Fix this game, Air is way overpopped

Skyguard can also kill infantry, and it can kill light armored vehicles.. it doesn't only damage air..

Well all vehicles that can be killed by mines have mineguard as an option, so mines don't instant kill you...
It takes 7 mines to kill a maxed mineguard sunderer...

Are you seriously trying to compare your skyguard to tankmines?
Ok, then you have to buff air composite armor to make it block 3.5 times the flak damage, like mineguard, deal?

If I need to learn some respect, then you need to remember what actually happened.

I have plenty of respect for many of Waterson's pilots, but what I said happened during the server smash is exactly what happened. I was there in the sky shooting people. We wiped Waterson's air multiple times with less people despite them using tomcats and coyotes later. That is the simple truth.

You are seriously going to make the argument that the skyguard is AI, AV and AA?

Really?

Skyguards are worthless once the aircraft leave, but according to the pilots here require more than one and should require more than one to deter air. Not kill air, deter air. The aircraft then flies away to the next farm(which btw will require even more skyguards there) while the surviving skyguards are abandoned because waiting 10 minutes for the air to fly back to you with the exact same aircraft they left with is boring.

Bursters maxes at least can change loadouts and find a useful thing to do, if the aircraft have not destroyed every sunderer in the area before they are deterred. I am still waiting for maxes to get a "thumbs out" animation so they can get a ride to the next objective while everyone else redeploys.

You've got to be a flyboy. There is no reason I can think of for you to be so strongly trying to justify the blatantly overpowered position that aircraft is in.

Again, developers have stated flak's ultimate purpose is not to be a hard counter to air. If flak can effectively kill air, then there remains no reason to ever have air bombarding ground vehicles/troops to begin with. That in turns makes A2A ESFs pointless. That spells the complete removal of air vehicles from being a meaningful contribution. Do you not get that?

Yeah and I gave three options in the first post of this thread one of which was buffing AA. You are the one who his missing point of the thread.

beep, beep.....

The air farm as you call it can't be balanced out even if SOE wanted to. The reason is because of the sheer number of aircraft. You see anyone cant just hop in a plane and go hunting. The only thing that would cull the numbers would be the leveling and progression system that was suppose to be in the game on launch. However some smart *** in corporate said "Hey why not just let all vehicles be accessible, and we make a cash shop selling all available weapons?". The management said "Ship it" not thinking about the incredible amount of imbalance it would cause. They have nerfed and buffed every vehicle in the game at least twice due to complaints and guess what? It still hasn't fixed the problem. There is a giant pink elephant in the room and no one wants to address it.

The game is imbalanced because there is no progression and leveling system. This system that the original planet side had stopped people from becoming a jack of all trades soldier and it worked flawlessly. Every cert you earned had to be used wisely, every battle rank gave you access to new abilities. The most important aspect of the game was traded away for a freaking cash shop and it's too late to fix the problem unless SOE does a massive refund to all paying customers who bought all their gear. However most of the proceeds where spent on promoting MLG, liquorice , redbull and strippers.

Nerfing the damage wouldn't do anything because if 10 libs are targeting you death is still going to be the only way out. Lowering the cert gain is also pointless because I can buy what I don't have enough cert points for and there is no hard cap on certs like there was in planetside 1.

I agree there should be a "Refit" option for vehicles, however due to the problem with over saturation of vehicles it would just make the vehicles that are used in zergs all the more annoying.

Sorry but all vehicles have a super counter to them. Air isn't intended to be "deterred" these weapons are to destroy those vehicles outright. Infantry kills ground armor because they have weak points built into them, and a multitude of devices to accomplish the goal. C4,tank mines, rocket launchers, etc. There are only 2 counters to aircraft currently Flak/Anti air rockets which have BOTH been nerfed into the ground...multiple times! Now compare that to a vehicle (any air vehicle) that has NO built in weak points, has hard counters (4 lvls of flak armor & Flares that can be activated every 30 seconds ) to the only counter measures ground units have to defend themselves who really has the short end of the stick? Your aircraft that has the ability to received 40% less damage and counter any lock on rocket every 30 seconds and has no weak spots or the ground units that have post nerfed anti air weapons that barely do any negligible damage in moderate numbers. You tell me who has the advantage.

Yeah, and they were all terrible. I'll address them one by one anyway just for laughs:

Already addressed.

Basically accomplishing the same as the above. Removing air from contributing to fights is a terrible idea, and that is why the developers haven't done such. ESFs, contrary to your belief, can die VERY easily from lock-ons and flak. Liberators are a different story, but they need to be able to take hits or else they would never be able to enter a combat zone without dieing. Focus fire them with two or three skyguards (which the developers intended to be deterrents for previously stated reasons), and you will melt them pretty quickly if they decide to stick around.

Raising the resource costs only further hurts the ability for newer pilots to get out and learn. And considering how steep the learning curve of the air game is already, that isn't a great idea.

Also, "poor pilots" aren't the exception. The people you commonly see in the air aren't first time, second time, or even twentieth time fliers. Most people in ESFs have put many many hours into flying, and they have grown skilled at maneuvering around in the air and around terrain to escape ground based AA. The guys you see dieing to flak are either:

A. Newer pilots who don't have the experience and situational awareness to know better.
or
B. Someone who really wants a kill.

I always give people this challenge when they bring up the supposed ease of killing people anytime anywhere with ESFs and Liberators, and no one ever steps up and does it. Post a single, non-edited video of you just destroying anything and everything on the ground. Go to some large, even pop fights where each side has at least a platoon on each. I don't want a video 10 seconds or a minute in length either. A nice and lengthy video of a single play session. Do that and I might consider your ranting coming from a non-biased perspective.

You never see air completely dominate a battle. That is usually done by tanks. In fact, I am certain that tanks kill infantry far more often than air does. It's like air isn't suppose to attempt to aid ground forces or something.

I just don't get this one-sided train of thought. You people just won't stop complaining until air is totally useless.

Again you managed to read what two posts maybe three, that were specifically pointed out to you. You are jumping all over this conversation without reading anything.

You call out me for saying poor pilots with this :

When I make that perfectly clear that the poor pilots are the exception. And you go on to support that they are the exception in the very next sentence of the above quote. Specifically :

Make some sense.

For clarity that was your response to this:

The second sentence makes it clear it would probably not work.

Beep.Beep.....

Now SOE has built a problem with the entry level piloting, this has been a known fact since release. The whole problem comes down to the aircraft physics in this game are completely unique. But this is an entirely different conversation, start another thread about it if you want.

Honestly I want a legitimate way to fight back against aircraft.

Presently killing an aircraft as infantry or driving a ground vehicle is rare. Making matters even worse, as I stated in the first post of this thread, not only is killing aircraft rare, but playing AA is not rewarded at all in xp/certs.

If people need to do a thankless job at least they should be given experience/certs for what they do. That is not the case presently.

If killing aircraft was actually rare, as you say, then we would see constant swarms of never dying pilots all over the map. Obviously this does not happen. The reason air does not have a large presence in 48+ fights is because of the amount of AA that usually comes with them. The amount of skill required to fly in those conditions is off the charts.

I want to make sure everyone in this thread is clear that vehicles in this game are nothing more than force multipliers for the bigger zerg. The more of something you have, the bigger your force multiplier. Yes, this does include aircraft of all types.

Finally, the only credible claim that I can see you have is the reward for being AA. Since I rarely do AA duty myself, I won't attempt to challenge that part of your post.

That is all.

I didn't call you out at all. I am merely explaining to you that the people you think that are "poor pilots" are most likely not poor pilots at all, but greedy or inexperienced ones. The guys who you think aren't "poor pilots" don't die to flak because they know exactly how long they can stick around, exactly which direction they need to flee towards, and exactly what to maneuver around each piece of terrain to dodge flak and lock-ons. That is experience that leads to that. Those pilots ARE the exception, because they are a very small part of the player base that can do what they do. Which I did say earlier....

I can't read? Earlier I said:

Again, great pilots are the exceptions to jumping into a fight and escaping with their vehicles intact. The "poor pilots" are the norm. It has just gotten to the point that the "poor pilots" are the ones you don't see often because:

A. No one but the people who have a great deal of experience spend significant periods of time in the air
and
B. The "poor pilots" don't stay alive long enough for you to notice them.

No, THIS was my response to that:

"Raising the resource costs only further hurts the ability for newer pilots to get out and learn. And considering how steep the learning curve of the air game is already, that isn't a great idea."


Please, take up that challenge I proposed to you. Show the Planetside community just how easy it is for any one person to jump into an ESF or Lib and go farm anything and everything without dieing.

Seriously play AA for a week or two, you will see

that repaired and came back. After an hour of attempting to kill the same guy, who simply fly's away and repairs before coming back you will understand what I am talking about.

Pilots keep bringing up how they cannot fly over 48+ fights. The reason you cannot is because so many people already got farmed by aircraft that a large portion finally gave up on the objective and even farming xp, so they pulled AA.

You were simply late to the party.

It does not matter if you are flying, driving or ground pounding in 48+ fights, you will die many times in those fights. AA being the most exposed and squishiest. Why should pilots be the exception?

The problem isn't about whether air is the major killer of infantry. The problem is that air is unfun as **** to fight. As an infantryman, I can square-off against a tank. I have a chance to actually kill the thing. Very broadly speaking, the playing field is level. But for some reason, air-tists think that G2A shouldn't be able to kill air, only deter?

The idea that "hurr, only air can kill air, pull an ESF if you want to kill enemy pilots" is absurd. There is nothing more frustrating than sitting in a base watching one or two ESF's or Libs bomb infantry in their untouchable mithril-plated chariots while the handful of infantry below sit uselessly because flak is "a deterrent not a counter" and G2A lock-on is both pitifully short-ranged and easily avoided. If it can kill you, you should be able to kill it, end of story. "Air is the counter to Air" is pretty ******** on its face, given Air's incredible effectiveness against EVERYTHING. "Teamwork" can **** right off, because that is ideal-scenario bollocks and cannot be counted on to balance the game. It takes more than four people working in tandem to kill an ESF or just merely chase off a Lib.

Please do not use "FUN" as an argument for anything on this forum. "FUN" is subjective, so any point you try to bring to the table with that as your basis, falls flat instantly.

Please explain why you feel that Air, which is exceedingly effective at countering everything, should only be countered in turn by A) Air or B) Numbers so overwhelming you were a fool to even try.

Please explain why you feel that Infantry and Tanks should be made to just sit and take it while Air strafes them with relative impunity.

Edit: Furthermore, tell me what you think the point of balancing anything is and, indeed, the point of Planetside 2 from the perspective of its players.

I only ground AA I ever do is with the Striker(before extreme over nerf) and the Grounder, which works out just fine for me. I never feel I am in a situation where I am helpless to anything going against me. This sound like your problem to me.

Your reasoning as to why pilots can't fly in 48+ couldn't be more wrong. Seriously? I am not going to bother explaining.

Finally, attempting to imply that pilots aren't squishy is just silly. Other than the flash, the ESF is the squishiest vehicle in this game.

I hate to be the ********* here but honestly man, learn to play.

Seriously.... Developers have stated numerous times that flak is SUPPOSED to be a deterrent. If flak could kill air as effectively as air could, why would anyone ever pull air?

Because in our experience, this isn't the case? It's more like "air zerg? Time to light them up and receive free certs!" I had trouble convincing one of our skyguard drivers to do training because she didn't want other people to start taking away her farm -.-