========== Short Answer ========== Players tend to hate Liberators and ESFs the most. Liberators and ESFs have great speed/mobility and the ability to control line-of-sight vs. targets in most areas of the game. This allows them to choose targets that are easy for them. Most players hate it when that target is them. ========== Long Answer ========== Players tend to hate Liberators and ESFs the most. Collisions, Aces/Gank Squads, AA: Collisions ---------------- 47% of ALL ESFs deaths are to Collisions. 38% of ALL Lib deaths are to Collisions. For comparison, ~3.48% of MBTs die to Collision. This is a major problem. Pilots hate it because they live in fear of and die constantly to movement. Non-Pilots (should) hate it, because those are kills that should be going to Non-Pilots, and not Terrain. Solution: nerf Terrain/Vehicle Collisions and buff Non-Pilots vs. ESFs/Libs. Give those kills to Non-Pilots. Until that happens, this will remain a problem. ESF Aces/Gank Squads ----------------------------------- 40% of all NON-COLLISION ESFs deaths are to other ESFs. 39% of all NON-COLLISION Libs deaths are to ESFs or other Libs. But that's only half the picture. Player Skill and Number of Ally ESF/Lib is the major determinant in the outcome of Air Duels. Things like ground AA support, surprise, and even A2A loadouts are all backseat factors compared to Skill and Number of Ally ESFs/Libs. And most ESF Air Duels end with one side or the other dead. It's very difficult for ESF to run and live, unless the pilot chasing is lower skill level. This means that most ESF/Lib Pilots AVOID Air combat (unless they have more numbers or greater skill), often stick to groups of Ally ESF/Lib, and focus on farming non-ESF/Lib. Solution: lower the importance of skill in ESF/Lib Duels (I know Ace pilots will groan at this: they love their A2A monopoly)(Coyote and A2AM help with this, I would also suggest a HUD addition and better visible tracers that help with players visualizing their aim), give ESFs/Libs a greater ability to run from each other, and make things like AA support (by adding better communication channel between AA and Air), surprise, and even A2A loadouts all more meaningful in ESF/Lib Duels. Anti-Air ------------ Anti-Air accounts for 24% of all NON-COLLISION ESFs deaths. Anti-Air counts for 8% of all NON-COLLISION Libs deaths. Anti-Air doesn't work well vs. Libs. Vanguard (NC MBT) Titan-150 AP and Prowler (TR MBT) P2-120 AP each kill more Libs than any single type of AA. And MBTs fear Libs. If a Lib is farming ground targets, then the ground being farmed doesn't really have a reliable way to kill the Lib themselves: they need help from ESFs, Libs, or Terrain to kill the Libs. Or maybe they can have enough combined AA to drive the Lib away. Ground players hate this. Solution: keep Lib nerfed. It's just a flat out monster when it gets OP, cause most units can't handle it. AA isn't bad vs. ESFs... when used right. When AA is used right, it can drive off ESFs from most areas, and sometimes kill them. The problem is, most players have no idea how to use AA properly. Most of them have never been ESF pilots (so they don't know their weaknesses firsthand), and most of them only have the PS2 Weapon descriptions to tell them what AA to use. So they end up using the wrong Weapons and using them the wrong ways. If the ESF is hovering in your face, use Solution: give all players access to a default HA AA Lockon Launcher. Tell players to use Dumbfire Rocket if the ESF is hovering and close (for a potential one-hit-kill), and to use Lockons at ESFs when they are farther out. The ESF pilots can track the shooter of any lockon missile by looking at where the red dot Rocket on their Radar is starting from: if they try to come hunt you down make sure to move location and only stare them down if you have a dumbfire to shoot at them (otherwise, find and use cover). ESF/Lib Ability To Choose Targets ------------------------------------------------- But even when AA is working right, Liberators and ESFs have great speed/mobility and the ability to control line-of-sight vs. targets in most areas of the game. This allows them to choose targets that are easy for them. So if they identify AA that is too strong in an area, they will just move to a safer area. Most players hate it when that target in the safer area is them, or when they are the AA and Air just leaves the area. Solution: add Air Radar that lights up any Air Unit that ventures more than 1 space into enemy controlled territory (on that enemy's Main Map and Mini-Map). This will pressure ESF/Libs to stick to Battlefronts for their targets, where they won't be able to just ignore the AA, but will have to work with their Faction to get things done on the battlefield.
For me, it's the fact that they hover. If an aircraft notices me, then it just hovers overhead until it angles for a killing shot, and there is nothing I can do about it. All the jumping around cover does is delay the inevitable. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, and that's not fun for the fish. If they would just completely remove all aircraft from the game tomorrow, it would be an improvement that would make me happy. I don't even like it when my own team's air show up during a fight.
I hate air vehicles in PS2 mostly because they don't have to worry about the horrible roads / ground vehicle physics of Auraxis.
Because they've never enjoyed sitting out under the sun, on top of a mountain in the distance, a can of beer in one hand, and your skyguard control in the other. While an entire enemy airforce curses your name , that is if they can even spot you.
90% pilots are soloers who are in it for a shameless a2g farm on nearly defenseless peasants. They couldn't care less about the combined arms but they sure do justify their farm with it. They only appear when the battle goes well and they can farm peasants trying to exit the spawnroom, worsening the disadvantage that is already there which only reinforces their image of lolpodding parasites. There are only 2 infantry classes with access to AA while air can have a strong multipurpose loadout with no blatantly weak spots. Staple ground based AA is behind a certwall. Even if you shell out, it's crap against decent pilots. And I swear the map is made so there are lockon breakers available every 50m. air are like ZOE MAXes of old, but on steroids. Too much mobility and firepower in one package and their supposed frailness is only nominal, given that only 1 in N peons has means of harming them and it's not like air ever gets instagibbed. They can jump in melt faces, jump out with no problem. Air destroys the best, most engaging, midsized fights well below the meatgrinder threshold because there are not enough bodies to spare to dedicate to AA full time against air that might or might not be there. In real life you have ****loads of radar systems and what not that give you early warning. In PS2 you can look around "cool, no air around", go out and get skillpodded 5 seconds later hover mode and farmvision - especially infantry, nearly defenseless against air right off the bat should have its small size going for them. In case of strafing runs you could hunker down for few seconds and live, not so in PS2. Air can turn on a dime and you are just a glowing blob of ripe certs on farmers screen, ready for harvesting.
Or, in short: There was a mid-sized fight, one side got reinforced by their airforce and the other side couldn't be arsed to deal with it, and because noone deals with them they are OP. Cert-wall? Seriously? The grounder and its equivalents are 250 certs. I can easily earn that in a couple hours, F2P guys two couples. "Dedicated" AA? You can simply equip the G2A launcher and still dumbfire it or not use it when you don't need it. Half the infantery is HAs anyway. No, air is not OP. It was once. There was a time when an ESF could lolpod anything to death, destroy MBTs or complete squads of soldiers in mere seconds. That time is long gone. I do not fly nearly as much as I used to, since I'm mostly busy conquering bases nowadays, but the guys complaining about air are simply too lazy, stubborn, whatever to simply ******* deal with them. I see it especially in my own faction. Dozens of heavies, nobody bothers to shoot the two ESFs down. The G2A RL is absolutely sufficient given the number of heavies running around and the current meta of using firesuppression. Infantery has the tools, and they do not use them. (I agree though that it is too easy to lose the lock-on process to a stupid branch) EDIT: Removed most of the *****, I swear this forum is turning me into Gordon ******* Ramsay...
yeah, never in history of PS2 the fight was ruined by 3rd party libs. Nope. Never seen that happening. Get a clue. This game is a failed combined arms. It's a TDM where air plays a different game than the others. Feast on all, face scarce resistance. Lockons are trivial to neutralize, just dive and the HA will see his rocket asplode 5m in front of him, not to mention lockon breakers are everywhere and they give more than enough time to collect 0 risk certs. Also i don't know about you, but in my book everybody is a HA is a major flaw too. This tells me that getting the short end of the stick against maxes, mech and air is too much of a shortcoming for a majority of people which implies the relative balance between rock paper and scissors is broken. Who said anything about OP? Did you miss the point because last time i checked this thread is about HATE? To clarify what the difference is: snipers are not OP, but good ones do generate plenty of hate. Games are for fun. AA is not fun, i cannot repeat it enough, AA is not fun. I bet A2G is plenty of fun. All these glowing ants to squash with no way to run and to pad my 2-3digit kdr, mmmmmm. Guess what, air turns everybody else into Gordon Ramsay every single day for 2 years now and it draws a certain kind of tryhard ********, the one that will use every farmtool of the month there is, exploit gimbal lock issues or rendering range longer than lockon range with absolutely 0 qualms and 0 consideration what that means to the long term health of the game.
Been like this since they started putting air vehicles in FPS's. To put it simply, people hate having to look up.. aka in three dimensions. Funny thing is, they can play in their two dimensional boxes if they wish. All they have to do is get in the base, take the point and stay on it. No air can touch them. But they want to do their cert farming outside. Do it inside, zerglings.. air won't touch you, I promise you. You can get all the certs in the world inside the buildings of the bases.
Take it as a complement that I choose you as an example, you are the epitome of Skillsuit player, no noob jelly here bro. I have 50 days of playtime as NC, and I still don't even own ravens... Pilots: This video is required material to every thread asking why we hate air, I am surprised no else posted it yet.
its more like infantry are bound the the first on while ESFs have the freedom of the second one allowing them to pretty much ignore terrain.
How about get a lock on launcher or bursters or a skyguard and kill the aircraft? They might be very powerful, but they are insanely easy to counter as well.
its not a counter though, most of the time its a deterrent. wiht lock ons if they dont just slam into the terrain you are left with less then a kills worth of damage XP and an ESF running away to repair, assuming they are running fire suppression instead of flares (with flares a good pilot can snag a kill or two before retreating with little recourse) with a buster max most good pilots arent stupid enough to try to run straight into your flak for very long causing the same outcome. sky guard is at least a bit mobile and sometimes you can chase an ESF or two down, its sad though that a walker harasser is better at this then the sky guard in many instances.
You must be truly ********.. several cap points (you know.. taking bases or defending them, requires flipping points) are outside of any building. On several bases, air can shoot at the spawn room... Once more, air is OP. Here's a good one: a liberator has 75% damage reduction vs AA machine gun; aka the walker. 75% dmg reduction vs it's counter. Combine with 5000 hp, and it has 20.000 effective health vs the walker. The walker damage scales 130-> 85; let's say each shot does 100 dmg. It takes at least 200 hits to destroy the lib. And the lib presses fire supression. What about a galaxy? Again 75% resistance, this time 7000 health. 28.000 effective health, 280 hits needed. a lockon hits a lib: 1000*(1-0.325)=675 dmg. 13.5% of lib health. a lockon hits prowler front: 1000*(1-0.63)*1.5=555. 13.875% of mbt health. Against the strongest facing. a lockon hits a galaxy: 1000*(1-0.55)=450. 6.4..% of galaxy health. Q: Should an aircraft be quicker, harder to hit, more nimble, equally tough, and pack even more punch than an mbt? A: No of course not. Now, I'm not saying lockons need to be buffed vs aircraft; we need more and better "walkers": aim & shoot at aircraft; we need weaponry that kills aircraft. The purpose of C4 is not to make enemy tanks retreat; it is to destroy them. The alternative is that air becomes only a "deterrent" vs ground. AA isn't fun, because air overpowers it's counters (the "AA") AA isn't fun, because AA can rarely kill.
Don't have to, get in the base and take the point. Air can't reach you. I know those cert pinatas (aka vehicles) outside look tempting, but you'll get just as many inside bases killing stuff.
I'm going to chime in that if you do poorly in a tank, you die, if you do poorly on the ground, you die, if you do poorly in the air, you live with a sliver of health, and die only when you suck or other air comes at you. Make AA kill planes instead of a deterrent and there would be no hate.
Probably because they don't understand the intricacies of the air part of the game or don't know how to pilot. Once you've learned and developed the experience, getting fragged by an air unit isn't all that infuriating or at least it shouldn't be. People have different psyches after all...
AA couldn't be more than a deterrent without shutting air down completely. It's hard enough up there with enemy air a multiple AA sources targeting you.
Most areas have a layout that will allow an HA player to clear the skies of enemy ESFs in a mid to large sized battle. I've done it a lot. If you aren't happy with just helping your Faction capture bases or you need to grind Certs, then go deploy into a Farm fight. Good pilots don't use Flares. They use Fire Suppression. Lockons are not trivial to neutralize for ESFs. They are very effective in most areas at clearing the skies of ESFs in a mid to large sized battle. Most ESF pilots eat 1-2 Lockons, and then leave the area to go repair. But they don't stick around. And that's the point: clearing the skies to help your faction capture bases or to support your Faction's Air. This is kind of a lost cause argument. Yes, it's majorly imbalanced. But it's been that way so long, that it's just become part of the game. Most Infantry are now HA, so they don't want to see it changed. And PS2 Designers can't "balance" things, anyway. The most PS2 Designers could do would be to (1) nerf HA in a way that actually affect them, or (2) nerf HA to be unplayable. PS2 Designers are better at making an overall system that works (except for breaking it with OP units for stretches of 3-6 monts). Yes, 75% of Weapon/Ability options are pointless, but that just makes Loadout choices easier and the game more affordable to players. I can appreciate the idea of a Combined Arms game where each unit matters, and where each unit has customization that matters. And someday someone might make that game as an MMOFPS. But that's not PS2. Could be worse, you could be playing Server Smash where even more Units are unplayed. Depends what you want out of it. When I do it, it's to clear the skies. And when that happens, I am happy. And the process was fun for me. I use an HA with Lockons or hop in an AA Base Turret to do it, and when the sky is clear I either respawn as something else or try to clear the Battlefield of tanks. If you're looking for AA to satisfy on more levels than that, then I think you are looking for the wrong thing. Something that is not in PS2. I can appreciate the idea of AA and Air that has more synergy with each other and with the game. Or AA that is more fun on more levels. But that is not PS2. And if you take a look at PS2 Dev work since launch, or the output on PS2 since the game was moved to a skeleton crew Dev team, you'll see that this game is not likely to change much going forward (other than new hats, changing which Units are OP, more bugs, and maybe a new Continent every ~2 years). How much can we expect PS2 to change going forward? Hint: look at the Roadmap. (unless PS2 on PS4/XBox?/etc. becomes a big hit, and then PC PS2 turns into Test Server for them) Depends what you want out of it. I've gotten enough tells from people after THEY killed ME, to know that some people really want to just grief others and then send them tells about it. If you also enjoy that, then you can do AI Farming while flying and send people tells when you kill them. I don't find that fun. Sometimes I have to farm for Certs or Implants. So I Farm/Grind A2G kills. Is this fun? No. But it's grinding and it's less unfun than other forms of grinding. I really enjoy helping supporting my Faction taking territory. And ESF is often great for that. I never really got into ground vehicles. More power to those who like em. All yours. I also have pretty much quit Infantry outside of occasional HA AA(AV) duty and fighting in MASSIVE battles. I just hate Squad Beacons (yes, that much) in non-Massive battles: pita to locate, often placed in places that are pita to deal with, and they change the fight so it's no longer "take the hill and win" but "hire a lawyer and win on a technicality". Also, I have no interest in playing Infantry in battles where it's all vehicles. F all that. More power to those who like it. All yours.
