Higby on Air/AA balance.. Is it the fast track to Airside?

[KaskaMatej]

Originally Posted by Lieken

I'm fine with this. Air should be the counter to air. Tired of all this no skill "but my fire and forget weapon should KILL YOU :<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< POINTSSSSSSS"

It's going to make me fly away so I can't kill you, and in that time you can get the points you wouldn't get if I had fucked your shit with my rocket pods.

I can hover at a base when there are 2 heavies with AA launchers and I won't get shot down. Not because they don't do damage, they do, but because even in non-flares Scythe I can dodge lock-on rockets 50% of the time. And I don't even fly that much, or am skilled that much.

I am not complaining about AA rocket launchers, and most of us here aren't either, they are a deterrent, and can be dumb-fired upon ground targets too. The dedicated AA weapons, Skyguard most prominent, should NOT be a deterrent, it should be a killer, a hard counter to ESF. ESF has too much flak resistance for any talk about balance. Then they can also cert into composite armour which even increases the resistance, making them nearly unkillable.

Originally Posted by Lieken

Flying over enemy controlled bases is already an impossibility if theres enough people there because every sunderer, tank turret and small arms can spray me down.

You're just a bad pilot. Period. Tell me, why would you even start to think you will survive flying deep into enemy territory? It's not AA that kills you, it's your lack of skill, or stupidity, that does.

[Emperor Newt]

Originally Posted by Tooterfish

I spent the 1,000 cert equivalent in cash for the NC's HAWK, the Anti-Air rocket launcher for the HA. This is, and probably always will be, my biggest regret in Planetside 2 micro-transactions.

Same here with the VS one. Spent SC on that. Big mistake. Payed a lot of SC for something that is a AV sidegrade (less damage, better scope, less drop) but does a subpar job in what it description tells it to actually be good for.
For that much money/cert simply not worth it. Even compared to the rest of the mediocre g2a weapons.

As they don't think they will ever be able to fix the weapon they should just remove those and give people the certs/sc back. Or give them a free second burster instead.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Lieken

I'm fine with this. Air should be the counter to air.

Go play a flight sim.

[Helwyr]

Originally Posted by Lieken

I'm fine with this. Air should be the counter to air. Tired of all this no skill "but my fire and forget weapon should KILL YOU :<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< POINTSSSSSSS"

If you want to demonstrate your skill strap on a weapon to an ATV and go to battle. Using an OPed Rocket Spamming ESF is not a great demonstration of player skill.

[Saintlycow]

I'm thinking that rocket pods and A2A missiles are the issue here.

Just for the record I don't have either, but I toyed with them a lot during beta.


The problem is that vanilla ESF are too weak, and Upgraded ESF are to strong.

The vanilla aircraft can't do anything against g2A rockets except AB away or break LOS.
Against a skyguard you are hopeless, and won't do much damage before you get destroyed.

With rocket pods, you don't need to run. If you can see the heavy with the launcher, you can just shoot him full of rockets. Same with the Lightning.

Simply Buffing AA will not solve the problem, it will only make it harder for new pilots to play. Reducing Rocket damage for one would help.

They could also add damage degradation to AA, and make it quite powerfull at short range. That way, anyone trying to do a rocket run against a skyguard won't be able to go toe to toe, and will be forced to sit at a farther distance, allowing the lighting to dodge rockets and pepper the ESF with slightly weakened fire, while sustaining little damage

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Figment

Go play a flight sim.

In a flight sim, AAA is shockingly deadly. You don't get close to a Gepard/Shilka/Tunguska. Period.

Sentiment stands, though.

[Hmr85]

The Hawk would be fine if the air jockeys didn't get a 6 second buffer zone after they pop a flare... I am of the opinion that the flare should only negate that one lock on. After it is has been used then you can instantly be locked on again. I would much rather see this. The Amount of air spam we are seeing on Connery is getting insane.

Also, I agree with the poster above. Buff the skyguard back to where it belongs. It should not be just a deterrent. It needs to be a killer that will lock down a entire area. If they want it down then send in troops to clear it out.

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by Hmr85

Also, I agree with the poster above. Buff the skyguard back to where it belongs. It should not be just a deterrent. It needs to be a killer that will lock down a entire area. If they want it down then send in troops to clear it out.

^ this. The Skyguard is quite simply a waste of time, or at least it was pre launch after it had been nerfed (I have no intention of wasting SC on it as things stand). If someone is willing to give up virtually all ability to damage ground forces, and to essentially be defenceless against ground attack, then they should be deadly against air. It's called balance.

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by Lieken

I'm fine with this. Air should be the counter to air. Tired of all this no skill "but my fire and forget weapon should KILL YOU :<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< POINTSSSSSSS"

It's going to make me fly away so I can't kill you, and in that time you can get the points you wouldn't get if I had fucked your shit with my rocket pods. Flying over enemy controlled bases is already an impossibility if theres enough people there because every sunderer, tank turret and small arms can spray me down.

You mean fire and forget weapons like rocket pods?

[Figment]

Originally Posted by psijaka

You mean fire and forget weapons like rocket pods?

Technically no, those are "spam and forget" weapons and fall more in the category "spray and pray" - even though with such guaranteed success, the latter part of that section is kinda missing. "Fire and forget" is actually missing the prequel in the trilogy to it "Lock on, Fire and Forget", mostly because the impact of the second and third chapter are more interesting to rabbel rabbel about.

But yes, anyhing you fire in this game you forget after you did. The only PS weapon where this wasn't the case was the Phoenix (and the Decimator in secondary mode).


Rocket pods fall in the category "plasma" for me. It's fine to have AoE weapons, but don't make them too leniant.

[Juryrig]

Well, I decided to apply the principle of "be the change you want to see in the world" and specced a Reaver for air superiority, planning to blast those pesky AG rocket spammers out of the sky.

For NC, for Freedom, and for an honest profit!

Turns out I'm just terribad at flying. No shit, Sherlock!

Take off, fly around, start getting hit by things, utterly fail to work out what's even hitting me, die. Respawn as infantry at the nearest Sunderer.

[Sturmhardt]

Just played. Airspam, airspam, airspam. We teamed up as 4 Burster maxes at a biolab on Amerish an couldn't get the skies clear - wtf? The damage is just not enough.

[Juryrig]

I spent some time in AA phalanx turrets yesterday as well - didn't have much success there, either. I can't help but feel they at least should be a fairly easy way to suppress air cover - at least to create an air exclusion zone around a base until they're put out of action by ground units (which happens pretty quickly) but even before they get shot they're not hugely effective.

My lack of skillz is of course still a factor here, but destroying a slow flying aircraft at close range when you are in a turret shouldn't need much in the way of skill.

[Crator]

Originally Posted by Juryrig

Turns out I'm just terribad at flying. No shit, Sherlock!

LOL, I did same thing yesterday. I barely ever fly, just not my cup of tea, and have no certs on ESF. I really grabbed it only to get to the fight in the center of the map. I actually got a few rounds into another ESF but was then somehow chased from behind and killed. :P

[RobUK]

Originally Posted by Hmr85

Buff the skyguard back to where it belongs. It should not be just a deterrent. It needs to be a killer that will lock down a entire area. If they want it down then send in troops to clear it out.

I would like to see the Skyguard stronger, but not back to where it was at times in beta.

I also agree about that Skyguards should be dealt with by troops or other vehicles in the combat food chain.

I think this is part of the problem in the early evolution of PS2. It's not that hard to spot that most planes are not working together, and are certainly not working in conjunction with ground forces.

Air in Planetside 2 is pretty much a seperate game going on around the rest of it. I hope they find a way to fix that. We're never going to achieve proper balance whilst there are 2 or 3 different mini-games going on within the main game itself.

It's fine to have air vs air, tanks vs tanks, and troops vs troops, but those activities have to mesh together into a coherent combined arms game. Otherwise we will forever more being playing this fun but ultimately shallow giant deathmatch on huge maps.