[Suggestion] this game would be objectively more fun for a majority players if A2G ESF's were toned down.

Yeah I know.... I think you're agreeing with me though?

I think this is the solution. Move the AI noseguns to secondary slot. Noseguns should only really be good at fighting other ESF's.

Your secondary is then your specialization.... letting you have some moderate effect against tanks or infantry (Hornets or moved AI guns) or even less against both (rocket pods), or you can take an A2A weapon.... tomcats being the best option for taking down heavy air, coyotes boosting DPS in ESF fights, and fuel giving you superb maneuverability (I'd buff fueltank top speeds as well)

This would remove the loadouts combining AI nosegun with fuel to run away so easily, or Coyotes to defend themselves. Sure, they'd have their normal nosegun for defense, but it's not easy mode defense.

Lower nosegun damage against all other target types.

That is not what I was saying. I was saying that having your planes in the air over a battle is good, and if you aren't throwing planes up and making an effort to remove enemy air (with AA or your own aircraft) then yes your ground forces are going to have to limit the time they spend in the open.

I have characters that I use to play ground only, and I never get a2g farmed on them. Aircraft are easy to hear and see coming. I do however often find we are overrun with enemy tanks/air and we are trapped in a spawn room camp out. When that happens I hit redeploy and look for the next front line because that fight is OVER. That isn't an a2g problem, that is a spawn room game design problem.

Every battle I have seen an air problem over has had a serious lack of anti-air. I wouldn't disagree that AA duty is less rewarding (the kills and certs come slower), and I would be fine with SOE fixing that to encourage more guns pointed north.

No. Your statement is that HE Lightning is better vs AP Lightning than Nosegun vs. Nosegun & AA missiles. HE is a truly massive damage loss, and comparable to running with no secondary. Because tanks have positional damage you can compensate for the HE damage loss with great positioning, so it doesn't feel that bad. But this is basically the same as running ESF Stealth, and 1-clipping people from 10m because they didn't know you were there.

The first couple paragraphs were spot on. This game started to not cater to the flyboys when they first added the annihilator. It would find a way to hit their craft with better damage. It would zig zag around mountains and hit them. They could out run it only to fly a zone away and get it. Dalton QQing happened around the same time it would single shot players and tanks. So, they catered to the flyboys and nerfd the anny rocket launcher quite a bit (you used to never see AA maxes more than heavys with Anny's)
The fly boys were catered too with the anny nerf but they scaled back the Dalton to a 2 whole hits for a kill. (the AtG pods for all single flying crafts were 1 shot kills too)
Then a marketing genius decided this is a good way to grease you for more money.. Rename a weapon with more damage til they have that weapons sales goals, then dumb it down. That is a standard rinse and repeat for this game.
If you cant fly, quit. It wont be fixed. Don't complain, its about the $$$. Find another game and comeback in a year (if its still here). Get your fix again and enjoy new disappointments and try not to spend much and rinse and repeat like they do eventually your wallet will outlast their forecast of the game. This is how the FTP model works. Have the common sense to see how a FTP model caters to that ONE area of their game, and how they make money. If your not good at it, move on.

Yes of course. Once you exhausted any meaningful angle of attack in big battles you go somewhere else and let the infantry and vehicles duke it out. Most of the time that opportunity is a flanking vehicle, overextended vehicle or badly positioned vehicle. Then someone like OP who dies to air 9/10 times in his defenseless and most likely overextended AV MAG asks for adjustments. The only way to balance something like this is to have a better map design where you can use cover to your advantage.

Everyone suffers from the current map design. Infantry, vehicles and air. If you had a medium between ground and air like a cloud then you could have A2A above clouds and not worry about those lock on's. Then you could have another medium like Hosin big trees between the cloud and ground where infantry and vehicles would have all kinds of cover. Only then it would make sense adjusting for faster or slower TTK.

your right, only aircraft should be able to flank and overextend. silly me i forgot i play this to have fun. better go back to my zerg where myself the rest of us bads belong. it's not like i enjoy being effective on a larger scale or anything.

carry on.

Really. And for air not being able to participate in large scale of things is OK and fun. Needing to resort to the edges of big battles and if opportunity presents itself like overextended and defenseless vehicles is op? Do we need to make AV tanks immune to air attack so that you can flank with maximum AV DPS? Whatever nerf you suggest it will not help your flanking cause. When your flank is revealed especially if it's on the slopes or tops of hills and rocks where you not even supposed to be with your MAG you will be engaged and destroyed only at the slower rate. Those trees and clouds of cover sound a lot more appealing if you ask me.

Yeah! And taking an engineer has nothing to do with using any vehicle at all! And bailing with an LA has nothing to do with any vehicle at all! And using the infiltrator/Heavy combo in a Flash has nothing to do with the vehicle at all!
If it's a valid strategy, it's part of the vehicle. Imagine if C4 bailing was the primary way to break up TankZergs. However expensive, is this lets you win the fight every time than that balance should be looked at.
Aside from that, SinJackal makes a valid observation: The AA MAX's didn't even know he was there until he decided to fire. So this AA nest, however powerful it was, couldn't touch him unless he decided they could see him. This also means that it's true what I've always said: It's actually pretty easy to operate inside AA area, even an AA MAX area, just by knowing where it is and using the correct flight route, or just going to the sky ceiling and dropping from there.

Yeah... except for the part where one ESF can play the part of Rock, paper and scissors. Where every other vehicle can only play the part of either rock, or paper, or scissors, or be a weaker version of both rock and paper, or rock and scissors etc.

But when you compare the ground AA to ESF, they aren't even rock vs rock+paper+scissors, they are sand vs rock+paper+scissors

Edit: Oh and by the way, there's lots of people complaining about OHK's from tanks, but the problem here is it was their own fault.
Also your comparison is completely warped. You are comparing the NC and VS ES rocketlaunchers to TR's faction trait of more ROF and magazine size, so you are the one bringing in nonsens. Bye the way, the TR horizontal recoil "problem" is highly overrated and easily countered, having larger COF increase is a much, much more important part. And guess what? Even though the COF increase per damage point is pretty balanced, COF decrease happens only after you can fire your next shot, so a slower ROF means slower COF decrease, which means less accuracy that can only be countered by trigger discipline overall. Horizontal recoil can easily be countered except on a select few weapons.

You have no idea what you are talking about, the few idea's you have are incorrect and completely biased, ungrounded and have no actual support from things like "facts" and "statistical proof" or anything else. So please, either prove that you are right, or go home.

I wonder what this has to do with anything? Tanks are often not in the position to find cover from aircraft units, at best you can make sure they engage someone else first and try to get somewhere else while they are occupied, but you just can't outrun or fight off a vehicle that can go at least twice your speed and can stay out of your weapon elevation range, while also sporting weapons that can out-DPS you unless you have a complete AV setup, and even then some ESF weapons come extremely close.

Learn to fly dude! They can, they do, and they work perfectly in large battles. With the exception of some AMP station/Techplant battles where people manned all AA before hand or the once-in-a-month battle where people took more than 3 AA units.

But outside of big battles, when every vehicle is basically and overextended flanker without AA cover or others to take your attention, ESF basically dominate everything outside it, that's what you are actually saying right there. It's not true, because aircraft are fully capable of entering and fighting in big battles. They are one of my favorite places to be! You can find a target anywhere, annihilate it and be gone, the AA has fairly limited vision and actual coverage when you know how to use things like "don't show up right where they expect you to be (coming right from friendly bases)" and "use terrain, height differences and friendly distraction to your advantage"

-Rework termal and night vision on ESF - they should not highlight infantry, only vehicles
-Add sway to every ATG gun. x6-x12 crowd and night vision crowd have to bother with it. Let no-skill-farmer-esf-atg boys have to bother with it too.
-Add bigger spread to Air-to-Air nose guns. Airsuperiority fights will be longer (real good ESF players will be happy) and it will be 3 x harder to farm infantry with it.
-ESF should be 2 x more noisy. Heck, my cloak/decloak sound is noiser then esf not using afterburners. They are less noisy infiltrators
-Change damage multiplyare on ESF guns. 1.0 toward ESf/LIB/GAL, same on Vehicles, 0.5 on infantry. Viola

I really like good ESF players. Doing good job on every side. I hate cheap farmers. And they are dominating this game from 2:00 up to 12:00 (cet on EU servers) destroying every possible even 12x12 fights.
Today on Miller. 7:40, first serious fight 24 on 24 that could last long. Nope, three no-self-esteem-im-esf-master came destroying sundies. No real fight for the next 40 minutes thanks to them.

Lol if you think you can operate in large battles. Video or it didnt happen.

Its not a big secret that air doesnt participate in large battles, all you have to do is go fight in one.

There will be 30 or 40 lightnings and 10 or 15 harrassers and 25 heavy tanks on each side, but there wont be a single plane in the sky.

This is one of the biggest complaints about the skyguard, by skyguard users. Its so good, (in the hands of a competent user) that it completely rids every battle of air. And then you have nothing to do but try to shoot infantry with a cof thats the size of a house at 50 meters.

Occasionally some noob might fly up thinking he might get a kill. I always chuckle at that.

Course it could be different on different servers, but on connery most of the fights are 96+ and you arent doing anything but commiting suicide by going into a big battle in an ESF.

So much misinformation in this thread. People who know only the one side and as someone previously said complaining because their op tank that never dies got killed by a plane.

Stop overextending, stay with the armor column and you wont die. Sadly. It was better when libs could actually do their job and put a dent in the uber armor zerg.

I've touched every aspect of this game and I can say I'm confident in my ability to play pretty much anything but flying a galaxy. That being said, dying to A2G ESFs is of the most aggravating ways to die and I wouldn't mind if it happened half as much.

Yeah, so stop spreading it. Skyguards complain when they got multiple skyguards in the area, but often this still isn't enough. As evidenced by all the battles where aircraft still participate. Oh, and the battles where I swoop down and kill something, then repair up and do it again, if I'm not shot down by other ESF.

How are you dying to a2g esf? I die to an ESF maybe 1 out of 500 deaths.

There are almost never any ESF at any battle im in.

I die constantly to tanks. I mean over and over and over, but not to ESF.

Not that i think tanks need a nerf. I dont.

But i dont think planes need nerfed anymore relative to tanks or infantry.

What is good enough? If ESF can't kill anything?

Already can't fight in large battles.

What are ESF supposed to do? Fight other ESF and do absolutely nothing to the outcome of a fight?

Oh wait thats already what most of us do.

The rest farm noobs who refuse to respawn to another base further back and grab a skyguard.

They dont affect anything as it is. Except for people who arent smart enough to realize how easy it is to avoid ever dying to them.

I have shot more ESF out of the sky with my magrider, (which is the worst tank for shooting planes) than i have died to ESF as infantry. Way more.

I've been shot down by dumbfires in my ESF way more than i have died as infantry to ESF, (excluding 2012 when ESF were just ridiculous)

And then there are all those little heavies with their lock-ons constantly shooting at every plane that flies by. Thats ok, but when we get mad about dying to a lock-on while dogfighting and coming back with pods, thats not ok?

Yeah i wanna see you swoop down and kill a tank in a 96v96 battle, or even a 24v24. You might get an infantry kill or two at 24v24 if no one has pulled any AA yet.

Skyguard melts ESF. Yeah if you are a SOLO guy and you pull a skyguard vs 4 ESF they will probably kill you. Thats a 4 vs 1 fight and you shouldnt win no matter what weapon you have.

On the othe rhand if you have a skyguard against an solo ESF you win every single time (unless you are really bad). If you have 2 skyguard then you can pretty well keep the sky clear, (unless you are a noob and dont have any cover nearby and sit on top of a hill where a lib can easily bust you. 3 skyguard assisting kills a lib almost instantly.

Thats not even taking into account all of the sundies with basis and walkers and rangers. Today i died while dogfighting to a harrasser with a walker.

I think whats happening with the skyguard is that a lib is camping your little 3v3 fight and you manage to get to the terminala nd pull a skyguard thinking that a SOLO AA tank SHOULD be able to kill a 2 or 3 man vehicle whos primary job is to kill YOU.

If you fell back to another base nearby and pulled a skyguard, maybe get a friend to grab one and you drove back toward the previous spot and found yourself a bit of cover, you could have a very good chance of winning.

Check my stats, i drive a skyguard on occasion. Ive done quite a few 3 man skyguard crews and completely cleared the skies in many battles.

See there is a thing called scaling. That refers to how effective a weapon system is when you increase its number. 1 skyguard will scare away most enemy air. 2 skyguard assisting will kill ESF in 2 to 3 secs and easily defeat libs. 3 or 4 skyguard can take on entire air wings, (again provided you play smart and dont sit without any cover on top of a hill.

Again you have sunderers with AA guns and locks and dumbfires that OHK ESF. Most people own a lock on launcher. Unless you are trying to solo, which inst a supported playstyle, why arent you getting your squad to pull locks to kill these everpresent ESF?

If you got 3 heavies with locks in your squad you can instantly vaporize an ESF.

You really need it to be even easier?

Oh yeah not to mention ESF are vulnerable to small arms. How hard is it to say in squad chat for everyone to fire on the ESF farming you and kill it? I have been killed by good squads who employed this tactic.

Or you could, you know, like call your empire mates who like to fly to do their job and get rid of the ESF farming you.

Thats what combined arms means.

If you have Infantry and Armor and no air, and our team has armor ground and air, we are supposed to win.

Where are your pilots?

Is this PS2 or COD?

You talk about about combined arms but aircraft are self sufficient and anti-everything.

There's nothing in the game that relies on combined arms less.

ESFs having 2 weapons and quickly getting in and out of combat encourages small fight farming and multi-role loadouts which makes their versatility extremely difficult to deal with. What happens when a competent player feels like farming ground with rocketpods or an AI nosegun and coyotes? They farm ground until they have to leave, they repair and they come right back basically having a full map presence. If someone gets annoyed enough to pull an ESF to kill them because for whatever reason a burster max or G2A lock isn't cutting it then they have their coyotes to deal with them, casually reversing and unloading server guided talent into the other person's face.

It's a toxic playstyle which makes small and outpopped fights incredibly frustrating to even bother with. I'm sorry that you can't participate in larger fights by yourself, maybe you should join an outfit of pilots to collectively ground strike things. You know why tanks are always killing you? Because nobody deals with them and they just stack up and do as they please.