Stop AIR complains, boycott it

So you're a casual and find flying hard. Nobody cares about you being bad at air and I really meant it. The elites, SOE, interwebs, nobody.

It's not a another infantry class or a ground vehicle you can jump between and have fun straight from the box. Air metagame is a game inside a game and it will not change so stop crying about it.

You either dedicate yourself exclusively to flying, check out tutorials, practice maneuvers month after month in VR and join dedicated air squads, or don't fly at all. Really, it will save you a lot of time, certs, planetside frustration and forumside rage.

If A2A is meant to be elitist then lets leave it elitist. As soon as the fresh flow of casual cert pinatas (i.e. YOU) stop flowing into the ecosystem it will turn sour and then, maybe, someday we will see an environment which will be approachable by newcomers. Your casual attempts at flying just skews the stats into believing that newcomers actually like flying.

For now, drop that Decimator and pick up an AA rocket-launcher, i.e. the VS Nemesis, NC Hawk, TR Grounder and Stiker, NS Annihilator. If you are wealthy enough also look into NS Bursters on Max units or Skyguards on Lightnings. It will sort out 90% of your A2G problems.

But for the love of nanites, stop the whines.

Yeah, this sound like a recipe for a healthy game, don't you think?

No, it's a recipe for the whole thing to burn to the ground. The only way for SOE's stats to show how bad the air ecosystem is.

Do you know how much did forumside complains affected the game? Coyote Missiles - this sums it up nicely. Newcomers getting screwed even more, yay!

Not nearly enough AI MANA turrets in the second picture. somewhere around 40 or so seems good.

Are you trying to promote Air or Ground or is my attempt at assign such a ruling misguided?
Even though I do fencing in real life, the second picture looks awesome.

Whenever I see a lot of enemy air I'm in my dual burster with extended mags. Suddenly the skies start getting more clear.

It is just satisfying driving off air, even without many kills it is so fun to make them run without really getting to do anything.

And I get a break from the infantry grind, so it is a total win for me. Otherwise infantry HA should try to get the aa locking launcher first, all of them can act like the normal dumb fire with the bonus of letting you get rid of pesky planes.

If as many HA as possible started pacing the lock on launchers air game would be mostly dead cause getting anywhere near a base fight would risk auto death missile salvo.

just do what I do, get roadkills on Valk and ESF That way you get the best of both worlds

wow i bet u are a real sunshine at home to
how about helping the new players?
maybe u don't care but SOE, me and lots of elite players do care
everybody who thinks like u do not need a online epic battle, they need a single game play against AI on easy mode
so u can kill all the enemy's alone and feel like superman

the players that are crying is out of frustration and a cry for help
no wonder ESF gets so many nerfs if people like u refuse to help out the rookies
u don't have to hold there hand, u only have to invite them in your squad so they can learn by watching u
and when nothing is happening (low population) u can give some tips

Failure to play air is a mistake. There are some battles where it's clearly the best tool for the job. Failure to take it during those fights just means you're more likely to be farmed and lose. "Boycotting" air only hurts yourself.

Instead, learn to use air when it's the best tool for the job and keep practicing at it. It's probably the single deepest, most-rewarding type of gameplay in PS2. Why would you deprive yourself of that?

A far better solution is for the elite players to come together and work to make new players welcome. The "Flight School" thing that one guy was hosting is a great example, and I'd love to see more good pilots doing stuff like that. I learn a lot from watching youtube videos, such as MattiAce's, and that's another example. However, good pilots also need to do more to help new players in game. It's tricky to balance being nice to the noobs with trying to actually play well, but here are a few things they could do:

* If the pilot is clearly inexperienced and clearly fleeing, do some damage and let him go. You're not protecting yourself by killing him, you're only depriving him of the chance to practice.
* If you've formed a large squad, stick to the battle, don't go on bullying expeditions. Killing lone noobs 6-on-1 doesn't prove your awesomeness, and it barely helps your team at all.
* Don't wreck a battle your faction has no stake in, particularly when it's 2km from any territory you own. You're not helping your team, you're just ruining someone else's good time.
* Don't camp the warpgate. Seriously, guys.

Rewarding - yes, One-sided - higby yes. Air is many times the best tool but SOE has hid it behind a brick wall. Those who managed to scale the wall sit at the top and kick people in the face while they attempt to climb it too. Elitist don't use ESFs as a tool for the benefit of their faction, they fly for the farm and KDs. Unfortunately all that is left for the poor souls that try to join the air game is to crush through the wall with their foreheads. Air control and trashing noobs outside of warpgates benefits the faction by accident, there's nothing noble in what they are doing.

If you want to stuff the cert pinatas to be crushed by the elites than do it with your own time and effort, don't suggest others to waste their time and fun on it. I've invested 60 h and thousands of certs into ESFs and until I turn masochistic I will not touch this t.u.r.d of a metagame with a stick.

Given that a huge glittery middle finger was offered by SOE as an answer to complains I see no way than forget about it's existence until priorities will start being inclusive of newcomers.

learn to read, you missed to point so much it hurts

It's the game designers job to make a fun game, not players to make it playable.

learn to read, you missed to point so much it hurts[/quote]

yes i have missed the point
man i feel terribly now i will give u a thumps up

my bad with the wall of text I guess

Introducing a massive CoF bloom when in hover mode would, imho, instantly solve most A2A and A2G complaints from newer players.

It would encourage actual dogfighting, which almost anyone would find easier than trying to learn the highly convoluted mechanics of hover mode and reverse maneuvers.

A new pilot, in the current game, either spends countless hours in VR/Test Server practising and committing everything to reflex or they die instantly upon encountering a half decent player.


ESF's will forever remain a means of transport and nothing else for all but the few players willing to dedicate hours of no cert gain/actual game progression, unless something is fundamentally changed about the flying system.

Or dedicated air outfits stop the l33t attitude and actually help new pilots instead of roaming about in gank squads looking for said newbies.


Let it be known that pulling anti air (especially en-masse) is highly satisfying against the aforementioned gank squads.

OP has a point... however the people that play this game for ESF's only aren't going to boycott it. This is the problem. There is a select few who LIKE the air game and will NOT give up A2A/A2G farming of newbs.

I actually had to go download war thunder because I wanted to play a game that had real air combat, not this bastardized arcade flight model that PS2 has.

You do realize that with an "it's hard so let's not even try" attitude you're going to end up being a much worse player than if you practiced and improved, right?

I'm suggesting new players join the air game for their benefit. Deciding not to even attempt to play air is a sure-fire way to become extremely vulnerable to AI ESF and AP+AI or AP+AV tanks, which are otherwise really difficult to deal with.

With dedicated practice, you will be able to kill those threats. With a defeatist attitude, those threats will crush you.

The solution is so simple and I never see it.

Run OPEN air squads. TEACH people. It's the same way we teach infantry and tankers how to get better, OPEN SQUADS and recruitment. The one time I was able to find an open squad dedicated to air I learned way more than watching any tutorial video or practicing in VR. But that was one occasion in my 2 years of playing this game that I saw such a thing.

Unfortunately this will never happen because the skyknights are adamant about only letting those who have already mastered all the required skills and are learned in all the proper etiquette into their sacred order. The majority of them have no interest in teaching or passing on their knowledge, just waving around their epeen and complaining about lock ons and unfair non 1v1 fights. This attitude is why the peasants will forever hate them.

Most G2A weapons are a deterrent and are also much less efficient against ground targets-Skyguard,burster MAX,walker....Even dedicated AA rocket launchers are worse against ground targets. By giving up flying you either expose yourself to air attacks or focus on AA so much that you loose a lot of anti-ground potential. Not even mentioning giving up powerful machines of doom liberators and galaxies are....You just can't say you know PS if you haven't tried the airgame.

A tip for the beginners to be semi-efficient against both enemy pilots and infantry for a really low cost....I think I'm going to regret saying it but...
Buy your ES anti-infantry nosegun (LPPA,Banshee,Airhammer-100c) and Tomcats (500c),team up with other pilots and fly in a group.It's very easy to use Tomcats but rather hard for experienced pilots to kill multiple pilots using them at the same time.Flares only work for 5 seconds and it's very hard to avoid getting locked on by multiple enemies.Also learn the reverse manuever-it's a basic flying skill, certainly going to be useful. Also use the freelook to look around or press T to switch into the third person mode.
NEVER HOVER STILL.

The OP has the right idea, but for the wrong reasons.

While I agree that all vehicles should have the same level of skill. And no one has been able to explain why ESFs should require the skill that they do, when none of the other vehicles do. The issue at hand is a lack of role.

What do skyknights/skygods/elites actually do? They fly around and pick on other ESFs. If its a noob, they pwn it. If its another of their class, they have a rightly jolly good duel. But what does it accomplish?

Nothing. They get a few certs. But they inflate the numbers of any base they fly over. They don't help defend or attack bases. In the end, they do nothing to help win alerts. They are actually more of a hindrance to their team/faction then a help.

The reason for this is because Vehicles other than the Sunderer and Galaxy have no role to play in this game. Well.. they do have a meta-role, and that is cert farming. But that is a different method of play altogether. But for those actually going for the alert victory, ESFs have no point in this game.

Seriously, get 50 skyknights. I will take my 4 man squad against them. I will take their base before we get killed once. Why? Because we don't get in any pointless vehicles. Even if we got in the sky with a Gal, they couldn't possibly shoot us down before dropping on point. Once we're inside the buildings, they're forced to get out (they won't) or buzz off and find something else. In fact 9 times out of 10 they won't even engage the Galaxy if they see it on a trajectory to drop off troops... its moving too fast, will probably crash land after dropping the troops, and won't give them much fun to dink around with.

That's actually how you all should deal with elitist pilots. Ignore them. Without being the center of attention, they are relegated to flying around an empty sky without anyone on the ground to shoot at. If everyone on the ground stopped cert farming and got into the control point buildings or the buildings around the control points. The elite pilots' cert gain would drop to abysmal levels.

And that is what should happen. It would be a benefit to all vehicles as it would force SOE to change base design and give Vehicles a role to fill.

Right now the ESF as a platform is a seriously nerfed machine. The reason for this is because of the elite pilots. If they buff the weapons or even gave it a role in base capture, one side would be at a disadvantage if it didn't have as many skygods as the other side.

Think about it. Right now for the average player. It takes a spawn sundy for them to spawn at to attack. What if Sunderers were as hard to drive as an ESF? What if only 10% of players who took out Sundies could get their Sunderers close enough to a base to spawn people? One side would be trampled because of it.

If they changed ESFs to be as easy to use as Sunderers, you can now give it a role as important as the Sunderer. But until then, it has to remain in a 'nerfed' state compared to the Sunderer. And this goes for all vehicles.