Viability of Air

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BH Brigade, Jan 27, 2013.

  1. BH Brigade

    Alright, I've been an active member of the forums for a long time now, and generally the response to all the "NERF FLAK" threads has been to wait for ground forces to move in and take out the AA. I'm totally OK with that, and flak is completely balanced IMO. It requires skill to judge drop, projectile speed etc. And a skillful pilot can avoid it. However with the advent of ground based, lock on G2A missiles, every infantryman is potential AA. So the excuse "wait for ground forces to clear out AA" doesn't work anymore. Once they have cleared all the AA, everything is dead, and the battle is won. So what then, is the point of aircraft? Libs can't get close enough to render the infantry without getting into lock on range, and ESFs lose all ground effectiveness, and since libs aren't effective either, then ESFs have nothing to do A2A against except eachother. So I ask you, is this balanced? (Also I have fully certed flares, they do about as much as a BB gun against three charging elephants).
    • Up x 2
  2. Selentic

    The excuse never worked in the first place, since burster maxes were ALWAYS at the back of the battle far out of harms way, and by the time they were dealt with by ground troops, the battle was finished anyway since ground had to roll over everything else before they could even get to them.

    There really isn't much of a point now, before we had something pretty decent going, where once air superiority was taken by a side, liberators would fight with ground aa, and then if that battle was won they could move on to help finish off the infantry for the ground forces and win the battle. Now there's no point since everyone has a homing rocket launcher which any group of baddies can use easily, and keep the skies clear, and the liberator's weapons barely even qualify as threatening. There's no point to esfs either now, since air superiority and liberators are borderline useless things to have.

    The best thing that could happen to the game now is just reverting all the changes that have been made to liberators, and replacing homing rocket launchers with a player guided rocket of some sort. But that's probably not going to happen since all the dedicated infantry players would just go back to crying non stop like they were last week.
  3. HadesR

    You are supposed to be using all 3 at once .. Not Air waiting for ground .. Not Inf rushing in without armour .. Not armour rushing in without air .. But all 3 working in tandem as a combined unit at the same time.
    The best I have seen this done is sadly by TR ( *spits* :p ) . They will push armour and infantry in to tie up and distract forces then suddenly the air is full of mossies and Lib's making it impossible to try and counter everything at once.

    The fewer target choices you give your enemy the more likely you are to become one of the targets .. If Air, Armour and Infantry are moving as one then enemy Infantry will not be able to all just use G2A .
    If there is just Air then it's the logical choice to pull G2A because you do not need to counter anything else. Add armour into the mix then players have to think which is a bigger threat. Go further by adding infantry then it complicates it even more.

    I think to many people think combined arms is the 3 different units in the same hex .. it isn't .. It's about all 3 types supporting and complimenting each other

    The Crown is a perfect example of how not to do it in most case .. Armour will sit on Maggie Hill making mostly ineffective pots shots at w/e they do , Infantry will be foot slogging up the meat grinder hoping for the armour to push and Air will be somewhat stuck in the middle while the other 2 make no head way. Nothing is working together and it all goes t1ts up

    Just my view anyway .. So ignore it or not :p
    • Up x 2
  4. Brok9000

    All pilots need to come to terms with the fact that flying is now risky. Infantry live with that fact (extremely well) and so do tanks.

    Now it is your turn to join the rest of the players who actually die fairly often. Time to find out who are the true pro pilots.
    • Up x 1
  5. Cougarbrit

    The nerf flak argument is silly, if they nerf it to help out ESFs then Libs will go back to ****** all infantry groups unless you have a ratio of 5 dual AA maxes per Lib, which is ridiculous imbalance in certs and resources.
  6. BH Brigade

    It doesn't matter if you're a skillful pilot. Flares (no skill required) help, but complex air maneuvers do not lose missiles, and if there is no terrain around to lose missiles through (we're looking at you esamir) then the ESF pilot is ****** regardless about how skilled he is. While lock on rocket launchers are about as skilless as it gets, just point in general direction, wait for pretty green box and click LMB. Also, infantry do not have 15 min timers on their respawn, and tanks can take 5+ lock ons before dying.
  7. Purg

    We're at the back? I don't even know what that means in terms of PS2. If I'm out of harms way then I can't deal any harm. If I'm at the back of a battle then why don't your forces attack the back? This isn't a BF3 map where there's an edge of the map - you can usually attack from any direction - in fact, attacking the flanks should be your goal. If all I have to worry about is enemy coming from one direction then I'm probably going to win unless you overwhelm me with much larger numbers.

    You were tricked into believing that this is the role of an ESF when you were provided with rocket pods and little to no ground resistance. What you had going before was a farm of endless infantry, all hoping they weren't next to be lolpodded - I know that feeling. NV gave me nowhere to hide and you didn't even have to be accurate with the lolpods, they just had to be somewhere around the area for me to die. If you lined me up, I had no escape. Now the farm's armed with something that's actually effective.. and we're pissed off.

    The point is protecting your Liberators, killing their ESF's and their Liberators. Cunning pilots can still get their lolpod on - they're even grass cutting for massive kill streaks.
    • Up x 1
  8. BengalTiger

    To lolpod it's good to use the ESF as a helicopter after getting to battle- hiding behind hills, trees, buildings, using terrain to conceal movements.

    Afterburners on ESFs will allow to outrun quite a few missiles (as in using just speed)- especially the ground based ones. Taking missiles or rockets makes the ESF stronger in terms of firepower, but less agile.
  9. Brok9000

    Lock-ons are failry 'meh' but everyone died to libs and rocket pods since launch, over and over. Now its your turn, enjoy the feeling. If you can't hack it go back to CoD (can't tell you how many times this was a response by a 'pro pilot'). Use tactics, strategies, its a team game... all those fun things thrown at tanks and infantry for the past 2 months.

    Yeah, basically, man-up for a rough ride. PS2 is designed so that no matter what, everyone f-ing dies, over and over and over. A silly design but welcome to the par---tay!
    • Up x 1
  10. aedn

    Given the nerfs and buffs to ground AA , air is far less powerful then it was. The problem is people expect that they should be able to spawn an esf or lib and fly around to various battles with minimal support and be successful. That is no longer the case, and frankly players need to get used to it. if your trying to attack an infantry zerg, without infantry armor and air, well then your going to lose because your leting them counter your various combined arms one at a time.

    I see it happen quite often on matherson. Typically VS will push up a bunch of armor and air, and end up fighting a force that is equal in numbers but has better combined arms, and the VS get crushed. As soon as the VS infantry starts rolling, because the magrirders all got destroyed, they tend to do better. TR tends to have less of an issue because they always roll big infantry zergs, but all 3 factions run into the same problem when they do not provide a balanced force, especially when the opposing team is organized and focus firing rockets at targets.

    Is air useless? not really, does it need a slight buff, maybe, but current game play is far superior to the last 2-3 months for most players who are not in the air.
    • Up x 1
  11. Selentic

    ie: you are on the landing pads of biolabs and towers, or are on the back lines of a convoy, as in your entire ground force is between you, and the other ground force. I have played these roles long enough to know every good outfit/platoon is going to place their aa support units like that, and if they're not then they are terrible.

    [IMG]
    Nice tangent though.

    Sure, there are lots of great pilots out there who are still wrecking the terrible infantry out there, but the issue is that the effectiveness of aa is completely disproportionate to the skill and effort required to use it. I've played more than enough burster max and heavy assault with homing rockets to know that they are dead easy to use, compared to piloting esfs and liberators.
    • Up x 1