Piloting Aircraft Difficulty

[Canaris]

I don't mind that flying will take more skill to master than PS1 model, just as long as they don't go to over board and make it BF stupid but with the VTOL I hope it won't.


and by BF stoopid I mean
Plane
Power>forward motion>Plane magically flips in its own circle while still on the ground and explodes even though it's physically impossible.

Helo
Power > Lift vs drag and rotate > Helicopter flips in it's own circle and explodes, once again defying the law of physics and splodes all over the place... oh the mess it made.

[Kezz]

If it's hard, you need a place to practice where your only enemies are drag, inertia and gravity.

If it's hard, you need to have airframes that are still useful, but are easier to fly than the most useful. I think it would be a Good Thing if one Interceptor turning up over the battlefield would basically mean all the multiroles and GA would either need to gang up and bounce the Inty at the loss of half their number, or go to ground until their own Inty ace/squadron turned up to contest the airspace. Pilots are an elite and the rivalry between the "Top Guns" of each side (and timezone activity-period) could be an epic part of PS2's story.

And even the best pilots can be brought down by a good SAM.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

I'm planning on being a Gal pilot and just bouncing from place to place moving my spawn point.

I don't need to know the super dogfightey "High yo-yo" or whatever it was, I just don't want to crash land my spawns. Don't make it too hard for non-specialists.

[infected]

personally i can fly a bf3 chopper great with a mouse. i love it and it feels rewarding to be a good pilot.

but i can't stand flying the jet with a mouse. it takes way too much backward mouse movement to "pull back on the stick". same goes for opposite forward (diving).

the result looks like you're petting your dog furiously - if my mousepad was my dog, because my hand and mouse furiously stroke it from one end to the other several times just to get the jet to pull back on the stick.

[Sabot]

They ruined flying jets in BF3 in a patch... some time ago. Basically, if you were very good at it, they decided that that isn't fair to the unskilled players, so they made it so that you can't "push" your plane to turn really fast... they still have that "sweet spot" where you turn as fast as possible, but it's totally ruined now. I think the patch notes said something like "reduced jets ability to turn, as _skilled_ pilots could aviod lock-on missiles without the use of flares or ECM" or something like that... and not only did it dumb down the game further, it actually rewards players that have spent money on equipment, such as a joystick, as using the mouse for flying is now, by comparision, useless... you can of course use the keyboard instead, which sort of gives you the same "edge" a joystick has over a mouse, but imo that doesn't make it ok.

SOE, please do not do this to PS2. Don't neuter skilled players because they are skilled. It's one of the most idiotic things you can do and then blame it on balance issues... because it kills all the fun in the game. This is a pure PVP game, just like, for instance, counter strike... if CS had limited the players in that way, they could never have become as famous as they are within that community (and outside it as well), and the game wouldn't be what it is today.

[Shinjorai]

Ive came up with a solution i think will make both camps happy. Check this out and let me know your thoughts.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=44179

[Hmr85]

Originally Posted by Shinjorai

Ive came up with a solution i think will make both camps happy. Check this out and let me know your thoughts.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=44179

Your link is not working. I think you meant to put this.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=44179

[Shinjorai]

I edited it, should be working now. Thanks.

[Xaine]

I really want it to be kept as hard as possible.

More distinction between good and great pilots is always a good thing, an with the constant influx of new players, I don't think there will ever be an issue where 90% of the people in the air are masters.

Hard = more skill needed to be good = more rewarding = more fun.

In my opinion.

[Memeotis]

A learning curve is essential, preferably one that is shallow initially, but gets progressively steeper. Easy to get the basic hang of, but increasingly difficult to master as you add on the teamwork, the understanding of the plane's physics, observational skills (identifying threats and targets), and just overall skills of picking the right targets and knowing how to go about dealing with them.

I genuinely hope that there are no built-in maneuvers like 'Press E/Q to do a barrel roll', but that players will have to craft their own styles. I'd love to see seasoned players understanding the physics so well that they can end up doing maneuvers that give them a momentum to do something extraordinary. For example swooping downwards with the afterburner on, then turning it off just as you hit the bottom of your 'curve' and start to fly upwards, giving you an angle and shifting your momentum such that you can do a much faster barrel roll, than had you just gone in a straight line.

[Nemises]

Originally Posted by Shinjorai

Ive came up with a solution i think will make both camps happy. Check this out and let me know your thoughts.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=44179

yes...this is a good suggestion..

A simplified flying model (with some penalties as a result), and an advanced flying model..

..I guess no reason this couldn't be added into a vehicles Cert structure..
ie. you need to cert up on the mosquito to disable the auto stabilization... (auto stabalization in this case actually lowers the over all manuaverability of the aircraft by keeping you from approaching the edges of the flight envelope)

..Using a "hardcore"er flight model as an example,
In DCS:BlackShark, using the "simulation" flight model..the aircraft allready has a 4 channel "assistant", which auto stabilizes the aircraft in altitude, yaw and pitch....this helps the pilot in combat, as he doesn't need to manage the aircraft as much while "fighting" in it (single seat attack helicopter).
However, if the "flight Director" mode is engaged, all the automatic features are disabled (dampening is still enabled though thank goodness!), which measn the pilots inputs are taken as given by the flight control system...this mean less inputs from the pilot to achieve the same thing, and allows him to push the aircraft close to the edge....however, trying to also "fight" the aircraft in this configuration more often than not ends in a crash.

so...

perhaps even a cert to add a "flight director" type mode to each aircraft, which is essentially a toggle between Assisted and Unassisted flight modes....

tl:dr - good idea, should be able to "cert" to advanced flight mode

[LegioX]

One thing that worries me is that the developers have put no sense of "energy" into the game. You can fly up to 1000m and dive down, but your still going the same speed as if you were flying low to the ground with no elevator movement. I really wish they would fix this. As it is right now, boosters are the only way to increase and decrease speed in unlevel flight.

Also, i just don't understand why developers can not put in a good flight game with a ground game. As it stands now, WW2OL is really the only game where you mesh realistic ground game to a realistic flight game (where use to be 1,000 players on one map).
Now i can never find any games of this magnitude where developers give the same love to flying as they do ground. I don't know if its an area they don't understand fully (most people play FPS), but devs always neglect the air game.

1. Increase ceiling
2. Proper flight physics (you dont have to go crazy, just have something semi-realistic)

Would be a good start.

[Nemises]

I guess its a "price of entry" thing...balancing a persons "first 5 minutes" Vs the end game..

completely agree though, more "realistic" air modelling would add a lot of depth to the long game..

[Pyreal]

I think flying should be easy to get into, that is the control are such that you can begin to learn to fly. Getting in a flyer and constantly crashing because of wonky, unintuitive mechanics is frustrating, because you are trying to reason them out but there isn't any reason to them!

I think the Default aircraft should be similar to a player with Aim assist. It's easy to hit a target, but can't get headshots

All the complexity and skill requirements should come from Certs.

[Dairian]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

imo controls should be the same aas PS1 but add the buttons for roll, dont see why they need to copy BF controls.

Flying in PS1 was like flying a camera. Why should we stay with poor mechanics? I only used aircraft in PS1 to travel because they were way to easy to fly and took no skill. I love the idea of making it more like a simulator. I will even fly in PS2.