The Fighter Privilege (And why it is bad design)

Having a weapon toned down is subjective. Someone will always think balance is crap if they started OP for example... A dud is worse. It is a dud and good for nothing.

At this point though I can not say I care so much. No one in my Outfit owns ground AA. Well, one guy bought a burster but he gave that up after a few hours. I warned him, he did not listen. That is his own fault. He went back to his ESF. That is good because that is where I want him. The rest I saved certs. I did my job of scouting beta and finding what was worth it for purchase. I made sure they knew the score and saved them money by directing them to the most efficient options available.

We run 3-4 ESFs most times. It is good enough to clear 10-12 air targets on most days. They run A2A and AA nose canons. I never ask them to pull pods anymore. It got to be like pulling teeth and it got them killed. So they are up there purely as AA for us. It works. We want to take ground targets... the bulk of our force is already there as infantry and fielding dedicated tanks as needed. It never amounts to a problem.

So I am a bit skewed I guess. Me and mine would honestly be more hurt by an ESF A2A nerf over anything else.

Nope that's how it works. Honestly, ESF dogfighting is alot of fun... the pods just fill the sky with targets for us.

Heh, feel I have to add how they nerfed the AGM in BF3 into oblivion - right now it does no damage at all unless someone else in your team lights the target with a laser designator. It was pretty sweet when it first came out though.

Yeah Shame because I enjoyed using the AGM much more than Rocket Pods. Also the fact that every tank and his mother ran with smoke...

It got so nerfed in the end it didn't even one shot jeeps/quad bikes unless they were stationary... I mean come on!

The problem with the current ESF's is that they're multi-role aircraft, which just can't be balanced effectively. When they made the aircraft they should have made 3 attack oriented aircraft. The liberator, an interceptor, and a ground attack vtol. The interceptor should have been fast, maneuverable, lightly armored, and only equipped with air to air weapons. The vtol should have been slower, not as maneuverable, much tougher, and armed for ground support. Instead we have the current ESF's which are the best of both worlds and incapable of being truly balanced because of the multi-role nature they have. They should split the roles into 2 different aircraft.

Why does everyone think G2A is so weak? Every time we have lost air superiority (if it's a problem/not Biolab) we take about half our platoon, spawn AA Maxs and HA, and just clear the sky of ESFs. We also try to get ~5-10 guys to go jump into ESFs and Libs to go clear out the remaining ESFs and the eliminate their liberators (which ground AA has problems with if they are too high up.).

THE ONLY TIME we can't take down air superiority is when the enem has superiority in armor or infantry as well. And at the end of the day, if the enemy has us dominated on air AND ground, I don't expect to win.

Also if you really hate air so much I would suggest you target Amp Stations. It really does make a difference over the course of a day if they aren't getting air resources.

That said I might be willing to accept a clip size reduction on the rockets, or a reduction in effective range. But all the REMOVE ROCKET PODS IMMEDIATELY THEY ARE OP is just wrong. There are many hard counters to them. Seriously. A squad of HA firing into a group of ESFs will run them off.

It's a matter of manpower and better functioning pieces. Why would I use 5-10 players to inefficiently scare clear the skies when I could use 1-3 players and guarentee they will all be dead? That lets me place 2-7 players in other things in the meantime. The Sunderer moving up, tanks to cover it, infantry in on the next base to start capping it. There is no reason to waste manpower using something that is inefficient when there is a better way of doing it.

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I dont understand your post. There isn't really a more efficient way of doing it. And this way is not at all inefficient. Spending 10 men on HA, which can respawn indefinitely, and a couple of MAXs is a highly efficient way of clearing enemy air. It can take out 10+ enemy ESF with ease. Then you call BROKEN ARROW and bring in your own air resources to finish off liberators and return air control to your side.

Edit: unless you're saying that using 10 men to kill 10 ESF isn't as good as using 1-3 men. Then yeah, that's mathematically better. It's also clearly broken.

To take 10-12 air assets all you need are 3-4 ESF with A2A and flares.

-Just seen your edit, and yes that is what I am saying.

Ah yeah I agree with that (depending in enemy setup.). If the enemy air is smart they will have ESF up there with A2A defending their Libs and then it gets a bit more touch and go. But of you have 3-4 good A2A pilots working together against enemy air without A2A defenses then you can do quite nicely.

The advantage of the G2A is that it's immediately deployed and zero resource/infinite spawn or low resource (AA max). I really wouldn't discount. AA Maxs though. You get 4 of those up the enemy will think twice about rocket podding.

Aye. I totally agree.

I mean, I'm not trying to be a dick about this bu I honestly believe that a lot of the complaints that this or that are overpowered are because many people complaining run in platoons that are disorganized and do not attempt organized combined arms counters do they don't know what works. They just solo spawn an HA or AA Max and don't kill anything and assume everything is broken.

Get it through your heads, this is a team game. If you are not part of an organized team expect to die. Not because X Y and Z are overpowered, but because well organized combined arms will decimate pubbie trash any day of the week. And these organized groups don't win by just spamming ESFs. In our platoon we rarely have more than 8 people in the air at any given time.

It wouldn't change things much. When I'm on a 100+ killing streak I can do it just as easy with 1 weapon. All you'll do there is make the ground killing even worse and here is why.

99% of the time I kill ground troups with the Anti-personnel gun. The rocket pods only get used on vehicles. Taking away the rocket pods just means I won't kill vehicles. In a sense you'll probably increase my kill rate because it takes a lot longer to kill a tank with 1-2 people in it then it takes me to kill 10+ ground troops and I have to go back to rearm even more. So not only will I'll be killing more infantry per minute. I'll be flying around killing for longer intervals because I won't be rearming my rocket pods.

There is some other added effects you haven't thought of. When I see an AMS I try to destroy it now. Take away the rocket pods an all you'll do is force me into a spawn camp which will increase my kills even more. People die before they can even react.

Here is another effect you haven't thought of. Take away that 2nd weapon and you severely reduce the effectiveness of ESF to manage the skies. So while I'm flying around killing you on the ground there will be less pilots wanting to fly A2A because they are little better then the stock nose gun. Dog fights will get much longer in time which means there is a lot less xp earned which means a lot less people will want to fly A2A. That mossie or reaver that had a chance to shoot me down now is drastically hampered. Instead of using a smart combination of A2A and the nose gun to effectively take out enemy ESF pilots would become more of an annoyance to other aircraft. As it is smart reaver pilots fear little from enemy air craft because they can outrun them and their rockets. Taking away the second gun almost lets all empires do that.

i agree with absolutely everything in the OP.

We had that back in beta, and everything was joy, but then ESF pilots complained that they couldn't bomb the snot out of everything on the ground and we had SOE not just caving to the whiners but with rocket pods also introducing the ultimate dream of every skypubbie.

Make AA deal tons of damage but with a steep falloff over range - basically turn them into Vanu weapons. A skilled pilot could still dive down but would have to face real opposition. The only issue I see here that SOE probably has to raise the ceiling to 1500 or even 2000m to give air enough room to maneuvre outside the danger zone.

Agreed, the short range and bullet drop is STUPID. Don't make them 500m range but they should be effective at scaring off air craft at max lock on range and fairly deadly at closer range. As both a ESF and a lib pilot I think attacking a lib should either involve good tactics or just sheer numbers.

On another xp in a lib should be shared equally across the crew. Right now the bomber gets full xp, the pilot 1/2 and the tail gunner gets board. A good crew it should be 50/50/50 or at worst something like 50/75/25. Right now what happens is the most efficient crew is to run with 2 people. Even when I run with outfit mates in the tail gun they never end up staying because that job is SOOOO boring and you hardly ever get kills and NO xp

Try using common sense , air is the most UNSAFE place to be in ps2 if you can't fly =practice , if you get killed by esf's its your own fault

Simple as that really

rofl.

click that mousebutton more publord.

You do realise you can do this with the AP gun of your ESF too. Honestly this shows the real pilots from the zerg pilots. Zerg pilots go for constant rocket spam. Real pilots use the most effective weapon for the job at hand and the most effective weapon for killing both large amounts of infantry and single infantry with the ESFs is with the AP guns. And honestly if you want to snipe? Use the default nose gun. It actually has a faster TTK then the AP rounds just you have to be better at aiming it.

The idea that losing is always your own fault tends to be perpetuated primarily by people who are too self obsessed to realize that their opponents have skills too.