Last try: An overview of my (unbiased as much as possible) views on AA FLAK balance

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by TheRealMetalstorm, Mar 29, 2013.

  1. TheRealMetalstorm

    Hello! Will be a long post. Sorry. Will try to format it to be easily readable.

    I currently fly as close air support ESF. Platoon leader lases targets with platoon WP and squad WP, defining the strafing vector. I rarely die to flak and can easily avoid it now, but that only comes with a lot of A2G flying experience. Flying at max speed 3m above the ground and flying under trees and inside amp stations isn't very easy, but it's currently the only way to counter AA.

    IMPORTANT: first, I will define Long, Medium and Short range.
    • Long range: The furthest distance a dalton-equipped liberator can cause effective trouble. About 1 amp station length, wall to wall.
    • Medium range: The furthest distance an ESF can cause serious trouble to infantry (podding). About half an amp station length, [A] Point to Wall.
    • Short range: In your face, kneecap to toe.
    We start by enumerating the various ground based AA options available to us as PS2 players.
    // (programmer's joke, sorry LOL)libraryimport ps2lib EnumGbaaTypes(callback function)
    // ok now that the lame joke's done with (hope the coders got the silly joke)
    1. Burster MAXes
    2. Skyguards
    3. Base AA Turrets
    4. Lvl4 Deployed Prowlers (Superheavy AAA, only reliably good against libs. but im not gonna analyse this, it's more like a joke, not something to worry about until coordinated)
    So now that we've got that done, we talk about these options' different qualities and their behaviour on the battlefield.

    Burster MAX:
    • High theoretical DPS, very effective up to about long ranges, beyond that only mildly effective against liberators. No speed limit to turning around - able to engage at Short range. Fast reload with large clip size, able to sustain effective AA fire on targets.
    • Very tricky unit by nature (infantry-based) - can hide very effectively from all threats.
    • Can be pulled basically anywhere with a spawn room, terminal, or sunderer (basically anywhere)
    • Repairs very quickly
    • Able to sustain a serious pounding from all vehicle sources with a combination of small size and high explosive resistance.
    • Requires overwhelming infantry to effectively suppress.
    • Hard to erase from the battlefield without large amount of infantry on point.
    • Too effective at longer ranges. Just right for Short-Medium range.
    Skyguard:
    • Higher theoretical DPS but with poor accuracy, poor turret traversal speed, unstable turret, and extremely tiny clip size. Unable to sustain effective anti-aircraft fire. Ineffective when targets are within Short range.
    • Very mobile unit due to lightning's speed, but is unable to hide effectively from threats, since it is a vehicle.
    • Can be pulled anywhere with a Tank terminal - tower facilities and major facilities only.
    • Repairs somewhat quickly.
    • Can survive heavy bombardment by vehicles with some difficulty, due to it being less able to find cover but still being highly mobile within a base.
    • Requires either ovewhelming infantry OR mildly effective armour tactics to neutralise.
    • Less difficult to erase from the battlefield
    • Too ineffective at sustaining damage. Too ineffective at all ranges due to poor CoF, turret traversal speed and extremely tiny clip size.
    Base AA Turrets:
    • High theoretical DPS, poor turret traversal speed. Very large capacity to sustain effective AA fire due to "overheat" mechanic. Effective for all ranges up to Long.
    • Non-mobile unit. Cannot hide from threats.
    • Available in medium quantity at all bases.
    • Repairs very slowly.
    • Cannot survive any form of attack - very fragile to both HA rockets and MBT fire. Very exposed due to placement of turrets.
    • Requires minor infantry or armour presence to neutralise.
    • Extremely easy to erase from the battlefield
    • Just right. High DPS potential, excellent ability to sustain effective anti-aircraft fire, at the cost of difficult upkeep.
    The issue:
    Burster MAX units have only one viable coutner - overwhelming infantry. However, if infantry can get into the base and actually kill the MAX suits, the base has probably already fallen. This effectively negates nearly all possibility of CAS playing a role in the cap.
    Skyguards are way too weak to be an effective, viable alternative to the Burster. It can't hide, and doesn't hit as hard in practice.

    Suggestion:

    1. Lower Burster MAX projectile velocity, so that they are ineffective at and beyond Medium range. Also, slightly decrease their damage at range against Liberators. Heavy A2G (Libs) should require heavy G2A to kill or deter, or otherwise require a lot of light G2A (burster MAXes) to kill. I say 10% damage reduction. Note: Any lib coming in close will still get shredded. The role of a burster MAX is point defense, and it should excel at that. It will still retain effectiveness against slow-moving liberators which can threaten at longer distances, but will significantly deplete BursterMAXes' ability to threaten, from longer ranges, ESFs that need to close in to cause harm.
    2. Increase skyguard clip (yes, it's not a mag) size to 100 or 150. Allow them to sustain effective AA fire. Also, slightly increase their damage (very very very slightly, maybe 5%)
      Not forgetting an increase in projectile velocity, say 25%.
      This change will allow skyguards to become the dominant form of region-wide air denial. Also, this forces empires to actively put in significant effort to maintain region-wide AA/no-fly.
    .
    .
    Conclusion, and TLDR:

    Denial of enemy air region-wide should be a high-maintenance job that is vulnerable to counter-tactics. As it currently stands, Burster MAX units are too effective at range. They effectively lock down an entire area with little to no effort, and are nearly impossible to suppress without actually first taking over the base.

    These changes don't harm the Burster MAX unit's point defence ability. It will still rip aircraft apart at short to medium range, but no longer effortlessly deny almost all enemy air in the region.

    These changes instead shift the role of "heavy, region-wide anti-aircraft" to the Skyguard. With increased projectile velocity, increased mag size and (surely) more popularity, this isn't exactly a nerf to AA.

    This won't "let the lolpodders go unchecked". This isn't the flyboy's field day. Instead, it opens up the possibility of counter-play against AA units. It adds a little bit to the possibility of metagame in this.. persistent combat environment.

    After all, it's going to be much more satisfying when gameplay actually lets you win with a combination of tactical superiority and numbers(lol inb4 TR thinking)

    currently as it stands, there's much to be improved upon.
    I hope this has been a productive read.

    please post any issues this set of changes might face.
    • Up x 22
  2. TheRealMetalstorm

    c'mon guys, show support or point out problems please!
  3. Robk

    What about G2A launchers?
  4. Dingus148

    Mate, I think flak is fine. It gets me when I'm cocky or foolish, most of the time I just outfly it and it's no biggie. I'm no ace pilot, but if I can dodge it, I can't see why everyone else has such a hard time with it.
  5. twitch_uk

    To OP - interesting post, nice to see somebody actually thinking about something. Like Robk says, I think you need to consider infantry AA options, including empire-specific launchers.
    • Up x 1
  6. TheRealMetalstorm

    AA is perfectly fine. I rarely die to it if ever when doing ground runs, but the thing is:

    it doesn't make sense right now
  7. TheRealMetalstorm

    IMO, G2A lock-ons are a form of area denial as well, but they aren't as seriously threatening IMO since they're effective point defenses only (good). They don't have a good reach and countermeasures give the pilot a good 5secs to complete his run and exit (more than enough). Also, the ground hugging approach that all hot-zone pilots like me use effectively makes G2A have zero effectiveness against us. My deaths to G2A are..... minimal at best.
  8. siddar

    Air is to effective against ground units.

    Burster Maxs will remain very effective against air as long as that continues to be the case.
    • Up x 2
  9. Pemtaphalon

    Nice well thought out points, I agree for the most part, I don't use MAX's but I have trialed a stock MAX with dual bursters when the situation required (near empty base but constant hover pod scythes and I was the only one who pulled a MAX isntead of trying to out run the rockets...sigh) and I was amazed at how effective the dual burster was, I love taking down you fly boys (nothing personal, I just enjoy the quick paced battle) so I often use a Skyguard that I am in the process of upgrading, I have also used base turrets, so here is my thoughts...

    MAX's should have a small fire rate reduction, nothing massive, just a small reduction and possibly more recoil since it is just a guy in a mech suit and not a stationary platform

    Skyguards are ok, upping the clip size to 65 would be more then enough, you can take out ESF's with one clip, but sadly you normaly end up just shy of the kill, but that's life, so if any upgrade is to be added then just a small clip upgrade is all you need

    Base defences is a tricky one, I find that most turrets are redundant and just easy XP when you are waiting for a base to flip, I don't think there is a problem with the gun mechanics, but any changes made to it wll be made to all turrets when/if they get looked at by the devs

    Well, that's my views on your well written (and surprisingly un-whiny nerf nerf nerf threadness) thread
  10. Hovis

    Aircraft counter to ground fire is mobility. You get to choose to not be where the enemy has their anti-aircraft elements concentrated. If you choose to fly directly against the enemy anti-aircraft elements, well, that good luck with that. I've seen air power overwhelm anti air before, it happens when there is enough of it, and when the pilots are smart, but it's not the god given right of pilots to spaff their lolpods over all and sundry.

    In short, anti-air dictates where aircraft can go without being shot down. If you choose to fly against it, you're going to burn and rightly so.
    • Up x 1
  11. Pemtaphalon

    He wasn't saying anything about nerfing anti air, in fact he asked for a buff to skyguards, it's quite unbiased especially coming from a pilot, give it another read then post again if you can
  12. Doogle

    Thats all well and good but its hard to agree that AA maxs are OP when I have just had a banshee/rocket pod run of 100k score an hour with a 41 KD ratio.

    If you get the jump on AA maxs you can kill them faster than they can you.
    • Up x 2
  13. Hovis

    A nerf to the Burster at long range is basically cutting the balls off anti-air. The Burster is as it should be, able to deter alone or kill in numbers. Making it shorter range is making it Liberator bait. No sale.
    • Up x 1
  14. Pemtaphalon

    Burster MAX's do seem odly effective compared to other AA, I'm not asking for a nerf or anything of course, I rarely fly and I rarely use MAX's. it's just an observation
  15. MaelstromSOB

    iar power was op fpor so long they think thats the way it must be......wrong.things have ways to counter them.

    aa max isnt hard to bring down it just needs to be coordinated well....takes 3 airships...2 esfs and a lib
  16. DuckSauce

    Nice post.

    I think the air--ground balance right now is pretty good -- way better than it was at launch, no doubt. But I agree that Skyguards should be real threats to air and should be effective area denial, and Bursters should be the options for protecting a squad/vehicle(s) and not half a hex.

    Phalanx Turrets are weird. A manned Tech Plant is extremely dangerous to air; a manned Amp Station is kind of a joke. While theoretically it should have a ton of firepower due to the sheer number of turrets, the turrets are placed so low that infantry and armor destroy them with ease.

    Lockons are weird, too. In hexes with good cover they're almost an afterthought -- I see the flashing light and LoS them behind a tree, usually before they can even achieve lock. In hexes with poor cover they're ridiculously powerful against air and ground. Look at, e.g. Camp Connery.
    • Up x 3
  17. Pemtaphalon

    Am I the only one however who has noticed a huge drop in aerial targets? are pilots giving up? I hope not as they are very tasty targets now :)
  18. Hovis

    Yeah the Burster MAX is great. You need an engineer in any group of them to provide gun food, their ammo payload sorely limits them without that, but yeah, they work really well at what they are supposed to do and are available to all factions.

    What annoyed me about the OP is that the Burster actually being a good, effective, well balanced weapon, meant that it needed a nerf. The Burster is -exactly- fine right now. Put a couple out when defending a base, you've got good sky coverage. As it should be.

    Other anti-air stuff does have some problems, sure, the Skyguard could stand to be better, but it's still not as bad as it was. The Walker and Ranger turrets you can mount on a Sunderer are very effective.

    If I could make any change to the system as it is, I would make it so that the Walker could fire on a lower axis, because when push comes to shove it's a bloody huge machinegun and it ought to be able to double as an anti-infantry weapon in a pinch. Also I would like to be able to equip a Lightning tank with some sort of general purpose rapid fire cannon, like the top turret on a Vanguard or Sunderer, only a smidge more powerful. The biggest weakness of the Skyguard as it is is that if I happen upon an enemy vehicle when I'm driving it my best option is to jump out and start swearing at the guy. A Lightning turret that's no as good AA as the Skyguard, but has some measure of anti-armour value, that'd be peaches.
    • Up x 1
  19. TheRealMetalstorm

    Firstly: Don't expect your specialised loadout to do EVERYTHING. you pulled AA. You encounter armour? Get your buddies that you're working with to neutralize that threat.
    Don't expect to do everything with anything. Get used to something called opportunity cost.

    Next: You actually mean that AA at its current level of deadliness is perfectly balanced. TRUE!
    But, there's a way to keep this balance AND open up a whole can of metagame to add to this game. How? Read Post.
    All I'm saying is that the nature of the burster MAX negates the option of tactical elimination of anti-aircraft.
    It should retain its lethality against aircraft, but only as a point defense. Protecting sunderers, or a small bubble around bases. Libs will still be deterred from hoverspamming up high since the change is to velocity, not damage.

    The skyguard should be the primary long-range anti-air. Currently, burster maxes are, and read the quote above.
    • Up x 2
  20. Pemtaphalon

    I have been questioning a machine gun type weapon for sometime, many modern APC's carry large callibur machine gun turrets, I would love to see more lighting upgrades to be honest, but that is getting of topic, but I appreciate you replying to me.

    I get the impression you roll MAX when you can, given the fact that I have plenty of station cash at the moment thanks to the double weeked, do you think it worth getting a dual burster or is it a case of if you want to be a decent max you need to heavily invest certs into it (in which case I shall stick to my halfway modified Lightning)