It almost seems like air is hurting the game.

It almost seems like air is hurting the game.

Imagine you just drop podded in for your first time (Yay!) into... um... lets say a tech plant. You see A point and 'Capture this and that!' stuff all over the place making you understand the basic concept of the game (with the help of the tutorial). Shoot the bad guys, capture the points, kill the gens, etc. And you play happily in that meat grinder.

But then (Dun dun duuuun), you see something flying in the air above you! ('Its a bird! No, its a plane! Yes is the lolpod ESF AWGOD!!')

You just died to something you had no idea how to counter. But on the death screen, you see a tip saying 'Heavy Assaults have access to anti-air lockon launchers to dispatch air' or something like that. So you purchase a lockon launcher with the certs it took you so much time to get!

Then you see that ESF again and think 'I'll have that guy this time!' but to you great surprise...
A) He used his flares and shot you dead again.
B) He killed you before you could lock on to him
C) You shoot him, he flies away. And you think to yourself that you won't be seeing him around anymore! But in a dozen of seconds he comes back and lolpods you!

Frustrated you...
A) Quit the game
B) Post a rage thread on forums/reddit
C)Keep on trying! Join an organised squad/outfit and shoot him down. Make friends and contribute to the community by giving advice you gain overtime.

From what I posted, what can we pull?
I will do it similar to Q&A.

ESFs are OP - That is not the problem, they are very fragile.
This game has poor experience to new players - That is false, if not you the ingame tips you would have gotten that far.
Air is too hard to counter - That might be the problem, the ESF just came back fully repaired and killed you.

But at the same time, air is hard to use.

So the final conclusion is that air might be ruining it for new players.

I am not asking for nerfs and buffs or anything.
Since the game is driven by new players in a way. What do you think about air giving a poor experience to new players?

TL;DR - Read last paragraph.

If they made this exact game, but the only vehicle in it were sunderers, I think it would be way more popular.
Anyone else agree with my line of thinking??

You forgot:
New player decides to pull air and meet the guy at his own game, dies very quickly then cannot try again for a while.
New player decides its the keybindings for air, realizes you cant bind yaw to mouse, undeterred he digs out his flight stick, realizes its unusable because the minimum sensitivity of 1.0 makes him rotate 20 times for each millimeter he moves the stick.

Considering there is far more polished/far better preforming (both server and fps wise) i would have to say no, or atleast i wouldn't be playing it.

The player did not know where to get air because nothing tells him that.

There are other free to play MMOFPS?? What are their names so I can check them out??

I have 100+ days of playtime across 6 characters, and Rocketpods are still the bane of my existence...
Galaxy bulldogs are my second most hated thing in this game... so much armor, so much damage, 350m thermal range.. total BS.

Of course it would be.

CoD is the #1 FPS for a reason.

That wouldn't make it better... it would just make it more popular (read: easier to pick up and play with lower skill ceiling)

Explosive spam of all kinds makes new player retention bad not just that from air.

I am guilty of spamming with Mag spam I am sorry to all the BR1's I have killed

CoD is dying a slow death. Activision are going to pump half a billion dollars into promoting Destiny which is a "MMOFPS."

Should hand-holding be a requirement to get into this game? People who started at release and are still playing now did not even have a tutorial to go on.

Does being a new player excuse you from the learning curve? Should everything be told to you up front? I personally think not. If you want to do something, you have to learn the ropes first. If you aren't willing to learn, you probably weren't that interested in playing much anyway.

That's how I see it.

Of the 2 personal friends I introduced to the game, both quit rather quickly in large part due to getting farmed by aircraft. Of the small group of friends who introduced me to the game, they all quit and I'm positive from my experience playing with them they would list dealing with aircraft in their top 3 reasons for quitting the game. So the answer to that question based on my experience would have to be a solid yes. Its not just a poor experience, its driving people away from the game entirely.

except that it's not an MMOFPS because of their small player pocket instancing....

but yeah, I know.

and CoD isn't really "dying" either though Ghosts certainly flopped the hype train is a runnin for Advanced Warfighter (we've already started referring to it as CAW lol)

When your argument starts off with "tell me other games so i can go play them instead of the one im arguing for" its not a good one to use.

Part of the rite of passage for any newbie in Planetside 2 is learning not to get farmed by air. Make all these posts you want, but you, the players who see these new guys running around clueless, you have to teach them. Air is here to stay. Teach new players and help them out. The time you spent making this post is time that could have been spent telling a new guy to stop spawning at this base that is camped to high hell and fall back with you guys to setup a defence.

As much as I really do like Tank whoring in games, I cant really argue with this logic. THe most fun I had in BF2142 and other games like it were in no vehicle matches.

It really is no fun to be on the receiving end of tanks and crap.

When the tanks and air are fairly balanced on either side and are concentrating on AV roles over AI then it can lead to some pretty amazing and dam near cinematic experiences that only planetside 2 has. Problem is that this rarely happens and more often then not it is more the tanks and air avoiding each other and farming infantry.

not saying all tankers and pilots do, and to those of you who do mostly AV with your tanks/aircraft you're awesome!

Infantry is ruining the game. If everything was vehicles with no aquisition timer, we'd all be having a blast. Plus, territory couldn't cap so you never get warpgated! No max cheese, no shotguns, no camping snipers, no spawncaping/heroing, no op thermals, implants wouldn't be added... imagine if, as a new player, you got dropped straight into a tank? You'd die soon, but then just pull another one! Cert income would be through the roof, so everyone levels up quickly.

(See? The argument works both ways, don't try to further cut out 2/3rds of combined arms to fit your playstyle.)

The problem is, how else are vehicles supposed to affect the game? They don't cap points and sunderers are even getting their own defensible garages. if everyone wanted novehicleside, esamir would be a lot more populated. Do you know where some of the biggest fights happen? That's right, NW indar, where vehicles are everywhere.

ESFs are to hard to counter? Are you kidding? A single burster arm max will scare anything but an AI nosegun ESF from a fight, even if it doesn't kill them, and especially if they camp in spawn. IMO, infantry based AA should be nerfed, but skyguard should be made available to everyone. If you want to kill, not deter, a vehicle, you should have to pull a vehicle yourself (or at least get in a turret) or why should people bother with vehicles? Liberator is OP, but omly compared to other vehicles. Instead of nerfing everything, why don't we buff every other vehicle weapon up to its standard to compete? Then noobs can, instead of trying to beat them, join them. Lib farming? They pull an ESF, and stock nosegun does enough damage to kill the lib, even with poor aim, unless the lib pilot is particulaurly good.. Of pull a skyguard, with more damage.