[Suggestion] Ground Lock-ons vs. Flak Frustration

I'd personally would prefer to see Flak weapons buffed to be a serious threat to Air than have Ground lock-ons be as effective as they are. When I say Flak, I'm referring to Base Turrets, AA-focused Vehicle Guns (Walker is not, it can damage non-air just as effectively too), and Burster MAXes.

Currently it takes 2-3 lock-ons to kill ESFs which is ridiculous IMO because I bet there are a lot more HA with lock-ons out there than just 2-3. The lock-ons don't even cost nanites to use and their damage dealt is devastating. An ESF cost 350 nanites each time its pulled and despite it's speed it extremely easy for infantry to get a target lock out of render range and for the ESF to have no clue what direction the infantry is when this happens. The only conceivable defense outside of flares (which stink mostly) is the Counter Intelligence implant which is a gold implant, so good luck getting that. Meanwhile HA lock-ons cost nothing to pull and honestly have a more noticeable impact to Air than any Flak weapon that exists.

Flak should be stronger than Lock-ons for several reasons, first you actually to to have to aim and lead your shots to hit Air aka SKILL, and also Flak is harder to have an overload factor because either its at a stationary position of a base or you have to pull a nanite-costing unit, whether its a MAX or a vehicle. Lock-ons by comparison, have no nanite cost related to them, can be resupplied with ammo boxes, and have a very low skill floor as you just need to be concerned about hills when aiming at ESFs.

In my opinion plain-old infantry should have a firepower disadvantage vs. air seeing as something like an ESF is a player + vehicle, a Liberator is 1-3 players + vehicle; giving infantry a easy-to-use counter measure to air doesn't make a whole of sense of a gameplay or a balance perspective. Atleast with Flak, there is a cost associated with each source.

Ok, enough justification....

READ FROM HERE FOR PROPOSAL

I propose they nerf ground-based lockons to deal about 20% of an ESF's hp per shot with other numbers being lowered on other aircraft. In a large enough group (infantry have the highest strength in numbers), infantry could be credible threat with lockons but again you need the numbers to make it so.

Flak would receive a buff either in straight damage or cumulative damage increase from hitting a target repeatedly; would be up to devs here. What constitutes "Flak" is weapons designed specifically for damaging Aircraft like Lighting's Skyguard, The Ranger, or a MAX's Burster guns; Guns that have multi-use like the Basilisk or Walker would not fall into this category as they are general purpose weapons and not specialized.

With these changes in mind, dealing with aircraft would not be a fire-and-forget scenario, it would require ground to actually pay attention. If Ground fails too, then Air has the opportunity to deal some real damage uncontested. This game is made of 3 parts: Ground, Armor, and Air; It makes for poor balance if you effectively cancel one whole section of the game because it requires your players to play in a warzone, not a corridor shooter.

No, absolutely no. Lock-ons are already worthless at defending against A2G ESF. But they're OP against A2A ESF. The only solution there is to change how they function. Either a much faster lock time up close with a crazy long lock time at range, or change all G2A launchers to a Striker mechanic. I favor the Striker mechanic over locks because it takes/rewards shooter skill and allows the pilot to evade if he's at a far enough range.

No to buffing flak. Spawnroom Maxes are already enough of a problem, especially with lockdown. A good Skyguard is already powerful enough to deter most air, but it's helpless in a 1v1 against Libs. The only solution there is to change flak to a direct hit weapon, so it can get a damage boost up close but keep its same deterrence level at range. Current flack at range is a dice roll for the shooter and the target, it just sucks. But I absolutely agree that AA needs to be more effective against ground, as most of the time air leaves when you're around, then you're stuck with a worthless unit. Accurate direct fire AA weapons would be a solution.

There are parts to your idea that I agree with, and others I do not.
I am a veteran ESF pilot that spends more time bombing things than anything, and I agree that HA lockons should be nerfed, but certainly not for damage.
If the damage of lockons were nerfed I wouldnt give a damn about them, and I would shove my face right upto sunderers and just tank it out and farm everybody. Instead nerf the range of lockons, to remove its area of denial effect being as pronounced as flak sources.
As for buffing flak I agree, but only to buff its damage against galaxies, valkeries and liberators at closer ranges.
I also feel that skyguards should be provided with a secondary role, as I cant imagine shooting rare occurances of aircraft to be very entertaining or rewarding. Perhaps make the skyguard a better weapon against harrassers at range (something I think may be needed in tank columns, but this needs to be debated by tankers).
Maxes can change their weapons at a terminal so they are fine.

The problem is that ESFs need to survive so 350 nanites arnt wasted by easy flak kills, but flak rarely get kills because ESFs keep escaping with a kill or two. One of the two players has to get annoyed here unfortunately, its boring for the skyguard to never kill anything and its unfair for the ESF to die too quickly.
This problem is rectified in larger fights where air superiority is in contest, ESFs damaged by flak are finished off by opposing fighters, and having enough flak sources poses serious threats to fighters. 1 skyguard is for area denial, 2-3 skyguards for getting kills.

It was already like that 2 years ago and it was awful which is why it was modified to what it is today. Although the damage got buffed it also got nerfed with its shoddy rocket trajectory.

People keep bring up the superior numbers argument but forget that a majority of the players are <BR20 with no lock ons. Ive seen numerous situations where an ESF would farm lowbies that are trying to kill it with dumbfires. Lockons and Flak are in a good spot right now.

They're not in a good spot, because the vast majority of air and ground isn't happy with balance. If one side or the other is happy, then one side or the other is OP. If neither side of the equation is happy, then you have terrible balance and bad mechanics. While I think balance should be done based on what's available, not what's in use, you do bring up a good point about new players. I've always though the default launcher should be dual purpose, able to lock on to air and dumb-fire ground. But that would mess up their cash grab approach.

Since flak is an area explosion, it's my understanding that they can't code damage by range in to the equation. But they do need to be buffed up close and left as is at range, which is why direct fire is the only solution I see to the problem. A bandaid would be doubling accuracy, upping velocity, and cutting burst range to 30% of current. That would help it against infantry and light vehicles at range without changing its air effectiveness all that much, maybe make it easier to kill bad pilots at range. But the max, it's not fine as is. Having to hug a terminal to switch weapons as needed promotes invincible spawnroom bursters. That weapon should be much more useful against infantry so they could actually leave spawn rooms without being helpless against even an infiltrator.

Groundscrubs want to chase away or kill ESFs faster when they're bombing the ground, ESFs want to not get sniped by lockons when they are already far away or just passing by in the distance.
if I push my luck and take too much damage from lockons, I can accept that, but often I see only one or two lockons aiming at me, and I can kill them before they fire. Lockon range should be reduced to a defensive range while buffing their lock speed to deal with the hit and run nature of ESF bombers.
As for flak I firmly stand by that its effectiveness at close range should be increased while maintaining its inaccuracy (which nerfs its killing potential at peak ranges while still making the no fly zone clear.)
As for velocity increase I agree that the skyguard especially needs more velocity as I can somehow evade skyguards at close range when I perform hover maneuvers, and I feel this can strangely be used to attack a skyguard, despite the skyguard supposedly being my counter and deterant. The velocity increase shouldnt affect its long range ability too much, it is already just a deterant and annoyance to me when I am cruising in the distance and getting hit a few more times wont be an issue as the few hits that land only do 5-10% at best.

You bring up an interesting point, I was thinking of maxes near sunderers, I didnt consider the awkwardness for a max inside a base. Perhaps giving bursters half the effectiveness of normal anti-infantry choices would be good. The inaccracy and low fire rate makes TTK and headshots unfavourable but usable, to ensure that bursters arnt the top choice all the time.

Bursters in Spawn Rooms are a serious annoyance. No risk, all reward.

This is why all Burster Maxes outside of the spawn room are warranted for death without exceptions, to pay for their cheesey camper comrades.

nope, burster maxes are warranted for death outside a spawn room because they are easy to kill and their burster's TTK is bad enough a good pilot needs not fear them, that's why they stick to spawn rooms, because if they don't they easily get cut down by the unit they are supposed to counter.

when a unit can go against it's counter and not only survive almost all the time but kill their counter quickly that's when you've got broken balance.

ESFs have speed and high dps weapons, you gotta use them like a knife fighter, rush in hit your target then evade and escape.

IIRC combined arms is likely to reduce the range of lock-on RLs but make their lock-on timer and reload faster. This, combined with changes to vehicle resistance, is an unknown quantity so far as effect on the game is concerned atm. I also think that air vehicle resistance is being left untouched for now, but will be looked at in a later update.

At the moment, I have to say that I sometimes use lock-ons and find them good but no OP. I can kill a damaged esf with one but I rarely get the chance to hit the same esf two or three times unless the pilot is too daft or determined to fly away and repair. On average I get a damaged esf kill about once every four or five launches or so and killing a Lib is a rare event indeed.

The numbers argument (lots of lock-on users) doesn't pan out for me as I rarely see other lock on rockets flying through the air on the EU servers. What I do see is aircraft tumbling out of the sky in larger battles when there is all sorts of ground fire and mt own esfs hitting them. But aircraft generally have their own way in small ground fights until a lone AA chases them away or my own air support turns up.

I can understand that it must be seriously upsetting when a rocket chases you but then, experienced pilots are often good at shaking it off by flying behind an obstruction (or using stealth or flares). The idea that an esf should take five hits (20% damage) i.e. the same sort of resistance as a Lib is too much IMO. I have no objection to lock-on rockets costing a few nanites but they can also be dumb fired as well and supplied from ammo packs so idk how that would work.

Recently I have found that esfs in particular tend not to hang around long enough for a lock or are not visible long enough above the trees (due to Hossin being open a lot more). So I have gone back to using the Striker and the Lancer for quick shooting and my NC avatars are the only ones still using a lock-on for AA.

I do not think there is a case for altering lock-on RL performance or aircraft resistances just yet.

I fly A2G and lock-ons right now are worthless. I run fire suppress and it takes 4 to knock me out of the sky so I can virtually ignore them (i.e. I can unload a full rocket pod at close range before I need to go repair). The only pilots that go down to to lock-ons alone are those dumb enough to try and unload 2 rocket pods or the equivalent.

Indeed.

Part of the problem with AA maxes is that they can only equip Flak or Kinetic armour - yet the unit they are designed to counter can equip weapons that effectively deal both types of damage with no downtime to switch between the two - and can therefore get around this defense mechanism with ease.

An ESF should not be able to go nose to nose at almost point blank range with a dedicated AA max and beat it.

Maxes should have a composite armour option and should be far more resistant to aircraft weapons. I also think bursters should deal direct as well as flak damage. This would ensure that ESFs that try to go nose to nose would be punished - but IMO it wouldnt be OP at range since getting direct hits with burster rounds at range would be virtually impossible due to it's massive COF and bloom.

It can't happen, the round would detonate before it would hit the target. But your damage model is spot on, that's why AA needs to convert to direct hit weapons, otherwise it can never be balanced for this game. They buffed the damage so flak could work up close, then made accuracy crap at range to limit its viability there, but then you're left with an rng nightmare at normal fighting distances. The flak mechanic just needs to go.

Actually flak projectiles used to hit the target directly, even if they exploded into a poof of indirect damage.

In fact, it was like this for a long time and no one realized it, with "common knowledge" being that the projectile vanished when the flak burst was created. In the very beginning, flak just did so very little damage against Air in general that it possibly doing too much damage was weird to think. After the post formal Beta buff, however, there was always the lingering concern that flak was doing more damage than its ideal math predicted that it should. Like with Resists stacking, that concern persisted until someone sat down and did the math out and shoved it in the developer's faces, and now flak projectiles despawn like they were always assumed, and we told, that they did.

It very much can be done this way.

Well there you go, there's your easy fix for killing point blank Liberators in a Skyguard. But I absolutely hate how rng flak is to begin with, counting on direct hits with the weapon makes it all the worse. I wish they'd just switch to direct hit with a proper damage falloff and be done with it. So much of this game is ruined because of how terribly the flak mechanic was worked in.

I know - and it should be brought back IMO.

I also think the Max also needs a new AA option - something similar to the G30 Walker.

Personally I want to see as many aircraft in the sky during any fight as there are vehicles on the ground. So I'd like to do something that might seem a bad idea at first glance:

Reduce the nanite requirements of all air units to 30% of their current costs. (CHEAP!!)
Reduce the hit points of all air units to 60% of their current numbers.
Make all infantry rockets cost 20 nanites each and not re-arm via engineer ammo drops.
-- (This cost should be enough to discourage and limit spam, but not be too frustrating.)
Keep other remaining weapon dynamics unchanged... for now.
-- (Skyguard might become too powerful in certain circumstances though. need to keep an eye out.)

Hopeful Results:
More use of aircraft as disposable transport. / Generally more people willing to get in the air. / Less whine when aircraft are lost.
More air-v-air chaos. / Greater consistency of aircraft and combined arms in any fight.
Ground based AA can get regular kills. / Ground based AA have more targets in general and less down time.
Skilled pilots can use the masses of friendly noob pilots as cover or distractions. / Other new air tactics can be developed.
Pilot behaviors will change to rely on shooting and scooting or strafing. / Hovering will be punished severely.
Small arms can now be highly effective and satisfying against low aircraft, in numbers, if specialized AA units aren't around.
The lowly infantry unit's sense of frustration and hopelessness against aircraft may be diminished.

I think making air units more specialised would help achieve this. Air units are just too versatile. It's ludicrous that an ESF can equip weapons that are simultaneously good at A2A and A2G - and infantry farming weapons like lolpods and mustang AH should be removed from ESFs altogether.

ESFs should be about air superiority and should have very limited A2G capability (think of an AA maxes almost zero AI or AV capability)

Libs should be about AV and pounding structures.

Galaxy weapons should be primarily defensive (i.e. protecting the troop transport en-route and providing close fire support on the ground). Battlegals shouldn't be possible.

The only air unit that should be half decent against infantry should be the Valk. It should be a support platform for small squads.

WHY...just WHY are there no LOCK-ON Flak Turrets? Or even a Lock on turret for Sunderers,Harrasers,MBT's and lightnings?

I did cringe at first, but this would actually be a big improvement, not my first choice, but much better than what we have now. My biggest 2 problems: 1. With our crap render ranges and laggy players and servers like Connery, ganking by exploiting latency would be on a whole new level. 2. Just as with current Harassers, getting kills doesn't matter, even less so in the air because the units are back in the fight and can get anywhere on the map almost instantly. Indar and other vehicle bonuses were absolute cancer, as no kills mattered, and with basically free aircraft Scythes would go straight for the ram instead of shooting because it was a faster kill and there's a 50/50 chance the Scythe won't die. But..... anything to get people in the air is good, and this would do just that. But I'd still rather fix some mechanics like separating nose gun and wing weapon reloads, and add noob friendly nose gun with a slight aim assist so they'd at least learn their fundamentals which would apply to a real gun when they're ready to step up, unlike lock-ons and Coyotes.

All of this is just so bad, and the Valk being the premier anti-infantry is just icing on the cake, with 4 engineers and a CAS gun there's absolutely no way infantry could ever fight back.... And you think LOLpods are bad....

Instead of gimping all air and isolating 1/3 of the game, infantry and ground need better ways to trade blows instead of deterring aircraft. Direct fire AA with a proper damage falloff and a Striker mechanic instead of locks would be better defensively and weaker in terms of harassment, which promotes interaction instead of flat out deterring it or being ineffective.

Hell no.
You do know how bloody cheap they are already?
The ESF Will be paper but replaced insanely easy.. the Liberator would still be bloody murderous.

Infantry Rockets.
You know, the Rockets that deal damage repaired for Free by engineers?
Let alone if Lock-ons costed nanites per, they better bloody hit and not be terminated by a Free ability on Cooldown.
Let alone survived, by another Free ability on Cooldown.

In addition, Rockets are used against land vehicles. Which easily take 4-5 rockets for MBTs.
Several for Harassers... repairs are Free, if infantry AV costs 20 nanites to attempt, why in hell is repairing free?
You miss, that's 20 nanites down.
You hit, they repair at all, that's 20 nanites down.
The vehicle costs nanites once.


Joy, like we needed more disposable aircraft with barely a cost.
Air-vs-air chaos? The skill to fly wouldn't change, the ease of death to the Skilled however becomes greater.
The Price of failure, becomes nothing ensuring no Pilot ever isn't flying...
Hell, do you know that there is a sky limit, well beyond most AA weapons?
Now imagine the Fleet of Libs at 30% off.
The ESF at 30% off, allowing near suicidal attacks given it's basically free.
Any rocket attempt costs 20 nanites per attempt... Any lock-ons basically adds up to the ESF price.

With the Speed of aircraft, and sheer mobility, only kills will be of novices.
The Skilled, will not have issues, any new pilot will die faster to everything.
As the bloody requirements haven't changed, just durability & price, which favor only the skilled.

You do realize, that the speed & firepower of aircraft are half if not most of what allows a ESF, which takes a single dumbfire or multiple lock-ons to kill, to be a threat right?

Aka sweet **** man.

I can't see the improvement Adam is about at all.
Like jesus, Cheaper aircraft, that only lost durability? Encouraging ESFs to be more "And *****, Gone"
The across-the-map-in-a-moment-speed attacks, easily done by an ESF, rather than the hovering idiot ESFs.
The Liberator not trying to fly into AA fire for too long... rather instead being intelligent & reaping every vehicle in sight beyond such You-can't-*******-miss range.

Heaven forbid easy Gals, to just land on everything.

Aircraft have the best duality.
Rather have effective AA however than care about universally effective weaponry.

As someone who fights Valks...
To hell with that.
Damn thing easily becomes near immortal presently.
Rather not it become the anti-infantry gun-platform from hell.

Like holy ****.