A2A missiles and Coyotes, do you love them?

That's just it. None of the secondary weapons don't even come close to the TTK of just solely using the nose guns. If lock-ons are what drove away the Aces then they were no Aces because an Ace survives no matter what you throw at him and if he dies so what he'll just put up another bird and move on. What you're describing Emote is a k/d ***** who doesn't want to die ever and is getting killed by locks when normally he doesn't die at all in his one trick tool bag. It's like I said before the strong adapt the weak squat to piss and complain on the forums.

Agree 100%

I don't know if i would call myself an ace, but im a decent pilot.

Was i always a good pilot?

HECK NO!

I was terrible. Often i got shot down by aces and had no clue they were even behind me.

Never once did i wish that i had some weapon that would let me beat someone who was better than me.

To me that is an extremely weak and un-admirable mind-set. As though somehow people who are better at flying than you are were born that way, or somehow unfairly gifted with their abilities.

Truth is we worked hard and suffered hard to get where we are, and there as absolutely zero reason why everyone else shouldn't have to do the same.

Lock-ons just arent as fun as aiming a nosegun. Challenge=Fun. Dont believe me, go play a two year old at chess. Tell me how fun winning that game was. Go play PAC-MAN without ghosts.

Playing K/D and blah blahing about your airwing is a ridiculous way to condone doing something lame to other players.

This is a game, winning is not the most important thing. Having FUN is the most important thing. These weapons are neither fun to use nor fun to die to. Anyone who says differently is deluding themselves into thinking they are a good player.

If you dont have the fortitude to stick with flying to get better. If you can't get a friend to practice air-fighting with. Maybe you belong on the ground or in a tank. There are lots of ways to play the game. Every playstyle does not have to fit every player. Catering to different playstyles is the best way to attract as many players as possible.

Turning the game into a numbers-lemming zerg-fest is the best way to turn the most people off of the game.

I one clip you every time i see you in a plane chippewa so its not surprising that you would defend lock-ons. You could try practicing and get better.

That may or may not be true I don't recognize your name, and chances are if you one clip me it's most likely after I've downed a number of your allies so being in the right place at the right time hardly justifies you running your pie hole.

Unfortunately its already that way on Connery - you'll often run into a half dozen to a dozen enemy ESFs at once, at that point, there's not much the average pilot can do. And even top aces will still get simply totally outnumbered and zerged to death.

But in turn I'll ask you this - how many ESFs have you killed that were running Coyotes or A2AMs in 1v1s? I suspect while they may not be the most fun to fight against, you've still won quite a few of these encounters.

Take them as a challenge, if you think you're a better pilot, you shouldn't be getting owned by these very often.

Sadly you miss the perspective I feel of old A2A combat. There was a time when air combat was truly skilled based as each and every opponent had to maintain damage on a target while tracking him all on his own. During this time your usual Ace could take on multiple opponents at a time with mastering the game they could be evasive and apply consistent and accurate fire on enemy ESF. Though those same Ace pilots still maintain a masterful understanding of their aircraft the introduction of ever lethal lock on weapons have stripped much of that skill away. Currently no amount of skill can help a pilot once the enemy brings lockons and outnumbers them, sure they can have a few moments of out playing their opponents but their fates are usually sealed.

That skill demand that used to be in the air game is now gone and replaced by easy access lock on weapons that work far to well for an enjoyable long term experience. That was an affront to many dedicated flyers changing the air Meta to many top flyers for the worst. With SOE's intent to nerf vertical thrust and implement more easy to use weapon systems showed a direct attack on the flight aspect that many of us fell in love with. Most of the Aces I started the game with have moved on due to frustration more than anything. Agree with the changes or not but their was a cult following of pilots that loved this game, but with SOE's constant erosion of the skill demand you will see them continue to disappear.

When exactly? Last time I checked A2AM were in the game since the beta.

They were deemed worthless by many which was an exaggeration, but still unused on a massive scale.

Just like the Air Hammer...

So happy the vast majority of players stayed ignorant of how good it was back then.

So you say lock on is lame, shouldn't be apart of the game. Why would future advanced tech lose the ability to lock on? In theory it would just get better, same goes for counter measures.

So the hate on coyotes isn't an exageration? I agree fuel pods should be rebalanced but tbh I think you guys are also over reacting.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...cHJlWkJXYy13WVROc2s2TTNjOWc&usp=sharing#gid=0
^This table is pretty old but it's the only one I found, it's pretty funny to see how low you have to go to find Air to Air missles as a cause of death for ESF.

As far as i see it you also need to learn how to counter them, with A2AM you could counter them by going in close or using those conveniently placed rocks/spikes/corals to break line of sight (and therefore lock), with coyotes you have to keep your distance so you can dodge them... you may need a bit of help from the devs to make your life easier in dodging them but as the other stated, if a bit of hardship makes you run to the forums rather than trying to find a counter in game maybe jokers is a more appropiate term than aces.

As for me I'm happy that a PPA+AA secondary loadout is finally viable, yet you guys seem outraged by that fact. Why is a AA nosegun + rocketpods loadout good but a AI nosegun + AAM an abomination, too versatile, too good?? Who decided that there has to be one load out to rule them all?

I'll be darned. I never thought of it like that, but it's true.

Most people dislike tomcats because they're unfun to play against, not necessarily because they're overpowered. Coyotes, however, have no way to counter them with noseguns- far away, both of you have noseguns, and if your opponent tries to clise the distance you have to move away. Up close, coyotes alone will out dps all but the most accurate nosegun users.

Only 50% accuracy? Are you kidding me? That's an inane amount of accuracy to have during a dogfight, plus the nosegun user will be firing less because coyotes can hit any target in their lock radius, regardless of pilot facing.

You know what else is an A2A secondary? That's right, ab tanks. If a 1000 cert secondary is better than the free secondary, and not a sidegrade, that's pay to win. Plus, coyotes overperform noseguns to the degree that someone can just run ai nosegun/coyotes with no downsides.

Almost anything is better than free secondary on every single vehicle in this game. Also certs are not bought so it's hardly pay to win but you can dish out some dow if you want to upgrade now!.

The AB tanks aren't A2A secondary, they are multipurpose mobility aid basically. Nowhere does it say that they're specifically designed for A2A combat. They are quite useful for hover fighting but they're also useful for scout aircraft, radar aircraft and the obvious A2A/A2G interceptor or hit&run aircraft.

Lockons on the other hand are designed specifically to engage air targets only outside of "effective range" of the rotary, stock nose gun or amplify the A2A performance at particular ranges and as such are air superiority weapons. If you want to prove things then by all means show a fight against competent foe where you rely on nothing but coyotes or tomcats and see how well it goes for you and how fast you'll switch to the main. Combination of both Main/secondary what makes it into an Air Superiority Fighter.

The thing is, with coyotes, the dps of the weapons is high enough that if you switch to a primary weapon, your overall dps is actually lower. That means that an ai gun/coyotes ESF is a better dogfighter than a nosegun/ab tank esf, and the secondary ESF has almost no versatility. I don't care about tomcats, except to say they're incredibly unfun to play against, but the only way to beat a coyote user is by using coyotes yourself, and that's neither fun nor fair.

Easy, because needler+lolpods is at a disadvantage against needler+ab tanks whereas banshee+coyotes is not at a disadvantage against needler+ab tanks.

Admittedly AB tanks are not a dedicated A2A secondary but they are intended to "enhance" the performance of the primary and if the combination of AB+stockgun is still inferior to just coyotes alone (freeing up the nosegun slot for an AH/PPA/shee) then there is a balance issue.

At a minimum AB tanks should be buffed to provide some protection against lockon A2A weapons (say a 0.5sec delay for A2AM and a sixth reduction in hit circle for coyotes) or just more fuel.

Also coyotes could do with another 2 second reload duration (keeping the same burst damage still allows them to be used to supplement a rotary in a ganking/ambush loadout whilst nerfing them only when relied on as a REPLACEMENT for the primary).

Finally A2AM could honestly do with dealing 500 damage of the ESF's 1750 so that it is conceivably possible for a non A2AM equipped pilot to ever win/escape.

Either buff the AB or nerf the coyotes (not both) but nerf A2AM for sure, they are far more broken.

Pfft the old style A2A locks were godly. I used them close range and tore up some pink stink with them. I miss getting pms from fearmypewpew or 7elite7 crying about them back in open beta. I've heard this same stupid whine about locks back then and now, but what you don't realize is the coyotes and hyenas are a direct result of people crying about the old tomcats so cry on I say I can't wait to see what they put out next.

Planetside2 is about team play not about one person vs. many and win. The devs seen this happening in the air so they stomped it. If you want to be good at one vs. many you actually have to plan for it you can't just rely on a better connection or ultra fast internet and don't even argue that this isn't the case because a lot of them old so called "Aces" weren't even facing me to be hitting me which tells me they are shooting at a past version of my player character.