[Suggestion] Could we finally address a2g

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by JustGotSuspended, Dec 9, 2021.

  1. Demigan

    Actually not a problem. Years ago they changed it so that anyonr equipping an AV/AA weapon immediately gets a longer render range. That is why no one complains anymore about being hit by things that do not render anymore. Ofcourse this was then compounded on by nerfing the range of most of these weapons to be less than their render range.

    I also dont see a reason not to add G2A weapons capable of dealing with aircraft within the infantry render range. After all aircraft get the ability to murder the everliving hell out of anything when they reach 450 to 300m range, why would they not get G2A weapons capable of dealing with aircraft in return?
    • Up x 3
  2. Talthos

    Remember when lock-on times were affected by distance, prior to the CAI update?

    Prior to CAI, closer targets took much less time to lock onto, while targets that were far away took more time to lock onto.

    Removing that mechanic was such a mistake, imho.
    • Up x 8
  3. Scroffel5

    THAT EXPLAINS SO MUCH! That needs to be brought back ASAP. Do you have any idea why they removed it?

    It would be especially helpful to have a few Heavies in different locations that the ESF keeps flying near. That way, you can establish good lockon times on someone who is flying away.
    • Up x 1
  4. csvfr

    The A2G pilot will be looking to aid in the fight and kill enemies regardless of which weapon they have equipped. Besides a dual burster MAX can down a close range ESF in 3-4 seconds so don't really see the issue. Of course if the ESF proceeds to flee and you still want to kill it, you will need to pick up an ESF yourself. Skill becomes an issue as those who have mastered the flight controls have no real counter in this game. This is why I say buff the coyote missiles. Remember when I bought it thinking it'd create some sort of air superiority loadout then found out the missiles were a joke. By making the ESF with coyotes much stronger than the one with rocket pods, an effective and mobile anti air platform is delivered without making the interaction between air and infantry ridiculous.
  5. Demigan

    5 and a half seconds at minimum. Far too much time for a kill. Considering Fire Suppression is pretty much a minimum and ESF afterburners that let them get out of accurate range and complete range quickly its not great.

    Your solution is to let everyone fly ESF, which solves nothing and just exacerbates the problem. Why should there not be G2A weapons capable of destroying ESF when they get too close? Why would ESF be the only counter to aircraft? Imagine if we nerfed AV weapons on aircraft and infantry and made vehicles their only counter. Would that be good? How about we turn aircraft AI weapons into deterrents as well, giving the infantry enough time to always get to cover or retaliate. Would that be good? It would be fair, since aircraft get that treatment for no reason at all.

    We need to have a fair balance. Letting aircraft be the primary waydeal with aircraft is not good for the game and it never has been.
    • Up x 1
  6. csvfr

    L2P, target the aircraft when it's coming towards you not when it is already there. Then the aircraft is forced to abort its approach or you will certainly kill it. This is a more engaging play cycle as the aircraft tests the enemy response and makes a decision based on that. Also the ground forces will need to change their strategy or be farmed. On the other hand, granting the infantry an analogue to the "I win" button that can kill any close range aircraft with no preparation whatsoever would ruin the A2G game. It would not even be worth trying as a pilot because inevitably someone would have the newly designed OP anti air tool that would, as you say, manage to kill the aircraft before it could evade. With certain death awaiting at most fights the only A2G left would be kamikaze pilots and botched transport ESFs. And unlike infantry that can indefinitely respawn 50m away, the kamikaze pilot would run out of nanites after 2 deaths.
  7. BlackFox

    I sense the theme that everything annoying ingame can be most effectivley countered by itself....
    • Up x 3
  8. Tormentos

    You know what they say: You are your worst enemy, since you know all the moves you know.
  9. Demigan

    You L2P instead. You again glorify a system that at best scares away the aircraft. You even say it yourself "attack them in time so they break off". Which is a strategy against air players that need to L2P. Simple A2G tactics is to use height to make it nigh impossible for G2A to fight you effectively. The airspace is big and you can approach from any direction, scanning it all in time is an almost impossible task for G2A. So you approach low and only become visible 1 or 2 seconds away from the MAX, kill your stuff and be off, often before the MAX can even know you are there because they must be scanning upwards more time than at ground level. Or you fly extremely high and dive down, which gives you plenty of time to find and shoot people before the G2A spots you since they'll look for incoming aircraft rather than straight up, and the render distance helps hide you if you fly high at first. The only reason why many aircraft haven't learned any of this is because they dont need to. You can easily switch fights to where aircraft havent been for a while and everyone switched back to normal weapons, then switch fights again. Many bases also offer ultra-easy attackroutes because a mountain or large building might block view, or ordinary placement of your troops make for a safe attack route preventing G2A from effectively engaging you before its too late.

    We absolutely need a better system. You can say "ah but this scares them off!" But that is in no way a balanced system compared to the "but this will absolutely kill them" that aircraft bring to bear, and the fact that aircraft are well and truly capable of doing A2G before G2A can scare them off. Whats worse is that G2A is limiting the abilities of the user. Where an A2A Aircraft is fully capable of attacking infantry a G2A weapon is far too vulnerable and limited to actively attack anything else than aircraft. This is compounded by the fact that you dont know when or where aircraft might arrive. You might need to wait a second before aircraft arrive, you might need to twiddle your thumbs for an hour before one arrives. If you scare off an aircraft that aircraft might come back or he might simply pick a fight with less G2A.


    Everything and anything related to A2G is slated in their favor. The approaches, the speed, the decision when and where to attack, the firepower, the survivability, the omniversatility of their weapons compared to the can-barely-defeat-its-designated-targets G2A weapons. And yet you proclaim this is how its supposed to be and a L2P issue on my part (even though you dont know how good I am with them), even though the A2G players barely need to learn how to do their thing half as good to outperform them.


    As for an "Iwin button", what the actual ***? Where does that come from? Why would I want an Iwin button? What is wrong with removing or altering deterrent style weapons to skillful weapons instead? The whole point is to kill two birds with one stone: G2A to be effective enough without the spray&pray tactics currently on G2A weapons and for aircraft to have more ways to deal with them then "kill them or point nose to horizon and fly away". Aircraft should be encouraged to stay in the area and try to dodge incoming fire while attacking rather than simply escaping every time they receive damage and cant attack the source immediately.

    A quick example: an auto-canon that can kill an ESF in just a couple of shots, but has little to no flak detection radius. Its hard to hit the ESF repeatedly if he does not just hover around. A limited magazine lets the ESF dodge for a moment, then be free to attack during the reload. Even better would be to give both ESF and Valkyries an omnidirectional afterburner which simply afterburns you in the direction of your keyboard input, letting them dodge and control more easily in the face of these G2A weapons
    By pressing X or B you can switch fire modes to fire much slower projectiles, possibly with drop. These would be hard enough to use against larger aircraft that they stand a chance of avoiding damage. That way you dont need to keep larger aircraft as bulletsponges against such G2A weapons, since you cant expect a projectile designed against ESF to be fair against larger aircraft.
    • Up x 4
  10. Ginsly

    Some ideas:
    • The construction sky shields and personal sky shields I think are a nice way of making a2g more interactive than just running away. I wish they were easier to access (for newer players especially) so that they could be a bit more prevalent.
    • I think improving infantry ability to coordinate retaliation would be ideal, either through an advanced spotting system for aircraft (maybe as bare-bones as granting the esf-style radar to allied infantry when nearby aircraft are spotted), or by giving infantry a way to share temporary anti-air capability (sky shield sort of does this but in a defencive way).
    I think in an ideal world the solution would be one that promotes the "massive coordinated battle" appeal that planetside has, but that's assuming there's time and resources for that as opposed to just tweaking some numbers.
  11. csvfr

    Essentially the way I see it when an A2G aircraft "flees" is that it removes itself from the domain in which G2A can kill it, and that is exactly the same thing infantry does when they take cover in a building. If the aircraft should not be able to flee it would only be "fair" for aircraft to kill infantry after they have taken cover in a building. A "bunker buster" missile is needed. This missile should be targeted at doorways or window openings, and detonate when inside the bulding, splitting into 10 fragments that bounce off in random direction before each fragment splits again (100 fragments total), each of which detonates with half the power of a standard frag grenade.
  12. RRRIV

    are... are you being serious or just taking the piss out of demi?
    • Up x 1
  13. Scroffel5

    Have you watched infantry try to "take cover in a building" before? The way you see it, they evade the aircraft, run into the building, and live. Then for air, they do the exact same thing against G2A.

    Now here is how it really is. A Mossie, PPA, or Air Hammer, along with Rocket Pods, light you up when you try to run into the building, and if you are in the open, you are dead. You are just dead, because you can't run away. The bullets do AoE damage, along with the rockets, and they fire fast. Say you do get into the building. The ESF or Liberator hovers down and blows you up. There is no escape.

    Contrast that with aircraft who can linger on in an area and still get away because nothing kills them. You need a well placed Deci snipe or to hit them with it while they are firing at you, which is much easier said than done. And chances are that the ESF has been alive long enough to replenish its nanites so it can give it another go. If you are trying to fight a Liberator or Galaxy, screw it. They are gonna just ram into you if they are close enough, and you aint escaping that while its shooting at you.

    Then you have the audacity to ask for compensation for removing the plot armor aircraft have? No dude. They don't need a buff. You don't now need to be able to kill people everywhere if an ESF makes a stupid mistake and can't get away in time. You don't need to be able to kill people everywhere if a Liberator now can't take more damage than a tank can.

    Is this a post satire?
    • Up x 1
  14. csvfr

    Definitely the latter. He affirms a twisted concept of fairness in which any infantry class has a 50% chance of winning a duel against an A2G jet. No player should be able to make choices to give themselves an advantage in this vision of the game. ESFs would be redundant, wasted nanites in fact, as any player is just as strong on foot. According to this logic, tactical options for infantry also needs to be balanced out, but this he conveniently does not mention.
    This also goes for you, I simply am of the opinion that an A2G aircraft should be strong against ground units but also weaker against air than it is now. And that the G2A counters that exist are good enough. In essence that the gaming concept of things being a counter and having a counter is good. Same as a grass-type pokemon being strong against water but weak against fire and so on. Can only imagine how boring that game would be if the only pokemon type was "normal".
    • Up x 1
  15. Demigan

    Wow, you know more about what I know than I do! I never wrote down anything close to "any class should have a 50% chance of winning against an A2G jet" and still you somehow pick that up! Oh great and powerful seer please tell me what else I want! Like what do I want for dinner?

    I dont ask for "only a common pokemon type'. I ask fhaf the graaa pokemon actually IS a counter to a water type pokemon, rather than be so weak there is no harm if the water type can attack first or using an ability that deflects all grass damage until you can safely retaliate or recall it.
  16. csvfr

    This might be extrapolated a little but here are a couple of your statements (out of context, reverse chronological order):
    This becomes a bit too extreme. An A2G is after all a vehicle with a singular purpose: to kill ground units, primarily infantry making mistakes. Infantry on the other hand can change their tactics on the fly and are the jack of all trades in planetside. They capture points, defend bases, man the turrets, jump into vehicles, become invisible, revive the fallen, etc. G2A should therefore not par A2G in strength as it is just one out of many tools available to the infantry. A2G is more specialized without the abundance of roles.

    In comparison to pokemon, infantry would be the grass type while the A2G would be fire, not water. This is rock-paper-scissors balance. If rock did not beat scissors but still lost out to paper, why on earth would anyone pick rock anymore? Or paper for that matter? Picking scissors (infantry) would guarantee either a draw or a victory against any opponent. In other words the game would be broken. In a similar vein, a new, stronger, and always available G2A autocannon would make skyguards and lockons suffer the same fate as paper. Hence your entire proposal needs to be further worked out and investigated for side-effects and deeper consequences.

    At the end of the day though, it might remove so much of the content planetside has to offer that the devs would not even consider it.
    • Up x 1
  17. Lee Weldon

    I have to respect that it takes some exceptional skill to at least have any influence in the air, unlike with tanks that just act as power multipliers in battles. As an infantry side main player I've really always wanted a dedicated infantry map, one where vehicles absolutely are not allowed (no maxes either), my friends won't play because they don't like the concept of a never ending battle or a 5v50 battle which is not uncommon at all especially when starting out and knowing where to spawn is frustrating for a new player.

    So my opinion is that they could have a map that opens up at a few certain times of the day where you form a team of like 5-10 and the enemy does the same, then some sort of point system like capturing a base worth 10, or maybe capture the flag even, a kill worth 1 (we've seen plenty of variations of this in other games so it doesn't really need explanation). The map should be fairly small and should not need spawn options i.e. sunderers (obviously no base building), should not enable camping behind walls as in there should be multiple routes, small confined, but still tactical, maybe a moving objective so it keeps your team from stalling. This mode would probably go for about 20-30 minutes.

    I would not exclusively play this mode, but I do hate tanks so much that I often contemplate swapping games despite really enjoying the game most of the time, I really hate the choke points too I guess so it's not entirely just frustration with vehicles.
  18. Eberron101

    As a returnee from 4 years ago I noticed a couple of things. Firstly how LONG it takes to lockon to a Liberator is way too long and secondly, the rockets themselves seem to be incredibly weak. It takes missile after missile to even get them smoking a little. Pilots just don't really seem to be bothered about even getting lockons.

    Previously I used to be able scare ESF pilots with just a lockon, Now they don't even bother to fire flares as the missiles are so incredibly weak.

    I've not tried a Skyguard , but in 2017 I used one and I normally would barely even scratch a lib, but I would get taken out with ease by a lib. To me, ESF's seem ok but its the Liberator which just seems way over the top. Massive firepower, insane shielding and health and one Lib is easily capable of rendering a single spawn point useless as well as any hapless sunderers.

    I've been in battles where we've had skyguards, rocketmen, burster MAX and still the libs just lazily lock down all spawns at any site with little to no worry.

    I wish I could also fathom why they made ESF's so tricky to fly - they are more like helicopters than planes and really tricky to get the hang of for a newbie.
    • Up x 3
  19. Demigan

    Yeah a little bit of extrapolation backed up by eccessive of your own imagination mixed in.

    I talk about DEDICATED G2A WEAPONS FOR INFANTRY being able to deal with aircraft. You know, things like the MAX.
    I also talk about giving non-G2A equipped units the ability to DEFEND themselves. You know by making themselved HARDER TARGETS or creating PROTECTION or NERFING PARTS OF THE AIRCRAFT so that the aircraft cannot delete them by simple point&click like they do now.

    That is such a dumb comment, I wish I could claim uou never played the game so dumb is that.
    So what kind of "mistakes" would infantry need to make? Things like "being outside at any point in time"? Or how about "when you check the limited view of skies from your building and see and hear nothing, then dash to the other side an aircraft can still appear and kill you before you reach the other end without any chance for you to prevent it" mistake? I love that mistake. Or what about the "aircraft can strike almost anywhere including partially inside buildings so you will have to expose yourself to deaths you can never ever prevent" mistake? Oh so many mistakes that aircraft can punish for infantry! And even better for vehicles! Forgot to bring your G2A? Want to move more than 10m away from your buddies? You have to accept the risk of being a free kill for aircraft passing by, only having a chance if the aircraft player is dumb enough to get low in your crosshairs so you can shoot them.

    This is ridiculous.

    Yeah! Its not like aircraft can carry multiple much more powerful weapons capable of dealing with more unit types than any infantry class alone can! Ofcourse those infantry are much better on the "fly" than jack-of-all-trades aircraft! Wait no that is all bullshet.

    I see no justification here for aircraft being OP murdermachines which control virtually every aspect of the engagement. At best you can argue to give aircraft more roles to play.

    You are really dumb right now. I was using your metafor on G2A vs A2G, why wouldnt I? THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS DISCUSSION IS THAT G2A IS NOT IN ANY WAY EQUAL TO A2G DESPITE SUPPOSEDLY BEING THE COUNTER.
    Also lets highlight your extreme hypocracy of aircraft being both the rock and scissors, since they counter both EVERYTHING on the ground AND their own aircraft. Because F everything else right?

    Also also rock-paper-scissors balance is the absolute worst type of balance for shooters. It is never ever a good idea to have a system where you automatically lose just because someone else picked the right unit type (besides that once again the only unit type allowed to truly counter aircraft is the very same aircraft).

    yes exactly, this is true. However "rock" is G2A, not A2G. The idea to make G2A capable does not invalidate A2G unless you have a L2P issue

    Why are you even posting? You clearly dont understand the current situation or how you could balance this. Or how some simple things work like "replacement/alter" so that the very "problem" of current already obsolete G2A becoming even more obsolete does not occur.
    • Up x 1
  20. Eberron101

    I'm actually having some success with the AM-7 Archer Anti-Materiel Rifle. Not for kills but for scaring off A2G. Does a reasonable amount of damage at the range ESF's need to farm infantry. Also seems to scare off Libs since I can aim and fire much faster than a lockon missile plus they have no idea who is firing at them usually. I seem to have a knack for hitting ESF's with it for some reason.