BRING BACK THERMALS!

a bit of esf history:
-mouse aim nerf (at ps4 releaz), aka negative acceleration, all what player so much love.
-afterburner nerf (a long time ago), 2nd equipment condamn you to easy target air truck driving.
-canon nerf vs infantery, 30 bullets to kill a guy.
-thermal nerf, funny when infantery appear at 100 meter (and not 300 cause of render distance lag) when they saw you at 1000 meter..

a really fast resume of how devs are awesome, i forgot some minors things like weapon aoe nerf or others stupid decisions since begining like 1shot kill by lib or tank, i just wait to see the next crazy stupid nerf they will do to keep pressure on poor esf players
esf/plane are op by definition, if ppl are targeted they need to cover their *** by flake 100% of time and they wont have any farm pb.
the airgamer is just become a nightmare for esf, i loved this so much and hate it so much now, devs mission acomplished, i didn't touch ps2 for months just looking sometimes forum and updates to see changes.

so...it did, what else is balance?

Impossible.
You fail to see even such an obvious thing, then there's no point to this discussion.

MAYBE adverb
1.
perhaps; possibly:
Maybe I'll go too.
noun
2.
a possibility or uncertainty.

So you are saying people that are ok at this game can do ok in a role they are un-accustomed to? REALLY? Tell me more Mr Science. It's funny you talk of KD and flying like that matters whatsoever. SPM/SPH is all that matters. KD is for spergs.

Wrong, see my last post not repeating myself. tldr Lock ons and flak ****ters are literally EVERYWHERE.

It's likely i'm just a lot better than you at this game. When you get good you will realize that others just need to do the same or get farmed. It's evolution baby.

Can't even...lol. All I can say is I have no problem shooting down troublesome aircraft when they are being truly annoying. See above.

Bad development isn't a good reason to stop supporting something finacially? Did you pre-order No Man's Sky too? srsly

My point is if a knife is capable of getting more kills faster than rocket pods whats the problem with pods? I've already established I don't care about my K/D, perhaps you do, and it's likely dog**** anyway so why? If your primary argument is that pilots never die just realize that even though they don't die, flying back to a friendly hex, landing, repairing, and flying back takes roughly the same time or longer than a Mans to respawn.

Lastly, my main characters name is PigCop on Emerald, look me up. I barely fly for the record. I mostly head-shot inf with a Sas-R, and when I do the enemy usually has no time to react or fight back. Balanced? You decide.

Previous situation: Aircraft have powerful weapons and AA is inadequate because its designed to deter. Deterrent weapons can be massed to keep aircraft from participating in the battle, but this isnt too easy because most G2A weapon systems are not multi-role or even adequate when a single one is pulled.
New situation: same as above, but one single G2A weapon that can be mounted on most vehicles, sacrificing a lot less than with for instance a Skyguard, is now more powerful, making it easier to lock down an area.

Neither situation is balanced. Good game design wouldnt under any circumstance make it impossible for aircraft to function, nor for vehicles to function, nor for infantry.

Heres the funny thing. While I explain myself, you dont even bother to explain your "obvious" thing. Also consider that the ONLY gripe you had in the previous post was that infantry wouldnt have any buildings for cover at all, which I pointed out was bullcrap since I didnt propose to remove the buildings but the walls that segregate infantry and vehicles.

In other words, you are full of it, I caught you on that and you are trying to wave it off by some Shady "but its obvious and I cant bother to explain it". Boo hoo, poor sap of a man, cant even explain his "obvious" reasons, and actually thinks that saying that gets him off the hook.

Huh. Good on you. I don't think much of K/D either, and I only mentioned it because most of the time K/D seems to be the only thing people respect. I like SPM as a metric too and, if it matters, I tend to average around 300-350 primarily playing medic just behind the front lines, keeping my team alive and healed and occasionally shooting mans when I've got nothing better to do.

Since it's a purely subjective thing, we'll have to agree to disagree. My experience has been completely the opposite of yours, so maybe it's a server / faction thing.

Quite possibly you are. It would be pretty ******* surprising if you were worse. I certainly make no claims to being a skill-lord. That said... "git gud" is the dumbest ******* argument on the face of the earth.

1) Like many, many things, skill is most likely distributed along your traditional bell-curve. We CAN'T all be MLG-leet-pros.
2) If the game appealed to and rewarded only the MLG-leet-pros, it would be a dead game a long time ago.
3) DBG is a business. They need money. Money comes from people. Most people are average. If average people's game experience is bad, they go away. Then the money stops. Then the company goes bankrupt. You follow?

Once again, we'll have to agree to disagree. My experience of watching people try is clearly the complete opposite of yours. Personally, I rarely bother any more, given how ineffective most G2A is.

Bad development is only your opinion. Which of course, you are perfectly entitled to. But I think it was a good change for me personally, and for the game as a whole. Does that make it good development?

Secondly, how does a single change completely invalidate an entire game? If it was so bad that it destroyed it, why are you still hanging around? And if you are still playing, then clearly it 1) wasn't that bad, and 2) you clearly still enjoy the game enough to play it, so why don't the devs deserve support?

And yet, miss that shot and there's a decent chance you're going down. Or maybe you die to the medic standing next to the dude (who I admit, you probably shot first), who then rezzes him. Or hell, even to a random grenade that you didn't spot because you were HS'ing like a maniac, racking up kill after kill after kill.

The difference is that they have a chance. Even if it's only as a group. It feels different. And because Planetside 2 is a game, that people play for enjoyment, "teh feelz" is important, whether it's logical or not, reasonable or not etc. In general, getting lolspammed to death, by a vehicle you couldn't counter, that you couldn't even predict was going to be there because of it's mobility etc. etc. leaves you feeling frustrated, powerless etc. and that leads to a poor game experience.

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In summary :
1) I have no problem that air vehicles exist. This is Planetside 2 and they bloody well should. It's a combined arms game and they were in PS1, so they should be in PS2 (even if I still think the Liberator should be a proper bomber, not an aerobatic flying tank with nearly 360* spinney turrets).
2) I have no problem that air vehicles can kill infantry. Even bunches of them. Especially when they do stupid ****, or don't bother trying to persuade the air vehicle to sod off.
3) I have no problem with the fact that some people really enjoy the air gameplay and don't want to do anything else. I think they're massively limiting their own experience, but it's their choice.
4) I DO have a problem with infantry/ground being substantially less able to kill air than air has killing ground, even with equivalent nanite and cert and skill investments. Especially since the VAST majority of the game only rewards kills, nothing else. And don't give me "deterrence ribbons". That's a half-***** slap-in-the-face consolation prize at best.
5) I DO have a problem with the majority of G2A being locked behind (fairly substantial) cert-walls leaving most new players effectively unable to engage air.
6) And I DO have a problem with the G2A game being boring and unfulfilling.

The reasons for 1), 2) and 3) are obvious. The reasons for 4), 5) and 6) arise from one singular idea - I love Planetside, and I want it to survive as long as possible. Pilots are a massively smaller proportion of the playerbase than pure-infantry - and again, I think those that only do one thing are just limiting themselves. But the simple fact remains that people don't change, and the game can. I'd like to be in a situation where there are happy pilots and happy infantry. But I can't. I don't make game decisions. So if I have to make a choice between unhappy pilots and unhappy infantry, sorry pilots.... here's the lube and I'll try to be gentle.

It's late. I'm tired. Seeing how this thread has continued annoys me.

Just remember, when you run around saying "NERF AIR NERF AIR, THERMALS OP" you don't just take them from ESFs and Libs. You take them off Valks and Gals too. Which makes us less survivable.

When you start railing on about how you must have better G2A, that makes your team's platforms less durable as well.

So, remember that time when:

An ISR Valk spotted that hidden armor platoon fixing to flank your tanks, and gave you direction and range?

that one crazy Valk pilot put all five people on that tech plant balcony, letting you hack the terminals and pull sundies straight into the vehicle bay...

that other crazy Valk takes your C4 squad in perfectly under a skyshield and lets you blow out half the bases modules before the AI turrets can react.....

When you get caught flat footed and yell "OMG GAL DROP" and then a Valkyrie appears and does a tail ram that sends a full galaxy cartwheeling into the ground, instigating a 2 to 1 cert trade in your teams favor, or higher if they had maxes?

When you stuck your hands in your pockets and said "Damn, that sundy in the gulch is unreachable, we need to wait until the lib gets here" and that Valk Engineer does a smokey superman landing on it and dumps his tank mines?

And when I, without warning appear to reak unholy Vengeance upon an enemy max crash and lawn mower all 6 of their little toy robots and their engineer buddies* that were spamming your sundy column with AV rockets, in one pass, then rolled over and tagged their medic for giggles?


So. When you get stuck in a rut of "OMG I CANT DO ANYTHING WITH G2A". Just remember all of those times. And remember that the pilot has final say on whether its too hot to get you closer. If you like getting point drops, and you enjoy being lazy and saying 'HEY WAIT I DIDN"T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO GET OUT OMG JERK DO ANOTHER PASS" when I'm yelling "DROP DROP DROP" and getting your courtesy extra second hang-time, then stop with the whole "OMG SUPER BUFF ALL G2A".

Seriously. Its like one thread a week with yall.

But maybe you don't care for those times. Maybe you prefer to walk and drive everywhere. I'm sure your dedication to PS2: The Walking Simulation is a great consolation to your team when you're getting zerged on multiple lattices and you need to QRF.

You should be happy. They finally buffed your Ranger. Give the Ranger a chance, it seems like a good boost.

As to thermals: I would very much appreciate it if I could have back one of the few advantages my wimpy turret gunner has. The new thermals are crap, so now I'm having to shell out 150-500 certs to switch to 1.75 or 2x zooms.





Now. Ladies and Gentlemen. Please rise for the Valkyrie Anthem***:






Oh. And one more thing:

IF YOU'RE EXPECTING TO CONTROL ANY AIRSPACE WITH A SINGLE LOCK-ON OR AMATEUR SKYGUARD, YOU HAVE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF COMBAT, PERIOD.

I just had someone posit that to me this week. Thought I'd clear the air on that.

Also, as skyguard, if you're having trouble with tracking air targets, switch to the nightvision optic. It has no day/night differentiation, so it will always give you a black silhouette with brightly lit air targets.


*This actually did occur, at the Crown, on Inderp, on the Crown side of the Rock Bridge. Using stealth airframe I dodged around TI Alloys and surprised an AV max party that was raining down from the arch.

**As an aside, I would advise you all to cease using the R3 Swarm launcher against Valkyries. It is functionally useless against any low altitude capable air platform, as the missiles will track into the ground at 5m, driving their hit rate down to a rough guess of 1 in 20. And now that Valks can run FS, you're basically tickling me. Either use the big boy launchers or strikers, or don't expect much.

***Yes, I am well aware that the movie Starship Troopers is crap, and that the book is 40x better. But, interestingly, the entirety of Planetside 2 can be set to the music of Basil Poledouris. The Theme from Robocop, for example, works for maxes. The actual day to day operational music of the Valkyrie that I use, is variations on this:

Why not give thermals to infantry? That way everyone gets to see the enemy.

thermals should be reinstated, or at the very least refund our certs (or better yet, just implement a feature to let players sell their optics so they can buy a new one)

What's really infuriating is how you guys completely broke thermals but left fire suppression in the game. fire suppression is the cheesiest thing you can possibly put on an ESF, 100 times cheesier than tomcat a2am. Its abused by almost every pilot in the game to give themselves "god mode on demand" with a burst of HP with a single keystroke whenever they need it. Fire suppression is not used the way it was intended to be: to put out fires. Fire suppression should either be removed altogether or refactored so that it only puts out fires. Thermals need to be brought back or an option to sell optics for a cert refund can be added so that players who lost all reason to own "threat detection" after the thermal nerf removal can at least get a different optic that actually serves a purpose unlike threat detection which is totally useless and nobody likes

They made thermals highlight only vehicles. If you plan to play AI ESF remove your lolpods and take hornets and shoot sunderers. Profit.

So, what is a decent SPM? For a couple years on my TR I hung around 250 but looking back I found an older BR 77 that had 120 SPM. I see some people who have SPM of 400 and some that have SPM of 50. So what are we shooting for if we want to participate in this minigame?

It's fine the way it is, all the salty bee-hootches are annoyed that they can't pown the guy in camo hiding in the bushes anymore. Camo is finally worth something now. The only exception to this would be maxes, those should light up with threat detection.

Why Maxes and not HAs? Both are an equal theat to ESFs, HAs arguably more so because two can insta-kill you while Maxes can't.

I'm all for camo, but there needs to be a tradeoff. In Arma you can wear a ghillie suit to block thermals and bland in almost perfectly with the surrounding, but it weighs a lot more than fatigues so it cuts down on other gear you can realistically bring. Now in Planetside, aircraft are just SOL fighting at night, especially against VS. I really like the proposal on here to offer a thermal-blocking suit, for players who just can't seem to grasp the concept of cover. 1/3 of the game has basically been removed with this patch. It's just not right, which isn't implying it was right before. The whole game is a balance nightmare.

To reiterate what the poster above me said, the most damning thing about the change is that it's virtually impossible to do AI in an ESF at night now, and nightvision doesn't help at all because there's no contrast.

This is the reason thermals were invented in the first place, and put in the game in the first place.

So glad air (and vehicles in general) is being "balanced" by plebs who never fly and likely barely play the game.

Do DB devs play the game, and are any of them any good? Looking for proof.

Pretty scary when you've got a bandana-wielding infantry Pr0 being the sole informer on balance decisions

Did you even read the patch notes they nerfed hornet aswell

anyone carrying somthing that can harm a esf is a treat so mexes and lockon guys dumbfire missiles one shot, but yeah that would be alot of work for devs and they ar too busy thinking who they can **** over next i hop its somthing like inf weapons do 50%less dmg cos devs want longer firefights

Right now AA is like a Chihuahua. Its annoying and only really dangerous in packs. I think some people are confusing annoying with dangerous. If aa was dangerous on a per unit basis then yes they should glow like the sun. Until they are tho they are basically the bottom of the food chain.

A high flying plane is not under any type of ground threat outside of lockon range. Even the pathetic base aa turrets were nerfed because they were annoying planes trying to rearm/repair at bases outside their hexes. That I wholeheartedly agree with. However they should be more dangerous in exchange but..... its planetside nothing has to make any sense.

AA range needs to be seriously reduced. For one bad aa users scare off pilot too early and secondly planes should have some peace at times. But to a point everyone in a base is trying to shoot the next base over tanks are always being shot at. And I know for a fact that if rocket pods went 1k pilots would hug their towers for cover and spam breakers all over the next hex.

At a reduced range AA has to be seriously punishing to any air that enters its sphere of operation. And did I mention I hate using and being targeted by lockons but they are ALL they gave infantry to use. Target painter types would be interesting where you have to maintain a bead after firing.

All that being said when AA is a credible threat to an actively evading plane not a lol-podder, with the same ttk per unit as a plane has against its would be counter then bring back thermals and let the mutual farm begin. Lockon launcher are not fun to use ot be shot with in a plane or on the ground. If your over a base thats from another empire thats the beware of dog sign. And the pack of Chihuahuas are sleeping till they get lolpodded too much.

Funniest thing ive seen in a while is a scyth fling in circles as my slow moving swarm rockets ran out of fuel. I had like 7 in flight and I think he was trolling me, wish I took note of his name. He did get shotdown, but not to my swarm of missiles but to a 3 man mossy ganksquad. Mr scythe pilot I salute you!

Does it make it be removed from the game? No, its still here. If you love lolpods so keep using them to shoot vehicles not poor humans.

Mmmhem. Yea think I'll just do more AI ESFs. Just to make AI cryers more salty.

Good luck

Vehicles should have excellent thermal sights. I mean this is the 29th century... TISs that are this poor would be more at home in the 1960s.

For example, this is what an M1 tank sees.



In some ways, infantry are even more clear than vehicles. Vehicles are made of metal and thus can be cool... whereas it is much more difficult to hide the thermal signature of infantry. Those numbers at the bottom, by the way, show that this image was captured at a range of 1,380m... whereas PS2's extremely poor "threat detection optics" end at 350-500m against vehicles.



Not to mention that PS2 TISs were limited to 1x... a 21st century tank would have up to 50x zoom for thermal imaging sights!

PS2 should have fearsome vehicles that are really at home in the 29th century, not these sorry excuses of emasculated cardboard wrecks that pass for tanks in the game.