[Suggestion] Seriously Nerf Bursters Already

for the record, I don't want maxes nerfed, and I do want skyguard buffed.

But, you can't overdo it or else there will be no aircraft in the sky (as we saw for a wile in beta).

I get a lot more experience on the ground, although I don't use rocketpods much. you can however get a lot more experience an hour on the ground with a HE tank than you can in the air.

you know, this thinking is 100% wrong. you expect your free to droppod spawn HA with a G2A missile should kill a aircraft that cost resorces + has a cooldown timer?

at that point, you may as well delete aircraft.

Well, if that's true then SOE should delete the G2A weapon and refund the $7 it cost. What is the point of it if it is completely ineffective aganst aircraft? I bought one of the damn things and I don't think I've bothered to equip it in weeks. At the very most it will make an ESF break off its attack and come around again. Libs usually ignore it. You never get a kill with one. So what's the point then?

(the following isn't directed at you SolLeks so no offense

Now my dual burster Max is effective, thank heavens. Often I'm the only thing keeping the rocket podders off our sunderer or spawn. The mounted guns on the Sundy don't do much, certainly not enough to make an ESF break off a rocket pass. But I'll tell you something else, it takes skill and practice for a Burster Max to lead an air target, correcting for drop, altitude, angle and speed. I earn my kills with it, I can't just spam a spawn point and rack up kills. Even so my kills are way less than if I just engaged in infantry combat, but someone has to try to protect the infantry. We can't protect armor though, because we can't move fast enough to keep up with a column, and the Skyguard is a total waste. I knew that when I trialed it and ESF's flew straight down my COF rocketing me because they were so unimpressed by it. It should be madness for a pilot to charge a manned AA turret of any kind.

The fact that liberators often just hover in place bombarding the ground visibly demonstrates the weakness of AA, including burster Maxes. It is insane that in any future warfare scenario an aircraft could be such a flying tank that it ignores ground fire including dedicated AA. They should have to make high-speed passes with the gunner skillfully selecting and hitting targets while moving in order to stay alive. The fact that they don't have to bother to move at all is ample evidence of the weakness of AA.

As for the folks (including SOE folks) who say that AA should just deter air, I'll go along with that if air is nerfed so they just deter armor and infantry, and don't actually get any kills. What? You won't play air anymore if they do that? Well now you know how the ground pounders feel and why so few bother with AA at all. Personally I think the game would be just as much or more fun without any air at all. The armor battles would at least become battles among equals then.

There is a reason why it is called AIR SUPERIORITY, if your faction loses it, you are FUBAR

no offence taken.

The only thing is, you just need to see the other side of the coin as well. If air can be distoryed by one max (or skyguard) on its incoming rocket pass, then what does air do that will effect the battlefield?

If 1AA=1ESF, then if 2 AA are on the ground, they will counter all ESF in range. Currently if you have 2 to 3 AA in an area, ESF already become useless to attack the ground. Liborators are slow and easy to hit so they can take a bit more of a beating, but they even will die fast to AA. What I am talking about here happend back in beta, when skygaurds could hit a ESF 3 hexes away and kill them within seconds. No one flew aircraft and tank zergs ruled the day. Everyone was complaining about the tank zergs and the ESF flyers like myself would just ask "what is our point on the battlefield if we can not even make strafing runs?"

we then asked for AA's range to be toned down, and the devs made AA what it was at launch, then they have buffed it not to long ago.

Wile a tank will only get hit by anything within 100 yards, a aircraft will get hit by anything within 600. there is no cover in the air and you have to manage 3 demtions wile lining up for an attack (as our guns shoot in lines, we have to fly in them to be accurate).

It is easy enough to chase away / kill ESF right now, don't make it even easier.

Skygaurd has gotten a lot better with the last patch and 2 of them will clear out most of the air space (I have SG and dual buster unlocked). Max's are only better right now since they do not render to aircraft.

On top of all that, This is a combined arms game. Where is YOUR air support? I always have ground support when I fly.

Yes AIR superiority. Not AIR AND GROUND superiority. So one faction has lots of ESfs and libs, but barely any ground forces. At the state the current game is in the air can easily just farm you on the ground without even trying meanwhile a squad of 6 people are capping all your bases against superior numbers because the air is just blowing you to bits. that is nowhere NEAR balanced.

And our one decent counter to this (AA MAXes) that gives us a fighting chance needs to be nerfed? No, no way.

The way I see it air superiority should not mean the complete downfall of your faction on that continent.

OP?? Are you on ***** crack? Right now it takes too many damned hits to take down any aircraft. Most of the time bursters can't even kill any decent pilot. They come in, spam some pods or zephs, take a few hits and then fly away for repairs.

Burster MAXes are fine

Given their immobility, and the fact that they really can't do anything else with their armament, I have a tough time accepting your assertion that they deserve a nerf.

Can a MAX with kill an ESF within a single clip (assuming dual burst)?

Even if the answer is yes, we can counter with the following established facts:

1) In the time it takes a MAX to reload, any ESF can be long gone, even if they started from a landing position sitting 5m away from said MAX. This means that ESF can always choose to end the engagement, and fly off to repair.

2) Bursters are hideously inaccurate.

3) MAX are very immobile. This means that once they've been located by air forces, they can be dive bombed fairly safely.

Things are closer to balanced, but I really think this outcry for MAX nerfs is born by bad pilots who got used to hoverspamming, because a good one can still rake in MAX kills by the dozen.

No it really isn't like playing with an aimbot. And I've killed two A2AM users at once before. I wouldn't consider that a death sentence by default, especially not when I get the drop on them, one of them is going to be dead before he even starts to acquire me. If two people are tracking you BEFORE you have them in your sights, you're dead anyhow. There are simply too many ways for a halfway decent pair of pilots to scrap an enemy ESF.

I frequently fly my mossie against the 666th Devil Dogs on the Connery server. TR air is *always* outnumbered and outgunned against that group. Flying with complete air dominance is a feeling almost unknown to me. So I fight my fair share of battles against 2 and sometimes even 3 targets. I've got plenty of experience fighting in the situation you've described.

I guess I really shouldn't try to downplay the effectiveness of the A2AM, because they do have their uses (they just don't fit my style). I just don't see them to be nearly as game breaking as a lot of people view them.

I have dual bursters with extended mags in each. When I'm running on the ground with my outfit this is the role I play most of the time.

I have no problem most of the time keeping the air clear with my fellow maxes.
It is not air's role to kill me, it is ground forces role. They come in, kill me, then air can come in. Pretty simple really.

And I say this as someone who flies a mossy at least 75% of the time lately.

NO!!!, lots of people dont fly airplanes so they get the MAX as a last resort to defend from air

Whoa dude good idea! It's not like liberators with full composite armor don't already go down in mere seconds to a small handfull of bursters. Clearly they liberators need less health to make this more balanced.

ugh

I am seeing so many non arguments (like the one in the next paragraph!) in this thread it is painful to read.

"oh don't fly where there might be bursters then"

It is alarming how much I'm seeing this on these boards. Let's stop and think about how absurd a statement this is. Maxes are inexpensive units which can be pulled from every base on the map and every deployed sunderer, and have a very short cooldown. There is literally no where they can not be.


Now the way things are now with maxes vs esfs is probably pretty close to where it should be, ignoring the render distance issue. However, bursters vs liberators are just absurdly powerful since a handful of maxes can easily drop those liberators left and right, and there's nothing the liberator can do about it besides run away (which usually isn't possible either since every organized outfit abuses the render distance and only starts firing once they get close). Now this creates a pretty awful situation since those burster maxes are the last thing to die in a fight. By the time infantry and armor can get to them to make it possible for liberators to move in to support the ground units, the battle is over because in order to get to that point it means that everything has been killed already since the bursters are at the very back.

The way things are now air superiority doesn't mean a heck of a lot, since if your side has secured the air space of esfs, all the enemy has to do is pull a few burster maxes and all air capable of attacking the ground is immediately countered (Don't even try to claim otherwise, I've done it loads of times, and I see it happen all the time).

One possible way this problem could be alleviated is to make bursters do very little damage to liberators, and give skyguards a slight buff vs liberators. Skyguards can actually be touched by ground forces without going through everything which solves the big issue maxes have. Of course liberators can still fire down on skyguards, but in order to safely do so they have to be pretty high up, and it's difficult at best to bomb them from 400m+ so that's not really an issue either, and if air superiority has been lost, no one should be expecting any less.


Now I'm sure a lot of people here are going to just outright deny that there's a problem with bursters, and I will be receiving loads of dismissive angry responses, but for the rest of us who don't want to go back to the good old days of the beta when no one even bothered with air because it was a joke, and would much rather have a balanced game, throw ideas around on how to solve this issue, and do your best to ignore the people who simply aren't willing to meaningfully contribute to the discussion.

How did I know before getting in this thread that the the guy who made the thread was VANU?

spam some more.

Nerf the ones needing 2 mags to finish esfs and 4 mags to finish a liberator with a insanely overpowered anti infantry bomb attack from 1000 meters up in the air. YES NERF THE AA MAXES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

And btw, nerf the HA rockets that cant even reach the libs before they run out of juice plz.

If you had been in the beta you would have seen overpowered bursters. They had already been nerfed before the game went live. In other words: No...

It's late at night and I don't want to write several alineas before I got to bed so I'll try to keep it short

Let's agree on one thing first:
Removing the entire Render issue would make the MAX suit just as useless as the Skyguard and Phalanx, something you bombard outside of it's effective range, I think we can all agree this is exactly what will happen, it's only major advantage (besides a slightly higher Damage per Magazine) is it's 'stealth' at range.
We should also agree that if MAX suits hold fire long enough for maximum damage and suprise they are also close enough to be rendered.


A handful of MAX suits, if a handful would be 5 or 6, would indeed drop a liberator rather quickly, this is assuming we got 6 people against a 2/3 man liberator (in this situation the aft gunner won't make much difference) given it's flat open terrain and nobody else is involved.
That's half a squad against 2/3 guys and they win if they got the terrain to their advantage, this would obviously not happen in the canyons of Indar or the mountains of Amerish as the speed of a liberator is fast enough to escape and/or hide.
If said liberator is flying at high altitude to bombard Tanks/sunderers/etc, then the damage of even 6 bursters will be low enough for the liberator to escape outside of their own render distance before critical damage has been sustained.
Yeah, even a skilled pilot will die, no matter how many more certs have been invested, after all, if someone steps out of a spawn room and gets killed by a liberator he didn't know was there non of his own skill or cert investment will have mattered.

Let's not forget to take into account that these MAX suits are also equiped with bursters, A tank or small group of infantry can easily get to them and wipe them out (you know combined arms and ****, Air is nothing without ground support, ground is nothing without air support)
It's also important to note that a good Liberator pilot/gunner combo could if they work well together easily take out several MAX suits, especially if they are bunched up, with their Zephyrs (less success with the Dalton)

You also argue that Air is put out of Play by MAX suits, on the contrary, Liberators can easily bombard Vehicles out of AA range, and if the defending force has no vehicles they will have to focus on a much smaller area making it much harder to maintain AA coverage that isn't all bunched up together.
And we all know what a Liberator does to bunched up MAX suits if the location is known.
Obliteration of AA.


Now of course, Air is never alone because air players know that going in alone is akin to suicide.
As stated before it takes a 5/6 man group to kill a liberator fast enough that the liberator can't get away (that is if the terrain is right yet again)
Bring another liberator and come in at the same time, the AA now needs an entire Squad of AA to kill both liberators fast enough and the coordination to pull it off.
Add ESF into the Mix...

What I'm trying to say is that you always need a larger group of AA MAX units then the ammount of enemies in the air.
Not to mention the group of Engineers and Medics needed to support said group of MAX units.


I'm amused by your quote of "oh don't fly where there might be bursters then" because it's so typical in almost any Nerf this nerf that argument.
Getting killed by something in surprise is quite normal really, especially in a game with such a low TTK as this game.
Especially considering the cost of the ammount of MAX units needed to get that effect on a liberator exceeds the purchasing price of said liberator.
A single MAX is cheap, yes, but the number of MAX units needed to attain the killing power necessary to take down a Liberator like that is a quite high.

350 air vs 500/600 infantry
15 Min CD vs 50/60 min CD

If anything it surprises me that a group of MAX suits like that is so weak...



You say Air Superiority doesn't mean a lot... but it currently means more then any other superiority you can accomplish.

A2A ESF are the best AA as well all know, having more A2A ESF allows Liberators to hover undisturbed at maxium altitude and completely destroy vehicles (including skyguards) and turrets.
After that they can cautiously drop altitude and if done well kill any AA remaining or go straight to the Infantry farming.

If I got more infantry then the other faction I will be blow apart by tanks and Air unless I stay inside
If I got more vehicles then the enemy then I will be blow apart by liberators unless I got plenty of Air support.
If I got more air then anyone else I can put enemy tanks out of play and allow our tanks to overwhelm infantry, even if my tanks were initially outnumbered.


The only problem with Bursters right now is that they are the only effective form or ground based AA that requires numbers and coordination to use.... and it's only because they are not rendered outside of 300 Meters.
For the current state of the game I'd even say they are a bit underpowerd, and will be a complete waste of resources if the render range ever gets increased.


There are lots of issues with the current game, mostly found in Mechanic design, Base design and the lack of a proper Meta game that help cause all of these issues.
Simply buffing AA or nerfing Air will not solve anything, doing the opposite will do nothing good either.
It will only make the game even less fun for one group and slightly more fun to the other.

I could go on a tangent here on many things that could be changed before we go on an entire rebalance pass but then I will still be typing tomorrow during dinner so I will try to sum it up:

• Bases redesigned to be less campable/spammable by Tanks/air, less open cap points, no direct shooting at spawn entrances from the air, more trenches and bunkers, smaller windows etc.
• Replacement of the HEX system with a Lattice or similar system to make it easier to know where the next offence will be instead of having to wait for the hex to say that multiple enemy platoons are detected.
• AA to be Categorized as Short range (AA MAX), Long Range (Skyguard) And all round (Base turret)
• ESF to be split up into Air superiority Fighters that can Equip Rotary's and other AA guns with a secondary Selection of AA Fire and forget/Guided missiles); and Close Air Support that can equip various AT and AI guns and have a selection of Rocket pods and bombs, with both of them having weaknesses and strenghts that makes performing the other role harder.

Anyway, I've gone largely off topic here.

To summarize my idea bout nefing Bursters.

It's a bad idea, will decrease the enjoyment in the game for anyone but Pilots and will not accomplish any kind of satisfactory balance.

This is all coming from a guy who flies A reaver set up for A2A. (and no, I'm not the kind who scews away from A2A missiles.)

Edit: Short I said, it's an hour and 1.200 words later....

i wish more people would realize what the issue is, rather then complaining about various aspects. Sadly, majority of air pilots have no interest in fixing the problems due to motivated self interest. without massive changes, the only thing i can see at this point is to make air resources far more difficult to obtain, so that people actually have to worry about losing a vehicle. that probably wont occur either though.

another option is to remove rocket pods from ESF, but given that the game is live the outcry would be huge personally, i would like them to make a CAS ground support aircraft similar to the warthog, or something that has more armor and health, but is much much slower, so the pilot has to balance risk vs reward, at least then they could remove rocket pods from ESF and give them to people on a different aircraft. hell put rocket pods on galaxies, at least then people would fly them.

ESF should be air superiority fighters, not a jack of all trades. its pretty sad when your flying anything and watching your fellow pilots ignore enemy air because its far easier to score kills on ground targets. so many times i see hurt or damaged air trying to flee to safety , while friendly air ignores the enemy on there tail because they cant be bothered to put up much effort.

In the end though, i think SOE will attempt to balance it by nerfs and or buffs to ground AA, without a lot of success, because they have created a mess. At this point i would rather to back to beta where air was a non issue, at least the ground game play was more fun.

I don't have time to respond to this entire thing, but I want to address these specific parts right now.

In my post I specifically addressed this. In just about every instance burster maxes will always be in places that are not easily accessible to ground troops because they are not on the front lines, they are at the very back and before they can be touched the vast majority of the ground force has to be eliminated at which point the liberator is useful for cleanup, and that's about it. Especially since the vast majority of fights take place at facilities. Towers will always have the burster maxes on the pads out of reach of every ground unit until they have fought all the way up the tower, and effectively won the battle. Same is true of every other major facility. Meanwhile on offense they will always be at the back, behind the tanks and most of the infantry, sure they're a little easier to get here, but they're still pretty safe.

Really, and this is demonstrated by sitting 500m away tickling tanks lol?

If you lose air superiority right now it's not that big a deal because you can literally just pull a few bursters and all the air has to run away because otherwise it will die after a few seconds of being shot. What's even more alarming is that people think this is totally ok, like they shouldn't be getting bombed from the sky if they lose control of it.

Out of range is a pretty huge distance away from said vehicles, and it's incredibly difficult to be 400m away from a target, and hit it at that range, let alone kill anything, especially since you will still be moving to avoid fire. Of course you're welcome to go record a video of yourself decimating an armor column that is about 20x10 pixels at that distance to prove me wrong.

You seem to have missed the part where I was pointing out how absurd it was to tell people to, "just avoid where burster maxes might be".

If by numbers you mean 6 or 7, with an engineer and medic or two, then ok.

My outfit has, on multiple occasions, negated an entire warpgate's worth fleet of air with a single squad consisting of a handful of bursters, and a few medics and engies. We have also been on the receiving end of this several times too. Burster maxes have repeatedly demonstrated that in small groups they can easily negate literally all air within a 400-500m radius. That sounds pretty far from underpowered to me.