Some random thoughts on air combat in PS2

[Zar]

Originally Posted by Haro

Need I remind everyone that this is planetside: Death is always an option. There are always moments where you get caught with your pants down. A flash vs a liberator, infiltrator vs max, galaxy vs a half-dozen interceptors.

I'm not saying it needs to be a two-hit kill. I think a guns kill should be rewarded fairly quickly, but ttk is still completely up in the air (no pun intended.) Poor choice of words on my part. But at the moment, concerns about a mosquito constantly outrunning a reaver, or a scythe constantly staying on a reaver's tail are far more realistic than reavers shooting everything out of the sky before they have a chance to react..

Reaver's can't just be better at air-to-ground than everyone else. No fighter will ever beat a liberator with that, but if the NC can't bring valid competition to aerial combat, none of that will really matter. Longer range and a little more firepower gives them just a little bit of an edge if they see the enemy first.

so do you want weaker weapons then what you have now for more speed tbh that's what i loved about ps1 air combat was completely fair for the simple fact we all had the same aircraft >.< why i went air cause ground battles after the 1st six months went side ways XD also i was a reaver pilot so ill miss that since I am TR >.<

[Sabot]

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

Wait, you don't know how I came to the conclusion because you find that style of play lame? I fail to see how that makes any sense, but I'll clarify for you....

A pack of reavers will be better than a pack of mosquitos because a mosquito only has a speed advantage over a reaver. This allows the mosquito to, theoretically, stay a step ahead of a a reaver and keep him from getting any hits on it. This is negated by having another reaver or two nearby to knock the mosquito off the first reaver. Since reavers have superior damage and toughness and the speed of the mosquito is no longer a factor, a pack of reavers could, theoretically, wipe out a pack of mosquitos. Same with Scythes. Now in a 1v1 dogfight, a reaver will probably come out on bottom. That's just the way things are.

Anytime you're outnumbered, you're probably going to die. You shouldn't be surprised or infuriated by the fact. Noone will be able to fight 3v1.

I'm sorry but... no.

In the air maneuverabilty will always win if the pilot knows what he's doing.. If that first Reaver can't get a shot off because the Mossy/Scythe pilot is too good at maneuvering, how will any of the other Reavers do it? The more agile fighters are the ones that have the potential to win against greater numbers in dog fights. The Reavers chioce of tactic against enemy fighters should probably be something like.. aquire targets from far away where they aren't aware of them yet, preferably above them... get a lock, fire then fly back behind your own lines where you're protected.

[Zar]

Originally Posted by elfailo

By the way, this only further shows how important it is to increase TTK's from what we saw in the E3 demo. With very low TTK's and this kind of balancing/differentiating, it wouldn't even matter how good the TR pilots are going to be. If you always lose in large fights due to game mechanics, what's the point?

this is what i was worried about as well faction based weps tank's and air are..... well >.> i don't care if we look diffrent but in all honesty it should be even up xD let the players skill and crazy flying get the kill or be killed >.<

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by Sabot

I'm sorry but... no.

In the air maneuverabilty will always win if the pilot knows what he's doing.. If that first Reaver can't get a shot off because the Mossy/Scythe pilot is too good at maneuvering, how will any of the other Reavers do it? The more agile fighters are the ones that have the potential to win against greater numbers in dog fights. The Reavers chioce of tactic against enemy fighters should probably be something like.. aquire targets for far away where they aren't aware of them yet, preferably above them... get a lock, fire then fly back behind your own lines where you're protected.

Originally Posted by elfailo

It's a stupid balancing principle, because the aircraft are faction-specific. If one Reaver can't beat one Mosquito because it's less maneuverable, but 10 Reavers will beat 10 Mosquito's because they compensate with armor and stronger weapons (I still don't see the logic - as if a TR pilot suddenly wouldn't be able to maneuver anymore when there are more enemies around), then TR will always be the underdog in fights that matter (where more than 2 people are around).

You guys are failing to take into account how dogfighting mechanics work. An aircraft will only be able to focus on a single target at a time. When that plane is strafing and trying to get locks on another plane, it leaves it's backside open to any other enemies in the area. That window of opportunity when the mosquito or scythe is trying to down a comparatively slow, but tough reaver, negates the fact that a mosquito is faster or a scythe is more maneuverable because it's going in a predictable trajectory; it has to in order to fight effectively. A pack of reavers will ALWAYS have attackable targets in this case. considering that reavers are naturally more tough and have better firepower, then theoretically, a pack of reavers has an upper hand against a pack of mosquitos or scythes.

Originally Posted by Zar

this is what i was worried about as well faction based weps tank's and air are..... well >.> i don't care if we look diffrent but in all honesty it should be even up xD let the players skill and crazy flying get the kill or be killed >.<

Honestly, I wouldn't mind this being the case, because I LOVE 1v1 dogfights. My hope is that the difference between the empire specific aircraft isn't quite as much as they say it is.

[Sabot]

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

You guys are failing to take into account how dogfighting mechanics work. An aircraft will only be able to focus on a single target at a time. When that plane is strafing and trying to get locks on another plane, it leaves it's backside open to any other enemies in the area. That window of opportunity when the mosquito or scythe is trying to down a comparatively slow, but tough reaver, negates the fact that a mosquito is faster or a scythe is more maneuverable because it's going in a predictable trajectory; it has to in order to fight effectively. A pack of reavers will ALWAYS have attackable targets in this case. considering that reavers are naturally more tough and have better firepower, then theoretically, a pack of reavers has an upper hand against a pack of mosquitos or scythes..

No you're wrong... Lets say all pilots involved are great at flying. Lets say that we have 3vs3... doesn't matter who engages, the more agile fighter will evade, a buddy will take over behind the attacking Reaver. And we can go around all day but fact remains that the more agile fighter will always end up the one in a position to attack... so, purely theoretical, the Reaver will always lose if it tries to engage in dog fights of this nature.

Obviously it's goinng to take some amazing coordination between pilots to pull these things off.. and that goes for all involved. And I'm not saying that's how it's going to go down in every battle.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by elfailo

So what you're saying is that they should balance dogfighting around the lowest common denominator of pilots (people who are too foolish to disengage or switch targets)?

Good idea bro.

It's all speculation at this point, but what I'm saying is that people shouldn't make snap judgement about what is "overpowered" or "underpowered" or mistake one of these for something that is "specialized" or holds an advantage in certain scenarios.

If you think everything is going to work the same way in all situations and you're unwilling to think of better ways to do things, you're gonna have a bad time.

Originally Posted by Sabot

No you're wrong... Lets say all pilots involved are great at flying. Lets say that we have 3vs3... doesn't matter who engages, the more agile fighter will evade, a buddy will take over behind the attacking Reaver. And we can go around all day but fact remains that the more agile fighter will always end up the one in a position to attack... so, purely theoretical, the Reaver will always lose if it tries to engage in dog fights of this nature.

I have to respectfully disagree. I don't believe the mosquito or scythe is agile enough to outpace reaver rockets or strafing when they're going for kills on tough opponents. You're staking a lot on the idea that mosquitos can completely outrun anything someone can throw at it, but it's not the reaver it's chasing that it has to worry about, it's his buddies behind him that are lining up rockets and guns that are more powerful than the mosquito's. If you're trading punches, the guy who is tougher and hits harder is going to win.

Now if it's 1v1, it may very well be a different story.

[Malorn]

I have three thoughts on Aircraft from what I've seen.

1) I expect Mosquitoes to be the fastest in both top speed and normal turning (with verticial speed and strafing speed the realm of the Scythe). If it's top speed only that's quite lame.

2) The Scythe appears to be a flying camera (exactly what they said they didn't want). Looks like this thing has some incredible advantage in dogfighting when the other aircraft are always overshooting it an unable to match it in turns. Seems like the i-win button for dogfights.

3) I dislike how light assault will be the universal pilot class so they can avoid having to equip a bail mechanism and can use that vehicle slot for other utility and still have a safe bail thanks to the jetpack. One way to possibly fix this is to make exiting an aircraft empty the player's jetpack resource (so it starts at 0 and builds up, but doesn't give them enough time to really jetpack away before they crater).

That's about it for my aircraft comments.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by elfailo

No, it's not "all speculation" (a lot is, but these grey puddings inside our skulls allow us to predict things etc.). I am absolutely certain that if Reavers can 1- or 2-shot Mosquito's, it will not make the game more fun OR balanced. That's how this discussion started, with you promoting that idea as a balancing mechanism.

It's a reward for bad Reaver pilots and zergfits and punishment for good Mosquito pilots.

It's entirely possible to differentiate through damage output, maneuverability and speed, while keeping it more or less balanced, but not if you take it to the extreme you proposed. Reaver vs. Mosquito in Planetside 1 was actually balanced like that, before they screwed up the controls and totally out of the blue buffed Reaver armor even though none of the good pilots had asked for it. Reaver was stronger, did slightly more damage, but was also slower and less maneuverable. Mosquito could stay behind a Reaver if engaged at the right time. It was possible to take them out without taking any damage at all (if they were idiots). Winning 1v3's was possible too, until they invented the Wasp, which gave otherwise terrible pilots a device to do ridiculous damage with.

This was possible because the effective TTK's were sufficiently high. With 1- or 2-shot kills, it won't be. A Mosquito will simply die too fast for their maneuverability to be of any significance. I am not OK with that because I really like flying in games. I want to fly, so I don't want to die in 2 shots, and I definitely don't want to see empire differentiation lead to ridiculously unbalanced scenario's.

Some empries are going to be better in certain scenarios than in others, friend. There's no getting around that. Mosquitos will probably make great skirmish fighters, but if you give them the ability to outrun anything that can be thrown at them, THAT is overpowered. It would essentially be an invulnerable aircraft. I'm not saying a reaver is going to blow a mosquito out of the sky in every situation without warning. I'm just saying in this one situation, reavers should theoretically have the upper hand. The only way you're going to have a totally balanced fight in every situation is if you make everything common pool and don't have any differences between the factions.

And it IS speculation, as none of us actually have any hands on experience with the planes to know exactly how big of performance discrepancies they have.

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

I enjoyed reading the optimism about the reaver from this Ratstomper NC. But the reaver stock is not a dogfighter, it can be turned into one with cert upgrades over time though. So there's that.

I don't really think the reaver is a dogfighter either (much to my chagrin), which is why they should operate best in packs. A reaver probably won't be able to take down a mosquito or scythe 1v1. I'm glad you enjoyed the theory.

[SKYeXile]

lol people are bagging out Elcyco for apparently bad situational awareness and inability to adapt, have you guys even played Planetside? Perhaps you guys should go learn to fly in PS1 before you graduate into PS2 and flying with physics rather than wasting your time with theoryside.

[LegioX]

Originally Posted by elfailo

No, it's not "all speculation" (a lot is, but these grey puddings inside our skulls allow us to predict things etc.). I am absolutely certain that if Reavers can 1- or 2-shot Mosquito's, it will not make the game more fun OR balanced. That's how this discussion started, with you promoting that idea as a balancing mechanism.

It's a reward for bad Reaver pilots and zergfits and punishment for good Mosquito pilots.

It's entirely possible to differentiate through damage output, maneuverability and speed, while keeping it more or less balanced, but not if you take it to the extreme you proposed. Reaver vs. Mosquito in Planetside 1 was actually balanced like that, before they screwed up the controls and totally out of the blue buffed Reaver armor even though none of the good pilots had asked for it. Reaver was stronger, did slightly more damage, but was also slower and less maneuverable. Mosquito could stay behind a Reaver if engaged at the right time. It was possible to take them out without taking any damage at all (if they were idiots). Winning 1v3's was possible too, until they invented the Wasp, which gave otherwise terrible pilots a device to do ridiculous damage with.

This was possible because the effective TTK's were sufficiently high. With 1- or 2-shot kills, it won't be. A Mosquito will simply die too fast for their maneuverability to be of any significance. I am not OK with that because I really like flying in games. I want to fly, so I don't want to die in 2 shots, and I definitely don't want to see empire differentiation lead to ridiculously unbalanced scenario's.

You think dieing to 2 shots is bad? Try flying in a flight sim and having your wing blown off in 1 pass by a enemy AC diving down on you.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

lol people are bagging out Elcyco for apparently bad situational awareness and inability to adapt, have you guys even played Planetside? Perhaps you guys should go learn to fly in PS1 before you graduate into PS2 and flying with physics rather than wasting your time with theoryside.

Whats wrong with theoryside? It challenges the brain.

I'll have you know I did plenty of flying in PS1...What's your point?

[LegioX]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

lol people are bagging out Elcyco for apparently bad situational awareness and inability to adapt, have you guys even played Planetside? Perhaps you guys should go learn to fly in PS1 before you graduate into PS2 and flying with physics rather than wasting your time with theoryside.

So your saying PS has physic flying?, b/c your confusing. Either way, you die and complain about dieing when you have no chance of hitting back. Yes that is bad situational awareness. You cannot sugar coat that.

[LegioX]

Originally Posted by elfailo

I agree, and don't have a problem with that. The point is that 1- or 2-shotting aircraft would likely make it so that you can't compensate for any inherent imbalances with your own ability. That's why I said "balanced around lowest common denominator". You shouldn't make it so powerful that even complete failures can be superstars with it (like groups of Wasps in PS1).

I'm not sure where you're coming from, but I really hate games where you die fast. Duels in Freelancer could last minutes. I thought that was really cool because it rewarded focus over time more than anything, and simply made them much more fun. A tennis match wouldn't be fun either if all you had to do to win was strike a single ace. Some matches would be over with the ball being hit only once, and I think that's boring.

Lets just put shields on all AC, and when i receive some damage ill call in R2-D2 to come fix it. Seriously, if you cannot get an AC off your 6 you deserve to die. Nature of the beasts. Don't lower the TTK just so you can have fun soaking up damage like a sponge.

[Sabot]

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

lol people are bagging out Elcyco for apparently bad situational awareness and inability to adapt, have you guys even played Planetside? Perhaps you guys should go learn to fly in PS1 before you graduate into PS2 and flying with physics rather than wasting your time with theoryside.

Come on, son... don't be like that

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by elfailo

I agree, and don't have a problem with that. The point is that 1- or 2-shotting aircraft would likely make it so that you can't compensate for any inherent imbalances with your own ability. That's why I said "balanced around lowest common denominator". You shouldn't make it so powerful that even complete failures can be superstars with it (like groups of Wasps in PS1).

I'm not sure where you're coming from, but I really hate games where you die fast. Duels in Freelancer could last minutes. I thought that was really cool because it rewarded focus over time more than anything, and simply made them much more fun. A tennis match wouldn't be fun either if all you had to do to win was strike a single ace. Some matches would be over with the ball being hit only once, and I think that's boring.

That's entirely speculation as well. I don't know if it will actually be a 2-shot. When I say 2-shot, I mean 2 air-to-air locking rockets. If a rocket takes 5 or 6 second to lock and you get the warning immediately, you may well be on the move before the first rocket gets to you. Part of it will be about awareness and the other part will be about being a team player.

Again, I don't know how accurate any of this is.