The ugly truth: Fighting Air is Boring.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Bortasz, May 11, 2014.

  1. Slandebande

    Aye terrain against your specific target is usually hard to utilize in an aircraft, but it can often be used to cover yourself from some (eternal) AA sources at least. You don't have to be visible to every single enemy in a 600m radius at all times, that is the point I'm trying to make :p I am not much for flying in PS2 (have flown plenty in other games, it just never caught on here), but I do love to fly through AA nests on cliffs (through as in roadkilling them), and in performing those maneuvers I have been able to use much of the experience I've gathered using terrain to my advantage in a tank. Nothing beats flying through 5-10 people :)

    I was actually having a discussion with some people earlier about improving the capability of tanks to defend themselves against aircraft (either via the secondary as you suggested, or simply altering elevation), which should of course be complimented by a buff to aircraft in general, so as to not make tanks dominate everything. It would simply help to have more counter-play, and be able to defend yourself in most situations (but of course not as effectively as dedicated AA-options). I at least think the concept is intriguing, but balancing it out might be difficult.
  2. GaBeRock

    I'm not talking about realism here. If things were more realistic, I'd just climb up far beyond render range and never deal with flak again. My stance on tower aa is a gameplay based stance.
    • Up x 2
  3. Slandebande

    And computer assisted guiding for tank cannons. It really wouldn't be a very fun game :p
  4. DevDevBooday

    I mean
    YOU yourself are the biggest counter to you when you are in an ESF because you will suicide.
    • Up x 2
  5. Bortasz

    This this. Finally somebody gets my point. Thank you.
    Second post on the subject, my faith in human race is growing.

    The point of this thread is that FIGHTING AIR FROM THE GROUND IS BORING AND FRUSTRATING. I don't call for Nerf ore neither buff. I call for RETHINKING AND REDESIGNING THE AIR_GROUND AND GROUND_AIR FIGHT
    • Up x 1
  6. Ronin Oni

    ^This

    Anyone who thinks AA isn't fun hasn't done it as a team.

    Get 6-12 buddies together. Grab a Gal with a top Walker (Engie needs something to do) Fly and park whereever enemy air is trafficing.

    Burster MAXes and G2A HA's shred enemy air (Pro-Tip: Don't open fire or begin lock when you first see them, let them get close so they won't have a chance to get away). Engie mans the top AA gun, resupplies ammo, and keeps MAXes full health (most boring but most profitable job)

    Because Gal is a spawn point, anyone who dies can just respawn as G2A HA. If you lose too many MAXes just make a round trip to the nearest friendly tower to get some more.

    We used to do this to grotesque effect in ARG0 back in the day not long after launch when Air was OP as hell and runnin the game.... It'd work even better now.

    Oh, the best part is that for some reason enemy air will see your Gal parked and think "OO! Easy points!"

    closer... closer... nevermind that first volley of rockets... closer.... NOW! *everyone opens fire, ESF panics and tries to flee, too late BOOM!*
    • Up x 2
  7. Axehilt


    Wrong. If air beats ground, sunderers would still be the most critical vehicle in the battle. Whereas if ground beats air, there's no similar purpose apart from some light transport/spawn utility from Galaxies.
    • Up x 1
  8. Levtech

    No, get your battle flash its OP.
  9. Codex561

    Same :(
    • Up x 1
  10. Phazaar


    Hilarious attempt. It fails in the last paragraph, where you ask for something more relevant to fight over than the actual objective itself... 47 guys in the air and one guy on the ground aren't going to take a Biolab against 48 guys on the ground... They aren't going to take a Tech Plant against 48 guys on the ground... And they aren't going to take an Amp Station against 48 guys on the ground...

    If you're still arguing for balance based upon kill potential rather than value to the objective, you're still missing the whole point of this game.
    • Up x 2
  11. Phazaar


    Air IS hard countered by ground, as has been noted multiple times, requiring almost no skill whatsoever. What it does require though, is co-ordination. I see absolutely no reason that you should be handed a victory against an opponent that is better than you unless you have in some way out-played him - since your skill is no match for his, time to out-teamwork him with AA (or out-spend him with a Gal ram ;) ).

    There's never a situation in the game where death wasn't your fault/the inevitable conclusion of the course of action you chose to take. Aircraft only get to counter tanks when they themselves are uncountered - your mistake was not being with someone countering the air. Tank mine placement is still avoidable, and any tank could have invalidated this had it chosen to equip itself to counter such a thing.

    And once more, the reason you need to be good at more than just flying is because you cannot fly all the time, especially when fighting a losing battle, and you're a far more useful person in combat if you can do something else when your plane's on cooldown or you're waiting for resources. Further though, it's because if you and all your buddies are only good at air, you're unable to actually progress the battle in any way, since all you can do is kill and never capture or defend a base. You can team up with guys on the ground though, for sure... At which point, once again, since we're talking about platoons here, it's clear that your platoon is no longer only good at flying and your point is still invalid.
    • Up x 1
  12. Phazaar


    Then we return to the point where air is only relevant once the battle has already been won, and once again everyone will ***** that all air does is farm spawncamped infantry...

    Like you said, no meaningful attack or defense exists without ground units, and hence combined arms already exists. What benefit does my air squadron give me if I have to use my ground units to kill their AA first? Surely I'd have been better off with more ground units, and in fact, if I ONLY had ground units, I wouldn't have even had to try to take their AA... They'd have wasted men and resources, whilst I'd have only increased in number and strength. Yay more infantry only victories...

    I really miss when all organised combat revolved around rapid redeploys with 48 infantry and absolutely nothing else... Not to mention the profound sense of relief when coming up against an enemy 48+ which turned out to have made the catastrophic mistake of including any number of tanks or aircraft in their platoons. Easymode commenced... Oh wait. No. I don't miss that, AT ALL.
    • Up x 2
  13. Axehilt


    Eh, but he's wrong. As someone reasonably good at earning score, Skyguards are my 7th most-rewarded weapon at 545 SPM.

    It's probably my 5th or 6th best-rewarded weapon in reality, due to switchable weapons being artificially inflated. For example my overall Liberator SPM is 498 and probably 95% of that is solo-Libbing, yet my Shredder shows 1,477 SPM because of how the score/time math works (time isn't counted when I'm piloting my solo-Lib.) Meanwhile there's less weapon-switching with lightning weapons than almost anything else out there, so it's a far truer indication of true SPM.

    So G2A is very well rewarded as long as you use the right tool for the job. Certainly if someone says all the other G2A weapons are poorly rewarded, I wouldn't disagree. Although I do take Walkers on 90% of my tank pulls and feel it's a great weapon even if it's not a big score-earner.
    • Up x 1
  14. Prudentia

    XP=/=Fun
    i have alot of fun running the CQC BASR Ghost cleaning rooms on my own. i often fail so my K/D is abysmal and my Score is bad. but it's fun. it requires a lot of skill and goes the High Risk/High Reward (single shot/instagib on headshot) line as far as this game can go.
    on the other hand i make lots and lots of points as medic. but it's not fun, because all the VS assault rifles feel like waterpistols. (aside from the Corvus, which is a marshmellow shooter)
    • Up x 2
  15. MostlyClueless

    Good luck having a Sunderer when the sky is filled with Liberators. In this example that I said at the end was a silly thing to even say.
    • Up x 1
  16. MostlyClueless

    Wait so the Shredder is getting nearly three times the SPM as the Skyguard and you even say that isn't really how high it SHOULD be yet the Skyguard is doing reasonably good by your metric?

    I mean one of these stats is either "Too good" or "Not good enough".

    AA have the lowest KPH stats on Dasanfall and they're often only equipped specifically when shooting at air. They're really unrewarding to use. I mean I still pull my Striker when Air is about but it's not because it gives good XP, it really doesn't.
    • Up x 2
  17. axiom537

    I completely disagree. Just last night our squad of 12 was split between the Traverse and the Amp station southern satellite. We had like 4 HA's with hawks and 2 or 3 Burster maxes between the two out posts and the TR kept bringing in wave after wave of ESF's and Liberators and it was glorious killing field of Air Carnage. In about 10 minutes, we easily killed 4-5 Liberators and 10 ESF. We had a great time until those Air vehicles, they are not as OP as they thought they where and team work and coordination wins the day every time...
    • Up x 1
  18. Nerp

    It flew off into the void ;~;
  19. Badname707

    No, just that the skyguard was never going to get as high of a score anyways. In what world does the AA battery get as much experience as the gunship? If it did (kills and damage wise, not by inflating the xp gain), why bother pulling the gunship? You have to think of this game like an RTS, because this game is an RTS. Some units are more powerful than others, but these units are vulnerable to certain counters.
    • Up x 1
  20. MichaelS

    You were shooting those guys that need to pull air to conquer air, I can imagine no other way you have survived on that cliff. Btw, if you were inside a base you only had half the kills because of rockets got the walls/buildings when flying impossible angles out you gun
    • Up x 3