Anti Air partisans - A global invitation

Let me pitch in my two cents...

If you think that air is OP in planetside then just join a Battlefield 4 server with a good littlebird pilot and hide in a corner as he goes 49-0 on your team. Aircraft and AA is actually surprisingly well balanced, with AA being a little bit stronger to cater for most people not flying but not strong enough to completely stop good pilots form getting a decent amount of kills. Personally i fly as much as i can and i have to say it is challenging because you never know when you will be surprised by 3 AA maxes chewn up, but on the other hand if i fly smart i can still pick off a couple of guys before i have to flee to repair.

So i say leave it as it easy because going in any direction is just going to cause one side to blow up. A buff for mbt's against esf nosegunss would be good imo though as they pose no real threat to air. Although some really good players use their AP as AA.

Unfortunately, said persons have hardly used any data, and unlike the professional opinion of, say, a Doctor, this is the opinion of someone who has a few hundred hours in an ESF and is highly biased. With a Doctor you know the goal: whether they are for or against eachother, they want to cure you in the end (I hope)
Also, this guy has a lot of aircraft experience, but none in AA, which I do have. I also have a large enough amount of hours in an aircraft to accompany that AA experience.
So in terms of "who's the most professional experienced and entitled to say something about the area where AA meets air-game", I would go first. Fortunately for you guys I am of mind that just having better personal stats doesn't mean you have a better say in it. And I think I've given enough reasons why that's true.

Yes, it is of course possible, and I already said so before that this is possible. This is because the data only includes any succesful use of the weapon. So any weapon that was used but didn't score a kill doesn't show up in the statistics. Still, these are the most accurate I can find atm, so unless you have a better alternative...

Heh, I really like that second quote about the "it's based on sufficient facts and data". And I still offer that the expert of an engine and the experts in flying a game-based aircraft are two completely different things. The biggest one is that an engine needs to work one-way, and another group of his peers will have the exact same experience in the way how the same type of engine works and operates.
With aircraft in this game it greatly differs who you ask and what they are doing. Also, the game isn't designed for top players, it also needs to be designed so that lower skill players can play their part. This means that the air-game, including the AA game, needs to be based on their experiences as well, any takers?

Even when our experts could say anything about the air-game, they have shown a complete lack of being able to read the statistics themselves. So I would say that any testimony they give would need to be taken into review so that the data they pulled can be checked and their correlation to the real way it's used is correct.

Any experience from the Ranger side here? Aside from the fact that it's a low-power Skyguard?
I mean, your experts are experts in getting shot down apparently, but the experts in the actual AA business say something else entirely. Which experts do we believe? The air-experts based on getting shot at and not enjoying the experience? Or the AA experts who don't enjoy seeing 4 out of 5 planes escape or even get nailed by the very thing they are supposed to be a counter against?
Oh yes, none of the above, because all of these experts are biased, and we need to get some un-subjective stats to actually see how it works, then correlate both expert experiences and see how much they match up to the statistics.

Since I would be just as biased, we should get someone with equal time and skill in AA and aircraft to check out the data to his experiences, that would be the most fair.

No, I'm saying that I have actual experience in AA, and I have some experience in aircraft, but somehow neither experience is "good" and can be discounted on grounds of "I (the pro-air guys) have more experience in one field" (and none in the other).
Just look at what you are doing! I like how you did some research at least, but you are still saying "you have no experience at all, go away" even though I was probably the most experienced Skyguard user on the entire thread!
Now if you go about the "but he's got more experience in the A2A business", yeah sure. I might have erroneously said that Rocketpods are perfect AA weapons (although I happily and effectively use them against Libs and Gals), but that doesn't mean that any score they get shouldn't be counted with ESF effectiveness. At that point I was arguing the statistics and how the little stats they pulled were wrong or didn't show the actual, complete picture.


Also, consider this one:
What does one faction say about the other two factions? Every week there's at least 1 thread made about "Faction X is OP" or "The other two factions are only attacking us" etc, even though the stats might say the complete opposite (Vanu can make a throw for "best faction" right now, but still there's some vanu characters who made a thread about their faction being the worst). This is because people who haven't played all 3 factions think the grass is greener at the neighbors... And since you guys only see flak as the greenest pasture out there because you have no experience, you haven't come much farther off.

So I am a newish player (even though I have had an account since launch) only getting an NC and a TR to around BR40 so far. While I don't have thousands of hours of time in the air, I do have the ability to make observations when I do fly.

The short story is buffing AA will only further discourage new pilots from entering the sky. It is already immensely difficult to overcome a skilled ESF pilot especially with a disparity in the amount of certs you have invested into your ESF/Lib.

I already get the impression that flying is pretty difficult based off of my failures in trying to do it and the level of people that just flat out say "I will never fly". I think it is pretty obvious to tell where that sentiment comes from. As a new pilot I already have to worry about people in direct competition with me that have advantages both in skill and in equipment. Not to mention that against someone without a lot of experience your average AA will still be pretty effective. If I could consistently be one-maged by a skyguard or a pesky ambitions harasser running a walker I can promise that the majority of people that are trying to get their wings because even through the frustrations will stop. I think that brings up a pretty important talking point behind how divided this portion of the community is which I believe to mainly stem from a lack of representation of newer pilots. If everyone had the skill of someone with 1000 hours in their ESF, I'd be all for buffing AA. I find it hard to believe that the majority of pilots are anywhere close to that level of skill.

My replies in orange and red.

If you think you go to any job position and work there using "stats" only to find the solution, I'm sorry, but no one would keep you hired.

Obstruction wrote a great post with things I tried explaining to you. However he did it "professionally" using solid sources. If you still don't get what I've been trying to tell you (and many others), well I think you're lost.

Great post, mate. Had a nice read.

EDIT:

I read your last post. Well, you're twisting words and ignoring what has been said again. I can't even bother to reply to different parts anymore, since it's the same thing all over again.

A wall of text isn't going to hide your mistakes. All this babble for a 10% increase in AKPH when you compensate for hours used on a 2ndary. Fact still stands. Rotaries+pods/hornets have roughly the same AKPH as skyguards and bursters.

So Pods have the same uniques as skyguards, but have less AKPH than the worst skyguard statistic? REALLY? What other conclusion can you draw from this other thank Pods are a worse AA weapon thank Skyguards? Do you even think about what you're typing or is this just a random stream of thought?

That's a rhetorical statement. They aren't AA weapons, but they get AA kills. Whatever, I already added it for you. It's roughly 10%, only a marginal improvement.

If we're being so **** retentive about minor stats. You also need to subtract the AKPH of guys who use the fuel tanks, because they couldn't have gotten some of those kills if they couldn't get in range or dodge enemy fire.

I've said it multiple times, you just refuse to accept it. There's one glaring hole in your data plot, but you're going to pretend the rest of the data is fine? At least try to apply your reasoning on NC skyguards to the rest of the weapons. That's a start to patching up one hole.

You make a claim that a weapon is ineffective, because it's on the bottom half of a top 25 kill list. Now we find there's a a potential 30% margin of error. The delta between weapon #25 and weapon #12 is 0.5 or 60%. Worst case scenario, weapon #25 has a +30% error and weapon #12 has a -30% error and guess what. They switch places. The worst weapon on the list is now in the top 50% of the weapons kill chart. That's your 30% error rate that you so casually dismiss.

Now the 10% difference isn't an error rate, it's just a deviation in the average that I didn't add to the KPH due to not including missile 2ndaries.

Theory. Got proof? How do you know A2A esfs are only pulled when there's air around and abandoned when air is gone.

Once is ok, because that one time I mentioned it. You decided to give me a lecture about how that site only does 1 month data.

The stats are useful when applied properly. When you start making concrete judgements on 1 month data, without taking in consideration month to month variation or the fact that there's a 30% margin of error within the month that causes a problem.

LOL. Nice try, remember this story you wrote earlier about usage time?

So, I fired a rocket and switched to the Commissioner, specially bought for the occasion. The rocket would hit and at the same time I would shoot the ESF. This caused the Commissioner to get the kill, and an incredibly high A KPH (for my account) compared to my Shrike who got no A KPH at all as it never scored the kill.
So the Commissioner has like 2 seconds of usage every time I killed an ESF. My Shrike has no kills at all but a long usage time. Add both usage times and A KPH up, divide them and you get the total A KPH over the usage time of both weapons. Hey! You just learned how to use statistics with multiple weapon systems on the same vehicle/infantry unit!

It's quite convenient that you remembered to compensate for usage time on AA sources, but left it out when discussing A2A.
According to you, we need to add the total usage time of primary and 2ndary then divide by KPH. Average rotary usage time 200 hours.

A2A missiles 8/208 x 32 = 1.23 kph
Coyotes 15/215x13=.72kph
Hornets 30/230x3=.39kph
Rocketpods 115/315x2.5=.9kph
Average 0.81 kph.
Rotary ~7.5 kph

Rotary + missiles = 8.31 kph

So about 10%.

I'm not the one making inane comments about weapon systems that are obviously wrong to anyone who has used it.
Made obvious by your comment below:

You said Tomcats extend your range, because noseguns can't be used there. That's wrong. Tomcats at their extreme range aren't reliable enough to lock. By time you get close enough for a reliable lock (mid range). Noseguns can do just as well at that distance.

Actually, you started this with just a Liberator kill list. Conveniently leaving out ESFs, which actually has G2A lock-ons and skyguards in the top 50% of ESF killers. Despite this blatant attempt to skew the data, my comments are still true versus galaxies to avoid bulldogs and valks to avoid yotes.

If you had any clue how to fly an ESF. You would understand having AB lets you attack all sorts of targets and enter riskier areas, due to the ability to flee. This is much more "versatile" than increasing "mid range dps".

Utter BS. You don't know me. You haven't followed every one of my threads or spoken with everyone I've talked to about game balance. I don't care who you are discussing tomcats with. I don't care what points you made in someone else's conversation. **** with that.

Because I thought you had a clue about ESFs. To everyone else who has flown an ESF, it's quite obvious that Hornets and cats are the A2A loadouts.

Rotaries out number Tomcats/Coyotes by 4 to 1. So a 4:1 ratio is not many more in your opinion? LOL.

I don't know precisely how everyone flies, but I do know you have almost no experience with ESF, based on the conversation we've been having. So when you start making comments like these:

Everyone always talks about A2A, but I've found I used different loadouts depending on what I'm hunting, especially when I'm going A2A. And seeing how people attack the Libs, Galaxies and Valkyries I've been in, I'm no exception.

It carries no weight. You obviously don't do this, so let's stop pretending.

We're talking about how you used a top 25 kill list to justify G2A being UP for liberators. The above is off topic. Start a new thread and we can talk about it there.

Now go ahead and apply "faction diversity" to all the other weapons on that list and come back to me.[/quote]

Well, it has finally come to it. Everything we'll do now (if we didn't already) is just repeat what we said. You don't believe me, I don't believe you. The reasons stop mattering as regardless of who's right (let's for safety assume neither of us has been right all along, how much fun would that be?), so regardless of who's right the entire discussion won't go anywhere anymore (probably didn't go anywhere anymore at the 5th page).

Let's just shake digital hands, agree to disagree and get on with other things shall we? I see another Vanguard discussion coming up where I'll probably have another debate with someone, so maybe join me there XD

That counts for you too.

I was out for 5 days, banned from the forum. Apparently a few players reported my posts on here because they hurt them in some ways.

So I won't be replying much anymore except to the thread's goal:

The offer is still up!

And a few people asked "what are the criteria for success". So here it is, it can be recorded, or we can just keep track of the overall of what has been done in how long in how many libs, and report it. Everybody can decide on their own, but my guess will it will be obvious if it's either.

1) the mods don't take sides, if your posts violate forum rules you'll be punished regardless of their viewpoint.

2) lol we both know this isn't going to happen you have one actually taknig up your offer earlier in the thread and one maybe, 1-2 isnt a very good sample size and that's before you factor in they are newbie pilots and of course their lack of experience will make it appear to them like AA is more powerful then it actually is to an expert pilot.

Oh, could you tell me the page or quote them, I must of missed them.

look it up yourself. you made the offer so you should care enough to look through 10 pages where you ignore any counter arguments and reply with nuh-uh.

I love the second quote in Jawarisin's sig. As a fairly dedicated tanker, most of my runs seem to end with a liberator or mosquito hovering lazily directly over me and slowly killing me while I can do absolutely nothing about it.

Anything that makes pilots suffer makes me pump my fist in the air with joy.

That's very sadistic and I'm sad you feel that way <3

As human beings Mods most probably take sides from time to time. I saw it happen too.

looked back over it, didn't see anybody taking me up on my offer. I saw people saying nobody took me on my offer, but no one actually doing it. On the side, I just found back the guy whom asked about "success" thing.

read my post above, but for a tl;dr, simply with common sense, if I recorded it and showed it here, what would people think? That's what will determine the success, as far as what you want to go for... pilot's decision about everything. Whatever target, fight, continent. Doesn't matter to me.

Your invitation is a moot one. Both parties can see what they want in any video you make. If you have a video with a good pilot who picks out his targets very well, attacks at the right opportunity and crushes many tanks/aircraft/infantry, then AA can still be OP or UP regardless. If the pilot sucks, attacks from predictable angles and goes right into the AA, AA can still be OP or UP regardless. AA's OP or UP status isn't achieved by how well it performs against the few pilots you throw against it.
What does matter is how much skill is required from both ends (AA as well as piloting skills), and how easy the skills can be acquired.

Air has a high skill roof, but is difficult to learn. It's mechanisms are different than any other in the game. They can dish out incredible amounts of damage in a short time, but they are very vulnerable from AA attacks. However, their vulnerability can largely negated by their movement. Of everything in the game they have the easiest time to come from any direction they wish, and can even adjust their movement and firing angle to any position they wish. Together with the potential of insane amount of damage, larger operating ranges of the weapons and the most opportunity to wait for a good moment to swoop in, highly skilled pilots can wreak havoc on any and all vehicle/infantry in the game with little problems from AA. Before you've mastered all this, you will be taken down quite quickly by AA.

AA on the other hand is easy to learn, but you can't really master it. You can position yourself well to a degree, but due to the high mobility of your targets your positioning can be ignored in many cases.
Flak cannons are good against air, but give up all effectiveness against anything else. What's more, they can be destroyed by air itself in an unguarded moment, or just by a highly skilled pilot.
Walkers and other non lock non flak weapons are difficult to use. As air has it's engagements at longer distances than most weapon systems, AA needs to operate at often the same longer distances. This means more leading on a relatively far and fast target. Although not impossible, the air needs to expose themselves for longer times for the AA to be truly effective. These are luckily a bit more effective to infantry and low armoured vehicles, making up for a bit of its loss. Although Sunderers are not easily destroyed by air, they aren't meant to be AA and are a waste of players and effectiveness. Sunderers are much more powerful in other roles. The Harasser can again be destroyed easily by air again.
Lastly is the lock on. Only positioning comes in play here, as you need a clear view of the target for multiple seconds before you can fire, and make sure the air isn't moving in such a way that the environment is in the way. So big open spaces like the north of Indar are perfect for lock on rocket launchers. Too bad the launcher is on an infantry that is melted away by the LMG powered highly accurate no COF increase noseguns that operate well beyond the 300m mark.
Last AA is air itself. Skill of the pilots matter a lot, as many people have collisions with either other (air)vehicles or the ground. This makes the skill of the pilot the best opponent of air. The nosecannons pale in comparison, but from every death besides the collisions the nosecannons reign supreme as AA. No seperate AA gets even close the the best nosecannon of each faction.

That is at least what I discern from my experience and the stats. What does this tell me? It tells me that AA is skill-less and highly dependent on the skill of enemy air, unless you are in air yourself. Which means that if you take to the air, the only one truly limiting your survivability against ground-based AA is the skill you have as a pilot, discerning the proper angle, speed and risks, destroying AA where you can, leaving them behind when they prove too much. This doesn't tell me much about the OP or UP status of ground-based AA. It seems pretty well balanced in a broken way, but should become a truly skill based option instead of only linked to the skill of the enemy.

I actually agree with your post, but I have to stop you here.

The Walker is easier to use than the Skyguard. It has better accuracy (CoF: 0.65 vs 1.25, both fixed), higher rate of fire (600rpm vs 480rpm) and a considerably higher velocity (1000m/s vs 400m/s).

It is much easier to score hits with the Walker than with the Skyguard despite the former's lack of proximity flak explosion, and that is why I laugh at everyone who cry "Skyguard OP".

In fact, I sucked badly when I first switched to Walker because I lead the target way too much like I used to with that ridiculous "dedicated AA" called Skyguard.

Now from my stats on all accounts I haven't used them much, so it will probably be my wrong usage of the walker that coloured my perception of them. Still, are walkerlike turrets truly strong? Does it work very well on long range? I'll try it out when I have more time, but I get the feeling that it can never gain an OP status when I look at it's power. I'll have to rejudge it at another time.

yeah the only consensus in the thread can be found in a brief remark about dual-walker sunderers. the single walker itself isn't extremely dangerous, except that it supports any other AA very well and continues to hit retreating aircraft reliably all the way out to render. even dual walkers, if identified quickly (by the sound and rapid damage) still allow some small time to escape. but if they use it as an ambush, it is deadly. dual walker wins a dps race with a fully upgraded dalton. so yeah, it's good. in fact if i could fly a dual walker lib for AA i might do just that.

i also agree with your longer post above, in general. my one disagreement is that you don't consider population, both air and ground. while it's more likely that air units being targeted are skilled, because skilled players stay in the air as opposed to dying very quickly, it has to be the case that hundreds of bad pilots fly every day. on the other side is much more rare that skilled ground players care to play AA. skilled ground are much more content ignoring the problem, and leaving it to everyone else to defend the sunderer. and so it is often that a sunderer is defended by 1 Burster MAX or 1 Heavy, if at all. it is often the case that one person who lost their MBT to a dalton lib pulls a skyguard in what they hope is retaliation, but then open fire from 800m only to later realize (actually probably never realize) that they gave away their position and are attempting to solo with what is clearly a support vehicle.

the one exception to this is the organized outfit, which i think we can again all agree really showcases the power of coordinated AA/AV. even as few as 6 units dedicated to support fire can lock down a surprisingly large area and withstand very potent assaults. a 12 unit squad can accomplish even more, especially with the right positioning.

finally as for measuring success, i've said before (perhaps not in this thread) that there should be an event on the test server. we get 12 air players and 12 ground players and have them trade roles (to prove how OP their opponent is.) ground's job is to drive 6 sunderers across the map with whatever support they like from the remaining 6 players. their goal is just to get ONE sunderer to the other side alive, pulling anything they like along the way as sunderers are killed, or collapsing drivers into gunner positions if that is what they prefer. air units can pull whatever they want, and continuously attack the convoy the entire time. all they have to do is destroy all 6 sunderers.

alternatively you could do it jawa's way and simply field a good pilot along with the volunteer for control purposes. the point i think, is not to get some totally objective proof but to give the entire discussion common ground from which to assess the situation. let's say you have one of these haters in the tail the first run, with a good pilot and good gunner. you let them take a run and do what they can do, the old skygod routine, if that is what it turns out to be. then you turn it over to the guest, either to pilot so they can try to replicate that success, or just let them be in command of the unit and see where that gets you.

i think what you'll find is that avoiding the conditions for death by AA takes more skill than most of the haters are willing to admit, and that AA contributes to a lot of unavoidable deaths to other non-AA sources. like you said, it's mostly balanced, in a way that is not very satisfactory for either party. but it does offer skilled counterplay on the part of aircraft making daring attack runs and harrowing egresses, and it offers skilled counterplay on the part of ground units for organizing and positioning their primary damage dealers with support units.

That was well said, very well said. And just to say, a double walker sundy with deploy shield is unkillable. Even with nobody repairing it, the only threat will be ground. A lib wouldn't even scratch it even with the jump on it.

I would like to see what damage you do with 1 buster arm, video kill streak please!

you know that 1 buster is useless even if there are 5 of them, you need both to hit any thing,

As for you lm2play comment, grow up. (even your signature reeks of immaturity)

A new players only real AA option is the AA base turret, Which is highly vulnerable, as it is like a skygaurd that can't move, and can be hacked, and any aircraft can bruit force one. acept for a esf that only uses the nose gun,

I bought most AA options and even after a large investment they are sadly lacking, AA is only effective with focused fire, in which case any thing in the game will die, that is not a viable option,

The truth is that AA is purposely weak, because if it was as strong as it should be, no one could fly, so they make AA weak so that they can fly, the problem is they fly mostly unchecked and farm ground targets, its not balanced, the problem is you have to be specifically set up to counter air. most people are fighting a ground battle, its a failed concept,

At the same time it is simply hopeless against ground threats on its own. Walkers can't point downward, and mounting two of them makes the Sunderer even more of a one-trick pony than the Skyguard.

Oh and in case someone used the favorite Lib apologist argument in this thread, a dual-Walker Sunderer requires two people to utilize its advantage over a single-Walker vehicle, and three if you want to move and fire. It is basically a Liberator flipped upside down and running on wheels, and therefore using Lib apologist logic, even if it is overpowered, it is entirely justified because it's a multi-crewed vehicle.