buff anti air

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Zizoubaba, Nov 10, 2019.

  1. Zizoubaba

    no wall of text

    just 3 ***** words
    • Up x 1
  2. Demigan

    I don't think that a direct buff is going to be any good. A situation where aircraft being able to do their thing is basically an on/off switch is not good, and we already have such a system mostly in place. Without enough G2A aircraft are free to dominate against any ground target, with enough G2A aircraft are for the most part prevented from acting (Not exactly but with all skills pilots learn it's not feasible).

    A better situation is to make G2A more prevalent and less of a dedicated "I can hit aircraft but are sht against everything else".

    Example: HEAT guns could receive a higher elevation and a 0.5m flak detonation range, but have a lower damage against ESF to prevent OHK's. This allows HEAT guns to be used mostly against Liberators and Galaxies with great effect but have more trouble with ESF's.
    The Viper could get a similar treatment, allowing it to fulfill a light AA role.

    Creating new multi-purpose guns, such as an AI auto-canon in the vein of the Saron, Enforcer and Viper. The shots would be accurate high velocity and use direct damage rather than AOE to deal damage (to set it apart from the "AI=large explosions" guns we have now), and it could double as a gun that deals good damage against ESF, Harassers, MAX's and other lightly armored vehicles but deals much less damage against more heavily armored vehicles. It is specialized, but not useless once it's specialization isn't around.

    That should happen to most vehicular weapons and classes btw. They should always be able to deal with two threats in some way, from lethal direct damage to non-lethal means to obscure or protect themselves and allies from attack.
    • Up x 1
  3. PlanetBound

    Read my signature.
  4. Demigan

    You can't counter the friction through the earth's rotation, you would have to locate it at the south pole and then hold it steady from geosynchronous orbit, IE unscrew it but instead of using your hands you use the earth's rotation with the space-elevator like structure holding the bulb gently and having a tiny bit less rotational speed compared to the earth. Also if the G2A vs A2G were likened to needing to unscrew a lightbulb, then said lightbulb is build inside a wall where you can only reach it with a sledgehammer. It's impractical, prevents you to use it properly, you risk accidentally destroying the powerlines or the lightbulb and it's not really worth doing a lot.
    • Up x 1
  5. Zizoubaba

    As I see it Demigan, it's balanced, it was always more or less balanced, except that it's balanced according factors or variables that in practice don't happen.

    For example : if a couple players pulled a skyguard, there's little the ESFs could do. Even if there's a lib flying around, he'd be in trouble, he couldn't farm peavefull,y he couldn't fly down to 2 meters above ground, literally sit on a sundy while destroying it.

    In practice, no one pulls skyguards, no one (or rarely) pulls a MAX with anti air or a a heavy with anti air.

    In practice, libs and esfs are having a field day, hovering 5 meters above ground, killing everything in sight.


    I mean think about it, you spawn at a base to defend it. You run out and before you run 5 meters, paff paff paff, u get shot by an ESF.

    What do you do?

    Respawn, try again.

    It's what I do, it's what most people do. It's balanced on paper, maybe, not in reality.
  6. Exileant

    :confused: Since we are not going to get into the why, I have eighteen words: ;) "Anti-air is :eek: JUST :D fine."
    • Up x 1
  7. Scroffel5

    Easiest buff I can think of is buffing accuracy, damage to non-air units, including infantry, buffing damage, and lowering cooldown. That would work for the anti-air turrets. For ESFs, we could boost small arms damage to them, so they truly have to watch out when they start taking damage. Make Lockons more effective somehow, maybe by doing more damage or a shorter reload. Those are the ways I would use.
  8. Zizoubaba



    this is the why ;)

  9. Campagne

    I think a very big problem with AA is the TTK comparisons between the ground platform and the aircraft.

    Lock-on rocket launchers, assuming no stealth, fire suppression, or flares, have a TTK of close to a minute on any given ESF. A Banshee is in all practicality an instant kill. Against anything larger the only guaranteed kill is that of the heavy. The Rocklet Rifle is also incredibly terrible and short-ranged, giving little to no excuse for every dying to one in an aircraft.

    Dual Burster MAXes deal a lot more DPS and are able to bypass stealth and flares, but once again have a lengthy TTK and can be killed extremely quickly, even instantly, by the ESF.

    Apis turrets have a longer TTK and though they can out-DPS a singe ESF within an ideal range it's a lot closer than it ought to be. Against a lib the dedicated AA turret loses. The turrets also have terrible accuracy, a maximum range which is shorter than the ESF's (allowing an ESF to shoot the AA turret from total safety), and elevation deadzones where the turret can't look too high or too low, providing guaranteed safe angles against them.

    Walker/Ranger harassers are decent, but once again in a direct fight will lose the DPS race against an ESF and stand no chance against anything else. They also require two people to use effectively.

    Walker/Ranger ANTs are much better, having much more health and 10% higher resistances as well as similar speed and maneuverability on top of heavy armour protecting the vehicle from other small threats in the area. The ANT also of course has the shield and cloak, which given appropriate planning could be used to beat an ESF with good success in a direct engagement. However, once again this requires preferably two players and an amount of effort and planning before the actual engagement, and in a practical setting the ESF would still easily win. Against a lib or Gal it's still no contest.

    A dual Walker/Ranger sunndy can out-DPS a single ESF, especially if there are two gunners. The use of a deployment shield or even a cloak-and-ambush works very well against ESFs in a direct DPS-fight, but as always against libs or gals there is no contest alone. This would require ideally two players and would not be able to secure the kill in a realistic encounter.

    An MBT with a Ranger or Walker would be decent, having the health and firepower (if the main cannon is able to target the opponent) to be able to kill an ESF to potentially even a lib or gal, although unlikely. If only the topgun is able to fire, there is little contest. An ESF would probably lose the DPS race and once again would not die in a "real-world" engagement. Anything tougher would win easily. This would once again require two to preferably two depending on the engagement.

    A Lightning with an AP cannon would easily beat an ESF and nothing else. With a Skyguard the same is still probably true. Any threats in the area would be considerably more dangerous and as always there would be nothing to secure the kill on a single ESF in a point-blank DPS encounter, as it will just fly away at low health.

    What must be done? In my opinion ESFs (and indeed all aircraft) should be made much more vulnerable to everything, but gain a dramatically increased speed and mobility. An ESF should die in seconds to a direct stream of flak from a dedicated AA turret, but should have the capability to become such a difficult target (with sufficient skill) to last as much as triple to quadruple the time under fire while attempting to escape. (No, not ADAD for aircraft to dodge shots while firing).

    Other damage sources such as small arms, heavy MGs and the like (Basilisk to Vulcan to Walker type weapons), non-lock rockets and missiles, shells, and various other projectiles which require skill or aiming should utterly decimate smaller aircraft and cripple libs and gals with relative ease.

    Currently air and especially ESFs are glass cannons without the glass. They have a huge number of special perks and advantages and have a massive and unfair advantage almost 100% of the time. We should not see lone aircraft flying over to a base populated by one or more enemy factions only to light it up and get five kills in thirty seconds before flying away to repair chip damage, assuming it doesn't passively repair itself...

    If a mossie wants to instakill a group of infantry with a Banshee, fine. But it ought to die just as quickly to that group of infantry as they will to it. Who wins should come entirely down to player skill, not player weapon/equipment platforms. Dedicated AA weaponry should either cease to exist or become a guaranteed kill/deterrent depending on player skill. Personally I'd prefer to see all Apis turrets replaced with Spear turrets and have them OHK ESFs. (Like they used to?)

    If implemented, I would support the removal of all AA and allow for some/most weapons to be universally effective against all types of infantry and vehicles. A Spear turret ought to slam tanks and sunndies and send ESFs spiraling down into the dirt alongside the paste of an infantryman who suffered a direct hit, only to be lit up by air, tanks, and infantry firing machine guns in retaliation. Ya' know, combined arms.
    • Up x 2
  10. Scroffel5

    I love this post.
    • Up x 1
  11. LodeTria

    How does a ESF become a "difficult" target to hit when flak by design is to be as ez to hit with as possible? You've said "skill" but failed to elobrate on what that actually means and how that interacts with EZ mode flak.

    The walker needs buffs as it is, so I'd rather just buff that than buffing EZ flak again.
  12. Zizoubaba

    It's easy to hit an ESF with flak (in fact you should be using flak, since the ranger got nerfed) IF THE ESF IS HOVERING 5 METERS ABOVE YOU.

    The reason a ESF is difficult to hit with flak is that the flak projectiles are really really slow. So if the ESF is moving (like most esfs) and if the esf is further away than, what, let's say 20 meters? 10 meters? Whatever, then it isn't easy...

    Hope that helps ! :)))
  13. Skraggz


    I strongly Disagree, Flak gets hard to hit because of the RNG nature of their spray pattern. The CoF is STILL the issue with skyguard. I can easily predict where the ESF is going but if my bullets are spraying Hundreds of meters AROUND my target then it just feels bad. Its almost like shooting as someone 300m out with a shotgun. Sure you will hit them, but its only gonna let them know where it came from.
    • Up x 2
  14. Campagne

    It's really not difficult to imagine how increasing a highly mobile unit's mobility will make it harder to hit. Even just increasing the speed of an ESF flying in a straight line makes it harder to lead from the ground.

    However, I was more thinking increasing directional acceleration and roll speed, allowing faster and more fluid three-dimensional movement. Would also make A2A combat more interesting.

    And in line the second suggestion, Apis turrets could be easily converted into ground-based Wyrms by greatly reducing CoF and bloom, sharply increasing damage and boosting projectile velocity at the cost of all flak detonation. A high damage, low RoF automatic AA gun which is most effective against large and/or close targets.
  15. Zizoubaba



    you strongly disagree on what exactly, since you agree that they are hard to hit with...

    are you saying that the flak projectiles are super fast? Cause I didn't see you write that anywhere, in fact, I don't see anything that either disagrees with what I said or that I disagree with .


    but by all means, feel free to "strnogly disagree".
  16. Scroffel5

    Cant we make ESF more plane, less helicopter? Then dogfighting actually matters, and we'd have less of this gay hover battle crap. Id much rather have to do that. More speed, less health encourages that. Of course, you could still hover battle and stuff, but you are even more of a sitting duck. How does that sound?

    Edit: Glass. Cannon.
    • Up x 2
  17. iStalk

    So ruin my playstyle to improve yours? Right seems fair, what's next on your nerf list. Please inform us how to build a game to suit your needs .
  18. Skraggz

    That esfs are hard to hit due to AA bullet velocity.
  19. Demigan

    I don't think it's balanced.

    When multiple Skyguards are present, they often still only have 1 or 2 opposing aircraft at a time to attack. Practically nothing in the game can withstand multiple weapons designed against them for long, so it's no surprise that these aircraft die. This gives rise to one of the worst types of gameplay possible. There shouldn't be any way, shape or form in which an entire aspect of the game is almost impossible to use, save a few specifically designed scenario's to facilitate this (IE Quartz Ridge vs Excavation creates vehicle battles that infantry have trouble participating in).
    But during air balls this changes. Multiple ESF's have plenty of firepower to deal with Skyguards and other AA units, and due to the nature of aircraft they quickly switch and take damage for each other making it harder to finish off individuals. The biggest reason aircraft lack the ability to perform near groups of G2A is simply because there are so few aircraft, which is due to the lobsided air controls giving excessive power to veterans instead of a skillcurve where the amount of power gained for more skill goes down.

    A good balanced gameplay would mean that aircraft, tanks and infantry are overall capable of functioning anywhere, at any time. They might be at a disadvantage in some cases but they should never be nigh impossible to use. We should see about as many aircraft in the skies duking it out as vehicles on the ground at any point in time above a battle. That does mean that we need more reasons for aircraft to stick around a fight such as relatively low floating points, partially shielded generators that can be destroyed with firepower from the air etc.
  20. Demigan

    The hover fighting crap should stay, what should happen is that other maneuvers should have similar power in the air as well.

    Currently if you do a well executed flight through tight caverns then all that has happened is that your enemy has flown over it and caught up to you.
    If you have racer frame you still can't shake off enemies properly due to the ranges at which aircraft can attack each other forcing you to keep snaking about allowing the enemy to catch up to you.
    If you do a sudden turn, the one chasing you has such an easy time turning with you that sudden turns allow the opponent to catch up to you and get a solid chunk of damage into you.

    All the normal flight maneuvers you would try in other games give your opponent more time to catch up and even damage you a fair bit. To remedy this we need to make these more normal flight maneuvers more useful, and make aircraft flight more intuitive as well. For starters just adding a button to force aircraft into and out of hover mode would be a giant step forwards.
    Making all airframes viable. Speed frame seems to have a hidden penalty for braking compared to vanilla and dogfighting frames (more than the small extra speed boost should account for). This makes it the most unsuitable airframe because the most important thing you need is to be able to brake, turn and engage the enemy. Dogfighting frame is good but not that good and the hover frame that is supposed to be A2G is the best suited for A2A combat due to it's ability to brake faster, drop less during hover maneuvers in any direction and have improved vertical speed needed for the reverse maneuver. Each airframe should be viable, and preferably the differences between vanilla, dogfighting, hover and racer should be strong enough that each gives players a different way to engage aircraft effectively.
    One of the easiest methods would likely be the ability to afterburn in any direction based on your button input. It's much more intuitive meaning that newbies get closer in power to the veterans much quicker, allows aircraft to pull off many more maneuvers and be better at surprising their enemy in some way. From a sudden brake that could be used to go literally backwards to more intuitively using the reverse maneuver to sudden 180 turns while your actual velocity still pulls you backwards etc. This should be available to the ESF's, Valkyries and Liberators all at the same time to give them the opportunity to use it against each other effectively. Which would immediately be a good reason to add skillful and powerful G2A weapons to the game as well.
    • Up x 1