[Suggestion] Liberators Nerf, Nerf, Nerf!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by PasitheeVS, Jul 5, 2015.

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  1. ColonelChingles

    Ah, I love it when people can't actually debate the issues and so switch to indirect ad hominem attacks. :p

    The problem here is that all those characteristics are already taken into account in the final statistics. What you are saying is certainly applicable, but it is already noted. Because real performance statistics take those characteristics that you have listed, and many others that you have not, throws them at real players under real game conditions and magically arrives at a number.

    So to be blunt, who cares about all those things you have listed? At the end of the day, we know that the average Dalton user can jump into a Dalton for an hour and walk away with 12 aircraft kills... about one every 5 minutes. The average Skyguard user can jump behind their Skyguard cannon for an hour and net 5 kills... one every 12 minutes.

    That's the information that I am presenting, and it carries much more weight than people arguing about individual weapon characteristics. Because there is no better measurement of combat effectiveness than actual field testing, of which the statistics show.

    Why not let Skyguards kill?

    If you immediately kill the enemy ESF twice in a row, the pilot is completely out of resources and removed from the battlefield. It will take 7 minutes for that ESF to fly again.
    If you kill the enemy Liberator once, the pilot is out for at least 3 minutes (unless they're a subscriber). Kill it again, and it's back in 9 minutes.

    In that way a Skyguard can effectively guarantee the absence of enemy air, or at least that one pilot, for a good deal of time.

    On the other hand as Skyguards work now, at best they send the enemy air off to another fight where they become "someone else's problem". At worst they give away their position, allowing the Liberator that they didn't kill to swoop back and kill the AA.

    So Skyguards should be buffed to lethal levels. Being a deterrent is a joke and is simply a free pass to pilots. If Skyguards could kill aircraft with more regularity then they would fulfill their role of guaranteeing an aircraft-free environment for friendly forces to operate in.
    • Up x 2
  2. Imp C Bravo

    Honestly speaking - 3 good esf pilots will beat a fully crewed lib of equal skill. 4 competent pilots will do so as well.

    1 esf has no chance. 2 do if they are more skilled than the lib by a fair margin. Again this is all in a vacuum assuming that there is no incoming ground sundy or turret fire.

    I think part of the equation that DBG is banking on (and this is JUST my guess) is the time it takes to put together a lib crew and get to an engagement area vs how the time it takes for ESFs to get there. (assuming similar travel distance)

    If 3 ESFs hit a Lib and lose, say 2 ESFs before shooting down the lib, those 2 esfs will be back and fighting LONG before the lib is. In the meantime that remaining ESF has more than enough time to rep up or go harass other planes/vehicles. Libs can't really dodge good esfs either -- so even with an esf escort, the enemy esf crew of 4 or more can drop that lib before they lose all of their planes if they focus on it. Even if you had to sacrifice several ESFs to drop the lib and the enemy ESF crew is still up, you and your squadron can be back and fighting those ESFs long before the lib gets back.

    So I am guessing that Lib's current resistance to ESF fire is related to this. Again, this is all just a guess.

    Another thing you mentioned is threat level. And yeah -- the Lib is one of the biggest threats on the field if left alone. It HAS to be delt with. As such, people tend to try to do just that. Maybe 1 in 25 runs do people ignore my lib -- and they quickly learn not to do that so the unmolested bombing rate is dropping. I think thats a good thing though -- frankly speaking -- there are FAR too many libs in the sky and no where near enough ESFs and Valks.

    Ok Bill. Here is why those things matter -- because these things are what separate favorable situations from unfavorable as well as frequency. Lets imagine that skyguards are given 3x the DPS. If you have 10 skyguards an hour fighting and they kill every lib they see, but 100 libs fighting and killing even 1 of anything else an hour - you will still have more Lib kills an hour than skyguard kills. But, in this scenario the Skyguard is still significantly more powerful than the Lib. That's why raw numbers need some contextual dissection. Raw numbers are not the fire and proof of burning -- they are the smoke that draws us to look at issue and see if something is burning.

    That's why it's so hard to say whether Libs are OP or AA is UP. We don't have enough contextual evidence to translate the causes behind the numbers accurately. Actually, we DO have lots of contextual evidence, it's just that some people can't drop their bias long enough to look at it from both sides of the coin. Some people are trying to look at it from an overall practical gameplay perspective because they want it balanced and therefore fun. Others are Bill O'Reilly. Drop your bias and be the former, or keep your bias and continue to be the latter. Discuss and quantify your statements in-depth, or ignore points other people bring up (even as they acknowledge yours! wtf man!) and gain no ground in compromising a nice fair middle ground between opinions.
    • Up x 1
  3. Baracuda

    You know what would fix the liberator easily? Make it the same way it was in PS1, give it the dumbfire bombs back. And also nerf the tank buster.
    • Up x 1
  4. Jubikus

    liberators are fine the damn things require more than one person to be effective and a dalton is not easy to hit **** with if you think so go try it.
    It is a little disheartening to get tankbusted much like its disheartening to get shotgunned as an infantry its just the you die so fast you couldn't react thing but it does require a bit of hard to pull off positioning and usually requires you to be low enough that you can get shelled by the tank your hitting in general.
    Liberators have been nerfed before and you see alot less thees days and they are typically easier to deal with than a skyline galaxy (you want to talk about something that needs nerfed **** those things i cant aim that high)
    • Up x 1
  5. Steza

    Not sure about you guys but I find it easy to hunt and kill Libs with the skyguard you don't even have to follow a armor brigade you or x sights. All you need to learn is to lead your target, this also works with walkers on mag riders and rangers, sit off on the sideline in the battlefield where you know a lib will least expect you. So you have cover of your allies but you can peg the liberator from a distance if it's the swooping tank buster kind and it'll begin to try to fly to safety. Normally that safety is one of the sides of the battlefield which you picked a spot on one of the side it'll get hit and die from sustained fire from you and lock on missiles. Also skyguards equip the appropriate armor such as top armor since what you annoy is what will shoot back in general.

    Another tip is Liberators sure may seem fast but ESF's will have after burners if you want to mess up a lib in one don't be scared to use it to rush away. Like others have stated it's hard to hit a moving target with a Dalton, opening the door to your ESF nose gun of doom. With tank buster libs who play it reckless and try to dog fight you either pitch up or down go under or over it has less maneuverability then you. Spread the gap far make it work to try to kill you further away further the spread on it.

    Back to the main point since your magrider is getting killed by the Liberators remember you are the mobility tank your rear is weak your front is not, spin yourself around immediately less incoming damage and take a pot shot at it. If unsure of your abilities try to find a couple of trees, a cliff or caves to hide in repair and head out. Sometimes I found myself having to bore them away by hiding away inside a AMP station shields or tech plant simply because I know a 2 man lib will beat a 1 man MBT.

    Hopefully this helps you guys over come liberators these are just from my personal experience.
    • Up x 1
  6. Imp C Bravo

    So many reasonable tankers in this thread. :cool:
  7. Pointyguide2

    libs are fine the way they are.
    they require actual teamwork
    and the pilot must be skilled.
    if your dieing too easily in your tank you need to learn your setting more.
    this thread is a bunch of tankers wanting to nerf the lib. the title is not very helpful.
    I play tank and lib and its not unusual to get up to 68k experience without dieing once.
    that's probably a low number compared to some of the better tankers and liberator pilots.
  8. ShineOut

    Nerf this, nerf that, NERF IT ALL. Ahh i love forums.
    • Up x 1
  9. ColonelChingles

    I'm not sure you understand how these statistics are collected.

    Essentially what this site does is take PS2's API and counts all the kills made by a certain weapon each day for the past 30 days.
    It then takes all the amount of time that any person was equipping or behind that weapon each day for the past 30 days.
    Finally it simply divides the total number of kills by the total number of hours of usage by any player. This is how it gets the KPH values.

    The only thing that I'm not certain of is if the site calculates all the kills/hours at once or if it breaks them down to individual days and averages the 30 resulting averages. I would hope that it uses the former, but regardless the difference shouldn't be much.

    So in your example with 10 Skyguards and 100 Liberators, you would divide the Skyguard kills by 10 (10 players @ 1 hour each) and the Liberator kills by 100 (100 gunners @ 1 hour each). If we assume that those Skyguards killed 100 aircraft and the Liberators also killed 100 aircraft each per group, then the Skyguard AKPH would be 10 and the Liberator AKPH would be 1... hence the opposite of what you would conclude.

    The people who use these statistics aren't silly. I hope you understand that. Basic stuff like this is child's play when discussing statistics. Are there potential problems when using these figures? Sure. I mentioned one possibility myself, that of seat-switching (which is why the same figures are unreliable for sidearms which are usually used against a weakened enemy and ESF weapons because they carry two).

    But a simple statistical error like the one you presented is really only going to be a problem for you. Not for me, and not for anyone who is familiar with how PS2's API aggregators collect their data.

    It is not a problem for the statistics that I present. It is only a problem with your understanding of statistics.

    Again, either you have no idea how PS2 statistics work or you are being willfully ignorant. I'm just going to assume that you are new to the PS2 databases and have no idea how data is collected and analyzed. In that case, consider yourself a tiny bit more educated on the matter.

    The data I provide is solid. It comes with context, that context being the entire existence of Planetside. All servers. All players. All day. All month. That's the context the statistics tell us.

    When you have people who rely on anecdotes, that's about as far from objective as you can get. They only have one tiny, itty bitty slice of the PS2 experience. Not only that, but their views are either intentionally or unintentionally selective; they may remember one instance that supports their point but forget 6 others which prove them wrong.

    That's why data is inherently more powerful and convincing than any story of "that one time" something happened. If that story did happen within the last 30 days, it's already included in the data I presented. And included in a more fair and objective a way than what any individual could present.
    • Up x 2
  10. Imp C Bravo

    No, Bill. I said, in the hypothetical, that the skyguards kill all the libs. Every single one. Magically they are unable to kill any other aircraft and JUST kill the libs with their 3x dps. 100 libs. 10 skyguards. The libs are all magically good enough to pop a vehicle before they die (which is not actually the case) Thats 100 kills in the first round. Assuming no more libs thats just 10 kills each. And a lib free sky for the other 55-59 minutes.

    What this demonstrates is that, depending on situation you may or may not get the same numbers. Also, divide that lib kill count by 3. 3 people in a lib. only 1 in a skyguard.

    Anyway, I'm done Bill. I understand WHY you have the opinion you do. Your opinion might just be right - maybe skyguards need to be harder to use but more lethal...I am just sorely disappointed that you cannot consider context...and cannot consider that you might be wrong. It's like you are saying a guy with no arms and no legs guarding a hockey goal who is fat enough to take up 50% of a hockey goal will block 50% of the shots. Math with no context. No discussion as to WHY or HOW the lib KPH is high or WHY or HOW the skyguard kph is not.

    So, I'm done. Too many other reasonable tankers in here to waste with this.
  11. Scorpion97

    The dalton is meant to be an AV only cannon,right?so what's the issue again??didnt they nerf it's splash damage (which I wished they wouldn't) and buff its direct dmg last year??i see the dalton fulfilling its rules properly like the hornet pods in ESFs

    can't understand what do you want?!
  12. Freedom Fries

  13. ColonelChingles

    Let's pretend that the Liberators are magically good once. They kill 100 vehicles and die. Which in that limited circumstance would result in a high KPH (if we assume each Liberator is alive for 5 minutes then that's a 12KPH).

    But that's the beautiful thing about statistics. They aren't limited to one specific instance. In fact if you're familiar at all with statistics you'd know that small sample sizes are quite problematic. Because of "magical" instances as you put it.

    In the longer term however you're completely wrong. Perhaps that one-time massive kill-then-die was a fluke and really most of the time Liberators don't kill anything before dying. In that case over time Liberator KPH would decrease, and we would start to see that there is indeed an imbalance to address. This time in favor of the Liberators.

    But maybe the Liberators continue to repeat their magical performance every hour to maintain their 12KPH. In that case it's hardly a fluke anymore if it is repeated every hour of every day for a period of 30 days. In fact I would argue that there's nothing "magical" if it's repeated with such regularity... and a Liberator 12KPH would be an accurate norm.

    That's why the long-term 30-day statistics I have presented are indeed accurate. You might have a point if I took a very narrow snapshot of what was going on, but the data I'm using comes from 4,692 hours of Dalton gunning and 11,664 hours of Skyguarding. That's enough to establish trends and to weed out "magical" moments.

    And the data does show that the Dalton is a massively overpowered A2G and A2A weapon.

    What this demonstrates is that if you break down sample size to a very tiny number then statistical analysis breaks down. And if that was your point, then I agree with you. That is an example of bad statistics.

    But at the same time it has nothing to do with the data I presented. So either you're misinformed or misdirected, take your pick.

    Again, all that is irrelevant because the context is captured in the statistics.

    Look, what you have is a claim. That the goalie will block 50% of the shots due to some characteristic of the goalie. Maybe you're right, maybe not. But a claim by itself is unsupported.

    But what I have is performance data. I let that goalie tend the goal under realistic conditions and I count how many pucks were blocked. I arrive at an actual answer. And if that answer was 50%, then I can make a claim that the goalie indeed can block 50% of the shots. If the data suggests something else then I would find your claim incorrect.

    And that... is how logical reasoning works. And that's what the data I presented does.

    If you really wanted to understand what this argument was about, this is a more apt analogy:

    I sit a goalie with no arms and legs in a goal. In a real hockey match I count how many shots were deflected by that goalie. And I repeat that for an extensive period of time. I then calculate based off of that data that the goalie was able to deflect 50% of the hockey pucks. Looking at my data, I claim that the goalie on average deflects 50% of shots. I reason that compared to other well armed goalies that this may be more or less than what a normal goalie can block.

    And then you come in screaming that my figures are useless because CONTEXT. :D

    And I scratch my head to try and figure out why anything you're saying is relevant or changes my claim or conclusion.
    • Up x 1
  14. Obstruction

    they want it gone because they can't fly. so every chance they get, they come on here to try to ruin all that's left of a playstyle favored by like 50 people in the whole game. if they can't beat them in the field, they will whine until mommy takes away the bad people's toys.
  15. ppanj

    First of all, you seem to have completely glided over what I said in my post, and I believe that I have pretty conclusively showed you why your statistics are worthless, at least in this case (and in most other cases they are debatable at best).

    Besides, it seems to me that Titan + Enforcer has a 38% higher average VKPH than NC Dalton + Tankbuster! Clearly this would show that the lib anti-armor role is too weak, especially considering that tanks can't change battles nearly as easily and therefore should have much less opportunity to get kills. I'm not sure if VKPH includes air, it would be kinda odd if it didn't, but if it doesn't,Vanguards still have significantly higher average KPH, mostly because the Dalton is absolutely and completely worthless at anti infantry (seriously, the repair gun is better than this thing at AI).. How did you miss that while looking at the statistics? But I don't think that that the Vanguard should be nerfed, even if the data does seem conclusive from your perspective...

    Perhaps in the same way we should nerf the G2A lockon, since it's good against everything as well? Also, you could say an AP MBT is good against air, infantry and other tanks (And please don't ignore what I said about AKPH). Surely the nerf hammer should hit it before it hits the Dalton lib which is worthless against infantry? (unless you have the bulldog, but then you sacrifice the walker, and this WILL reduce your A2A survivability by quite a lot and is IMHO not worth it)

    Libs already rely on A2A ESFs quite a lot to make sure that gank squads don't kill them in a few seconds, but having "escorts" is just a dream. Aircraft aren't detected by radar in this game untll less than 700m, pilots have to rely on eyeballing and hope the render distance is pretty far that day. Escorts would need at least twice the awareness capability (so, 2 km of render distance at least and much better engagement radar) to be effective at guarding Libs, but this isn't going to happen. This would also greatly reduce lib effectiveness since it would be ridiculously easy to kill them - just pull an ESF or two and rush it, which is already pretty effective but at least the lib stands a chance. And again, was there ever a situation where you looked at the air, saw a lib and thought "Man, I wish those were A2G ESFs and not this juicy lib..."

    And a skyguard need only stay on the move to keep itself from getting ganked by a lib, that seems like pretty basic stuff for any vehicle player (which most vehicle drivers seem to ignore, instead pressing on the breaks and pointing their chassis straight at the nearest farm). Skyguards can't and should never be able to completely wreck air, this is because of the rather unfortunate way SOE balanced AA in this game so anyone can pull it. Ideally there would be a single AA unit with the power of several skyguards that is extremely rare and is a valid target for ground attack, but as it is AA is like weeds, if you take it out it just keeps popping out. To have something like that powerful enough to shut down the air game would, well, shut down the air game, and where would the fun be in that?
    • Up x 1
  16. FateJH

    Why should he have to show personal accomplishment in something to construct an argument against it? That makes no sense.
    He's not arguing it's too easy. He's arguing that it should not be a thing and that the relationship between Vehicles could be made more cooperative by it not being something that can show up statistically (frequently enough over an aggregate of the data of all players from all servers).
    • Up x 1
  17. axiom537

    I disagree, I think it is working exactly as intended and that is exactly how it should be.

    The best vehicles to counter a liberator are going to be other Air craft, not ground vehicles..EVER!!!!

    Why? Because only other air craft share the same three dimensional space, have the same movement characteristics and can follow and chase down other Air craft...

    I think it is funny, people crying about Liberators and then post KPH statistics of Liberators killing other Liberators and clamor about how that isn't balanced. FYI, the Dalton is an Anti-VEHICLE weapon and the Liberator is a VEHICLE, therefore it is working as intended.

    If liberators are focusing on killing other liberators, then that means the Air vs Air game is thriving and the factions are battling over the skies trying to acertain Air dominance, this is exactly how the game should play out.

    As for Skyguards, they are solo vehicles and they should not EVER be balanced to 1 vs 1 engage a mutli-crewed vehicle. not saying they can't beat a Liberator solo, I do it all the time, ti just takes skill. Skyguards like other solo ground based AA weapons, are balanced along the lines of multiples to engage a single target and that is BALANCE.

    Want to wreck a Liberator get 2-3 Skyguards,Bursters, or even AA lock-ons and focs fire and you will vaporize them. It isn't hard...BUT no people want to run around SOLO Rambo style and expect to be able to take out everything...
    • Up x 1
  18. Klabauter8

    It is really annoying getting tank busted out of nowhere, or when suddenly a bomb falls onto your head, however, whenever this happened to me, then also only because I wasn't cautious enough and didn't look out for aircrafts enough.

    Libs are actually fairly easy to notice when you pay attention to the sky. You just often underestimate their raw power although you really should hide as soon as possible as a ground focused unit when they are coming.
  19. Taemien


    Pretty much and I appreciate the time for the response :D

    I was just curious because I very rarely see people try to assist with a Lib. Even my static we don't typically pull Libs because its hard to do what you described as most don't know how to call in air support. We use a Battle Galaxy (buddy is super good piloting it, you'd almost think you're in a ESF), and I prefer that over the lib because its tankier. I haven't quite figured out how to utilize the lib since a bit squishier.
  20. Takara

    In the same idea....a single AP lighting doesn't **** all over MBT's either. Or even Harassers most of the time. The problem here is people think that the lighting should be powerful enough to do that. And it simply shouldn't be so. Just like on the ground a lighting stands a chance as an ambush predator on Tanks. Most Skyguards are two dumb to realize that if they don't shoot at a liberator or ESF the moment it renders they actually increase their chance at killing it.

    Letting a ESF or Liberator get closer till another player hit's it with a lock on or a few rounds of flak from an AA max with give you a much higher chance at killing it. Liberator pilots typically get cocky and shrug off a lock on or two, but if you blast em with flak after that second lock on, they will start to **** themselves to get away.
    • Up x 1
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