Lock on Launchers are overpowered because they have too much range.

[Rothnang]

I really dislike lockon launchers in this game, because they are one of the really big things that keeps the fight between vehicles and infantry from ever being carried out at reasonable combat ranges for both units.

Lockon launchers reach out to 500 meters, which is a huge distance in PS2 terms, since all weapon ranges are effectively scaled down to some degree. The reason why they don't provide for a real enrichment of the gameplay in their current incarnation are:

1. Infantry based weapons that can reach out and destroy vehicles at ranges that are way greater than the range that a vehicle can engage infantry at are simply stupid. This isn't a game where tanks, artillery, aircraft etc. are allowed to kill infantry at well beyond visual range, because that would really suck for the infantry players, so why the hell should it work the other way around?

2. Lockon weapons don't really care how far away the target is, they are always equally easy to hit with. In fact, hitting things that are far away is generally easier because their angular velocity will be smaller. Every other weapons effectiveness drops off as it pushes toward its range limit, this weapon stays perfectly reliable all the way to its cutoff point.

3. The whole flare/smoke mechanic is just poorly implemented. Having them based on a timer essentially means that after you fire your countermeasure you are left with two choices: 1. Vacate the area until your countermeasure is off cooldown. 2. Face guided weapons without any real means of defense. Either way it sucks. There is no skill to either using guided weapons or using countermeasures.



There are a couple things that I would change about the whole idea of lock-on launchers.

For one, they should have much less range, but lock on more quickly. To me it simply doesn't make any sense to give infantry weapons with such huge range in PS2 terms. Sure, 500 meters is nothing when you think on a realistic scale, but on a realistic scale 3000 meters is nothing for a tank gun, yet in PS2 they can't reach out further than about 700-800. Things are scaled down, and this shouldn't be an exception.
The speed to lock on should be quicker to compensate for the lower range, so that fast moving enemies can't simply get out of range before you can ever get a shot off.

Countermeasures should be rethought in my opinion and work a little differently. For one, it's just stupid that you need to slot them, they should just be standard on any vehicle. Maybe you could slot an upgrade to them, but making you slot the only valid defense against a very common variety of weapon really isn't being given a meaningful choice on vehicles that can't eat a few missiles. Even tough vehicles can easily die to multiple missiles, since you never know how many missiles are coming at you.

Using countermeasures should not simply consist of pushing a button to buy yourself 5 seconds of being lock-on free. It should instead be a test of skill to use an active defense measure against an incoming attack.


I think tanks should have a hardkill system that destroys incoming missiles with ease, but also does damage to any infantry and light skinned vehicles near the tank when it goes off, then goes on a short cooldown (Maybe 5 seconds). That way firing guided missiles at a tank with a hardkill system can shut down their ability to repair the tank since no engineers will be able to go near it, and you can still get some kills, even if the missiles aren't hitting the tank itself (The person that caused the hardkill to trigger gets credit for any deaths it causes).

Aircraft should have flares that can be activated every second or so, but are only effective if the missile is within a certain distance from the aircraft. Basically you'd see a little graphic showing the distance of all missiles aiming at you from your aircraft, with a "kill zone". If you hit your flares all missiles in the kill zone are taken out. The thing that makes this difficult is that missiles don't always approach you at a constant speed, if you're heading toward the missile you might have very little time to punch the flares as it passes through the killzone, while if you're heading away from the missile it will approach you very slowly, making it easy to flare it. If you pull eratic maneuvers the missiles approach toward you will be unpredictable, which can throw you off. If multiple missiles come at you at the same time and they aren't all fired from the same position it might become very difficult to flare all of them.

Basically make it a system that is actually somewhat of a meaningful part of the game and that you can be good with instead of just an obnoxious one shot thing.


Really long range lock-on weapons should be carried on vehicles. Realistically speaking a longer range missile has to be bigger, which is why man portable missile systems tend to be pretty short range. Missile doesn't simply mean man portable tank cannon, there is a wide variety with a wide variety of capabilities, and missiles that go really far tend to be bigger than what you can lug around on your back.

[DarkBalths]

You have obviously never used the Striker. That thing can't lock on worth shit.

[Whiteagle]

Sure, 500 meters is nothing when you think on a realistic scale, but on a realistic scale 3000 meters is nothing for a tank gun, yet in PS2 they can't reach out further than about 700-800.
Your argument failed right HERE.

You have just outright stated that Tank Guns have 200 to 300 meters of range that they can attack from outright unmolested.

Even if their weapons are not able to touch Infantry due to rendering non-sense, this is still an anti-vehicle advantage they have over their Shoulder-fired Missile counterparts.

Really long range lock-on weapons should be carried on vehicles. Realistically speaking a longer range missile has to be bigger, which is why man portable missile systems tend to be pretty short range. Missile doesn't simply mean man portable tank cannon, there is a wide variety with a wide variety of capabilities, and missiles that go really far tend to be bigger than what you can lug around on your back.
Don't see any problem with this other then inter-vehicle balance issues, so it's okay in my book.

[maradine]

To me it simply doesn't make any sense to give infantry weapons with such huge range in PS2 terms. Sure, 500 meters is nothing when you think on a realistic scale, but on a realistic scale 3000 meters is nothing for a tank gun, yet in PS2 they can't reach out further than about 700-800. Things are scaled down, and this shouldn't be an exception.

Well, actually, no. The furthest you're going to hope to achieve penetration on a hard target with an M829 APFSDS round is about 3,000m. That's a KI-derived maximum. You're not going to squeeze much more out of an HE round, even if you could target effectively. To contrast ATGMs - a TOW-II is effective out to almost 4 km, and the Javelin to almost 5. I'd call things pretty evenly scaled, frankly.

[Corvo]

I know the figures might state otherwise but just from my experience of using the Striker it feels like I need to be a lot closer to the tank to lock on to it than for a tank to take a shot at me.

Not to mention that reducing lock on range will completely remove any anti-air capability of all multipurpose lock-on launchers. ESFs are incredibly hard to lock on to even now, since they can just punch that afterburner and fly out of range; what you are suggesting will make Flak the only counter to them.

Don't get me wrong, I like the direction where you are going with this idea. Harder to kill vehicles, more sophisticated weapons systems and ECMs that require more than just "press F to get rid of all missiles" - these are all good. Reducing range on infantry weapons is not.

[PredatorFour]

The striker is ridiculous with its lock on range. Tonight we couldn't even see where they were shooting from cos of the render issue that's still in game when large battles take place. I think the addition of the striker made the TR the most OP faction.

[ChipMHazard]

The Striker does have one flaw that will often become an issue at longer ranges, especially when trying to hit aircraft. Its tracking.
The tracking has a tendency to make the missiles either nose dive into the ground or otherwise hit an obstacle/piece of terrain. From what I've noticed it seems to depend on the angle the target is going, as in it's trying to predict the target's movement instead of trying to follow it.

[KarrdeBRBU]

I think the real issue is vehicle drivers over extending. I don't get killed by lockons much. They mostly drive me back for a bit and are something of a deterrent. I mostly die when I over extend without support. If you're running a vehicle in the open without support you're doing it wrong. Vehicles are meant to move carefully and methodically, not aggressively. Also, lots of players need to learn to fall back to rep point at 50% health. I have nice, long tank runs and get a lot of kills. Also IR smoke and mineguard. When getting locked on, wait for the shot to fire before blowing smoke and keep moving. 6 seconds of no lock with only a 15 second cool down at max rank. Also, unless you're trying to snipe something, move at all times.

[Whiteagle]

I think the real issue is vehicle drivers over extending. I don't get killed by lockons much. They mostly drive me back for a bit and are something of a deterrent. I mostly die when I over extend without support. If you're running a vehicle in the open without support you're doing it wrong. Vehicles are meant to move carefully and methodically, not aggressively. Also, lots of players need to learn to fall back to rep point at 50% health. I have nice, long tank runs and get a lot of kills. Also IR smoke and mineguard. When getting locked on, wait for the shot to fire before blowing smoke and keep moving. 6 seconds of no lock with only a 15 second cool down at max rank. Also, unless you're trying to snipe something, move at all times.
Quoted for truth man...

...I'm getting sick and tired of people going "WAH, my vehicle keeps blowing up, AV OP!!!" when I find myself quite capable of running an ESF or Tank long enough to make back my Resource investment.
You know who you are, and let me tell you just because it's your favorite thing to do in the game doesn't mean your actually any good at it.

[Rothnang]

You have just outright stated that Tank Guns have 200 to 300 meters of range that they can attack from outright unmolested.

Even if their weapons are not able to touch Infantry due to rendering non-sense, this is still an anti-vehicle advantage they have over their Shoulder-fired Missile counterparts.

Uhh, you can't shoot infantry from that far away, the only thing you can shoot from that far away is other vehicles, so why exactly is that a problem?

Tanks on tank battles being fought at longer range than infantry on tank battles doesn't seem like any kind of issue to me.

It's when infantry gets to butt in with weapons that have tank-fight ranges while being rendered at infantry fight ranges, and minuscule targets on top of that that there is a one sided advantage.

Well, actually, no. The furthest you're going to hope to achieve penetration on a hard target with an M829 APFSDS round is about 3,000m. That's a KI-derived maximum. You're not going to squeeze much more out of an HE round, even if you could target effectively. To contrast ATGMs - a TOW-II is effective out to almost 4 km, and the Javelin to almost 5. I'd call things pretty evenly scaled, frankly.

Both of the weapons you pick for comparison are WAY bigger than anything people have in PS2.

TOW is not a man portable system at all, you need a vehicle to transport it to the front, and it's so big that there are whole vehicles built just to carry TOW launchers. The German Army used the Jaguar Raketenjadpanzer until recently, which was a full sized tank purely dedicated to using a TOW/MILAN launcher. A TOW launcher is about the size of the Halberd launchers in PS2.

The Javelin is also much bigger than what any of the infantry rocket launchers in this game are. In fact, a two man team typically only carries a single missile. If you want any more than that you need a vehicle that carries additional ammo nearby. At 80000 bucks a shot the rocket also costs more than what the Javelin team earns in 2 years. The Javelins size and prohibitive cost are considered its major downsides.


Both of the weapons you pick for comparison aren't really a good analog to the kinds of weapons infantry uses in the game. All the anti-armor infantry weapons have plenty of ammo, are easily resupplied, and can handily be carried by a soldier.

What soldiers carry in PS2 is more like an RPG7, Panzerfaust 3, or Carl Gustav, which are effective to about 200 meters against armor only.

Also... Game balance. It still doesn't make any sense to have a game where infantry can engage vehicles several hundred meters before it even renders.

[Ghoest9]

You complain too much.

Lock on launchers are well balanced and make for a fun game as is.

[Rothnang]

That was a great argument that convinced nobody.

[leifnielsen]

That was a great argument that convinced nobody.

"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

-Benjamin Franklin

[Whiteagle]

That was a great argument that convinced nobody.
Well he is right, you do complain a lot about how everything destroys your Liberators...

[Ghoest9]

That was a great argument that convinced nobody.

But objectively it was just as strong as your position.


And the most important fact is on my side - most players and particularly casual ones like the game much more now that Air is much weaker than it was relative to infantry.

The most important design choice is what drives away the least players. the second most important is what attracts the most players.
You lose.

[maradine]

Both of the weapons you pick for comparison are WAY bigger than anything people have in PS2.

Indeed. And they are both, generally speaking, one hit kills on modern armor. I think it's pretty reasonable that, instead, you need 5-ish of them and, coincidentally, carry 5-ish.

[CrankyTRex]

But objectively it was just as strong as your position.


And the most important fact is on my side - most players and particularly casual ones like the game much more now that Air is much weaker than it was relative to infantry.

The most important design choice is what drives away the least players. the second most important is what attracts the most players.
You lose.

We should be very careful about saying what "most players" like unless there are some hard stats to back it up.

Further, the most important design choice is what makes for the best game, which generally means creating mechanics that don't frustrate either side.

[Ghoest9]

We should be very careful about saying what "most players" like unless there are some hard stats to back it up.

Further, the most important design choice is what makes for the best game, which generally means creating mechanics that don't frustrate either side.

No I dont need to be careful.

It was evident everywhere.
People were quitting, people were posting on forums, people were trying the game and saying was lame - because they were unhappy about air power and felt weak against it.

[CrankyTRex]

No I dont need to be careful.

It was evident everywhere.
People were quitting, people were posting on forums, people were trying the game and saying was lame - because they were unhappy about air power and felt weak against it.

Don't look now but this is a post on a forum.

[Ghoest9]

yes

And its post made by a guy who like to fly Libs


Are completely unfamiliar with PS2 or do you just like to troll.



Maybe you missed it when they drastically rebalanced the air/infantry game. It made a minority of players- pilots unhappy and made a majority of players mostly infantry happy - they did it because of overwhelming feedback.

[Rothnang]

And the most important fact is on my side - most players and particularly casual ones like the game much more now that Air is much weaker than it was relative to infantry.

Yea, and where have I ever written that air need to be way more powerful than infantry and own them at every turn?

Game design isn't a zero sum game where one side has to have their fun ruined for the other to enjoy themselves.

The most important design choice is what drives away the least players. the second most important is what attracts the most players.


Sure. Sacrificing one segment of your community to appease a larger one only makes sense in your weird little world where compromises and win/wins don't exist though.

Also let's not forget, there is this thing called "competition". Some people are rumored to enjoy it.

[Ghoest9]

Yea, and where have I ever written that air need to be way more powerful than infantry and own them at every turn?

Game design isn't a zero sum game where one side has to have their fun ruined for the other to enjoy themselves.



Sure. Sacrificing one segment of your community to appease a larger one only makes sense in your weird little world where compromises and win/wins don't exist though.

Also let's not forget, there is this thing called "competition". Some people are rumored to enjoy it.



I think its quite competitive now. It wasnt before.

Ive made posts about it before - good ESF pilots who work in teams and actually use tactics are essentially immune to shoulder fired rockets. Moderate skilled ESF pilots can get be chased away but rarely killed and the bad ones die.

The current balance is good.


Quit whining and watch the good pilots and learn.

[Rothnang]

Right, the old "L2P" argument. Always great for proving that you have a valid position.

My position is really quite simple:

1. If you can't see it it shouldn't be shooting you.
2. The further away a target is the more difficult it should be to hit.

Lock on Launchers are frequent and severe offenders against this, and that's why they need their range reduced.

Indeed. And they are both, generally speaking, one hit kills on modern armor. I think it's pretty reasonable that, instead, you need 5-ish of them and, coincidentally, carry 5-ish.

Still a complete non argument for why infantry should outrange tanks in a game.

[Artimus]

Alright I understand everyone is entitled to their opinions, but everytime I come on PSU it seems like you have a new reason why you hate this game. If this is the case how come you continue to play if it really causes you this much frustrastion?

[Kail]

What I would like to see on the PTR someday:


Lock-on items have their range reduced. For sake of example, about bio-lab landing pad to ground level times two.
Flak damage scaling. After lockon-range, damage degredation applies, down to a minimum of 0 after some distance (again for example, say three times lock-on range)
Wind drift added to air ordinance; At or under lock-on range, full accuracy from weapons. At or under flak range, "some" accuracy (for example, 50%). Over flak range, no accuracy.


Above flak range, there really isn't any ground/air interaction; shots from an aircraft are so randomly offtarget it's of no use, and ground can't touch them. In flak range its lower risk for aircraft, but connecting shots is problematic. In lockon range, both ground an air and deadly to each other.

The actual ranges I don't particularly care about - the idea is to create 3 zones:


Air Only: Air has to police itself (ie, see a full enemy gal? Better get a few ESF's on it to stop them). Air cannot hit anything on the ground without sheer dumb luck
Air Harassment: Air interacts with ground, but at diminished capacity. Ground can deter air, but has a lot of trouble outright destroying them.
A2G and G2A Combat: Air and Ground can bring full might against each other

[Rothnang]

What I would like to see on the PTR someday:


Lock-on items have their range reduced. For sake of example, about bio-lab landing pad to ground level times two.
Flak damage scaling. After lockon-range, damage degredation applies, down to a minimum of 0 after some distance (again for example, say three times lock-on range)
Wind drift added to air ordinance; At or under lock-on range, full accuracy from weapons. At or under flak range, "some" accuracy (for example, 50%). Over flak range, no accuracy.


Above flak range, there really isn't any ground/air interaction; shots from an aircraft are so randomly offtarget it's of no use, and ground can't touch them. In flak range its lower risk for aircraft, but connecting shots is problematic. In lockon range, both ground an air and deadly to each other.

The actual ranges I don't particularly care about - the idea is to create 3 zones:


Air Only: Air has to police itself (ie, see a full enemy gal? Better get a few ESF's on it to stop them). Air cannot hit anything on the ground without sheer dumb luck
Air Harassment: Air interacts with ground, but at diminished capacity. Ground can deter air, but has a lot of trouble outright destroying them.
A2G and G2A Combat: Air and Ground can bring full might against each other


Yea, that sounds about right. There should definitely be a significant amount of airspace in which aircraft primarily interact with each other.

I don't think you'll be able to have an "air harassment" zone though because of the way combat scaling works. If something can damage a unit then you can deploy enough of it to kill that unit. The main way in which that effect is prevented is if things ranges that don't allow them to effectively cover everything.

For example in an infantry battle it's not effective to mass all your units into a single spot, because there are usually plenty of other places in a base for an enemy to do some damage. Your forces are diluted across multiple objectives because they can't shoot the enemies on one objective while sitting on the other. That's one of the most important principles that makes infantry warfare not completely stupid. Unfortunately that principle seems to completely fall apart when it comes to vehicle vs. infantry combat since weapons start having such crazy range that you can cover a whole region easily from a good vantage point.

[Ghost Runner]

Angry Ramble......:mad:

3. The whole flare/smoke mechanic is just poorly implemented. Having them based on a timer essentially means that after you fire your countermeasure you are left with two choices: 1. Vacate the area until your countermeasure is off cooldown. 2. Face guided weapons without any real means of defense. Either way it sucks. There is no skill to either using guided weapons or using countermeasures. -Good point:cool:

More angry rambling......:mad: You know these launchers were nerfed to ware they are now? what you proposed will make them completely useless.


Countermeasures should be rethought in my opinion and work a little differently. For one, it's just stupid that you need to slot them, they should just be standard on any vehicle. Maybe you could slot an upgrade to them, but making you slot the only valid defense against a very common variety of weapon really isn't being given a meaningful choice on vehicles that can't eat a few missiles. Even tough vehicles can easily die to multiple missiles, since you never know how many missiles are coming at you. -Good point :)

Using countermeasures should not simply consist of pushing a button to buy yourself 5 seconds of being lock-on free. It should instead be a test of skill to use an active defense measure against an incoming attack. -Also Good point:D


I think tanks should have a hardkill system that destroys incoming missiles with ease, but also does damage to any infantry and light skinned vehicles near the tank when it goes off, then goes on a short cooldown (Maybe 5 seconds). That way firing guided missiles at a tank with a hardkill system can shut down their ability to repair the tank since no engineers will be able to go near it, and you can still get some kills, even if the missiles aren't hitting the tank itself (The person that caused the hardkill to trigger gets credit for any deaths it causes). - To OP but interesting Idea non the less


Aircraft should have flares that can be activated every second or so, but are only effective if the missile is within a certain distance from the aircraft. Basically you'd see a little graphic showing the distance of all missiles aiming at you from your aircraft, with a "kill zone". If you hit your flares all missiles in the kill zone are taken out. The thing that makes this difficult is that missiles don't always approach you at a constant speed, if you're heading toward the missile you might have very little time to punch the flares as it passes through the killzone, while if you're heading away from the missile it will approach you very slowly, making it easy to flare it. If you pull eratic maneuvers the missiles approach toward you will be unpredictable, which can throw you off. If multiple missiles come at you at the same time and they aren't all fired from the same position it might become very difficult to flare all of them.

Basically make it a system that is actually somewhat of a meaningful part of the game and that you can be good with instead of just an obnoxious one shot thing. - Cool Idea here:cool:


Really long range lock-on weapons should be carried on vehicles. Realistically speaking a longer range missile has to be bigger, which is why man portable missile systems tend to be pretty short range. Missile doesn't simply mean man portable tank cannon, there is a wide variety with a wide variety of capabilities, and missiles that go really far tend to be bigger than what you can lug around on your back. - New vehicle concepts are all ways cool.

Hmm overall aside from some clear irritation in this post there are some really great Ideas hidden in there. With the proposed vehicle changes launcher lock on times would need to be reduced but nothing else would need changing on the launchers as it would become very hard to hit any vehicles. But interesting Ideas non the less.

But to make things more fair why not give vehicle countermeasures a supply limit like 100 flares (launches 10 at a time essentially avoid 10 missiles before reload is required) for aircraft and 50 smoke canisters(launches 5 at a time to essentially avoid 10 missiles before reload is required) for tanks instead of cool downs?
Just my 0.2 cents

[CrankyTRex]

yes

And its post made by a guy who like to fly Libs


Are completely unfamiliar with PS2 or do you just like to troll.



Maybe you missed it when they drastically rebalanced the air/infantry game. It made a minority of players- pilots unhappy and made a majority of players mostly infantry happy - they did it because of overwhelming feedback.

And the other posts were posts by people who like to play infantry. Should we just dismiss their concerns because people have been whining about overpowered aircraft since BF1942 as "they just want to be Rambo and don't want to die to anything"?

Do "most people" really like vehicle drivers, pilots or otherwise, to be frustrated by the game like they are/were? Was their problem that aircraft were too strong and the only way to combat it was to have long range lock-on missiles to fight back, or was it that the base design (another frequent complaint) allows for farming of all kinds? Are most people actually happier right now, or did the complainers just quit and not return?

Point being, what "most people" think is typically more nuanced and fluid than what you're trying to boil it down to, especially when working off forums that may or may not be an adequate representative sample of the majority of the playerbase.

EDIT(since the discussion went back on track while I was typing that)


But to make things more fair why not give vehicle countermeasures a supply limit like 100 flares (launches 10 at a time essentially avoid 10 missiles before reload is required) for aircraft and 50 smoke canisters(launches 5 at a time to essentially avoid 10 missiles before reload is required) for tanks instead of cool downs?
Just my 0.2 cents

That's more akin how it would work in reality. You'd have a standard set of countermeasures and would burn through them. I really think they need to be standard equipment either way.

[Rothnang]

Having a limited number of countermeasures that you need to replenish like ammo but fire more often would essentially introduce an alternate hitpoint pool that lock-on weapons need to burn through.

It's a possible change, but I don't think it makes the interplay between weapon and target any deeper.

[Kail]

I don't think you'll be able to have an "air harassment" zone though because of the way combat scaling works. If something can damage a unit then you can deploy enough of it to kill that unit. The main way in which that effect is prevented is if things ranges that don't allow them to effectively cover everything.

That's only true if you're trying to enforce equality of forces. Overwhelming the other side is always an option.

The trick is just to make it "fair" up until you're overwhelmed. For example, if it takes an entire squad of dual burster maxes to be able to destroy a liberator at flak range (but past lock-on range) before it can escape... isn't that a fair trade? If an enemy force is large enough to dedicate that much pure AA and still be able to make progress on a base, then you either need multiple aircraft working together or ground support - which doesn't sound unreasonable.


Remember that in that situation, due to having a air-only zone, air gets a chance to "setup" before engaging. Unless air supremacy is contested. Fun for everyone!

[Rothnang]

Being overwhelmed is not the problem if you KNOW you're overwhelmed. The whole reason why I'm so vehemently against all these infantry weapons with extreme range however is because they create a situation where you have no idea you're about to get blasted to bits by a vastly superior force until they open fire.

For example, if you put 12 Skyguards somewhere it's pretty obvious, which means people can react to their overwhelming firepower. 12 guys with Bursters however is an entirely different story.

[Ghost Runner]

Well if you combine it with your Idea of more skill required to use CM then hitting the counter measure at the right time will be necessary or you waste the CM and get hit anyways?

[Rothnang]

Well, the counter measure would have maybe like a 1 or 1.5 second cooldown.

Imagine it like a Guitar Hero kind of thing, you'd see a little indicator on your screen that represents let's say 200 meters from your aircraft. At the end near you would be a zone of maybe 50 meters (might be less). If you hit the countermeasure button all missile inside that zone are taken out, while all the missiles outside of it are fine.

If you fly away from the missile then it will gain on you very slowly, so it's pretty easy to hit it with the countermeasure, but if the missile is coming at you from the side or the front it will move extremely fast toward you, so it might cross the kill zone before you can even react.

Also if there are multiple missiles in the air you'll have to make a quick judgment of when to hit the countermeasure to take out most of them. For example against a Striker you'd have to make a circle trying to get the missiles close together so you can kill them all, if you simply fire your countermeasure while only the first one is in the killzone at least one or two of the next ones will go through before you can fire it again.

[Kail]

Being overwhelmed is not the problem if you KNOW you're overwhelmed. The whole reason why I'm so vehemently against all these infantry weapons with extreme range however is because they create a situation where you have no idea you're about to get blasted to bits by a vastly superior force until they open fire.

For example, if you put 12 Skyguards somewhere it's pretty obvious, which means people can react to their overwhelming firepower. 12 guys with Bursters however is an entirely different story.

Very true. Which makes cruising into a fight in the combat or harassment zone dangerous, especially for an "Enemy Platoons Detected" area - but it's entirely possible to play it safe in the air-only zone.

But lets say you do everything right; you fly in above flak range, scope it out. Don't see anything. So you dip down into flak range: don't really take anything, take some pot shots, look around closer. Seems pretty safe. So you go in further, maybe into lock-on range, maybe just outside of it - and WHAM, a squad of burster maxes rips you a new one.

That would be strategy and tactics, would it not?

From their side, they're eating losses trying to lure you in close enough to trap you; I don't think the game should prevent players from trying to trick others into over-extending.

[Rothnang]

There honestly just isn't enough information sharing between units to really get that kind of thing down to a tactical level.

Infantry based AA should NEVER have "tactical" range, because infantry can't be killed for good until the whole base flips, so that completely precludes any notion of using combined arms to clear out the AA.

Even with vehicles it's pretty harsh because there just isn't enough information on where enemies are that gets transmitted to you. Even just opening the map in an aircraft takes way too long to really get good info from it.

The theory always goes something like "Oh your outfit tells you where the AA is and then you tell someone to kill it and they go there and..." But the reality is, that just doesn't happen. Stuff in this game happens so damn fast, the real military would not be able to keep up pace with it.

[Ghoest9]

Also let's not forget, there is this thing called "competition". Some people are rumored to enjoy it.

then he said this to my response that it was competative for pilots who were good


Right, the old "L2P" argument. Always great for proving that you have a valid position.





You have totally failed.

You can claim that I dont want a competitive game but when I point out that it is competitive for quality players you say Im not making my case.

Go away now.
You are just whining and crying to for a nerf because you are bad at the game.

Seriously you just be ashamed - not of your desire for an easy mode but of your intellectual dishonesty.

[Ghoest9]

And the other posts were posts by people who like to play infantry. Should we just dismiss their concerns because people have been whining about overpowered aircraft since BF1942 as "they just want to be Rambo and don't want to die to anything"?

Do "most people" really like vehicle drivers, pilots or otherwise, to be frustrated by the game like they are/were? Was their problem that aircraft were too strong and the only way to combat it was to have long range lock-on missiles to fight back, or was it that the base design (another frequent complaint) allows for farming of all kinds? Are most people actually happier right now, or did the complainers just quit and not return?

Point being, what "most people" think is typically more nuanced and fluid than what you're trying to boil it down to, especially when working off forums that may or may not be an adequate representative sample of the majority of the playerbase.



No its simple.
People quitting the game in droves after trying it and the biggest reason given in every form of feedback was 2 things 1 HE spam 2 they couldnt it was too hard to hurt aircraft and and its was too easy for aircraft to kill them, Feed back everywhere gave this as the biggest reason that people quit after trying out the game.

I suppose you could say that unless we did a poll of every person who tried the game that we cant know for sure - and in that case i guess we should never make another change to the game.

keep on trollin

[Kail]

There honestly just isn't enough information sharing between units to really get that kind of thing down to a tactical level.

Infantry based AA should NEVER have "tactical" range, because infantry can't be killed for good until the whole base flips, so that completely precludes any notion of using combined arms to clear out the AA.

Even with vehicles it's pretty harsh because there just isn't enough information on where enemies are that gets transmitted to you. Even just opening the map in an aircraft takes way too long to really get good info from it.

The theory always goes something like "Oh your outfit tells you where the AA is and then you tell someone to kill it and they go there and..." But the reality is, that just doesn't happen. Stuff in this game happens so damn fast, the real military would not be able to keep up pace with it.



It's worth pointing out that in my examples so far, at no point has any special information been required. At a basic level, you want to know the approximate enemy force strength of what you're flying over; this is already readily available on the map (Enemies Detected, Squads, etc). Doesn't matter where or what their makeup is yet, all the pilot cares about is a gauge of how safe it is to approach at a given elevation.

Once flying over an area, it's up to your eyes & minimap. At air-only it may or may not be hard to see infantry (since I make no claim where that line starts), but lets say its hard. So you dip into and out of flak range over the area, looking for tanks, where infantry are running from, etc. It's then up to the pilot to make a judgement call on what he/she thinks on whether to go lower - if he sees a ton of infantry / people around the cap points in a Squads alert, pretty safe to say that they'll be able to boogey if flak starts up.

And the other big part of all of this is assuming the pilot is the only air in the sky. If you're a single lib going into a platoon(s) alert, you probably want to play it pretty damn safe. With even just a couple more buddies things get a lot better. You can see when they start getting shot and know where to help / run, or if you're the one to go down, at least you helped your friends avoid the same fate.

It just seems from your last few posts you're asking to never be surprised. That cannot, and should not, ever be a guarantee. Low risk is still a risk.

[Rothnang]

Yea but AA shouldn't be able to just cover a whole region anyways. If you want to cover a whole army from air attacks you should have to deploy AA units all over your army, not just in one place somewhere and then everyone gets to hang out in a giant safety bubble that's a kilometer across.

[CrankyTRex]

There honestly just isn't enough information sharing between units to really get that kind of thing down to a tactical level.

This is kind of the crux of the problem with most "OP" things, isn't it? In a game with this much force multiplication and a combined arms design, the whole idea is that you should, theoretically, be able to call for aid and unless you're running in a big Outfit it just doesn't work.

As a pilot, it should be easy to go "spotted a huge burster nest at X,Y,Z, can I get somebody on the ground to handle that please?" Or from the other side "we've got enemy air ripping us up here, can we get some CAP?"

I wonder if the mission system they've discussed will help with that.

[Falcon_br]

I am a liberator pilot and I am happy with the current anti air system.
You guys just need to pick your targets, probe the enemy, all of that was already told here.
The thing that most kill my liberator is enemy esf, and only in group, a lone esf can't do nothing to me, because I got one of the best a30 walker gunner in the world, he can in most of time kill a chasing esf without reloading.
Yesterday I killed a fully crewed liberator with a m9 skep launcher, the dumb pilot was just flying low and stopped over the base, I was holding the enemy tank advance, just aimed at him and fired a unguided rocket and landed the killing blow, it is still in my killboard.
There is already a topic discussing long range anti vehicle weapons, and since the introduction of the Phoenix, I can't park over the enemy spawn room or be instantly killed, also, some time lancer users give me some damage, but I never died to a Lancer in a liberator, but to a Phoenix in esf happens all the time.

[Koadster]

You have obviously never used the Striker. That thing can't lock on worth shit.

Ive given up on the Strikers 'projected flight path' mode, I use the 2 original launchers still. Trying to shoot down a ESF that slightly dips in nose... All 5 rockets slam in the ground, while my A2G launcher goes right to the ESF dealing a good chunk on dmg.. plus it can dumbfire! :)

[Rothnang]

This is kind of the crux of the problem with most "OP" things, isn't it? In a game with this much force multiplication and a combined arms design, the whole idea is that you should, theoretically, be able to call for aid and unless you're running in a big Outfit it just doesn't work.

As a pilot, it should be easy to go "spotted a huge burster nest at X,Y,Z, can I get somebody on the ground to handle that please?" Or from the other side "we've got enemy air ripping us up here, can we get some CAP?"



The problem is that infantry based AA cannot ever be fully killed until the entire base flips, or at the very least is so totally overrun that you really don't need air anymore to make any headway.

Dealing with Skyguards and Turrets is another matter, they are visible to your aircraft, and they can be effectively controlled by your ground troops. It's all the infantry stuff that's going to keep coming back a thousandfold that makes a mockery of any notion of using ground troops to bring down the enemy AA in time for aircraft to still make a difference.

I am a liberator pilot and I am happy with the current anti air system.
You guys just need to pick your targets, probe the enemy, all of that was already told here.
The thing that most kill my liberator is enemy esf, and only in group, a lone esf can't do nothing to me, because I got one of the best a30 walker gunner in the world, he can in most of time kill a chasing esf without reloading.


I don't know how things are on Waterson, but on Mattherson where you frequently deal with Goon, TE and AOD it's pretty nasty with the AA. Sure, you can leave and fight somewhere else, but it's very hard to effectively play with an outfit if you're constantly off doing your own thing instead of being of assistance to them because they are fighting in a ground war that just happens to be inside the burster bubble.

I racked up 120 certs today using just two Liberators that I was piloting solo for fun. Even shot down 4 reavers during that time. How? Because I was on an off-continent during an alert, and dealing with highly disorganized enemies that are few in number is pretty easy. Point being, I'm not absolutely always dissatisfied with the Liberator, I just know that if my enemies really tried they can shut me down pretty easily, and on my server they try pretty often.

I've had Walker gunners kill 2 ESFs at the same time before. Some people are really good with that gun, however, I've also run into ESFs who single handedly blew us away with the exact same gunner. Enemies have skills too.

[ThatGoatGuy]

You complain too much.

Lock on launchers are well balanced and make for a fun game as is.

That's the best thing you've said all day.

Rothnang, stop complaining. You are one of those people who whine and moan about every little thing in this game to counter vehicles. You might think, "Oh, well this guy is just another one of those grunts who plays on the ground all the time." Nope, not at all, I have 49 hours in my mossy to prove it. I just run flares. That's all, and I survive it. And yes, I have been up against strikers, because I play my Air Hammer reaver all the time, and I don't even have flares on that and still stay in the air long enough for me to be able to pull again if I get shot down.

[Silent Thunder]

That's the best thing you've said all day.

Rothnang, stop complaining. You are one of those people who whine and moan about every little thing in this game to counter vehicles. You might think, "Oh, well this guy is just another one of those grunts who plays on the ground all the time." Nope, not at all, I have 49 hours in my mossy to prove it. I just run flares. That's all, and I survive it. And yes, I have been up against strikers, because I play my Air Hammer reaver all the time, and I don't even have flares on that and still stay in the air long enough for me to be able to pull again if I get shot down.

Same here, the only time I've had problems keeping ESFs alive is the occasion when I decide to play a VS alt, because those damn hook wings will snag on almost anything when you're trying to dodge inside of tight spaces (canyons, the middle levels of tech and amp stations) amd instead of bounce around a bit like the Mossie or Reaver, the Scythe will instead hook onto the obstacle and 180 right into it with the fusalage. I'll admit I have a very hard time actually HITTING anything with the Air Hammer, but thats another story.

[ThatGoatGuy]

Same here, the only time I've had problems keeping ESFs alive is the occasion when I decide to play a VS alt, because those damn hook wings will snag on almost anything when you're trying to dodge inside of tight spaces (canyons, the middle levels of tech and amp stations) amd instead of bounce around a bit like the Mossie or Reaver, the Scythe will instead hook onto the obstacle and 180 right into it with the fusalage. I'll admit I have a very hard time actually HITTING anything with the Air Hammer, but thats another story.

Oh man, you have no idea how irritating that tail is on the mossy. After playing on my VS for a bit, flying threw tight spaces in my mossy can be a pain.

[maradine]

Still a complete non argument for why infantry should outrange tanks in a game.

Brother, you brought it up. I frankly have little patience for what you do or do not consider a valid argument at this point.

I swear to god you're the new EvilHomer.