Age old topic, I know, but things are moving in the wrong direction. We were recently faced with massed enemy air and the platoon lead asked "who wants to pull AA?" Silence. I finally said "It's what we need to do, but it's a boring chore, not something fun." And every person in the platoon agreed. Rangers are already OP, so we don't need more effectiveness, we need fun AA. Let Walkers in skilled hands have as much potential as Rangers. Just because Rangers are so specific in their role that doesn't mean they have to be the most effective, they can just be an AA option with moderate results for players who otherwise would do zero damage with Walkers, similar to our veyr role-specific A2A missiles, which are still a little broken. Rework the Skyguard. Much better velocity, much better accuracy, and a much tighter burst radius. Give it direct damage falloff, so it can fight light armor up close but wouldn't compete against tank canons at range. This also lets it wreck Libs up close, but tickle them at render range. It could be used against infantry with Basilisk results and be an option to fight Harassers at close range for those who can't land AP hits. I vote to give Rangers and Bursters the same treatment. Let Bursters be weaker Gorgons against ground, just with flak damage against air. Air has never been OP, the root of the problem has always been crappy AA.
AA is some of the most fun I have had in this game, especially on emerald. Sure, you can just pull it defensively and hang around a base/platoon by yourself or w/e. But being aggressive with it is very high risk/reward. A big part of the fun though is all the extremely salty "air elitists" or w/e that just can't stand you and love to send you hate mail lol. No one expects AA outside safe bases/warpgate where they just pulled an ESF etc... Wouldn't mind seeing some of the changes you propose though, most AA is 99% (literally for ranger) useless against anything other than aircraft. I'd just love for it to even be half decent against infantry even. I don't even consider the walker to be a AA gun anymore. It is the best for versatility though and I often times use it on a MBT/ANT. Having used it all extensively, I don't really think the ranger is OP compared to the rest. You have to lead the furthest by far and no matter how good you are, skyguard/burster outclass it in any "duck hunt" situation imo. However, being on a ANT/harasser with 2+ people is what makes it a force to be reckoned with. I do it with a ANT/friend and we do very well dealing with harassers sent to kill us even. Most people seem to have no idea about ANT>harasser if we collide . Haven't done it at all since the changes to flak resist/belly armor, but a single lib that knows what it is doing will make short work of ANYTHING with a ranger.
The problem is, people don't want G2A to require skill. They want it to be as EZ as pulling a skill-suit and running at non-c4 infantry. This thought process also resulted in CAI and the destruction of vehicle game-play & favoring zerging. Until you fix that, anything else is pointless.
The Ranger and lock-ons can remain as the low-skill option, but they should have their effectiveness relate to their difficulty of use. Bottom line is that AA is a critical role without having a fun way to do the job. That's always been the case, and what the devs need to focus on while moving forward. CAI..... Yeah. I agree with a lot of it, and it's getting better, but things are still off. Weak guns on tanky Harassers isn't right. Neither is the over-specialization of top guns. Against popular opinion I do like how tank canons are balanced, and overall how aircraft are balanced against each other. Cloaked Fury Flashes nearly obsolete countering armor with armor. They're probably the most broken thing in the game at this point.
Pretty much. I certainly don't mind the changes, though a major part of this might be because I came back after a huge dry spell from this game just after this update hit, so it felt like starting fresh. I must agree that tank cannon balance is actually pretty good right now. Top guns... don't really cause me many headaches, so again, largely fine. I won't deny the cloaked fury flashes are pretty freaking strong ATM. Whenever im with friends, its our go to if the goal is to actually kill the tanks quickly. However, if the goal is to destroy as much enemy Armour as possible to make a maximum profit ( and it often is), then we usually bust out the tanks. As for the status of AA, I won't disagree. It often feels really weak, right up until it seemingly drops a target in barely a second. I think thats my major opinion of AA right now. The difference between sources of AA differs way too heavily. Base AA turrets often feel like a joke to ESF's, while I admit to having managed to drop them with only half a ranger clip. I think what is needed is some equalizing of the AA playing field, such that these far weaker sources of AA either don't feel useless against certain targets, or feel very very strong against a specific type of target ( IE, some AA suits bringing down libs and gals, while others favour taking down more agile opposition like ESF's and valks). And since I am 99% sure that the striker will get brought up eventually here, I will say this now. I don't really think there's a need to hand it to everyone, cause while I do find it good, I don't find it to be the be all end all weapon its often perceived as. If the goal is to make other AA launchers more viable, my suggestion is to simply shorten their lock time, and widen their scanning view. This will make them much more forgiving, and allow far easier target acquisition.
The problem with that is you've then got a no-skill hard counter to an incredibly difficult to use air platform. It's fun flying agaisnt Walkers, because you can maneuver and try to break their aim, just as it's fun shooting a walker, trying to predict the ESF's movement. That's an incredibly fun trade, as long as each side is able to actually kill the other. You lose all of that competition with lock-ons and flak. The Striker is a middle ground, and could use a little refining to promote better aim on the side of the shooter, like a faster velocity, addition of projectile drop, and a tighter lock radius, as right now the Striker is a little broken, especially in a Valk.
Fair enough. I do feel like some projectile drop would probably be enough to balance out the striker.
If the skyguard was basically just the shredder but on a tank, I think a lot of people would be happy.
I tend to like using AA weaponry (the Skyguard in particular) as is, but I do agree that it should be more skill-based than it is right now. IMO, AA options should mostly require the projectile to actually hit the target to do damage, a la the Walker. And honestly, lock-ons should probably never have been put in the game in the first place.
That would be awesome. It would need considerable tuning to fit in with tank meta and not obsolete any guns. And the 600m/s velocity would make it hard for newer players to aim. But I'd definitely choose that over the Skyguard. I think just replacing the Skyguard with a Double-Walker would fix it. Maybe with a little less accuracy just to limit its anti-infantry ability and make it a little easier to hit air. It could do light damage to armor but not over-shadow any tank guns. It would be a user-friendly anti-Harasser main gun, which tanks currently lack. I'd happily pull one of those for AA duty, and have plenty to plink at while air isn't around.
The only path I could see them taking at this point in the games life is like you said reworking the base stats of the Skyguard. My personal preference would be if they just let us choose to slap essentially the Flash's Kobalt or the single barrel Basilisk (mess with stats as needed) and slap that on whatever that odd little circle pad is at the top of the Skyguard's barrels (what is that even suppose to be btw?). Shouldn't clip with anything since it's attached to the barrels and the single vehicle multi weapon tech is already coded with the ESFs. Just anything skill based that requires leading or compensating for drop would do wonders for my enjoyment of the Skyguard. This was my main source of burn out that caused me to finally take a 2-3 year break from the game and I'm still crushed it has never been addressed that the Skyguard is just plan boring to use once you scare away air. You can't realistically just change the tank out since it's very easy for air to show up without any warning. The Archer is currently my saving grace for the time being after returning as I can at least step out of the vehicle and plink at targets.
the problem with 'skillful AA' is aircraft are the fastest most agile units in the game that can turn on a dime, requiring direct hits as 'skillful' AA will limit the range of AA to close range. have you ever tried to skyguard of a significant time against ESFs? after 30mins lets see how your wrist feels with the atrocious leading required and the needed sustained dexterity to be on target, requiring direct hits for that will make it even worse for mid range AA users. lets not forget afterburners on ESFs and libs, you can easily and quickly escape AA sources, the problem isn't that AA is low skill, the problem is air can get into close range of AA and still not get shredded and still kill the AA users, unless the fight is large enough with massed AA and popluation advantage of the defenders is enough that the infantry and ground vehicle fighting is even. deterrence comes from lethality, not this chip damage BS, that why air complains the loudest at massed AA in large fights, they can't slaughter anyone they desire freely and AA actually as an overpop counter can and will kill them if they make mistakes. air seems to forget to be effective AA has to spend more nanites and time and is ALWAYS on the defense, a skyguard can sit somewhere for 30minutes after scaring some solo ESF players away. air on the other hand can immediately reset the fight whenever they want and move elsewhere to much more vulnerable fights where there is low population so they can't afford to divert manpower to man dedicated AA, because then the enemy soldiers would outnumber them in the infantry fight. if you decide to fly away from a skyguard, he cannot catch up to you or chase you effectively. try to understand that AA needs to be low skill in general, because air are too fast, too maneuverable and have too many advantages as it is to survive if they use their brains. if an ESF catches an MBT or skyguard they cannot escape, yet reverse it for aircraft and the aircraft can escape. the only room for skillful AA in this game is additional specialized close range AA that has high dps to shred air that is actively engaging ground forces near the AA unit, while still having the medium damage AA capable low damage of harassment fire. air complains alot about chip damage, but what about ground? how would u feel if the very SOLO unit(ESF) you are supposed to be the counter for in your skyguard, it can not only facetank you and kill you, but it can sprint away and evade easily on top of needing multiple skyguards for a reasonable chance of killing them. AA by stupid design requires you to outnumber the aircraft and spend way more resources to kill them effectively, while they can just run away to a 12vs12 fight and farm, while AA sits there with wasted resources and time.
it doesn't need to win on the first pass, it can cut down your health, escape and evade and attack from another angle and you cannot escape it, it can reset the fight any time the fight isn't going to their advantage. the only way an ESF will die going head on to a skyguard is if there is a second one sitting out of sight waiting to fire till the ESF is partway through the attack run and has to quickly react to suddenly taking double the damage. if AA worked properly an ESF would get shredded trying to attack one skyguard head on, just like solo infantry that attack a tank head on.
I like to play against aircrafts. Specially with Burster_MAX. Normally no ESF has a chance at 1vs1. I prefer Ranger instead of Walker, because their flak works demoralising and sight is limited at opponents HUD. Skyguards velocity is fine, I think accuracy and flak radius has to be a bit better at long range. Time to destroy ESF (0 hits missed - close range ~100m) MAX (Burster): 7 sec Sunderer (Walker/Ranger): 7 sec Ant/Harasser/MBT (Walker/Ranger): 6 sec Lightning (Skyguard): 5 sec The most mistakes by user is not to wait until they reach the smallest distance to one's place of 50-200 (longer way back to hide behind hills or whatever) and false spot; to far away from entry lane.
I always pull AA, because almost no one else will. That's why red-faced br120s fly into trees trying to make me stop chipping 20% hp off their ESF with walker/ranger and why I get the joy of having Liberators pulled just for me and them getting at most 1 unoccupied Harasser kill. Yall non-AA casuals jelly.
Honestly I love AA, Skyguard, Striker and Annihilator are all fun. And yes, I agree that lock-on is pretty much skill free but it's a reasonably effective way of denying a region of airspace while being easily evade-able by most pilots. I saw above talk of putting a modified shredder on a lightning, it's an interseting idea to be sure, but as was mentioned balancing would be needed to prevent it making the sky-guard obsolete. I'd actually propose a new Lock on weapon. A Lightning with a SAM-Site Turret. You deploy the lightning where you want it, you access a terminal to get a SAM Targeting Tool. It acts like a Lock on Launcher with 50m extra range on it's lock on, once locked and fired 4 SAMs fire at the airborne target [NOTE: No capacity to target ground units and the player must be outside the immobilized SAM site] The missiles can be made slow enough that they are of limited threat to ESFs but should have a longer flight time than shoulder mounted lock-ons. They should get a damage buff against Libs and Gals while doing moderate damage to ESFs and Valks. Notably, even if an ESF gets locked onto, unless it loiters or heads towards the missiles it's not in great danger although if all 4 hit it will be shot down/left flaming. Valks would probably be most vulnerable to this weapon. But it's damage could be nerfed against them. Additional balancing could be a 5 second reload per missile. Each loaded sequentially, so you can fire with only 2 loaded but it obviously does much less damage. Thoughts?
the requirement to leave the vehicle would be a huge detriment i have a counter suggestion based on this. rather then requiring you to leave the vehicle, you don't need to deploy it, but if you don't deploy it the missles don't track as well. you also need to manually activate the lock on function by fire mode(so you can sight and prepare to engage an aircraft without immediately pinging them with a lock on warning, tbh this would be great for all lock ons),if you fire in non-lock mode they are dumbfires fired in a barrage (so you can use as a short range defense against ground attackers). when the lock on function is off instead of the green square that tells you that you have locked on to an aircraft, it displays a color coded square, red=enemy is out of range, yellow=enemy is in medium range blue=enemy is in close range. instead of using fire mode to swap between short and mid range missiles, instead there are two launchers, one for close range point defense and one for mid range the intent in my counter suggestion is to primary fill the role of a point defense AA that solo ESFs cannot do a straight out head on close range attack run on the SAM and expect to survive, but if the AA or any units within a set range aren't under attack the ESF can survive but take damage flying near the SAM. as AA is now we have plenty of mid range AA capable of harassment fire at long range, such a SAM would give ground forces a close range AA that light aircraft would not want to attack head on solo and would have to use team tactics to take down with light aircraft or swap to ground to try to counter without making it too strong at mid range or bring in a liberator to deal with a solo SAM operator.
That's an interesting idea, I do like the notion of having a less effective fire mode while not deployed. However, the purpose of having the operator in my scenario outside the unit was twofold: 1 - To make the SAM longer ranged, if the operator could lock on at 350m but the SAM had a flight range of 500m the operator could go forward to be a threat beyond the immediate range of the SAM. 1.2 - If an operator does go forward to increase his range the SAM itself becomes vulnerable to ESFs circling behind to hit it. 2 - This is balanced by the risk to the operator, a SAM user would be vulnerable to snipers while the SAM itself having little to no Anti-Ground capacity would be an easy target for Harassers and other ground vehicles unless properly supported. I was intending them to be totally vulnerable to ground attack, I was aiming for a play-style that couldn't be readily compared to a Skyguard (I used to hunt armour in my Skyguard), that being said I'm not totally against the idea of dumbfire, perhaps while driving you could switch between dumbfire and the less effective lock on and when deployed with the user exposed the lock on becomes more effective. On that note you'd need to up the time until the unit disappeared if a deploy-able SAM was a thing, up to 20 min like Sunderers would be suitable. Hmm, see I was looking at the SAM from the opposite angle, almost all the AA currently can wreak a solo ESF that is dumb enough to blunder head on into it. Indeed this SAM idea would be semi capable of that too, but I see the shorter range point defence AA as the preview of the Skyguard. The SAMs role would be area denial but it would be very vulnerable unless supported by a Skyguard and some ground support. If the SAM is too good at closer ranges it overlaps heavily with the Skyguard and if it's also good at longer ranges becomes simply OP. I'd rather it be most effective at the ranges where the Skyguard's effectiveness drops off while being of limited use at <100m ranges. I guess we have different perspectives on this but to me that close fire support that deters ESFs from strafing your allies is the Skyguard, I squeed like a little girl when an ESF was fool enough to swoop over me at under 50m altitude. My thinking with the SAM was that sure you could lock onto it as it did that but it could easily boost away and evade the missiles. It could deter them sure but it couldn't reliably kill them at those ranges. To be honest I'd not be entirely against two Variants off AA SAM. The Bulkier SAM as I've proposed for longer range action that need support and something closer to what you've described which is more like a beefed up Hyena Missile Launcher with lock-on capability for greater close support.Another thought I had regarding the notion of a deploy-able Lightning was a Mobile Glaive IPC unit that instead of being an Ion Cannon fired HEAT rounds, similar to my idea for the SAM this unit would deploy the user would equip a targeting tool then they could call in artillery support at a range of 100m-350m ish. Again without support the Artillery HEAT Lightning would be vulnerable to attack being the balance.
