The ugly truth: Fighting Air is Boring.

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

  1. Bortasz

    Striker is on 32 place between Titan Heat and Dalton. He is even worst than Dumbfire rocket launchers.


    Lockons are not Fun to use. Everybody will tell you that. There is no skill, just aim, wait click. And sorry but I fly from time to time, and I know that Pilot can be frustrated by lockons and Flak. By there frustration is without comparison weaker than frustration of all players on the ground that try to kill them, and are unable to do this.
  2. blackboemmel

    does the Striker really perform bad against ESFs, or does this statistic rather show the mentality of the players using it?
    7 hits with Striker = ESF on fire. 8 hits = ESF down. 2 (!!!!) players "grouped up" with Strikers = 10 hits.
    why do i get hit by Striker-Rockets every day i play, but only lose my Reaver by them when already low on health or in a dogfight?
    maybe the Striker is only used by Rambo-wannabe's?
    in the past 2 or 3 months it happened 1 (!!!) time to me, that i met 2 of those MLG-pro's working together with 2 Strikers. no fun: you see all those shiny-red dots on the mini-map following you and bail or die.
    thank you SOE, at least you made this "2-man AA- army EZ-mode tactic" a little bit boring! ;)
  3. Bortasz

    Striker now is a bad version of Annihilator.
    To land all 5 rocket to target add range 100 meters you need 8,5-8.9 second from start locking to target, to rocket actually hit the target. In that time you can be kill 17 times, and that not include insta kill from OHK, tanks and others. Compare to Annihilator when you stick you head, lock fire and forget. You have very little exposure to enemies. Also striker have just 400 meter range compare to 450 of annihilator.
  4. MostlyClueless

    The Striker ain't great but it ain't terrible either. I prefer it to the Annihilator for the higher damage per lock, but it's hardly the slayer of the Skygods either with how exposed you need to be to use it.

    I've gotten a fair few ESF kills with the Striker and even the rare Lib kill. It's just the Striker has been awful for SO long that people have been put off it now that it's .... okay. Not good, just okay.
  5. Goretzu

    I don't see how they can do that, any nerf would simply reduce lib power across the board, as it did after Libs were nerfed post-Live (after their orginal reign of terror).

    Although it is absolute that Lib need to be nerfed, as I said just adding a 5-10m straight flight time (before starting to track) to AA Lock-on launchers would do a lot to rebalance things without buff/nerfing anything.
  6. Bortasz

    The striker compare to Annihilator is garbage. PLus it is not a fire and forget weapon, so id have higher chance of sending rockets to jesus.
  7. Phazaar


    Please read this thread and counter the many valid and undisputed points that have been made regarding the fact that air SHOULD be the counter to everything, because for air to be worth using it must sit at the top of a hierarchy, with tanks, followed by infantry underneath it. Otherwise, as has been covered already, you're eternally better off going for the simplicity of using 48 infantry at all times instead of ever worrying about the logistics of maintaining a vehicular/combined arms assault.

    Second to this, air is excluded from all combat when AA is a hard counter instead of a deterrent, and requires ground to counter it. Aside from the fact that once again, if AA if a hard counter to air (instead of air) there is no reason to put any of my platoon in the air to contest the enemy air; I'm better using AA - fortunately, so are my opponent, so there's just never going to be aircraft in organised fighting. But yes, aside from that, AA is not required to be on the front line as its targets appear above cover in order to attack - it is thus invulnerable to ground assault until the battle is already virtually won - this means that air is excluded from the front line combat, and must instead wait for friendly ground forces to take a base, wipe out the AA, at which point, what exactly is the purpose of air? To camp an already camped spawnroom? That's worked really well in the past...
    • Up x 1
  8. MostlyClueless

    An air is likely to run away from a lock on so you only get one shot. The Striker doing more damage per lock is gives your more chance of killing the ESF, offset by having to maintain the lock.

    If you're up somewhere high a Striker is a pretty nice choice.
  9. Bindlestiff

    Except that air can still combat absolutely everything with no downsides, whereas infantry and tanks have to specialise - only people who like to fly can possibly think that is balanced.

    If VS are out in their Magriders and get attacked by an ESF, unless they get lucky with the terrain, they cannot fight back at all unless they get out of their tank. Think about that; they have to get out of their tank just to be able to target an enemy ESF, or find some elevated area to get some shots off. When out in groups of vehicles there is no MBT equivalent of the Skyguard to provide a real tanky option of AA either, so you have to pull multiple Skyguards (adding to the number of vehicles in area) to provide the level of deterrent / firepower required. A liberator is heavily armoured, ground should have a similarly armoured counter.

    Made of glass? The current liberator is made of glass? The galaxy is made of glass? That simply isn't the case. ESFs are, I'll grant you that, but in my opinion ESFs should be battling other ESFs (which have equivalent health pools), and should approach Libs and Gals with caution. The same should absolutely be true when facing angry infantry with lockons and bursters; ESFs should not expect to survive.
    • Up x 1
  10. Bortasz

    Sorry but BS. Striker have Better damage per MAGAZINE, yes, but Annihilator have better damage per rocket. And you can deliver that rocket faster that entire magazine of Striker.
  11. MostlyClueless

    I was saying damage per lock. As in "One lock on"

    One lock on for a striker is five missiles, only three of which need to hit to do better damage than the Annihilator. Since Air is only going to give you one lock on before flying away getting the most damage possible out of it is a worthy trade off to speed of delivery.

    Or to put it another way. Two people with Strikers can down an ESF if it burns away when you lock them. You need three to do it with an Annihilator. When it comes to Libs Annihilators are more of an annoyance while Strikers are a threat. A small one, but I've splashed far more Libs with the Striker than the Annihilator.
  12. FABIIK

    The problem is that gameplay has vehicles engaged in what should be infantry fighting distance.
    Tanks should be duelling 1000m apart. Aircrafts typically engage targets from afar too.They shouldn't circle forever around buildings.

    Game is held back by the ridiculously low rendering distances... :(

    PS: logistics? what logistics ? Oh yes farmers have to reload from time to time... Luckily towers are everywhere in this 8x8 kms piece of land...
    • Up x 1
  13. D3GGEY

    Actually, tanks should be the counter to everything, followed by air, then infantry.

    Since tanks are the most logistically-intensive unit in the game (they have to worry about transit time, terrain, AV and mine traps, Tech Plant ownership, whether a facility has a tank terminal, resource cost, etc.) they should be at the top. Aircraft only have to worry about some of those things. Moving a tank to a base is much more difficult than moving an aircraft to the same base, so getting the tank to the base should mean more.

    Or do you just want air to be the counter to everything because you're a pilot?
    • Up x 3
  14. Tuco

    The chemistry is all wrong between:

    - hoverplanes, helicopters, quasi-hoverplanes
    -small maps
    -proximity fuse short range anti aircraft weapons

    I didn't like them when it first came out in 2002 in Battlefield1942, I didn't like it when it came out again in 2004 with Planetside1. So I returned back to wwiionline where the chemistry I think is right. It's almost impossible to hit air especially if they're evading at 400 MPH, but when they do get hit just once it will ruin their day. Any aircraft lining up to do a ground attack run has to keep their aircraft in a straight vector making them easy targets. So it's usually a choice between:


    1) Evade anti aircraft, but can't hit ground targets while evading
    2) Flying straight to attack ground targets, makes you easy target for anti aircraft.

    Perfect chemistry. Also there's something very satisfying about component damage, losing a wing, watching aircraft lose aerodynamic control after you hit them and imagining the player on the other end screaming a firely long way down.

  15. Bortasz

    Damage per lock means that only Annihilator have chance of scoring a hit. Striker will lose to many times firing his rockets, giving a pilot more time to hide behind terrain ore use flares ore go outside of there range... So sorry but Striker look good only on paper.
  16. Phazaar


    We're pursuing entertaining game balance, not realistic game balance. Before even worrying about 1km firing distances, you're going to have to get gravity, momentum, and friction down for that... And that's not going to happen any time soon.

    Logistics doesn't just imply rearming troops. If I want 12 guys in the air, 12 in tanks and 24 infantry, I need a smooth process that means when I lose an aircraft, I replace it with another etc. It takes time and can involve constantly taking men from the fight, moving their squads, and relying on my squad leaders to quickly educate new squad members as to their roles and objectives. If there's no incentive to keep up this effort by being able to absolutely destroy any 48 man force that isn't going through the same rigmarole, I'm eternally better using 48 guys as infantry eternally and allowing everyone to focus more on their fighting and less on a complex strategic approach.
    • Up x 1
  17. Phazaar


    Feel free to look me up. Across all my characters, I'm a Light Assault almost three times as much as I'm a pilot... Looking at my main alone, my piloting time is less than 20% of my in game time, and I use almost no other vehicles... On my main alt (TR) I've used my Prowler more than twice as much as an ESF. I'm not a pilot, I'm an outfit player - I do whatever is required by my squad. As should you, and everyone else who feels that they are 'infantry' 'pilots' or 'tankers'...

    I actually largely agree regarding tanks - they should be better than they currently are for the logistical intensity of their upkeep.

    HOWEVER, they synergise with infantry far better than aircraft do, and they live longer to boot. If tanks are made the hard counter to air, air is once again removed from all large battles, since if I can have air domination courtesy of my ground vehicles, I don't need to waste anyone getting in the air to fight for the same. The only time when air becomes relevant is once all of the tanks are gone, at which point there's no need for air to exist since the tanks are more than effective enough against infantry (and they've still got their arses covered if any air comes along).
  18. Phazaar


    HOLD UP.

    I CALL AN END TO THE INSANITY!!!!




    You're surely not telling me you didn't like something about PS1? <_< >_>

    I'm waiting for a little troll emote...
  19. Axehilt


    That type of statistic (death count by source) doesn't measure performance, just raw death count.

    Which means if you had a frequently used weapon that sucked, it would cause a lot of deaths simply because it was frequently used by players. Conversely if you have a weapon that's unpopular or infrequently used (like the empire-specific Striker) then that's going to appear much lower on the list, whether or not it's really good at its job.
  20. Tuco

    I bet the devs can divide by 3