Where's The Flak?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Darthjackn, Apr 13, 2015.

  1. Dowlphin

    I do. Because I understand there are greater powers than the lure of kill XP. I scared off more than one ESF pilot by pumping several aimed carbine magazines into them at 845 rpm. (Also got the occasional assist kill.)
    Also, at medium range I tend to hit surprisingly often compared to with a flak turret. This is why I also prefer the Walker over the Ranger.
    So to summarize: I got plenty of practice hitting ESF at mid range with my GD-7F, which is a close-range-specialized carbine. And this is the stuff I ejoy a lot in PS2. Pushing boundaries through personal improvement.

    This is a tactical and strategic war game. There is no funspoiling by exploiting a tactical void. If you want a 50-50 meatgrinder and an aircraft comes along and crashes the party, then you need to crash their party.
    If you find it boring to be the one guy smart enough to pull a Burster MAX to ensure the mindless meatgrinding party can go on (the irony, hah), then you need to learn to care more about the team.
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  2. Haquim


    Teamwork? You don't need teamwork to shoot something thats hovering 20m above you. You just need people to use what little brain they have - individually, there is no need for communication or anything else. They manage to shoot 6 decimator rockets and 200 bullets at a single MAX just fine after all.
    They ignore the "farmer" and hope he goes away. I have a 86 killstreak for my ESF (back when banshee was still viable) and I can tell you: If I would get shot at as much when I'm on the ground I can do my killstreaks faster with my KNIFE.

    [rant]

    AA is too weak
    Buff AA
    ESFs farming infantery
    Getting farmed by air

    Threads like this exist since the beginning of the game - but back then ESFs were WAY stronger (and more fragile...)
    Nowadays everything that kills infantery and isn't infantery itself gets nerfed - the tanks are still waiting for the infantery side of the "mutual lethality nerf".
    Every single infantery player that complains thinks "It's not gonna work/do anything anyway so I'm not gonna use it"
    Tell ya what you damned moron: IT'S NOT WORKING BECAUSE YOU DON'T USE IT!!!

    But we don't want to use it - well I don't want to get killed by AA, yet you still can kill me with it.

    AIR OP threads appear every couple of weeks and it seems they won't be satisfied until they can point at a aircraft and make it explode by shouting BOOM.

    I know both sides very well and all I have left to say to those people is
    **** OFF YOU ******** WARPGATES
    You NOT WANTING to do it DOES NOT warrant ANY buffs or nerfs.

    [/rant]
  3. CursoryRaptor

    Then I must not be saying it right. It has nothing to do with anyone being "better" than anyone else. It's just there wouldn't be much point in something costing resources (or certs, for that matter) if they didn't offer any kind of advantage.
  4. Fry_Poncho

    I did the same with a beamer. :eek:
  5. orangejedi829

    That's a good point, but, based on that logic, a dual-flak MAX (which costs more than an ESF) should then be a more than suitable force multiplier for countering an ESF. As it is, though, flak is so laughably weak that I - no joke - have had ESFs, after being shot (and hit) with my flak, turn around and come straight at me, tanking all my flak and almost killing my max. That's how much of a 'threat' flak is to ESFs. I think it makes most players highly reluctant to spend 450 nanites to use it to try to deter one player that they have very little chance of actually killing.

    Silly, of course it's teamwork! If you need more than one person doing it for it to work, it's teamwork. Even if there's no communication at all. But anyway, the fact that people don't want to pull flak stems, IMO, from the fact that it is very ineffective at being anything but a deterrent. So, in this case, yes, it is a viable argument for a buff.

    Hahaha. Come on! Storming a Biolab is one of the most exciting things to do in planetside, IMO. Either as part of a large force, or a small squad strategically taking/defending the points. And defending a biolab against an army is usually more fun than 'defending' the normal bases against one (sitting in the spawn room while explosions splash off the door shields..)
  6. Jawarisin


    Sadly that's not how it works. Look at his video for instance, he could shoot and hit way before the enemy appear on his thermal. Why? I have no clue to be honest, but that's how it is. My guess is the thermal distance isn't 350m and it was never corrected. But I never bothered to test. Though I can GUARANTEE that you can hit enemies before they appear on thermal (you can spot them also).

    As for vehicle render distance, tanks will appear at roughly ~400-500m altitude (from the ground) while you can be shot all the way to 1000m.

    If you want to test, we can do that. But right now, hundreds of hours of playing tell me those numbers aren't right or there's something wierd.
  7. WUNDER8AR

    if you bring up nanite cost of a MAX as a comparison, then you shouldn't conveniently ignore that for the slightly higher cost you get a unit that can quickly and easily switch loadouts depending on whatever you want or is needed, contrary to an ESF and contrary to any other vehicle in the game. Also, and again contrary to an ESF, you can shoot through one way shields from an invincibility room, with a potentially unlimited amount of repair monkeys keeping you alive mid combat in case you have to step outside for a change + medics bringing you back to life if you manage to fail. MAXs are also not nearly as exposed as aircraft. They're ground units ffs, they're small, they can take great advantage of cover and typically have a meatshield of teammates around them. Where as ESFs are delicate, difficult to control aircraft that can be spotted and shot at from anywhere within a 1000m radius at almost any given time.
    • Up x 1
  8. orangejedi829

    While all true, none of this matters if all I really want is a viable ESF/air counter.
  9. Hatesphere

    an ESF can equip two full weapons systems to allow it to deal with pretty much any target in the game with decent efficiency. the max has to settle for two half infantry weapons that can be swapped out (yes with much better ammo reserve). maxes very rarly run say one anti infantry arm and one anti air arm since its mostly useless. sure the max can swap weapons, but the ESF (and liberator to an extent) is the one vehicle in the game who has a jack of all trades load out that is very effective. it also has more health then a standard un-certed max (the ESF) exposure I will agree with, ESFs can be seen from many more angles and ranges which kind of balances out the fact the ESF has that much HP. so in reality the ESF has similar "effective" hp to a max (its not delicate by any stretch of the imagination, you arent flying a flash), especially considering the ESFs mobility, and that most of them run engineer to bail from battle and land to repair.
  10. CursoryRaptor

    Yup. Might have to tweak that equivalency to account for render range, but all else being equal, a Burster MAX should be more effective considering it costs as much as an MBT. It's one of the reasons I almost never pull MAXes anymore; I can do a lot more damage in my Prowler.
  11. WUNDER8AR

    now that we've compared the weapons, player input and level of difficulty comes into play. compare that (as in how much practice are you going to need to engage enemies with a MAX successfully vs. how much practice you're going to need to fly and engage air and ground successfully).
  12. Hatesphere

    the difficulty in preforming an action should not be the deciding factor its effectiveness, especially the difficulty of a single player preforming that action in a combined arms game. Not that I have a problem with the current ESF vs AA balance (lib is another story, needs some tweaks), its about where it should be. just stating that the max is by far worse off then an ESF in many respects concerning its resource cost. it worse at engaging armor, and air then an ESF, its only really great for killing infantry.
  13. zombielores

    Calling me childish when the last time you responded to the quote insulting my opnion and other well respected members of the community while I/we have done nothing wrong to you, sounds real mature to me.

    I'm going to assume you know how LoS works, he can't see you you can't see him, it's that simple. [Unless he's hidden behind a vehicle shield].

    Your also ignoring that Aircraft travel can travel way way faster, if you simple expect to waltz up to an AA unit or AA nest with the specific intent on [hopefully] killing you then I refer you to the quote in my first response. Which you fail to respond to again.
  14. DameDameNingen

    I have killed two reavers with the inquisitor. They were both under fire at the time.
  15. DashRendar

    Still surprised that the L-PPA is the only remaining vehicle AI weapon in game which hasn't been nerfed away from "hold trigger, gain certs" status. Shame because all that needs to be done is a mag size nerf really. 25 shots of current PPA is more than enough to get in, do what you have to do, and get out. All other V-AI weapons make you choose your shots wisely, burst fire, or god forbid aim.
  16. Hatesphere

    one infantry can kill one infantry in less then half 1.5 second. infantry manage to respond and get to cover just fine, I just cant take this seriously. unless you are extremely organized small arms is no way to shoot down an ESF. if you can get 10 guys to all stop what they are doing and shoot at your aircraft, you likely dont even have ten of your own guys in the hex...
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  17. Jawarisin


    Aside from LoS, let me introduce another concept to you: FOV.

    But I see that you didn't read my post correctly. You're the one who called me childish, so I guess I should turn your post around right? Since it seems you got a hard time reading what I'm saying (see, I'm repeating my previous post!) I'll make it my pleasure to help you.
    ------------------------------------
    Aside from LoS, let me introduce another concept to you: FOV.

    But I see that you didn't read my post correctly. You're the one who called me childish, so I guess I should turn your post around right? Since it seems you got a hard time reading what I'm saying (see, I'm repeating my previous post!) I'll make it my pleasure to help you.
    ------------------------------------
    Aside from LoS, let me introduce another concept to you: FOV.

    But I see that you didn't read my post correctly. You're the one who called me childish, so I guess I should turn your post around right? Since it seems you got a hard time reading what I'm saying (see, I'm repeating my previous post!) I'll make it my pleasure to help you.


    Hopefully, you were able to get a good read of it this time.
  18. Jawarisin


    Yeah sure, if you run with a non-organized group. But if I've managed to make ESF flee with a few infiltrator buddies of mine when we're all carrying snipers (sniping the ESF). I'm sure you can manage with automatics. Now, of course there's the question of competence, but I'll assume a minimum and that those people are listening to orders.
  19. Hatesphere

    Even with an organized group its not easy to get 10 guys to all just shoot at the air, since they usually have another 10 guys to worry about that are shooting at the air that occupies their heads.... small arms are mostly just an annoyance to ESFs, hardly lethal other then the odd time you catch the last hit.
    • Up x 1
  20. Jawarisin


    Well, you just need 1 dumbfire really. A lockon can do too, but unless you don't have a heavy (like... really? what are the odds) Small arms will do the job. Also, you've clearly haven't flown much. Small arms are EXTREMELY annoying. Because everybody is infantry. There can easily be 50+ players below you that could all potentially shoot you. Imagine if, those that aren't on the front line, all decided to look up and shoot. You'd die nearly instantly, and nobody on the front line would even have to wink.
    • Up x 1