Camouflage vs. Aircraft

Rothnang · 2013-04-09, 05:52 PM

Basically the idea is that ground units have an ability that allows them to camouflage themselves from aircraft, and not be visible at all to any aircraft going overhead.

The way this would work for infantry would simply be this: If you crouch and don't move you become invisible to aircraft. (You'd hear a little ninja woosh sound and see an icon on your screen with a liberator that has a questionmark over the cockpit and crouched soldier underneath) This concealment is broken if you fire a weapon, try to lock on a missile, take any damage, or you are spotted by an enemy.

For ground vehicles it would work similarly, but more slowly, whenever you don't move you would see a little bar that builds up, and 5 seconds later your vehicle becomes invisible to enemy air units, again concealment breaks if you fire a weapon, use a lockon, get damaged, or you become spotted.

What this idea does is even out the way the game does initiative. Basically with the current implementation the aircraft is always the unit that initiates the fight, and gets to decide whether or not it wants to stay in the fight. The only time ground units have any means of disengaging from a battle with an aircraft is if there is some kind of roof for them to run under.

Of course this isn't entirely realistic, you probably wouldn't be able to hide from a helicopter that's 100 meters up from you with a FLIR camera, but then again, the scale of the air war in Planetside is already heavily condensed for the sake of fitting it all in the same game. Real life aircraft don't go 200km an hour, they go 1000km an hour, and they don't have a flight ceiling of 1km, but of 10km, so I don't see too big a problem with assuming that you can hide from a Planetside aircraft at highly condensed ranges either.

Concealment from aerial surveillance and attacks was really mastered by the Germans in WW2 and is still something all military forces teach to their troops today, since it is a very effective strategy in war.

I think this would be a positive addition to the game because it would allow us to reframe the whole air vs. ground battle in a more meaningful way. If both air and ground units have a ways of avoiding combat with one another, or ambush the other unit we don't have to base it all on weapons that are singularly designed to give aircraft an operational time limit and need absurd amounts of range to have any chance of landing a killing blow. We can get combat ranges to a point where rendering isn't a constant problem, and diffuse battlefields more by allowing units to operate outside of the protective anti-air bubble much more confidently, while at the same time shrinking the bubble a bit so that aircraft can operate more meaningfully in bigger engagements.

It would also significantly enhance the idea of combined arms if the best way for aircraft to bring down, for example, a deployed Sunderer (almost guaranteed to be concealed) is if someone on the ground has to spot it first. At the same time, concentrating your AA units right on top of the Sunderer is a dead giveaway to where it is to any air units in the area.

There is a whole plethora of enhancements that become possible once you eliminate the one sided initiative that air units currently have. If both sides in a fight have some say over whether or not the fight takes place or continues you simply end up with something that's much more fun for everyone involved.

Assist · 2013-04-09, 05:55 PM

or just nerf air damage and lower burster damage, same solution less work!

Rothnang · 2013-04-09, 06:02 PM

Not at all the same solution. Lowering damage all around would massively skew the advantage toward aircraft, since aircraft have a mechanic (extreme speed) that allows them to leave a battle and thereby increases their chance for survival the longer the enemy takes to kill them , but ground units don't have a mechanic like that. That means with all around lower damage the advantage aircraft get from their speed becomes much bigger, while ground units have no significantly increased chance of survival, since they can't get away no matter how long it takes for the aircraft to actually kill them.

Assist · 2013-04-09, 06:11 PM

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Not at all the same solution. Lowering damage all around would massively skew the advantage toward aircraft, since aircraft have a mechanic (extreme speed) that allows them to leave a battle and thereby increases their chance for survival the longer the enemy takes to kill them , but ground units don't have a mechanic like that. That means with all around lower damage the advantage aircraft get from their speed becomes much bigger, while ground units have no significantly increased chance of survival, since they can't get away no matter how long it takes for the aircraft to actually kill them.

Idea is the ground units then have time to react and get more AA for when it comes back, which is exactly what your suggestion is trying to accomplish. What's the difference between the two?

Ghoest9 · 2013-04-09, 06:32 PM

Rothnag is right.

If you lower the damage of both air and ground it will end up favoring air because they have better mobility which will allow them to consistently withdraw when they are losing.

Rothnang · 2013-04-09, 07:38 PM

Originally Posted by Assist

Idea is the ground units then have time to react and get more AA for when it comes back, which is exactly what your suggestion is trying to accomplish. What's the difference between the two?

My idea creates a situation where ground units that pay attention to what's going on overhead can avoid getting taken out by air without any AA, and also gives them chance to shake off aircraft if they can find a way to break line of sight and then quickly hide.

It aims at creating better conditions for competitive play rather than just setting up every single fight as a damage race.

The current state of balance for ground vs air is simply:

Air decides when and where to fight.
Air has the option to disengage from a fight.
Ground can only survive by inflicting damage faster than air can kill them.
Ground can only kill air by inflicting damage faster than the air can run.
Ground controls the amount of damage it can inflict mostly through the number of AA units.

It's an incredibly flawed system because the entire battle ultimately hinges on nothing else but how many guys with AA weapons you have. It creates a situation where air can go from utterly OP to utterly useless depending only on how big the enemy force is, which is poison to a game where fights can range in scale from a hand full of people to a hundreds on hundreds three-way battle.
Any change in damage only walks the threshold for when air becomes crap and when it becomes OP up and down the spectrum, but doesn't ever get you out of the scale issue.

What my system does is shake things up by giving ground units a way to initiate and disengage as well, and as a result eliminates the need for insane range AA weapons that can be massed up easily in a single spot to cover an entire battlefield.

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-09, 07:48 PM

Its kind of the same deal as raising the flight ceiling and giving air a place of their own. I dont want to have to sneak everywhere so air doesnt swoop down and kill me.

Rothnang · 2013-04-09, 08:00 PM

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Its kind of the same deal as raising the flight ceiling and giving air a place of their own. I dont want to have to sneak everywhere so air doesnt swoop down and kill me.

That wouldn't solve anything. The reason why being a Pilot in big battles is so shitty is because the effective range for air to ground attacks is about 200 meters tops since the belly gun nerfs, but effective range for anti air missiles is 500 and the effective range for flak is 900. Being able to go up to 2000 doesn't change the fact that there is a huge area where every damn enemy with AA weapons on the battlefield gets to wail on you before you are anywhere close enough to start firing back effectively, and the same distance again if you want to get away before you die.

Even in places where the flight ceiling is high enough from ground level to get you out of flak range, trying to go up to get away is pretty much the most suicidal thing you can do right now, since you move slower while going upward, and the further up you go the less likely you are to find any terrain features that will give you cover.

Ohaunlaim · 2013-04-09, 11:33 PM

This is....

GOOD

STUFF

I would love to see this on the test server.

OCNSethy · 2013-04-10, 12:04 AM

You've been busy this week Rothnang

Personally, I like the idea of giving infantry the option to 'go dark' against air. We do it now as infiltrators, so its not without precedence.

Rothnang · 2013-04-10, 12:09 AM

Yea, an infiltrator gave me the idea, but we still killed the poor sod because his cloak didn't hold up forever.

OCNSethy · 2013-04-10, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by Rothnang

Yea, an infiltrator gave me the idea, but we still killed the poor sod because his cloak didn't hold up forever.

Yes, I know THAT feeling, lol

Obstruction · 2013-04-10, 12:46 AM

abusable. AA is already bad enough without teams of them cloaking.

as someone who obviously flies a lib too you should realize it isn't exactly disengaging because you're losing. it isn't strictly losing.

you disengage because your aircraft can't be raised by a medic and the infantry on the ground can. they also have respawn timers at 15 seconds and your aircraft may be as much as ten to fifteen minutes.

basically the infantry already has the advantage unless they are the type of retards that get farmed riding ATVs across open terrain or trying to shoot dumbfire rockets from the spawn room.

they have the tools to dominate airspace with dedicated units. they demonstrate this in large scale battles already.

sorry to burst your bubble, but if you are stupid enough to be out alone with no support and no AA then an aircraft mounted anti armor weapon should be devastating.

this goes for rocketpods also. it isn't that hard to deter ESFs from an area unless you are really stupid.

OCNSethy · 2013-04-10, 01:14 AM

Or your trying a squad sized Spec Op / stealth attack. Not everything in this game is going to be the Charge of the Light Brigade with a cast of thousands.

Rothnang · 2013-04-10, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by Obstruction

abusable. AA is already bad enough without teams of them cloaking.

as someone who obviously flies a lib too you should realize it isn't exactly disengaging because you're losing. it isn't strictly losing.

you disengage because your aircraft can't be raised by a medic and the infantry on the ground can. they also have respawn timers at 15 seconds and your aircraft may be as much as ten to fifteen minutes.

I know, and I don't think it's very fair right now that it's relatively easy for infantry to defeat vehicles given how little they have to lose vs. how much the pilots have to lose.

However, just because infantry respawns or gets revives doesn't mean they are having fun getting bombed into the ground. You will never convince people that dying is their way out of a fight, because nobody likes getting farmed for certs, and that's exactly what role that puts infantry in.

Originally Posted by Obstruction

basically the infantry already has the advantage unless they are the type of retards that get farmed riding ATVs across open terrain or trying to shoot dumbfire rockets from the spawn room.

they have the tools to dominate airspace with dedicated units. they demonstrate this in large scale battles already.

Yup, Infantry has a huge advantage right now, which is why I'm trying to get a new approach to ground vs. air balance implemented that is more even.

You pretty much have no chance to get it your way as a Pilot or Tanker right now. You're in the minority. Majority opinion in this game states:

- Vehicles are too easy to replace / too common.
- Vehicles that kill a large number of infantry are overpowered.
- Vehicles that can't be easily killed by infantry are overpowered.

You can't convince people otherwise with numbers or statistics. The argument that infantry is acctually responsible for the vast majority of infantry kills, or that you can spawn literally hundreds of infantry units in the time it takes for a single vehicle cooldown has no bearing on peoples perception of this matter.

What it comes down to is that getting bombed is not a fun part of the gameplay to them because it's not something they have any agency in.

Ultimately this leaves us with one giant truth to consider:

The majority of people in this game play infantry almost exclusively.
We have a system where it's not possible to keep everyone happy.
That means it's going to tip to what keeps the most people happy.

If you're a pilot or a tanker it's simply in your best interest to advocate for systems that can even the playing field and allow everyone to have more fun. A really big aspect of that is to decrease, or eliminate the whole sense of "getting farmed" from the game.

I fly Liberators and I fucking hate it that I can't do anything to shake off an ESF that's clearly winning the fight. I fully realize that that's exactly how people on the ground feel about my Liberator when I'm killing them.

To me the first step to real balance that everyone can enjoy is to get rid of those situations that just piss people off.

Once we get to a point where ground units aren't entirely dependent on uber AA that can clear the skies to avoid getting farmed we can start having a reasonable discussion about whether or not a gun with 900 meters range that can smack aircraft that can't even see it out of the sky is maybe a bit unreasonable, or if a big chunk of resource cost for a unit that can be killed by a hand full of freebie units makes much sense.

That's a really really hard sell to make right now though, because the vast majority of people will frame the discussion as "Overpowered problems need overpowered solutions".

I for one don't want to be overpowered. I don't enjoy being overpowered, and I don't enjoy being trapped in this absurd arms race of buffs and nerfs that I have no chance of winning because I don't represent the biggest chunk of the community. I want a system where I can fly and fight and have fun without ruining other peoples fun, so that the devs don't constantly have to preserve their enjoyment by shitting on mine.

Originally Posted by Obstruction

sorry to burst your bubble, but if you are stupid enough to be out alone with no support and no AA then an aircraft mounted anti armor weapon should be devastating.

this goes for rocketpods also. it isn't that hard to deter ESFs from an area unless you are really stupid.

That's exactly the same attitude as "Well, Aircraft should just avoid areas with AA in it." So if Aircraft who don't avoid AA are idiots, and Infantry who operate without heavy AA cover are idiots, Are Aircraft as well as AA units just in the game to kill idiots?

I personally think no unit should purely exist to kill idiots, they should all be part of a battle even if only used in the smartest way.