Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

The AA launcher was nice for the HA to carry since you could scare off planes and still have a pop at tanks and infantry. Even the AV lockon you could dumbfire if you needed a quick shot at something that got too close. Both gone. But both were paid for with real money.

And no, I will not be defenceless against air. If I want to go AA, I will pull my dual burster. So yes, I will sell back my now-pretty-much-useless lockon launchers and get something more useful with them.

I am very pleased that the anemic performance of the Flak AA guns is being looked at. I've been profoundly disappointed with the performance of a dual Burster setup relative to the old Burster from PS1, which wasn't exactly a portrait of "overpowered-ness".

That being said, there still exist a couple usability problems even if damage and shot velocity go up.

1) Lack of visible feedback. The flak rounds rapidly become invisible to the firer, giving you no solid idea on where they are, and forcing you to rely entirely on feel. Everything else in the game gets a big projectile or a bright tracer, flak rounds have neither.

2) Lack of zoom. This makes target identification difficult, especially when compounded by the broken IFF and spotting systems. Frequently I find myself wasting 56 rounds from the MAX on a friendly because it's impossible to tell who the craft belongs to. That's somewhere around 10-11% of my ammo capacity wasted.

Can I get a refund for the skyguard please since you are leaving it a perma nerfed state. Rather have the hawk if you are going to disregard the skyguard issue.

Way not okay with the required lock to fire, now. Let's set aside the fact that it's not necessary and is a terrible idea. The G2A rockets already do less damage to armor. That's the tradeoff, and it works magnificently. Don't change it.

What's much more important is the precedent it sets. I know all about the ToS. I'm one of those whackos who actually reads the things. I agree that it's SOE's prerogative to change anything that they want. But that doesn't mean it's in anyone's best interests to make changes like this. Tweaking stats, lock-on time, projectile drop or speed, these are all withing the reasonable realm of what can be called "balancing." Changing the core mechanics (i.e. how it fires) of a weapon that many people have paid actual money for? That is not reasonable. It is terrifying and very dangerous.

I know that I am likely not going to be buying any more weapons, for a long time. Not until I can discern if this is going to be a pattern. I've already heard the same opinion voiced by other members of my outfit, which is Total Recoil on Connery. What incentive do we have to spend money on weapons that we've tested, liked, and then purchased if we don't know whether you are going to fundamentally alter their usage. I really hope this change gets rolled back, because this is the kind of precedent that will see me buying no more SC. I'm not at all saying such stupid things like I'm going to stop playing. That would be ridiculous. I love the game and played the original. But, I will absolutely stop spending money on it because of things like this...

Bingo was his name O

Posting to echo the sentiment expressed many time elsewhere in this thread. I purchased a G2A launcher and I with the changes as they stand I absolutely feel slighted. This is a major change to functionality for an expensive weapon. If the change goes through as planned I will be very cautious about spending money in the future. This is not a tweak to the stats it's a major rework that makes the launcher very situational at best.

If you had implemented the no-dumbfire version of the launcher from the start it would likely be a cheap weapon 250/100?, please bring it in line with the current cost of the item.

If you live in Europe the courts won't support the ridiculous EULA. If you live in the US, write your congressman that your outraged that contract law is allowing these type of bait and switch tactics and that your upset that other first world countries protect consumers while the US allows us to have our basic consumer rights removed.

If your SOE... Value your customers... you will have more of them that way.

Actually, with fewer AA Rocket on the field that just means that Air can afford to use their flairs more often, because if somebody's lining up on you it means they're probably dedicated AA not just a HA that happens to have an AA Launcher on them and is trying to scare you away.

Maybe. The SkyGuard was pretty pathetic. Unless they adjusted Flak considerably then it's just going from pathetic to mediocre.

What you said.
Everyone deserves a refund and the AA launcher shoud be decreased in price to mirror its new-found uselessness

No, not at all, but it does keep coming up for some reason. Stop mentioning french fries on a thread about missiles and 'splosions and such. Troll.

I'm surprised they didn't add a new G2A that would discard dumbfire mode for a more powerful guided mode...more station cash for us!

I

Just because you don't like it doesn't make it any less true, nor does it make it a stupid argument. I never said you had to like it, I never said it was good business. Simply that it's well within SOEs rights to do this and well within their rights to deny any refunds. It doesn't matter if it's unfair, it doesn't matter if it doesn't fulfil your expectations. SOE is only bound by what's written in the T&Cs, not your expectations of them. Whether they're reasonable or not.

Again I'm not defending SOE. I'm just stating that they have no obligation to refund anyone over this. It may not be fair, it may lose them business, but they still don't have to grant any refunds.

Also that while you don't have to like it, you should have considered this possibility when you bought from the shop. Unless you want SOE to just stop working on balance you should have acknowledged that the weapons you buy may change in ways you're not going to be happy with.

Dude. The skyguard fires Flak.

Except that it does seem to work as a deterrent. We were getting hammered by Vanu air last night and, while I was having a blast using engie turrets to fight off infantry, since nobody else seemed to be doing it, I pulled a Skyguard and parked near an ammo dump. In a few minutes there were far fewer aircraft overhead and those that were overhead weren't loitering for easy kills anymore. So, while my actual kill count wasn't stellar for twenty minutes AA work, it DID help my faction by keeping the enemy air "honest", so to speak.

It's a VERY SLIGHT nerf, meaning that planes will have to be slightly more accurate with their shots rather than just spamming. It might make Sundy Kill Farming more difficult, but it'll do damn near nothing in most other situations.

Congratulations. You've just hit on the core issue with AA. If it's a deterrent then it needs to get XP for being a deterrent. If it's actually going to be Anti-Air then it needs to be able to kill planes. Either way the SkyGuard is a fail the way it currently sits, even if Flak damage was increased slightly.

Ditto. I used the Nemesis all through Beta with the expectation that I could dumb fire. It was literally my first purchase with Smedbucks when I got in game because of its versatility. Now it sounds like what I need is the new Decimator. Can I get a refund, since I'll no longer get what I paid for?

Also, If you're going to require lock-on to fire, can you remove the portion of flares that stops lock on - I don't have a problem with flares making my rocket go astray, but I hate that I can't immediately lock on again.

Planetside is a ground based game. Air is there to take out armor, and should have the tools to do it.

However,
I spent quite a bit of time trying to defend against air last night. A considerable number of my deaths were from low level, face tanking, rocket pod esf.

Air isn't supporting infantry, its ****** it.

Right now ground has no good ways to kill air.

Uh, no. Its a rather large change.

3m = 9ft 107⁄64in That's not insignificant.