[Suggestion] Can we please get an in-game flying tutorial for ESFs and make it easier for new pilots to A2A ESF?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by UberNoob1337101, Jul 20, 2016.

  1. UberNoob1337101

    Let's be honest here, getting into the ESF air game as an A2A fighter is effectively impossible in-game unless you watch a basic ESF tutorial outside of the game or ask some of your local pilots to help you.


    So basically, unless you go outside of the game to learn about a part of the game that you'll end up practicing for hours to change some keybinds and learn some eldritch maneuvers for a vehicle that you end up rarely using, or asking (arguably) the most toxic part of the community to help you learn and if you don't obey their rules, you're out of their pilot training outfit.

    So basically, unless you're a fanatic and really, REALLY want to learn the PS2 air game, it's way more trouble than it's worth. All info is either not in the game or you'll have to consult the air pilots (which have their own set of problems and I won't talk about it), and end up practicing maneuvers for hours just to stand a chance against pro pilots.


    It's not a very inviting place, and even with the update giving everyone free awareness and a strong, easy to use weapon, it still doesn't make people good at flying. They're still where they are, and they'll rarely stand a chance against better pilots, because as said before, learning the A2A game is effectively impossible unless you're a zealot and it's often more trouble than it's worth.


    It doesn't have to be that way, though.


    And it's pretty easy to solve, too. If DBG at least bothered to write how to do these maneuvers (like, what should I change the keybindings for, or how can I do reverse maneuver), or hell, put ESF tutorial videos along with the text straight into the game that's easily accessible via an in-game manual (that could potentially contain helpful stuff for both infantry and vehicle drivers too).
    That way, maybe more people will get into the air game and more will get good with it, meaning that we'll get more pilots that have fun (and probably a better air community).


    Secondly, put more layers of skill into the ESF air game. By that, I mean add new maneuvers, some will be easy to use, reliable and generally effective, but are less effective (in comparison to other, higher skill maneuvers), but also add very high skill, very situational but very potent maneuvers.
    There are currently only two types of players by quality, and those are the guys who know only the most basic stuff (like rushing), and the pro pilots (that have mastered all of the fancy maneuvering stuff like reverse maneuvering and hover dueling). Now, we'll see brand new pilots, OK pilots, scrubs, good pilots, try hards, pro pilots and flying MLGesuses. It'll be much easier to advance the skill ladder, but old pilots will also be compelled to learn the top tier stuff.

    As for the last, some random balancing stuff for lols.

    1) A CoF buff for the high-mag noseguns. Currently, despite the damage buff at range, they're inferior to starters because the starters are twice as accurate (0.1 CoF > 0.2 CoF, math). It doesn't matter how hard you hit if your noseguns miss more often. Also, PLEASE change the crosshair for high-mag noseguns. The dot that's on the starter noseguns is so much better for range.

    2) More stuff for more play-style options, for example, a high-altitude frame that gives you benefits all-around if you're high up, or a low-altitude frame that does the same if you're close to the ground. Or a frame that gives you benefits if you're in hover mode. Or ES defense slots like automated tail guns for TR that automatically shoot your enemies, or a warp device for Scythes that basically replaces your afterburner for a teleportation device that teleports you depending in what direction you're moving. Kind of asking this just to give more options for loadouts and mix it up.

    3) Make reload speed certs for weapons more viable for weapons that have the option to get ext. mags instead. This goes for all vehicles, but whenever there's a choice for either ext. mags or reload speed, ext. mags are superior in every case.

    4) Move ejection seat somewhere else instead of Utility slot and make Fire Suppression less of a excellent at everything slot. Ejection is very weak, over-priced and not worth it, and moving it someplace else would be great. Fire suppression dances laps around Flares because it's better in every scenario that doesn't involve lock-ons, in which flares have a slight edge.

    Thanks for reading.
  2. Eranorz

    I have long advocated for flight tutorials in the game, in a previous post from a week or so ago I outlined how and why it would be a good idea.

    I actually mentioned it to Wrel, and his reply was that such a thing is a great idea but generally it is a question of resources.
  3. Daigons

    It would be a giant step in the right direction if they would add another VR dedicated area where there are AI controlled flying/ground vehicles so we can properly learn flying & attacking skills.
  4. Taemien

    I'm going to ask this question, and I want an honest answer:

    Which dev can actually fly a damn ESF well enough to make a tutorial about it?

    Let that sink in for a minute.
  5. Eranorz

    Yeah good question :D

    They would surely have to bring in some top pilots as consultants for such a project
  6. Insignus

    The maneuvers that are there are dictated by the airframe's flight model (I.E., what the craft can actually physically do).

    Adding more maneuvers would involve changing that, which I'm not sure there is much opportunity to do. As I see it, one of the principle differences between PS2 and other games that have flight components is that the air model is designed to be simplistic - one of the ways it achieves this is by automating huge portions of the aircrafts function. This makes all of the aircraft easier to fly by comparison to actual flight simulators, but also limits their capabilities.

    The principle limitations dictated by the flight model are the following:

    1) Aircraft in PS2 are nigh impossible to stall. While this makes them dramatically easier to fly, it also limits ones ability to use stall or aero-brake manuevers (Using the aerodynamics to reduce or increase speed) in combat).

    Example: The flight model allows me to do kick-turns(Pitching up 90 degrees and rolling to reverse direction into level flight) instead of stall turns. While useful, because the engines are always on, they point downwards when I reach max AoA, meaning the aircraft hangs dead still while I actually reverse, allowing AA to track me through the turn. With stalling, the aircraft would slide left or right, reducing the hang time and allowing me to apply rudder and pitch to basically return on the exact trajectory as before.

    2) Joystick support is minimalistic - While many pilots prefer M&K, there are manuevers you cannot do with M&K that you can with joysticks. The principal advantage of joysticks - easy to use buttons, throttles, etc, are negated because PS2 simply doesn't support them.


    3) Throttling itself is imprecise, and requires a lot of practice - which is counter-intuitive against real flight (Which gives you throttle presets and a control) and most other simulated flight models (Which generally rely on sliders or presets).

    This means that throttle dependent maneuvers are more challenging, because the throttle is dependent on W and S, and this gives it a certain imprecision that requires memorizing how long to press W or S to increase throttle (The lack of throttle indications in the HUD does not help)

    4) No engine cut-out. In other games that lack stalling or complex aerodynamics (Such as space games, which generally have no aero or gravity simulation), one viable method of giving pilots more control is letting people cut-throttle to "Cut-and-flip" by zeroing the throttle and pitching up or down to reverse positions.

    In PS2, zeroing the throttle engages VTOL mode, which applies up thrust and changes the control dynamics to hover mode. Up-thrust manuevers themselves can be interesting and are often very important, but no-thrust manuevers could be interesting as well. While you can effectively zero your forward speed doing this, to accelerate you have to wait for the engines to cycle, which often defeats the point of the manuever - quickly changing directions or going in an unexpected direction.

    Adding a control that cuts engines without switching to VTOL would be an interesting possiblity for the flight model in PS2.

    5) Aircraft in PS2 are inherently VTOL - more closely resembling helicopters. This isn't a knock - indeed its often a plus - but it is a condition that many new pilots fail to register.

    As an unrelated note: Fire suppression encourages recklessness and rewards over-commitment - It is over-powered, and provides people saving throws where they objectively should have failed by virtue of pilot error, which in turn denies rewards to pilots who handled a situation properly, but do not themselves have an equal or higher level of fire suppression. Its power is such that many pilots do not even consider mounting other utilities. It should be changed to a item that simply halts fires. It also distorts the usage of other, legitimate utilities, such as flares, which is, honestly, the major reason that many pilots whine constantly about lock-ons ruining things for them - because they don't like being forced to use flares and thus negate an advantage, so they instead run on forumside and rail about how OP lock-ons supposedly are, which causes ground pounders to demand more AA buffs, which causes pilots to become even more protective of fire suppression, which causes ground pounders to want more high-alpha G2A weapons (I.E. More lockons), and the cycle continues.
  7. Taemien


    It is an honest question. And it might bring some real insight. I mean seriously is there devs that know the flight characteristics of the ESF well enough to not only make a tutorial, but also able to balance around it?

    I know devs in many games are FAR from being experts at the game. They're coding, not playing mostly. And not many will want to bring their work home with them. I get that. I even understand and emphasize with it.

    But how many actually understand the flight methods with the ESF? Do they understand it at a basic competitive level.

    I personally think the flight model with the buggy maneuvers is actually too complex for an actual tutorial. The maneuvers we need a tutorial for are NOT intuitively coded in to be performed. They are a consequence of the flight model, but not part of it. And to my knowledge they've never integrated it into the actual model itself. They just never fixed it to change the conditions.

    We're also one flight physics patch from the flight characteristics changing drastically. Because they didn't put those maneuvers in. If they change the physics where the characteristics are changed or even removed entirely, those maneuvers go out the door never to return. Even if they try to put them back in, they would never act the same way.

    To put it shortly, I doubt there is a section in the code saying //This makes the reverse maneuver happen, //This makes the hover 180 maneuver (or whatever that one is called), and so forth.

    And since that doesn't exist. Do the devs know the characteristics intuitively (by the controls) if not logically (in the code) enough to be able to express how to do it, or how to recreate it if a later patch breaks it?

    And if we're just going to have players do it.. that's already done. Youtube search: Planetside 2 How to fly ESF. It pops up. Go ahead.. check out the videos. Now come back and tell me which dev can do better.
  8. Newlife1025

    I learned to fly after playing war thunder. It was pretty hard, and I haven't mastered it yet but it's not as bad
  9. chuck105

    Do they need a sniping tutorial too? Maybe you have to fly drifter jets through hoops, medkit tank while being shot, park sundies in "Science" locations...

    Point is, while they could add some basic explanation of hover mode, how to enter it, exit it... Why one would want to enter hover mode during dogfights, how to do many of the various maneuvers, that will similar are not simple, as clearly the air game is "Too Hard!," is beyond the scope of an in game tutorial.

    Plenty of people watch youtube videos to learn the basics, I don't see why dev time needs to be spent on something that could be better taught by actual players.

    Sure, perhaps the skill floor is rather high, but anyone who says it's "Too Hard" is too afraid to fail. It's like anything else, it takes practice. Do you think any of the aces started out knowing how to do everything, crushing the competition? No! They got whooped like the rest of us, time and time again. I don't get this concept that the Air game is harder now than it was at the beginning. I barely flew on PC, so when I started on console it was brand new. And people pulled the exact same cheeky reverse and wrecked me, over and over again, until I started to emulate them, so I was only a bit less wrecked by good pilots.

    It's just like sniping. At first, you can't hit a thing. Don't complain, "Sniping is too hard!," recognize that these things are hard because if they were easy, everyone would snipe, and snipers would be op. In most games, there is satisfaction in learning, because games are fun because it's fun to learn, to improve. The fact that you can't jump into an aircraft and immediately score a few kills is no condemnation of the balance of the game or the mechanics, it simply means that flying is a challenge, and a rewarding one.

    I do want more people to fly, if only to reduce the unhealthy level of vitriol that those who don't fly have for pilots. But if it's too much to ask to leave the game to learn the basics, when that's a good way to learn even infantry things like first upgrades, how to choose attachments, recoil patterns, etc, maybe you should forget about trying to improve, since obviously you don't care enough.

    There's nothing wrong with being casual, in fact I do think it is a problem when games cater too heavily to serious vets, who both have experience and time to get really good, but don't think that you should be just as good as someone who's serious just because you want to, then it would be boring. It's cool to have something to aspire too, in some sense, that there might always be someone just a little better, and not feel like the game is more like a lottery than real competition.

    TL;DR Don't mind the vid, but it's a waste. The air game could be streamlined for new players, but not at the cost of dumbing it down.
  10. Eranorz

    Finally, someone who understands these things. Bless you, child
  11. Who Garou

    Practice flying in VR and asks for help from the people in your outfit that know how to fly.
  12. Eternaloptimist

    I enjoyed combat flight simulators some time back but found flying in VR very hard to master the controls for some reason. The thought of being a sitting duck in actual combat and the resource cost of respawning put me off. Plenty of challenges to overcome in infantry combat without the wait for resources to build up so that I can try again when I get it wrong.
  13. Demigan

    The game doesn't need a tutorial, the game needs a flight system with a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling.

    Easiest solution: omniversal afterburner, the direction you go being based on which keys you have currently pressed. Opens up the air-game to the maneuvers people expect to be capable of using and reduces the skill floor, increases the skill ceiling as more maneuvers become available (including reverse-maneuver while going 200 KM/H).

    Win win for everyone.




    Edit:
    As for abilities that change the air-game. If we want things that can rival fire suppression we could add temporary flight boosters. Activate the ability to temporarily increase your maneuverability so you can better track/escape your opponent, or increase your acceleration/deceleration capabilities by a lot so you can stop and accelerate on a dime before your opponent has a chance to react (which is an ability also offered by the omniversal afterburner). Lastly you could add quickly recharging maneuver-abilities, such as an ability to instantly turn around 180 degrees and fire/fly in the other direction or an ability that instantly launches sideways to the left or right.
    Then there's other abilities, such as a temporary rear-facing shield to guard your escape and give you time to put some distance between you and your opponent. Or maybe we could add an ability that instantly replenishes your afterburner fuel since the current afterburner fuel capacity isn't enough to outrun anyone or change the situation of being chased much. Considering the differences between factions, at most one faction can gain 10m distance on their enemy during a complete afterburn/recharge cycle if they have the same afterburner tanks installed. That's not enough to make any difference in any chase.

    As a last idea: VTOL should include sideways strafing runs. Currently that's not really possible since turning is connected to the A and D keys instead of the mouse. The easiest solution would be to allow players to use full mouse-flight where all aiming is done with the mouse. A and D become rolling buttons but if you hold CTRL you change A and D to strafe left or right.
    If that's not possible (and considering the amount of requests for this type of control scheme it has to be impossible or the develops really dropped the ball on this one) it should still be made possible to strafe sideways.
  14. Insignus

    Part of the issue with training is that because ESF costs 350 nanites, and because the skill floor is pretty high, you can get wrecked out and discouraged fairly easy. While you can learn basic controls in VR, live fire is the best place to learn (I learned to fly on Hossin. which instantly gives me +2 stripes on my pilotka, because once you commune with the trees, you learn to become one with the terrain, after which, no tree or mountain can grab your 250 Nanite Kite.)

    I'm almost tempted to suggest a formally organized volunteer instructor program that pairs people up. But that would be a bit much for the devs, I think, because thats a programmatic question, as opposed to a coding or software fix.
    Or we could implement Joystick support.and finally enable HAT switches. I think that's been in the queue for control fixes far quite some time....
  15. Demigan

    Joystick support and HAT switches shouldn't be mandatory to play the game. Also having a Joystick&support won't solve the problem. The big problem in the air-game is that there's far too few viable maneuvers. It all comes down to HF and RM. Just ask pro's, the moment a single flak shot hits them their reaction is "I either stay and die to the flak, or I try to flee and die to the enemy", that's because they know that doing anything at high-speed is a death sentence if you are being chased by another ESF.

    Joystick support and different options for keyboard and mouse settings would be a good start to help players enjoy the air-game, no doubt about that. But it's far from the finishing touch that the air-game needs.
  16. FigM

    As someone with extensive past experience with ESF fighting, my best suggestion to help new players is to add moving destructible targets in the VR Training. Some moving targets should have simple strait back and forth paths. Other targets should have complex (high curvature) paths. And some targets that change direction and acceleration

    This is not too difficult to add and would offer great help
  17. Insignus

    It shouldn't be mandatory, by any stretch, but they are a conduit by which people approach the air-game, and people fly a great deal in other games will often have joysticks. They plug it in for planetside 2, and don't find it being supported, They then get schooled by M&K people because of the lack-luster support, and thus they think "Wow, flight model here must be pretty bad. Don't know if I 'll bother." They may eventually go on to learn M&K, but maybe not. I prefer joystick, but to be honest, I don't think Joystick works terribly well in the ESF air-game.
  18. Demigan

    M&K isn't exactly supported either because they use a completely different setting than any other game. Whoever came with the idea to make A and D turn your plane and give the mouse rolling and looking up/down? At the very least give the "normal" option as an option.
    So both M&K and Joystick users are screwed with the current system. Still, both aren't insurmountable tasks to learn to cope with, what actually is a problem is the lack of viable maneuvers, and the fact that almost every maneuver you would be able to pull off in any other game is basically a death-sentence in PS2.
  19. Insignus

    Indeed. Almost every game that has a flight component that I have ever played uses A/D for roll - mostly because it is universally acknowledged that yaw/rudder is a secondary input, and that most control surfaces on aircraft are dedicated to pitch/roll..... hence, they are generallly located on the primary keyboard keys, W A S D. I suppose they thought it was important because the aircraft are VTOLs, but even most helicopter-centric games still relegate roll to a secondary input, because you get more motion out of rolling to induce a slide to the left or right.

    Reminds me I need to dig up some of the Bohemia interactive games, so I can cringe over over-torque warnings.....

    One of the virtues of using joystick (Old Extreme 3D Pro), is that I can use Joy + keyboard, meaning I have 3 axes on the Joy using the stick twist for yaw, W S for throttle, and A/D for precision rolling, and space/c for up/down. Gives me extra movement.