Its been such a long time

It's actually the resistances they changed. The ESF is mostly the same as is the valk, but libs and especially galaxys are very vulnerable to all forms of flak now. Galaxys got nerfed so hard that battle gals are gone now, only flight ceiling spawn tube mode is somewhat useable.

mercies are a straight upgrade to the blueshifts with a higher rate of figher, more ammo but longer reload.
and both ZOE and Repair are more and less useless.
but i guess that atleast makes the VS MAX the cheapest to upgrade 100% because all you need is blueshifts or nebulas and Flak armor.

I'm not sure if you've read right... As I said : "I can't use air vehicles, I'm just bad with them.".
I was a Light Assault player mostly, MAX when too many annoying air vehicles (the Charge was a great tool against them), Infiltrator with pistol and Sundy.

I didn't mind being wiped like nothing by air vehicles because I had a good counter if needed. I actually made TONS of certs by destroying them.
Air vehicles were great risk vs reward challenges for me, as a solo player on the ground.

Look, it's simple. You have Infantry, the weakest of all units. They are "free" -unlike MAXs, ground & air vehicles, and mandatory for point capture.
However, infantry is not defenseless, you can outplay any MAX / Ground V. / Air V. if you want to destroy some. Or you pop yourself a MAX / Ground V. / Air V. as a counter.

MAX's Charge was what made them such a threat. One of their specialities was to create choke points. As a LA, it was my job to put pressure and move them out.

People complained because we had to apply and care about strats and counters ? That's all I understand in the end.
Flaten the gamplay in a massive scale battles game is terrible design. It got rid of a few epic skirmish components, elements of surprise, anybody could create / counter, making the game less "alive", dynamic.
Hence less and less players.

This, with the continent lock, forcing players in specific fights, instead of letting them choose their battles or just to roam freely at their own pace.

When a post isnt directly quoting someone its referring to the OP.In other words,i wasnt talking to you.

Ummm did I ever say that mercies were better than blue shifts (which is arguable) You saying max charge being removed was a mistake is completely and utterly baseless . It was such a horrible thing .....

Charge good against A2G ESF! Hahahahahah... I remember ganking noobs using charge trying to escape me. As infantry it is completely and utterly a battle flow ruiner. Chokepoints are not good... nor is the charge ability. Being able to escape from certain death is a step too far and the change IMHO is an excellent choice from the devs

I said hi to you the other day and got no love.
/salt

also; WB!

Let me a little more specific.
I used Charge against aircrafts not as an escape button (never worked well, not my playstyle, I'm kinda reckless ), but to give me some "momentum", 1 to 3 secs to think "what now ?" while I was running and making U-turns at impossible speed, maybe while reloading, or seaching for a cover nearby, or even better in some cases (using Charge on purpose) to reach a better position and finish my opponent.

Of course, this wasn't a 50% win rate. More like between 10-30%, which is still not nothing. Because there are noobs driving aircrafts too, and I was GOOD at it.

Yes, you are right. If you see Planetside 2 as an "infantry" game only. If so, there are many games offering such gameplay. Planetside is about "multidimentional" battles, with 6 different footed unit types, and various ground and air vehicles.
You can't just take into account the battle flow with the infantry.

A few people creating a choke point here, (MAX or not) ?
The flow of a battle was also about that player deploying a sundy at that unexpected spot. And the chessboard was flipped away in a minute. You just had to spawn here along with some mates (no need to coordinate anything, any player recognise such opportunity, mostly).

I did it as a random player spawning "here" because choke point. I did it as a Sunderer. And I did it as a MAX understanding the situation and going & cover that spawn point from fair range.

Now that situation in particular. If I recall right, you are talking about an issue regarding techs in the safe room, waiting for MAXs to Charge at them and be repaired ?
Sure this wasn't alright and needed to be fixed. Fixed, as in "not removing a whole part of the gameplay".
There is a gap, DBG crossed it and directly destroyed a major component of PS2 for me.
Indirectly, they destroyed a part of the overall feeling of the game for many players, that "multidimentional" gameplay anyone could try and use.

Plus, you said it yourself, how many MAX noobs did you destroyed thanks to their confidence in Charge ? Well, sometimes, Charge was not in your favor. That was you and your mates' call to think of a solution and outplay you enemies, not to ask for it to be removed when you didn't liked it because, sometimes, it was "hard".

Yesterday on Emerald early evening EST, I've never seen so many TR & NC ESFs controlling the continent. Ground vehicles were toast unless your ride was sporting some AA. It was a spectacle to be witnessed seeing 16+ friendly ESFs flying above you to intercept the other faction air.

*facepalms
Huh, when did I ever say PS2 was infantry only. Just because a part of the game was supposedly “ruined” for you doesn’t mean it was for others. In fact most vehicle drivers I know hated charge since an AV max could just charge away without taking damage whilst hugely damaging vehicles.

And let’s be honest here, charge allowed escapes for good player where they should technically be lying face first decomposing in the ground. Charge is just way way too much power. I think you don’t understand how it is to be an infantry player who is facing a max laying waste to your entire team and then just as you are about to kill im he runs away laughing at how you need to git gud.

Charge= Gamebreaker

That's being rudely presumptuous.

As a fellow lib pilot, I feel your pain...

Honestly whose idea was it to overbuff the Ranger, a solo harrasser should not be more dangerous than the lib crew trying to kill them.

Also bring back old thermals on air vehicles, unless your render quality is maxed out it's pretty much impossible to spot targets without getting in Decimator range. The guns were nerfed hard enough don't keep this "spot the pixels" minigame.

Why are you being an ******?

You should use less superlatives. Your battle flow is "completely and utterly" ruined only if you see the game as infantry only, and don't even consider taking some perspective to shift the fight : change your unit type, change your spawn point, or whatever else you can come up with.
It's a battle flow ruiner for tunnelvision people.

I just have to see the past few years how the game lacks players at any time of a day since those major changes (continent-lock & Hossin included) each time I try PS2 again.

Aaaaaaaand I learnt to reach these MAXs and C4 them with the Light Assault. By the end, I was trying to finish them with the knife, which worked a few times.

The Charge problem could have been solved otherwise while keeping it and make everybody happy.

It's a natural reaction to pilots. They are being even more of an ****** all the time. And what's worse, they think they've earned it somehow or that it is the natural order of things.

Harassers... are.. odd.. annoying things to both air & ground.

Thermals on aircraft. again..
The fastest thing, with the shortest TTK on targets.
Or did you forget ESF's are still as strong as they were when they had Thermals.
Any infantry or Max, fires, ESF flashes their Thermals, spots them perfectly - unloads their near instant death onto them.
And since a Decimator is dumb-fire.. and an ESF isn't slow or unable to move at all..
Not to mention, That as well gives Air the longest range thermals that can mulch infantry & tanks faster than they die.
While the Decimator user has to be facing, aimed already, and the ESF has to not dodge the rocket..
While the ESF can drive by, flash Thermals, and fire - with an exit - no time spent finding targets, just killing.

IE **** Thermals on aircraft.
It's cert-vision for them -- Ground Vehicles had a harder time abusing the shorter-ranged Thermals they had.
They certainly didn't have the ability to end the existence of Maxes in a near instant..
Nor click a button to find Any Infantry unit, or AA source that isn't a tank instantly... while being unable to be out-run.

Oh bloody hell...

Ummm no it couldn’t.
Maybe the game lacks players due to the fact that it is 5 YEARS old. In fact there has been a small growth in players recently which is steadily increasing. And no it’s not game breaking for tunnel vision players, it is for people like you who are tunnel visioned yourselves. Every person who has played the game for more than 4 years I know absolutely hated charge and was happy when it was removed.

And the only MAX units that would allow you to knife them are probably complete and utter noobs who can’t aim for their lives. Your argument is completely baseless and you are one of the only people I know who actually like do charge which just proves my point that you just don’t know what you are talking about.
Tell you what go watch cyrious gamings video on MAXs and see just how much of a problem them and charge together were

And care to explain how the charge problem could be solved Mr I Love Charge

The charge wasn't a problem. It was an OP aspect of the maxes. Maxes as a whole were OP when the game released but this was mitigated by spawn timers and resources. When the resources got flattened to a single type and spawn timers removed, may things in the game that were previously under control became OP. Then came the nerf bat....