My opinion: Planetside 3 should have no attack hover aircrafts - just air transports

Okay, again, even assuming you are correct about air pop it doesn't change a thing about a2g right now. It also doesn't counter any argument about changing the resistances of smallarms. I didn't say a2a ESFs can't get locked out of fights by g2a in bigger fights, and same goes for a2g, but that requires a large number of dedicated AA (unless you are trying to say that air should -never- be locked out of a fight?). Small arms won't hit a2a ESFs, but will melt those (as you even said) bad a2g ESFs. And, in those small fights, the trash a2g players won't have such easy pickings.

It's been said before and backed even by those who don't fly - flak and lock-ons don't require much aim, but atm they need to be like that because of the speed, distance, maneuverability of air and lack of dmg from other weapons from the ground. The walker, for example, is garbage even though it is supposed to be a higher skill AA weapon. A2G weapons also don't require aim besides point and click, which is the problem.

this shouldn´t be the case though .. infantry outside shouldn´t be entirely helpless and be totalty foced to hide behind cover and in biolabs ... this is not combined arms

give a way for infantry to defend against and support vehicles and aircraft ..

engineers are often supposed to help keep vehicles especialy sunderers alive, medics have to keep engineers alive for the engineers to keep doing their work ..

heavy assaults defend medics and engineers as do maxes where engineers and medics again help the former 2 so they can help them .. give and take ..

LA´s go and hunt down lone vehicles, they have the capability and capacity to do that (... specialized blackopsstyle infilteams could do so as well given the apropriate gear)

the problem however is both maxes and HA´s lack (and engineers and medics) the capacity to propper execute their roles ..
you need a number of HAs to kill vehicles and planes, you need numbers of high nanitecostintesive maxes that hardly survive outside against tanks and planes ...

i mean what the heck kinda game is this were infantry can do sweet FA against vehicles but only hide in bases?
"realistic"? in real life a rocketlauncher team is very well capable to kill the crew of a tank with an rpg ..
they have the capability to take down a chopper with the apropriate AA missilelauncher ..

but we are talking about a game here .. a team game at that ... forces should be able to work together and not be isolated from one another ..

current platform- and weaponballance as well as lack of options for all infantryclasses (and vehicles) however exactly causes that forced isolation ..

a2g is not the problem

a2a and g2a is ..

i don´t care if aircraft have their groundpound options,

what i care about is that infantry and vehicles lack propper airpounders that are both fairly strong and on surviveable platforms (*looks at maxes*) which mbt and lightningcannons surely are not meant to be as much as veterans like to use them as such..

what i care about is that ESFs have such sh itty secondary weapons for AA be that against light or heavy armored planes ..

Flak and lock-ons can pound (deny) air, in large numbers, and is part of the bad balance we have atm. Try flying an ESF into a hex watched by even a burster max and lock-on heavy or a skyguard - you won't get much done unless there is lots of hills for cover to break LOS.

And this is the problem right here. Self-entitled air jockeys.

It does not take 4 to 6 months to learn any part of the infantry game.
It does not take 4 to 6 months to learn any part of the ground vehicle game.
It only takes 4 to 6 months (with tutors and training in VR most often!) to learn the air-game. Which idiot is going to do that except a few masogists or people with too much time on their hands?

The game only just got 7 years old right? So you want people to take about 10% of the time that this game exists to just learn one aspect of the game? And that is assuming that most players can waste as much time on the game as you do! Why should they? The point of a game is that it's fun. The best way to do that is to make learning it fun as well. The air combat isn't fun to learn because it's only countered by itself and there is basically one maneuver set you can learn and nothing else. That in itself is also a problem as the only way to advance is to gain superior skill than someone who has already surpassed you, which means putting in more time and effort than that person as there are no counters to learn, no other maneuvers to master to combat someone doing hover combat maneuvers, no mixture of combat styles to learn and adapt to and make sure practically no one will learn them all perfectly.

This is a thread that laments the lack of viable counters that ground units have against aircraft. Naturally someone like you has to come with "oh but it's easy I just pull an aircraft to counter my opponent". You forget that it took 4 to 6 months for you to learn that in the first place and that pulling an aircraft also means you admit that the ground units aren't capable of fending off A2G effectively.

Not having time to learn to fly is a "YOU" problem not mine kid. You want to remove a playstyle because you you can't do it yourself or suck to bad to counter it? Not my problem, it's your problem. Ground has many ways to scare off a esf, lock ons, flak, ranger, Walker, small arms fire, spawn room maxes etc. I've seen a small squad of heavies deny a whole base from esf. So again it's a you problem. But it takes a little bit of an effort. Getting mad because ESF has a high skill ceiling lol
Also there are multiple styles people use while fighting. You have no idea what you're talking about when you talk about a2a combat and learning. Some people favor staying high while others favors going low. Some people favor side to side dodging, some favor up and down dodging. Some do a little of both. Some rush, some stay at distance. So again you're wrong there, there is a mixture of combat styles. Learning to fly was fun for me, and frustrating but highly rewarding. It was hard yes, but so worth it because it's the only thing I really enjoy now. So again git gud

This then needs to cost about as much nanites as an ESF though to level the playing field.

It is a gameplay problem my dear moron. Expecting a minimum time investment of months is ridiculous for any game and is a surefire way to suicide any game or reduce the amount of players in that area.
Hey aircraft are the least used in the game. I wonder why eh? Could it be this 4 to 6 month time investement?

Hey moron if you read anything I wrote you might have noticed that I did not ask for hover combat to be outright removed. In fact I've advocated to keep it and allow more maneuvers and combat techniques to be viable instead of just hover combat. But that kind of nuance is far too hard to grasp for you isn't it?

No it's a gameplay problem. The game has to be good to stay alive, and by effectively removing 1/3rd of the game by gating it with a moronically stupid inverted skillcurve connected to a single combat maneuver system is a sure-fire way to get that 1/3rd not used much.

I've done plenty of A2G and they aren't half as scary as you think. It is a pretty telling that most "good" pilots think such weapons are basically aircraft-be-gone weapons and that they fail to learn even the most basic methods of attack while G2A is present.
Also just because something exists does not mean it is effective or capable. Small-arms for example is barely useful. You can get a squad to fire up in the air but due to the ranges and capabilities of aircraft this is a virtually useless gesture, at best you can hope for is that they think it's a Walker firing at them or perhaps think it's just small-arms and then find out too late it's a Walker engaging them.

What, all ESF were dumb fks then? You talk about you problems and have no idea that you are limited as all hell.

Just 4 to 6 months of little effort...
In the meantime finding out a successful G2A attack pattern took me 5 minutes after I learned the basics of the air-controls in the game. Why couldn't you?

Are you truly so dumb that you can't understand that 4 to 6 months to learn a single facet of a game is just too much even if it required little effort during that 4 to 6 months?

They all revolve around the hover combat at it's core. Are you truly that stupid to figure that out?

Well obviously you are. "4 to 6 months", "a little effort". You are insane.

Lol did I trigger you? Apparently I did cause now you went down to personal attack's. Get good lol. Not a gameplay problem, flying isn't as hard as you're making it out to be. Hover
dueling is something that isn't found in many games and its unique. Sure let's add more types of flying ok why not to suit you lazy typed that have no skill. And no flying is not always hover combat wtf you're talking about? I can get the jump on someone and take them out before they even have a chance to turn around. Sometimes I get jumped and am able to fly through tight areas as I watch them crash trying to chase me. And also hover combat there is many styles to it. Just because its "hover" dont mean it's just black and white. Some people I have a hard time dueling because their style of flying is hard to track. Idk why you can't understand that lol. And and planetside isn't the only game where it takes time to get used to it. The main reason why it takes so long is because the mechanics of flying is so unique that you have to develop new muscle memory for it. But once you get it, it's not that hard. How is that insane? All i see from you is that you're a lazy kid who goes straight to personal attacks when faced with an opposing view. You keep trying to make me sound dumb while you're just complaining pretty much saying "oh it's to much effort ". FOR YOU. Not for me, and many other pilots that I know. Yes the air pop isn't great, but there's a long list of reasons why.
Also you're assuming a lot throughout that post and honestly you're not worth my time to go through point by point. Also a esf can't really engage with any g2a attacks, mainly only heavies. We can't solo a harasser with a decent gunner and we can't take out a decent sky guard. All we can do is run away. Not that easy to run when you're fighting someone else a2a because running is almost certain death if the pilot is decent,unusually.
Edit:
Most of the skill when it comes to dueling isn't even flying, it's pretty much out leading the other person, it's really that simple. Most people assume the bullets follow the esf velocity or trust their crosshair too much and wonder why their not landing shots.
And as I said before. A2g might seem OP is because of 2 reasons mainly.
1:lack of air pop, if you have a2g you're pretty much a free kill for a2a.
2: they attack small to mid pop fights where g2a isn't around.

Delete

All of this was on point.

You do realize you resort to personal attacks in every rebuttal, right? You say stuff like "You suck." Or " Get good scrub. " in literally every reply to someone who calls you out on your crap. Here is how air combat should be balance IMO:

remove the stabilizers on the Harasser flak cannons to give it a bigger skill gap, and make a new AA cannon by default for EVERY vehicle. It would be slow firing and accurate up to a certain range, and it would deal decent damage to infantry. Better yet, we can give the Basilisk actual AA capabilities, maybe boosting the damage to air. It is severely inaccurate, so you would have to get in range, and it would favor the Flash and Harassers speed, as it should. That would make AA much harder to use, especially on the Flash since the gun has no stability, and if we remove the stabilizer from the Harasser.

Also, nerf libs and gals. Today we had 2 Skyguards and 2 AA turrets shooting at 2 Galaxies or Libs, I dont remember which. We shot a 1/3 gal and he accidentally jumped out, killing himself, and we STILL didnt take down his Gal until it hit the ground and we all shot it for 5 more seconds. The other Gal got away, virtually unscathed. Later on, after we got zerged and lost the base, I shot at a very low flying Gal with my Buzzard, and that didnt go well at all.

Libs are a whole different story that I dont want to get into lol. And yes when it comes to you I do go to personal attacks because of how often you post crap. But your last post was good. AA needs to be better and more skilled based. Also AA needs to be decent at normal combat so it wouldn't he suicide just running AA and have a chance against other targets. But you cant make a rock paper scissor style gameplay. That's just plain stupid. A crewed vehicle shouldn't be soloed.
Esfs are fine, the problem is AA needs be improved a little, not much

resulting to personal attacks against someone does not make the person you are insulting wrong, it shows that you have an inability to adequately counter their arguments, so you try to derail their argument by trying to upset them, in other words you are losing the argument and can't win basically.

As a good rule of thumb: A thing should not take more people to counter it than it requires to make it work at decent efficiency. (For multicrew vehicles and a potential for peak efficiency, let's assume decent efficiency is 1 below that number).

To get more into the details, nanite price should also be a factor, means that something for free should not be as effective as something that has to be pulled at a terminal. But cost-efficiency wise, a Burster MAX should be absolutely on par with an ESF when it comes to killing one another. And because that can (or should) never be achieved by making the ESF a sitting duck like the MAX is, the compared damage output has to be reviewed. Though granted from all G2A options I use the MAX still stands out as probably the most effective overall, it was just the easiest example.

A bruster max takes no skill and it can take out a ESF if it sticks around for to long. Also usually a esf can't even kill them because they usually hide in the spawn room. You wanna talk about unfair gameplay there's one. Shouldn't be possible for a bruster max to have all that range from inside a spawn room. Yet it is.

Actually if you read what I've said before you'd realise that i actually win most of my arguments with him. Quit trying to say I'm losing my arguments without even following the argument itself which actually starts in other threads. Nice try bud. But after a while I just had enough of his dumb claims and how he bases the balance of the game based on his shortcomings in game. It's one thing asking for ways to deal with something, it's a other to claim it's OP simply because you can't deal with it. He's stuck in this rock paper scissor mind set and that's not how a team based works. No player should be able to easily solo a vehicle. Sure we can talk improving AA but to simply have them completely cripple a esf especially considering that land based playstyle doesn't require such learning curve as air based gameplay. All of AA options available currently doesn't require a brain to use, buffing it even more would be totally OP considering that example. Now change the mechanics of it so it does decent damage but requires some form of skill then sure. But he simply just wants that kill. Which is totally stupid, it's a team based game. You still get points for helping to kill the esf. Yes it can fly away. But a esf stands no chance against any decent AA user in the first place. AA is a deterrent, not a killing machine. Meaning area denial.

Sooo.... basically what you're saying, is that air-****** are allowed a playstyle where they can kill everything, and escape pretty much any situation? Because that's where it is right now.

Even an A2G loadout (rocket pods and e.g. Banshee) can be adequate in A2A - though a dedicated A2A loadout will *probably* (but not definitely) kill it. And ESF's can escape *any* ground countermeasures unless they're completely useless pilots. And ESF's are so mobile that if it gets a little hot at one base, they just sod off to another base, leaving all the dudes that pulled bursters, skyguards and G2A heavies sitting around picking their noses. And, of course, the second those dudes go back to doing something else, the ESF's return.

Flying is *hard* to learn. And while I do congratulate those people that have mastered it (i.e. the majority of currently active pilots), it does mean that *anybody* who tries to learn it now is not only trying to learn to do something hard.... they're trying to learn to do it while people with *much more experience* than them are killing them at will, any time they show up. And even with a membership, you're gonna burn through your nanites super-quick buying and rebuying and rebuying again air vehicles while trying to learn.

So, no... "learn 2 fly" is NOT an appropriate counter to air vehicles. If the only effective counter to air vehicles is other air vehicles, fine. Then air vehicles should have no impact on ground stuff, and they can piss off and play buy themselves. But if air vehicles want to stick their noses into ground battles, then they should have to accept that ground countermeasures should be able to *kill* them. Because this whole "deterrence" thing is ********.

I don't "deter" an enemy Heavy with another Heavy. I kill him (or lose, whatever). Hell, I can even do it with other classes. I don't "deter" enemy tanks with my C4-drifter, I *kill* them (or die, whatever - often both). And equally, with ground vehicles you can kill infantry or other tanks. The ONLY exception to this rule is air vehicles... and there's no goddamn reason why they should be so special.

And frankly, if you really can't see this, then there's just no helping you. Your opinion is worthless and you're acting too biased to be worth listening to or debating.

Honestly, Planetside 1 did it best (as usual).

ESF's (Mosquito and Wasp) were almost purely A2A.

Reavers were light A2G, but suffered in A2A action.

Liberators were good general purpose bombers, but required three people to play properly (pilot, bomber, gunner). And remember, back then there was no seat switching (you had to land, exit the vehicle, and climb into a different seat to perform a different role), so you couldn't just double-up as bomber and gunner. Oh, and you couldn't aim your bombs just anywhere... you could only control drift-time (i.e. forward-back). Your pilot had to fly *directly* over the target (or target's path) for the bomber to get hits, since the bomber had no aim ability (i.e. left-right).

Vultures were specialised heavy-duty anti-armour Liberators, basically sorta similar to the A10 Warthog today. And it had all

The Galaxy was basically the same vehicle we have today (although we gained one gun, squad respawn, and the ability to carry more than 2 MAX's and lost the ability to carry light vehicles).

The Galaxy Gunship is basically the same as an A2G galaxy built today except that it had one more A2A gun and had NO ability to carry troops, vehicles or MAX's.

We also had two vehicles that haven't appeared in PS2:
1. The Lodestar (think Support Galaxy, except that it can't carry troops, but CAN carry any vehicle); and
2. The Phantasm was basically a cloaked mini-galaxy (pilot and 4 troops, no guns, no MAX's and no vehicles) for stealth insertions.

Now if only they'd stuck to this sort of model, I don't think we'd have any of the problems we have today...

bursters only really work as G2A because MAXes can hide inside buildings so they have the highest surviability of G2A with shield sundie walkers coming in second, also the only air that dies to a MAX is ether a newbie pilot sticking around to long or a skilled pilot that is already taking fire from multiple sources.

'skillful G2A' that pilots suggest is weapons like the walker, when ESFs and aircraft can fly fast enough people strain their wrists to keep them in their crosshairs, the only time 'skillful G2A' would work effectively is if ether the damage was ramped up or air was slowed down.

at the speed aircraft is now flak is a needed weapon just to hit them and flak itself is pretty ineffective unless you spam it enmass.

if you are 'winning' the argument then why result to personal attacks, you are not debating a person, you are debating something. if you result to personal attacks when the other person is on topic then it means you are getting upset about their argument and your own inability to argue against it.

you can deny it all you want, but anyone can see that when someone starts personal attacks in a debate they've lost the argument and are trying to derail the argument rather then admit defeat or disengage from said debate.

i don't care if you have posted the same argument in multiple threads or not, for anyone not literally checking your post history anything you post in one thread is a separate debate.

if you can't restrain yourself from engaging in personal attacks when you run out of ways to argue to prove your point of view anyone will presume you have lost the argument by nature of being unable to counter the other side's argument.