Why ESFs are Despised, and Always will be

200m ( broken with that range ) scout radar that even shows cloaked players ... At that point your only option is to try and find a hole to climb in and redeploy regardless of whether you were " aware " and spotted him or not .. Can't hide from scout radar , especially one with a huge *** range..

Well the pilot sacrificed flares for that. He is most likely to die from lockons as soon as he gets near the battle.
I admit it will probably feel terrible IF that happens but you have to understand the sacrifices that he made just for that small opportunity.

Then comes to forums to complain about lock-ons because he didn't use flares

I'm pretty certain bad (outdoor infantry) players get frustrated by tanks and ESFs.

The simple fact is these players are making a mistake (moving outdoors as infantry, spawning somewhere camped, etc) and the other players (tanks/air/etc) are punishing them for that mistake.

Eventually those players will learn and will start fielding vehicles of their own to participate in the outdoor battle. Although some of the confounding issues are things like how a massive footzerg can sometimes beat vehicles, leading players to sometimes not be punished for mistakes, and therefore continue making them.

Man, I wish we could have stuff like this in PS2.

Also, great post, OP.

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If you wanna learn how to fly, stop playing your faction, make a VS too, and practice in the Scythe. It is the EASIEST thing in the game to fly. It takes like 5 minutes to max out on the skill level of the Scythe. Unlike the Mossie and Reaver, the Scythe has momentum and so it can't just flick it's body in the air left and right (like the Mossie and Reaver to a small degree).

It's also the easiest to land because it has no landing gear that require a perfect touch down to hit.

That said, learning to dogfight is a LOT more about learning to pick your battles wisely than it is to actually fight. In an ESF, you never want to fly near a zerg (unless you are with a squadron) or get into a fight with more than 1 other air vehicle at a time. If there is an ESF and a Lib, you avoid them. If it's 2 ESF's you avoid them.

You also need to know where your safe zones are and where you can fly to to get repairs done without getting shot out. The Scythe is the easiest to do crazy landings like inside Biolab bays or AMP station bays to get to cover. I always keep the closest owned Biolab or AMP station marked with a waypoint so I know where my fallback point is.


Once you learn how to fly and dogfight decently, you can fly an uncerted ESF with a pretty high success. I grabbed a fresh TR toon and went to town with some trialed pods the other night. Got over 200 certs in an hour with a fresh toon using pods and a Needler. It's really not hard, you just need to pick your fights wisely and keep a high level of awareness to what's going on around you.


Also, EVERY class has a weapon that can take down an ESF. It's called a gun. It's that thing in your primary slot that you use to kill other infantry with. Next time you see an ESF, point it in the sky, lead the ESF a little, and pull the trigger. You'll be amazed how easy it is to scare off most pilots with nothing more than a pistol.

I fly a lot but I'm not a pure pilot, I'll MAX, tank, etc. I don't find it hard to counter ESFs from the ground though - its simply that people just don't bother countering ESFs, and they get killed, and cry like babies. I barely if ever get killed by ESFs while on the ground myself. I mostly get killed by ground based counters while flying.

Between Bursters, lock-ons, Skyguard and AA turrets, there's not nearly the skill required to counter air from the ground, as air needs to face ground. That's just the simple plain truth. Maybe even these lower skill stuff is too much for the terribads however, as I often see people just not using them effectively. You get AA turrets trying to shoot aimlessly at tanks, causing overheating, and then you can't deal with air, etc.

Infantry players are just a whole bunch of bads IMO. Cause they don't know how to play the game, and how easy they have it really. Infantry should be soft and easily killed in mass numbers - after all, just respawn, there's no consequences. And plenty of silly players just do that, run right out into the open, and get killed by whatever again.

TL/DR - Infantry players are just bad, and need to L2P!

^^^^THIS.

I was in the middle of having a great dogfight with 2 ESF's today when a Skyguard decided to poop all over us. First I had to bait them away from the zerg by leading them into my territory then using an AMP station bay to break them off my tail. After I flipped around and managed to face them, I got one taken down. I was in the middle of finishing the second one over when a Skyguard 4 hexes away opens fire and destroys me (I had 20% health but the other guy had 10%). Luckily the other guy was too far gone to be able to save his ESF and blew up anyway but the ground vehicle ruined my fight.

This kinda of crap happens on a regular basis. Either some ground flak or a lock on decides to chase me away from destroying ESF's, Libs, or MBT's.

I agree with (flame ******** jacket...) the jealousy part. The staggering thing that people don't follow as infantry when they're giving the 'no skill to farm up there' thing and then not doing it themselves (make no mistakes, this isn't out of honour, it's out of inability, and that's a game design issue, NOT a player issue) is because when they try, they instantly die to 'aces'. The thing they're not getting is anyone farming them is themselves contending with just as much in the air, and yet still finding time to give them a 10 second setback every once in a while. That barrier to entry thing is so shameful though that they never get to the next step of 'Oh, so anyone farming me is actually good enough to stay in the air for more than 30 seconds, unlike me... Maybe there is skill in farming as an ESF?!'

Largely I agree with the rest too, except all the bits about ESFs being uncounterable. Until a carbine clip isn't enough to take 50% of an ESF's health, infantry are only ever defenseless when there's less than 5 of them, in which case, /facepalm, they've not understood the premise of the game...

But they can at least fight back against tanks. Even if you pop your head out against a tank and get it blown off, you can at least think to yourself "I would have hit that shot if I had fired first". Without the lockons, infantry have no dependable AA (remembering that they also need to be able to shoot down Libs, not just the small arms vulnerable ESFs).

Nor would they want to. "Find a pro to stand near" isn't a workable weapon system.

I would have put it down to "I can fight back against a tank". The tank has advantages (enough that 1v1 I'll probably die), but I know that I can kill them with the default launcher. Finding a tank out of position, or over extended, or just getting a lucky last hit in happens all the time.

Tank gameplay works the same way. AV turrets and lockons provide an almost identical lethality to tanks, but you don't see them anywhere near as much. For whatever crazy psychological reason, dumbfire launchers satisfy people enough that they don't bother picking up a 250 cert "Go home tanks, you're drunk" button.

Well if your argument is that an infantry's expected kill rate against a tank is 5% and against an aircraft it's 2%, then sure. But you can see how I might feel that's nitpicking and that the infantry has made a mistake in either case and should have spawned as a heavy vehicle if they wanted to have a real fighting chance.

The AA weapons are already effective against ESFs. I shoot down at least 3 ESFs whenever I pull off a skyguard.

The problem is that using AA is not fun at all. A skyguard gunner just wait for them to get close enough, shoot them down, and run away from MBTs. After five minutes, enemy aircrafts will be aware of the existence of AA and no longer come to the territory u are in. And all u can do is sit there doing nothing because AA weapons are only effective to aircrafts and nothing else.

The solution to the aircrafts issue would be make the AA weapons not so sucky at ground targets.

The difference between Tanks and Aircrafts is:
Directional Damage
You can bait a tank and shot a rocket in it's *** and when there is anyone else it probably dies. you can just C4 it or tankmine it and it's gone. it still takes alot of hits from the front and running straight to it will get you killed. but you can actually flank it.

ESF, Libs and Gals:
ehm... lol try flanking that. there is no counter to air that requires even the tiniest amount of thinking, it's just: it hurts or it doesn't.
As a Galaxy pilot i can understand the hate for aircrafts alot better than ESF pilots (not sure on the Lib part, they have a lot more firepower):
if there is a 48+ fight i have problems
if there is a 24+ fight i can have some fun
if there is a 1-24 fight i just land my gal, swtich to the thermal bulldog and drink some coffee while i farm infantry.
no gain in flanking me, i take the same damage from all directions.
straight up shoting me is also not an option, i will drink my coffee faster than they can kill me.
and even if i get hurt alot, i just fly away, i can fly 180-200km/h with my gal so i'm out way before they can finish me off.

Infantry and Tank players hate ground to air and air to air combat because it is just shoting without any real thinking or tactics of any sort.

I admitted as much in my post that I'm not sure exactly what sort of lizard brain reaction makes people think that getting hit by tanks is mostly ok, but ESFs require bringing out dedicated weaponry.

It may have something to do with how default launchers scale. 5 HAs against a tank can turn really ugly for the tank, but those same HAs with dumbfires against an ESF are still slaughtered like lambs. The zergy nature of gameplay ensures that 5v1Tank will show up consistently enough that players can be satisfied with a shower of tank debris.

In the end, I can't be quite sure why infantry doesn't take the option. I do know that if the AT launcher ever becomes as popular as the G2A, you'll see a parade of tankers on this forum crying over the burning wrecks of their hopes and dreams.

MAX suits are also OP and dumb in this game alright later.

How are they incompetent?

There's nothing wrong with the design or the balance, it's just player perspective. There's nothing they can do that they haven't already done.

Air is done just right in this game IMO, however it is also understandable why ground pounders despise it so much.

Combined arms game is the worst kind of hypocrisy pilots pull in these discussions, that and "teamwork".

Its easy to tell people to use teamwork or thats its a combined arms game when you live outside of those rules yourself, ESFs dont need teamwork and they dont need any combined arms either. Air has perfectly fine counters to everything in the game in just 2 vehicles and those 2 vehicles does it naturaly, you dont have to use some odd "anti heavy armor" weapon that makes you close to useless against anything else.

ESF with pods can fight anything in the game, Liberator with any of the belly guns can also fight anything in the game.

That is the real reason why people are sick and tired of air, especially ESFs since they are just a 1 man vehicle but you usually need both "teamwork" and "combined arms" to take one out if the pilot is skilled. Doesnt matter how skilled the people on the ground are since its the pilot that has to make the mistake to let them kill him.

Here is 2 short clips from today when I drove around in the Skyguard that I felt shows a bit why air and ESFs in general are disliked.




Im sure some Pilots are going to point and scream how OP the Skyguard is, even though with almost no misses it takes 5-6 seconds of constant fire to take one down

This is the most ridiculous suggestion i have ever seen. A2A turrets are already incredibly overpowered. They can not ever really be killed. The can hit planes at clip range. They cost no resources and require no certing.

They need a nerf in fact.

If you are dying on the ground to ESF then its more of a L2P issue. I see so many people continually spawning at bases where they are outnumbered 10 to 1 and then they complain about the ways in which they died.

One thing that ESF and Libs do need is to be much MUCH louder when they are hovering. The only problem i ever had with an ESF was when i was completely unaware it was hovering there because its silent.

I've seen you on forums, so I know you've been around for some time. Do you honestly tell me everything with the game is perfect?
How about:
1) no idea what to do with LA class
2) infantry hates pretty much anything except for other infantry. some people tend to hate SMG infiltrators, but they rly need to l2p
People will always find something to hate, but vehicle hate is sort of "helpless hate", when you feel like you couldn't have prevented your death. Even if you could have, situation when it's too late to retaliate is bad design. This concerns MAXes as well.
3) asymmetrical faction balance is not asymmetrical at all, and never will be, because it's too late to change anything after they've charged money for it
4) released an unoptimized game, which lead to a complete rework of pretty much everything during OMFG. People say it's because SOE pushed the dev team to release the game too early, but the whole reason they had to do this optimization is due to stupid mistakes any competent game designer would never have made (metal plates, stairs steps, health and shields bars being separate objects). If they'd made it right the first time we wouldn't need OMFG.
5) wide array of non-gamebreaking, but inconvenient bugs that take forever to fix, like hand movement not synching with weapon reload animation, reload animation not synching with reload progress circle around crosshair, guns that shoot into the center of the screen instead of into the red dot sight. It took the three or four game updates to finally make Phalanx turret IFF markers to work properly. The last patch reintroduced grav lift sound being stuck.
6) They literally can't do a single patch without ******* things up.
7) Game design makes no sense. It looks like they wanted to combine three crowds here: flight simulator, tank simulator and infantry combat, but this just lead to all three crowds hating each other.
As long as this three sides meet each other in combat, there will be no way to make the game equally fun and perceived fair by all three sides.
8) Absolutely ****** up rock-paper-scissor balance; everything pretty much kills everything.

Need I continue or you get my point?