Devs - for the love of god ...

Oh for the love of god people.

Air superiority, since the introduction of aircraft into warfare, has been of the utmost importance. Yes, infantry (and tanks!) are at a significant disadvantage. They always have been, they always will be. The solution is actually very simple; take and maintain air superiority over the battlespace. I like this. Why?

This is the only game out there where it's important. Sure, you can argue Battlefield 3, but even then it's only a minor force multiplier. In PS2, I've seen massive zergs of tanks and infantry attacking outposts and bases be defeated by a coordinated defense of both air and ground assets- as it should be. If you leave yourself without air support, or if air support has been denied to you, (as is the case throughout the last century) your infantry and armor will get spanked.

A Mosquito/Reaver/Scythe that is geared entirely toward CAS will leave himself at a massive disadvantage in a dogfight. In fact, he'll be easy prey for even a mediocre pilot from an opposing faction. As it stands now, even a few decent pilots kitted out for A2A supported by a few Vanguard/AA Burster MAXes can completely deny any air threat presented to a convoy/attacker/defender- as it should be. You can't expect, on a modern battlefield or a future battlefield, to win a battle while being completely dominated from the air. It doesn't work that way.

Air feels OP because you don't have AA maxes. if everyone had AA maxes air wouldn't be aproblem. If everyone had Lock on -anti tank rockets, tnak mines, if everyone had these crucial balance tools these things wouldn't feel so "OP" now to obtain them is the problem. 7 dollars isn't the problem I don't mind forking up 7 dollars, but that's not it.. YOu need multiple 7 dolllars, you need people across all continents to have these 7 dollar weapons. everybody. Now that's a problem.

First of all, there is no ancient argument, it's a fact, explosives deal more damage to bio then to metal, or should we start the thread about nerfing C-4 and Prox. Mines too?. This is a good example of people wanting to nerf a piece of equipment because they die to it. AV rockets are going to be used on foot soldiers as well as anything else people want to fire at, it's a choice for a play style in a game and a perfectly viable one at that. If I know I can kill an enemy if I pull out my launcher vs. pulling out my LMG, then I'll go for a rocket, plain and simple. And if other people start to spam out AV rockets as well and the battlefield turns into a rocket war, guess what? I'm going to get the heck out of there becuase I know I'll probably die a lot. If you don't like the game then don't play, either trust the Dev's to actually look at they game they made and make balance changes according to what needs to be balanced or just sit here and QQ on the forums, honestly doesn't matter to me. As for me, I'ma go kill some peeps with my launcher now in honor of you and the other QQ'ers.

Kewl, but the thing is, PS2 is not about realism but game balance.

You want rockets as powerful as they are IRL? Make them cost 400 infantry resources per salvo. They aren't cheap, you know.

lol @ the "it's a rocket, it should kill in one shot" mentality.

Bullets should kill in one hit too. An ESF just making a pass within 100 feet of you should knock you down. A tank shell exploding within 50 feet of you should act like a concussion grenade.

And no, flak armor doesn't prevent you from being oneshot by a direct hit from a rocket. I use flak armor on all my characters, to prevent zero-skill cheap kills from people spamming rockets and grenades. Unfortunately, sometimes I still get unlucky and land in front of them just as they are shooting their rocket - instant death. But most of the time they are easy kills of course, partly because they don't seem to know how to shoot a gun (maybe they only use rockets and grenades because their game lags too much to hit with a normal weapon?)

I think rockets should fire twice as fast and do half the damage. Same AV potential, better chance to deter air, and less cheesy oneshot kills. But that's not gonna happen now, is it?

I never said anything about realism, and as far as balance goes, launchers seem pretty balanced the way they are. It comes down to logic, if a weapon is capable of destroying a armored vehicle in a few shots, then why wouldn't it kill a piece of meat in one? That's what I'm getting at, it makes no sense to stop a weapon from killing squishy things as fast as it does when it's designed to kill unsquishy things quickly.

Hey I'd pay 400 resorces for an anti-air rocket as long as it will down a Lib in one hit. Hell I'll do that all day long!!!

The problem is that it feels as though PlanetSide 2 has 22nd century aircraft fighting against 20th century air defenses.

Aircraft entering the airspace of a hardened, defended base equipped with anti-aircraft defenses should be shredded in a matter of moments. The anti-air defenses of bases should consist of guns firing shells with a large flak radius (that do not overheat in seconds) and high speed, smart-seeking missile batteries.

In other words, the aircraft should have to stand-off until vehicles and infantry can move in and disable the air defenses.

Instead, we are left to defend bases with defenses that would be considered poor even by WW2 standards.

Drawing parallels between real battlefields to this game is stupid. Your comparing real life to a game when the purpose of the game is to be fun not a realistic military simulator because I dont think aliens are on real battlefields either. Being farmed by aircraft is not fun whether that is real life or not.
Aircraft in this game take way too many hits if you can even manage to hit them, and deal death in seconds. They also carry way too much ammo. They need to be nerfed big time in many aspects. Aircraft are very fragile in real life but in this game they are armored tanks carrying as much ammo as tanks.
Aircraft need to take damage from small arms fire so any class can do slight damage, and any AA gun needs to kill them in few seconds of fire. Aircraft cant fly into AA guns shoot missiles and then just fly away barely damaged like happens in this game.

Agreed, and for numerous reasons.

1. Anti-aircraft guns should be firing flak shells. Which means nearly every anti-aircraft round should be hitting the target, regardless of proper lead distance or not.
2. Damaged aircraft tend to not fly so well. An aircraft instantly hitting top speed while pulling intricate maneuvers to get out of targeting distance when the aircraft has been shot full of holes is ridiculous and imbalanced.
3. Aircraft tend to fall out of the sky when hit with a missile. It should take far more infantry rockets to take out a tank than it should to take out an aircraft, otherwise aircraft are just 400 mph tanks that don't need to use roads, which is ridiculously imbalanced.
4. Aircraft should have critical hit areas that include the wings, engines and cockpit. If the critical hit system is considered fair for infantry then it should be considered fair for aircraft, which are plenty vulnerable in their own ways. Tanks are armored, infantry and aircraft are not. This would be balanced, since infantry have multiple ways to attack tanks (rockets, anti-tank mines, C4) but a single way to attack aircraft (rockets).

@Taki just keep in mind the standard rocket launcher for each empire is designed to kill infantry.

The problem is air is the most mobile unit in the game, as well as the most offensively powerful, largest aoe damage, and repairable. The only downside is a timer, which does not really effect anyone because they simply take turns if they accidentally hit another friendly fighter and die. Air should be glass canons. A single lock on rocket takes anything down. When was the last time you saw a ground pounder go on a 300 person kill streak? Its ridiculous that 3 libs can lock down an entire area with no real defense. Maybe add 30 second invuln shields on people after spawning or something. I dont know, but air balance is definitely broke.

Don't forget that air is also as well armored as a tank. So if we are keeping score, air is:

1. Most mobile unit (by several orders of magnitude)
2. Most offensively powerful against:
   1. Infantry
   2. Vehicles
   3. Aircraft
3. Has largest AOE damage (by an order of magnitude)
4. Most defensively powerful:
   1. Aircraft armor can take as many rocket strikes as a vehicle
   2. Aircraft are able to ignore several attack vectors that infantry use against vehicles (C4, mines, etc)
   3. Aircraft have no critical hit vulnerabilities (unlike Infantry)
5. Is Repairable

/agree

I dont have any troubles with ESF since the last nerf for them. Not as a pilot nor as a trooper. It just takes a bit more rockets to kill a soldier.
As a burster MAX i have no troubles neither, you just need some cover and an ability to predict where your flak hits.