AA max VS Sky guard! Why they must be changed.

[snafus]

Now as many of you know the balance between air and ground can be a very delicate situation. From our experiences in Beta we saw the extremes of both sides and just how ugly they can get hurting the over all game experience. And even though I hate AA with a passion it is a necessary part of the game that counters air. What I am going to propose is a roll reversal between the burster max and the skyguard. Currently the pros and cons between the two are just ridiculous. Making the vehicular based AA platform "Sky guard" a far less capable deterrent to air.

Burster positive attributes:

1. Incredibly accurate and small COF.
2. Very fast round velocity, requires very little leading to hit targets effectively.
3. High damge 44 rounds to destroy a full composite armor ESF.
4. Incredibly versatile in placement, can be placed on any terrain in the game.
5. Very small size from a long distance perspective.
6. Able to be invisible due to render issues and effectively kill or hit air units without risk of being hit back.
7. Able to be ressed via medic.
8. Available at any infantry terminal or sunderer in the game.
9. Has the ability to switch between AA, AI, and AV roles without any penalty or respawn.
10. You can place a large number of Burster maxs within the space a vehicle may take up and still be invisible.
11. They take no loss in accuracy while moving.
12 Have the ability to utilize cover or spawn rooms making them immune to damage or difficult to engage at all.
13. Very cheap 100 infantry points.
14. They have no restrictions on angle of guns. No other AA unit has the ability to fire down with out moving the vehicle to a lower angle.
15. Oddly effective against infantry even with the burster.

Burster Cons:

1. Require infantry terminal or engineer to re supply.
2. slow run speed requires transport to keep up with convoys.
3. Able to take damage from all weapons in game

Sky guard positive attributes:

1. Mobility able to keep up or surpass other vehicles in speed.
2. Only explosive or vehicle based machine guns can damage it.
3. slightly higher damage takes about 40 rounds to kill a ESF.

Sky guard cons:

1. Visible at max vehicle range, no invisible shooting for them.
2. Can only spawn at vehicle terminals.
3. Cannot change roles once spawned.
4. Infantry can engage you without being rendered.
5. larger COF compared to the Burster.
6. Able to take rear damage allowing for quick disposal by any AV unit.
7. Cannot be rezed by a medic
8. Slow turning speed of turret.
9. Required ammo towers or ammo sundy to rearm.
10. Cannot utilize the same terrain the burster max can use.



This to me is a huge issue which is quite damaging to the current balance in game. I strongly believe ground forces should be able to defend them selves. But not to the point where it gives such a large advantage to ground that it is near game breaking for pilots.I would wish that they would tighten up the sky guards COF as this causes the largest issue with tracking targets. At the same time reduce effective range of Burster max. increase the COF and possibly reduce the round velocity depending on other changes effects on the test server.

Now before all the infantry lynch mobs come in for me just take a minute to think on how these changes could help the game. This would allow air the ability to equally engage the threat that is engaging them. But it would still give Infantry the ability to kill or scare away any pilot that intends on farming them. This would also force ground units to actually make a tactical decision before moving out. Not simply be able to instantly switch to the burster max and **** any form of air that may make the mistake of being rendered by you. I have asked many people on Connery of their opinion on my perspective changes. And the majority feel it would be a good change, minus the occasional person who hates all forms of vehicle combat. So I ask you gentlemen and ladies to add your two cents and help bring attention to a major imbalance currently in game.

Here is an older thread in which I described ways to help reduce the versatility of the ESF. Some of these changes have already been acknowledged that they will be coming but more has to be done in my opinion. We can't just focus on AA as it was buffed for a reason and air needs to be equally balanced for the sake of the game. https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...of-esf.116325/

[Shogun]

the main problem is the renderissue.

and THAT has to be solved.
i don´t like to see classes being crippled as a workaround to something that really needs to be fixed asap. the number of players in the game is soes main advertising feature, and they can´t deliver. what´s the point in having thousands of players when you can´t see them while they shoot you?

but i agree, that the airguard could use some love to not be so bad compared to the burster.

[MrMak]

Increasing the render distance on the bursters wont change much as long as they are as ridiculously effective as they are now. So they are gonna render from a bit further away....big whoop.....stil ltoo small of a target to engadge from that far way and it still rips you a new one before you get close enaugh. Second most accessible form of AA is still the strongest.

THAT is the issue.

[Shogun]

change the burster from ns to tr and nerf it to the point where it will have the power it has now, when used with lockdown.

then give the old sparrow to nc max and the whatever plasma flyswapper to the vs.

[MrMak]

Or just rebalance the burster.......

[KesTro]

The accuracy of the burster and skyguard should be switched. Skyguards are only really effective within ~250M due to their huge CoF as to where Bursters, if you can see it, it's a viable target.

[Stardouser]

The biggest problem with air in the game is hovering reliance in their design. The only real air to ground weapon is rockets which require spamming to have any effect, there are no big hit bombs that can be dropped at speed. This causes anti-air to seem overpowered since you basically have to stop and endure it as you spam. And if anti-air is nerfed to accommodate hovering reliance then air will run amok.

Increase aircraft speed, reduce hovering, add more variety in air to ground weapons. Including laser guided.

[HereticusXZ]

Why can't we raise the flight-ceiling to give Pilots a new area to have there dog-fights, outside of AA range?

[MrMak]

FFS. We dont want to nerf anti air as a whole! Seriosuly people READ the thread. We want the skyguard to be what its supose to by and the burster (THE 2nd CHEAPEST MOST ACCESSIBLE FORM OF AA) to be brought in line isntead of outclassing everything else in it's cathegory. The Ranger could use a smaller cone of fire aswell.

right now ground based AA looks more or less like this:

Ranger< Lockon Launcher < Walker < Skyguard < AA-Phalanx < Burster MAX

While it should logicaly look like this:

Lockon Launcher < Burster MAX < Ranger(long range)/Walker(Short/Medium Range) < AA-Phalanx < Skyguard

How is any of that adressed by increasing the flight celling? It doesnt fix the problem, it avoids it and gives pilots an excuse to be useless to the rest of the faction.

[psijaka]

As a full time infantry player and occasional Burster user I do (mostly) agree with the OP.

Make the Burster damage drop off to next to nothing beyond effective rocket pod range, but leave the COF, it is already quite wide enough. Bursters need to stay strong up to a few hundred metres but should be pretty ineffective beyond that.

And buff the Skyguard so that it is effective even at long range. Maybe then I'll be tempted to spend some SC on it.

Edit - some more pros and cons

Burster -
Charge makes them almost impossible to kill using Rocket pods (as long as they are near cover).
Can be offensively buffed by ZOE or Lockdown.

Skyguard -
Can be repaired by driver if they are an Engi.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by psijaka

As a full time infantry player and occasional Burster user I do (mostly) agree with the OP.

Make the Burster damage drop off to next to nothing beyond effective rocket pod range, but leave the COF, it is already quite wide enough. Bursters need to stay strong up to a few hundred metres but should be pretty ineffective beyond that.

And buff the Skyguard so that it is effective even at long range. Maybe then I'll be tempted to spend some SC on it.

Edit - some more pros and cons

Burster -
Charge makes them almost impossible to kill using Rocket pods (as long as they are near cover).
Can be offensively buffed by ZOE or Lockdown.

Skyguard -
Can be repaired by driver if they are an Engi.

So if we were to use your system then dalton libs would own the game. Aa max would render to dalton lib at 325 meters and wouldnt be able to touch the lib. Most ground vehicles wouldnt be effective at firing at a lib at 325 meters so they would get eaten up as well. In your vision the long range aa option would be a skyguard but to make them effective would require a hefty buff and I think that would probably break the game as well.

Just no to everything.

[KesTro]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

So if we were to use your system then dalton libs would own the game. Aa max would render to dalton lib at 325 meters and wouldnt be able to touch the lib. Most ground vehicles wouldnt be effective at firing at a lib at 325 meters so they would get eaten up as well. In your vision the long range aa option would be a skyguard but to make them effective would require a hefty buff and I think that would probably break the game as well.

Just no to everything.

A skyguards damage is already there, all it needs a a buff to its CoF to get it on par with bursters. A Vehicle that will render at 1000m as opposed to the short ranges of infantry should be more effective.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward, etc.

As it is now though, it's simply not a better option than bursters.

[MrMak]

Not to mention ESFs should be the primary counter to Liberators not one guy in a MAX suit. Also Heavy assaults have lock on launchers which have a target aquisition range of 500m.

[snafus]

Originally Posted by Shogun

the main problem is the renderissue.

and THAT has to be solved.
i don´t like to see classes being crippled as a workaround to something that really needs to be fixed asap. the number of players in the game is soes main advertising feature, and they can´t deliver. what´s the point in having thousands of players when you can´t see them while they shoot you?

but i agree, that the airguard could use some love to not be so bad compared to the burster.

The issue is they can effectively engage aircraft multiple hexes away. Even if Max's rendered at that range they would be to small to effectively hit or even see. They have to be toned down to only be effective within infantry render range for the sake of fairness man.

[snafus]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

The biggest problem with air in the game is hovering reliance in their design. The only real air to ground weapon is rockets which require spamming to have any effect, there are no big hit bombs that can be dropped at speed. This causes anti-air to seem overpowered since you basically have to stop and endure it as you spam. And if anti-air is nerfed to accommodate hovering reliance then air will run amok.

Increase aircraft speed, reduce hovering, add more variety in air to ground weapons. Including laser guided.

I find myself hovering to wait on infantry to render rather then give me a better target. I do like to hover if there is no enemy AA in the area but I can get kills just fine flying fast into an objective. The only issue I run into with fast attacks is the enemy won't always appear on the first fly by. But I do like the idea of some new weapons that are heavy hitting single ordinance based.