Lock-on missiles have negative influence on gaming experience

I base my rebuttal against the idea that G2As are such a problem for air to air duelists on reality, yes.

If it can shoot at you, fly in 3 dimensions, and all you've got is an LMG and an RPG to shoot back at it, you're gonna have a bad time when the flying ship bombs you to hell and back so much, you either die, or can't get a foot into the door.

Actually, run infantry for a few days. If someone in your squad/platoon/whatever whips out a lock-on weapon, you make them change to a dumbfire to use on Air targets only.

No, absolutely no. I can understand wanting the flight ceiling higher to have A2A fights, but nothing is stopping pilots from having A2A fights right now. Flyers that want a pure A2A game can have that today without any changes to the game, just go somewhere else that doesn't have ground troops, ground players would celebrate.

If flyers got a higher flight ceiling it would be abused. Simply fly high, tilt directly down on the ground as you already do and lolpod infantry and ground vehicles who couldn't see you coming (or tilt their weapons directly up). The only difference is yet another advantage would go to flyers.

Lock-ons suck, depending on the two Heavy Assault choices, one has a shorter lockon but a slower flight, the other has a longer lockon and a faster flight and from actual use, both take too long leaving us exposed to every enemy- both can be avoided by flying out of the area, using flares at the right time - they can be countered, avoided and don't stop flyers having their A2A game.

On a side note: I can appreciate the "bug" issue that allows some missiles to fly through terrain, that should have been fixed a long time ago just like being able to lolpod into spawn rooms at the right angle. Yet unlike the spawn room bug which can be avoided by not firing at "that" angle, lockon users aren't deliberately exploiting, can't use that "angle" of attack, it's lockon and fire and up to the game to make it a bug.

For those suggesting lockons be altered to guide-by-wire, isn't that what Engineers have with the Anti Vehicle Mana turret today, which only by the highest of luck can even touch a flyer, would also lead to abuse by giving Heavy Assault the same complaint Engineers have today which is the bane of tank drivers. Be happy with everything you have as a flyer, you got our bursters nerfed which you couldn't avoid using flares, strikers got a rework nerfing them a bit and you still have jack-of-all trade ESF.

too bad that I'll have to do what I swore not to do... replying to this thread again...

au contraire, If I go to a nice fight where my two opposing factions are battling and I get rid of the lolpodders for them, instead of thanks, I get lock-ons from both side because I'm the Big Bad ESF.

hmm, maybe those lolpodders would have to pass A2A pilots first if they do that?

Now I hope I can let this thread rest once again, please dont make me come back

Now that actually makes sense. Perhaps the "Air is the best defense!" argument isn't flawed after all...

Also, LoL pod-ing from max altitude is not possible because your targets don't render, thus cannot be hit.

Until infantry get a flare/smoke ability that renders your rocketpod spam neutralised, allows them to fly at breakneck speed and grow armoured skin that they can just bail out in case you do manage to defeat them: you can do one mate.

Where is this magical land of enchantment where no ground troops exist? It's a combined arms game; they are everywhere.
I was practicing dogfighting with an enemy pilot for awhile late last night on Amerish, so it's not like there were high populations. We were flying very high up, and session still ended with me getting locked on by some random guy on the ground. Anytime two ESF's are fighting it just draws random lock-on groundpounders like flies. We were away from the edge of a fight; there was no reason for the guy to be there, but the worst part about it is that ground doesn't have to put thought into it. It's an afterthought, a brief two seconds in the terminal to switch, fire off some autoaimed shots, and then change back.

If a person pulls a lightning, MBT, ESF, or liberator, they have to think about their loadout, and they are stuck with their decision. If battle conditions change, which they can in an instant, that vehicle is much less effective. Versatility and effectiveness should be tradeoffs: if you can easily change your loadout, your loadouts should be less effective than something which has no or little versatility. That's how combined arms SHOULD work. There should be a tension between difficulty of use and effectiveness, between versatility and effectiveness, etc. Combined arms means you need to make tradeoffs. When you are setting up a squad or platoon, do you roll with a large group of infantry that can change loadouts on the fly, or do you fill your ranks with resource-expensive units that can be knocked out for a longer period, but also are going to be much more effective than your more versatile troops in certain roles. Planetside is unfortunately pretty week in this aspect, and lock-ons are just one very poignant example of it. If something is that easy to use, it should not do high amounts of damage.
Vehicles are big targets, which means they attract a lot of fire in any situation. If that fire is autoaimed, it should do lower damage and not be able to chase you across several hexes and still hit after using an entire afterburner tank. I'm a big vehicle loaded with powerful thrusters and a lot of fuel, yet I can be outrun by a tiny missile with a small fuel reserve?

The most versatile a vehicle can be is likely an ESF with rotary + rocket pods; however, it's not very effective overall. Jack of all trades, master of none as it were. They are good against armor, but if you're infantry, throw on flak or wait ten seconds to respawn or just wait to be revived. Additionally, and an ESF's ability to survive, as many have said, is based on speed. Rocket pods are a death sentence in most situations since they sacrifice your speed and maneuverability. Sure you can get killstreaks late at night on Amerish with rocketpods, but in big fights, you're not going to be very effective. Sure you can strafe and get a couple of kills, but that has little impact on a battle. Infantry are still by far and large the best killers of infantry.

Not so much the ESF.

I've been playing infantry more than I've been flying in the last 5~ months because lock ons (and overpowered aa in general) have made it more stressful than fun. Here's my stats bro B)

http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/player/Selentic

I can say from both an infantry perspective and pilot perspective, that air is an absolute joke right now. Pretty strange how the only people who disagree are the ones who only have the infantry or tanker perspective B)

I've never been in that situation, because I play with DA, which seems to be one of the few outfits smart enough to realize that when you get inside you don't have to deal with air at all, effectively countering it. B)

Do you also believe that daltoning esfs is the easiest thing in the world because you saw a montage of it on youtube?

Then do it to pubs. If need be, crush them emotionally until they log-off, if they don't listen the first time. They don't matter anyway.

Why would I spend more time telling bad players that they're terrible? I already have to do that on the forums.

Because infantry are free?

Because bad players don't read forumside, duh! You want to get rid of lock-on? You get rid of everyone using it.

No. But skill shots and the reality that there are plenty of dogfights are completely different subjects.

wait 21% accu allowed to play with DA? ps2 is dying

For the record most of those guns I haven't used for a long time, and were before I really played on the ground with any regularity. Check the Pulsar LSW/C and NS11C stats.

This game should not be balanced around pubs, the lowest form of play. The game should be balanced around what a outfit can do as this is a team based game...

It should be balance only around the top 1% of outfits in the game, and only them. Anything else should get you shot.
Hence; crush the pubs will to play. Morale and morals are for rodents. You're above humans!

The fact of the matter is that infantry don't need an AA weapon that can hit aircraft outside of infantry render distance.