Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

Not sure on the numbers, but I've been thinking of something like this myself. It might encourage tanks to shoot at other tanks, rather than pack the old HE turret, or ESF's to you-know shoot the rockets at tanks rather than the softies.

But yea being an AA max is a very unrewarding role. Sure you can deter most aircraft and get the occasional assist (25xp for a assist..whoopie) the worst part is most pilots suicide rather than letting you get that last 10%. (in this instance the system should be rewarding the AA for forcing the plane down).

With last week's sale on Bursters and the nerf to composite armor I think Air/Ground balance is close to where it needs to be. Just give skyguards a slight buff (preferably to their defense, its not fun if rocket pods instantly wreck skyguards and skyguards instantly wreck air) and give flak turrets the projectile speed buff and a turret HP buff (again, I'm fine with 1 salvo of rocket pods not killing turrets, but this proposed patch doesn't even address that issue).

Composite armor was not nerfed. The information was changed to accurately display what it does. The composite armor will actually be buffed to keep it in line with the upcoming flak buff. Please stop propagating false information, thanks.

I think I need to make some videos of the no fly zones from AA max and me and crew holding back their zerg with our Max AAs laughing all the way to the bank. Love how bad players can't do anything so they cry imbalanced.

Launcher change is lame. I never would have bought it if it was lock-on only.

Funny how people act like an infantryman should have to choose what he can fight and what he is helpless against, when vehicle jockeys don't.

ESF can own other air with nosecannon (or LOLpods) and of course tear up the ground with rockets. AT THE SAME TIME SOLO.

MBTs can own the ground with main cannons and take a secondary gun such as Walker (even better with upcoming buffs) to quickly switch to for AA (using F2).

But somehow an infantry man MUST have a nemesis, something you are helpless against and that's ok? No, its not ok its not fun at all. If I take AA launcher after patch, I'm HELPLESS vs ground vehicles. If I take AV or dumbfire launcher after patch I'm HELPESS against Air Power. Only infantry will have to make this compromise, it was already balanced before because taking AA with dumbfire for versatility made you weaker vs ground targets and now you are splitting your pathetic rocket ammo between ground and air targets (i also gave up nanoweave for extra rockets to make up for this, making me weaker vs everything) BUT AT LEAST I WAS NEVER HELPLESS AGAINST MY NEMESIS.

Now they are changing all of this after Beta (which sucked because all things were locked and couldn't be tested, such as these launchers...), after paid purchases, its unacceptable. Forcing me to play with a handicap as an infantryman greatly diminishes my interest in even playing at all. The only way I will see enjoying the game now is to just become a Mag/Scythe jockey and only go infantry for interior battles.

Acting like its easy to just swap out launchers whenever you want in a combined arms game with tanks and aircraft ever present at the same time is stupid. After patch I will run into the vehicles my launchers can't handle and I will be helpless and it will irritate me, but if I go easy mode in a vehicle I'll have it all. Time to get aquisition reduction certs and get a comfy chair pad for my tanks/aircraft I guess.

The funny thing is that they sold this as a BUFF to AA. I mean jeez, we get like a small pathetic little boost to the lock on part (more range, yeehaw I guess... faster reload, who the hell cares?) and ALL we have to give up is ALL functionality vs ground targets and ALL quickfire against low hover aircraft, sign me up! (/sarcasm).

The reality is that after this patch FAR less infantry will carry the AA launcher, so whatever "buffs" it receives will be overwhelmed by a massive drop in use, which means this is a BUFF TO AIR. But then we all know the devs love being pilots, so this probably works for them.

The change to the rocket launcher to only fire on lock-on is pretty ****. It makes them far more useless than they already were. The Anti-Vehicle one needs a complete rework of the missile anyways. It's lockon-rockets usually hit the floor, not the enemy vehicles. Without the ability to lock on or dumb fire, they become pointless. Might as well just get the Burster MAXes out and take the Anti-Infantry Launcher to shoot the enemy vehicles with. Not to mention enemy MAXes.

I've found that even aiming the missile a little higher doesn't always cause the missile to lock on properly. It works fine on level ground, but if a little dune gets in the way...*smack*

Just chiming in to say that I loadout a double AA Max, and I did not need this boost. I kill Reavers with ease and I'm only BR 8.

I hear all over that skyguard needed a buff, and I agree the AA towers needed and M30 need a buff. So..... I guess thank you for making my MAX even awesomer? I'm hesitant to be grateful, since I know the nerf is coming. Probably a removal of my 2nd AA barrel (which I paid $7 for)

I'm not even that good at the game yet, and this isn't true for me (Terran, dual burster MAX). I have never lost a 1 on 1 against a rocket bearing reaver. Every single time I scare them off. I can shoot farther than they can, and even if they're only 50m away I out damage them. (And then I kill them when they flee if they aren't good flyers) Either that's true, or I'm lucky and only fight people who flee with 50% or less damage so far. Granted, they do hurt me pretty bad, but unlike them I scan be repaired quickly by an Engie. If I'm guarding a Sundie or spawn there is no lack of them around, or I can just resupply for free.

So now my anti-air launcher will be completely worthless unless I lock onto something? (That "something" being aircraft only.) I can't even use it to do slight damage to vehicles and potentially save my (or my teammate's) behind from the occasional piece of armor? Why is this change being made? It was fine before: You could fire without locking on, meaning your AA launcher could also serve as a normal launcher, but the damage was nowhere near as good as the standard AV launcher. Is that not an acceptable compromise? I can't possibly express how lame this is.

Also, the lock on range really did not need to be increased. As is, I feel like I can lock onto pilots who are absurdly far away from my position. And the farther away they are, the more easily they'll be able to get into a position to dodge the incoming missile anyways. Why do we need to be able to lock onto aircraft that are even further away? Is this not unfair to the pilots who are wisely keeping their distance?

The reload speed was also fine in my opinion.

I'm sorry, I just really disagree with these AA/AV lock on launcher changes. This is very disappointing.

the AA rocket launcher will be more useless than it is now with only lock on.. hopefully people are smart enough to avoid it and not buy it. ground to air is pretty useless while air to ground is overpowered.

i'm waiting for more continents that are indoor, nothing more annoying than these outdoor maps that have become nothing but a rocket pod spam fest.

Yet another reason to keep AA launchers able to fire without a lock: on Indar, there are several bases with large ridges or other significant barriers within aircraft weapon range of bases. Enemy fighters were hovering behind the ridge, popping up just long enough to acquire and fire a load of rockets, but not enough to even acquire a lock, let alone allow an AA missile to get close enough to reach the aircraft before being scrubbed off on the ridge.

In cases such as this, a lock-only missile launcher is not only not a threat, it is not a deterrent, either. The aircraft were only deterred by accurate dumb-fired (fast-moving) missiles. Yet these changes are being implemented because, as the original post states, air is *too strong* right now? What exactly do you think will happen with the airpower balance when AA lanchers become thus decimated?

It's not too late - do not cripple the AA launchers and your company's PR by this ill-thought change.

I think the rockets should be one-hit-kills on ESFs and Libs. The same goes for MBT main guns. If your aircraft gets hit by a main gun, you deserve an instant death.

As if air didn't already have enough to deal with. MAX burster which is absolutely insane, heavy with aa, stationary aa turrets, other air with aa, and other numerous projectiles from tanks, turrets, liberators etc etc. How can we fix this? Make aa better and air attacks weaker! I wish pilots good luck in the future. Looks like TB was right on the money with the beta air discussion.

If you reduced drop on the non-lock launchers I'd be a bit less pissed but at the moment I usually run around with a Nemesis since, while it does much less damage to ground armour, it still does some and as long as I'm not alone some is enough, what's more because it has much less drop it's much easier to hit ground targets even with out a lock, and sure unless it's a lightning you can't kill it on your own, at least I know I have a good chance of hitting vs the default launchers, and can deter air from rocket podding my squad while I'm at it.

With the only fire on lock addition I simply will hardly ever use it now, same for the Hades (in fact I doubt I'll ever use it) since I don't want to be forced to lock on mid to close range targets which are the ones actually endangering myself and my squad for the most part, not to mention the fact that I doubt you'll be letting me lock onto Maxes with it, which makes me useless in a whole new way for my squad.

However I'm deterred from swapping back to default launcher since not only is it practically useless against air bar making a pretty light show for them, it has significant drop and can't lock to ground either. The way I'm thinking is I'll have to, but I think that's the way most people are thinking now. I truly believe you'll see the use of lock on launchers decrease significantly, to the point where people use them 5/10% of the time vs the non lock launchers and when using lock 90% of the time being anti air, not ground. I certainly can't see when I'm going to be comfortable picking up my hades knowing I have to lock to everything I'll be firing at.

Further more I don't get the point here. The argument was about the air to ground imbalance created by rocket pods. Firstly I honestly don't think they should have been included in a game that's meant to be about working together, why get a fully manned liberator to do some air to ground damage when you can get 3 single man ships to do significantly more damage. Single man ships should be for attacking and defending galaxies, and taking down liberators on bombing runs, not doing the ground bombardments themselves, hell if a skilled pilot can take out an enemy tank and some infantry using their main gun all power to them, but at the moment something is wrong when you are attacking a base and a single manned ship decimates your Sunderer and all engi's healing it in under a minute, or when defending hovers above the spawn 1 shotting infantry and maxes alike before they can do a damn thing about it.

So basically because you somehow missed that including a viable air to ground weapon that could spam out many highly powerful projectiles very quickly and accurately and decimate infantry, armour and stationary defensive weapons a-like, would create a scenario where people realised air spam was a great counter in all situations, and then these people abused it to the max (and I take issue with the 'slight imbalance' comment, since while ground isn't unplayable, as soon as air gets spammed there's currently nothing you can do and that's in both defensive and attacking situations, also worth note is there's nothing very wrong when I feel relieved to see a Liberator (while playing BETA I used to be terrified for comparison) instead of 3 single manned aircraft as a ground unit) a player who for the most part sticks to the ground and when he doesn't it's to transport fast or dog fight gets the real inconvenience.

Now if it were me I'd do something a little more drastic. Remove the rocket pods all together. However I'd replace them with 1. a weapon that fires splash damage projectiles that's very effective against infantry (but can only fire one at a time, meaning you actually have to ***** aim, give it a high RoF by all means but don't let them spam the bugger so there's no chance of dodging the fire) but do minimal damage to armour. 2. An armour piercing weapon that can chip through a tank, hell even a sundy if the squad lets you stick around for a bit no problem, but isn't efficient against infantry (unless you get a lucky hit) due to having no splash damage and being relatively slow firing. Keep the air to air lock on pods, they actually make sense, but for gods sake make sure they have to lock those. That way if people want to spawn as a anti ground single manned ship they can, but they have to make a choice between being able to take down armour and stationary defensive weaponry, or infantry.

SHORT VERSION: Pissed that air spammers have resulted in infantry HA getting the biggest de-buff. Rant out, you're fixing one mistake and replacing it with another one.

Oh but dying in an open field without an enemy in sight to a liberator or ESF thats just on the way to a fight with almost no chance to escape or counter, that is ok. The fact that being in an air unit renders most weapons people have equipped at any given time completely ineffective towards them, thats also ok. In order to take down air units you have to specifically equip to do so there by removing you from the actual ground fight, and thats ok too.

But shooting air units is not ok.

Air units shooting you is ok.

Got it.

WTB Afterburners on heavy assault. This whole 'dying' thing is annoying. Why cant i just hit a button and be propelled away from the fight at will? All this..running..hiding..and healing... is frankly ********.

Please add afterburners to all classes.

Thanks!

While I agree with most of what you said there I feel I should point out that rocket pods replace the afterburners (or at least they do on the Scythe). However people have gotten around this by using pods and IR smoke, meaning they can break any locks and run after podding, so the run and hide complaint is still very much valid. In the case of not using pods, and keeping the burners, that's valid IMO, since all they have is the main gun and that's only good for dogfighting and general anti air tactics, fully reasonable that they should be able to run when ground units start pounding them.

I mostly play ground but I can't agree with you more. When I do play air it's to try and counter air, but while dogfighting I usually get taken out pretty quick by stuff on the ground. The problem is not that air is too hard to counter, the problem is that pod and run is hard to counter. These changes are not constructive at all, all they need to do is fix the problem of pod and run, that's it, buffing anti-air is just going to piss off pilots of who, when in single man craft are actually trying to counter air themselves, make Liberators useless at a time when lolpodders suddenly realise they have to work together to carry on the bombardment tactics (co-operative play is great, I encourage it even if I am on the painful end as a ground man) and make Galaxies even less used than they already are.

What's more, giving you my perspective as a ground man who plays HA, now if I want to lock onto you I have to sacrifice everything else, my anti air launcher will now be useless against anything that isn't flying and made of metal. What's more my anti ground armour lock on launcher is now useless against anything that isn't rolling on wheels and made of metal. This means I just won't use my lock on launchers, in the case of air I'll pick it up now and again when defending and use it to deter some air and then switch back, in the case of my anti ground, I just won't use it, 700 alpha squad SC completely down the toilet.

So to re-cap, I can't dogfight as effectively (already couldn't and it's not only because I'm a terrible pilot), I can't use my lock on launchers, I can't feel at all safe in a Liberator or Galaxy and it's all because of people who abused one single weapon which has nothing to do with any of those things. This sends air back to how it was in Beta but even worse and makes HA's lives even more difficult. The real kicker is that they're leaving in pods and by the sounds of it, it'll still obliterate my Mag and Sundys, and if I want it to not obliterate me I have to ditch my precious nano weave armour and spend a bunch more certs specing into flak.

first of:

THX FOR ACTUALLY BRINGING THIS TO THE FORUM WOULD BE AWESOME IF WE WOULD SEE MORE OF SOE ACTUALLY IN THE TREADS SO PEOPLE DOENST GET THE "WRONG IDEA"

when that is said:
awesome with the changes, hope it comes SOON!!.

as a last poke: WTF HAVENT YOU FIXED THE SHT CONTROLS FOR AIR ?!? why can we still not decide weather we want yaw on the mouse or roll? which moron is behind that and wtf is he not fired yet?.
there have been MASSIVE amounts of threads about this and it seems like either soe doesnt give a ****** **** that 99% of their community is saying "hallo this is wrong give us the ability to set yaw on the mouse instead of roll" or they simply doesnt know what this idiot which is in charge of that part is doing for his paycheck -_-
seriously fire that moron and get a decent person on his post.

Best regards

us all

and ty for the awesome update

If you didn't notice, you get a good little chunk of extra XP for the vehicle kill itself.
Killing a Sunderer is 200xp I think, and a Galaxy is 300.
That's pretty awesome considering that a normal kill is 100.


I'm really excited to see these changes and even if the balance might be slightly off at the start (if it even is) then I'm sure the dev's will do their absolute best to keep anything slightly overpowered in check.