Anyone having fun with ESFs?

[Wybie]

I fly on ceres and the flak fire can get pretty bad; I just think it has far to much range, damage drop of should be tweaked so that it is more of a close range deterrent.

As for A2AM, they will never be skillful, if I see another esf using them I know hes an easy kill, i have never come across a good pilot using them, ever. If I had my way anything using a lock on and fire mechanic, would just be removed from the game and replaced with a tow style launcher like in bfbc2. Not to mention it is a selfish tool, as it does not help your team at all; at least lolpodding gives some sort of ground support, however small.

esf is getting an update in June so it'll be interesting to see what they do with dog-fighting. At the moment it really is just a secondary priority for most esfs, and it should be the prime goal.

[Baneblade]

Originally Posted by snafus

Dude all I do is fly in this dam game. And A2AM used to be far more effective that is not denied. But they are still to user friendly not forcing player skill to use effectively. It is a easy mode weapon provided for poor players to be more effective. And they do not prevent friendly fire they only reduce the chance. They still hit friendly aircraft much to often in my experience as I have been dinged by them to many times. The A2AM is simply the bad players crutch since it doesn't require you to stay on target any longer then a lock on que. You can call me a bitch but at least I earn my kills with a actual skill based weapon.

Hellfire Rocket Pods are weaksauce and for poor players.

[Lonehunter]

Originally Posted by Whiteagle

Apparently Waterson is the only good Server for Air, considering I too still have fun with my ESF...

Dito

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by Wybie

As for A2AM, they will never be skillful, if I see another esf using them I know hes an easy kill, i have never come across a good pilot using them, ever. If I had my way anything using a lock on and fire mechanic, would just be removed from the game and replaced with a tow style launcher like in bfbc2. Not to mention it is a selfish tool, as it does not help your team at all; at least lolpodding gives some sort of ground support, however small.

Yes, because trying to scare off Lolpodders isn't helpful at all...

[Wybie]

A2AM would not scare me of, you would lock, id pop flares and then id take you out and go right back to what ever I was doing

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by snafus

Difference is you actually have to aim with a nose gun which bad pilots primarily A2AM pilots can't do. Again it is a crutch for bad pilots and always will be at the rate the game is going. Anyone defending the use of A2AM for dog fighting is a bad pilot plain and simple. And to know a large portion of a server uses them makes me it even more hilarious to me.

You need to aim the A2AM too during the time to get the lock down almost as good as you need to aim the main gun. The only thing is that you don't have to lead the shot. And no, leading the shot in the ESF is easy because of the high velocity of the main gun. Saying it's a crutch for bad pilots makes you come of as a retarded elitist that have no fucking clue about the reality that he suck. Because a good polite can avoid getting locked on by the A2AM as easily as he can avoid getting shot down by the main gun.

However using a A2AM is quite stupid as the TTK is allot higher then the main gun. So I can see way you call pilots that only use A2AM noobs. But it's not a crutch in any way. It's well balanced compared to the main gun.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by Baneblade

Hellfire Rocket Pods are weaksauce and for poor players.

Well it's a gross exaggeration but yea the rocket pods have been nerfed a bit too mush at least if you compare it to the banshee as air to ground weapon.

With the Rocket Pods you need 4 rockets to direct hit or 16 rockets to do splash damage to kill 1 infantry. The Banshee needs 6 shots to kill an infantry. But the banshee have 800 RPM compared to the rocket pods that have 300 RPM. This makes the TTK for the Banshee allot lower. Then if you take in the ammo capacity into the calculation the Banshee wins by far.

But if you want your mossy to have both good air and ground fighting ability the best choice of weapon setup is still the M18 Rotary for main and the rocket pods for secondary. Because the M18 Rotary TTK on ESF is allot lower then the Banshee as the fire rate is 1500 RPM compared to the 800 RPM of the Banshee.

PS: Using the Tomcat A2AM Pods with a Banshee is a bad setup as well. As the TTK for the A2AM is worse then the Banshee for air to air combat.

[StraitDumpinSMF]

Originally Posted by phungus

Anyone still having fun flying ESFs? What server are you playing on and what do you do to stay engaged in the game and enjoy yourself?

I play on Connery and I find myself having less success farming noobs and finding a one versus one in the air.

This is partially due to the re-re-roll of the rendering distances. They had it decent for about a week and all the ESF pilots including myself noticed an improvement. A week later and ever since, it's back to ninja flak.

This is also due to less noobs now-a-days, and more certed-out players. Double AA Max arms are one of those things that eventually most people will pick up, but not necessarily spend their initial certs or cash on. The server is all grown up, and most people have a Double Flak Max now. On top of all this flak, there are lots of strikers acting as area deterrents, random max's and skyguards patrolling fields, and outfits of ESFs rolling in wolf packs.

Originally Posted by Roderick

I too have used A2AM like I am sure everyone has here.

Them blanket statements. I've never shot one. Not in Beta, live, test, or VR. Not with a boat, not with a goat.

Originally Posted by Sunrock

It takes skill to use A2AM now a days.

You just went full Terran.

[EVILoHOMER]

You could see Aircraft becoming more and more unfun to fly as people moaned about them. The problem wasn't that they were OP, just that the level design in Planetside 2 is shit and still is shit and always will be shit because SOE suck at post release content and will never fix it.

I wouldn't be surprised if most of the team has moved to another project now and Planetside 2 has like only 20 people left working on it.

[Emperor Newt]

Don't fly ESF as flying them in this game feels more like whiggling a soaked wet french fry.
People might enjoy it, I find it unbearable. Gals and Libs are okay, but ESFs are horrible /imho

[PredatorFour]

I'm on Miller and i still have fun in ESF. But then we get to go daddy hunting and try and make him logout.

[CzuukWaterson]

Yep. Lots of fun. And I've only got about 300 certs in the Reaver so far. Flying with a platoon usually helps.

I am in teh process of saving up 10k certs to get her properly fitted. Just for fun really.

[Whiteagle]

Originally Posted by StraitDumpinSMF

You just went full Terran.

He's right man, the A2Am is harder to lock now then any ground launcher...

[Fenrys]

Sometimes it's fun.

The other day, I got my first 5 a2a kills in one life (4 reavers and a 3-crew lib IIRC). The first 2 reavers strayed too far behind their lines and were shot down one at a time over the base I was circling. Ten minutes later, that base flipped and our forces moved on.

Me and one other Scythe pilot encountered 4 Reavers and a Liberator over the next target. We both came in high while the NC were distracted shooting at our advancing armor, and just obliterated the first 2 hoverspamming Reavers we dove on. I think we may have swapped targets a couple times in the dogfight that followed, but in the end we both downed one more reaver each and damaged the Lib (the rocket pods I held back until getting closer to the lib earned me the killing blow).

The fighting was fun for me, but probably less fun for the other team.
The 10 minutes of patrolling an area where we had total air dominance was just cheezey. I picked off a lightning and a handful of infantry at no risk to my aircraft. Maybe a little fun for me, but disastrous to the other side to a degree that may be unhealthy for the game.

This happened early in the morning, and pops were low. G2A was light, pretty much only existing as occasional solo Burster MAX near the spawn room, or a lone AA turret.

[Jax Blake]

LoL, come roll TR on connery and fly against the NC, then come here and tell me how many devil dogs shot you down with their lock ons. I'm not talking a couple pilots as you guys are, I'm talking about 4-6 guys all with lock ons. Snafu often uses the afterburner because it's the only chance he'll ever have of getting away from so many, I enjoy it when they follow him right back into my double burster with extended ammo.

Future Crew (VS ) on the other hand will just flat out murder you with nose guns and magical daltons.