Nothing but air zergs again, why bother playing?

What I notice is when the sky is polluted with aircrafts, almost nobody bothers with AA at all, they just go up in the sky to join everyone else, very annoying for those on the ground. I basically just take my Lancer and hit Libs. Bursters are OK if you're close enough otherwise you're going to miss 60% of the shots.

Real quick, it's not that it can't be done or he doesn't know how, it's not that I don't know or don't know how. That isn't the issue, it's possible to scare off planes, I get it. The point is it's not fun, not fun to the point where I'd rather not do it to the point where I'd rather redeploy...

I've seen very few players who make certs as fast as me (~666 SPM) and Skyguard is something like my 5th or 6th fastest source of certs. It's not the top, but it's stronger than most things in the game.

The problem Zenanii, is that not everyone has the launcher unlocked. Others have max resource but no dual bursters and those with dual have no resources. A lot of others don't care because when you kill ppl you get much more XP.

Come to Mattherson, where every single person has oft-used loadouts specifically designed to facef*ck aircraft. It's no mystery that every libsperg of note on Mattherson stays the hell away from Indar 99% of the time, preferred instead to crap all over 1-12 fights (and then ******** about getting C4 rammed by stealth, afterburner, racer3 Reavers I mean GET A LIFE geez)

If you mention the word "Hawk" around TR/VS pilots they start instinctively reaching for alprazolam bottles

Here we go again...

Guys, why? Don't you want to be proud of the gaming community you're a part of? What kind of impression do you think the constant complaining makes?

It's definitely always been a problem that new players don't start with Dual Bursters. That was a dumb design move imo.

More recently I've decided it would be much better for the game if new players started with Skyguards (possibly at the cost of all other Lightning weapons; while the Viper is a little better for the Lightning overall, the Skyguard is an important role for new players to be able to perform.)

It's worth mentioning that new players start with a fairly competitive ESF loadout (although lack of rocketpods is disappointing too) and that's definitely their best option, but of course in that case it's a matter of the player being skilled enough to use the ESF as the effective A2A platform that it is (which is why the first two weapon unlocks are important.)

Honestly the launcher should probably advertise itself better to new players as being more of a time-limit on foolish enemy air, and not a genuine AA solution (because really it isn't. G2A lockons are trash and dying to one is extremely rare.)

Ideally it all ends with skygod tears and rageposts, which would make me proud of this community indeed.

I'm proud of anybody who will call out Liberators as being OP bullsh*t. I'd be ashamed if this was like post-release where everybody rushed to defend HE spam because they were abusing it themselves.

Pretending like everything is fine and dandy in Candy Land doesn't help the game either, you can't always just sweep issues under the rug.

It's situational - Liberators CAN be overpowered, but there's no excuse for ESF dominance. ESF's take damage from small arms and while it's death from a thousand cuts, Carbines, ARs, LMGs all have minimum 500-600 RPM. Three people firing on an ESF are going to get it smoking.

The problem with AA duty is it is very specialized, you can't take on tanks effectively, and while it does damage infantry, it's not nearly as effective as other options.

I can't stand seeing enemy LIbs in the air and friendlies NOT pulling Lockons. Dying to a Lockon is rare in an ESF if you've got a godo pilot, but Libs are slower and much more susceptible to ripple fire. This now boils more down to the infantry on the ground actually working together.

Lone wolves get picked off easily, teams can down Libs quickly, and ESFs don't go close to places where they get plinked to death.

Am I the only one that has zero problems with aircraft when playing infantry?

I've embraced the air zerg. Have my mossy 100% certed out and am now on to the Reaver. I am very much enjoying the reaver, that Air hammer is wicked.

There was this parallel universe theory i read that everything is opposite on another Earth. I guess we know where the real Paisty went

Something must be wrong with me. I actually like Anti-Air Duty.
But it might just be that I detest Aircraft dominating the ground battles so much, I just enjoy taking them down (or at least drawing their fire at me)

On the other hand, it is quite tedious sometimes.
You constantly have to watch out for aircraft in several directions and angles all the time (if your field of influence is too small you are no help). Thats also because even in large battles very few people seem to spot these flying annoyances.
You constantly have to watch out for units on the ground, because if you notice them because they hit you its usually too late.
You constantly have to watch the map, at some times, as to not miss the battle line flowing into you, and if you are too far back you don't help the fighters.
You constantly have to know your environments, to not get blown up by revengeful (previous ESF pilots) or intelligent (could be both) Light Assaults

When you try to get into a good position / change position, there is always a hill you cannot climb, a wall, a path too small, a side where the battlefront is, a side where a flanking vehicle sits, that nobody seems to care about, and more...
When you try to move to get a chance to hit something flying away or vanishing behind a hill / object /... in 2 out of 3 times your aim gets thrown off because you hit a small bump
When you turn towards a spotted Plane on the map, 1 out of three times you miss it, because its at a different angle (e.g. flying low to the ground, and your viewing angle is small.
When a Liberator / ESF fires at you, you are normally blinded hard.
When you have deterred a ESF / Liberator once, the intelligent ones sneak up on you, which they can do at nearly all places of the map.

When you do your duty well, suddenly you are standing around with nothing to do, walking up and down, waiting, finally switching to another loadout if you can, or trying to damage anything enemy like with a skyguard - only for Planes to show up again when you have switched loadout / drawn the attention of ground enemies.

And then sometimes you come into position and no Aircraft are there left and right, up and down, all around.

Some of that issues only hit Skyguards, but on the whole, the experience as Anti-Air is quite stressfull, a constant watchout in every and all directions, with limited kills.
Its less stressfull most of the times to sit in full sight of the enemy battlefront inside a MBT.

Still, I like it. Maybe because its a bit challenging.
I think its just hard to like for many, because sometimes its really frustrating.

Sometimes I just wished spotted Aircraft would show up at the deploy map. Then I wouldn't have to spawn at blinking spots to see if there is need of Anti-Air before I deploy it.
Oh well, but then sometimes I wished I'd have to look out for only three types of enemies mainly and mainly one direction instead of all - like aircraft I mean ;-) - But I guess then it wouldn't be fun anymore

True, in a perfect world you would have your own air to keep enemy air occupied, and AAA would only be used to tip the scales.
Preferable I would like to see the skill ceiling drastically increased for AAA, which means it would become a more engaging task, and would also allow SOE to increase the potency of AA without breaking air.
Sadly I'm completely out of ideas for what that would be (remove max elevation on lightning AP and cut armor damage in half? )

Indeed, imo the biggest f****-up in the history of ps2 (gameplay wise) was launching the game with zero viable AA available from the get go.
Still, reducing the cost to 250 certs was a decent move and is a fairly reasonable price for at lest a fighting chance for infantry.
It's rough, but not unreasonable.

ESF's are made out of wet paper

Well I recently unlocked the Hawk for my HA and I find that a /lot/ of air-zergers tend to fly away just on my getting a lock on. Granted, doesn't kill them - but makes the air at least clearer. Granted Libs still mess me up pretty rotton due to their imo waaaay to high health, but that's what the redeploy key is for ;P

I do AA duty quite often and consider air the first thing that HAS TO GO in any battle, Unless i can reach the A point mostly thru buildings and not get stuck out in the open. In that case i disregard air and tanks.
Air Zergs: When i see 20 mossies attacking my Vanu base, if there is plenty of time on the cap point timer, and i have enough resources, I'll pull a Max. I have dual bursters (non- certed into) and have nanite auto repair. I try to never go outside the spawn shields for more than a moment if i have to, to shoot, and shoot thru them if i dont have to go outside to shoot. I can easily decrease the zerg of ESFs and Libs wihout too much jepardy this way. Going outside and staying there is only possible if there are medics and engies who will help (not always the case). Once you start killing off a few ESFs the job gets progressivley easier.
Of course, the problem comes when you have 20 planes and a few tankers shelling the area. At that point, its the tankers that kill my Max and not the planes. The nice thing about the Max is that i can switch to dual comets (AV) and start taking out the tanks or Sundys and then swithch back to bursters if air increases. When switching to Anit infantry i always die as seldom do I get Engi support and a run at the A point and a valiant effort to kill all defenders gets a job half done and usually no back up to finish the job and then its time to spawn as something else. I have never liked the Skygaurd for some reason, but never used one either. I just think the Max has a lot more versatility to deal with any form of attacker and you can switch load outs to specialize.

/Disagree I think the Air game is pretty damn good right now and ground based AA is more then fine, for the non-idiots and those that work together in squads and platoons. We have been seeing much more Air vs Air battles, because more people are moving away from the OP's FAILED view that ground based AA is the proper counter to air vehicles, so they are getting smart and making sure they have their own Air craft at fights.

If you are relying on ground based AA to counter an air "zerg", then you are playing this game wrong...You may not like it, but in every fight there are 3 components there are infantry, there are ground vehicles and there are air vehicles. The first two are the easiest for most people to deal with because they operate on the same plane, the third air vehicles operate much faster and in the much larger 3 dimensional space above every fight and you can not expect ground forces that operate and interact basically in a 2 dimensional space to be able to interact effectively with vehicles that operate in 3 dimensional space. If your empire is not fielding enough Air vehicles to counter the enemy that is your fault, because the enemy is hitting you where you are weak...

In every fight each empire needs to be prepared to field Infantry, ground vehicles AND AIR VEHICLES. If you are not, then you are doing it wrong. We do not need more AA, we need more Air vehicles defending their ground troops. In my experiences Air vehicles prey on ground troops when one or both of two things occur. The ground forces stop pulling AA, because they are tunneled visioned and only focused on ground targets or they do not have friendly Air vehicles above them.

my skyguard has been pretty happy so far this weekend on matherson n-n