[Suggestion] Oshur the air-continent needs and air-overhaul first

I already did point out the fallacies, then you come back with practically the same fallacies. Take your "ESF is taken out in 3,8 sec from a fair distance". You are assuming 100% accuracy while at 300m (1.2 hex spaces) you already miss 3 in 4 shots on a stationary target while aiming at it's center. Imagine one moving while you have to lead. It's such fallacies that you keep regurgitating.

But if you really must know (again) why skillful AA is vastly different from deterrent AA:
Deterrent AA is designed around guaranteeing a hit on aircraft, hence flak has 8m detonation range, but it also has a massive COF (for the distances it needs to work on) which scatters it's shots randomly. This further increases the chance of guaranteed hits, but also heavily limits the DPS at distance.
It would be unfair for aircraft if they just died "because you came too close" while the deterrent requires virtually no skill to use. So the devs carefully moderated the DPS of all G2A weapons so that aircraft would always be able to escape if they reacted fast enough. They failed to realize that you can overcome that DPS limitation by simply having more of them around.

A skillful G2A weapon would therefore go the opposite direction, and trade higher skill for damage capable of taking out aircraft. Deterrents use guaranteed hits, a skillful G2A weapon would not. Walkers are often paraded as skillful G2A weapons, and while they certainly are more skillful than the other weapons it still uses skill-reducing methods in the form of high velocity and spray&pray mechanics. Which is another fallacy you keep doing: "Oh noes you want skillful weapons but if you put high velocity on your shells you still have low skill needed" is basically one of your comments here. Well get your brain in gear and realize that this is exactly one of the reasons why velocity is a key part in how you can moderate the range and skillfulness of these G2A weapons. A tank canon is well capable of shooting out to 1000m and hit an aircraft, but the skill requirement is so ludicrously large that it's virtually impossible and if the aircraft knows it is being shot at or does any random maneuver it stops mattering how much skill you have as you would need to predict the opponents exact move multiple seconds before even your enemy knows he'll do it. So it would only work against hovering or stationary targets at that point and still require skill. So we know that velocity can be used to create basically hard caps on the effective range without actually making shells detonate or dissappear before they reach render range.

As for "oh noes they are already in the game". Some of them are partially in the game. Masamune for example is only really good against Galaxies, it's not really used against Liberators that actually move or are almost on top of you and ESF can be forgotten unless they hover.
Also if it's already there, what the hell is your problem? What would be wrong with adding a few more options and variations? What about a Lightning-based Masamune? Would that immediately explode your face off if it was added? Or would it suddenly be a terrible thing if it was mounted on a vehicle? You are probably going to make some kind of weird argument, for example "why would you put a Masamune on a Lightning if you can just pick one for free on a HA", I know you were going to try that one don't deny it. Ofcourse you would give a Lightning with a masamune like weapon different stats.

As for "but what about large aircraft vs ESF! If it can hit ESF it can hit other aircraft even easier!"

Well if you have read... Well any freaking post in the last year about skillful G2A weapons you would find in at least half of them I comment on this and point out that these skillful G2A weapons would need either a division or alternate fire modes. For example the HEAT canons on most tanks could easily be given higher elevation range and their damage to ESF lowered so they don't OHK them. Then all HEAT canons would function as great against large aircraft but not be able to effectively engage ESF as they would almost certainly escape, yet the HEAT canon wouldn't be defenseless against ESF.
Or we've already seen with the development of the Rocklet Rifle that adding various abilities that draw different ammo counts is an option. From firing normal Rocklet rifle shots individually to flashbangs and entire shotgun barrages of micro-missiles, it's possible. Similar can be used for G2A weapons. Mode one can hit ESF but it's shots deal much lower damage to large aircraft, mode two has more trouble hitting ESF because of things like (and these are individual suggestions which don't all need to be added depending on the weapon to create variety) lowered velocity, added drop, lowered agility of the projectile (for guided munitions), lowered fire rate, more ammo consumption etc.

This is going to sound very elitist:

Why cant you just get good? I put around 9 days playtime into mosquito and 2 into reaver before I became a somewhat scary skyknight, im not saying that I'm the best around, I still struggle against the top players on cobalt. I just don't see why people are so unprepared to put time into something to get good at it? the air game is soooo much fun at the higher skill levels, with hovering and reversing making me able to take on 2+ people that are worse than me at the same time.

if you change the air game in a negative way you will lose a huge number of vets, like when reverse maneuverer got changed a few years back.

Because the aforementioned reasons? The airgame is the least pplayed part of the game even though most players have tried it. The airgame forces you to do something you dont have to do anywhere else in the game (waste time training instead of playing).

Currently, losing a number of vets wouldnt hold a candle to the amount of players that would stay and get invested in the air-game if it was, you know, FUN FROM THE BEGINNING. This would be a positive change that is PERCEIVED negative by the vets because they lose power. While you are enjoying the inverted skillcurve and engaging 2 players at the same time, there's two players that arent enjoying the inverted skillcurve, and they leave because most players arent masogists like you who want to waste several days of actual playtime (months if not a year for an average player) just to START having enjoyment.

A good skillcurve is the good old easy to learn hard to master. You get a lot of power for learning the basics, and as you learn more and get better you get less power gain for skill learned. This is a good system as the average player isnt defenseless against a veteran, he's got options and a far better feeling of progression.

And no, you dont sound elitist, it is elitist to ask so much from players. You cant ask the average player to play at a high skill level because the average player is exactly that: an average player. Its like asking everyone in the world to play at professional gamer levels. And again: the playerbase as a whole has dropped the airgame and left it for dead, its the smallest minority in the game that tries to keep it alive because they equate their enjoyment to be that of everyone else without regard for the actual game and playerbase.

I think Air is currently balanced at this point in time.

Balanced?
With the ESFs having 2 weapons at the same time in the same loadout? With free afterburner, free auto-repair amd buffed Fire Suppression that hasn't been touched after CAI? TTK became longer for everyone, but ESFs also had their repair rate increased.
And they got free Engagement Radar that turns Stealth in the best option for every aircraft loadout.
Then we have the Valkyrie (marketed as "fast transport vehicle") that:
- It's not faster than the Galaxy.
- It's less nanites-efficient than the Galaxy, because you need 2 to drop the same amount of people.
- It takes more damage from a carbine than from Flak, making once again Stealth the only barely decent option.
- It has 1 weapon terribly OP (CAS-14) while the others are the worst of the game. How many times did you die by the Pelter Pods? Or VLG? Or the Helion?

Search for the latest Valkyrie videos, it's ridicolous: players got higher chances to survive and make kills when they drop and use their Nanowave and carbines.

Let's be honest, the air game is messed up like never before.

Although I agree with your sentiment I have to correct you on the Valkyrie: it takes -100% damage from flak (takes twice as much damage) and has 75% resistance to small-arms (takes a quarter of the damage). The Valk is hardly a threat to anything that is remotely outfitted with dedicated AA but the moment that's gone Valkyries are almost free to kill anything on the ground, from tanks to infantry and with their resistance and health Pool they are harder to get rid off than ground pounding ESF.

Which once again reinforces how absolutely horrible the game is balanced around air. From almoat useless to kills anything with impunity based on the presence of air/ground AA? How is that balanced?

Many have said it before and I agree with them, discount single weapon loadouts on ESF. You will see more of them.

Also make afterburners certed, go ahead, wish they would so I can point out how a hulking 3 man ship also has afterburner in a slot that doesn't take utility. Free or not anyone wanting to fly would already cert these, if anything having a fee to them separates the newbs and the vets even more so.


I will agree with engagement radar baseline, that was a dumb decision.

The "free auto repair" has nothing to do with ESF directly but the engineer's certed abilities, which when certed effects all air.

This is a biased perspective - you don't highlight the negative CAI changes for ESF. I am wondering if your grievances stem from an Infantry-centric (A2G target) or Lib Pilot (A2A lock ons) view?

G2A was buffed and A2G were nerfed in that same period. Flak damage increased and AI nosegun/Rocketpods splash damage/radius reduced. Infantry renders much slower (ESFs can't stand-off like they used to).

ESFs are squishy. A single Ranger, Skyguard, or Dual Buster Max can chew up ESF health in 3-4 seconds. Lock Ons do a reliable 33%+ damage. (Strikers need to be nerfed).

Before CAI, I could hover and reliably kill 6 infantry with a clip of rocket pods. After CAI, due to splash damage and radius nerf as well as render range reduction, I kill 1-2 at most for one clip before getting shredded by Anti-Air.

As for ESF v. Lib, I've encountered expert Libs who can deter (or kill ESFs when greedy) and escape. Lib is not designed to be A2A platform and should be protected by escorting ESFs.

Totally learned how to not look directly at a tank when locking a rocket, incredible, such depth, while the tank had to learn to compensate almost every other factor in aiming. Sure.

My point was that even if you raise the skillfloor in a weapon, it doesn't make it any less oppressive in numbers. It's not the ease of use that makes it oppressive, it's that even one can **** up your day, 2 makes them oppressive. And in best case scenario with 2 vets using them, what then? Suddenly they're even more oppressive than the previous models in which even if they were easier to use you could still avoid them. But why nerf a weapon that newbies want to use to repel air?

This just sounds like a bunch of backwater that bolsters vets even more and sets newbies out from the game even further.

God damn he found the balance.
The problem however is ground armor doesn't do nearly as much, but that's a different disscussion. Point being air is fragile ground armor has staying power, that's the justification of air being able to murder ground.

Back to my previous statement, if one guy can still remove air far more effectively than before, I don't care how difficult it is, that breaks game balance.

If a vet is already able to vastly kill more infantry in number for his one body, then why give more power to those vets to kill aircraft with relative easy to them and make it more difficult for everyone else when this is supposed to be a team game?

It's basically going back to "no one can fly because it's too difficult to fly" so the solution must be "lets make ground AA oppressive as hell and make it difficult so newbies can't spam it"? I don't think I need to point out the hypocrisy here.

Then that should be a problem that needs to be addressed. Lack of communication is apparently what's really killing it with players.

No, it really could not. Walkers aimed well were almost impossible to get close to, your damage would fall off to mere splinters of what the walker could do to you. That's probably why the devs nerfed it.

That's my point, there is, there should be, it keeps air approachable without being picked off from sight distance.

You mean when they weren't nerfed into oblivion, when pilots were incredibly easy to hit.

So at best you have a small tank platform able to remove 90% of your HP in less than 2 seconds, so that it falls from a single rocket, stray flak or single small arms fire would kill it while being able to reach it from large distances away while not stating the muzzle velocity or gravity of the projectile to keep that ambiguity of how difficult it actually is to use.

And you people wonder why I'm disagreeing with this nonsense?

All numbers can be tweaked, that doesn't make the general premise any ******* better. How bout we create a kill code that nukes a facility from orbit, oh numbers can be tweaked though so we add more commands for it or make it brutally maim everyone in that area instead of outright kill.

Air requiring ground support to move up to clear the flak is GREAT combined arms! Are you kidding me? I'd rather have the easy to use, balanced skyguards that require to be closer to the main fight that are vulnerable to AV harassers far more than I'd even consider "skillful AA" that can be 600 meters away used by a crackshot that nukes everyone in the area that even wants to start flying.

I feel like you people aren't thinking of the applications of the weapon before it even goes into the fight.

I'm pretty sure you didn't even take it into VR to test this, because this is a number pulled out of your ***. Even if you miss 1/4 shots because that's much more accurately what you're missing instead of 3/4 shots you're still hitting the ****** for a decent amount of damage. Hit or miss, this is effective AA that isn't oppressive.

That sounds like a fair ******* weapon. I wouldn't want the GD-7F to be able to snipe people.

No, that's ******* teamwork, I wouldn't want 1 skyguard to lock all aircraft out, if you are dealing with mutliple sources of air to ground fire, it should make sense to use more AA.

That's a fallacy right there. Even if it's hard to do, doesn't make it any less oppressive. If you were a new pilot fighting against prenerf dalton, it absolutely sucked. This guy could catch up to you and even if he missed you a few times, this was a one shot that you could barely do anything about. Even if there was an uproar about how "skillful" it was when it was nerfed, it made getting into the air far more healthy for players that wanted to start and start countering libs.

In fact I remember you were on the side against libs on this one, so why incorporate the exact same style of play with AA? Makes no sense.

Yea, they're supposed to be good when they get on top of you, I'm talking about **** that can reach out and murder you. That's why the guided rockets have a shorter lifespand than the hipfire option. The RNG cone mixes the burst with a healthy chance of missing so that you don't demolish the aircraft in question with these fast flying rockets that are actually pretty effective when they hit.

Because the masamune was already balanced based on the premise that you could guide it but it was also too effective against galaxies when it first came out, even if it took the skill of the aimer, the aimee (mostly being goodgood and his gal) was completely annihilated on approach. This wasn't fair for the aircraft no matter the skill requirements of the aimer.

1. Heatcannons already don't 1 shot aircraft. They 2 shot.
2. Tank shells being able to point straight up to easily hit libs is still unfair towards libs. At that point tanks wouldn't need counters towards aircraft because they would already point upwards, anything directly above them while already damaged can easily be mitigated with a flak cannon.

And rocklet rifles were nerfed into a single AV role because it was impossible to balance free flashbangs. It was also nerfed after a week of release because it was killing every single sunderer in play with the most mobile class in the game while also being completely free.

We do not need every single option available to infantry for infantry or even tanks or even aircraft, every vehicle should have it's place, every weapon a niche, that does not mean we need an infantry weapon that can dumpster tanks or aircraft at long ranges that remove their entire HP bars before they can react.

Well see no THAT'S the MAIN PROBLEM though... that same level 3 certing and physics/mechanics f***ery that eventually makes newbs into Sky knights... is the same exact one that makes them waaaaay too Evasive in Air-vs-Ground too to the point that even an exposed Burster Max is no longer a soft Counter against a constantly bobbing around sky knight *(who in enough cases is also using scripts or packet manip) and what I'm asking here is WHY is that preferred airframe for A2A not Dogfighter instead by default?

See, you're having your Cake and eating it too because the inredible stupidness that was Matt Higby or at least his Developers at the time never figured out that they needed to put a DOWNSIDE on the Hover Frame *(such as having no afterburner capability whatsoever or limited Roll & Pitch speed). Logic dictates: Hover Frame should only be B.I.S. in AvG ... not AvA at the same time too

Just your idea that making a GD-7F sniper-accurate with all it's shots is remotely the same as making a skillful variant of the Skyguard shows how that you dont even want to take it seriously, or dont have the first clue how to balance this part of the game.

I would like it if you stopped cluttering this thread with your nonsense.

And just for this comment: you are right I didnt do this on VR, I saw an enemy ESF that had landed on the edge of an PMB facing me where it had been for a bit already while I engaged closer aircraft. I opened fire hoping to kill it before it was occupied and started counting the hits as I noticed how many misses I had. I placed a waypoint and it was at 298m distance.

But hey, you didnt go into VR either to verify your "1/4th misses" bullcrap thats not even close to the truth.

Wasn't an idea, it was an example.

What you're proposing is that you have this harder, actually no, it's a higher DPS variant of the skyguard that uses large tank shells for high burst.

The GD-7F is a high damage rifle used in CQC to magdump people, not for sustained fire.

The comparison was that you not only have this high damage weapon, but that it can reach out and kill aircraft easily, I compared it to a GD-7F that without a limiting damage profile and cone of fire, would be able to snipe people with high amounts of DPS.

Ah yes, I'll use this live server instance of me fighting an ESF as my example for all skyguard experience ever. No problems with that.

How exactly would you know if you weren't using VR as a DPS testing ground.

@LaughingDead: Would "skillful AA" be acceptable if it was designed around burst damage (like the Striker) rather than sustained fire? I feel like the back-and-forth between you and Demigan needs this factored in.

The thing is the striker is inherently a missile based platform and therefore has counters to it, it also features an auto-locking system, both things demi has specifically stated he does not want.

As far as burst goes however, no. Simply put, unless it has available counters and warning signs to it (like missile locks or audio ques) then it wouldn't be fair to instantly die as an aircraft because your exposure angles are vast and impossible to keep track of.

Left some points out as discussing them further is pointless seeing as how we either agree or we don't to the point that neither of us will change their minds.

For me I'd look if I could have done something differently. Maybe I should have re positioned sooner or broken off contact entirely once the tank's turret turned towards me. Maybe X spot in Y base is vulnerable to incoming fire and it is ill-advised to set up AV nests there in the future.

Or you could sigh, roll your eyes and call BS and whatnot. If that's how you play then that's your business.

More like give newbies something to work at getting better at with practice instead of using an ineffective albeit braindead and spammable 'deterrent' that turns into zone-denial with enough numbers.

As for vets becoming so good with the weapon to the point it becomes oppressive... Let me put it this way, I'm sure that there are a handful of people in the TR who are good with Lockdown Pounders to a point where they can chain shots on moving targets at 300 meters. That small minority may be oppressive to ground but they are just that- a minority. For the other 99% of players Pounders remain a sub 100m close range AV weapon.

....

Anyway, I see nothing wrong with it. If an AA gunner manages to land 6 shots in rapid succession with Viper levels of velocity, Viper levels of recoil, Viper levels of cone of fire and half the flak proxy det range, he absolutely deserves to remove 90% of an aircraft's health bar because either the AA gunner is insanely good or that aircraft got greedy and/or careless and deserved to get punished.

Cool men of straw.

I can build one too.

Why don't we give default rocket launcher a striker-esque mechanic that proximity locks onto ground vehicles? Sure it will remove all things that drive but think of the GREAT combined arms potential as tanks will require air or infantry to kill the heavies so that they can enter the hex and be somewhat useful to the fight.

make war boats.

you are welcome.

I doubt, highly, that people have learned how to aim the skyguard perfectly.

Calling it denial with numbers doesn't make it instantly evil and must be changed. You don't exactly walk into a room against 3 heavies solo either.

There's a difference between something that can be aimed well and deal damage verses something that removes your entire HP bar for being visible. Due to the nature of air, 1000 meters being the render range, if the weapon is capable of reaching farther than the skyguard my hundreds of meters while retaining it's burst while retaining it's damage, I don't want anything to do with it.

If you can snipe with pounders, fine, if you can snipe with tank shells, gj, but making it easier to drop alpha on an aircraft? No thanks.

Why wouldn't you just use the ******* viper.

You're getting lost in translation here mate.
It's either "It's better at killing aircraft because its: Faster, harder hitting, has a detonation range, better angles and/or has seeking ability" or "It's pandering for a better weapon to completely dunk on air".

But what really has me going is you think I'm against the viper, but never took the time to think whats the point of adding a new weapon if it's basically the viper, and then you accuse me of strawmanning. That's adorable.

It's called the ground lockons. If people actually used them there would be no ground vehicles to harass until someone started using IR smoke.

The skyguard can not by design be aimed perfectly due to large cone of fire. The shot can be dead on calculated with bullet travel time counted in but will still miss due to cof. Alternatively you can be off by a few meters but still score a hit due to RNGesus being on your side combined with generous 8m of proxy detonation range.

I can walk into a room with 3 heavies solo and achieve something. Maybe kill 1 and injure another. 3 skyguards will kill an ESF dead before it sets foot in that metaphorical room.

Right, that's why I was proposing 15% per shell. No one will be able to reliably inflict 60-90% alpha damage beyond too close to ground lolpodding range, and the few that will be able to do that are the same ones scoring hits with Pounder nades at 300m.

Viper shells don't have a flak mechanic.

Also absolutely you were strawmanning. What else would you call responding to "numbers can be tweaked if an AA weapon designed to kill ESF is too good against big air" with "lets create a big nuke that kills everyone in an area and tweak numbers so it just brutally maims" ?

I on the other hand was not strawmanning you. You claimed I did not provide stats for a weapon I was proposing, I pointed out that I did. Now I did not spell it out but then I did not think it necessary as I thought that by reading my post, it will be obvious enough and did not want to be reduntant.

Example: If I propose a TR carbine similar to the Serpent and GD-7F except with 40 rounds in the magazine, longer reload and higher horizontal shake, will you throw a fit because I did not explicitly specify it's hipfire cof, bullet velocity and equip time or will you make an educated assumption that the cof of that proposed weapon will be similar to the Serpent and 7F and the bullet velocity be in the ~440 ballpark like all other CQC carbines?