Where's The Flak?

Even in good hands dumb fires are unreliable at best against any decent pilot. But whatever continue your crusade I guess, I mean you have already got into the "you dont fly much" argument; so i can already see its gonna be useless to talk to you.

As I said, small arms are annoying, thats all they are. Regardless of how many magical hypothetical situations you try to shoehorn them into.

I've shot down a Reaver with an underbarrel grenade launcher before.

One clip or a little more of a 30 mag Carbine on a hovering ESF can get it smoking (40% HP). 3 mags of any weapon type kills it outright. I've killed quite a few ESFs that disregarded my damage as a threat. This brings us back to a point that was made earlier in the thread. Nobody shoots small arms at ESFs because in their mind it's not enough to make a difference, even though it is. If three guys with good aim concentrate fire on a hovering ESF, it blows up. The only thing that makes small arms against ESF an unreliable tactic is that more people don't do it, so the ESF gets away with only one dude firing at it. Point stands, it's still enough damage for it to leave and forfeit its strafe, AA successful. Imagine if everyone at a base stopped what they were doing and fired their weapon at ESFs trying to make strafe passes. We wouldn't be having this conversation now is what. The only difference between this and that is gameplay, not balance.

so you killed an ESF that decided to ignore you.... and that makes small arms good at anti air how? once any good ESF notices they are taking any decent amount of damage, they go from easy hover target to bat out of hell find a hill and repair. sure you can shoot down some bad pilots with your rifle, or get some people to help you shoot down a good pilot with your rifle, but at that point you can get far less people to just pull actually AA and be far more effective without kneecapping your own team...

Between a surgeon fresh out of school and a surgeon with 15 years of experience... Who do you think knows best?

That's kind of you right now. You got all these numbers or no numbers at all; all theory. But in practice, you've got nothing. You don't win any sport competition with theory.

But you can still try to pretend you know more. Ego is ego, and I've seen it all. Doubt you'll ever admit you're wrong.

why shouldn't the level of difficulty be a deciding factor? I don't get it. it is literally the prime balancing factor in pretty much any decent and somewhat competitive game.

the MAX is arguably the most versatile, the most forgiving and easiest to use force multiplier in the game. that it is worse at engaging armor and air is absolutely not true. again, you're looking at the game in a vacuum. where as in actualitiy all that potential that a weapon/force multiplier carries has to be utilized in the first place. therefore we have learning curves with appropriate skill floors and skill ceilings depending on weapon/weapon platform, which is the very first thing that always has to be considered when looking at balance.

No, ESF who wouldn't decide to ignore would FLY AWAY. That simple. Farming ended. He'll come back and quickly will go away. After 3rd time he's not coming back. It's a waste of his time. I realize this is not an ideal solution for infantry. But all this extreme denying of fighting assets makes majority of players just stall on their skill level and never get better. Besides I have quite some fun aiming for that ESF with my LMG and getting hits. It's good aim practice

I also agree with Wunder8ar. Difficulty level SHOULD be a deciding factor.

All of this matters and such kind of an argument is just for victimizing yourself. You're intentionally denying yourself skill and better gameplay.

Pull ESF. Or LIB. Or Walker sundy. Or that underpowered Skyguard Lightning. Oh, you can't kill it and don't wanna be a deterent? Tell me, how can I in an ESF can counter a good aimed Skyguard? I surely can't kill it.

1 AA max or SG in the area is a dettereant to farmers. 2-3 in an area is Death.. Seems to be working as intended requiring team work in order to prevail. This is a combined arms game after all. If you see someone doing AA.. work WITH them, if they call a target, then start firing. Fire on that target instead of picking another one.. Rely on your brains for once instead of weapon stats.

Again, this has nothing to do with me.
The point is that AA in its current state is little more than a deterrent.
You, in an ESF, don't have much of a chance of killing a skyguard? A tank dedicated to AA? In a light air fighter? Wow.
The problem here is that the skyguard has just as little a chance of killing you, even though it's supposed to be your hard counter. And it's completely dedicated to AA, while ESFs are all-rounders.
Telling me to pull an air unit to counter air just supports the argument that G2A is weak.

G2A is weak and a detterent used solo... in a small group it is deadly. Working as intended. Team game, not everyone is freaking rambo.

Except, of course, you know, ESF pilots.

I'm NOT and ESF pilot, I primarily run lib tailgun, infil, engie, and AA builds. I've found effective ways to combat air and make it not worth their time. Or get them so pissed at me that they die 3-4 times trying to take me out.

Skyknights are stubborn and to a point Dumb.

Neither are impressive. You should see what a Mustang can do, now THAT's impressive.

Jawar... I'm not going to make any accusations. I'd just like you to examine this sentence.

there's well placed ego and missplaced ego. I'm placing my ego where I'm good, not where I suck :3

any action can be made arbitrarily difficult for no apparent reason. so its not a good way to balancing things. if you make an action so hard that only 10% of the population is able to reliably preform it, its it fair that its the most powerful action in the game? you just locked 90% of the population out of preforming on that level for no reason other then to shine a few people egos. air is surprisingly not bound to the same rules as tanks an infantry, who have to specialize to a brutal degree. I'm not looking at the game in a vacuum, but whatever you think.

If 10 people stop whatever they were doing to spray and pray your ESF and kill you in 1.5 seconds, I have two questions:

1) What were you doing stationary and so close that they could actually consistently hit your ESF?
2) What heinous act were you perpetrating to make 10 people hate you so much that they would stop whatever they were doing to focus fire on you?

My BMW will give your Mustang a run for its money, any day of the week. ANY DAY.

Best for me was a Beemer.. granted I hit him with a S1 about a half second before, but the hell I was letting that guy get away.

in general, yes, absolutely. how would you make it more fair than that?

Nobody's being locked out. Everyone's free to do whatever they want to do at any time. Games have challenges because people seek and enjoy challenges. It's really as simple as that. If you're not willing to take on a challenge, you have no right to complain about those who actually did and succeeded. If it's a tough challenge with strong competition, and you're having a hard time keeping up with the rest, you either hang in there, content yourself satisfied with a status quo or you quit trying. Additionally, in PS2 you always have the option of teaming up to build a combined force, which is the actual most powerful action in the game.

air is not bound to the same rules as tanks and infantry because you simply cannot easily compare tanks and infantry with air. period. besides, tanks kill armor, infantry and air all at the same time to great success. it takes practice and experience, sure. flying doesn't? oh and infantry having to specialise to a brutal degree? ...my a$$