Over the years, the liberator has been a staple for how I have met and became friends with a lot of people in Planetside 2. when I would fly around solo, it wouldn't take long before someone on the same faction asks me if I need a gunner. The unique gameplay experience and lasting positive social interactions were what motivated me to initially spend money on the game so i could unlock the Dalton more quickly and motivated me to main the Libreator playstyle. when I first started, it was great. This is how liberator game play used to look like- no need to try and land and out-repair, the gameplay was fast paced and rewarding. shortly after ps2 launched the lib got new weapons, the duster and hyena missiles. While I think the hyena missiles were actually a bad decision and marked the start of the air game being dominated by lock-on spam, i still generally thought the idea of adding new liberator content was good. Since then its been awful. the Nerfs have been too numerous to keep track of, but some notable ones in rough chronological order: the belly gun Nerfs (Dalton, Shredder and Zephyr- projectile speed, reload speed, damage and splash) and CAI catastrophe, the Tank Buster Nerf (the tank buster used to be able to actually bust tanks!) & health pool reduction. There have been the numerous indirect Nerfs including the Skyguard buffs, construction spammable ESFs, citadel shield (what a stupid idea) & the hardlight canopy. Also every new continent since Hossin has been developed in such a way that bases are concealed from vehicles. Then there is the stupid BS which is the anti liberator ESF weapons. Since this game got released, skilled ESF pilots figured out that they could solo a liberator if they kept distance and just kept hitting it with the stock nose gun (and then optionally rush at burning). Since balance changes in this game always seem to pander to the low skill level players, A2A locks were buffed multiple times to lower the skill ceiling required to solo a lib. But since it didn't lower the skill ceiling enough, multiple extra anti liberator weapons were added to the game (the Wyrm and Havoc missiles, neither with any sort of subsequent adjustment. clearly they got it perfectly right out of the box on both occasions!). so here we are 10 years later, with no new liberator content since shortly after the game released and nothing but Nerfs. I get that a lot of people have always disliked the way that air and infantry interact, but the thing that pisses me off the most about this is that rather than fix this by improving vehicular and aerial combat and giving vehicle players something else to do other than farm infantry, development (Wrel) instead chose to ruin parts of Planetside that didn't suit him (throwback to Mepulan's video here. Wrel's biggest contribution to vehicular/aerial combat was the CAI update which was heavy handed and always intended to be followed up by another pass on vehicle balance which never happened. This post focuses on the Liberator, but in reality I think liberator balance is a symptom of a broader problem. I don't expect the Planetside community will ever see another pass on vehicle balance like they were promised. I just want it to be known from this salty vet that things didn't have to be this way.
Liberators are OPASF... the speed, maneuverability, armament, angle of attack, make them very effective. Just because liberators don't have a lot of content doesn't mean they're broken... perhaps quite the opposite -- they're near perfection. Before you complain about the Liberator, go fly a Dervish and tell us how long you live.
This demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the air-game. I have plenty of experience in a Dervish. The Dervish easily chases down Liberators and kills them in seconds. Here is a video of a guy murdering back to back Liberators in seconds (includes a clip of a Dervish killing a group of Liberators). Or... the 10 years of game changes are irrelevant. Yeah I guess you must be right. Liberators are and .
This highly edited video shows the Dervish killing an AFK liberator, sneaking in kills on an already smoking 2:1 engagement, already smoking/ almost destroyed aircraft, and a reaver that crashes into them, to name a few. Only two encounters were decent. What we DONT see are the failures in between. I'm sorry, but before you start to tell people they lack an understanding of the Dervish or Air Game, please actually watch the video and come to the table with some sensibility.
I sympathize somewhat with OP. I have not really been a Liberator main (MBT main rather), but, I have flown and gunned for Liberators as my second or third most frequent playstyle. The issues plaguing Liberator gameplay, in my opinion, are the prevalence of flak/lock-ons, and the Dervish. Dervish It is pretty much a direct counter to the Liberator. I once 1 vs. 1 a friend, was gunning for a Liberator and fighting buddies who were flying Dervish. I hit them once with the Dalton, but missed several times after the first hit. Turns out, that if you let the Dervish live long enough to pop fire suppression, a second Dalton hit will not kill them. Dervish is way too agile for how big it is. It kills Liberators too quickly So, flak and (ground) lock-ons are a symptom of the developer's flat-out refusal to balance A2G and G2A. The problem with A2G is that tanks cannot aim up. So, aircraft (Liberator included) can just cheese ground. A2G is essentially a legalized exploit, no skill requirement on the A2Ger's side. G2A on the other hand, is the reverse card, no skill solution to aircraft for the G2Aers. The reason for G2A not being skillful, is that you don't have to, well, aim. Lock-ons are self-explanatory, and flak is essentially "you still damage your target even if you miss." I would love it if tanks had greater main gun elevation angles so that we can 1-shot/2-shot most aircraft. However, I must acknowledge that such a measure would likely be overpowered. The fix is to make G2A skill based and available in tandem with G2G. Ground units have to compromise or surrender G2G to enable G2A. Basically, all AA guns need to be like the G30 Walker (i.e., you have to score direct hits to deal damage) and as a ground unit you should be able to have AT THE SAME TIME an E540 Halberd, or an M20 Basilisk, or any other one choice of secondary. Lock-ons, should not be "fire and forget", they should require the user to maintain the lock for the duration of the missile's travel time. You stop locking-on? Missile becomes unguided. Of course, we can buff damage to compensate for the extra time to re-fire missiles that this entails. Original Liberator: Overpowered in my opinion. You could 1/4 clip ESFs with the CAS30 Tankbuster. You could also 1-clip other Liberators and MBTs with the CAS30. Current Liberator is not as much of an instant death machine against ground, If anything, I used to be able to 2-shot Liberators with the Titan 150 AP, but now, I need 3 shots to kill a Liberator with a Vanguard. The teeth on the Liberator are not as sharp as before, but the skin on it has thickened.
you know if you want faster reload and more speed or more damage fine but - the fact that solo ESF is 1hit by dalton - dalton can shot any angle coz liberator can turn upside down - most dalton ******* do nothing but this and have incredible accuracy - solo ESF cant kill a 2 player repaired liberator makes the lib actually still not engagable for average ESF pilotes or everything else without group. therefore we can totally add up to your demands if then the liberator is not more allowed to roll upside down so any esf noob can fly above liberator without fear of a 1hit shot by dalton.
Not true if the ESF is running comp armour. Sure, but this is compensated for by the mechanics of the Dalton. Dalton shells dont inherit vehicle momentum, so you need to lead your shots. This is hard to do normally. Now add in the drop, the travel speed of the shell, the movement of the liberator and the movement of the ESF. If its really this easy, then post a video of you demonstrating it twice in a row. Unless you are one of a handful of people in the game, you cant do it. This makes no sense. Also not true. Before the Dervish/Wyrm/Havoc missiles were added there were already several ways to do this. For example: - Force to ground with A2A lock then use PPA/AH/Banshee to kill engineers - Force to ground with nose gun then splash the engineers to death with lolpods - Engage at long range with nose gun until burning and then snipe engineers/jump out and c4 the lib. Nowadays ESF pilots don't bother to learn proper movement (i.e staying outside of belly gun range/ learning the reverse maneuver) because Wrel ruined the game with lockon spam and so players have little incentive to learn. New players don't learn flight mechanics and expect that they should be able to solo a fully crewed lib with any loadout on an ESF and then act surprised when it doesn't work. The problem was never that it was impossible for a solo player to kill a liberator. The reason that the lib was "not engagable for average ESF pilotes" has always been because average pilots cbf to learn vehicle mechanics. Since Wrel cbf either the liberator just got abandoned.
I love making occasional returns to forums of games I stopped playing years ago (5+ for PS2) and seeing what people are ranting about this time, so here's two cents from a salty vet who really doesn't care about the game anymore. I had just one issue dealing with liberators that I still believe to this day would've better balanced out liberators than your description of nerfs and that is to reduce the manueverability of the liberator. Don't need to change anything else, the weapons or amor, just make the thing less maneuverable so it wasn't capable of soloing an entire squad of ESFs by going belly-up in 3 seconds and blasting everything out of the sky in three seconds. The liberator should've been a gunboat that's devastating if left alone but still requiring an ESF escort to prevent it from becoming easy prey. The opposite happened. Liberators were infurating to deal with because of how one could, with ease, turn itself around within seconds to engage and blast any aircraft within a close (to sometime medium) proximity with the belly gun. On the ground the best one can do is have at least two, ideally four dedicated Anti-air troopers or a pair of competent sky lightings whose entire purpose in life is to make the local air space too annoying for liberators. I said annoying, not killing he liberator because that was an unrealistic expectation against any half decent liberator pilot. It's worth mentioning I'm talking about liberators from the viewpoint of an ESF pilot and the viewpoint of a platoon or company commander.
Saying you don't care about the game and then writing a post about how to balance it makes 0 sense, just like the rest of your post.
liberators died when they nerfed the duster. welcome to the club. i dont see any fix in sight when it comes to construction placement as it used to be. you cant place half the **** in the places you used to be able to do and all weve gotten was a welp, deal with it response and forget about the golden days when you could use your planetside 2 carpentry skills to place a wall like you used to do.
Ohoho, I think I hit a nerve here. Besides, it's not like the devs take a serious look at whatever's posted in here.
I play mostly ground. Tho from that perspective, I don't see many succuesful libs during big battles. Anything over 24+ and the lib has to run away. Which is fine. Since hovering libs during 24 or less pop are annoying to deal with, if you're a sunderer or tank. However since most libs don't do that well for 24+ ground battles, I'd say they are fairly balanced from a A2G perspective. As for the airplane that needs a lot of new stuff & a reason to exist, I'd say Valkyrie needs buffs & a whole new mode added to valk to turn it into a helicopter that isn't made to drop off troops like a galaxy is. It's made to shoot people with your side gunners. Yet I've already asked for this for multiple threads. When mentioning a tanky valk mode, that gets to absorb most shots, doesn't have a nose gun, tho is for air soldiers to shoot ground soldiers from the side doors of the valk. Without having to evade jack ****. So a super tanky, non a2g nose gun valk, for side gunners. Maybe even give the gunners armor peircing ammo to shoot vehicles too. Tho I'd be fine with just being able to shoot infantry, while aboard a valk, as a soldier, shoot below, without the valk having to dodge enemy esf's or enemy tank shells. Just hovering with 1000% more hp. Tho is more for rifles, then just tr striker squads. Less they give everyone better HA launchers. Other than that, I'm no pilot expert. I do know half the ESF pro pilots are trolls, they score kills often in the most troll way possible, so I have no respect for half the esf pilots. The other half ok fair game. To be honest after all these years, I probably would have flown more if their WEREN'T ESF mains. I bet 1,000 people would have flown more if their weren't esf mains. So /spit on esf no lifers for making 1,000+ people not want to test flying ever. On the other hand I get why some people pick a preffered favorite vehicle, since I am or use to be a harasser main. Yet the air 1vs1's are so troll, unforgiving, and tedious, no cover, with nothing that helps new flyers. It's not the same thing. Honestly some ESF's reply with troll replies too, they think they are so elite for killing people trying to learn to fly 80% of the time. I def have more respect for Lib & for sure Valk pilots, wayyyyyy more than I do for ESF pilots. Besides dervish, they get a pass. Tho that's just for trying to pilot practice then esf's are lame. When it comes to A2G, they barely kill me ever at all, same goes for vehicles. I don't get why people complain about A2G it's almost non existent for most prime time hours. It's only a issue during extreme low pop hours.
