Air Combat's Steep Learning Curve

The problem with air combat is that the most effective ways to fight are by using "creative" methods, which really seem like they're not how the aircraft were intended to be used. Here are some examples:

1. Dalton/Zephyr Air-to-Air. While using this technique certainly requires a lot of skill on both the pilot's and gunner's part, it's really not how the liberator was intended to be used. It's the unfortunate consequence of the tailgun being so awful. It's way more effective to learn how to roll your lib on its belly and use your cannon to shoot at ESFs than to practice using the tailgun.

The problem: This creates a steep learning curve. There's a limit to how good you can be using the tailgun, but as soon as you learn to use your Dalton/Zephyr as an A2A weapon, your effectiveness goes way up. This hurts new players and divides libs into 2 categories. There are the libs who are really easy targets who are using their tailgun for A2A, and then there are libs who are incredibly hard to hit and quite dangerous that use their Dalton/Zephyrs for A2A. Tailguns need to be more effective. Practice should make perfect. You should be able to be more effective the more you practice. Right now, you can be kind of effective with the tailgun by practicing OR you can become extremely effective by practicing the Dalton/Zephyr A2A technique. There's nothing really wrong with it, but it, again, ruins the learning curve for libs. You can either be mediocre, or you can be effective, but you need to devote a lot of time and effort to it. It's all or nothing.

2. The reverse maneuver for ESFs. Again, this takes a lot of skill, but it hurts the game for the same reason as the Dalton/Zephyr A2A does. Once you learn how to do it well, it's very hard for someone who doesn't know how to do it to counter it. It wrecks the learning curve. You can certainly be effective using the ESF like a plane, but when you can mix its plane and helicopter abilities (i.e. the reverse maneuver), you become a lot better. It doesn't really seem like ESFs are designed for this or should be able to to do this.

The problem: An ESF is a plane and helicopter in one. That's fine when it's hover ability is separate from its flying ability, but when they mix, ESFs are just able to do to much. Plane vs. plane combat is fun. Plane vs. heli, heli vs. plabne, and heli vs. heli are also fun. But when you have a plane or heli vs. some erratically flying mix of the two, it becomes extremely hard to fight. It obviously requires a lot of skill to pull off, but it puts you on a whole new level and wrecks the smooth learning practice makes perfect. There should be more separation between the hover and flying modes of the ESF.

Conclusion: The proper way to get better should be to perfect the skills you have from the beginning. When learning new skills that take advantage of the aircrafts' design is the most effective way to fly, it creates 2 groups of flyers: the mediocre pilots who do a decent job and the few elite pilots who are extremely good and will almost always win against those who haven't learned their techniques. While there's nothing wrong with skill, there is a major problem when your skill means very little until you learn a few specific techniques.

well aircombat in ps2 is like that.
one mossi sees a reaver for example. start attaking it. and then both are just circle themselves till one explodes....
boring

What's the maneuver that allows me to not embarass myself when someone says "if you didn't make it to the galaxy, come in a mossy" by crashing and dying at the point under no enemy fire?

ESF balance is another problem. The reaver's only real advantage is upward thrust, which only helps when you learn the reverse maneuver. And actual aircraft physics would fix the boring combat. Right now there's no real advantage for getting an altitude advantage on your foe. If you could actually go noticeably faster by diving on enemies, it would add a whole new dimension to dogfights: the vertical fight.

V5. I'm that bad a pilot

You pull your own Galaxy and strut in.

Best part? Don't even need to land it. Drop into your squad then slowly walk over as a Galaxy explodes in the background. Apply shades. Chew gum.

Nice post.
Agree with everything.
Dogfights look now like arcade stuff not dogfights.

"The problem: An ESF is a plane and helicopter in one."

They all should fly and be used like some kind of Kamov Hokum.

Hello, A2A ESF flier here. (Using nosegun, A2Am sucks)

No.
Just no.

A2A is one of the few things where there's so much room to improve.

Seriously, L2P or don't, it's your choice. Don't ask to dumb down the game just because it can't immediately cater to the noobs.

I know nearly every aspect of PS2 is already like that, so keep A2A the way it is.

A learning curve provides progress. A steep curve provides depth and a sense of character progression. If you don't want learning curves, go play any CoD after CoD 4.

Sigh...

The A2A dynamics of a dogfight make it significantly more than a constant turning battle where each player tries its hardest to out-turn and speed-regulate best.

That's what combat degenerates to in other shooters with air vehicles limited to a certain minimum velocity and poor lift coefficients.

Also, do NOT pull the realism card. This is a game, it's meant to be fun. If this were realistic, tank shells would destroy spawn rooms and base walls.

Sure, if pilots couldn't completely dominate you by using techniques you don't know how to apply effectively, you'd have a little more fun. But it's not about you, its about the whole. I consistently die to pilots who know how to counter my moves and I know how to counter basic air reversals easily and get consistent firing solutions on these reverse-spammers. It's all about the progression of your skills. This is why I can bring a stock reaver and obliterate enemy scythes and mosquitoes, except the experienced ones.

thers something called VR...

i go there to train my buddys up in the art of flying..

i had 2 friends never played this game before an within 5 minutes i had learn them to be better than 95% everyone ells with the 5 speciel tricks an know how about drop psysics..

if a player really want to be good he can train in the vr without dying, he can ask the better players..

when you know it its not really that hard to be in full control hovering upside down 5 feet over the ground..

sincerly your br100 who mastered this 2 days in of beta (;

Oh hell yes! This I want. We have so much altitude to play with but only 20-30% is ever used!

Air? Steep learning curve?

I can get in a stock ESF of any faction and as soon as I learn the controls I'm as effective as most pilots in this game.

Good post. I've written a thread dealing with the same issue (in my signature), and just like you I talk about how the ESFs' extremely versatility - as a result of it being a helicopter and jet in one - makes it both impossible to truly balance, but also boring in general.

Wow. You must not have read my post. I want a learning curve, one that isn't incredible steep. Steep learning curves do the opposite of creating progression. They divide players into alright and incredibly good. There is no room for improvement in between. Again, I don't want to punish skill. I just want a steady progression for pilots.

I could understand this being a problem if we were talking about all infantry combat being difficult, because some people had mastered bunny hopping and were impossible to kill without also being good at bunny hopping, for example...

But i don't think the reverse maneuver or Liberator skill-shots could be classified as quirks of the game that need to be patched out. These are the kind of things that make people want to keep getting better, imo.

Skiing in tribes was an unforeseen benefit and crazy space helicopter acrobatics are an evolution of Planetsides "floating turret" aerial combat that i think is definitely welcome!

Sure, there are ridiculous pilots out there who kill me, without fail every time i engage in a dogfight with them, but that hasn't made me give up on trying to get better yet. I think that the steepest part of the PS2 aerial combat learning curve is having the confidence to actually give it a real go!

(and also maybe a few thousand certs into passive cooldown timer reduction)

The devs should of given us Helicopters for the helicopter combat. How great would it be to have helicopters you could ride inside and shoot your infantry weapons from?

The Helicopters from Avatar would make for some good gameplay.

I see your point, and it's a valid one, but I don't want to patch such techniques out. I just want to make the default techniques able to match up with these techniques. For example, lib tailguns should be a lot better.

The altitude advantage is already there, seriously, just give it a try and persist with it a bit.

Pilots are generally so used to being attacked from the sides or the back/front that they often have a massive blind spot directly above them. If you can keep that height advantage then you'll win many more dogfights.

You can approach from below too, but then you are likely to get seen and shot at by ground forces (plus pilots spend more time looking down than up).

You get better at ESF the more you use, not a steep learning curve. there is already noob mode for ESF: lock on rockets, you have 2-3+ noobs with lockons, and they can clear out a skilled pilot (most of the time). However, i guarentee any elite pilot has 4x or 5x, maybe even more, hours than you 'mediocre' pilots have logged in an ESF which means practice = perfect.

and about your libs, you think a tail gunner should be able to single handedly kill an ESF? tail gunner prevents ESF's from coming point blank or close range, because they will shred you. Real life tail gunners aren't used for much else. You think they should be long range and powerful? forget about it. It requires all 3 members in a liberator working TOGETHER to kill a skilled ESF, as it should. After all, a liberator is a bomber, not a fighter.. afterall, why do you think bombing squads fly with fighter escorts in real life, even though they have a top gunner, tail gunner, you name it...

Personally all i do is fly a reaver and none of the manouvres are hard. it's all about practice and using all you can to your advantage (terrain, altitude which does help a lot to get jump on target at first, direction of attack, ACCURACY, maneuverability. a lot of common sense factors). No surprise skilled pilots win by leaps and bounds, as did the the top aces in world war 2 who knew their aircraft and their situational awareness very well...

edit: ADDING 2000m to flight ceiling would be a win win for everyone.

I was once a total failture at A2A combat.
I progressed.
It wasn't as easy as learning to drive a tank properly.
It wasn't as easy as learning to master NC weapons.
But it was and still is possible. In fact, I found out that I had been using the air reverse in one of its (many many many different) forms. I just had to learn to use it in a combat situation.

I repeat: It's not easy, but how do you think people like me manage to learn to use it effectively? I still get destroyed by better fliers but A2A's steep curve is a godsend to me - in infantry combat, you can rarely say that "i died because he's got more skill than me"

I'm sure it's frustrating not being able to kill that enemy ace - I face the same frustrations but on a higher level.

But that's why you improve.

You don't come here to whine about the steep curve.

In fact, I wish EVERY aspect of PS2 had a seriously steep curve.

Spec ops would be a possibility, and skill, not luck, be the determining factor.

Also, picking your fights is also a skill, as is not overextending. I am willing to try my best to help you learn to fly A2A, but remember I'm not the best and each pilot has his own methods.

You see, that's what I find awesome - no other aspect of PS2 has enough depth and flexibility to let a player be unique. I can recognise enemy aces by their flight patterns alone (with the stupid spotting nerf, I can't see their names any more until either one of us dies). Air reverses aren't disjointed "manoeuvres" you pull off sequentially. Used properly, they flow into each other and each manoeuvre's exit is done to facilitate the entry into the next one, and every manoeuvre is done to best give you the edge on the enemy.

I find this the only "art" left in PS2, where there is no single "best" solution/school of thought.

^ i agree to the 2000m, but I would call for 6000m, with corresponding loss of performance at increasing altitude. Only the best equipped fighters (extended fueltanks, possibly some new performance frame) would be able to fly for long above 1500m, but this allows for gals to actually reliably move infantry. A few gals with walkers would also serve as a mobile base for esf combat, much like a sunderer + tank armour column. You would get air zergs, that sounds too cool.
Also, skilled liberator pilot/gunner pairs are hard to come by, but those that I know, I have to try my fullest to shoot them down. I can't go near, and I must stay out of their front and rear cones of fire, which means a LOT of corkscrew air reversals around their bomber and emergency dives. It's awesome fun. Don't dumb down the depth of A2A flying to cater to the lower 20% of the skill ladder. Just let them learn.

1. Good pilots don't always necessarily have tons of hours. They are just good at the reverse maneuver. See how that hurts the learning curve?

2. I never said anyhting like that. Right now, tailguns aren't even good deterrents. If you just sway a little back and forth, you can tail a lib pretty comfortably without getting hit too much. 1 lib vs. 1 ESF should be a god fight using conventional methods, but it's just way too easy for the ESF if the lib is using the tailgun.