Why is there no hard counter to Air atm?

Doofus, it WOULD be gamebreaking if snipers and tank cannons had flak ammunition like Skyguard does and if they fired 480 rounds per minute. Good luck not hitting your target with that! Only reason snipers and tanks aren't gamebreaking to infantry is because they miss 95% of their direct shots / head shots as long as infantry isn't standing still or moving predictably and because they have low rate of fire so they are punished for missing shots.

I never said Skyguard shouldn't have OHK capability, I only said it would need range reduction to balance it.

No its not absurd. Aircraft is higher level of abstraction.
Aircraft, tanks and infantry are all higher level of abstraction than any specific weapon.

Saying aircraft should be hard counter to aircraft does not mean that for example Valkyries should be hard counter to other Valkyries.
Saying tanks should be hard counter to tanks does not mean Lightnings should hard counter Lightning etc...

You are reducing it to absurdity, next you could say that only TR Lightnings should be allowed to counter TR Lightnings...

Saying infantry should hard-counter other infantry is not absurdity, saying that only LMGs should counter other LMGs is.
Makes sense?

Besides rock-paper-scissor applies to RTS game but it is generally frowned upon in FPS games. There have been discussions on this on forums, don't assume majority of players want rock-paper-scissor balancing. (And according to stats Liberators aren't exactly hardcounters to tank either, take a look at monthly vehicle death stats, Liberators don't even come in top 20)

Where are you getting those numbers from?

Also has it occurred to you that part of the reason why Skyguard can't have and shouldn't have identical KPH to Liberators is because there are about twice as many tank drivers than Liberator pilots. Skyguard simply doesn't have same amount of targets as Liberator does because majority of players don't fly.

Next you need to take into account that it takes two to fly the Liberator. It is not enough to calculate Dalton KPH, you need to average both pilot and the gunner and then compare that average to Skyguard KPH.

Furthermore, you have to keep in mind Skyguard is area denial weapon. It means it can outrange aircraft but in turn it isn't lethal enough to finish them before they can retreat. I personally wouldn't mind if concept of air deterrence was ditched and Skyguards were made more lethal but then they would need to have much less range.

How long has that bet been active?

I wouldn't say they don't have enough killing potential. A single Burster Max for example is much more deadly to aircrafts than a single AV Max to tanks. And tanks also easily can seek cover behind some hill or similar.

I rather think the main reason why people don't use AA enough is simply stupidity or because they are not organized enough. Even on MBTs or Sunderers you see AA weapons way too rarely, although for me it is almost a must to have them on this.

Basically 90% of every lonely MBT I encounter are easy certs for me, because they never use AA weapons and focus way too much just on ground targets, probably because that's where they are coming from and think their vulcan or whatever is enough to help them.

The problem is damage or DPS. i can have an ESF do a bombing run on my skyguard and he just flies off smoking. the problem is ESFs have high damage weapons to balance their short attack window of opportunity, however the tank mounted weapon designed to counter ESFs lack the DPS needed to punish an ESF during the time it is attacking for not scouting the area properly for AA sources.

If an ESF tries to divebomb a skyguard the ESF should die, except they end up only smoking and run away at max speed, repair and reset the fight till they win. as long as there is not enough risk an ESF can reset the fight as many times as he likes.

The problem is not damage, the problem is that people just rather like to focus on the most common targets and are not organized enough, that's why it often happens that you don't have enough AA, and a single lonely Skyguard or Burster Max just simply can't do everything.

AA is something where you have to be organized, have good teamplay and smart positioning to be really effective at it. At best you need people who look out for aircrafts and make people aware that you need more AA, then you must be able to smartly position yourself quickly, must have patience, plus you must have to trust in your team mates that they also will support you enough, since it is such a niche weapon.

That's much more difficult and tedious than just simply pulling another heavy, Vulcan Harrasser or MBT and following the zerg to the A point. But people don't even use it in situations when it is actually a total must for them to use, like with lonely MBTs for example, so of course they also won't use it enough when they also could use something else.

I think another reason why AA is often lacking is also because it is a very defensive weapon, and pulling vehicles often doesn't come well when defending a base, because they are often way too small. And when attacking a base, then majority of people of course don't want to play defensive but rather go full in.

This is ********. A liberator can own a Skyguard at will. All he needs is a tankbuster nose cannon and minimal aiming skills. Half a magazine will rip a Skyguard up. As for ESFs: they can ALWAYS escape a Skyguard unless they are greedy. I remember times when they had no chance if you let them close enough. The flak ripped them on the way out, even if they afterburned out. I liked it then. And what happened? Nerf. Nerf beyond any sense.

And limiting the skyguard's range in response is hardly appropriate. It will make it even more useless against other air than it already is.

Since when are we talking about the skyguard? Im confused

PS2 and organised? You have to be joking. So the ESF can just lone-wolf around and kill at will while AA should be 'organised'. Moving the coals under your own sardines here, as we say in Portgual?

Yes, AA should be organized. I never said that Planetside 2 players play very tactical, but they have the options to do this. And just because ESF can lone wolf more, doesn't mean that every other vehicle should be able to do this too. When I fly the Valkyrie I also can not move wherever I want like an ESF but I'm totally fine with this, since it is a tactical support vehicle and has other strengths.

AA is also very tactical. That's just in the nature of the weapon and not a problem with the game. To just simply increase the damage output of AA and make it totally OP in the hands of those who actually play organized, would not be the right thing. If you ever fly aircraft in this game you would know yourself how deadly AA already is. It is just the case that people use it too rarely.

And that's exactly why people can NOT lone wolf in this game, because they are too dumb to slap some AA weapon on their MBTs or Sundies and still think they can own every place alone. They rather want their fancy Vulcan, Saron or whatever.

Because the Air controls are slightly screwed up, it should give people who put up with it the ability to be invincible superfarmers of everything and it takes an entire mothercaressing zerg to stop them.

Imagine if air would actually have to work for their certs. Attack from long range, unexpected angles, and so forth, instead of out-tanking every tank on the ground in a straight slugfest, and being able to get away from 99% of all non-zergs if things go FUBAR.

Ground can't get away. Ground is slow. Ground has armor. Aircraft must be lightweight. Aircraft don't have armor. There is just no way an aircraft should survive a straight slugfest with even the most inappropriate ground target.

ESF is a jack of all trades force multiplier while skyguard is an equally resource costly niche weapon. it does not make sense that a solo generalist should be able to do so much more damage and flee at will against a specialized force multiplier designed to counter aircraft.

If you are so fed up with ESF while driving in your Skyguard Lightning, and think they are so incredibly OP, then why don't you just pull an ESF yourself and go for other aircraft hunt? But don't complain when you can't hit anything because it is hard as hell to aim in ESFs or flak will take you down in 2 seconds because the whole battlefield shoots at your paper armor.

And for the ESF to be able to do good damage against Skyguards, it also must be "a specialized force mutliplier" or whatever you mean this. Not every ESF has Hornet Missiles equipped.

It's fine for air to lone wolf though.

Sure, and why is this a problem? Infiltrators also can lone wolf much better than other classes, doesn't mean they are OP though.

I think you took this a bit too literally. I already said in this post that ESFs can lone-wolf better than most other vehicles.
I was talking about other vehicles than ESFs there, like MBTs for example. I thought that would be clear enough.

And why should they be able to? Because they are air? They already step way too hard on the liberators A2G abilities and are the best counter to other air at the same time.

1) Liberator can't destroy Skyguard just with tankbuster. You may get Skyguard to 50% health but by the time you reload Skyguard will finish you off.

2) Liberator with gunner can destroy Skyguard but that is not 1v1 situation, that is 2v1 situation (pilot+gunner vs driver)

3)Reason why ESFs escape is specifically because Skyguard is hardcounter to them. If they tried to 1v1 Skyguard they would lose. Only way you can 1v1 Skyguard is if you sneak up on him and fire Hornets in his ***.

Again, I don't mind if Skyguard DPS gets doubled as long as it can't apply damage over whole region. Skyguards should only be able to protect vehicles within 100m radius or so. Giving Skyguard ability to cover entire region and at the same time expecting it to be able to kill ESFs before they can fly away is just too much.