A sad time for pilots

Simple solution, fly with an escort. This is a team game after all.

There is a counter, its called air superiority in a combined arms game oriented around team play. The fact that you expect to survive, in a weapons platform designed to be a ground pounder, in air space where your faction doesn't have air superiority pretty much says it all really.

So where is the issue here, you're going up against a air superiority fighter and expecting to win. Something that is specifically designed for this purpose. Can you tell me how an ESF not running with A2Am would have not been as successful in the same situation. The only difference is really TTK.

There's plenty of Lib pilot/gunner combos that can blow and ESF out of the air at 150m.

I might have worked up some sympathy for your plight here if it were not for a few statements of yours.

"I understand that some people just aren't good enough to take on people that are higher skill level but does peoples lack of ability justify something this broken being present in Planetside?"

"I'm skilled, you should get on my level." <- Out-right lie. Dying to an ESF using missiles on you is little different from dying to one sending several mags of nose-gun your way. Get better.

"A2Am are the equivalent in the air to what a ZOE max was on the ground."

No it isn't. No it really is not. The ZOE-MAX had an absurd set of advantages that a missile-using ESF don't. And if the ESF get shot down, it can't just be revived in seconds by a passing-by medic, and it surely can't be constantly repaired by a nearby Engineer.

"I see plenty of people trying to defend this weapon being in the game and I get that you aren't as good as every else and you want to make an impact. But what of the people that don't use A2Am?"

"You are not a good player, because you use a weapon I will freely admit is effective at it's job, to the point of getting me down, and I think very highly of myself." <- You sound to me like another entitled air-baron wanna-be who can't stand that people actually have counters to you. Get better.

In short, people bet you out of the sky with an effective tool and you can't take it. That means you are not as "skilled" as you seem to think you are, and worse, you believe that using this specific tool makes others worse than you. I am sure that if ESF's had hunted you down and gunned you down with the nose-gun you would still be here to complain.

Here is advice: Adapt and overcome. If ATA missiles are so common, learn the best means to counter them. And get yourself a dedicated, skilled gunner to tag along with you if the randoms keep leaving all the time. The Liberator is a multi-passenger aircraft. Use it as one.

My average killstreak (this patch, in a solo Liberator) is somewhere around 20-25 kills. Although the bulk of the killspam is infantry (due to the nature of how easily they're killed,) my runs usually include plenty of high-value targets (Sundies, Galaxies, other Libs) A typical run looks like this.

A 2-man Lib tends to be even more potent (and a solid 2-man lib with single ESF escort is completely brutal.) So if you're not able to dish out a ton of pain as a Liberator you're doing something wrong.

And the Liberator's tankiness, oh man! The sheer amount of time I occupy players' attention in a Liberator is ridiculous. That's the hidden benefit of a Liberator, the amount of player-seconds they spend shooting at you which could've been spent fighting your other teammates instead. Not to mention the fact that if you pace it right you're just going to live and nanite + repair + fire supp back to full health and do it again.

I see where you are going with this. I do, and I feel the liberator pain all the time. Especially from strikers.....However that said, if I am on the ground or in a tank with no anti air to hold air off, the liberator can DECIMATE 4 tanks in a row no sweat. SO is that good? sure if your the pilot! Is that good for ground, hell nawwww If I am infantry trying to take a base and get camped by a lib that is instant fun ruiner. SO we whip out our rocket launchers and flee you off. So we can take the base.

When I gun in a lib, I don't over extend and I take out high threat targets first eg: lightnings (potential skyguards). If you are getting locked on everytime you fly over the SAME base over and over, then don't fly over the SAME base. Fly elsewhere and find a fight that you can manage. Also never fly alone.....period. Unless you feel you have the massive skill, simply don't fly alone. You NEED wing-men to survive.

Flying on Indar is especially crummy for gals or libs. That's asking for it. Amerish and Esamir is a little more forgiving for flying.

Its pretty limited now adays with everyone just rage logging on me, my pulls recently have been mostly limited to attempting tank buster runs on armor columns. Sometimes I get a couple kills, sometimes you get none.

EXACTLY LOL.

K. You literally performed the worst version of a skim read I have ever seen. "Learn the best means to counter", thats pretty much what the whole thread is about, what is the counter?! "Get yourself a dedicated, skilled gunner" why would I pull a lib and pick up randoms, the people that are worth letting shoot are the ones that log out. "The liberator is a multi-passenger aircraft", well no sh*t Sherlock, the amount of people that effectively solo can be counted on 1 hand and I'm not apart of that list.

Look, I got ~BR40-90 in a liberator and I understand what is over extending and not. I'm glad you are willing to give your advice but it's stuff I've known for a long time. The problem here is A2Am ESFs and AA being a hard counter and not a deterrent. SOE's definition of a deterrent is that you are deterred by the idea of flying over a certain base instead of the damage shooing you off.

Something that Liberator pilots have known for a long time is that the lib ***** on small fights way too hard. SOE needs to address the fact that aircraft carry wayyyy too much ammo.

"But Soques, then I will need to go get more ammo!"

Yes you schmuck! It's not like there aren't a billion airpads that would suddenly become of more strategic value to the game. Granted given the turret buffs they are already pretty devastating. However you should be able to follow what I am saying here.

Indar sucks. I wish someone would delete the ******* map so that all the infantry would go somewhere else for a change.

Yes! A fly boy gets it!

Even most infantry players know that air is instagibed when trying to approach big battles. We agree on this, and know that this is not fun for you.

Us peasant's issue is that a single lib or a trio of LoL poders with one iota of skill can waltz into a 12v12 and murder without any fear of retaliation.

I, as an infantry player, Would be 100% okay with air that can kill infantry in a single, quick pass... so long as that air loses it's "omnipotent, always present" ability to smother any small fight by hovering over it and spaming.


Air needs it's ammo count nerfed so it must retreat to reload after an attack.

Air needs it's armor buffed so that it can survive the strafing run in question.

Air needs it's weapons buffed so that it stands a chance of killing something with it's handful of strafing runs.

I can't tell if you where cutting up my post or agreeing with me hahah But yes Indar sucks for flying period. A map like Indar must be a bit more larger to spread the fights out.

I'm all for A2Am being tweaked to be less meddlesome on account of there's apparently no counters to them in the entire game available for any aircraft for any faction, but there exists the problem that A2Am are the only things available to new pilots to lower the skill floor. As a bad pilot, I rely heavily on them to weaken whatever I may approach so that it may be airhammered/rammed properly.

Other bad pilots with grander aspirations like staying alive and scoring more than 1 kill rely on them to not get completely trashed in hover duels every single time by pilots who have 500 hours in that seat. Should the vet have the advantage? Of course, and of course they will no matter what. But compare the difference between a vet tanker and a new tanker and a vet pilot and a new pilot. It's stark to say the least.

Has anybody recommended anything that would lower the skill floor on piloting to make up for these being effectively removed? Or is this just another thread where vet pilots want things made harder because e-bushido and honor and it costs resources (except that air should still **** all over resource-costers on the ground)?

A lib takes like 9 lock on or 4 full reloads of extended mag bursters to bring down, and that's not counting working against max fire suppression. The amount of time it takes a Vortek to kill one in actual combat borders on the impossible. Skyguards essentially just deter them. I don't understand where this belief that libs are paper tigers of the sky stems from. Getting killed by groups of ESFs who are coordinating together is a tough sell because the group of things with that specific problem is "literally everything else in the entire game" and anyway, Lib pilots say that ESFs should be a Lib's only counter, so why the uproar that they're countering?

If schwak played like its an MMO, with folks with him, and wasnt so used to being the invincible liberator, he wouldnt be so frustrated. Even the OP states 'i can barely stay up an hour'............... Average joe schmoe's average up time in any vehicle? less then 10.

Schwak. Stop solo farmin it.

This is the pinnacle of air and what they all hope to achieve - no death, multi-hour play sessions spent farming 1-12 fights on Amerish.

It is an intensely alien way of thinking to me. Why play a game whose tagline is pretty much "play with others or die horribly and a lot!" and get offended when something actually has the means to kill you when you're overextended and/or all alone?