phungus
2013-04-16, 05:34 PM
From a development standpoint and from a game mechanics standpoint it's readily apparent the stated goal of having "air counter air" and having ESFs being Air to Air fighters is nothing but a lie. This game is designed in all facets to discourage pilots from attacking other air targets and instead focus on the ground.
Don't believe me, well lets just go with the facts. Here is the laundry list of design implementations in this game that actively discourages pilots from attacking other air targets and/or encourages going for ground targets:
1) A2A missiles have a 50% random chance of shooting duds:
This isn't a bug, it's been the way A2Am have worked since game release. Every time you fire a missile there is a 50% chance that a dud gets launched, it used to not waste rockets doing so, but for some reason they found that 50% dud chance wasn't a big enough hindrance to A2Am. In the last patch the dud chance that used to just do nothing and take a relock now actually straight fire duds, requiring reloading time and more importantly shoot more missiles requiring rearming.
A2Am only have a use against runners and liberators, they are nothing but a gamble every time you use them, but in an actual dogfight they take far too long to use - and will get you killed, add to that their 50% chance of doing 0 damage and they are just a death sentence in a real dogfight. That's fine, let us dogfight with rotaries, but if A2Am are supposed to kill air they should at least fire real damaging hits so we can at least finish off runners, but that's still just a crapshoot in the current game. You want something that actually works, and doesn't just poof while doing nothing, grab rocket pods - it's what Higby wants all ESFs to load out with anyway so he designed it that way.
2) Experience gains encourage pilots to grief other pilots by ejecting/crashing, and encourages ground attacking:
The air game is all about ejecting and denying experience from your opponents. Higby has stated he likes to grief. He knew setting something up like this for ground combat wouldn't work and get him fired, so he made it so air combat is a griefer's paradise as he can get away with it there. It sucks, it's nothing but frustrating for a brief moment of satisfaction when you grief an opponent yourself, but I'm better then most in the sky so I kill alot more people that grief me then I greif them and it sucks. This design decision to encourage griefing is just stupid all around, but it's net effect is to make rocket pods and attacking ground targets more attractive while making attacking air less attractive. Considerably less attractive, when one takes into account the actual experience gains where killing ground targets usually nets an order of magnitude better K/D while also netting about 3 to 4 times the experience.
3) Rocket pods kill everything:
Rocket pods are great fun. They are also more useful in a dogfight then broken A2Am, while allowing you to attack the ground. Higby has intentionally designed air combat so that in close fights you should carry the default ground attack rocket pods if you want the advantage - as stated A2Am are only good against libs and aren't even effective against runners due to the fact they don't work half the time (literally, and by intentional design - it's not a bug it's a game mechanic if it's existed for 6 moths without even a dev acknowledging it), while rocket pods can actually be shot in your enemy's face in the air. More importantly though with how lethal the ground is not taking rocket pods to kill infantry and MAXes leaves you far too vulnerable. Rocket pods are just too good to pass up and that means many people who want to go A2A end up attacking the ground because the game mechanics all but force them to take the ground attack secondary, rocket pods.
4) Ground AA is so lethal ESFs have to carry rocket pods for basic defense:
I started playing this game at release. Hated air, whined with the rest of you lot about how terrible it was, and got just as pissed off by the OPness of air as anybody. Unlike 90% of you I didn't keep banging my head against the wall, I grabbed an ESF learned how to fly it, with the intention of killing air. It was actually really easy, even with broken A2Am the vast majority of ESF pilots were terribad and just using an OP weapon to wrek havoc, I slaughtered. Then AA got buff, again, and again, people flying got better, and air got nerfed again and again. There are no more terribad pilots in the skys, it's tough going as an A2A pilot, as this list demonstrates the game is designed to make your life miserable in that role in the first place, but now ground AA I just stupid.
When I fly A2A it's always AA MAXes that kill me, or almost always. I might get swarmed on occasion, especially in a slow ass reaver, but almost always it's AA MAXes that keep rocket podders safe from me and others like me. AA MAXes and AA in general harrass and outright kill A2A stealth and nanite equipped ESFs far beyond infantry render ranges - it's still common to be shot down by invisible god mode AA MAXes while engaging other ESFs in a dogfight. The only real solution is to carry rocket pods and attack the ground targets with extreme prejudice.
I tried staying exclusively A2A, going after ESFs, but it's nigh impossible with the current state of AA. If you ignore the ground it will kill you, straight up. Even at flight ceiling.
5) HUD and minimap designed for 2D ground combat:
Every bit of tactical information you get in the air is designed to engage ground targets. You can still infer things based on sound and other information, but there is no piece of the HUD or anything the developers have created that in any way shape or form would be useful to the A2A pilot - it all must be inferred based on other game mechanics specifically designed for ground fighting. Even scout radar in an ESF is utterly and completely useless against enemy air, though it is downright awesome for finding and engaging ground targets. To date my best run is still banshee + rocket pods and scout radar with 77 kill and 3 deaths (2 of which were to friendly air collisions); keep in mind this is from someone who spends 90% of their time in the air as an A2A ESF, and I still have far exceeded any air to air performance farming ground targets.
6) Main A2A gun the rotary is great for killing infantry and was nerfed against air targets with a slow velocity:
The rotary, the goto gun. Good for killing infantry, used to be great for killing air, but was intentionally nerfed to make it much worse at that task. Don't get me wrong, you can still kill air with a rotary, and it is one of those must load items, no matter what you want to do, but it's been intentionally designed to make it worse at killing air. This is very important, you must keep in mind that killing air targets as air requires the human brain to do many calculations to properly lead in 3 dimensions while moving through 3 dimension. It's a difficult task, one that used to be made easier with the rotary acting like an A2A gun in both real life and also in any flying game I have seen - by having a fast velocity requiring less difficult calculations to be made for the human brain (and also affording less time for evasive manuevering). They nerfed it though, intentionally making it much harder.
Now first off, I've adapted to it. I can still kill air with my rotary - my skills or your skills are irrelevant to the point. The issue is Higby had to have decided ESFs were too lethal to other ESFs (they weren't and still aren't) and buffed them in comparison to all other units by making their primary ESF attack weapon much more difficult to use - this also has the side effect of making entering the air game even a more daunting task for new pilots. Good luck learning to fly in this game on all accounts, but having the primary weapon you will use take hours and hours figuring out how to lead must be completely frustrating and downright infuriating to new pilots. Keep in mind the development team, lead by Higby must have decided A2A roles needed nerfing, since the rotary velocity nerf only nerfs A2A combat - that is an intentional design decision, the only outcome of this decision was to further the divide and rewards one gets from taking an A2A vs A2G role. At game release air to ground was already better for experience gain, K/D, and just far more enjoyable, but the developers led by Higby intentionally skewed this even more for no other reason then to further discourage A2A combat.
Conclusion: Every facet of this game's air mechanics are designed to discourage ESF pilots from attacking other air units, and instead focus on Ground Targets.
There is nothing else really to say on this topic. Everything, literally every game mechanic in PS2 from the HUD, minimap and game information, to random % chances of weapon failures, to weapon effectiveness, and even capped off by experience earning and K/D ratios that the game records encourages and downright forces players who want to play an Air to Air role to abandon that gameplay and instead focus on killing ground targets. Litererally every mechanic and piece of this game does that.
Don't believe me, well lets just go with the facts. Here is the laundry list of design implementations in this game that actively discourages pilots from attacking other air targets and/or encourages going for ground targets:
1) A2A missiles have a 50% random chance of shooting duds:
This isn't a bug, it's been the way A2Am have worked since game release. Every time you fire a missile there is a 50% chance that a dud gets launched, it used to not waste rockets doing so, but for some reason they found that 50% dud chance wasn't a big enough hindrance to A2Am. In the last patch the dud chance that used to just do nothing and take a relock now actually straight fire duds, requiring reloading time and more importantly shoot more missiles requiring rearming.
A2Am only have a use against runners and liberators, they are nothing but a gamble every time you use them, but in an actual dogfight they take far too long to use - and will get you killed, add to that their 50% chance of doing 0 damage and they are just a death sentence in a real dogfight. That's fine, let us dogfight with rotaries, but if A2Am are supposed to kill air they should at least fire real damaging hits so we can at least finish off runners, but that's still just a crapshoot in the current game. You want something that actually works, and doesn't just poof while doing nothing, grab rocket pods - it's what Higby wants all ESFs to load out with anyway so he designed it that way.
2) Experience gains encourage pilots to grief other pilots by ejecting/crashing, and encourages ground attacking:
The air game is all about ejecting and denying experience from your opponents. Higby has stated he likes to grief. He knew setting something up like this for ground combat wouldn't work and get him fired, so he made it so air combat is a griefer's paradise as he can get away with it there. It sucks, it's nothing but frustrating for a brief moment of satisfaction when you grief an opponent yourself, but I'm better then most in the sky so I kill alot more people that grief me then I greif them and it sucks. This design decision to encourage griefing is just stupid all around, but it's net effect is to make rocket pods and attacking ground targets more attractive while making attacking air less attractive. Considerably less attractive, when one takes into account the actual experience gains where killing ground targets usually nets an order of magnitude better K/D while also netting about 3 to 4 times the experience.
3) Rocket pods kill everything:
Rocket pods are great fun. They are also more useful in a dogfight then broken A2Am, while allowing you to attack the ground. Higby has intentionally designed air combat so that in close fights you should carry the default ground attack rocket pods if you want the advantage - as stated A2Am are only good against libs and aren't even effective against runners due to the fact they don't work half the time (literally, and by intentional design - it's not a bug it's a game mechanic if it's existed for 6 moths without even a dev acknowledging it), while rocket pods can actually be shot in your enemy's face in the air. More importantly though with how lethal the ground is not taking rocket pods to kill infantry and MAXes leaves you far too vulnerable. Rocket pods are just too good to pass up and that means many people who want to go A2A end up attacking the ground because the game mechanics all but force them to take the ground attack secondary, rocket pods.
4) Ground AA is so lethal ESFs have to carry rocket pods for basic defense:
I started playing this game at release. Hated air, whined with the rest of you lot about how terrible it was, and got just as pissed off by the OPness of air as anybody. Unlike 90% of you I didn't keep banging my head against the wall, I grabbed an ESF learned how to fly it, with the intention of killing air. It was actually really easy, even with broken A2Am the vast majority of ESF pilots were terribad and just using an OP weapon to wrek havoc, I slaughtered. Then AA got buff, again, and again, people flying got better, and air got nerfed again and again. There are no more terribad pilots in the skys, it's tough going as an A2A pilot, as this list demonstrates the game is designed to make your life miserable in that role in the first place, but now ground AA I just stupid.
When I fly A2A it's always AA MAXes that kill me, or almost always. I might get swarmed on occasion, especially in a slow ass reaver, but almost always it's AA MAXes that keep rocket podders safe from me and others like me. AA MAXes and AA in general harrass and outright kill A2A stealth and nanite equipped ESFs far beyond infantry render ranges - it's still common to be shot down by invisible god mode AA MAXes while engaging other ESFs in a dogfight. The only real solution is to carry rocket pods and attack the ground targets with extreme prejudice.
I tried staying exclusively A2A, going after ESFs, but it's nigh impossible with the current state of AA. If you ignore the ground it will kill you, straight up. Even at flight ceiling.
5) HUD and minimap designed for 2D ground combat:
Every bit of tactical information you get in the air is designed to engage ground targets. You can still infer things based on sound and other information, but there is no piece of the HUD or anything the developers have created that in any way shape or form would be useful to the A2A pilot - it all must be inferred based on other game mechanics specifically designed for ground fighting. Even scout radar in an ESF is utterly and completely useless against enemy air, though it is downright awesome for finding and engaging ground targets. To date my best run is still banshee + rocket pods and scout radar with 77 kill and 3 deaths (2 of which were to friendly air collisions); keep in mind this is from someone who spends 90% of their time in the air as an A2A ESF, and I still have far exceeded any air to air performance farming ground targets.
6) Main A2A gun the rotary is great for killing infantry and was nerfed against air targets with a slow velocity:
The rotary, the goto gun. Good for killing infantry, used to be great for killing air, but was intentionally nerfed to make it much worse at that task. Don't get me wrong, you can still kill air with a rotary, and it is one of those must load items, no matter what you want to do, but it's been intentionally designed to make it worse at killing air. This is very important, you must keep in mind that killing air targets as air requires the human brain to do many calculations to properly lead in 3 dimensions while moving through 3 dimension. It's a difficult task, one that used to be made easier with the rotary acting like an A2A gun in both real life and also in any flying game I have seen - by having a fast velocity requiring less difficult calculations to be made for the human brain (and also affording less time for evasive manuevering). They nerfed it though, intentionally making it much harder.
Now first off, I've adapted to it. I can still kill air with my rotary - my skills or your skills are irrelevant to the point. The issue is Higby had to have decided ESFs were too lethal to other ESFs (they weren't and still aren't) and buffed them in comparison to all other units by making their primary ESF attack weapon much more difficult to use - this also has the side effect of making entering the air game even a more daunting task for new pilots. Good luck learning to fly in this game on all accounts, but having the primary weapon you will use take hours and hours figuring out how to lead must be completely frustrating and downright infuriating to new pilots. Keep in mind the development team, lead by Higby must have decided A2A roles needed nerfing, since the rotary velocity nerf only nerfs A2A combat - that is an intentional design decision, the only outcome of this decision was to further the divide and rewards one gets from taking an A2A vs A2G role. At game release air to ground was already better for experience gain, K/D, and just far more enjoyable, but the developers led by Higby intentionally skewed this even more for no other reason then to further discourage A2A combat.
Conclusion: Every facet of this game's air mechanics are designed to discourage ESF pilots from attacking other air units, and instead focus on Ground Targets.
There is nothing else really to say on this topic. Everything, literally every game mechanic in PS2 from the HUD, minimap and game information, to random % chances of weapon failures, to weapon effectiveness, and even capped off by experience earning and K/D ratios that the game records encourages and downright forces players who want to play an Air to Air role to abandon that gameplay and instead focus on killing ground targets. Litererally every mechanic and piece of this game does that.