News: ESF Update Plans via Kevmo

[maradine]

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...-plans.138396/

"The following is a list of upcoming changes for ESF (Empire Specific Fighter) update.

Please remember everything listed here is just the current plan and everything is subject to change. Also note that some components may be split up into other updates, so they may not all be added at once.

Lock-On Adjustments

We’re making some adjustments to anti-air based lock-on weapons with the goal of making lock-on weapons less frustrating and more interesting for both those using them and those on the receiving end.

Mechanics Changes:

• All anti-air lock on weapons will become maintained on lock. The shooter must keep the target locked for the duration.
• The closer a lock-on target is, the faster it will acquire a lock.
• Lock-on missiles will travel faster
• Lock-on missile lifespan will be reduced to around 5 seconds (down from 8 or 10 seconds depending on the weapon)

The above changes are intended to create a more interesting risk vs reward dynamic for lock-on missiles. For example, at point blank range, the weapon may lock on instantly and the projectile be too fast to dodge, while at 300 meters it may take 2.5 seconds + maintaining the lock.

The shorter life span is also intended to remove some of the extra frustration when attempting to dodge a missile only to have it hit you seven seconds later.

Feedback Changes:

The following list are changes we are considering. Some may become standard UI feedback, some may get rolled into certifications:

• Players who lock-on to you and fire, will be spotted for you
• The lock-on display will show a number indicating how many different sources are locking on to you
• The lock-on display will indicate what type of weapon is locking/locked-on
• Missiles that are locked-on to you will display on the mini-map
• Lock-on indicator will display in third person camera

Other Changes:

• We are fixing some lock-on missile bugs and making improvements for lock-on missiles being represented more accurately to remote clients.
• Flares: Based on how the above changes work, flares may be adjusted.
• The bug with stealth certifications not always granting the lock-on reduction buff will be fixed

Experience Changes

Players will be awarded kills and assists for players that suicide or log out.
The kill will be awarded to the player who last inflicted damage, whether that damage was done to their vehicle or to the player themselves.

New ESF Weapons

Reminder, all the below weapons are works in progress and subject to change.
The weapons below are designed to be air combat options for the secondary (wing mounted) slots. They are intended to supplement the nose cannons.

NS-50 Mass Drivers

Current Description: "Mass Drivers are capable of launching two 50mm rounds accurately and at a high speed. The Mass Driver must reload after each shot."

The intent of the mass driver is to create a long range air to air weapon. Although a single shot is high damage, by itself its damage over time is low compared to a nose cannon. It will have limited usefulness against ground targets.

Coyote Missiles

Current Description: "Coyote Missiles are compact, short range missiles that lock-on to enemy aircraft and inflict light damage. Coyote Missiles can lock-on to targets quickly, but have a short lock-on range and lose established locks quickly."

Coyote Missiles cannot damage as quickly as a nose cannon as it takes several seconds to unload a full volley of missiles.

Locust Cannons

Current Description: "Locust cannons are high velocity machine guns that boast a high bullet spread and increased magazine size, allowing it to engage targets with less accuracy but still score hits. The fire rate ramps up for a short period when it begins firing."

The Locust inflicts comparable damage to a nose cannon and can sustain fire for a longer period. The spin up time is intended to limit its usefulness in a high speed dogfight.

External Fuel Tank Certification Line

We want to make the fuel tanks a more competitive option for the wing mount slot. A certification line is being added that increases the top speed of the vehicle. This stacks with the high speed racer chassis.

Existing Balance Changes

A tuning pass is being done on the default and rotary nose cannons.

Default Cannons

• Normalizing Cone of Fire to be the same across each empire
• TTK (against other ESFs) between the empires has been brought closer together
• Clip Sizes have increased to allow for longer sustained fire
• Fall off damage has been added starting at 200 meters

Rotary Cannons

• All Rotaries, regardless of empire, can now kill an ESF in a single clip without having to get magazine size upgrades
• TTK (against other ESFs) between the empires has been brought closer together
• Fall off damage was added starting at 150 meters

On top of that, we’re adjusting the empire distinctions.

• Scythe weapons used to just be in between the Reaver and Mosquito weapons and have a slower projectile. Instead, they will have the quickest projectile (instead of slowest) and will reload faster.
• Reaver weapons retain a higher damage and faster TTK. They also suffer less from the added fall off damage.
• Mosquito weapons retain the quickest fire rate but also receive a larger clip size increase for longer sustained fire/fewer reloads.

Stealth Certifications

We’re planning, for all vehicles, to adjust each rank of stealth so that the final rank removes you from the mini-map while the previous ranks lower the range.
We’re also fixing the bug where stealth would not always slow lock-on times.
Lowering the engine audio is still planned, but not as part of the ESF update.

Fire Suppression Certifications

We’re planning, for all vehicles, to adjust fire suppression so that when activated it will apply a small heal over time for the vehicle. This works at anytime and not just when critically damaged. When activated while in critical damage, it will now set your health to above critical, instead of adding a flat amount to your current health pool

Galaxy Repair & Ammo Supply Certifications

We’re considering Galaxy repair and ammo supply certifications. Giving ESFs and Liberators more locations to re-arm from and more objectives to attack/defend in the sky."

[Hamma]

Some great stuff in here. Going to spend some time and digest it a bit.

[ChipMHazard]

Hope you don't mind me adding the notes to your post, Maradine

I like the proposed feedback changes, the Galaxy rearm ability and bringing all the rotatries in line. Not sure about the lock-on changes, but they look good enough on paper. I'm also dubious as to what would limit the mass driver against ground targets, at least when it comes to infantry. I can already forsee sniping ESFs.

[Lonehunter]

I just wet my pants




and it wasn't urine

I LOVE those weapon ideas

Missiles that are locked-on to you will display on the mini-map

HUGE

Lock-on indicator will display in third person camera

Only thing I'm not a fan of. Situational awareness of 3rd person should sacrifice something

Edit:

All Rotaries, regardless of empire, can now kill an ESF in a single clip without having to get magazine size upgrades

Ok I don't really like this either. They're adding all these AA tools plus buffing the ones we have?

[maradine]

Originally Posted by ChipMHazard

Hope you don't mind me adding the notes to your post, Maradine

Not at all. I'll remove my color comment and replace it here -

Surprisingly, I'm on-board with most/all of this.

Originally Posted by Lonehunter

Only thing I'm not a fan of. Situational awareness of 3rd person is equivalent should sacrifice something

Concur, but then again, I'm also in favor of removing 3rd person all together, increasing the flight envelope to hypersonic, and mandating joystick control.

[Calista]

Originally Posted by maradine

Concur, but then again, I'm also in favor of removing 3rd person all together, increasing the flight envelope to hypersonic, and mandating joystick control.

Brings up a point. Would be nice to see joystick support evolve into 21st century supported capabilities.

[Edfishy]

Originally Posted by Calista

Brings up a point. Would be nice to see joystick support evolve into 21st century supported capabilities.

World of Warplanes having an exceptional model to base this off of.

[Hmr85]

Digging the adjustments to the galaxy. Does this mean we can do inflight reloads and repairs if we have two gals flying next to each other? If so Oh my gawd the possibility's. This is like a dream come true for fighter pilots.

[Rolfski]

My fear with this update: BR 100 ace pilots will completely rape everything that moves in the air, while easily dodging everything that's thrown at them. Effectively chasing the majority of the player base out of their ESF's. Being a mediocre pilot will make you farming material more than ever.

I was expecting specialized A2G weapons as well in this update. G2A nerfs aside, A2G didn't seem to get much attention.

[maradine]

Originally Posted by Rolfski

My fear with this update: BR 100 ace pilots will completely rape everything that moves in the air, while easily dodging everything that's thrown at them. Effectively chasing the majority of the player base out of their ESF's. Being a mediocre pilot will make you farming material more than ever.

Perhaps, but isn't that the very model of a high-skillcap specialty? Besides, you can always drag them back into an umbrella. Flak is the benevolent and great equalizer.

[camycamera]

this is excellent news!

[Lonehunter]

The Galaxy repair is a long time dream of mine, as long as it's active while airborne

[snafus]

Dog fighters rejoice! The A2AM plague will hopefull be brought to an end and things will be back to enjoyable flight game. Well done so far SOE, really liked the gal updates to. Just need to see some love for our other friend in the sky the Liberator. Those poor bastards still take a beating from everyone in the game.

[SternLX]

Originally Posted by maradine

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...-plans.138396/

Experience Changes
Players will be awarded kills and assists for players that suicide or log out.
The kill will be awarded to the player who last inflicted damage, whether that damage was done to their vehicle or to the player themselves.

^^^THIS I have a HUGE problem with. Amount of damage needs to be taken into consideration before anything is awarded.

How this reads to me is if say for example I Dual Burster it up and hit an ESF 1 time and 1 time only then say that pilot gets a little careless immediately after down near the deck and eats an OP Tree or Mtn side(it happens all the time). I get a full kill point and the pilot still gets a message I killed him when it's clear he ran into something? No, that's not right and should not be this way.
Or swing this the other way. I work over an ESF really good with some kind of AA and that pilot flys away and then an Infantryman hits it with his Primary, pilot suicides. That little Primary user gets the kill, and me, the guy that did all the work gets what? Nothing other than vehicle kill assist exp as it should be.
Kills should be worked for, not given away for minimal effort. Don't fall into the trappings of catering to the kids who only got vehicle kill xp and not a pilot kill point. This will artificially inflate kill counts imho.

Alternate suggestions:
Combine the separate Vehicle Kill count with Regular Kill count. So if you do kill a vehicle with someone in it you get 2 Kill points. 1 for the driver, one for the vehicle.

Digging all the other listed changes however.

[Rolfski]

Originally Posted by maradine

Perhaps, but isn't that the very model of a high-skillcap specialty? Besides, you can always drag them back into an umbrella. Flak is the benevolent and great equalizer.

The problem is that this update is intended to lower the skill floor for players to get into the air and as it looks now, there is a severe danger that the complete opposite will happen:

Top gun players will use the extended clip size to effectively degenerate Liberators into flying coffins for every one that does not know how to manoeuvre these vehicles in A2A. The added fall off damage on the guns will favour skilled players even more. Same goes for the better ways to deal with G2A: Mediocre players will still get owned by multiple lock-ons, where top pilots will easily out-manoeuvre them all with their maxed out uber stealth and afterburners.

On paper, these changes might seem to buff newer players. In reality however, I wouldn't be surprised that they buff top pilots even more to a level that it becomes down right even more frustrating to be in the air as a mediocre pilot.