The Real Problem with AA is Procrastination

The two biggest changes that can be made to the current air game are:
1:Increasing the angle in which Vehicle-Based AA Weapons (Walker, Ranger, Skyguard, and Phalanx) can aim Up. If you haven't noticed, each of these has a blind spot of straight above. Sundy doesn't have this problem as much, granted, but it still exists.

2: Lowering the cert price of the G2A Launchers back down to 250 Certs. At the 650 Price Tag, even with the extra 1400 certs for the new characters, that's just about half to be able to counter Air more effectively than the normal launchers, which is a joke past 50 meters.


Not a revamp, but I feel these would give the biggest changes to the current.

Well, someone cant read a full first sentence where I explicitly label my own sarcasm. *clap clap*

No, I dont think anything about you. I'm stating observations and obvious solutions.

When I have air farming me, I immediately pull ground locks before they get cozy. Thats the point, and if you couldnt pick up on it, that's your own problem with critical reading.

Couldn't agree more.

Let me break it down by your paragraphs-

1) Yes, it's actually easier than using AI for me, but your whole paragraph can be refuted by just using a ground to air launcher.

2) An ES g2a costs less than a second burster or a skyguard, both in certs as well as in nanites, and can be dumbfired against armor and MAXes.

3) I already stated its the fault of the laziness of both sides. Please read fully before commenting.

i pretty much only ever pull lightnings to skyguard, and boy, its unrewarding, but someones gotta do it

There are good points in this thread that I agree with.

• Air is only an issue when you're getting killed by it.
• The air you can't kill is being flown by practiced pilots.
• Resource balance for dedicated AA vs ESF's is skewed. ESF's are multipurpose, Skyguards/bursters are not.

As a dedicated grounder I can contribute this: Toting an AA launcher around is a good idea and should be your default. Primary weapon fire does hurt ESF's and more people should do it - it may not result in a kill but it's better than nothing. If you're tired of getting merced by ESF's then consider running with an organized squad, or become better at flying.
When running with my outfit we rarely cannot deal with air units. Two lockons for instagib, or a dual walker sunday with AV support from the infantry is all that's required.

I do believe that the Skyguard deserves a buff. I believe they should have a larger magazine. The fact that you have to reload on 100% hits to a lib is discouraging.

Playing devil's advocate here.

What happens when you pre-emptively pull a Skyguard and no air show up? Have you done your job? Or you just wasting time? Either way you're not being rewarded for it. And you're feeling like a fool when noob BR 5 shows up in a Stock Lightning, and if he has any sort of aim (aka this isn't his first rodeo and didn't come from a game that glorified clicking to use abilities and keyboard turning), you're tucking tail and getting the hell out.

I mean when you pull a Skyguard and Air shows up, and you wreck them because they aren't expecting it. Its sweet. I know I do this all the time. I actually will pull AA when my outfit pulls vehicles. Or if there is a lack of it and I feel the zergy human shields might get skittish. You're right, it works. But its hit or miss. This is why people prefer the Annihilator or Swarm over ES launchers. They want to be ready for everything.

And even I have to admit the Skyguard isn't strong enough to be as specialized as it is. And why should a one man vehicle be that specialized? That's ridiculous. ESFs aren't that way either. So why should ground be like that?

Here's my solution:

Skyguard changed to be a Giant (aka higher DPS) Walker/Basilisk like cannon. No flak, but higher projectile speed, and larger direct damage and tighter CoF. It also nails ground vehicles and infantry decently. But not to the point where it outshines AV/AI. This way it doesn't get hard countered by even HE using tanks (equal to HE, disadvantaged slightly by HEAT, and may probably need to run facing AP).

Viper gets a flak explosion when passing near air. Does decent damage (its indirect damage times the flak resistance/vulnerability). Boom.. now newbies get a AA option available at every friendly base capable of bursty damage.

Both options require leading, aim, and decent skill. Reliance on CoF and other random factors is reduced. And you don't feel like a tool when you pull them and no air is around. Meaning they'll be many peoples' goto, just in case.

Yes, because no one wants to deliberately **** themselves with a weapon that has the lowest chance to kill and lowest SPM in the game and any success is based on having to share kills with other AA sources. Not to mention that if an aircraft is successfully "deterred" it will simply come back or move to a base without AA. Shifting the problem somewhere else is not a solution. Also if they do leave you have to abandon your AA source because they instantly become a liability. When there's no tanks around an MBT is still useful, but AA? AA is instantly useless.

So for good measure:
Do not blame the players for not using AA, blame the lack of well-designed AA.

Exactly my point! Seriously you give the exact reasons why AA is a complete farce! "Well we got shot in the end by an overwhelming amount of AA, then we just switched to a Harasser and mauled them all. It was basically a double massacre, first with aircraft then with something that could easily deal with AA (IE everything on the ground not AA).

Why sacrifice the nanites for a temporary solution? Only to get mauled by a Harasser 5 minutes later? How can you even dare think that the player apathy is their fault, and not caused by the mechanics themselves? If all those mechanics discourage the use of AA, if you get a better score and amount of kills by simply ignoring air even when it kills you instead of using AA, then the mechanics are bad! Seriously bad!

So to conclude, AA is mechanically the worst of the worst in the game and has needed a change since launch. Your solution is "all they needed was two deterrents to stand by". Allright, are you going to do that? Are you going to stand around with an AA weapon for aircraft that may never come?
If AA had any secondary power, such as being good against tanks, infantry or having some kind of useful support power they could use against tanks or infantry while aircraft aren't there, then you might have a small point. Regardless of any additional power against the ground, it would still leave the whole scaling problem.

It was more a stab at your statement that you generally **** yourself regarding self-defense against enemy aircraft by doing A2G. I'm just saying that you **** yourself FAR less than any other vehicles have to do (and typically infantry as well, although they can change loadout of course). And either they aren't that rare when I'm playing, or the ESFs jumping them are other A2G users (or at least not 100% A2A loadouts). And there aren't THAT many A2A-loadout users these days.

Regarding 2): If the same was applicable in any other shape or form in this game, I would accept it. Since it only applies to aircraft, I fail to acknowledge it as a legit argument for air being balanced.

You are still going to need more people than yourself to actually keep the aircraft away. One HA wielding a Lock-on isn't going to do jack-****.

King if misreading here.

Compare ESF with MAX units. ESF are cheaper in nanites and if you want to be effective against everything they cost less certs too. They can be effective against everything while the MAX has to keep changing loadouts to have that effectiveness. An ESF is also much better in solo engagements in comparison with an ESF. That is called bad balance and needs to be changed.

Your one word argument is even more laughable. I don't condone the power that cheap thing gets, even of you need 2 people to operate it effectively in most situations. That something is in the game doesn't warrant that it is a good argument to bring up. Or else we could have buffed a lot of stuff "because PPA", or "because striker" in their OP days.

Lastly you bring up something that isn't as hard to implement as you make it to be. A counter should generally win of the countered, unless nanites spend are different.
An AT MBT wins from an AT lightning generally. Same effectiveness, one is spend more upon. ESF generally wins over an AA RL, as they spend much more on their ESF with AI capabilities. An AV MAX generally wins of infantry, as they spend much more on their max in nanites even if it isn't their expertise.
...A Skyguard is a direct counter, costs just as much, has no other capabilities and still isn't good against aircraft, who cost just as much, is directly being countered, has capabilities against everything and can obliberate tanks with impunity.

Air is flawed as it is solo and too stromg compared to most other things. Although some of it is justified by skill ceiling, by far not all.

Uh oh, Aekir just ended the discussion on 'AA TOO WAAAAAAAAAH!'
What are all of you infantry-ers that never look up going to do on Forumside now?

Keep the discussion going by pointing out the flaws in his argument over and over again until he and people like you understand that this was flawed and just as much a way to end the discussion as the sentence "AA can OHK". It's not true, so it doesn't have value for the discussion.

The XP I make in an AA turret is unparalleled in any other class I play because I have done it enough that I am pretty good at target leading. I am always looking for ways to provide AA cover for my side. So few others do and get farmed, which is why I think Aekir is spot on.
I think air power should be feared in any game but with so many different counters (yes soft counters, but counters none the less), air is not the game destroying demon that some make it out to be.
You can shoot down an ESF with a pistol FFS and make 500+ XP.

A PISTOL

Let's see... Cat5hawtness: SPM is 149 (I have 234). So I already doubt you can do it with your pistol.
Your VKPH is also 8,7, a C- (below average). I personally score 15,5 VKPH. Just keep in mind that statistics of AA turrets are actually inflated (despite their incredible low scores!) because people jump into them when there's aircraft around, making their scores more effective when in use than a vehicle/infantry worn weapon.

DevilDaughter, your other account (the NC one is unavailable but also just BR18) has worse scores:
SPM of 124 and VKPH of 6,9

So you are lying your butt off. You barely manage to reach 1/3rd of the score you claim to be able to get with a pistol, all of which BTW haven't gotten a single anti-vehicle score (if you look at my stats you can see that I do have some small-arms weapons with vehicle kills, mainly Flashes).

And seriously, if the only thing you have are soft counters as a highly specialized weapon system versus a highly diversified weapon system that can hard counter every unit in the game then you know that something is wrong.

No, it doesn't. All your argument is saying is that "MAXes should be stronger compared to ESFs;" yet, ESFs fit the "counter" model people describe better than MAXes - they are usually cheaper than the other expensive units they are fielded against.

I brought up the Harasser because one typically uses the unit against "stronger" (or "more expensive") units using a sneaking, flanking, blitzkrieg that takes advantage of shifting positions and utilizing rapid and flexible mobility. Charging directly towards an MBT down the barrel of a cannon will likely wind up with the Harasser dead. They're strong because they do the exact thing that you say AA shouldn't have to do against Air.

"Systems of counters" are mental constructs produced by the players in attempt to justify why A works like A against B or why A should work like A against B. Just because something does something or contributes to the fight against something doesn't mean it's officially recognized as a hard counter. That's just a defintion chasing after justification. It's something you tag onto an item for inflexible reasoning. (If you don't like the "hard counter" terminology, I will go as low as "surefire counter.") If cost would be the only thing that demands a level of performance, why would a cheap hard counter be allowed to exist? if being made usable against something demands a certain level of performance, why would a cheap hard counter be allowed to exist? If cost and performance were joined at the hip, however, there'd really never be a good reason to pull a cheap weapon because it would also never be good in the eyes of players. What about difficulty of use? where does that fit into the cost-performance system? should it determine performance, or cost, or should that be determined by coin toss?

The system you propose is not novel. There have also been more than enough points where it could have "easily" been introduced and there's been more than enough of a calling for it in the past. Despite that, it's not in the game. It's appealing to enough but it's still not been done. You can push that the system be implemented as much as you want (I implore that you do continue) but you just have to accept that the power of something is not currently related to how expensive it is. Even under the proposed system, it can't be that straightforward without also being flawed for some other reason.

To clarify: when I am in an AA turret, I can reach 100+ certs in an hour. There isn't any other class I can do that with. I was simply pointing out that the rewards are there for anyone that wants them and I think it shows most people don't pay attention to AA.
To clarify again: 'you' meaning 'anyone' can shoot down an ESF with a pistol. I have gotten the last shot with a pistol before as I am sure others have.

To clarify again: My score per minute vs. others wasn't what I was discussing.
I'm also not a member and run no boosts. Don't know if that shows or not in stats. What I do have is 3+ years of personal experience in PS2 and my personal opinion has always been that air power is not the soul crushing burden that people make it out to be.

You don't provide complete arguments and counter arguments dodge the issue I bring up and mostly go into a vague subjective ramble. I'll not argue with That

You can get 100 certs an hour, so why don't you do that? Why don't you explain how to do that? Is it based on "wait for an air-zerg that does not attack you and hold down fire button"? or something extremely specific as that which can only be achieved once in a blue moon? When you do get that 100+ certs an hour, how many planes do you shoot down? How effective were you? Why were you effective? These are the things we need to know to judge your comments at the value they are worth. Right now we can only check your magical feats by looking up your statistics, but those do not say anything, in fact they make you a complete and utter liar.

"Everyone can be good at AA, everyone can get 500+XP with a pistol against aircraft, just so long as other players have weakened the target beforehand for an easy finishing shot".
Yeah, that's not "being good at AA", that's "stealing kills with an inferior weapon". If a weapon cannot be directly used against a 100% health target, especially with 3 vs 1 scenario in favor of the weapon, than it's definitely not an adequate counter. Any weapon of equal resource cost but designed to counter the other unit type should result in an around 50/50 win scenario and/or equal stats. Currently that's simply not the case.

Yes you weren't discussing it as it disproves everything you claim to be true.

If we play that game: I'm not a member either and I don't use boosts either. I also have 3+ years personal experience and my total hours played is a bit more than yours from what I quickly scanned. I have also used a far larger selection of weapons and vehicles than you, so my experienced is more varied and complete.
There, now my opinion weighs more than yours! Even though a game is seated on what the average player thinks because you want to have as many paying players online as possible and you basically should listen to where people have problems and then design a solution that takes the other side in consideration as well.
We have seen a massive amount of players complain about air. We have also seen a very large portion that keeps saying that air is fine, but G2A isn't. Do we go with what a few top players want or think? Top players that have just as much want to see their own playstyles and power improved rather than the balance of the game? Or do you listen to the average player, who in all probability has a more fragmented experience and has been on one side of the conflict for the most part because of his playstyle and interests? Or should the developers take everyone's experience, from the lowest to the highest, into account and create solutions that will benefit the game as a whole and make the game enjoyable for most players instead of just a small portion?

I really dont get your post (the first one, not the one Im quoting). To be honest I dont get this one either.
Anyway
What exactly was the point of this whole thread if not telling us its our fault when we get farmed by air because noone plays (unrewarding, way too specialized and boring) Anti Air.
Im sorry, but even after reading it several more times I dont see what else youre trying to say.