Is it too late to make make this the air ground relationship?

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

Saying the best response is 1 or 2 special units that chase aircraft but dont get many kills or do anything else - is really saying you just dont want people to play ground forces.

No, we're saying we want those two units to be very good at their jobs. Only one of them is right now, and it's not the dedicated one, and partially due to sight mechanics besides.

[Ghoest9]

Originally Posted by maradine

No, we're saying we want those two units to be very good at their jobs. Only one of them is right now, and it's not the dedicated one, and partially due to sight mechanics besides.

You seem confused.

most people will only play dedicated AA units if they have a reasonably high probability of actually killing aircraft.

I know you dont want that. (Frankly I dont either - because then lots of people would immediatly play AA and it would be impossible to fly.)
If dedicated AA works everyone will play it because at this point we all hate air. If dedicated AA onlt scares away aircraft - almost no one will play it.

So you basically a situation where effectively no mans AA - like we have now.


A much better solution is large amounts of moderately effective AA to have single pupose AA weapons that no one enjoys using.

[maradine]

I'm not confused in the least. I also have no particular hatred of air. I spend my group time running dedicated anti-aircraft squads on Genudine, and my solo time in the cockpit of an interceptor-fit ESF. I'm looking at this problem from both sides of the joystick.

I disagree with your prescription, because I disagree with homogenization. The solution here isn't to give everyone moderately effective AA. The solution is to make the special purpose AA we already have viable, and keep role distinction. We're already very close. Bursters may even be over the line.

Not everyone looks at the various gameplay elements in terms of cert efficiency. I acknowledge those people exist, and many populate the servers, but I don't necessarily think we should design around them.

[Ghoest9]

Designing a "balanced" game that the majority scissor players hate and the minority rock players love is a failure of design.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

Designing a "balanced" game that the majority scissor players hate and the minority rock players love is a failure of design.

On that we agree completely. I think we disagree on who's a minority, who hates what, and why. And I am perfectly content to let that disagreement stand.

[Ohaunlaim]

All I want is the following.

1. A medium, vehicle-mounted, non-flack, anti-air, machine gun with low cone of fire. (For variety)

2. A very heavy, vehicle-mounted, slow-firing, anti-air, flack cannon with large flack radius. (For variety)

3. All current infantry lock-on AA missiles to get a 60kph speed boost. (+/- 20kph for empire variety.)

4. All current heavy infantry rockets/missiles to cost 50 resources. (To reflect any improvements to their effectiveness and to balance against the cost of their targets.)

5. Aircraft after-burner boost pods on ESF to be the only source of after-burners. (Thus the choice between speed, A2A missiles, A2G rockets, etc) (For variety via specialization.)

6. A2G rocket pods getting a cone of fire nerf of about 4-8 degrees. (Makes their cone of fire larger to reflect the large blast radius.)

7. An A2G medium-long range, heavy, anti-vehicle, lock-on missile. (For variety and to increase the usefulness of some of the vehicle certs.)

8. Liberator belly-turret rotation nerf for the larger cannons. (by about 20-40%.)

9. -or- Liberator belly cannons rate of fire nerf. (by about 30-50%)

10. All aircraft with severely nerfed maneuverability at hover which quickly increases to current levels when they reach about 30% max speed. (More planes acting like planes please.) (Opens up the opportunity to add hover-centric aircraft later.)


** On a side note: If ground is only meant to deter air and A2A is the intended counter, then in fairness air should only be able to deter ground and G2G should be the intended counter. **

[DirtyBird]

People still think the Burster MAX is OP?
Or is it just pilots who would prefer less deterrent to them spamming infantry.

If I am running around as Infantry and the ESF's are too abundant then I'll switch to a dual Burster MAX, I upgraded one just for this purpose of dealing with the problem.

Can I suggest that if AA is too strong for your ESF that you also make a change in your game and deal with the AA.

I bet if you are getting smashed by AA its not just one Burster MAX unless you are a pilot still learning the ropes.
Or you've been caught out as you hover over a spawn point.
It'll usually be multiple people who have kitted Burster MAX to suit the situation.


The only real beneficiary of a Burster MAX is the Engineer running around with them, throwing out ammo packs.

[WarbirdTD]

Actually OP, I think you might be confused. You're saying, "If you don't agree that Air is overpowered, you're wrong because I have indisputable evidence that all "infantry" players (people who only play infantry? that's it? how boring) are quitting because of air vehicles. That's no way to start a debate (which you know is going to happen) about game balance... unless you are just looking for a soap box (hoping that's not the case).

Here's the problem with what you're saying: Ground v Air is actually pretty balanced right now, because of AA maxes. If you start nerfing air more and more, which seems to be what you are suggesting, you'll get even more tanks on the battlefield operating with impunity, which leads to more complaining and more of these "SOE must nerf such and such to retain players" threads. You don't propose sweeping changes to fix minor, if existent, balance issues.

And to your point about AA MAXes not killing anything, but just making it run away, you're simply incorrect. On Sunday, we had about 10 AA MAXes completely denying the NC any sort of air support for over half an hour, and believe me, they tried quite hard to take us out. Liberators were dying in about 5 seconds, even with flak armor. We had less than 2 squads focusing on this objective, so that we could support some of the larger outfits while they were attacking a base.

That's a neat story, but here's the thing.. on Connery, this happens quite often and there are squad/platoons/outfits running 5+ AA MAXes, creating no-fly zones all over the place, and getting quite a few kills while they're at it. I've said it before, so this won't be anything new: Teamwork and organization are the keys to this game. If the way I'm reading your posts is correct, your preference is to not use AA MAXes, because they aren't fun for you. Your preferred playstlyle not matching up with the required playstyle for the situation does not imply that there is a problem with game design.

Does this mean that Anti-Air is completely fine right now? Not quite. There are a few issues that could be addressed, but in small ways, such as:
- Increase Skyguard damage by about 3%, and also increase ammo size due to the likelihood that it will be far away from ammo resupply. Anything more and you might upset balance too much.
- Bursters need to be hitting Dalton Libs sitting at flight ceiling, but increasing range on them flatly would be too overpowered, especially with the render distance on infantry being around 20 meters in some large fights.
- Tanks being instagibbed by air vehicles hitting them in the back. Nothing is more frustrating than waiting thru the timer on your tank, using resources to pull your well-certed tank, driving for 30 seconds, and exploding before you can even hear the fighter that just unloaded a clip into your tailpipe. Increase the armor on the back of a tank by a bunch, at the very least against fighters and liberators.

[WarbirdTD]

Let me add on before I forget. It seems like your major gripe is with infantry being farmed by aircraft (and likely farmed by ground vehicles as well, I assume). This would be addressed if they would make the base fights underground, and thus inaccessible to vehicles. That's the fix we should be fighting for, not different people coming up with a gazillion different nerfs and buffs.

[Tharrn]

New player here, so my opinion is probably not worth a lot to many people but still...

Seeing how air superiority wins about any fight I took the bait and bought the Skyguard when it was on offer for 350 SC the other day. Considering how fast the Lightning is melted from the air (position, position, position... I manage to survive :P) the Skyguard is REALLY underwhelming. A complete mag is more often than not not enough to kill an ESF and Libs and Galaxies usually just ignore the tickling and keep bombing.

Considerng that the Skyguard mounted Lightning can do nothing else (not even kill Infantry :P) that's leaving me a sad puppy. Last night I managed to surive a few hours peeling away at countless fliers and it netted me a whooping 38 certs. The damage done is often not even enough to get an assist. When I had enough and deconstructed the tank I went on doing infantry stuff and got more points in half an hour... Not very motivating to be AA support for the ground troops.

[Mavvvy]

What we need are automated Sam sites guarding base's or points, which only infantry can disable.

Haven't really thought this one through, but it seemed like a good idea off the cuff. (Back to work I go)

Right on my lunch elaborating time. Imagine a a bunker which can launch maybe two missiles every 10 or so seconds at aircraft in its vicinity. The only way into it, is through disabling some system (like a gen) then it would need to be disabled or blown itself.

It could be a facility in main bases and towers, adding additional importance to each location.

Gives small units a thing to do and supplements current aa defence.

One can but dream.....

[Sledgecrushr]

Skyguards need a lot of loving. Cone of fire, projectile speed and clip size all need to be addressed. The skyguard should be able to land hits at 800 meters or so.

[Stanis]

We're often running a squad dedicated to AA.
This is with engineer, medic and HA/Annhilator support.

The stupid ESF pilots die. The mossies that hover, fly slow, don't evade.
The smart ones bob up from behind terrain (cover) unload a barrage of A2G and disappear.

The liberators stay high. Stay at range. Rotate to present minimum surface area.
They circle.
We might not get bombed - but we can't even cover a single base as they encroach on all ground based areas.


If we do the opposite and grab libs it's a cert farm.


That's the bit that seems so very unfair about the situation. One or Two players (Lib) have such a dramatic impact beyond their cert level and dominance in their role (air) has no mitigating factors .
They don't have to change class or loadout to swap from long to short range. AV to AI to AA.
Even the 2 man tanks have to trade mediocre versatility for specific AI or AV. (Ground AA vehicle weapons are laughable).


There will be a change. Can't see any good options that don't make it easier to shoot them down.
However poor base design and a lack of infantry focused zones highlight the issue.
A base turret never snuck up on anyone - I would really like to see static base defences be truly powerful especially in the AA role. (And located inside the perimeter rather than vulnerable nestled in the perimeter itself).

[Soothsayer]

The common element to A2G and G2A threads is this double meaning concept of "teamwork". Where teamwork to G2A means a squad of burster maxes working together and taking down an ESF. Don't they accomplish so much when they just work together!

Conversely, teamwork to the A2G side of things means the general airborne population operating in the airspace over the base, doing as they please, taking lives at their leisure.

These are the most frustrating threads I read here.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Soothsayer

These are the most frustrating threads I read here.

Emphatically agree.