[Vehicle] Is now a good time to talk G2A weapons?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Botji, Jun 10, 2020.

  1. Botji

    Since release aircraft have been the favored vehicles with devastating weapons and beyond superior mobility and survivability, much in thanks to the devs for some reason decided that G2A weapons should primarily NOT be used to kill aircraft but gently force them to go somewhere else. Aka, G2A weapons are a deterrent to air, not a counter.

    The above is not even up to debate since its been confirmed by devs that this is the case since long ago, even if the sub-par performance of all G2A weapons werent proof enough.

    The reason im even bothering to bring this up again is the next 'big' update with the Colossus tank, in the history of PS2 the devs are introducing a tank with a dedicated G2A weapon that will feature high damage and decent velocity(I guess the Prowler with its siege function also used to have this.. but that quickly got 'fixed') which goes against the previous design philosophy of G2A weapons mainly being used as a deterrent. They could have designed it in a similar way to the Skyguard where it does a lot of visual and audio spectacle but in reality only nibbles on anything its shooting at to force it away but they did not, instead of using Colossus tanks as a "dont come here Bastion!" they decided to make them actual Bastion killers.

    So as a self admitted "shake my fist against aircraft"-player, I thought perhaps now is a good time to take this discussion again, why not introduce a very similar weapon that the Colossus tank has against aircraft(because it WILL be used against other normal aircraft) and give it to the Lightning?

    A high accuracy railgun that actually deals decent damage against aircraft, a weapon designed to kill them instead of being a deterrent. I would be happy even if its similar to the Lancer and you have to charge it up for 3 seconds or even longer before shooting just to make it a sub-par AV weapon against other tanks, as long as it is lethal against aircraft.


    If ESF can have Hornet missiles that basically have twice the DPS of Lightning/MBT turrets then why not have a high damage G2A weapon?
    Im tired of aircraft and pilots being handled with the soft velvet gloves while everyone else gets the harsh reality of weapons designed to kill them.
    • Up x 3
  2. Liewec123

    i've said the same thing about shredder and tankbuster,
    how come a lib is allowed to melt a tank in 2 seconds,
    but no AA weapons in the game can melt a lib just as fast, not even close.

    where is my tank mounted shredder for melting air? (like 4 walkers linked together)
    where is my "Libbuster" for dropping them to 10% health in 2 seconds?

    its funny that the current best AA option is to find a slope and attempt to skillshot with weapons designed for ground targets.
    you need extreme luck or an extremely silly hovering target to land a shot though.

    it is about time that we got some real AA!

    i wanna see TR lightnings with rapid fire AA missiles (firing in a flurry kinda like gatekeeper but with striker homing)

    i wanna see VS lightnings with ultra velocity rapid fire lasers (kinda like a cross between walker and lancer)

    and nc with rapid fire high veloicity, agile, rapid fire flak ravens, lots of little missiles homing towards the crosshair and exploding near aircraft.
    • Up x 3
  3. Botji

    Faction specific stuff would be nice but tbh I would be more than happy with a scaled down NS version of the Colossus AA gun, wouldnt require much of anything from the devs aside from the turret model but it could be a quick thing to do, a elongated U that fires beams like any scifi railgun-ish tank, done.

    Accurate high damage shots without any flak or homing assists, just give me a good vehicle weapon to kill aircraft with.
  4. Crayv

    When was the last time we had any dedicated G2A weapons added to the game? The last I can think of is the Ranger and that was about a month after launch. We have had a few multipurpose weapons added like the Annihilator and default Rocklets but nothing actually dedicated to AA.
    • Up x 1
  5. Clone117

    current aa doesnt even deter. And to actually have any effect you basically need an entire platoon of ppl gimping themselves against enemy ground forces just to kill a few esfs. Im exaggerting a little here but the point still stands. Manpower is not infinite.
  6. Blam320

    On top of the air game needing a rework in general (becoming a pilot is extremely punishing for beginners, plus controls are unintuitive and dogfighting skill is based entirely on exploits) I think anti-air desperately needs to be addressed, as well. When it's employed in force it can easily shut air out of a hex, but as it stands nobody uses AA unless a G2A farmer is present and actively trying to ruin fun on the ground. That's the crux of it; it's fun for G2A to shred everything they can see on the ground, but for groundpounders it's not fun at all trying to counter hyper-mobile aircraft when it's very likely you'll be completely shredded before you can do enough damage to briefly scare them off.
    • Up x 1
  7. Johannes Kaiser

    Worst thing about AA is usually that pilots with a modicum of skill can kill you before they even get hurt badly enough to think about runnign away. So the deterrent doesn't even deter.
    Which isn't even fine for lock-ons, because while, yes, they are free versus the ESF that costs nanites, they do so little damage and they shoot you faster than ou can lock onto them at any rate. So it's like paid option wins 100% of engagements, which is the nanite-based version pf pay to win. Only option is to shoot them en masse (so they can't kill you all) or from the spawn room (which is hindered by all the stuff breaking LoS).
    And mind you, every other option than lock-ons cost nanites as well and are still inferior. The only thing I feel significantly deters ESFs is a Skyguard, and that can fold against 2 ESFs or a Liberator. If it could not kill them without significant outplaying being involved, sure, it's 1v2 and a bit of cost difference. Problems are 1) Skyguard is absolutely useless as soon as there is no air around, so that absolute monobuild should nullify a bit of difference (air being the counter against everything no matter what vs the thing that can damage them only being able to do exactly that); and 2) it can not even deter them at that point. Skyguards can quite well deter aircraft on a 1v1 basis (on a larger scale a few less Skyguards still do the trick), but that's about it.
    • Up x 4
  8. Liewec123

    Well we had the abomination of the original striker, I like to call that era "Strikers Reign of Terror",
    It lasted about a year and a half iirc, and It completely disabled the airgame for VS and NC.
    That era was even worse than ZoEs time in the sun!

    it was a lock on launcher, the lock on was fast, the lock on range was extreme,
    Lock wasn't broken by line of sight, once you locked on you stayed locked on even if they flee behind some hills,
    and then we have the missiles...
    The damage was similar to today (2 volleys killed an esf) but the missiles were faster, they were super agile,
    They lasted 15/20 seconds and they weren't effected by terrain,
    You couldn't hide from them, you couldn't outrun them, once they came for you they were going to get you.
    (Flares worked but had a lengthy cooldown, and every TR heavy was running striker.)

    Fun times! The "World Domination Series" took place during Strikers reign of terror,
    and TR were winning by over double the points of VS and NC combined!
    It got so bad that they had to change the rules to give the other two a tiny chance.
    :D
    • Up x 2
  9. Botji

    Been thinking a bit on how to attempt balance of a higher DPS AA weapon and I think a combination of Lancer charge up before being able to fire as well as the actual turret locking in place or becoming severely limited in movement when shooting + the weapon being more of a beam(several pulses, very high velocity and loses damage over longer ranges) would work well and still be balanced for the pilots flying around.

    It would then be a long range, high velocity and accuracy weapon but in order to deal its full damage the target would need to be 'close' or mostly stationary so the damage pulses have time to hit. Sniping would be hard since the turret locks in place when its shooting and anyone being hit only needs to evade when they take damage and over long range it would also lose some of its damage but in closer range or against larger targets more of the damage pulses would get on target and every pulse would be a decent hit = more damage.

    Another fancy thing could be that once the gun is shooting it keeps shooting until it runs out of ammo and needs to reload(20 shots per reload or something) but if you press fire again it cancels, so when shooting at a stationary Liberator or Galaxy you just kinda let it go dealing lots of damage in a short time but when shooting at ESF you only let it fire 2-3 pulses before stopping it to take new aim and charge it up again. Make the first few pulses do a bit extra damage(might be possible with tweaking Lancer mechanic, charge up -> first 1-3 shots use the charged up damage then it keeps shooting 'normal' lower damage shots), charge up often for max damage/ammo or let it keep shooting for max DPS.. with the drawback that you cant really aim the turret doing that.

    It should obviously have kinda meh damage against ground vehicles/infantry.

    I dont think any of the above would be that hard for the devs to do, afaik everything but locking/limit the turret is in some form already in the game so its not like its a impossible dream to get some form of weapon like this.

    Only issue is that with all these things to balance it, I think it would turn out too weak against ESFs so it would probably have to be a bit front loaded with the damage it does so if the first 1-2 pulses hits it still does decent damage on a ESF. Its not that hard to spin a ESF in a circle while still shooting at a target so against decent pilots the above would be kinda useless without high initial damage... They would still have a window to run away while you are charging up the next shot so imo it would still keep balance and not become a 1vX monster machine but still be a lethal danger.

    *Edit*
    Or you know, give it a secondary fire mode to toggle between "beam" for large/stationary targets and another where its like a lancer, charge up and BANG, one big hit for doing high damage single shots against ESFs.
  10. Pikachu

    Something like this?
    [IMG]

    Something like this.
    [IMG]
  11. Liewec123

    More like the 2nd I imagine, lots of little missiles instead of one big one,
    Though one big one might be good on NC, since slow fire big damage is supposed to be an NC trait :)
    I was also thinking an AA rail gun might be good on nc,
    but generally when it come to AA, slow firing skillshot weapons aren't as reliable as lock ons, homing projectiles and rapid fire
  12. Botji

    My worry is that if a new AA weapon with high DPS is also easy to use/reliable, then it will never ever happen :eek:

    High DPS skill shot+ drawbacks is probably the only way to even have a tiny chance of getting something with not awful DPS like all the current AA options.
  13. Liewec123

    tru dat, we're not allowed to kill air, only scare em XD
    • Up x 3
  14. waystin2

    Dial up the damage on Max Bursters & Skyguard, and dial down the dispersion of shells on the Skyguard. OH and if an aircraft can actually collide purposefully with your vehicle and destroy it and then fly away. Something is out of whack....
    • Up x 2
  15. Johannes Kaiser

    Well, I only recently found out that you can roadkill a parked Valkyrie with a Sunderer ofn first collision if you got a bit of momentum already. Only wanted to push it a little to throw off the gunner's aim, hoping with the best of luck I might be able to flip it. Nope, went *BOOM* upon impact.
  16. Zagareth

    Best solution would be to make a Skyguard w/o the Flak kind of weapon, but a kind of Walker. Skill based, instead of proximity based weapons. 40mm cannon, tight cone of Fire, 1000m/s and 250 damage per direct hit, no proximity damage. This way it could be also a good counter against a Bastion (together with others Skyguards), because you could finally hit this tiny weak spot on the Bastion often enough to make some damage (instead of here and there a hit with the wide CoF.)

    However, now there is skill involved to hit all the mobile aircrafts. AND it wouldn't be such a mess if you encounter Infantry or other tanks or even worse, a Harasser.
    Skyguards are high cost (350 Nanites) vehicles with no fire power, unable to defend themselves. Please change that finally!
    • Up x 5
  17. Zagareth

    And here my NEW Vehicle suggestion:
    Harasser with a AA proximity heat lock on rocket launcher (only AA) - same damage as the TR infantry ones, but way more ammo and faster reload
  18. McToast

    There are certainly some decent suggestions in this thread. However, I can only really respect the opinion of players who actually can fly and know how that part of the game works. With some of the people on this forum it's like a couple blind guys discussing colors.

    My opinion: G2A is very difficult to balance properly, because size of the engagement matters so much. A single source of G2A is pretty weak, which is a problem in small fights, but it scales incredibly well in larger battles up to the point where it creates a hex-wide no-fly-zone. Any significant buff to G2A pushes aircrafts further into the small fights, where they can actually engage ground targets.

    Solution 1: Specialise aircrafts. ESFs for A2A, Liberators for A2G. This would include some heavy nerfs across the board in regards to ESF A2G weaponry, while increasing their survivability against G2A. ESF AI noseguns would have to go, noseguns would be changed so that you have a short range, medium range and long range option. Rocket Pods would be further nerfed against infantry. Liberators would also receive a buff to their G2A defense, but also receive some huge buffs to their AI/AV weapons. I can't imagine the tears of infantry peasants, if the Dalton got it's 9m splash back and the Zephyr actually murdered infantry clusters again.

    Solution 2: Nerf aircrafts A2G capabilities across the board. Air could only kill air, and since there are (so far) no air objectives in the game, air would simply cease to matter at all, apart from the occasional transport. Rename the game to "Infantryside 2".

    Solution 3: Buff G2A. Air could only survive in small battles, where there are only one or two sources of G2A. Air would cease to matter at all in the aspect of the game that matters the most: Medium to large scale battles. Rename the game to "Infantryside 2".

    Solution 4: Buff AA versatility: Increase the direct damage of bursters and Skyguards so they can be used against ground targets in a pinch, especially at close range. Tighten the Skyguards CoF a bit. Give the Walker a better angle, making it a more effecitve MG against Infantry. Increase Ranger damage against vehicles, especially at close range. In other words, let players, who chose G2A options, have a bigger impact on the battle when they have scared away the aircrafts.

    As you may be able to tell, I'm in favor of Solution 4. The worst thing with a Skyguard is the fact that it's pretty much useless once you've shooed away all the ESFs (which it IS quite good at). And getting kills is a chore, because even if you kill the aircraft, the pilot bails most of the time. Let me engage more effectively in the groundplay once there are no aircrafts around anymore.
  19. Johannes Kaiser

    If the defenders have air superiority, for the attackers it's usually not a problem to get AA vehicles in, it may just take a bit due to the distance to the next base, but that's all. Everything fine here with the solution you proposed.
    But if the attackers have air superiorits, we run into a bit of a problem:
    - Attackers usually bring a few vehicles as well, at least in somewhat larger fights.
    - These vehicles make it neigh impossible for defenders to spawn vehicles that live longer than the amount of seconds a hapless sawmill worker can count on one hand.
    - Unfortunately those denied vehicles have all the AA options that would be needed to deal with the attackers' air support in a meaningful way.
    - Result: Enemy air reigns with little obstacles.
    Now, in a certain way, that is effective combined arms (infantry captures, air makes sure they are as safe as possible by removing enemies, tanks make sure the air has no major threats to deal with), but it is completely one-sided and also not particularly fun for tank drivers, since they mostly sit and wait.
    So as has been proposed by others elsewhere, there would need to be a mechanismn that allows defenders to spawn vehicles in a way that has them contribute to the fight. Maybe with somewhat of a disadvantage (the attacker made all the effort to bring their stuff with them, we should reward that), but able to do something nonetheless.


    Because of this, and the fact that Skyguards in small fights might not be a viable option (and even if its capabilities might be improved with your solution, in a, say, 4v4 fight pulling one that drives outside the perimeter of the base itself is sometimes simply not a good idea, lock-on launchers should receive a bit of a buff. If I would have to decide, I'd say by shortening the time to lock on a bit, because few things are more annoying than trying to lock on, target turns, Banshee go BRRRR, dead before the lock-on completes so the easycheesyperson just got a kill without any damage taken, despite you acting first.
  20. Botji

    I dont want to be too negative here but this is a classic "Its fine for air to be OP and ground should just be farmed." argument a lot of pilots have, you at least bring suggestions for improving things so its by far better but the first part of your post still remains.

    "There are certainly some decent suggestions in this thread. However, I can only really respect the opinion of players who actually can fly and know how that part of the game works. With some of the people on this forum it's like a couple blind guys discussing colors.

    My opinion: G2A is very difficult to balance properly, because size of the engagement matters so much. A single source of G2A is pretty weak, which is a problem in small fights, but it scales incredibly well in larger battles up to the point where it creates a hex-wide no-fly-zone. Any significant buff to G2A pushes aircrafts further into the small fights, where they can actually engage ground targets."

    So why is it a bad thing that multiple specialized G2A sources/vehicles can completely dominate the airspace around them? Why would it be a bad thing for any aircraft that even peeks into that space to get ruthlessly destroyed with little to no chance of even running away?

    If we turn the scenario around, a single ESF with decent A2G weapons(and not a stupid pilot) is by itself almost enough to cause certain death to any vehicles that arrives in the hex unless they make sacrifices(like 50% of their ground DPS if its a MBT), a Liberator can quite easily dominate every vehicle on the ground in a area that is without one or two specialized AA weapons like Skyguards/Burster Maxes(..only in the spawn though!).

    I just find it very irritating that this argument gets thrown around near constantly in these discussions, "if AA is too good / if there is enough AA then aircraft cant operate in the hex!" as if its not already like that for ground vehicles when air has dominance and has been like that since PS2 launched and it would be a horrible thing to subject pilots to the same situation any tanker has to deal with several times each session.

    *Edit*
    Like the very stable genius that I am I forgot about the AA changes I quoted.
    Increasing AA versatility would be either pointless or a very bad idea, doesnt really matter if you increase the direct damage as long as it cant compete with other AV weapons... The Skyguard is not a terrible weapon against vehicles as it is but it does lose against normal AV guns. If we increase their versatility so they can compete with those then the question would become, why not only use Skyguards? It is already doable to get quite a few hits even over range with the Skyguard, with a better CoF it would turn into a decent long range option, with higher damage it would turn into a lower DPS long range Vulcan, while it would be hilarious for a while I dont think it would be good for the game if I could drive around at range and weaken tanks with a flood of bullets before driving in for the kill in a Skyguard :D
    • Up x 1