The REAL Anti Air vs. Liberators Problem?

this is all crap,

libs are fine the way they are, there still suicide to fly.

there so much flak, lock on and enemy air that they often cancel each other out.

iv been playing a long time and this year there never been very many instances when a liberator has had a significant effect on the ground.

Tanks are far more dangerous then liberators.

even lighting are better.

I was kind of assuming you were wearing bright gold. Have you tried relocating after firing a shot, or shooting from an inconspicuous location? The only time I go after lock on's is either when I see them way out in the open, or if I see where they shoot from. Sometimes you can pick them out from the crowd, but there are often multiple people locking on.

If you've been boxed into the spawn room, then you've arguably lost the fight already, but that's another argument.

And why shouldn't they also have rocket pods? Unless you're really careful with your ESF, they don't really last all that long, especially against other ESF's. What's wrong with ESF's also being able to do ground strikes?

Because that's the role of a liberator. I don't want to see the lib nerfed, I think that it could use a buff in some areas. I'd like to see ESF pilots supplying anti-air. After all, they're flying around in empire-specific-FIGHTERS.

Lock when they don't see it coming. Use the teleporters on amerish and esamir to confuse them. Also run flak. It, at max rank, stops 50% of all splash damage and explosive direct hits.

The liberator is a strike fighter? Kind of a stretch to me. You know fighters can also be equipped for A2G in RL, right?

In my experience, Liberators dominate and spoil many small-medium sized engagements that they encounter.

I was in a group of around 10 last night - Sunderer, MBT and infantry. We were having small but fun skirmishes.

A liberator found us - destroyed the Sunderer and MBT quickly with no opportunity to retaliate, without a way to spawn any AA (that is only of limited use against Liberators anyway), that was it.

End of fun.

Nerfs/buffs have altered gameplay along the way but Liberators have been game-changing, and not for the better in my opinion.

Beacons. Medics. Infiltrators hacking vehicle terminals.

The thing is, in prime time, a big part of the liberator's job is to stop small squads from ghostcapping around the main advance. Worst case scenario, pull your own lib and crash it into theirs. Almost 100% effective, so long as he doesn't know what you're up to.

It's either extreme farm, or extremely frustrating to fly. As for ground, it's OMG I HOPE I LOCK FASTER THAN THE OTHER GUY or InstaGib.

Is that actually balanced...? Because if I explained this to someone who has no idea what PS2 is they'd laugh at me for playing. Not a good thing, since I eventually will take off my rose tinted goggles and stop paying.

I'm still all for specialization and clear roles over NERF IT ALL/BUFF IT ALL NEXT WEEK! kind of strategy SOE has.

Except Giraffe camo. Stood for a good minute or so on the cap point before they finally caught on to my shenanigans.

Pop out and what? Scratch lib for a good minute before it get worried?

They didn’t become good in 15 mins, they become less bad than they would with any other vehicle. Ppl with lack of skill and exp should suck in lib harder than in tank.
I don’t need to know how to cook meal to judge its taste. If crooked politician suggests a law “Badname707 should be gangbanged every 10 hour by dinosaurs” do you really need 5+ years in politics to understand that your rights are violated?

Moving over solid ground compromises accuracy pretty hard, rarely you have perfect spot with flat lawn and good over near it. Lib can dive and get higher and it won’t shake like during driving over rocky surface.
Check https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...again-we-are-kings.186553/page-3#post-2700490
1/3 lib hits fast moving air and ground targets, destroying them before they can wink. Skyguard can put half of mag with 100% accuracy and lib still can run for repair.

Moving ground vehicle jumps and shakes it’s not stable, even magrider cant move as smoothly as lib.
Yes, gal guns are stable, gal is fat but not fast nor it has high dps vs everything, that makes battlegal balanced.

Lib chooses his fights, it can drop on SG from cover, can run away and retry. SG dies on first mistake, while lib allows huge margin for mistakes with SG or any G2A.

It is, but its speed is comparable with ground vehicles and it’s very mediocre in everything except tanking, therefore balanced.
Tank is often deterred by single HA, and instagibbed by single LA, is it useless? No, it still owns, it just accepts risks and keeps fighting. That’s why tanks have place in any battle. They get burned en masse and still fight, cuz they understand – dying in this game is ok, losing precious vehicle is ok, you just get another one after timeout and learn from mistakes. Libs are like babies now: “WHAAAT? No second chance in every fight? We can be instagibbed? We can be deterred by single guy? No way, it is for grownups, we are not ready for adult life, we wont learn to be useful in srs showdown, we’ll keep stay in our sandbox with weaker guys, who can’t scare us.”

Lib can easily run before it needs revive and get repaired. Several maxes cost like several libs, actually even more, since infantry resources are more valuable. Several maxes with engies and medics – that’s way more ppl than you need in 2/3 lib. Yes MAXes can change loadout but it still gets stuck with multiple limitation of max armor (need a ride? - Need a driver, redeployed? – lost armor, need to play different class? – lost armor, need to flip point? – need another class). Lib doesn’t need to change loadout and it doesn’t need to ask for a ride, for another guy to flip cc, can be piloted by any class etc. Its extremely versatile and capable.

Who measured it up and decided that anti-lib league is minority? Lots of pilots are not exactly neutral side, they profit from OP lib. And we both know that SOE has its reasons to keep things op for few months.

Ya, it just takes another 300 resources, another bought gun and another guy get stucked with specialized unit after lib run away.
If AA was powerful, air would just play as ground vehicles – with high numbers or very carefully.

And poorly made GUN is how exactly relevant to cassette bombs? Can it cover 30x70 meters corridor with evenly spread respectable damage?

If there's just one piece of AA shooting at the lib, then sure. I'd still give it less than 20 seconds before the lib has to flee.

lolwut? This is not comparable to either of those situations. Secondly, your anecdote still doesn't suffice as evidence of the lib being OP. Until you show me doing well with it (and of course show me your character profile, so I can see how long it took), I'm going to assume you know nothing about balancing the lib. Which is clear from your responses, already, but yadida.

You're right, but the high RoF and low required accuracy of the skyguard means that it can miss a few shots while on the move without sacrificing too much of its DPS. If the terrain is really bad (there is relatively flat space at 90% of bases), then sure, a skyguard might not be able to move much and maintain its DPS.

Buy a tankbuster, go fly around a 1/3 lib, and tell me how easy it is. 1/3 libs are only good for killing noobs, people who refuse to counter, and for getting the drop on people. I dare you to prove me otherwise.

In bad terrain, sure. Even so, it's easy to gauge what type of terrain you're on from the ground. For a lib to be effective, it can't afford to fly in straight lines for much longer than a single pass.

The battlegal is a much better farming implement against infantry than the lib, specifically because it can tank incredible amounts of damage.

First this is assuming 1v1, second this is assuming that liberators are not predictable targets.

[/quote]It is, but its speed is comparable with ground vehicles and it’s very mediocre in everything except tanking, therefore balanced.
Tank is often deterred by single HA, and instagibbed by single LA, is it useless? No, it still owns, it just accepts risks and keeps fighting. That’s why tanks have place in any battle. They get burned en masse and still fight, cuz they understand – dying in this game is ok, losing precious vehicle is ok, you just get another one after timeout and learn from mistakes. Libs are like babies now: “WHAAAT? No second chance in every fight? We can be instagibbed? We can be deterred by single guy? No way, it is for grownups, we are not ready for adult life, we wont learn to be useful in srs showdown, we’ll keep stay in our sandbox with weaker guys, who can’t scare us.”[/quote]

Again, a battlegal is far, far better at farming infantry than a liberator, in all but the largest battles, where a lib is forced to repair after every pass.

And you're still not getting it. If air vehicles don't get a second chance in a fight, then there will be no air vehicles. If there's no second chance, then that means aircraft are fire and forget weapons; you pull them to hit something ONCE. This is difficult to understand if you don't fly, however, if you played during beta, you ought to be at least somewhat familiar of how ineffective air at all against strong AA.

Lol. A lib also can't walk inside a tech plant, but that's not a common complaint, because the lib is not a MAX and thus shouldn't be expected to do MAX things.

I said anti-lib league is in the majority. They are still incorrect about lib balance.

There aren't enough decent pilots to operate in high numbers. In any decently sized fight, air already has to operate very carefully.

None of those things. How many bombs to kill before such a weapon is OP?

This is very true much of the time.

Liberators and ESFs are not a problem by themselves.

The problem is more with the jarring gameplay their counters have to put up with. AA is all too often a binary state. You're either in a state of:

a) AA is needed IMMEDIATELY or everyone dies

OR

b) AA is sitting around with nothing to do, for long stretches of time

Not to mention, the most effective AA tends to require resources and a timer, which means even once you've cleared out any fliers, it's hard to ditch the AA you've pulled because you never know when you may be in state A) "AA is needed IMMEDIATELY or everyone dies" again.

I can only assume you're making a skill = fun comparison here, in which case lib gunner is by far the more boring gameplay out there. Otherwise I really don't see the comparison.

It seems like everytime I pull a skyguard, I always get flankd by air and asploded from the rear.

Itt the cone should be tightened up and skyguard should come paired with engagement radar.

Exactly.

20 seconds before having to *flee* (Not even die!) is a long damn time. How long can I sit there being shot by multiple enemies, specifically specced against me, in anything else before I have to flee? Assuming I even get a chance to flee, which I probably won't.

If there's a second piece of AA, then the liberator will have to run far sooner than 20 seconds. As for the other things, well, that depends. If you're in a vehicle at 200m, it may take dumbfire heavies some time before they are able to land shots on you, but so long as there aren't more than 2, I think you'll be safe for a good 20 seconds out in the open, before needing to flee. If you're closer, then I imagine it will take less time.

The fastest you can kill a lib with AA is with a skyguard and it takes 31 seconds at point blank range, 35 seconds with a walker, 45 seconds with a ranger and 65 seconds with Coyotes. The time to kill increases significantly as range increases.

Even with 2 skyguards (2000 cert investment) at point blank range it will take them 15 seconds and skyguards are useless against everything ground based. While it takes Lib less then 10 seconds to kill a tank/skyguard with a pilot gun that only costs 100 certs. A one man lib can own/kill/beat a skyguard easy.

There is no balance in any way shape or form.

The tankbuster is not an easy weapon to use. It's useful only if you can get the drop on an opponent, which is, unsurprisingly, not that difficult against a lot of people. The skyguard is a very easy weapon to use. It will hit with most of its clip, if not all of it, and that's assuming the lib is at some distance. So long as the skyguard stays relatively mobile and doesn't get shot first, he should at least be able to drive away a single liberator.

Two skyguards can hold off even more, because they never really have to leave their AO. While liberators are cycling out to repair, the skyguards can continue to engage new targets.

The Tank buster is easy to use. It has a much tighter COF then the Skyguard, has extreme damage and is mounted on a vehicle that doesn't throw off your aim while moving. You can drop any vehicle in the game in 2 clips or less then 10 seconds. You can 1 clip ESF's (4 seconds TTK) if they are stupid enough to get caught hovering.

How is a skyguard easy to you? You can't hit anything with it while your moving due to ground bounce, the COF is large so there is no accuracy to it (some of your shots will always miss unless your within 30m of a lib sized target) and you have to lead most of your shots as the skyguards velocity is bad for a AA gun. You will miss most of your shots if your trying to hit any moving aircraft past 100m unless your a expert a judging distances and speed. (hard to do when looking at a skybox) Regardless. As soon as you clip any aircraft with your skyguard they will hit their afterburner and you will have done less then 5% damage. If it's a lib they will take cover and approach from a canyon or other feature to engage you and since libs make less noise then any other vehicle in the game including your own tanks motor you won't hear them coming till they come up from cover to tank bust you.

Skyguards are not easy to use. They are useless to use against anything other then a ESF and even then you have to hold off from firing till they are within 100m or they will just take minor damage and avoid your shots.

The fact is a Lib can hover right smack bang above a skyguard for 20 seconds then decide to tank bust it with a 100 cert pilot gun is a blatant show of how over powered the lib is and how clueless people are in regards to game balance.