Please make flares for tanks and planes standard.

So annihilator and aa max spam is now back to beta levels, we have again hit the point on my server where groups set up on ridges (whole platoons sometimes) all day and just farm from the warpgate and do nothing else.
Yesterday was rediculous as nc tried to come out of our warpgate we actually had vs and tr squads set up with aa maxes and annihilator heavies on two separate cliffs overlooking the nc warpgate, another was set up over tarwich. These people know how stupid the annihilator is so are abusing it. Simply make flares standard on aircraft and ir smoke standard on tanks and lower the cooldown if you want this buloney to go on.
These people didnt care about the gameplay it was just the easiest way to farm vehicles and its outright dumb.
The tr and vs didnt even have nc warpgated they simply dropped in on beacons to do it and ignored the bases around because i guess its fun farming with easymode skilless missiles.

If I am in a tank I /lol at the lock on launcher...It only takes what like 8 shots to kill you?
You realize this launcher cost 1000 certs. And you want a default way to ignore it?
C'mon man spend the cert points to counter it. And if you are in tank, shoot the idiot who thinks he is going to kill you with one, duck behind a rock, and repair.

So there is a squad of people WG'ing you. Obviously they have better positioning, you need to meet them with an equal or greater force. If you would have spawned 15-20 aircraft you easily would have killed them, as well as flying straight past them as they respawn, then can flank.

If someone is using group strategy, you need to use it to.

Its funny thats the argument lib players gave us awhile back, when really it was a 1 man or 2 man Lib Or ESF VS 15 people and winning. Now that the numbers are flipped for the better. 1 or 2 man lose to 15 or 20 most of the time. Its suddenly a problem

I'm not convinced.

I think a good first step would be to lower the inital buy in for flares. 100 certs, while not a huge amount does require some thought or a decent amount of playtime to buy a defense item. Considering you can get A2A missle pods for 500. I'd rather have A2A pods than 2 -3 levels of flare.

That's a decent hurdle for newer players. Add a new rank to ESF flares that's like 30-50 certs, like mineguard or most other items, and give that rank to everyone who already has flares for free.

I like the idea of flares/IR smoke coming standard. It would give pilots/drivers more options as, IMO, these upgrades are 100% necessary in the current "meta"

Dont need flares on a tank, you can get IR Smoke, which does the samething.

Lock on launchers aren't standard, why should flares be?

The annihilator spam will get bad enough that people will not drive anywhere near a canyon anymore and maybe **** will get done, nc wont have the canyons anymore in the upcoming patch so the Tr can see how bad it is.
If your not nc you wouldnt have a clue how bad it is. You cannot reach the people doing it and unless your in a huge outfit there is no way to drop in and dislodge them.
But hey you guys want a skillless noob weapon being the default gameplay mechanic thats fine.

Well then you should learn to use ground troops to clean them up right? I mean they got up in those ridgelines and so can you...

That weapon is terrible man. Seriously Trial it...It doesn't do **** to anyone.

The people killing you are using Decimators and or other AA weapons. Not Lock on rockets...Lmao

Complain about mines or something that can actually kill someone.

Just get the smoke and you're fine.
It gives you a good amount of time to retreat or kill that HA. Also give a good opportunity to make fart jokes with your outfit. It's a win-win cert, in my opinion.
Having it by default would make lock-ons a useless thing.

Still, for aircrafts we need a redesign of flares, everyone and his cat has a lock-on launcher now, and it will be worse as time goes by. The current system is simply not the right way to implement a couter to lock-ons, in my opinion.

While I think the majority of tankers and pilots are grade A kill ******, this actually isn't a bad idea. The smart ESF pilots are setting up runs, dropping their ordinance and bugging out, then they rinse and repeat. Flares will help them out marginally, as its dedicated AA which is their primary threat. Same thing goes for Liberators. Tanks are in a bit more difficult situation. They need to be supported by infantry to have battle field presence, and standard smoke/flares would buy them a bit more forgiveness when they need to disengage.

It won't help the ones who insist on lingering in areas overran by enemy infantry, nor will it help the "Lone-wolf-I-am-Rambo-hear-me-roar" buffoons. However it would help those smart enough to pull back when they get into a poor situation.

It already does, they dont need to start with teh damn things.

No one else starts with a G2A weapon.

no.

Why ? Lock on launchers are not standard, so why ?

Can I have free mineguard on my ground vehicles too then please?

And free flak armour for my infantry classes?


And, of course, free lockons instead of having to unlock them?

I play NC. I run in both a lib, and a vanguard quite often. When this happened the other night, we just grabbed 3 libs (my outfit and I) and started bombing from the Warpgate. Cleaned out a good amount using the bubble to pop in and out of, sitting over ammo, and a quick trip to repair safely. Reduced the numbers up there, noticed a few others doing the same thing (plus some ESF strikes).... and shortly were on our way back to fighting where we wanted to.

Did I mention that my lib has no flares?

It's not lock ons that are causing the problem. It's team work and coordinated game play. If you're trying to lone wolf it, you're not gonna have much luck - and the vast majority of players are wanting to think of everything in terms of solo play styles. I have no problem dying to a well thought out attack, that is organized nicely.

With that said, I HATE the idea of lock ons. Yes, I have a few (AA AV Annihilator) but they take no skill to use. I would love to see the whole way "lock on" works to be line of sight, or require the player to maintain the lock to get a hit.... at least there's some aspect of FPS style game play in that. Locking on, fire and forget just feels like WOW game play (tab, F1, F1, F1, F3, tab, repeat). The only counter to mass groups situated with lock ons, is to fly in a group, and hope they aren't calling targets. A few will go down, but a few should get in to do bombing runs.

It's also MUCH more exciting to be in a position where my lib and vanguard can experience threat now. The risk of death is real, and I have to play accordingly. I prefer it this way, and find myself more excited to log in an do things, rather than just farm certs.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/lock-on-alternatives.87115/

Its actually more how stupid the SE warpgate on indar is. Soon Soon someone else gets to feel the pain.

Dude, 30 cert points.