Why ESFs are Despised, and Always will be

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Eclipson, Jan 19, 2014.

  1. nightbird

    Flying is frustrating to deal with as ground, but it's even more frustrating for beginners to learn. Maybe a pilots training discount would be good, 100 resources ESFs if you have less than 1000 certs in ESFs, 200 resource ESFs if you have less than 2000 etc... up to the current cost.
  2. RemingtonV


    Yeah I made a suggestion in one of my posts to make a aircraft's cockpit weaker to small arms fire. Not so much that you can OHK a ESF with a sniper round to the cockpit, but enough that 2-3 guys firing into it would be enough to make it back off or weaken it for a AA to finish it. This would only weaken ESF to infantry in that when they aim down at the ground to fire thier rocket pods (or in the Scythes case the L-PPA...THEN rocket pods) they expose their vunerability to small arms fire. This would give infantry atleast some ability to fight back. Even with lock-ons it isnt enough, if a ESF has flown in from behind a hill and has its sights set in roughly your general area, even if you start the lock on as soon as it appears, you will be dead before it finishes. I usually forgoe that mess and just fire my LMG, hoping to atleast do scratch damage to it so it will have to leave and repair before coming back again.
  3. Plorf

    Very good post.

    (Also I don't mean to hijack but this same principle is why I dislike Light Assaults, among other things.)
  4. DonAlfrago

    I think that people just dont understand that the way to fly in this game is to do what i do on Connery - run lockons 100% of the time and run with air squad 99% of the time. Go lookup my stats - i'm a master of lockons and i dont care that the rest of the server calls us gank squad. To each his own style...we always drop in with twice as many ESFs and destroy others...
  5. Taemien

    The fix is simple. Normalize the vehicles. All of them are as easy or as hard to pilot/drive as each other.

    This means a Flash, ESF, Galaxy, or Tank are just as easy or hard to use as each other. I've said this for over a year, and no one has been able to dispute why this shouldn't be the case. Most just ignore it.

    Reverse manuever? Nix it out of the game. Unless you can give something similar to the Flash, MBT, Lightning, and Infantry on foot. Make everything as accessible or inaccessible as everything else. If you want a high skill ceiling, make it across the board. Low, everything is. Same thing with low or high floors. Make it all the same.

    Doesn't have to be the same thing, just equally complex/simple.
  6. Hatesphere

    They could pretty easily simplify flying and still include reverse maneuver style combat, but any time anyone brings up simplifying the flight mechanics so that more then 10% of the population can even think about going into the air; The pilots cry about it being "dumbed down" with very few additional argument points that dont hinge on the spacious concept of "skill".
    • Up x 2
  7. Taemien


    I'm equally fine with tanks and flashes being just as hard as ESF's to use as an alternative.
  8. Cz4rMike


    How would you simplify it?

    His own style? you have no style and you have no skill. You're no better than farmers obliterating spawnrooms. Even more, you're the very bottom of gamers if you praise your lock ons.

    I think normalizing vehicles is silly. The skill required to use something should be proportional to reward. Also you must count in different types of skill, which is not easy.
  9. Taemien


    One person is equal to one person.

    So skill to reward comparisons are irrelevant.
  10. Cz4rMike


    Of course it's relevant. It's the reason why you can one shot headshot people with sniper rifles and why you can't do this with LMG.

    Not really following your logic. Also, what do you mean by "one person..."?
  11. FocusLight

    That's why I love them. Shooting them down is like cracking open a huge fat pinata made out of their ego and watching as their joy and fun spills out like confetti. The fun of the flying farmers is to cause as much misery as possible, so I enjoy extracting tears and suffering from them in return, and I am growing exceedingly proficient at it. :D
  12. Icedude94


    Indeed. People who have spent a decent amount of time doing air to ground probably know a lot about which anti air weapons are most effective in different situations.

    Here's a 1 hour video for you then. Edited only to add in music and captions. It was a video requested by outfit members who wanted to see how I played through my eyes rather than hear me talk about. There's even an anti-air squad we have set up half way through the video. We're not even in our serious ops mode. This is just us casually playing together for an hour. Incidentally, this video ended up getting us a lot of new members who were looking for a stronger teamplay experience.



    Though that anti-air section highlights the reason why when we focus on anti-air now, we never use only one method. Now we stick to at least 3 methods working together to create an integrated air defense system.

    Our outfit motto is "teamwork OP!"

    Because you "have to share kills" is an excuse never heard which shows that the people in RCN6 have a very different attitude towards playing the game than a lot of people and I'd like to say that our collective performance during alerts is proof of our success. I bet you lock your MBT's because you're afraid of your secondary gunnery stealing your kills.

    We operate in small groups which necessitates people having to use the same weapon systems for multiple roles. My above average ability in hitting aircraft with unguided weapons came not from a desire to show off MLGpro skills, but out of necessity of not having enough people to divert manpower to doing anti-air. I had to multi-role providing anti-armor support for the squad, to also providing anti-air.

    Now it's good you noticed that in my anti-air video, you saw that most of my kills were aircraft flying straight. A core concept I teach in our Sunday training ops for hitting aircraft is to hold your fire until the enemy aircraft starts shooting. Once an aircraft begins it's firing run on a ground target, they always fly straight and maintain their speed for the duration it takes to get their rounds off. This is why rocket pod and AI nosecannon ESF's are much easier to destroy than like a hornet ESF.

    Becoming familiar with the projectile velocity of different weapons and their drop is something that only takes a few days, but the key is to hold fire until the other aircraft starts shooting.

    So here's a video more like what you requested. Some of my anti-air montage was taken from this video.

    The background: When we get new members, it's important to get them certed up in as many roles as possible and as quickly as possible. In this video, I take one of our new members tank-hunting in my vanguard. There are plenty of anti-air kills in just this one session.



    By also having newer people become more experienced with vehicles weapons early on, it frees up the veteran members to pull their own certed up vehicles instead of having to be a gunner for one. When nanites are available, our veteran players will actually pull additional vehicles just so we're at maximum combat efficiency. This occurs most often with our most experienced pilots who have fully certed reavers pulling an extra one for someone who is newer to flying.

    Since they expanded the sharing of xp between people in a vehicle, higher level players in my outfit are often driving around battle sunderers to help people in our outfit cert up.

    I know that idea is unfathomable to you since driving doesn't net you any kills unless you run over infantry and ram vehicles(ramming harrassers is fun fun fun).

    If I'm hoofin' it to play as infantry and not using my nanites and somebody else wants to use my maxed out vanguard to play tankhunter, I'll pull it for them.

    Now when you try to justify ESF's being OP, you keep talking about their potential. There's a big difference between the potential of the aircraft and actually reaching that potential.

    If vehicle weapons were judged by the forums solely on their potential, everybody would be screaming that hornet missiles are OP.

    Did you know that hornet missiles can kill a burster MAX with just 2 direct hits? I know you're already thinking it's impossible to pull off because the ESF would get torn to shreds. Well in my outfit, we pull it off all the time not just against bursters, but also against skyguards by using one aircraft to distract while another aircraft(using max vehicle stealth) comes in for the kill. They can kill single infantry targets just as effectively as rocket pods and have a lower exposure time. Their ammo capacity also means they can do a lot more runs against a lone infantry target before needing to resupply. Why isn't anyone crying about hornets?

    How do we use rocket pods effectively from stand-off range in large fights? We use the platoon leader role as a joint terminal attack controller. We can't accurately make out the infantry we're hitting. We just throw huge volleys of rockets wherever the JTAC sets the waypoint.

    Do you want proof of the value of having people on the ground coordinate with air by being our eyes and marking targets?



    I'm putting forth that the most effective groups that do air to ground are being creative and using a lot of organization and teamplay that you choose to ignore. All the solo pilots who are just trying to "farm" actually have very little impact on the overall battle.

    People who use weapons more creatively and as a team will always achieve better results than those who are selfish k/d jockeys.

    The people you choose to keep company with has a very big impact on what tactics and ideas you can try and your comrades have the most overall effect on your gameplay experience.

    You can take the Darwin approach and adapt and evolve how you play to survive and win...

    ...or you can "hold mass" in forum threads like this and pray for the almighty hand of intelligent design, Mr. Higby, to answer your prayers and perhaps even, to gain answers as to why your gameplay style is punished while others faiths-err, outfits, are rewarded.

    In the words of our holy father, Higby the Almighty, who created this virtual universe that we live in and made all things holy and sacred, "UPGRADE NOW!"
  13. Icedude94

    Lock-ons are great for medium to long range and are harder to use up close because of the difficulty of tracking a fast moving aircraft.
    No cost for swapping in and out with a variety of options to do so which include terminals, sunderers, and redeploying.
    HA's can easily swap between different launchers.

    Skyguards are good for up close but terrible at long range against pilots that fly evasively. Bursters should be preferred though over a skyguard since a MAX can change its loadout while the skyguard trades that in for increased mobility. The skyguard also has increased vulnerability since it's a vehicle and can't take cover as easily as a MAX can. Maxes can also be repaired more easily and can be revived if destroyed. Burster MAXes are also easier to resupply. A skyguard requires an ammo sunderer or a ammo tower nearby.

    The weapon that shoots very slowly but does amazing damage to kill gals but has a lot of difficulty hitting an ESF would be your MBT AP cannon. People who say you can't get gun elevation are idiots who have never thought of using a nearby slope.

    In my experiences, the best anti-air platform that is effective at both long and close range and has a high survival rate would be a sunderer using deployment shield while running dual walkers. It has the added benefit that nearby infantry who have just spawned there can resupply into anti-air loadouts or resupply into engineers and rapidly repair the sunderer's damage.
  14. Navariosauro

    Airgame/Flyboys since ever have ruined ground combat. And I'm talking Battlefield 1 till today. And no pls don't call me jelly or this kiddy stuff...I'm not. Been a pilot in Battlefield 2 and fly from time to time^^ Countless times you have very good ground battles fighting infantry and vehicles all very thrilling then all out of a sudden bäm youre dead. Why...some super pro bombarded you to hell from the sky. Yep...very nice. I always hated it and forever will. And I don't give 2 ***** of how unbelievably hard it is to learn flying (wich is not the case for the most part). I always laugh my *** off when i get killed by an ESF with k/d +10 or so...looking up stats of that guy tells 100% flyboy who never ever has a gun in it's hands. Laughable...but it's in the game and one has to handle it.
  15. Cz4rMike


    Basically you hate it because you get killed by it? :D
  16. Demigan

    Do you even see it yourself?
    I see a small infantry squad that eventually holds a small base against a bigger infantry force. That same small squad destroys a large amount of tanks without those tanks being able to fight back properly. But when you engage air, half of them got away even when focus-firing, and almost as often one gets a large amount of shots into your own forces. It's also just one-at-a-time, with on a rare occasion two ESF at the same time that are attacking you, not exactly overwhelming or powerful. But you still have trouble.

    Why is that fair? How is it fair that a small, coordinated team can handle an overpop or tank column, but has trouble handling aircraft?

    You focus on it because it didn't work as well?

    Well duh, why don't you change your mindset to "Teamwork is OP, but it shouldn't be necessary"

    It's an "excuse" you never heard, but now that I said it suddenly everyone else has said it?
    That you never heard it also doesn't make it true.

    Now why do people play? They want to achieve something. Just because your outfit people enjoy teamwork doesn't mean everyone does, in fact, most people seem to enjoy lone-wolfing or less strenuous group tactics. Why should yours be more important then theirs?
    Just look at the game, it's all balanced so that a single player can potentially counter something else. Tanks can solo infantry or other tanks, infantry can take out other infantry or tanks alone. But when matched with aircraft, both infantry and tanks suddenly have a lot of trouble. The only way to reliably get some results is to team up.
    Now what do people like to do in games? They like to blow stuff up. The average single-player campaign doesn't revolve around taking down tough bosses, it revolves around mowing down a hundred soldiers. Why is that? Because people apparently like to shoot a dozen soldiers and feel good about themselves even though it wasn't that much of a challenge, than get their head stomped in and feel bad (or challenged).
    So if people are confronted with the following choice: either grab an infantry or tank and get killing, or go AA duty and get maybe 1/3rd the points, and share the few things you do manage to kill with other people...
    Add to that the insult that AA is neither tough nor rewarding. You getting an aircraft kill doesn't mean you were good, anyone can hit an aircraft with flak or a lock-on, it only means that either the pilot was bad or engaged by too much at once.

    Another thing, I asked for a video showing all your AA prowess, but the only thing I saw was a video that contained a small part of lock-ons, and one dumbfire hit at the beginning. That was it. In one hour, one dumbfire hit. You really showed the AA power there! You also showcased the exact problem I'm trying to show you.

    I am pretty good at downing aircraft with dumbfires and AP titans, I've been doing it since launch. But that doesn't mean it's a viable method. It works, but just because it works doesn't mean it's useful or viable.

    this video is blocked for copyright

    Not sure how this is supposed to help your case. So you have some training methods, it doesn't mean that AA suddenly is good again.

    Why do you attack me on it? I never said that I personally disliked it. As I already said, I do dedicated AA runs often. I'm just saying: the regular player base, you know, the 70%+ of players, doesn't like that kind of thing. That's why you don't see public battle sunderers.

    Has nothing to do with AA. Sure you are a great teamplayer and all, but it simply doesn't have anything to do with the matter at hand.

    Yeah! Give me the task of proving their OP'ness again, I provided my reasons and statistics as to why it's OP, but you haven't done anything but say "but AA is good enough", "Teamwork is OP" and "I train people in ground work and am a general teamplayer". Well good on you! But now you go ahead and prove that ESF can't reach that potential, despite having the ability to escape all ground AA and multiple weapon systems at their disposal that out DPS ground-based weapons.

    But people are subjective rather than analytical, which is why they don't scream about it, even when they should. Just because people don't point something out doesn't mean it shouldn't be fixed. The stealth flash should be fixed, it's simply too powerful for it's price and capabilities, but no one points it out (including me) since most people don't realize it's potential even after seeing video's of tag-teams of just 2 annihilating multiple MBT's, lightnings and Sunderers.

    You need someone to distract them first? o.0
    I kill them with a max stealth frame by simply appearing where they don't expect me, ram them full of bullets and are gone before their buddies realize.

    See? I can be sitting on a high perch of superiority as well, but that doesn't mean an arugment becomes absolete. You haven't really brought in anything against my arguments that was viable or useable.

    No I don't need that, I know the power that air can wield, you don't need to undermine yourself by showing how useful aircraft can be, and you don't need to show how good teamwork can be. You didn't read my last post well, I said that Teamwork should always be a force multiplier, but it shouldn't be required unless the situation warrants it. But all ground-based AA requires to be teamwork, it doesn't matter if you got a tank or not. Aircraft can solo everything, but for some reason ground-based AA, even expensive stuff, requires teamwork.
    So stop your whole commercial about how good you are, and how good teamwork is. That's not what this is about.

    Ah, so your approach is the following:
    "oh, this is unbalanced. Well, you shouldn't complain about that in the forums, you should find a way around it".
    Well mister Icedude, did you realize that the way around it doesn't even the battleground? It doesn't make it fun for either party?
    A game, even an asymetrical game such as Planetside, is designed with balance in mind. Overall each infantry weapon class deals about the same damage, all depending on their strengths, range, accuracy, ROF etc. But when you get to aircraft they suddenly throw that overboard. Aircraft are allowed to kill ground troops with impunity, they can equip a multi-role loadout on the spot without sacrificing much power. But ground-based AA is only a deterrent because... They liked it that way? How can you justify that? The fact that teamwork can even the ground doesn't mean anything, how is it fair that teamwork is required to deal with them, when aircraft are the best and most powerful solo experience you can get for the same or even cheaper price as some ground-based teamwork vehicles.
  17. DonAlfrago

    You are wrong buddy...There is nothing wrong with lock-ons and their use. Are you complaining about me using a pistol in CQC? No? Why not - it's also available in game just like lock-ons and other weapons...

    SOE put it in, they consider it a legitimate weapon, it's not being exploited, but is used legitimately. If you don't want to use them - that's your choice. Our outfit loves them and relies on them heavily. So stop complaining when you die from lock-ons, they are legit.
  18. Sebastien

    That was the argument used to defend ZOE.
  19. Icedude94

    This is the video that got blocked for copyright. I removed the music. This is your "AA prowess" video. So compare these two anti-air weapons: the titan AP to an entire squad of guys with lock-ons. Does Daybreak Games have to put "anti-air" in the description of a tank's main cannon for it to be considered a feasible gun for anti-air?



    It's all from the same play session.

    Today, when my outfit does anti-air, either the vanguard we have in the hex deals with all the enemy aircraft or if a scythe or mosquito comes in close to try to to a ground pounder run on us, we hit it with a shrike. Death is fine since we always have medics around to pick people up even if a shot misses.

    Now if something does work, it is definitely viable AND useful. Any tanker would find learning how to defend himself against air attack without being dependent on a convoy of anti-air units would find this training useful.

    I suppose being a grunt and getting killed by rocket pods or PPA has a different effect on players like me because there are always outfit medics around to do revives.

    Now whether or not teamwork is necessary depends on your goals. My outfit is full of, with a few exceptions, average players. Myself included, we don't have the headshot accuracy and twitch skills to get into the MLGPro outfits. Those of us who were actually came back because those outfits didn't have the same atmosphere.

    We can set goals like complete air superiority at every fight on the continent. Now it's using air power to defeat the MAX crashes of outfits like AOD and GOKU when they redeploy 96+ to defend a base being attacked by 24-48.

    It's stuff like using a high volume of bullets to bottleneck enemies at a doorway outside of a building. Then, while they're grouped up, have a duster liberator or 3 rocketpod reavers come in and hit that cluster of infantry and then fly away again where they are safe from AA until they are needed again.

    You break up the enemy force before they can mass in enough numbers to spam grenades and flood the point.

    More people need to consider their default rocket launcher as an anti-air weapon. More people should consider AP cannons as a super heavy anti-air weapon. They are both extremely punishing anti-air weapons to any aircraft that come in close.

    Teamwork is necessary if you want to win a base during an alert because your side is outnumbered with 33% vs. 66% continent pop. The high level of organization in some of the major outfits means you have to be prepared for a massive enemy force to teleport to your fight and try to max crash you in the last 30 seconds. You can't rely on always having enough numbers to win every fight.

    You remember those alerts stats I posted? During that alert, AOD reinforced west highlands checkpoint and tried to max crash but were stopped cold by heavy air support.

    I will keep listing why air is good because I want people to picture what an absurd meat grinder Planetside 2 would become without air support. Look at that short liberator clip again? That fight was a total stalemate until air came in to help out.

    When you use teamwork, nobody feels like a useless grunt who is defenseless against this or that. You don't often hear people whining that something is OP and needs to be nerfed(though that vulcan harrasser is quite challenging to beat *nods at ECUS*).

    How do you break that deployment shield sundy inside a base if vehicles can't get to it and infantry get bottlenecked and farmed for trying?

    People are so quick to rage at air but don't realize how much harder taking a base would be without it.

    Let's say you aren't good at anti-air with a vanguard or a shrike. Let's say you're as bad at it as I am at counter-sniping infiltrators. You're still playing an MMO game. You can choose to keep dying or you can find someone who is good at it to team up with.

    Would you still rage as much about being killed by rocketpods if you got revived right after and your death allowed someone else to line up a shot and kill that scythe?

    Don't forget that we're playing a PVP game where the level 1 player is thrown into the same battlefields as the level 100 player.

    ESF's have a role to play like every infantry class and vehicle in the game. The different counters to air are good at countering specific tactics and loadouts of aircraft. A base fight full of bursters and lock-ons can be influenced at stand-off with rocket pods and a little spotter assistance, but would be unfeasible with a liberator.

    You want to counter the air that is engaging at long range? Get your own aircraft or find other people who do. Even if you're terrible at dogfighting like me, you can still bring air to air lock-ons and coyotes to get you an advantage.

    The argument of "it shouldn't be necessary" to do X is like trying to make the argument to the devs and the community that you shouldn't need to switch from a heavy/medic/infiltrator/LA to an engineer with utility pouch to carry extra tank mines to kill a deployment shield sundy by yourself.

    To also agree to the idea the ESF needs to be taken out of the game because it provides the "best and most powerful solo experience you can get for the same or even cheaper price as some ground-based teamwork vehicles" provides a precedent for other people to make that same argument about MAXes, about tanks or even about medics and heavy assaults.

    What would you say if somebody started a thread titled, "Why HA's with barons(or any shotgun) are despised and always will be" and went on about how it shouldn't be necessary to change anything about what they do or how they play to counter it?

    What if they said that about light assaults and C-4 in regards to hiding on a rooftop and bombing infantry below? It shouldn't be necessary to get your own light assault and maybe go up there and kill him?

    Maybe I should create a troll thread about how concussion and flash grenades are despised and I shouldn't be forced to equip a clear vision implant to protect myself from them I'm defending a point since I shouldn't be forced to give up my regeneration implant because I'm a lone wolf who doesn't want to need healing from a medic.
  20. GothicNightmares

    I hope to god this is a troll... its called a bolt action rifle.. they were MEANT to be killed by that weapon.