It should not take 10+ people to kill 1 frecking lib

I see the whole "libs cost certs and resources" argument has been thrown away.

You just countered 1 guy spending what are libs 400 resources 450 maybe? With well over a thousand resources spent on AA whether they are skyguards or maxes.

Never mind the thousands of certs each AA user would be required to spend.

Yeah that's balanced.

just for the record i see no problem... air is fine .. sure it takes me a few (not 10) lifes to take a lib down ... but hey this aint packman... who does not love a good challenge

M830A1 HEAT-MP-T:

Note that this was not a shell through the window, but shrapnel through the floor, yet it still caused an instant catastrophic fire.

excuse me ?! not every one .. YOU get annoyed ... for the record i rarely fly, but how it is now that how air should be ... before i was taking down air with one set of striker saldo and they could not hit me back ... it was BORING , now at least its a LITTLE challenging to take air down, still not very hard

The other day, a Lib was running around our base, looking for easy kills no doubt, and I was in the gun tower. The lib didnt think (or care?) the gun was manned and he was flying pretty close, so I hopped in and was able to score numerous direct hits in rapid succession-and at fairly close range. Yes, he flew off(eventually), but wasn't smoking too badly. Now try that in tank or Sunderer(my preferred vehicle). After a few hits, a giant plume of 'Kill me smoke' immediately pours out of the vehicle advertising your location to every scythe\lib farmer your are exact location, so they can finish the job.

'Libs' don't even fly or maneuver remotely like aircraft or even helos in this game, which merely adds to the problem imo. Modelling aircraft to behave more like actual AIRCRAFT-even 'high-tech' ones, might help partially alleviate the issue somewhat. THe awkward looking, but effective convolutions libs conduct to 'bomb' things as they 'maneuver 'is evidence the game needs more thought put into some of its mechanics.

However, I can seldom tell if what if any impact, multiple AA hits have on libs. There is no real way to evaluate it tbh. Most of the time however, the lib just sits there and absorbs it while pounding the AA and everyone around it to scrap. Does any still think AAs being at best, able to drive a lib off for some auto repair time (which an aircraft easily fly away and do risk free) is not remotely realistic? Most everyone else has to dismount their weapon platform and repair it. I have managed to kill a few libs(a couple really) landing for repairs that were caught unawares, but that is very rare.

Its seems the underlying idea was-that AA main role, is not be able to actually kill aircraft, unless used in mass, but rather to mostly drive them off, but only after they have managed to destroy most of what they set out to.

I get killed by other infantry more then anything.

I die to pods second most and tank/lightnings next.

The only time I have lib issues for the most part is when im in a ground vehicle and then its iffy.

But, my outfit is aware of the Air situation at all times, our squad leaders and platoon leaders go into an area of interest and announce right away Air or No Air. If theres a Heavy Air presence we launch our own and try to bring it to a manageable position. Weve filled galaxies with burster maxes to drop and destroy chasing air. As was said before, its combined Arms, those are certs flying around up there. You have to create no fly zones.

*Slowclap* Sir.

Brings me to my broken Rock-Paper-Scissors Balance of the air-game. Between the 2 extremes of having too much G2A and to little effective G2A, there's a part missing from the balance. G2A either deters fully, completely denying targets due to saturation (which harms the greater ground game), or deters nothing due to lack of presence and/or effectiveness due to bugs or the few,G2A, that do exist getting taken out quickly as they're not deterring anything (which also harms the greater ground game).

What is:
Libs are supposed to be excellent against ground, and are. But they're also too good against air.
ESF are supposed to be excellent against air, but they're mostly being used for the ground.
G2A either works too well due to saturation (which is bad), or doesn't work (also bad).

What's expected:
- Libs should be feared by G2A and either forces G2A to primary them, or forces an ESF presence, which should more easily intimidate them.
- ESFs should be the bane of Libs and other ESFs, but are easily deterred or, if to greedy, easily destroyed by G2A. (ie, 1 ESF shouldn't stare down the barrels of a dual-burster, have a cup of tea, and take out the MAX.)
- G2A should be forced to either scatter or work together to down Libs. They shouldn't have the issues they are having to low and slow flying ESFs which can unload their payloads and still manage to escape.

Disclaimer: G2A refers to actual AA weapons not Tanks that get chances to fire at air targets.

(Yes, this is a repost from another Thread, but few people consider this route of balancing)

Quite laughable if you think that you'll be able to pull out 2 Skyguards as the place is already being bombed. If there's three libs, that's especially gG for those 4 people. Keep in mind that not EVERYONE has Skyguards. Not everyone has a dual burster MAX. The amount of resources you'll need to pull up for a counter against the Libs and aircraft and solely that, is ridiculous.

My only solution would be to, as someone said some threads earlier, to allow vehicle resupply stations.

The biggest issue with AA is that once you pull a Skyguard, you'll be doing only that - sitting and waiting for aircraft. As a Lib, you can kill other aircraft, other infantry and other vehicles are relative ease, granted they have no AA. As a Skyguard? Well, unless you're gonna be pulling out another Lightning, you're basically stuck focused on ONE thing.

That's where this battle becomes unfair. Because Skyguards can only be Skyguards and only focus on aircraft. There's little incentive to pull them unless they can change out to an HE Lightning after the skies are clear from air. Otherwise they're stuck roaming the land, doomed to die to most vehicles out there.

I'll be fine with Libs once us ground players get the chance to at least "resupply" our vehicles to change their loadout without having to spend more resources. Similar to infantry resupplying to another class.

I've always felt liberators were overpowered, and while we're at it, you shouldn't be able to swap seats as it currently works. No one should be able to be a 1-man liberator wrecking crew, it's just silly.

Skyguards also work well against infantry, when I run mine I spend quite a bit of time looking around for C4 Fairies trying to blow myself and nearby vehicles up. If the area is really dead and you are away from the heavy fighting, you can step out of your vehicle and deploy your AV turret (since you SHOULD be an engineer). The second air turns up you just hop back in the vehicle and start pounding.

My good friend who is a COMPLETE fps newb with a 0.6 K/D is able to pick up nice kill streaks with the skyguard - so I know it is newb friendly.
https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428100110522366705/killboard

Pilots have all spent time on the ground - a LOT of it. These complaints about air farming hapless infantry ring false for a reason to us, because we have spent plenty of time pounding dirt. If you are in a REAL no-win situation where air has you pinned down, then redeploy. That fight is over. Otherwise throw up some AA or learn to not wander around in the open while the enemy controls the sky.

That extra 2% mitigation must really be something...

I was watching http://www. twitch.tv/ kudochop with Kudo gunning a fully certed shredder lib and being piloted by a fcrw dude and he killed at least 20 esf before they were shot down. When they were shot down it was by a group of 6 mosquitos, kudo was able to kill 4 before they got wasted. Liberators are like flying tanks that mow vehicles and infantry down as fast as a scat max killing softies. I think soe ****** up buffing liberators this much.

Edited for broken media link

6v1 killing 4 makes me think forumside is actually taking the pilot community's advice and pulling ESFs. Sounds like a turkey shoot to me.

I was half serious with my comment, but realistically ten G2A launchers would obliterate one lib regardless of flares.

The issue and why people are annoyed with this update is PLAYING AA IS BORING AND POINTLESS WHEN THE AIRCRAFT SIMPLY RUN AWAY. You don't get anywhere near the certs shooting anything else would give you. Sure you might hold them at bay, but you do so willingly sacrificing for your team, which is not fair when if you're not there air can simply just demolish everyone and get far more certs per hour.

It's an unfortunate truth, but air needs some fundamental changes so that AA is not total **** to run.

This is the same argument armor has for the infantry game too, and I tend to agree here however AA is a lot different than pulling anti ARmor because anti armor can be pulled without spending certs (ignoring C4 fairies). To properly counter air you need decent AA ie: dual AA maxes, or a skyguard all of which cost a ton of resources. Sure, you can swap your MAX weaponry, but then you're still a slow-*** MAX and have to trundle to another station once the lib has repaired and came back to farm some more.

AA is fundamentally broken due to this. A strong enemy air presence forces some people to sacrifice certs per hour and a ton of resources to properly counter unlike strong armor presence.

Well, the OP said "kill," and that's what I was responding to. If you want to get away with 1 guy countering a 3-man Lib, then you're going to have to settle for deterrence. If you want to have a clear advantage over somebody and wreck them without taking significant losses yourselves, then you need to put more resources on the table than they did. Otherwise you have to settle for a stalemate and hope your personal skill will win you the encounter.

I just bust out my cheap (250 certs) G2A launcher and that is usually enough to keep air running if I am joined by a buddy or two. Hopefully a few others do the same, or of course it is futile. AA maxes in outfits have no problem keeping repaired/rezed/ammo'd and they can change to AI or AV easily enough. I have played ground plenty, so I have done all of these things on my various alts... Infantry who doesn't fly have a tendancy to overestimate air and fail to recognize that the aircraft balance isn't the problem. The problem is infantry who don't bother to look up or fail to coordinate with teammates in fending off air.

This idea that an air vehicle that cost 300+ resources and has some 8000 certs invested in it should be easily countered by 0 resource 250-1000 cert easy-mode counters is problematic. AA either needs to be coordinated, or it needs to be used to assist your friendly air overhead... it is not a magical hard counter nor should it be.

You seriously think that for casuals those "rules" doesnt apply to casuals?

What sort of casuals are we talking about that lets a single infantry just stand there in the open, not using stealth or positioning to kill their tank? What sort of casual pilot will die to a single tank that isnt suprising him or using positioning?

I think its fair to say that we should exclude players that dont even have basic control over their vehicle, if a tank dies to a single Infantry that didnt suprise it or have a very good position then that tanker probably managed to flip the tank upside down.

The reason the air is almost inaccessible to casual/average players isnt because of the ground AA, the only times I have heard this complaint it has been with pilots that just started out and didnt have flares and/or vastly over estimated the time they could stay in the area after using flares. The most common complaint is that the casual/average pilot doesnt have a chance against a better pilot, unlike tanks there is close to 0% chance of escape from a better pilot and in several cases they dont even get the chance to try and escape so putting that on the ground AA is imo completly unfair, most pilots gets killed by other pilots long before they get shot down by ground based AA.

We dont want EZ mode weapons, I at least want a weapon that has a TTK comparable with the ESF noseguns. It just baffels me how its OK for ESFs to have that ability to quickly kill other ESFs while anything on the ground has no where near that TTK and they cant even chase after ESFs.

Or are you going to say that it wouldnt be fair to have what would be a almost stationary ESF that can only fire up in the air because its on the ground? That would be kinda hilarious.

Why shouldnt a lone player with a AA vehicle be able to vaporize aircraft?
ESFs does this all the time every time of the day all year around to ground vehicles as long as there isnt a lot of AA around, how can that be allowed?
Oh yeah "combined arms game", wich ofc doesnt mean air should have to rely on anything only that everyone else should have to rely on others and preferably air to counter their air.


*Edit*
ah, forgot to add this.. your friend with the Skyguard. I counted at least 2 times he died to air while being a Skyguard, the counter gets countered by what its supposed to be good against?

Thats about how relevant kill boards are.