ever. As they are right now they're the most deadly vehicle to ESF's without even having a third gunner. Right now the Liberator is the best vehicle for every situation, except being a spawn point. There's not a single vehicle with more ground power, air power, or dominance of an area.

Sure I'd like to see your data on Dalton libs. Does your data only include ground vehicles kills? Is it an average? Is it only the top players?

Check out the TTKs of various pods versus tanks then Dalton versus tanks at PS2calc.com

It isn't 2x as fast, and that isn't including rear attacks. I'm not saying it should be as fast as ESF attacks on the rear of tanks. I am saying though it takes two people, and it is a slower larger target than the ESFs. Since it takes 2 people those same 2 people could have taken 2 ESFs. 2 ESFs greatly outperform the Dalton. Even 1 ESF there is less than 1 sec difference.


I don't think the Zepher needs any help. It does suffer the same drop issue verus armor, but it keeping drop while Dalton loses it could be a nice defining characteristic.

If a Dalton Lib can hit tanks AA, were it present, can hit the Dalton Lib. So yes uncontested a Lib can hover over tanks. That goes to the OP's point. If it can hang out, linger, stay on station (whatever you want to call it) it can do great sustained damage. It doesn't have burst damage though and most of the time now it can't stick around at any real fights. Those tanks in range will be protected by skyguards or worse bursters.

And while an ESF may have to do multiple passes it can still be faster than the Dalton.

Seriously have a pilot take you to somewhere with tanks at max ceiling then drop until they render. Start shooting at the tanks. Assuming they don't have flak/ESFs to chase you off, it'll still take a while to kill the tanks. They don't have to move much at all to make it tough with a long TTK.


I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to reduce the Dalton ammo count *IF* it didn't have the horrible drop it has now. It'd probably also need a velocity increase.

I don't want it to be better at air. The tail isn't a threat to air though and can usually be ignored. It is only a threat to air because of the front gun if ESFs charge it or the belly gun if the gunner is good (or cheating) and the pilot can keep the belly towards the air threat.

The front gun is of course good against other Libs and Galaxies as well.

[wave]

I think that vehicles of all types are pretty well balanced for what the game is today.
In the future it would be nice if all vehicles received an armor buff but where more expensive and harder to obtain to combat vehicles spam.

[Rothnang]

Coming at game balance from a standpoint of "If you are good enough you can win against any enemy" is just idiotic. It's basically like arguing that if you were a good enough tennis player you could win Wimbledon with a frying pan. Sure, if you were super-humanly capable and all your opponents were not even remotely in your league that would be possible, but what kind of an inflated ego do you have to have to just casually discount that there might be other players who are just as good if not better than you?

The whole argument of "The Liberator is the best AA vehicle, because you can shoot all ESFs with the Dalton" is complete bollocks. Are there some ESFs that you can shoot with a Dalton? Yes. Are there some ESFs that you can shoot with a tankbuster? Yes. Are the some ESFs who you can bonk on the cockpit with your wing as they go by knocking them into a tree? Yes. Can you do that to all of them? Hell no.

You might as well argue that the Vanguard is the best AA gun because you can shoot all ESFs with it, and the battle rifle is the best infantry weapon because it kills crazy fast with headshots at just about any range. If you completely discount how much skill it actually takes to make a certain attack and how much the enemy can do to evade such an attack, sure, the weapons with the highest hard numbers can be easily proclaimed to be the best at everything.

[Sirisian]

My only issue with Liberators since I fly one is they are too easy to hit with tanks. I just killed an enemy Liberator with my Magrider for instance after putting two rounds into it. From fighting Prowlers and Vanguards the same is true there especially if they're on a hill since it's very easy to line up and hit them.

Also with the striker I've found it to be rather hard to dodge. In an ESF you fly to the ground and they miss, but with my Liberator I can't seem to pull it off. The game is definitely hostile toward Liberators now since they buffed stuff against ESF without taking into consideration we have a slower less maneuverable vehicle flying also in the same air. Flak seems fine though when I'm flying. It hurts, but it tells me to leave the area.

[Carbon Copied]

Sometimes I think that most of the "imbalance" is far simpler than the actual power of the guns but the frequency you can actually use one type of attack I mean for starters I know some harp on about "realism"; the lack of or otherwise but maybe if we can start by getting basic maths correct (pictures below).

Then rebuffing each rocket e.g (this is using hypothetical simple figures as opposed to actual damage)

Current rocket pod full does 100 damage per rocket per hit = 1200 total

Rockets matching the actual displayed pod size would then only deal 800 damage total so each rocket is increased damage by 50 = 150 damage per rocket = 1200 total


(maybe even reducing damage per rocket?)

As well as potentially reducing the reserve magazine capacity forcing a more tactile - less spam like approach.

This I think serves a few things: it forces the pilots to choose between targets far more carefully than the attitude at times of just emptying 12 rockets in the general area, you will actually be potentially punished for choosing the wrong target and in the case of the liberator specifically without "buffing/nerfing" either side directly as such, the liberator remains a potentially easy target but you've got to be sure you can take it on properly if the margin for error is greater. Good pilots will still shine but even so may introduce a less take on anything and everything at once play style?

[phungus]

ESF should have never had AtG rockets. They should have even had an AtG gun.

Thats basically the problem.

Yep. The game would be so much better if ESFs didn't have a secondary, and this is coming from someone who makes extensive use/abuse of rocket pods and or A2Am.

Really if you want to kill ground targets, the banshee and light ppa are damn good at it (reaver shotgun isn't, but let's assume they had an equivalent nose gun), there really is no reason for rocket pods. They are fun to use, but make no sense for game balance. If rocket pods did no splash damage but retained their current direct impact damage to armor then maybe things would be OK, though A2Am would become a problem then as everyone would load it out.

The way the overpoweredness of ESFs is currently balances is by making lock on rockets free (which has a devestating effect on ground armor - especially due to rendering distance and invisible god mode that often goes hand in hand with lock on HA rockets), and AA MAXes devestating with extreme range against air. This has had the side effect of actually buffing A2G ESFs overall, as A2A ESFs pose less of a threat - it's much harder then people think to engage rocket podders or hoverspammers in an A2A ESF due to AA MAXes nuking you when you get close enough with your rotary.

Bottom line is the game simply never will be balanced correctly as long as ESFs have their do it all secondary - rocket pods. No way around this, so we might as well except it and move on.

[Rothnang]

Yea, but let's face it, if the ESF can't take out a target in one run it can't get kills without hovering either unless it attacks damaged targets.

[KesTro]

I was all for nerfing the lib, but honestly now a days it feels like a joke. This is coming from a guy who fully certed out the afterburner, and the reload speed on his Dalton as well as kitting it out in general.

It can be used as AA for sure, but in the end that's just a gimmick, something that's cool when it happens. I don't pull my lib with the intent to hunt ESF's. I pull it with the intent to punish ground, everyone of them seeming to have a counter to me.

You have to be a lot more cautious when you fly which is good I suppose, no more rushing into hot conflict areas unless you have a death wish. However for you to get the sustained power of the lib you have to be in a zone you already control pretty predominately at which point I feel like the power is wasted.

Just my 2 cents.

[Rothnang]

Yea, that's sort of the problem with it.

I know that when I pull a Lib at 4am I can still wreck people pretty well despite all the nerfs. That is provided no enemy ESF pilot who can easily kill me 1on1 is online, since with so few people it's easy for an ESF to hunt big game on the whole map. With only maybe 10-20 people groups attacking places though a Liberator is a serious piece of kit, you can single handedly put the kibosh on an offensive, and Sunderer kills are plentiful and give fantastic certs.

When I pull a Liberator during primetime however I might as well not bother. The only viable targets are people who travel by themselves or in tiny groups, but let's face it, you may call them lone wolves, I call them sickly gazelles. If you want to participate in the real battles you'll very quickly find that the AA situation will barely allow you to get any kills, and all the ESFs around that cope with the AA better make your work doubly dangerous, since an ESF can easily kill you if you're at full health, but basically just gets a free kill if you've already been damaged by AA. It's not that you can't fly a Liberator during primetime, but your cert gain goes in the toilet because in order to survive for any length of time you need to skulk around and be an opportunistic killer while avoiding anything that even smells like it might retaliate.


I'm just not happy with the Liberator right now. I don't want it to be an invulnerable flying doom machine that just goes around demolishing anyone on the ground, but it needs to be able to participate in large battles. The primary way in which it was able to do that before has been taken away because with the massive bullet drop long range fire is no longer viable on it. The one way to cope with mass AA before was engaging enemy ground targets from 500+ meters up while moving. With the old straight shooting bellyguns that was something your gunners could cope with. The new bellyguns with drop however make that pretty much impossible, since when you're constantly moving you don't get the benefit of slowly zeroing in on a target, every time you shoot the angle is different, unlike a tank where you are usually stopped while firing and you can see "Too high, ok, down a little, I'm aiming with the third tick mark on my sight now, alright, good, that's a hit, use that again...", with a Liberator gun you don't even have tickmarks on the sight, and even if you did, you can't be stationary in a Liberator anymore unless you are facing enemies that aren't a real threat anyways.

I'm also just annoyed that any ESF is a Liberator killer, completely regardless of setup. There is literally no setup of ESF that can't destroy a Liberator if you're good enough to avoid getting hit with its anti-tank weapons, with maybe the exeption of the PPA which I think stands for piss poor armament. I don't mind being under threat from a serious anti-air fitted fighter that is up there to take on other aircraft. That kind of thing should have the relative chances against me that a current ESF has. Even then I think it should kill Liberators way slower than it currently does. It's a question of scaling. The scarcest resource in the game is still PLAYERS, so why should my player in the backgun have barely any value compared to the player in that ESF?


Basically what I want is:

- Top notch accuracy on my guns back so I can participate in larger battles by attacking from far away. Seriously, that capability was the Liberators saving grace when it came to combat scaling, and with that gone the thing is right back to how bad it was in beta when the crazy bullet drop got removed precisely because people weren't hitting anything.
- ESFs shouldn't be a Liberator killer with any gun. Most of their weapons should be shyte against Liberators, so A2A rockets become a real weapon of choice for A2A work. Maybe introduce a new secondary that's an additional cannon strapped under the wing which has current front gun level damage against Liberators and Galaxies but it's really good against ground targets.
- The Back gunner needs to have a more potent weapon for anti-air work, and if possible some other responsibilities. I personally believe that if the Liberator had a Skyguard sticking out the back it would still not be horribly unfair, fighters kill Skyguards all the time and those are much harder to hit for an ESF. At the very least give us the option to put a Ranger on there, the airbursting shells would give at least a little bit of a chance to hit ESFs that are dodging and attacking from a distance where hitting a Liberator with a machinegun is easy but hitting a fighter with one is not.

[Baneblade]

ESF Rockets need to be morphed into Lock on bombs. You get two and each is roughly about double the damage of the Van's AP turret.

[Quadron]

I think the thing you are missing here is that the liberator utterly tramples the ESF's ability to kill ground troops. Give 1 liberator 1 minute to farm 50 helpless infantry, and all 50 infantry will be dead in no time.

Give 1 ESF with rocket pods the same 1 minutes to farm 50 infantry, and the ESF will kill maybe 5-10 maximum. Rocket pods were really nerfed in a huge way. Takes a whole clip for me to kill most targets with a very long reload time, while a liberator can easily flatten 10 grouped up guys in one magazine + faster reload time, not to mention you can equip a bulldog on the back for almost twice the ground pounding power.

This is the fundamental difference.

The other area that I don't think you understand is that ESFs are supposed to counter libs. You seem surprised by this. ESFs should kill a liberator in a 1v1 fight most of the time if both pilots are equally skilled. It's the way it's supposed to be.

[Rothnang]

ESF Rockets need to be morphed into Lock on bombs. You get two and each is roughly about double the damage of the Van's AP turret.

Yea, that would be cool. Basically make it a bomb that ejects from your plane with velocity inheritance, so you can use it like you would a dive bomber. Point your nose, release the bomb, pull out as it follows your original trajectory and strikes.

That also makes me think, they should make a dive-bomber siren for ESFs available on the store. I'd totally buy that, just a cosmetic item that you can't see, but whenever your fighter is moving with the nose angled down more than 45° it starts to emit a siren noise that becomes louder and more high pitched the faster you go. Maybe have different ones for all the factions, like one that sounds like a Stuka or one that sounds like a wailing banshee.

I think the thing you are missing here is that the liberator utterly tramples the ESF's ability to kill ground troops. Give 1 liberator 1 minute to farm 50 helpless infantry, and all 50 infantry will be dead in no time.

Give 1 ESF with rocket pods the same 1 minutes to farm 50 infantry, and the ESF will kill maybe 5-10 maximum.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. If you read my analysis I do lay out that the Liberator has much higher sustained damage than an ESF. The problem is, you even had to use the word "helpless" to make the argument work, and we both know that infantry is anything but helpless against Liberators these days. The bad old days where G2A launchers and double bursters were a distant dream for most people are long over.

What a fighter can do that a Liberator can't do is come screaming into an area at high speeds and low altitude, drop his missiles on approach, score a bunch of kills or take out a vehicle, then afterburn out of there and be gone in less than 10 seconds - possibly while dropping flares so he can't even be targeted with a lock-on launcher.

Sure, the Liberator will absolutely wreck house if it can get comfortable overhead, but how often does that happen anymore? Both aircraft have a distinctive style of attacking ground, but since the Liberator is so ill suited to dealing with anything that retaliates currently it's once again just becoming a big sky bully. Being very good at killing things that don't fight back while being pretty damn vulnerable to just about anything that does just isn't really a feather for your cap. I'd much rather have a vehicle that was worse at murder and better at fighting.

[OctavianAXFive]

Alright well. tl;dr is at the bottom. You'll miss a great rant though.

The Liberator is only a poor option right now because as has been pointed out, 3 ESFs with rockets are worth more than one liberator with a dalton. (I made this case at length in beta and I don't think it will ever be not true)

I think the conundrum is that ESFs have ground attack capabilities at all. I'd rather see a solo plane specifically designed for ground pounding as opposed to the ESFs being so versatile but that's neither here nor there at this point.

I honestly don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the Liberator right now. An ESF should blow that bad boy out of the sky, as should any sustained AA fire from the ground. Maybe add another ball turret gunner on top to help shoo away ESFs (but don't make the guns really any better, just add another gun).

I'm going to get mocked for this but there's a reason armies used to send massive waves of bombers against the enemy. They were slow and vulnerable to just about everything. It required a lot of bombers flying very high up, bristling with guns to cover each other dropping hundreds of bombs to destroy (maybe) a specific target. Carpet bombing by both sides killed millions.

It was also the SINGLE most dangerous job in World War II. You were so much more likely to die in a bomber than anywhere else. Pretty much because you were in a relatively slow, exposed, armored but not well enough aircraft flying into enemy territory often without escort to get picked apart by every wanna be ace and terrified flak gunner.

I mean, in Planetside 2, do you expect to go into the middle of a hot fight in a tank and not expect every air/ground based anti-armor weapon to immediately be trained on you? You won't survive it, but tankers complain less because often times tanks roll in columns. (But they do complain about being blown up by libs and ESFs a lot...also they can take cover but that's the danger of flying!).

Don't fly solo. Go with other liberators and ESFs. The devs don't want the Libs to be kill farming machines for one person, they want them to be a tactical tool just like everything else in the game.

Air units should behave like ground units. They should travel in groups and stay near their lines.

This does suck for solo or small group players because coordinating to get a squad of stocked liberators would be a pain in the butt and detracts from the "I just want to kill people on my own tyvm" experience.

I pretty much play lone wolf or with one other person. There are consequences to that and I accept them. But if I get a vote (which I don't) then I'd say I rather like where Liberators are at this point. Not quite as crazy about ESF ground capabilities but like I said, that's kind of a moot point right now.

Before I get mocked for comparing PS2 to real war (again), I'd like to point out that the Liberator is, in fact, a WWII bomber and there is no mistaking that they pulled the name of this bomber from that one. Hell the front end even looks like it was pulled from a B-24. PS2 uses a lot of conventional weapons because that's more interesting than artillery and orbital strikes destroying anything in the open field with laser precision. Thus, the Liberator is a wildly outdated form of bringing fire onto your targets.

Virtually every activity you participate in in PS2 requires a group of players to accomplish. You can lone wolf, but you lone wolf by running with a zerg or flying around with another random group or outfit.

You take Biolabs with a group of people you don't know.

You grab an MBT and get a secondary gunner (sometimes) who you don't know. Sometimes you are that secondary gunner.

You usually dive your MBT to be with other players as you attack or defend something.

Almost no matter what you do, you do it with the peripheral support of other players.

When you take to the skies, you should not expect anything different. By design, you require the support of other players, in your squad or not.

tl;dr

Aircraft ARE imbalanced, but Liberators aren't in need of a buff imho.

I personally dislike ESF ground attack capabilities and while I don't think they are OP in the sense that they are too strong, I think they are imbalanced because they take work from Liberators.

Fly with friendly aircraft. You don't have to know them or talk to them. Just stick with 'em.

To express how Liberator Pilots SHOULD FEEL ABOUT ESFs
Southpark - They Took Our Job! - YouTube

[GraniteRok]

The Liberator is a ground attack aircraft. It's utter nonsense to believe that a Liberator should be able to win 1v1 against an ESF as that is the ESF's primary role, anti-air. Anyone who thinks different is out of their mind. Manning a Liberator without escort should expect to lose to an ESF if they come across one.

[Stardouser]

ESF Rockets need to be morphed into Lock on bombs. You get two and each is roughly about double the damage of the Van's AP turret.

That's exactly right, but they should also be able to work with a laser designator that means they can be fired without waiting for lock IF a friendly on the ground has it designated (and if there would be a problem with too many designators providing too many targets, it could be an intra-squad or intra-platoon only thing).

And I should add that for me, Laser designation does NOT mean Battlefailed 3's laser designation that can only lock on to vehicles. In fact, it doesn't mean locking on at all, laser designation means real life laser designation - the bomb/missile will follow the laser to where it's pointed, even if that's through a window, to a sniper, or whatever.

I would also like to see Liberator gunners be able to SEE the laser designations, so that they can see what they should shoot at, but the liberator's gun will not in any way actually follow the laser.

Laser designation that does these two things would be a big step up in coordination capacity.

[Rothnang]

The Liberator is a ground attack aircraft. It's utter nonsense to believe that a Liberator should be able to win 1v1 against an ESF as that is the ESF's primary role, anti-air. Anyone who thinks different is out of their mind. Manning a Liberator without escort should expect to lose to an ESF if they come across one.

For one, ESFs are not an anti-air vehicle. They can attack ground targets just fine and be outfitted to do so without losing any of their ability to fight air targets. Every time anyone points out how insanely overpowered ESFs are still despite round after round of nerfs and buffs to other units people keep claiming that that's how it's "supposed" to be. Well, Galaxies were supposed to have an AMS, that doesn't mean the game isn't better off without that.

Secondly, even if the ESF was an anti-air vehicle, shooting down a 3 person vehicle is not winning a 1on1, it's winning a 1on3, which is absurd.
A Skyguard doesn't win against a Liberator, and it's dedicated anti air, it's a 1 person vehicle, it has a 1000 cert weapon, and it costs 200 resources. Same as an ESF, yet it can't attack tanks, can't fly, can't massacre infantry and it takes 2-3 Skyguards to kill a Liberator.
Why the fuck should the ESF be the exception here and get to do ten times more than the Skyguard and still kill a Liberator easily by itself? Seriously, there is no justification for that.

Thirdly, the Liberator is not considered an anti-air vehicle because being slower than ESFs it doesn't have the ability to actively hunt for them. It's anti-air weaponry is designed to be defensive in nature. Having defensive instead of offensive weapons doesn't mean you should be an easy target however, quite the opposite in fact.



ESFs in their current state are overpowered, it's as simple as that. They are nowhere close to being balanced and its blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

A lightning tank needs to equip specialized weapons that don't allow it to attack all targets, it still doesn't easily win against any multi person vehicle by itself, and it has the same crew requirement and cost as an ESF. What gives?

[Hamma]

I honestly feel like air is in a pretty good place right now personally.

[GraniteRok]

You are incorrect. It is a Fighter. That is what a fighter does in it's primary role. They are much more agile than a Lib and fulfill it's role as an air combat attack/escort correctly. The difference in manning and resource costs between the Lib and ESF mean nothing in this case. Go find fighter escort to protect your Lib. That's the ESF's primary role.

I'll agree, an ESF should not be a strong A2G attack vehicle. Agreed, rocket pods are too powerful. Said that before.

As for Skyguards, they're broken. Have been from day one. Even with the buffs. They should never have been gatling guns but rather flak wagons and true, only one should not be able to take on a Lib single handedly. Wherever have you seen only one AA battery? It may scare something off but they work best in numbers.

Never said Libs were an Anti-Air vehicle. Don't know why you even bring this up. And correct, it's weaponry for AA is defensive.

So, against air vehicles, no, ESF's are not OP. Against ground vehicles and infantry and primarily rocket pods, yes they are.

For one, ESFs are not an anti-air vehicle. They can attack ground targets just fine and be outfitted to do so without losing any of their ability to fight air targets. Every time anyone points out how insanely overpowered ESFs are still despite round after round of nerfs and buffs to other units people keep claiming that that's how it's "supposed" to be. Well, Galaxies were supposed to have an AMS, that doesn't mean the game isn't better off without that.

Secondly, even if the ESF was an anti-air vehicle, shooting down a 3 person vehicle is not winning a 1on1, it's winning a 1on3, which is absurd.
A Skyguard doesn't win against a Liberator, and it's dedicated anti air, it's a 1 person vehicle, it has a 1000 cert weapon, and it costs 200 resources. Same as an ESF, yet it can't attack tanks, can't fly, can't massacre infantry and it takes 2-3 Skyguards to kill a Liberator.
Why the fuck should the ESF be the exception here and get to do ten times more than the Skyguard and still kill a Liberator easily by itself? Seriously, there is no justification for that.

Thirdly, the Liberator is not considered an anti-air vehicle because being slower than ESFs it doesn't have the ability to actively hunt for them. It's anti-air weaponry is designed to be defensive in nature. Having defensive instead of offensive weapons doesn't mean you should be an easy target however, quite the opposite in fact.



ESFs in their current state are overpowered, it's as simple as that. They are nowhere close to being balanced and its blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

A lightning tank needs to equip specialized weapons that don't allow it to attack all targets, it still doesn't easily win against any multi person vehicle by itself, and it has the same crew requirement and cost as an ESF. What gives?

[KesTro]

Either way now a days to get your certs you're safer and better off to pull an ESF over a liberator.

That's the current game on Connery it seems. I can only think of one Vanu outfit that doesn't adhere to that. They know who they are.. >:|

[Rothnang]

You are incorrect. It is a Fighter. That is what a fighter does in it's primary role. They are much more agile than a Lib and fulfill it's role as an air combat attack/escort correctly.

Yes, ESFs should be strong in an anti air role, but that doesn't mean they should be able to solo aircraft that are much bigger than themselves, and it doesn't mean they should be able to be overly effective against other air vehicles while being fully kitted for ground attacks as well.

Also a solo fighter being able to down a Liberator completely disregards combat scaling. The reason why it shouldn't be anywhere near as easy as it currently is is simply because it's trivial for two or three or more fighters to work together to destroy a Liberator, and if your chances are crap against just one, then there is absolutely nothing that can stop a group.

That's also what makes the whole notion of escort fighters pretty much ridiculous. Sure, friendly fighters in the area provide significant protection from attacks because they serve as a picket, but can they genuinely stop a determined attack on a Liberator?

The problem with making a fighter able to handle anything on its own is pure and simply this: It makes them completely and utterly unstoppable the second they start employing even the slightest bit of coordination. Why should it take 2-3 people in the Liberator + a fighter escort to stop a single enemy fighter from destroying a Liberator, and what can you possibly do to stop 2, or 3 enemy fighters at that point?

As for Skyguards, they're broken. Have been from day one. Even with the buffs. They should never have been gatling guns but rather flak wagons and true, only one should not be able to take on a Lib single handedly. Wherever have you seen only one AA battery? It may scare something off but they work best in numbers.

Why should it take several Skyguards to take down aircraft effectively, but it only takes a single ESF? The ONLY reason why ESF pilots won't acknowledge how absurdly lopsided that is is because they know that a Skyguard with 3 times more damage would also absolutely wreck ESFs, and they don't want that.

[Baneblade]

In my experience ESF pilots tend to think of themselves as the top of the food chain. It has real world parallels as well. The problem is games enable and encourage the behavior.

What I want to know is why an ESF has to be so much more powerful than a Lightning, the ground vehicle analog.

[Rothnang]

That's my main question as well. If the Lightning tank could solo MBTs and Sunderers, carry the Skyguard at the same time as its other weapons and all Lightning drivers would keep saying: "It's supposed to be that way dude, it's a fast tank hunter!!" that wouldn't fly for a second, (no pun intended) but ESF pilots have been getting away with that shit since Beta.

[phungus]

That's my main question as well. If the Lightning tank could solo MBTs and Sunderers, carry the Skyguard at the same time as its other weapons and all Lightning drivers would keep saying: "It's supposed to be that way dude, it's a fast tank hunter!!" that wouldn't fly for a second, (no pun intended) but ESF pilots have been getting away with that shit since Beta.

And most of us keep saying it's retarded that we get a secondary weapon. It's not our fault ESFs are overpowered with rocket pods and to a lesser extent A2Am, but we damn sure are going to use them - we'd be stupid not to.

Rocket pods are seriously a joke, you can kill single infantry without even really aiming in half a clip, groups can go down in a full clip. If I equip level1 composite (I now have level 3) I can go toe to toe with AA MAXes at short range and win - provided he doesn't have buddies (then again 3+ AA MAXes just shuts down the sky which is another issue). They are rediculous, but again, ESF pilots are rarely the ones defending them.... If I had my way there would be no ESF secondary. I would still do fine with a banshee or rotary, depending on what I wanted to do, in fact I'd do better as AA MAXes wouldn't need to be so ridiculously overpowerd in order to balance rocket pods. But that's not the way things are.

[Rothnang]

I know that there are some ESF pilots who realize that their aircraft does too much, and I really appreciate that. In fact, I count myself among them. My second highest certed vehicle is the ESF, and I enjoy flying that too at times.

I don't begrudge people using the things currently in the game, but unless someone demands improvements and better balance it's never going to happen. I do begrudge people defending a status quo that is obviously broken.

Of course the ground game isn't the same as the air game, but we're not even remotely seeing a parallel between the two anymore.

[Varsam]

I'm honestly surprised we're even having this conversation. Nearly ALL of the top players on every server across all factions have spent a LOT of time in liberators. That fact alone should speak volumes about the liberator.

I realize that there are not a whole lot of Helios/Genudine players on this forum. But I run with OGBP. There are never more than a dozen of us online at any one time, and yet many players can attest to the effectiveness of our liberator/ESF formations. We frustrate the advance of entire platoons with just a couple of liberators and a few escort ESFs on a regular basis. I'm not going to point solely to design imbalance, since we have very selective recruitment standards, but the fact that these platforms allow us such ubiquity and utility should say something about those platforms.

[Rothnang]

The Liberator does great when it has no serious opposition, and that's why a lot of people have racked up crazy amounts of certs with them, but it's not a combat vehicle, it's just a cert harvester to be used on enemies that are already beaten either way.

If you have a real enemy airforce around you're screwing over your team by not being in an ESF, and if as far as actually winning a ground battle is concerned, a Liberator can certainly be helpful for Sundy busting in smaller battles, but in a sufficiently large battle it has minimal influence on the ground game because AA will keep it from really going to work.


People like to judge the Liberator by how it performs under ideal conditions, but ignore the fact that it has a glass jaw in a real fight. What good is the ability to murder tanks and infantry with impunity when their AA is overrun and their airforce is burning on the ground? But you're just a janitor at that point, a cleanup crew. Worse, at least a cleanup crew is generally needed, you're a Vulture, a carrion eater, all you're good at is filching the remains of an enemy force that is already defeated by others or never had a fighting chance to begin with. I want to participate in the fight when it still matters.

I came up to an empty base today during double XP weekend. Every single turret fully intact, 400 XP a pop and not a soul in sight to stop me. Going around the base wrecking all those turrets netted me around 12000 XP, and it only took about 5 minutes with one quick reload. Doesn't get much better than that right? right? Wrong. It was BORING.

That's pretty much the life story of the Liberator these days, especially after the bullet drop went back in. You're either just stomping on someone who can't fight back, and yea, the certs are great when you do, or you run away with a bloody nose the second anyone who can put up a serious fight comes along. The entire play style for the Liberator just feels like you're a big skybully who goes around picking on the weak and running from every fight.

[Varsam]

I'm fairly certain that Liberators are just as capable of busting sundies (and most other armor for that matter) in large battles as well as small ones. You claim that people commonly evaluate the lib under ideal conditions, yet you insist on evaluating it under the worst ones, with an abundance of AA and no support from friendly ground forces. Of course the lib does poorly in this case - did you honestly think that it should have free reign everywhere? Even under these conditions, skilled lib crews are still reasonably dangerous given the opportunity. I don't know why you feel that the lib is nothing more than a cleanup crew, but you're either vastly underutilizing it's potential, or you need to find a better gunner.

On the original topic of ESFs being top of the food chain - that's simply not the case. The lib isn't a bomber so much as a flying tank. And in the hands of an experienced crew, a dalton/zephyr lib is probably the most powerful anti-air platform in the game.

[Rothnang]

I fly a Liberator pretty much every time I'm online, and don't get me wrong, it's not entirely ineffective. I can get certs and kill things with it.

That doesn't change the fact that ESFs give you far more bang for your buck right now, and for all its strengths the Liberator just doesn't really compare well, especially given the fact that it loses to more or less any ESF 1on1 if the ESF pilot doesn't completely screw up.

The whole argument of "If your gunner can't hit anything you need a better gunner" is also crap. Sure, in theory someone could become so good with the Dalton to take the same long range shots with it as before they added the bullet drop, but most of the people who are really dedicated to Liberators are pilots, not gunners. I want to be able to pick up random gunners, because that's how I met most of the people I know in the game, and that was simply way more fun when the bellygun wasn't so difficult to use that most people can't land a single hit with it from a moving aircraft.

[Gatekeeper]

I don't really have a problem with ESFs beating Libs 1-on-1 in the air - but only if they're specialised in A2A. A2G fighters should lose to both Libs and A2A fighters.

Also it does seems fair to compare ESFs to Lightnings, but for my money that's an argument to buff Lightnings as much as it is an argument to nerf ESFs. Proper tank-hunter Lightnings and Skyguards should both be more viable than they are currently IMO.

Personally I'd much rather see vehicles be strong in specialist roles, rather than being so versatile all the time.

[BlaxicanX]

I don't mind ESF's being really strong against Liberators, I think that their primary should be as an air superiority fighter.

However, imo their rocket pods should just be removed altogether. Sad to say, but they just have far too much utility. Get rid of all their dumbfire rockets, give them a machine gun as a primary weapon and A2A and A2G lock-on missiles and call it a day.

[Lonehunter]

I couldn't get through the whole post because it's clear you have the mindset of "I spent more resources, need more people, so I should always win 1 on 1 vs ESF"

GO PLAY BATTLEFIELD!

You obviously do not understand what Planetside is about. There are no rules like
"He with the most cash/resources is the most powerful."
"He who has the most certs invested is most powerful"

Every vehicle, gun, cert, and attachment has a role and counter. No matter what you do in this game there should be no "I WIN button". Everyone has a fair chance, and I can't believe I even have to explain this. Deep down I know I'm wasting me time, but it'll just make me feel better cause I never plan on coming back to this thread.

[BlaxicanX]

You kind of lose the right to criticize and misinterpret someone's argument when you don't read the whole thing.

His problem isn't that ESF's blow Liberators out of the sky. His problem is that ESF's blow liberators while also being as good at A2G as they are, and that is indeed a fair criticism. ESF's have far, far too much utility.

[Rothnang]

The argument isn't that the vehicle with the most people should always win.

The argument against ESFs beating down Liberators so easily is as follows:

1. They can do a ton of other things at the same time, and that means they are NOT a specialized unit for countering Liberators.

2. Even if they were a specialized counter to a Liberator, being able to win 1on1 easily is still overpowered because it doesn't allow for any combat scaling.
The second two ESFs work together they become unstoppable if a single ESF already wins against a Liberator easily.
It's not balanced for the same reason that it wouldn't be balanced if a single HA could destroy a tank easily, or it wouldn't be balanced if a single AA unit could kill any aircraft easily - because this isn't a game of 1on1s, it's a game of 100on100s.

3. ESFs are faster than Liberators, which means they should be weaker against Liberators than defensive Liberator counters like Skyguards which the Liberator can flee from. Why should a unit that counters the Liberator but can't chase it to the end of the earth to keep inflicting more damage be worse at it than a unit that the Liberator can't ever get away from?

Unit initiative matters. A defensive counter should always be stronger than an offensive counter. The defensive counter doesn't decide when to fight, it doesn't get to wait until the enemy is weak and it is strong, and it doesn't get to pursue its target to ensure a kill. The only way a defensive counter is a valid unit is if it's raw combat abilities exceed those of the offensive counter. The ESF violates that in every conceivable way as well, by being an offensive counter to essentially every single unit in the game, and having better weapons than every defensive counter on top of that.



A balanced situation of unit counters needs to address specialization, combat scaling and combat initiative. An ESF should be dangerous to a Liberator, but not in the sense of "If an ESF attacks a Liberator the Liberator dies" but in the same sense that rocket launchers are dangerous to tanks, and AA guns are dangerous to fighters, and tank cannons are dangerous to Sunderers. You can't ignore them, and you can't simply be steamrolled by a single one either.

[GraniteRok]

The thing is you seem to think that a Liberator should be able to go toe to toe with an ESF and have an equal footing. This is completely out of context of what each vehicle is supposed to be with respect to air combat. Granted, the ESF is a strong A2G which many agree is overpowered but in A2A, it should have the upper hand always to a Liberator. In a dogfight between a single ESF and Liberator, the ESF will win hands down unless he's a bad pilot. I'll say this though, the AA gun on the Lib and Gal do suck for defense and if you can get the nose gun to hit on an ESF long enough, it'll chew it up.

So to counter your points;

1) Correct, ESF's are much to strong against ground. Liberators should be the primary ground attack aircraft.

2) Disagree. Expect to lose to an ESF in an ESF/Liberator air combat and coming across two of them, even more so. ESF are Air Fighters, that is their primary role.

3) Doesn't make much sense. ESF's faster? Yes, they're fighters. Less armored than Lib? They are. Libs slower? Yes, they're bombers. Skyguards suck, agreed.

The argument isn't that the vehicle with the most people should always win.

The argument against ESFs beating down Liberators so easily is as follows:

1. They can do a ton of other things at the same time, and that means they are NOT a specialized unit for countering Liberators.

2. Even if they were a specialized counter to a Liberator, being able to win 1on1 easily is still overpowered because it doesn't allow for any combat scaling.
The second two ESFs work together they become unstoppable if a single ESF already wins against a Liberator easily.
It's not balanced for the same reason that it wouldn't be balanced if a single HA could destroy a tank easily, or it wouldn't be balanced if a single AA unit could kill any aircraft easily - because this isn't a game of 1on1s, it's a game of 100on100s.

3. ESFs are faster than Liberators, which means they should be weaker against Liberators than defensive Liberator counters like Skyguards which the Liberator can flee from. Why should a unit that counters the Liberator but can't chase it to the end of the earth to keep inflicting more damage be worse at it than a unit that the Liberator can't ever get away from?

Unit initiative matters. A defensive counter should always be stronger than an offensive counter. The defensive counter doesn't decide when to fight, it doesn't get to wait until the enemy is weak and it is strong, and it doesn't get to pursue its target to ensure a kill. The only way a defensive counter is a valid unit is if it's raw combat abilities exceed those of the offensive counter. The ESF violates that in every conceivable way as well, by being an offensive counter to essentially every single unit in the game, and having better weapons than every defensive counter on top of that.



A balanced situation of unit counters needs to address specialization, combat scaling and combat initiative. An ESF should be dangerous to a Liberator, but not in the sense of "If an ESF attacks a Liberator the Liberator dies" but in the same sense that rocket launchers are dangerous to tanks, and AA guns are dangerous to fighters, and tank cannons are dangerous to Sunderers. You can't ignore them, and you can't simply be steamrolled by a single one either.

[Varsam]

The thing is you seem to think that a Liberator should be able to go toe to toe with an ESF and have an equal footing. This is completely out of context of what each vehicle is supposed to be with respect to air combat. Granted, the ESF is a strong A2G which many agree is overpowered but in A2A, it should have the upper hand always to a Liberator. In a dogfight between a single ESF and Liberator, the ESF will win hands down unless he's a bad pilot. I'll say this though, the AA gun on the Lib and Gal do suck for defense and if you can get the nose gun to hit on an ESF long enough, it'll chew it up.

So to counter your points;

1) Correct, ESF's are much to strong against ground. Liberators should be the primary ground attack aircraft.

2) Disagree. Expect to lose to an ESF in an ESF/Liberator air combat and coming across two of them, even more so. ESF are Air Fighters, that is their primary role.

3) Doesn't make much sense. ESF's faster? Yes, they're fighters. Less armored than Lib? They are. Libs slower? Yes, they're bombers. Skyguards suck, agreed.

To add to this, even ESFs specialized in anti-air can succumb to the belly gun. In order to line up a shot on a lib, and ESF has to fly directly at it, which makes it much easier to hit for the gunner when the pilot goes belly up. ESFs are well suited to hunting libs, especially in packs, but it is by no means a hard counter.

[maradine]

2. Even if they were a specialized counter to a Liberator, being able to win 1on1 easily is still overpowered because it doesn't allow for any combat scaling.
The second two ESFs work together they become unstoppable if a single ESF already wins against a Liberator easily.

I'll happily, and without hesitation, take this consequence over a pile of choices that don't matter. In your world, everything is just a preference. In this world, force composition matters as much as numbers. One could even argue, with a fair degree of empirical evidence, that force composition does not yet matter enough. That this imbalance is magnified at 100 vs. 100? Well, yeah, buddy.

Reduce ESF ATG capability? There's fertile ground to have that argument. Make a Liberator an even contender against an equally-skilled ESF? No. I'm sorry your favorite unit has a predator. Mine does too, but somehow I got over it.

[Rothnang]

2) Disagree. Expect to lose to an ESF in an ESF/Liberator air combat and coming across two of them, even more so. ESF are Air Fighters, that is their primary role.

That's not a counter argument. Simply saying "ESFs are air fighters" in no way justifies them being many times more powerful at killing air units than any other counter to air in the game.

3) Doesn't make much sense. ESF's faster? Yes, they're fighters. Less armored than Lib? They are. Libs slower? Yes, they're bombers. Skyguards suck, agreed.

Once again, simply saying "This is X, that is Y" is not an argument for balance.

How do you propose the skyguard could be buffed to be the equivalent of an ESF? In order for it to be as good at killing Liberators as an ESF it would have to do somewhere upward of four time times more damaging than it currently is. I mean, we're talking damage where basically if you fly over it instead of around it you die guaranteed. That's how powerful it would have to be to match the lethality of an ESF.



Lastly, I'd like to throw something out there:

Currently there is nothing in the game that counters ESFs that doesn't also counter Liberators, so why should there be things in the game that counter Liberators, but don't also counter ESFs? And no, the ESF is not "its own counter" if anything is its own counter that's pretty much the definition of shitty balance.

[GraniteRok]

You answered your own comment which you refuse to believe. ESF's are the natural and best counter to any other aircraft including ESF's. Ground AA is a counter to all aircraft be it Skyguards, Bursters or Rocket Launchers. In the case of air combat and it's ground counters, the game mimics real world combat. Bombers are susceptible to ESF's, ESF's are equally susceptible to ESF's, and any aircraft, Bombers, ESF's and Transports are susceptible to Ground AA (in groups as batteries). You're swinging a dead cat if you're trying to convince anyone otherwise that a Lib should be able to go head on versus an ESF.

That's not a counter argument. Simply saying "ESFs are air fighters" in no way justifies them being many times more powerful at killing air units than any other counter to air in the game.

Once again, simply saying "This is X, that is Y" is not an argument for balance.

How do you propose the skyguard could be buffed to be the equivalent of an ESF? In order for it to be as good at killing Liberators as an ESF it would have to do somewhere upward of four time times more damaging than it currently is. I mean, we're talking damage where basically if you fly over it instead of around it you die guaranteed. That's how powerful it would have to be to match the lethality of an ESF.



Lastly, I'd like to throw something out there:

Currently there is nothing in the game that counters ESFs that doesn't also counter Liberators, so why should there be things in the game that counter Liberators, but don't also counter ESFs? And no, the ESF is not "its own counter" if anything is its own counter that's pretty much the definition of shitty balance.

[Rothnang]

No unit should be it's own best counter, that's pretty much antithetical to any good balance.

Also this entire argument of the game mimicking real life combat is absolute bogus.

So, you want it to represent the relationship between a WW2 bomber and a WW2 fighter? Ok sure, let's make some alterations to the game to adequately do that:

- Liberators will get 5 more Walkers, with overlapping firing arcs on the nose, sides, top and bottom.
- All aircraft now have limited flight time, because of fuel. Bombers can fly 2-3 times longer than fighters.
- A fighter can add extra fuel tanks to be able to fly as long as a bomber, at the expense of all heavier weapons.
- A bomber carried ~20000 pounds of bombs, a fighter/bomber could carry ~2000 pounds. So the bomber should do 10 times more damage than the fighter with ground attack weapons to ground targets.
-Aircraft now take around 10 minutes to climb to the hight of a bomber, so you can only stop them if you were already in the air when they were coming. Refueling requires landing.
- Fighters can not see bombers at night.
- Nobody can fly during bad weather conditions.
- Afterburners no longer exist.
- Late war bombers can use the "Pressurized cabin" cert to climb to 2000 meters where fighters can't follow for another 5 years.

[GraniteRok]

:rolleyes:

You're blowing smoke if you think they'll change this aspect of the game to placate only your wishes. Most people do not see it that way. As for the rest of your post, pure drivel. I didn't say for full realism although some of those would be interesting. I said "mimics" as to what counters what. So I call bogus to your bogus!


No unit should be it's own best counter, that's pretty much antithetical to any good balance.

Also this entire argument of the game mimicking real life combat is absolute bogus.

So, you want it to represent the relationship between a WW2 bomber and a WW2 fighter? Ok sure, let's make some alterations to the game to adequately do that:

- Liberators will get 5 more Walkers, with overlapping firing arcs on the nose, sides, top and bottom.
- All aircraft now have limited flight time, because of fuel. Bombers can fly 2-3 times longer than fighters.
- A fighter can add extra fuel tanks to be able to fly as long as a bomber, at the expense of all heavier weapons.
- A bomber carried ~20000 pounds of bombs, a fighter/bomber could carry ~2000 pounds. So the bomber should do 10 times more damage than the fighter with ground attack weapons to ground targets.
-Aircraft now take around 10 minutes to climb to the hight of a bomber, so you can only stop them if you were already in the air when they were coming. Refueling requires landing.
- Fighters can not see bombers at night.
- Nobody can fly during bad weather conditions.
- Afterburners no longer exist.
- Late war bombers can use the "Pressurized cabin" cert to climb to 2000 meters where fighters can't follow for another 5 years.

[Rothnang]

Yes, you like to pick one single aspect from WW2 air combat, namely "A single fighter can shoot down a bomber" and enshrine it in the game in such a manner that it overrules all reasonable balance.

My post merely serves to point out how ridiculous it would be to take other aspects from real life and emulate them to a point where they simply overrule what makes for good gameplay and balance.

[GraniteRok]

I've said my piece about your delusions regarding Liberators and ESF's. Others have said same. Ridiculousness is yours to believe any differently. You just want to have air impunity to Lib farm without worry from ESF's. Good luck with that pipedream. Post whatever more babble you wish, I'm done with this thread.

Yes, you like to pick one single aspect from WW2 air combat, namely "A single fighter can shoot down a bomber" and enshrine it in the game in such a manner that it overrules all reasonable balance.

My post merely serves to point out how ridiculous it would be to take other aspects from real life and emulate them to a point where they simply overrule what makes for good gameplay and balance.

[Obstruction]

i still like to fly the liberator but i agree with your assessment. mostly.

i'd like to see the shredder on the ass and a dorsal mounted walker as a fourth seat.

i don't really think it's impossible to fly but you really have to pick your battles and rely on friendly ground and air that often don't want you around "stealing kills."

[Rothnang]

You just want to have air impunity to Lib farm without worry from ESF's.

http://lazytraders.com/insights/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/straw-man.jpg

Ahhhh! He got me! My head is off!!


i don't really think it's impossible to fly but you really have to pick your battles and rely on friendly ground and air that often don't want you around "stealing kills."

Yea, that's really the issue isn't it. The whole notion of ESFs escorting and protecting you makes little sense when they could be off getting ten times more certs killing things on their own. Sure, an outfit can do it, but there is a sad truth about outfits: Coordinated efforts don't automatically lead to the most effective strategies. Devoting a huge amount of manpower and resources to keeping a unit safe that isn't really doing an essential job weakens your platoon overall.
Whenever people just casually suggest that Liberators need an escort they forget that a Liberator with 2 fighter escorts could just as well be 4-5 fighters that are actually attacking the enemy. Is a single Liberator worth 4-5 fighters? Not even close, it's worth 1 fighter according to what supposedly "should be".

[Varsam]

2 things:

1) something being its own counter is technically perfect balance. Asymmetrical hard-counters is what leads to poor balance.

2) I have to agree with others that at this point talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. Despite the plethora of differing perspectives and opposing interpretations, you stubbornly cling onto your own position and repeatedly fall back to your own (anecdotal, and at this point glaringly biased) argument. You're not looking for conversation so much as wanting to throw yourself a pity party. Unfortunately for you, no one actually agrees with you - which I'm guessing still won't sway you. Whatever the case, this has clearly become a waste of everyone's time.

[Teek]

I doubt my thoughts will have much weight in this argument, but here goes.

1. If ESFs are too versatile (a good point) then I think weapon slots should change into a role slot that can be fine tuned. No more AA gun + rocket pod combo, you chose AA or AG and fine tune load outs from there (like if we ever get jdams, bombs, etc.) Roles could also have speed and armored fine tuned into a more reasonable area (slower AG, but more armor, AA more agile but more fragile, for example.) This could also apply to other vehicles if devs feel ambitious.

2. If we do limit aircraft versatility in any way, we need a way to switch load outs, like in Planetside 1. In fact, we should have this in already. Air pads and ammo towers should allow you to reconfigure your load out.

3. I was against vehicles having the same lengthy life spans as in Planetside 1, though I wonder if we've gone too far in one direction. Anyway, if rocket pods get nerfed, which I could understand, I think we'd need to rethink the armor balance of ESFs, particularly regarding ground AA fire. As it is, we have far more AA in this game than in the original, and that's not even counting the fairly useless sky guard. And while the default machine guns for ESFs are good at taking out their infantry, they are much harder to use than rocket pods, even in hover mode. I think if rocket pods were to be removed or heavily nerfed, we'd seriously need a rethink about ESF balancing in terms of armor and survivability.

[CasualCat]

Do you need me to link you the Vehicle kills of Dalton Liberators? How about the kills/hour?
Sorry, it's not even close.
Dalton is at least 2x as fast at taking out tank**S** compared to the ESF, which everyone argues is overpowered right now. If your complaint is that ESF's do too much damage to rear armor of tanks I'll completely agree, but you appear to be using their damage as the measure for which the Dalton lib should be doing.
Also, when's the last time you had an ESF take out three tanks in a row, without having to do multiple passes? It doesn't happen, ESF's do not stick around that long, and if they try to they get shot down by the tank and/or infantry.. Dalton Liberators have no issues taking out multiple armored targets because they don't need to do multiple passes, they can hover in spot way up in the air out of AA range and not be bothered.

Your comment about Zephyrs I don't quite understand. The downside to the Zephyr is you have to be in render distance of infantry, which I think is quite fair. Considering the videos out there of Zephyr Liberators taking out 50+ infantry in less than 3 minutes.

If you want the Liberator to be better against air, there will be no ESF's out there ever. As they are right now they're the most deadly vehicle to ESF's without even having a third gunner. Right now the Liberator is the best vehicle for every situation, except being a spawn point. There's not a single vehicle with more ground power, air power, or dominance of an area.

Sure I'd like to see your data on Dalton libs. Does your data only include ground vehicles kills? Is it an average? Is it only the top players?

Check out the TTKs of various pods versus tanks then Dalton versus tanks at PS2calc.com

It isn't 2x as fast, and that isn't including rear attacks. I'm not saying it should be as fast as ESF attacks on the rear of tanks. I am saying though it takes two people, and it is a slower larger target than the ESFs. Since it takes 2 people those same 2 people could have taken 2 ESFs. 2 ESFs greatly outperform the Dalton. Even 1 ESF there is less than 1 sec difference.


I don't think the Zepher needs any help. It does suffer the same drop issue verus armor, but it keeping drop while Dalton loses it could be a nice defining characteristic.

If a Dalton Lib can hit tanks AA, were it present, can hit the Dalton Lib. So yes uncontested a Lib can hover over tanks. That goes to the OP's point. If it can hang out, linger, stay on station (whatever you want to call it) it can do great sustained damage. It doesn't have burst damage though and most of the time now it can't stick around at any real fights. Those tanks in range will be protected by skyguards or worse bursters.

And while an ESF may have to do multiple passes it can still be faster than the Dalton.

Seriously have a pilot take you to somewhere with tanks at max ceiling then drop until they render. Start shooting at the tanks. Assuming they don't have flak/ESFs to chase you off, it'll still take a while to kill the tanks. They don't have to move much at all to make it tough with a long TTK.


I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to reduce the Dalton ammo count *IF* it didn't have the horrible drop it has now. It'd probably also need a velocity increase.

I don't want it to be better at air. The tail isn't a threat to air though and can usually be ignored. It is only a threat to air because of the front gun if ESFs charge it or the belly gun if the gunner is good (or cheating) and the pilot can keep the belly towards the air threat.

The front gun is of course good against other Libs and Galaxies as well.



Still waiting on this data. Especially since misrepresentation of the point being made here was trotted out in another unrelated thread.

Dalton does not kill armor 2x as fast as rocket pods. The difference is actually small, and no one was asking that the Dalton kill as fast as pods do to rear armor.

The time difference on armor between the Dalton and pods is less than 1 sec. It also will take 2 people to do that in the Lib versus 1 in the ESF. If you factored in 2 ESFs both with pods they'll kill much faster than the Dalton Lib. At "safe" heights/distances that Dalton's hit% is going to greatly worsen that TTK.



I think part of the problem with this discussion is a lot of people have a perceived notion of how Libs work that isn't from a lot of first hand use. Using the Lib for a few hours a launch doesn't tell you what it is like to be in a Liberator now for example. Being killed by a Liberator doesn't tell you what is like to fly/gun a Liberator now.

Being farmed by a Zepher at the spawn room of an already overrun base doesn't tell a lot about the capabilities of a Liberator either, nor does it tell you about the Dalton's problems in an AV role.

[Rothnang]

Yea, Rocket pods really aren't a whole lot less damaging than the Dalton, and they have the added benefit of being able to hit back armor, which is next to impossible to do with a Dalton, or even Tankbuster, particularly because you're such a huge target when you're flying on the deck that enemy tanks will destroy you instantly.

2 things:
I have to agree with others that at this point talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. Despite the plethora of differing perspectives and opposing interpretations, you stubbornly cling onto your own position and repeatedly fall back to your own (anecdotal, and at this point glaringly biased) argument. You're not looking for conversation so much as wanting to throw yourself a pity party. Unfortunately for you, no one actually agrees with you - which I'm guessing still won't sway you. Whatever the case, this has clearly become a waste of everyone's time.

Let alone the fact that you are talking about my motivations rather than being able to make a single good argument for why the ESF should have as much power as it does gives me cause for sticking to my guns on this, since it shows that I'm right.

Just because a lot of people have gotten used to a shitty state of balance or are reaping its benefits doesn't mean it isn't broken. An Aircraft that can do more with a single pilot than both other aircraft can do with 3 or 5 is not balanced.

There are no good arguments on the pro ESF side. The only things I keep hearing is "It's supposed to be that way because it's a fighter", "But Liberators can kill fighters sometimes", "Skyguards suck, you can't compare them to my ESF" and maybe a reluctant "Yes, rocketpods are too powerful" here and there.

None of those are in any way arguments that justify what the ESF can do in terms of game balance. You simply can't find any other examples in Planetside 2 where units have a relationship like ESF vs. Liberator, where the advantage is so incredibly concentrated on the side of the cheaper unit that requires fewer players.

[rak]

I'm going to chime in here on the topic of ESF versatility and on ESF vs Liberator balance. I have 120+ hours in the mosquito(not counting beta) and 50+ hours in the Scythe and Reaver. I'm also one of the more well known Liberator pilots on Mattherson, so I feel I'm particularly qualified to give my opinion on these subjects.

ESF Versatility:

There is no question that the ESF is a very versatile vehicle, it can fulfill many roles and can be absolutely devastating against unprepared enemies. But it also has more hard counters than anything in the game and takes more skill than anything else in the game.

On Mattherson, all sides regularly have Burster nests set up all over the place and the VS in particular are relentless about keeping every AA turret at every base on the front lines manned. It's not an easy job to get ground kills on that server. When I fly on Connery however, I don't see anywhere near as much AA and it's very easy to farm ground kills. The problem isn't the ESF, the problem is players not fielding the appropriate counters. SoE has done more than enough to shift the ESF vs ground balance to the side of ground, but if people aren't using those tools then the ESFs will win.

One thing I will agree on though is that it's incredibly ridiculous that an ESF can kill an MBT in one pass. But that's not a problem with the ESF, that's a result of the "double damage from behind" mechanic on MBTs which I think is a stupid mechanic for several reasons and should be removed from the game. Or at the very least, make all damage from an ESF count as "top damage" and give tankers a reason to cert into top armor.

ESF vs Liberator Balance:

Anyone who's seen my Liberator videos knows that I fly a Shredder Liberator and can take on 2 or 3 ESF's no problem. If you don't want to get killed by ESF's, then use an appropriate loadout and become the counter to your counter :P

Most people don't like doing that though because they feel it lessens your ability to take out ground targets. I suppose it does...slightly, you won't be farming globs of infantry like you can with the Zephyr, but you can take out armor faster than the Dalton and you can kill AA maxes faster than any other option the Lib has. You have to fly at dangerously low altitudes but it's very effective and I pull my highest score/hr when piloting a shredder lib.


TL;DR

Air balance is in a pretty good place right now

[CasualCat]

Yea, Rocket pods really aren't a whole lot less damaging than the Dalton, and they have the added benefit of being able to hit back armor, which is next to impossible to do with a Dalton, or even Tankbuster, particularly because you're such a huge target when you're flying on the deck that enemy tanks will destroy you instantly.



Let alone the fact that you are talking about my motivations rather than being able to make a single good argument for why the ESF should have as much power as it does is the reason why I'm sticking to my guns on this.

Just because a lot of people have gotten used to a shitty state of balance or are reaping its benefits doesn't mean it isn't broken. An Aircraft that can do more with a single pilot than both other aircraft can do with 3 or 5 is not balanced.

There are no good arguments on the pro ESF side. The only things I keep hearing is "It's supposed to be that way because it's a fighter", "But Liberators can kill fighters sometimes", "Skyguards suck, you can't compare them to my ESF" and maybe a reluctant "Yes, rocketpods are too powerful" here and there.

None of those are in any way arguments that justify what the ESF can do in terms of game balance. You simply can't find any other examples even within Planetside 2 where units have a relationship like ESF vs. Liberator, where the advantage is so incredibly concentrated on the side of the cheaper unit that requires fewer players.

I fly both. There have been several occasions where I couldn't get a Liberator near enough to a fight to do anything, but was then able to take an ESF fast on the deck and take out multiple tanks. I've done this on all three continents.

Pods and tank rear armor make that scenario possible, but even if one or both of those changed, it wouldn't change that I couldn't even get the Liberator near those same fights.


I'm going to chime in here on the topic of ESF versatility and on ESF vs Liberator balance. I have 120+ hours in the mosquito(not counting beta) and 50+ hours in the Scythe and Reaver. I'm also one of the more well known Liberator pilots on Mattherson, so I feel I'm particularly qualified to give my opinion on these subjects.

ESF Versatility:

There is no question that the ESF is a very versatile vehicle, it can fulfill many roles and can be absolutely devastating against unprepared enemies. But it also has more hard counters than anything in the game and takes more skill than anything else in the game.

On Mattherson, all sides regularly have Burster nests set up all over the place and the VS in particular are relentless about keeping every AA turret at every base on the front lines manned. It's not an easy job to get ground kills on that server. When I fly on Connery however, I don't see anywhere near as much AA and it's very easy to farm ground kills. The problem isn't the ESF, the problem is players not fielding the appropriate counters. SoE has done more than enough to shift the ESF vs ground balance to the side of ground, but if people aren't using those tools then the ESFs will win.

One thing I will agree on though is that it's incredibly ridiculous that an ESF can kill an MBT in one pass. But that's not a problem with the ESF, that's a result of the "double damage from behind" mechanic on MBTs which I think is a stupid mechanic for several reasons and should be removed from the game. Or at the very least, make all damage from an ESF count as "top damage" and give tankers a reason to cert into top armor.

ESF vs Liberator Balance:

Anyone who's seen my Liberator videos knows that I fly a Shredder Liberator and can take on 2 or 3 ESF's no problem. If you don't want to get killed by ESF's, then use an appropriate loadout and become the counter to your counter :P

Most people don't like doing that though because they feel it lessens your ability to take out ground targets. I suppose it does...slightly, you won't be farming globs of infantry like you can with the Zephyr, but you can take out armor faster than the Dalton and you can kill AA maxes faster than any other option the Lib has. You have to fly at dangerously low altitudes but it's very effective and I pull my highest score/hr when piloting a shredder lib.


TL;DR

Air balance is in a pretty good place right now
Given the heavy ground AA on Mattherson, how is your experience flying the Lib in that manner versus the new ESRLs? My experience of late is that the Striker/Burster compliment each other really well particularly on Esamir and N. Indar.

Your post seems a sort of confirmation to me that the Dalton is in a bad place right now.

[rak]

Given the heavy ground AA on Mattherson, how is your experience flying the Lib in that manner versus the new ESRLs? My experience of late is that the Striker/Burster compliment each other really well particularly on Esamir and N. Indar.

Your post seems a sort of confirmation to me that the Dalton is in a bad place right now.

Whether I'm flying my Dalton loadout (max render altitude, veh stealth), or flying my usual low altitude shredder, I hate the ESRL's. They are ALL too effective against liberators, primarily the Lancer. It's the bursters I hate the most though, but that's their job...

[Rothnang]

Anyone who's seen my Liberator videos knows that I fly a Shredder Liberator and can take on 2 or 3 ESF's no problem. If you don't want to get killed by ESF's, then use an appropriate loadout and become the counter to your counter :P

Why doesn't the ESF have to fit an "appropriate loadout" to counter air threats and combat different types of ground units?

A Shredder Liberator may have its perks, but let's face it, it's less versatile than an ESF with 3 people on board, even if you use a Bulldog in the back.

Also, I'd still call it bogus that making the bellygun your anti air and the back gun your anti ground gets you better results than using the gun mounts in their natural role.

[rak]

Why doesn't the ESF have to fit an "appropriate loadout" to counter air threats and combat different types of ground units?

An ESF does have to fit appropriate loadouts depending on what its doing. I use the Banshee when I want to farm ground targets which serverely diminishes my anti-air capabilities. I equip afterburner tanks if I want dogfighting superiority vs other ESF's which severely diminishes my ground ponding capabilities.


A Shredder Liberator may have its perks, but let's face it, it's less versatile than an ESF with 3 people on board, even if you use a Bulldog in the back.

How is it less versatile? Have you seen what a well flown shredder lib crew can do to both air and ground targets?


Also, I'd still call it bogus that making the bellygun your anti air and the back gun your anti ground gets you better results than using the gun mounts in their natural role.

The walker is a pretty damn good gun and if more gunners spent time getting good with it, then ESF's would have more to fear from a "traditional" liberator. It's not the end all solution to ward off all ESF's however; nor should it be.

Call AA Shredding bogus if you want, not my problem if you don't want to use an effective counter to the ESF's you keep complaining about.

[Rothnang]

An ESF does have to fit appropriate loadouts depending on what its doing. I use the Banshee when I want to farm ground targets which serverely diminishes my anti-air capabilities. I equip afterburner tanks if I want dogfighting superiority vs other ESF's which severely diminishes my ground ponding capabilities.


And some people just fly with rocket pods and a rotary gun and are plenty good against any kind of target that way.

How is it less versatile? Have you seen what a well flown shredder lib crew can do to both air and ground targets?

So what you're saying is every Liberator should just fit a shredder because it lets you survive air battles while not being any weaker against ground units?

Call AA Shredding bogus if you want, not my problem if you don't want to use an effective counter to the ESF's you keep complaining about.

Again, I don't see why every Liberator should be forced to use a shredder to survive against ESFs. That's hardly good balance either, especially when according to you it's not significantly worse against ground targets. If the Shredder is the singular answer to being competitive with an ESF that doesn't make ESFs less overpowered, it just makes the Shredder overpowered as well.


And no, the Walker not being able to provide adequate defense from ESFs is not the gunners fault entirely. The ESF is a much smaller and faster target than the Liberator, so the back gunners job is already much harder, but on top of that there is also the gun stutter that comes in when you have anything less than perfect latency while your pilot is pulling complex maneuvers, which makes aiming at small things a real bitch for the gunners.

And then there is still the question of combat scaling, since as I pointed out before, there is no other relationship in the game where the cheaper, fewer player unit wins 1on1 easily just because it's a "counter". Those relationships are much better balance because not basing counters purely on 1on1 situations is necessary for combat to be able to scale. The second 2 ESFs work together the back gun is pointless, despite the fact that 2 people need to work together just to get the back gun off the ground. You need upward of 3 or 4 players pulling AA to counter aircraft to the point of being able to kill it, and when you have something like HAs vs. tanks it's not really like a single HA can easily win.

[Obstruction]

Asymmetrical hard-counters is what leads to poor balance.


someone (a lot of people) need to study some game theory 101 where they define nash equilibrium and diagram rock/paper/scissors.

asymmetrical hard counter is the definition of "balance." :rolleyes:
the real truth is that "balance" is as badly used as "metagame." they're the desperate crack whores of game theory terminology.

anyway. maybe it's not really a formula for exciting gameplay, but that's different. exciting gameplay is usually from a high risk:reward ratio. like compulsive gambling.

the core of what we're talking about here is air metagame, where people act according to their best self interest and view other friendly aircraft as competitors rather than comrades.

in that game, liberators are NOT protected by friendly ESFs. at best if you pick up a tail you will get a friendly to steal the kill from your tailgunner. unless he sees a shiny tank below in which case you're on your own.

i've even noticed lately that solo libs fly around behind me and use the tank buster to swoop in and KS sunderers from my dalton gunner, while i soak up the flak and striker rockets. good strategy but poor sportsmanship. notice the pattern? lots of that in PS2.

the fact is that the incentive for team play, or at the very least, to encourage grudging symbiosis doesn't exist in the air like it does on the ground.

and at least on the ground when your stuff is nerfed you're only out a maximum of a few hundred certs, whereas liberator pilots can be out thousands if the devs simply "tweak" a weapon or flat-out obsolete it.

[Rothnang]

Yeaaa, i'm pretty pissed that the Dalton went from amazing to so-so with the stupid bullet drop, especially since they removed the bullet drop in beta precisely because everyone was telling them that hitting stuff from altitude was way too hard for anyone who actually admits that they aren't perfect at everything.


And yea, the whole notion of a fighter escort is absurd. By the time you have a Liberator with a fighter escort or two you might as well just have 4 or 5 fighters going around killing everything by themselves. Even if the reward scheme of the game were such that a Liberator with an escort were profitable for everyone involved, it still wouldn't beat the alternative.

Battle Galaxies are also lots of fun, but 4-5 people rolling around in a Galaxy is ultimately a waste of manpower, which is why it isn't commonly done.