[Suggestion] Balance A2G noseguns, prevent them to instantly kill infantry/maxes

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Tr34, Jul 28, 2022.

  1. Tr34

    Hello,
    It's been long time and we've got a lot of balance patchs but A2G nosegun balance still stays unbalanced among factions.
    Airhammer and Banshee still kill infantry instantly and melt maxes without giving chance to retaliate.
    All A2G noseguns should take some time to kill. Maybe their TTK can be increased even higher.
    Please balance them, it seems unfair to see they are still out of balance and being abused by some players all day.
    • Up x 5
  2. BlackFox

    Or ramp up the AA to a thousand so aircrafts don't tank several missiles or cannon shots
    • Up x 1
  3. MonnyMoony


    The worst thing for maxes is that the nose guns you mention deal both direct and indirect damage - yet maxes can only equip armour to guard against one of those at a time. There is no composite armour option (unlike for ESFs and Harassers).

    If you equip kinetic armour - you get melted by the indirect damage. If you equip ordnance armour - you get melted by the direct hits. It's lose/lose.

    This is made all the worse because ESFs with these noseguns can also equip lolpods - so even if they don't finish you with the nosegun, a quick lolpod volley and you are done. There should be a delay in switching between these weapons.
  4. Shatteredstar

    Personally I don't think the gun itself needs reduced in power necessarily. However infantry and max should have more tools or the tools meant to address it should be improved.

    I wouldn't see it as an issue if Flak armor and Ordinance armor both gained a flat damage reduction vs the ESF gun types. Basically get it like 15-20 maybe up to 30% or something. The goal would be to get the TTK around 1.5-2 seconds ideally since that would seem still absolutely killable by the guns, but there is time to react and fight back in some fashion and would be a choice by the infantry or max to equip it and give up other things for the slot (which for infantry would make it more competitive with things like grenade bandolier and the like too and allow for active counter play)

    This doesn't address issues with dedicated AA, but infantry level things like launchers and just generally shooting don't need too much tinkering if the TTK was a bit higher I don't think since then ESFs needing to stick around slightly longer for the kill naturally will make it more dangerous to try to farm if theres multiple infantry who dare to look up and use weapons.
  5. Tr34

    It kinda feels unfair for your 450-nanite exosuit get insta-deleted by an Airhammer or Banshee, not even giving chance to fight back.
    Yeah maxes can get c4'ed and die instantly too but that's really risky for an infantry to 1v1 a max. If he gets noticed, then goodbye.
    But A2G ESFs can farm multiple maxes and tens, hundreds of infantry in a single run and maxes aren't a threat if you can melt them so fast. That's why I'm recommending to tune their burst damage down a bit, they should be exposing themselves longer and taking a risk to do so. A2G is close to zero risk, high reward style gameplay since you can just bail out and press redeploy when your ESF is going to explode.
  6. Tr34

    This is also another option but they should be buffing skyguard or burster when they are alone in the area.
    Sometimes people pull too many flak weapons and that will be unfair for aircraft if they buff zerging flaks.
    The problem is mostly 1v1 encounters or when it's a low-pop fight and you only have a single AA guy in your base. So I can recommend diminishing returns system for flak damage. Flak should be more viable in 1v1 encounters and it should be less effective for example if you have several skyguards in a tank zerg. But infantry or max encounters will stay unrisky for ESFs if they keep having such high burst damage. It should be tuned anyway, and the TTK level should stay balanced for all factions.
  7. MonnyMoony


    One of the best defensive tools for avoiding A2G was Max Charge. I used to use this defensively almost exclusively and it would often get me out of a sticky A2G situation - but the devs in their infinite wisdom decided to remove it for 'reasons'.
  8. Liewec123

    The A2G noseguns should be completely reworked into easier to use (but less damaging) A2A noseguns.
    For example Airhammer would become a flak shotgun, with pellets that explode near enemy air.

    This would fix several issues, first it would get rid of the annoying groundpounders,
    secondly it would give new or inexperienced pilots a way to actually engage in the airgame and deal damage to skyknights.
    The Skyknight would still have the dps advantage and win 1v1s with the standard noseguns,
    but several noobs with the easymode noseguns would be able kill a skyknight, rather than being farmed.

    Then we just need to change lolpods, increase their aoe splash range but halve the damage, this would make them good for suppressing a large area, but to do so they would need to remain exposed.
  9. Shatteredstar


    Max charge was fantastic in every case and nearly always your best pick for AI max because you could blitz a point faster before the infantry could be ready to fire back at you (and you were more quickly in range of your crappy COF but dangerous max weapons). I see why they got rid of it but really should have something else to replace...like a suit slot that boosts max move speed or something or even if the charge was reintroduced but gave like a 1 second delay at the end where you can't fire weapons.


    By themselves the A2G noseguns aren't too much of the problem, more the issue is infantry tools for counterplay or dedicated AA are just not effective in their roles of counterplay give the overall ESF design. If you're being farmed by tanks or grenades for example Flak armor can help the infantry maybe push further or get shots in, however as it stands even flak armor doesn't help much on the A2G gunning and such. Boosting Flak Armor against the ESF weapons enough to allow them 1-1.5 more seconds alive would be a huge boon since infantry might be able to make it to cover instead of dying if they are near it, or give them a chance to fire something back perhaps.

    Though I'd also like to see a major overhaul of ESFs and weapons, airframes, and slots in general also just to make it possible that picking an airframe and nosegun you're specializing more and giving up something. Fact that Hover Stability is the best thing to take for A2G and A2A and Stealth is defacto best is...ya failure of design and fixing things for the loadouts and to encourage different specialization in roles would go a longer way than tweaking the A2G weapons themselves.
  10. JibbaJabba

    Oh another A2G thread? Why do these keep popping up again and again and again?!? What a mystery!

    A2G is perfectly balanced and fun for all players. Dev is Wise and listens to the players. They would never let something egregiously imbalanced remain in the game for nearly a decade.

    Someone will be along to tell you to L2P shortly.

    /munches popcorn
    • Up x 5
  11. Tr34

    Unfortunately it's been a big issue for years and it's being constantly ignored.
  12. Liewec123

    Skillshots from rocket launchers and tank cannons should ALWAYS kill esfs,
    I hit a PPAhole with decimator the other day and... he just flew away.
    thanks to composite armour and fire suppression.
  13. BlackFox

    Yeah, lorewise it's a mystery why the factions just didn't put tracks on their ESFs and use them as tanks
    • Up x 2
  14. MonnyMoony


    Yep - if it was considered too powerful in an offensive capacity, there is no reason it couldn't have been reworked like that to tip the balance to a more defensive use.

    I use to use it almost exclusively to avoid A2G farmers and road kill warriors.
  15. Tr34

    They may add a flak-detonation launcher as a NS/NSX weapon along with A2G balance so everyone can be happy.
  16. Mechwolf

    so they're making it so flak armor can't completely counter the PPA? or are they making it so the banshee and airhammer are affected by flak armor?
  17. Mechwolf


    you must have never tried to use the PPA against a flak armor character, you have to hit directly on the person, or suffer over 10 shots to the ground over 5-10 seconds depending to get a kill in comparison to the banshee's .2 seconds and the airhammer's .5. And even with direct hits, the TTK of the PPA takes much more time against all targets compared to the other 2, and the nature of A2G isn't meant for you to stay stationary for long periods of time while trying to get ground kills, you're meant to stay briefly, shoot, and veer off before you can get rocketed, tanked, or locked on.
  18. Tr34

    Currently PPA feels too underpowered but I think they should balance all A2G guns to PPA level, maybe even a lower level than that to keep to keep the balance. Their TTK/burst damage ability should stay balanced and A2G players should expose themselves more to allow infantry to react, just like what PPA currently is.
    • Up x 1
  19. Mechwolf


    There should be some sort of middle ground, as somebody who has spent 350 nanites vs somebody who spawned, you should have some sort of advantage in battle. lockons can be set on a PPA scythe long before it can get a kill. Honestly, the best "nerf" would be to half the mag size of all of them, and all A2G to not be affected by flak, OR to give the PPA some sort of gravity effect that pulls enemies into the center of consecutive shots, Gives VS another "alien weapon vibe" instead of "hard-core nerfed banshee" vibe.
  20. Tr34

    Halving the mag size wouldn't work for Airhammer tho, it's basically a shotgun that needs 1 or 2 shots to kill so it doesn't really need a big magazine to instantly kill infantry. I think each one requires different approach. For Airhammer, they can reduce pellet damage or increase pellet spread too much to prevent instant killing/focused damage. Banshee can use halved mag size with reduced damage per bullet, it can also use increased spread. PPA already has low damage/fire rate, they can reduce its mag size to keep it balanced with other A2G if it becomes slightly better than them after the nerf.