Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

However, you are not limited on how often you can use your $7 investment by a cool down timer or by a resource cost.

Smedley has claimed to play pilot on occasion, FWIW.

I don't have a problem with the pilot being able to dodge behind an obstacle, as this takes either luck or foreplanning and a high degree of piloting skill.

Simply hitting the afterburners only works if the fighter was at maximum range and was quick to reverse course to outlast the missile. As both a pilot who has tried to avoid AA missiles and an HA with an AA missile, I've seen both sides of this coin.

The biggest problem I found with the AA missile nimbleness was firing on an approaching aircraft and watching the missile always miss because it couldn't adjust to hit it headon or explode nearby. Instead it would have to swing around to hit and thereby lose a good few seconds of its lifetime.

No, aircraft will *always* have an impact on gameplay, because Planetside has one component BF3 lacks. The Liberator is the critical difference between BF3 and PS2. The Liberator connects air with ground forces in more than just one way.

I'll match his "on occasion" with my flying the NC Reaver fighter almost exclusively.

With respect to Higby, I feel I'm in a much better position to opine on the aircraft v. ground balance than he is, despite his title of PS2 developer.

I've flown my Reaver at all times of the day and night, in largely and sparesely populated servers, etc. I've developed a feel for the aircraft v. ground balance that I doubt he can match.

Believe me when I say that the aircraft v. ground balance is as good as it's going to get. I do NOT feel invincible or invulnerable in my fighter aircraft at the moment.

But after the proposed changes to the aircraft v. ground balance, I'll be extinct as a fighter pilot.

Then it's back to BF3 for me.

BF3 also has the C130 gunship.

After the proposed aircraft v. ground changes, Liberators will become extinct, as will every other aircraft in PS2.

It happened before in beta. It'll happen again in PS2 retail.

The only difference is that once the PS2 gamer (e.g. myself ) leaves PS2 now, he most likely won't be coming back.

I'm sorry, but this is my worst nightmare. Why on earth would you want to do that? A2G and G2A is a huge part of this game in every sense. I absolutely love flying as low as I possibly can, going through tight spaces at high speed and all that. Take it out and I'm not at all interested in flying. A2A combat is a joke. It's either silly turning competition or who-gets-the-lock-on-first. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy taking out aircrafts, but it's definitely not my main focus and neither is ground. I'm not interested in hovering, camping and getting tons of kills. I love getting hit by flak or lock-on and trying to quickly escape. I'm generally low enough that any HA can shoot me down with ease and MAXes can destroy me if they can aim a bit. Most of the time I just fly around, poking here and there.

Perhaps the problem isn't the deterrence in scaring that is truly the problem, it is the lack of points. Currently there are no certs for the enemy for causing damage that then has to be healed / repaired.

I'm reasonably certain that they keep track of damage sources for repairing, because I've been hit a lot by enemies, land and take some friendly fire, and the first few repair ticks don't give me points but the rest do.

If damage-dealers got some points kicked to them when someone repairs their vehicle, it would probably go a long way to making people feel rewarded for their efforts.

I agree that solo or tag teams have a tough time killing aircraft outright, but I think that is probably fair, being that aircraft are easily spotted and totally exposed and ground is obscured by terrain and, currently, people who have **** draw distance due to server-client restrictions.

I like this list of changes except for one thing.

I believe that limiting lock-on launchers will cause more harm then good, because what if i have a surprise come my way and i need to get a rocket off immediately or die, why should i need a lock on restriction? As stated in the patch notes, infantry being targeted by rockets can put on flak armor to combat the issue.

The only problem I have with any of the changes is the required lock on for the Skep (grounder doesn't bother me). I will no longer be able to kill a moving flash with the Skep, as currently the speed of the flash makes a locked on rocket hit the ground behind the flash instead of the vehicle itself. Without the lock on, I can still lead and kill a moving flash.

Also, killing base/tower turrets at range will be slightly more difficult again due to the requirement of using the native dumb fire rockets. For anyone that doesn't know, the rocket drop on the Skep is much much lower than the default dumb fire launcher. This made it a much easier tool for long range turret kills.

I didn't play BF3 long enough to see this, but I imagine there is a critical difference between BF3 and PS2: Liberators can be in any region of the map, and BF3 C130s can only be on specific maps. Something being potentially ubiquitous is a a great deal different than something you know is effective, but simply doesn't exist in some instances.

The only thing missing from this thread is a post from D0n, that would be icing on the cake.

Something about flak needed to happen to increase the xp gained, either

1) Performance increase so kills happen more often or
2) Deterrence xp from damage to aircraft

Looks like devs chose option 1, lets see how it plays out.

I still use the default one when I need to deal with a tank specifically. The A2A dumbfire damage is much smaller and largely useless against MBTs from the front.

Hate this new change. The ability to dumb fire G2A at ground targets is vital. They already do less damage than all other rockets, so you are taking a hit vs tanks going with those already. I understand them wanting to make specializing have a bonus, but there is no reason to not allow a weaker generalist approach if players value flexibility over raw power. All tanks can load anti ground main guns an anti air secondaries (ok Walker isn't amazing but it will beat anything infantry have no if they don't take G2A missiles, and if they do they have no AT for ground).

Max suits can load up two different arms.

ESF's can rock air with nose cannons and ground with rockets.

Libs can rock air with nose and tail guns, and ground with Daltons.

All this change is, is a huge nerf to infantry groups... and they were already the most abused group. This change definitely disheartens me and makes me regret spending as much on this game as I have already if I will be forced as an infantryman to always have a nemesis, where as tanks and aircraft do not have to accept that.

Yes, you're correct.

The issue I was trying to address to Raw is that people stopped using C130s in BF3 because they knew they were going to be killed rather easily by the enemy's anti-air forces.

The same thing will happen in PS2 with the proposed changes to the aircraft v. ground balance: players will stop using aircraft when they see how powerless they are against ground forces.

It happened in PS2 beta. It'll happen in PS2 retail.

The difference is that most gamers who leave PS2 retail most likely won't be coming back.

Yes, I was thinking about 2 a lot. Either XP for making a pilot hop out of their aircraft, XP for an enemy's repair points (like 10% of an enemy's repair points), or something along those lines. I kinda like the concept of a "dismount XP" but then that wouldn't cover aircraft and tanks that are repaired by engineers that were never in the vehicle.

Then you're screwed. That was basically my main tactic anyway. Lock, shoot, reposition, repeat. With these changes it would require quite a bit of commitment, but I think it's alright. If you want to do one-shot-wonder get the new rocket launcher and you're set.
AA is a different story. At the moment I just hope they'll get around giving people some incentive to use AA turrets.

There has been a stealth nerf to ESF composite armor. I decided to blow 800certs into comp armor in anticipation for these changes. Sadly composite armor is now TRASH. For 800certs I get 9% redux to flak, and 6% reduc to small arms.

For all you think AA is over powering really need to stop sucking at this game. I have never been rocket podded myself when I'm on the ground. Stop standing in the middle of a field or in large groups of other ******* trying to zerg a point.

Yes I fly a Scythe, yes I run with pods. This change won't affect my ability to destroy infantry. I normally kill 25% of my ground targets with my turbo lasers anyways since they actually kill targets quicker than rocket pods.

A2A missles are straight up imbalanced. More and more bad pilots are using them. I love dog fighting, I had having some bad pilot sit from afar lobbing rockets at me as I fight 2 of this teamates in a good fight. Lately I find myself being more aggressive with flying below and inbetween buildings to take out the incoming missles.

So all these changes will not affect my ability to completely shut you down. Been flying the helicopter in BF2 and 3 for long enough that any changes just reduces how many points and hour I get, not how often I die.

And AA Maxs were fine. The reason people cry that they aren't good enough is they start shooting at me from max range before I can even see them, hit me afew times and I bug out. The good ones dont fire until I'm in an area that will result in me getting my *** handed to me. An AA max in a 1 on 1 will beat an ESF in a toe to toe battle. Takes 5-7 salvos to take out a max. Ort just switch the turbolaser and **** him in a clip.

Once these changes come into affect and you see no more planes, you will be happy. Your buffs to AA make libs even more useless (Can't see anything to shoot but getting *** handed from the ground). Nerf ESF is fine by me. But not addressing lib crews being unable to get kills is ******.

I remember the times when it was very difficult to use a liberator because it was fragile and not maneuverable. I fear that time returning again both for a combination of buffed AA damage and more people getting the certs to get access to expanded AA options at the same time.

Though I don't think people will leave the game over it (at least not in droves) as they'll switch roles. I see a lot of rocket-pod spam complainers attest that they switched to flying aircraft instead.

I fly pilot on a liberator with friends quite a bit and we rarely encounter invisible infantry, so we're a little mystified by this.

Perhaps using infrared or zoom changes how the server reports infantry to vehicles?

Anyhow, point I too have been a pilot and haven't had much trouble with invisible infantry, though I have seen videos of others where infantry suddenly pop into being.