A History of AA

Dunno, the walls contain the AA nicely, making a low altitude escape very easy. Just make sure you don't fly over tanks and you're golden.

Granted. I did omit that time, though from laziness and forgetfulness rather than purpose. As for digging through the patch notes, ain't nobody got time for that.

I miss dropping my squads of maxes, noise Marines... I miss flying my lib in a squad, pushing the envelope to see how long I could stay and support the units on the ground. I even miss you my friend.

No self respecting pilot makes such a target of themselves as to hover stationary. I respect where you're coming from, AA is unrewarding and dull. But we've already done the skyguard that can kill everything. You have superior range and concealment to use, and you certainly aren't ignored by pilots. If you're finding your damage lackluster, consider that you might be hitting with your flak alone without any direct hits. Also when playing AA, realize you are a soft counter, not a hard one. Libs can and will fly wild weasel, it's your job to out think them.

The problem with your suggestion is largely one of scaling. Ground scales far faster and far better than air. Believe it or not, we've seen your suggestion before.

Keyword "supposed" Against Libs or Galaxies AP cannon does a better job. Against an ESF, current Striker with Flak5 can do a better job at deterring a good pilot that is using the cover of mountains (as long as he can resupply ammo)

Believe it or not skyguards do an amazing job actually. They're not great at killing, but three good skyguards (keyword good) can deny airspace indefinitely.

You're a zealot my friend. You're looking for a way for a single ground unit to be able to instagib air. Problem being ground scales far, far better. Close range skill based aa? Get you a dual walker sundy.

Also, you're looking for fairness, not balance. Important distinction. Fairness is subjective.

Is it fair right now? No. But it is about as balanced as we can reasonably expect.

Since Beta. It did, and you can ask just about anyone who's played as long as I have.

He calls it history lesson yet he avoids large gaps in said story. Like the people who did AA in self defense against ESF who flew in circles around spawn rooms raining lolpods on anything that dared to walk out. Sure OP will likely ignore this primarily because I'm calling out his ********.

But someday we will all look back to this and say: ESFs aren't the victims here

Wow. Hella agressive there. Angry at something bucko?

I've already acknowledged some of the gaps, including the period you're probably referring to.

Nor is this a "oh poor esf/air" thread. I'm not an esf pilot either.

You are a moron, my enemy, because I just stated that I did not want a single ground unit to instagib air. I just said that they needed the power to kill one... after removing/reducing the skill-reducing mechanics that guarantee a hit. Skill should determine if you get a hit and a kill, skill should determine if the aircraft can dodge the shot.

Besides that you are a filthy hypocrite. Aircraft can destroy most vehicles without those vehicles ever being able to protect themselves. I give you a change to G2A that would still allow aircraft to survive but based on skill vs skill, yet the status quo of how aircraft can destroy vehicles is somehow OK but my change which gives aircraft way more leeway is somehow not OK.

Swearwords added just to illustrate the point.

I'm looking for balance, not fairness, and what I describe is balance while you are holding on to fairness for dear life because it subjectively gives you something you want (although how this botched system can be anything that anyone wants is something beyond anyone). And it's as far away as balanced as anyone can expect. The current system isn't reasonable, not for aircraft, not for the G2A weapons. Look at any other game, I'm sure you can find several that have skillful AA that does not instantly break aircraft or the other way around aircraft that does not instantly break ground.

As for me being a zealot, nope I'm just advocating a change that would instantly give the entire game a massive boost to how much you can enjoy it. The fact that there's people like you in the way that don't give any arguments and just say "Well it's good as it is" without any support for those claims is what's the problem here.

Correct.

Right at the end of the Beta testing and in the first few weeks after the general release of Planetside 2.

Towards the end of the Beta all Flak was nerfed heavily. That's when the skies were thick with ESF's and people regularly collided with friendlies in the stampede to farm the smaller spawn points.The Striker didn't appear in the game until GU06.

When the game released all characters were wiped so we all had to start again. Anyone that was willing to do AA duty had to do so with a single Burster arm. The game was a complete mess to start with.

You are deliberately ignoring the fact that shorter range, higher damage more skill base AA will not scale well. It will also not affect A2A esf who are usually much higher in the sky.

According to your logic, 3 good skyguards will deny airspace. Denied airspace means that tanks will sit and do nothing but farm. Thus, deducing from the above 2 facts, any armor zerg that have 3 good skyguard will be able to sit and farm all day... Which is not happening.

The reason can only be one of below:
1) Armor zergs actually like a good fight and don't want to farm (hahahha)
2) The armor zerg cannot find 3 good players willing to pull skyguard
3) 3 good skyguard is actually not enough to deny air
4) Air is not essential to destroy an armor zerg

If 3 or 4, then you are totally wrong.

The reader can exercise his/her judgement and decide which.

Very true.

When I used to play MechWarrior Living Legends (Crysis mod), going in an Aerospace Fighter was interesting. You had free movement at 300-500kph over the battlefield. You also were the target of EVERYTHING. Everything that had 800m/s+ Gauss Rifles and hitscan Lasers. As well as 1000-1200m radar that would detect you on approach. You had to find ways to mitigate these things.

Yet people still complained about air in their 'mech-game'. Well the MechWarrior franchise never had aircraft before. I mean MW2 and MW4 had them, but it was one mgun shot to knock them down. Not 85 ton Omnifighter Shivas with 11.5 tons of ferro-aluminum armor. So for many it was a shock to fight something as heavily armored and armed as their mechs.

Even at high speeds (the slowest still faster than a RC3 Mossie in PS2). Air was still quite vulnerable to attack due to not being able to hide. Same thing in PS2. Now ESFs can hover behind something. They really can. As long as its TALL and WIDE. If not, flak will still hit. I've done this many a time when a ESF flies low behind a wall. I just fire my bursters or skyguard over the top of the wall and the stuff explodes, causing damage.

So I emphasize with pilots who do say "if you think its easy to dodge, get up there and fly." Grab Coyotes and take them up on their word. I don't emphasize with pilots who think they should have free kills with that statement. And I relish the thought that they can be engaged somewhat by not so experience pilots now.

I'm a fair person and not a hypocrite after all.

I think AA is fine. I believe many people are just unsatisfied not getting kills when they successfully drive air away. People need to realize that if you cause an ESF to have to retreat, you have done your job, because any time spent retreating is time not spent shooting at you and your allies.

Then maybe the ESF's job can be to cause ground forces to retreat, instead of killing them?

Reduce ESF A2G weapon DPS by 80%. They should only be able to lightly damage infantry and ground vehicles while those units slowly withdraw. This seems like a totally fun way for pilots to play the game, right?

I mean I know they'd have a blast doing light damage to units and only rarely getting a kill (I guess if an infantryman was AFK or didn't saunter off the battlefield quickly enough)!

If ESFs and other air units are fine with being a deterrent and not a killer, then they would not be hypocritical in demanding that AA is also a deterrent and not a killer.

But if air wants to kill ground but does not want to be killed by an equal number of ground, that just reeks of hypocrisy and imbalance.

ESFs do exactly the job you just laid out. You can't run across an open field with a patrolling ESF around and are forced to stay inside buildings, or search for an equipment terminal to pull some AA. Keep in mind that ESF invested 350 Nanites to pull a vehicle that can die in 2 Ground Lock on shots (a few bullets after during the fire secures the kill). When I pilot an ESF there are many times when I get to a fight unnoticed and unload with Rocket pods into a crowd netting a few kills, then am noticed and have to immediately boost away to safety. Then there are other times when approaching a battle in an ESF and I am noticed as I'm coming in for a pass, and get shot down by a burster MAX or other deterrent.

There is a reason you get partial points just for shooting at air units without killing them and not the other way around.

But on the other hand, ESFs can get plenty of kills. The highest scoring players in the game are rocketpodders. AI noseguns still have very short TTKs.

Sure infantry will be cowering inside, but that's after they have been killed. Which is hardly like the current Skyguard. A more analogous situation would be that an ESF gets quickly killed simply for flying in a hex with a Skyguard in it, and upon respawning decides to go fly in a different hex.

Why is it wrong to ask that ESFs die just like the ground units they target?

Highest scoring players in the game don't often play ESFs. ESFs don't rake in nearly as much points as infantry can, sure they can get higher KDR, but you can establish an alt and just be good.

Also ESFs do die, they are JUST durable enough to avoid dying. A skyguard from 400 meters can bring a ESF to a 1/3 before they even react if the skyguard has good aim, having to be aware of every single new angle and even lightings coming into render distance of 400 meters is unreasonable and unfair for newer pilots to expect that level of awareness just to fly effectively. ESFs can't even see infantry until they're within 300 meters not without counting render time, infantry can fire enough rockets to devastate aircraft in the form of av nests, which the range of lockons is 500 meters (or 600, can't remember precise details) which means ESFs can do nothing to an alpha strike of 3 or more lockons except immediately take evasive maneuvers.

No one is saying its wrong, but its redundant. Its like saying the sky should be blue, when it already is.

ESFs die like tanks do. For many of the same reasons. They overextend, they die. If they sit still they die. If they come in contact with a large force, they die. When I sneeze, they die.. well a little quicker than tanks do in that regard.