Can something be done with Air to Ground combat!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by karlooo, Jul 23, 2019.

  1. Demigan

    Well I'm sorry but 99% of the people who use words like "rage inducing" do so for the other people. Is it really so strange to assume you would be among that 99% of the people especially considering you combine it with the traits of downplaying things related to ESF, victim shaming and imagining that the AA back then was somehow capable of doing anything more than annoy aircraft? Traits that have been the staple of griefers since their inception?

    I think you have very pink glasses on and no idea how to make it fun.

    In a horror game it's scary because they take away power and then give you options to avoid and evade. The scary things happen when they force you to re-evaluate what you learned and have to make lightning decisions on your options and if possible combine them.
    Against the old Libs and ESF this wasn't possible. It took away almost all power of the ground unit, with little to no places to hide and even less options to evade. "drive recklessly forwards and hope they aren't good, find an easier target before you run into something or get killed by whoever you were originally fighting" is hardly anything. If it is ineviteable that you'll die without escape there isn't anything to fear anymore (in a game). And that was just about all the enjoyment to be had, "oh crap an aircraft, well maaaybe I'll try and finish this target if it just so happens to be possible but otherwise I'll just abandon my vehicle or my task as infantry and respawn". There's no suspense, no fear, no real change to the outcome.
    There's also nothing you can do to "plan around" the old aircraft (in fact you still can't really do that). You can check the skies, verify it's perfectly OK to get out and then before you reach the next cover an aircraft zooms in and nukes you. There is no way to really protect yourself, not then and not now.
    Then there's the AA. Back then a half decent pilot could take out a Skyguard with his nosecannon before the Skyguard could kill it. The MAX was also superior as AA, it has more DPS, more accuracy, was cheaper and reviveable. But the most valued trait of the AA MAX back then? It could hide in buildings. That was it. That was the greatest value, as it allowed the AA MAX to survive just long enough for the ESF to just go away. It didn't really pose a threat, but it made it annoying enough to find the MAX.

    The "ambush AA squads" were piss-poor. "Hey everybody, let's organize 12 people to kill one or two ESF's who will be back in no time and hope we don't get nuked ourselves, best case scenario they'll farm someone else. Yey!". I remember when the AA lock-ons were released, I stood with +/-26 other people on a ridge overlooking Zurvan where a large airgroup had taken hold. For half an hour we fired everything we got into it, Lock-ons, AA MAX's and one lost Skyguard who had joined us and in the end those 26 people were almost all annihilated by 1 Liberator Zepher run and 1 ESF rocketpod run.
    The result? Most of our 26 people dead, +/- 3 enemy aircraft destroyed by our doing. They had had more suicides and teamkills than we had done damage to them in half an hour. That was how terrible the game was, that's how "useful" AA squads were.

    Killing an ESF player was nothing to cheer for. All it meant was that they would use the resources they had gathered to nuke you right back to the stoneage again. If you had pulled a MAX or Skyguard they could make you bleed those resources dry while you would never really be able to kill them fast enough to dry up their resources.

    And that's another thing: Why should it just be rage-inducing for the ground units, and not for the aircraft? You can see in the video how easy it was, and consider that since then the damage degradation of aircraft weapons meant that aircraft actually tried to adapt. When Hornets came around the ESF found a way to come in at high speed from behind, fire a salvo of Hornets, fire their nosecannon and fire another round of Hornets to kill their target. As unfair as it was to the ground unit that had no way of protecting itself against it even with dedicated AA weapons at least it brought forth tougher and more skillful maneuvers over "hey let's slooowly hover around this target and blow it up in a lazy salvo".

    Also most of what you seem to adore is still there. Aircraft still have massive power advantages over ground units but have a weird skillcurve that means that aircraft vs aircraft is also rage-inducing (go play that masogist, that is not an insult that is what you are since you like your own negative emotions). You can still play AA squads, still camp tower reload and repair stations, and still not move from cover to cover in a tank as there is practically none in the game.


    So no, you paint the wrong picture of how it was, you pretend there was merit in something that didn't have merit and actually absolutely fcked the game over hard as many players left over this. If you want emotions go play good old Renegade, there emotions went high because you were going to pull something off that was tough, because there were risks, because if you did it right you could have a large effect on the rest of the game. It was sad if it failed, but not rage-inducing. The excitement was in the act of doing something difficult, not dying against something that you cannot predict or protect yourself against.
  2. FateJH

    I completely divorce myself from Demigan's arguments. We all have our hang-ups that limit our rhetorical capacity but he carries himself at a level that is beyond reproach. No criticism is valid unless it is a flavor of criticism that he had already accepted. He may not even realize that his discussion with you has gone in a direction that is difficult to distinguish from just making personal attacks at each other.
    I always felt PlanetSide Classic had better pacing. Even if the only course of action was to be screwed over in an encounter, you still had enough time to consider what was happening and what options you had.
    You mean earlier 2012? I only started playing in December of that year, which is as good as 2013.
    If I had to suspect things like that - trying to find subtext and double-speak and agenda in all things - then I would also have to assume the same thing from your posts, even though they are much more recent (recent as in this thread). I don't believe you would appreciate that. I don't think the video author would appreciate that. I will take both of your impressions of the game at your word and assume you are both speaking honestly; I will temper my counterargument or my agreement only based on what I experienced at that time and from what I read from players from that time. Satire will still be treated as satire, if it can be determined.

    My experience and the experience that I heard from others is: Air was a pain with which to deal, to many an insurmountable wall, if you were not also Air. If it could turn to face your general direction from anywhere within a loaded region, you were dead with little notice or reaction time, and there was no way you or a group of you could realistically respond or conceal. Issues prevalent at the time like copious splash bleed had little to do with it. If you were a pilot, you were often fine about it being that way, and about the other player feeling that way, or perhaps you just never thought about whether the other player was actually having a fun encounter because it was fun for you in some way. They would say something about skill of one pilot or another, but I shall leave that argument to the pilots to make. That's the opinion that drew lines through the community.

    If I did have to question something about this point: you claim you favored the gist of content of the video but later disapprove of the narrator's oral presentation of the content, though I would argue his description does not contradict what he demonstrated. Additionally, the experience you then say you favored would have been from the target's perspective, not the perspective of the pilot, and we are only privy to his musings. Would the video really be a good demonstration of the gameplay you favor were it from the perspective of each of the targets that were defeated by the ESF if the encounters were exactly the same save for the said perspective shift?
  3. Demigan

    I have lost people to cancer, thank you very much. So when I use the word I know full well what it means and know full well not to use it lightly. So when your actions warrant me to use the word, regardless of you thinking it's a buzzword or not, you should take a long look at your actions.

    And yes, you still warrant it. You victimshame, you applaude negative emotions, you paint the game in a light that never was and pretend that the things you pretend to love aren't there anymore despite the options you name having grown in variety. The nerfculture that was set up back then has started because of these negative emotions, and while the nerfculture has hurt the game a ton it doesn't hold a candle to what it would have done if they hadn't nerfed it.
  4. Trigga

    Ill try to keep this short for the sake of the daybreak servers.

    Never assume, it makes an *** out of u and me.
    Instead, why didnt you ask instead of jumping to conclusions?

    I have plenty of idea of what was fun for me, which is all i said afterall isnt it?
    Or are you going to try and dictate how the hormones in my brain function?

    I didnt mean quivering in your boots, **** dripping out your crack scared. This is an FPS game, actual fear isnt induced in me no matter what game im playing, its a game, its not real......However, that doesnt mean you cant experience similar feelings and emotions from being immersed within the game world.
    Why do you keep arguing from the extremes, middle grounds do exist and usualy make up the majority of the populace?

    Youve gone into detail about how the game played back then.
    Great, doesnt change my opinion that i enjoyed it.
    Or are you trying to educate me about things i dont know? Stop, ive played this game for over 100 days of game time, i played the BETA, i remember it all.
    To address 1 of your points, in an attempt to get you to understand me:
    You said 12 man AA squads were a piss-poor waste of manpower etc etc etc bla bla bla.
    We as a squad, very much enjoyed doing this, much more than we do now since theres almost 0 aircraft these days by comparison. We cared not for 'efficiency' or any of the other babble you cite, we played to have fun, and we did.
    As was my entire post, we enjoyed ourselves, even more than i do now (the rest dont play any more).

    Rage was not (LOL definitely not) exclusively for the ground troops.
    Do you know how many rage tells i got from pilots pissed that a ground peasants darred to shoot them down?
    Again, its not actual rage, its immersed rage(and is also an exageration), it disappears as soon as the monitor turns black, well it does for me at least.

    Discussion is one thing, but your running off onto a tangent that im not willing to follow.
    I made no attempt to state anything about 'balance', which in itself is entirely dependant on what the game designer wants, not logic.
    Was it balanced? Dont know dont care.
    Did i have fun? Hell yes i did, more so than i do now.

    Im not sure disapproving of using the word cancer is cause for self reflection, especially when your reason for using the word is non-sensical, incorrect, and full of prjudice and assumptions about me as a person despite not knowing me at all.
    But eh, who am i to judge you....right?

    I enjoyed the game back then, you didnt, not sure we can reconcile that tbh and im no longer willing to try.
    I make no effort to force my opinion onto anyone else (unlike yourself), i simply stated that i had one.
    If you want to continue with this prejudice negative opinion of me then thats fine, i couldnt give a rats what some name on the internet thinks tbh, again (clearly) unlike yourself.

    Applaud negative emotions?
    Victimshame?
    I think your jumping to conclusions again there Demi my friend. Re-read what i wrote and attempt a clearer understanding, i lack the literary skills (or bother) to explain it further, sorry.

    Im not sure at this point what youre trying to win, but its clear you have a deep wanting to be 'right', even though no1 knows who you are when you are right, so here you go:
    Demigan, you are correct, i am a horrible person who basks in the negative emotions of others, all i want to do is cake walk over any opposition and never want a challenge.
    Feel better? :) Glad i could help.
  5. Trigga

    I guess it comes down to a preferance for pre-emptive thinking, and reactive thinking.
    Even at launch if you thought ahead well enough youd have an answer for everything, effectiveness of that answer dependent on other factors like skill, experience, etc.
    PS2 is quite fast paced, more so than the original for sure, but i like the squad based nature of the gameplay, each member has a role to fill, some very specialised.

    What agenda could i have by saying i enjoyed the launch game though? A vid from some1 at launch showcasing killing tanks easily with the words 'this is too easy' (paraphrased) is a clear sign of an agenda imo.
    Despite my windup comment (that i admitted was such), im not advocating changes of any kind, and as i said earlier, i still enjoy this game immensly, but for different reasons than at release. I found new reasons to like it or i would have quit.

    Im always dubious of any videos with narration.
    Firstly a vid is usualy a clip or even montage of exactly what the maker wants you to see, so your already starting to make an impression as to whats happening.
    When they then follow it up with what your supposed to think about whats happening in the vid red lights start to flash.
    Thats why i always make my own mind up after watching the vid, for better or worse, but like i said earlier we cannot do such at this point.
    Im not pretending to be a member of the gaming advocacy, and indeed am probably wrong on many occasions, its part of being human, but knowing what i enjoy and what i dont is pretty instinctive, and i am definitely not wrong about that.
  6. Demigan

    This is the internet. You could claim anything to be true but in the end all I can go on is what you write down for me to see.

    And you victimshamed, worse is that the victims in this case did not even have a proper counter to prevent becoming a victim in the first place. You proclaimed things that just arent true, like being able to plan around aircraft back then or that AA squads would be effective. You also name some things that you enjoyed back then that you could do even better now. You go down all the points that specific groups of people go down and I put you in that group. Why would that surprise you? Why would I not assume it? You can claim anything but I can only judge this to be true based on what you say.

    As for the comment on my wall of text which you so happily also build. One of my less proud attributes is that when you make a thread on this forum asking "does Demigan make wall-of-texts at the drop of a hat, ANY hat", then the overwhelming responses would be "YES" and "does he make short posts? Really?"

    Go ahead and make that thread if you want. I might not enjoy it too much but the forum might get enough of a small kick out of it.
  7. adamts01

    I get raging from spawnroom Bursters, as they're stupid effective and literally impossible to fight back against without switching factions and TKing. Strikers from spawn rooms are similar. And while lock in mechanics are broken and annoying, those can be somewhat countered.

    I get the rage from the infantry side too. Except for TR, no one has a decent AA option. The Lancer is decent in the right hands. So infantry have no choice but to resort to spawnroom Bursters.

    It's all such a disaster. We NEED a dev who flys.
  8. TR5L4Y3R


    well wrel did show clips of how he´s flying in the past but what kind of flying dev are you looking for? a acepilot? a casual pilot?
    someone inbetween?

    having a dev that flys is not enough to have a person or a number with a good understanding of how combat between air v vehicle v infantry and the differences between basefights (including the various baselayouts) and open area fights are ....
  9. adamts01

    I'm of the belief that you can't balance something without putting the time in to understanding both points of view. Wrel and the rest of the devs fly at a hobbiest level. It's a recipe for disaster (as we can all see) when those in charge of balance only understand the game from one perspective.

    What I'd love to see is a dev play only an ESF for a while. Not switch to a Heavy if there's an enemy spawnroom Burster, but keep flying and understand what it's really like when there's an invincible opponent with the power to lock you out of a fight. I want a dev to attack northern Indar, start getting hit by flak 3 hexes from the front line, and try to contribute in an ESF and not switch to a Harasser.

    I just don't think things will ever be in a good place until we get an infantry dev to start flying.
  10. TR5L4Y3R


    you mean invinceable because the AA sources are behind shields, i get that ...
    but wanting to be able to attack a place full of AA when AA is exactly meant to lock air out is very contradicting ..
    why should a single esf be capable to attack a place with 3 or 4 bursters or 3 skyguards ..
    otherwise the same problems come up were it becomes difficult to deal with air with nonflak, non-lockweapons (not to forget that having only one or 2 sources don´t realy accomplish much) ..
  11. adamts01

    That's why I want AA to change from a deterrent to a killer.
    That's better for both sides. Air gets to participate in fights, and ground can get kills. Right now, ground chases air away, then has nothing to do but sit there in case air shows back up. It's pathetic game design.
  12. FateJH

    So why would Air come back just to get killed again?
  13. Demigan

    3 hexes is in access of 600m and thats assuming you are flying at the same height as the Flak burster. At that range you barely receive any damage at all.
    Additionally spawnrooms severely limit vision, if you know the spawnroom's situation you can easily fly in and never be attacked by spawnroom bursters. Furthermore you can use the terrain like those giant red smoke stacks to creep up to less than a hex most of the time. Alternatively you can use height by dropping from the flight ceiling. The sky is big, and if you dont fly at the almost universal height and direction that A2G farmers for some reason choose you can approach just about any fight and attack it.

    I dont fly often, but A2G is not very difficult. It always amazes me that people dont just look at a fight and say "well normally vehicles hide for repairs here so there's a good chance of an easy kill if I dont come from the nearest spawn/aircraft pad", or that they experience any bother from long range AA at all. "My god I got hit from 3 hexes away!". Ok so they did so much damage your fire suppression can outheal&recharge it. How is that threatening? Better question: anyone who played any G2A a bit more dedicatedly does not open fire just because he sees an enemy, but actively seeks out and waits for an opportunity to shoot them when they commit to an attack to maximise damage and the potential for a kill. Alternatively if they really are trying to deter they'll open fire on nearby targets, cant protect allies that are far away. So I expect that most of the people severely overestimate the range they are being attacked at.

    And thats the other side of the coin. Most (most!) people who proclaim things for aircaft in the A2G vs G2A and want the other side to have a ton of experience in aircraft dont have any significant experience in G2A in return. Just try it out, see what works and doing attack runs in G2A territory becomes a piece of cake. A time consuming piece of cake, but a piece of cake nonetheless.
    • Up x 3
  14. adamts01

    To fight. Just like infantry keep running to a point to get killed again.

    Realistically you start taking damage at 1,100 meters when you render. At 600 you'll get wrecked and have to turn around. And keep in mind that you have to get within 450 for Hornets, and infantry don't even start to render till 300, and in big fights sometimes not till 100 meters. You MAY be able to do a fly by, but you're not dealing any real damage. Maybe kill 1 or 2 foot soldiers who'll just be immediately ressed. As for cover, it has to be wider than 30 meters, as any half decent flak gunner knows to shoot edges and that shot will hit anything within 15 meters to the side behind cover.

    As for your ease of A2G, I can only imagine you're tackling small fights, and even then not enough of a threat to worry about countering. And if you're flying around big fights and not being countered, it's only because your so little of a threat they don't bother trying to down you. If you're not gethering a list of hate tells every pass, and start receiving flack and locks the second you peek to engage, you're not doing it right.

    As for actually trying AA, I'd wager I'm towards the top of my server in time behind a spawnroom Burster. I'd look up the actual numbers but dasanfall isn't listing that weapon as owned... But if I remember correctly, last time I check led my time with Bursters was in the hundreds of hours. So yeah, when I say that mechanic is broken, and how easy it is to keep air from I fluencing the fight, it's as much or more from a Burster prospective, as I only fight ground if I've been warpgate to warpgate and can't find air to shoot.
  15. FateJH

    I don't know how you play but, when I run to a (capture) point, I run to a (capture) point with the intent to live and capture it. Frequent death during the effort is just a regrettable happenstance. It is not something I intend to let happen and, if at all possible, I avoid previous avenues that increased the odds of it happening again.
    If ground-base anti-air were aircraft killers rather than aircraft deterrents only, nothing indicates that pilots would only get so close before the same condition as you described applied, if not their untimely demise just because they wandered into that render range. This exclusivity of "I died so I'll try again" doesn't make sense to me. Into what hole does "I managed to get away just in the nick of time; I can heal up and try again" vanish?
    • Up x 1
  16. adamts01

    Do you consider a default noseguns a killer? Do ESF still get close to an enemy with one? Of course they do. The key is weapon and platform design. ESF maneuver to decrease damage, then stabilize to return fire when there's a window. That's exactly how ground/air should be balanced. ESF, infils, and Harassers have to maneuver to avoid damage, while tanks, Heavies, and libs are built to take the hits. Flak is broken in this picture because fancy flying within ESF gun range doesn't matter. Those light and squishy units are forced to tank damage, which they can't. And if flak is balanced against ESF, it'll be useless against Libs. It's just bad design. The Walker is a perfect example of what an AA gun should be. Flak needs to be either nerfed to yield fitting noob results, or it needs to be replaced with a weapon the requires good aim that delivers lethal resorts. The alternative is buffing ESF weapons so they can be effective in the very small window they have. But I don't think that would be a healthy decision, and server/engine limitations won't allow high speed passes. The only real solution is a direct hit weapon that let's ESF trade blows with the ground.
  17. FateJH

    Not really any more than any other weapon, honestly. It does depend significantlyon the target being engaged, I guess. ESF pilots seem to refuse anything else as a valid ESF killer.
    I don't see why the engagement of Air and Ground must be defined by the terms of Air.
    While I get what you're saying with these suggestions, I believe you are shortchanging your examples. Infiltrators, for example, can select distance combat or close range combat or try to marry those two styles by combining the range of one and the weaponry of the other. Tanks determine whether to soak up damage or play cover-fire games or even charge in and get out quickly games depending on the target. Against a less advantageous target, more stationary tactics; against a difficult opponent, more hesitant actions. The most dangerous target to a tank is an Infantry player who is right on top of it. Harassers, the closest to "ground ESF's" might have few stationary tactics other than being a weak gun emplacement but their fragility doesn't stop them from darting out of the cover of terrain and darting out of cover. They lay down what damage they can on the enemy, escape to repair, and come back to perform the maneuver again at a later date. That's just the inverse of the maneuver/stabilize game loop you claim of ESF's. Additionally, while single-fire heavy hitters tend to have some diffifulty hitting Harassers, they suffer bigger issues from the repeat-fire weapons, like those possessed by the majority of Infantry, since those have greater accuracy due to shot velocity.

    Based on that, from how you say it, either by platform limitations of pilot mindset, it sounds like ESF's are one trick ponies.
    • Up x 1
  18. Demigan

    Realistically if you get shot at the moment you render you must have been followed by a giant fireworks display that constantly writes "I am here please shoot me"

    Even a stationary target at 600m doesn't get hit from flak much, let alone a moving one. If you get wrecked at that distance you are really taking your time hanging about. When I'm doing G2A then if an ESF is beyond 300m he's in practically no danger anymore even if he flies in straight lines simply because the flak doesn't hit much anymore and there's plenty of cover available most of the time to make use off.

    Now as I said, it's not exactly rocketscience to do A2G without being shot at before you start the engagement, even in large fights which I main tackle if only because I want to prove my point time and again that large fights are not excluding aircraft. Keep in mind that anything they might use as cover is also cover for you as it takes away their vision, and with the speed and acceleration of aircraft it's real easy to get in range even from "far" cover like a mountain range. And even with little cover like on Esamir you can use height to your advantage. Fly 5m above the ground and you can approach fights in similar fashion as a Harasser but at higher speeds, can't tell me that Harassers are spotted and engaged instantly all the time now can you? (well you can but it would be a lie in fact you can often approach enemies until several meters before they might notice you). You can also use extreme height such as the flight ceiling to approach a fight and then drop down. The air where you can fly is big, and you actually can use that size to hide in.

    As for getting shot behind cover, if someone cannot see you when you are behind cover then even if they shoot at the edges to hit you the COF of the flak will send off 75+% of the shots too far away to detonate unless you are within pissing distance. Also you seem to be doing a lot more overestimation as you enlarge the 8m flak detonation range to 15m.

    I think you are suffering from how the game is set up. No one seems to learn proper A2G simply because they don't need to. Why would you pick a fight with G2A if you can simply screw over a small fight where any G2A would nerf the side using it too much and they often can't bring enough G2A around to fend off the aircraft without getting wiped out by the ground forces? Well I do because I think it's more enjoyable to fight somewhere where there's an actual chance for the enemy to do something about you, but otherwise? You haven't learned proper A2G from the sound of it. Like almost all pilots you heavily overestimate the distance the flak fires at you because you never developed the simple skills of locating an AA source. Whenever you claim they are 600m away and wrecking you I dare bet you that they would be no more than 300m away.
    • Up x 2
  19. adamts01

    I'm arguing for balance on the ESF's terms because there's often no cover to play peek a boo like your tank, and ESF can't engage at range like your infil.

    The glass canon approach only works in certain terrain. If that terrain isn't going to be available, then dodging has to be an option.
  20. vnmb

    I think the main problem with using ESF is that all the aircraft in the game are based off hover. They're all pretty much just helicopters, even the liberators/galaxy. They get creamed in 5 seconds in a real battle, even the ESF can be damaged significantly by rifles. They are designed to hover nearby and shoot rockets. And because the aircraft wants to fly toward whatever you are aiming at, you end up getting too close in a big battle and getting killed instantly.

    I've always thought it would be cool if they implemented bombs in the game that could be used with CCIP. This is basically where you select a target on the ground from afar, then flew over it at a set speed and altitude. When you pass over the target, the bomb gets dropped automatically. This would allow ESFs to participate in big battles by being able to fly over it at a safe altitude without being killed instantly when they try to participate.

    Dropping bombs with CCIP would encourage ESFs to bomb armored targets or entrenched infantry in large battles. This is because it would not be good for small moving targets, like rockets are with solo infantry. The reason it would not be good for small targets is because once you target where you want the bomb to drop, you have to fly level so you won't be able to re-target the area you are flying over.

    Here are some examples of CCIP in DCS and F/A 18 Hornet 3.0:
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