Poor AA Mechanics, and why they make me rage.

Nox, I'm with you on this completely, and this was my worst case fear when I started playing PS2. For me the air game died a lot on triple cash day (everyone got A2AM) but I could still enjoy flying if I was very very cautious on how I engaged. I was starting to really enjoy it again and then they went and dun goofed with the current AA locking on system. The lock on missiles were already OP in the air and useful on the ground. Now they are just stupid. I don't miss if you don't have flares from the ground no matter what you do unless its long range and there is a nice mountain between us.

I don't see this changing.

Between this and the hackers... ugh.... so much potential failed.

I hear you. I sort of sat back and put in my $.02 here and there, but after the last patch I've had enough. The A2AM buff was horrible and uncalled for. I was completely shocked because I was foolish enough to believe they were actually going to make A2AMs harder to use, not even easier... which I was surprised to see was even possible. We have players like youngblood and spadar making awesome posts all the time with respect to air, and everything they put out there is getting ignored. I try to keep my posts to minimum due to my tendency to have 0 tolerance for stupidity and ignorance (character flaw). I've had to hold back many times in this thread alone.

I also find it interesting that the grounder had it's dumbfire mode intentionally removed because it was the go to HA secondary. Not only is it back in, but it was reintroduced in a completely OP and poor format AND put on sale. The greed is strong in this company. From my perspective it looks like they intentionally made it too strong to make a quick buck. I hope I'm wrong because I also have very very low tolerance for unethical behavior, particularly from a company like this. Sweeping balance changes are good for generating revenue... until everybody quits.

For that reason I am not buying any more station cash until I see some behavioral changes from this development team, fewer hackers, and an outlook beyond "x should always beat y." To say I'm disgusted would be an understatement.

I'm posting in this thread because I had something to say. No, it is not my first FPS.


It's a fact that I don't have a very good K/D. The reason for this is that I'm a player who goes for objectives while playing mainly support roles, like infantry engineers and the like. I don't simply hover with my Zephyr and rack up kills, or rocket pod a full Sunderer to death and then complain that lock on missiles are too overpowered. I don't sit back and snipe just to increase my KD to a 1.0 or 1.5. I play the front, I support my squad with ammunition and repairs and I play to make a difference. Things you obviously don't understand.

Basing your entire argument on a "low" K/D in a game where K/D doesn't make near as much of a difference as strategy and logistics shows that you're the one who isn't a very good player.

If I have something to say, I'll say it.

Nothing against jesus and other carpenters, but I think Noxous is in US Army Flight School right now, that should suffice.

Absolutely spot on OP, I'm mostly an infantry player, and I agree with this. The Grounder/Tomcat has far too much of a lock on range, combined with the fact that it can turn on a dime and follow you across the map is ridiculous. The reason I'm not all that into air is probably because of the overdone lock on launchers. If they simply reduced the range and maneuverability of them, that would really help out balance.

On a bigger note, It seems that were there is no AA turret/skyguard, Air is almighty and cannot be beaten. However if there is an AA turret, even trying to go within a kilometer of the damn thing is a death sentence. I think they should buff small arms damage against aircraft, and reduce flak damage, as well as blur the lines between no-fly zones, and free-range.

That's actually a great idea that I haven't seen suggested yet. The liberator is immune to small arms damage, but maybe it's time to change that back around. There would be more baseline AA, and flak could help serve as that extra boost.

So you want us to sit there at guide a rocket at you? Sure when you have to sit there and guide your rockets back at us!

Funny thing is I've killed a good number of ESF's with my gun as a ground pounder. I've always thought that if people would just look up and actually shoot at ESF's more, the whining wouldn't have happened. Of course that requires they realize there is a Z axis.

You think you are being cute but you don't know how awesome that would be

Those would be some very satisfying kills. How about some infiltrator lazer guided bombs for the lib too.

TV rockets on my mossie, oh god, any day. You don't even know what you're asking for.

You know, two days ago I was playing with one good platoon leader. We were defending a base with infantry against far greater force with tanks and total air superiority. Not a single time more then one guy was rocketpodded in one flyby. You want to know how our leader achieved this? He constantrly reminded us about one little vital thing you should do when shelled in the open, or when enemy air force is above. He was saying: "spread out!"
Until two Libs showed up, we were standing our ground with great success. Libs are somewhat unbalanced with their tank armor, that might be right. But ESF are totally fine. If you are constantly being rocketpodded en masse, I'm sorry to say it, but you should really learn to play. Have two AA maxes, spread out and you're very tough prey to hunt down.

Outside of all balance issues I think people need to realize that as the game gets longer in the tooth there is a better chance that the population has access to multiple high cert counters like lock ons, A2A, sky guards and burster maxes. Without even getting into the effectiveness of it you'd be more likely to see a mass pull of anti air now than you would shortly after launch.

The problem isn't the accessibility of AA, it's how AA is currently implemented. The current AA (missiles) are an absurd combination of One of the main premises of this game is that a br1 can evenly challenge a br100 in combat, that skill will decide who come out on top. The state of AA adheres to that premise except for the skill part. With the current AA, there is no avenue for a player's action to determine the outcome of a locked AA missile.
If you get locked:
1.) you burn flares
2.) or you bail
3.) or you suicide

So for all parties involved with an AA situation:
No certs
No kills
No meaningful player interactions
No battle progression
Stalemates continue
the game does not adhere to its founding premises
final destination

That was using a Striker. Flying past a thin tree broke the lock. The Phoenix was guided by remote, the Lancer was just pretty much an instant hit and flew straight. Here we've got two choices as AA:

Slow as hell arcing dumbfire rockets or god-mode lock-ons that can actually hit. Two complete polar opposites are what all three factions get. So it's either a case of Air literally laughing as they spam rockets all over infantry or screaming like girls and flying away in a desperate attempt to not die from the fifty bajillion lock-on G2A rockets simultaneously launched from a massed group of infuriated HAs seeking retribution. Neither is acceptable in my eyes and those are the only things we've got her.

Kind of why I stated that outside of the balance issue of the actual AA and A2A itself. A more accessible and equipped community will show the problems glaringly compared to a community early on that wasn't as saturated with AA.

AA vs esf is a pretty good balance
AA vs lib is poor ( maybe it should be but AA missiles should do more damage so should skyguard )
Skyguard is poor ( damage is ok when you actually hit but there's something wrong somewhere, do most of the shots miss ?
is the cof too wide ? )


AA missiles vs lib is poor
Lib is a flying tank

I know they buffed lib cos few were playing it but the reason for that was not just op skyguard at that point, but the fact that no one really wants to fly a lib where the main gunner gets all the kills / xp

Solution two stages

1/ Share xp equally between all the crew in a lib
Put in a timer between switching seats 30 seconds before you can switch again ( encourages you to actually use a tail gunner )

2/ Incrementally buff AA missiles vs lib ( small increments )
buff skyguard a bit ( small increments not too much but a lib shouldn't just hover over it and destroy it )
And increase the payload of the lib a little to make up for it ( ie: more bombs/ bullets )

i have the bad feeling that SOE has no clue how to balance this game and just keeps waiting what is happening after a buff/nerf that was called from the community.
they buffed AA the wrong way. they nerfed Aircrafts the wrong way. there seems to be no thought behind the changes. just random buffs/nerfs.

Agreed this is not just an air issue, this is a invisible infantry vs all vehicles issue. G2A rockets are not needed, skyguards and burster maxes keep the skies clear fine but also lets the enemy air retaliate with good maneuvering. Bursters reward those who learn how to aim and track targets, bursters award those who know how to fly to avoid getting caught in burster crossfire. Lock on launchers removes any rewards for those who want to learn how to use a weapon effectively. This goes for both G2A and G2G lock ons. Wire guided rockets would be alot more engaging for everyone.

To make the G2A wire guided missile effective it could have a fairly big splash damage and a manual detonation, so if you miss your target. Detonate and shower it with shrapnel.

There may be other issues as well with G2A launchers. Let's say players on average land 1 in 3 G2A rounds against ESFs, but they land 80% against slower moving and larger libs. Than in itself creates some balance disparities. A lot these problems come down to structure design and render time/distance. If render distance and time could be improved, the liberator easily be transitioned in to a lower health but more agile aircraft, requiring better gunner ability and increasing the risks of hovering greatly.

The PS1 maxes were thus for Anti-Air. The Burster (I think) which used two flak guns that just fired at the air and indeed exploded into Shrapnel. The NC one (I forgot the name) took a while to get a target but once they had a lock on, they could fire and the missile just chased you across the whole continent. The VS was the Comet I think, maybe Nova, but it fired a slower ball that took less time to get a lock on but it could be broken if you avoided the little lock-on zone long enough. Well, it could also re-establish lock-on and start chasing you again if the MAX could find you again, or they'd just find another aircraft and suddenly the little ball of aircraft-hating-death would change course for it's new target.

Every MAX in PS2 using the Burster is just well, a rip off of the TR's AI MAX in PS1. Not to mention massed aircraft feared lines of AI TR MAXes in Lockdown-mode who would just utterly fill the air with exploding shrapnel.

In defense of G2A-side:

That's the *ONLY* weapon given to infantry. We do not get burster maxes, and not everyone wants to run around in the killmesuit. Even before the changes to G2A missiles, there were burster maxes but not many. MAXes should not be mandatory for infantry to defend themselves.

I'd been complaining since early release to give HA's a free NS-11 shoulder-fired burster, and it would've eliminated much drama about G2A missiles. But they nerfed the missiles instead, then nerfed ESFs and then reboosted missiles instead.