OK, so this evening I logged on to literally get 10 minutes of game time in before settling down with the family, joined one of my outfit mates who was in a squad trying to take Northern Weigh Station. Naturally being so close to the enemy warpgate there was a fair bit of air, so I popped an AA MAX, deterred a few and took down one guy. This guy then decided to go on a foul mouthed rant via tell - he was either having a bad day or is just a generally angry (high level) player who believes they are, both literally and in the social standings, above the little people who run around far below 'their' skies. This tell and subsequent rant got me thinking; I absolutely hate air with a passion and whenever I get a pasting from air it does get me raging (not to the extent of ranting via tell - that is just hilariously over the top and if anything is just going to give the killer more to gloat about). Do the flyboys, and I want to call you that because that is what you are, have an equal (or perhaps greater) disdain for infantry? It is a genuine question as the general air hatred is historic due to how OP air was; to my knowledge the reverse has never been true, so am wondering was the outburst tonight an isolated case, or is it commonplace? Edit: You'd think I could get the name of the base right...
If you've ever flown a lot in an ESF, you'll know that you can only take a few seconds of fire from 2 AA maxes and you're gone.
Well I've been on both sides of the coin, and when using Flak-Based AA it feels so easy to destroy enemy aircraft or deter them from the position. When in an aircraft, ESF's specifically, it is extremely hard to do so without getting ***** by the AA. I am okay with Flak however since I can actually get away from it, but things like A2A Lock-ons and G2A Lock-ons, the striker especially, those are absolutely horrible since they require no skill, all you gotta do is stay on target for like 2.5 seconds and then you fire and reload, there is absolutely nothing to it.
Granted, but I think that would come under the "if you are against two of anything you should expect to lose or fare pretty badly" category. I think my curiosity is more along the lines of 1v1 scenarios where one of the two gets the drop on the other (be that as a result of greater positioning, awareness, or skill).
If you've read these forums enough there has been plenty of complaints about the burster MAX and AA in general. In all the time I've used a Skyguard or AA Phalanx turret I've not have anyone comments directed at me. People do value their chosen play style highly as shown by all the complaints when something changes.
That is an interesting point nicely raised that I hadn't considered - the weapons each player is using. I have no less of a problem with air wiping me out with their front gun, but pods wind me up. Lock ons just wind everyone up
That is kind of my point - there seems to be an acceptance when a vehicle is killed by a vehicle / turret to some degree, yet when it comes to the MAX it is felt that they shouldn't be capable of taking anything out. The flip side of that is a strange one to get to grips with if you think about it in the cold light of day; why shouldn't an aircraft be able to smash infantry to pieces? Why do people hate it so much, even now? Very true.
My favorite genre is flight sims, though I gravitate towards the harder core sims which usually means that the things you're destroying on the ground typically aren't being manned by other players. You can spend 60 minutes starting up your aircraft, taking off, getting to the vicinity of the target and be taken down by a MANPAD which gave you no warning of it being fired.. I don't know why but the sense of entitlement in games that contain both an air and ground component is exceptionally high on the air side. For that reason alone I like to take down air - though I find Bursters to be an exceptionally boring way to do it, especially now since it doesn't register hits when I use my AA MAX/Skyguard more than 50% of the time. I also hate air with a passion but I wouldn't have if I didn't come to these forums. It's not the vehicles specifically I hate but the attitude of those that use them. I choose not to fly ESF because it lacks any believable feeling of flight and fighting but apparently I don't do it because I lack skill - according to those that fly.
While I don't hate AA, it can be very annoying at times. As a lib pilot one of the things I hate the most are peek-a-boo AA maxes that pop in and out of the spawn room to shoot at you and go back after taking a few shells to rep up. I actually like hunting a good skyguard driver, the kind that moves around so I don't know where he is and he gets free shots on me. If I know where the skyguard is, it's almost no challenge to tankbuster him and let the gunner pop him for the gunner kill + crit assist. In my Mossi however, I just run from almost all forms or flack. However, if there is no flack, anything that moves on the ground that's not TR is going to end up dead. I went on a 96 killstreak with my Mossi the other day killing infanty who could only shoot back with a lone lock-on or small arms. Adimittly I only ran into 5~ Reavers, none of which even posed a threat, and 3 Libs, of which only one was a decent gunner-pilot team. It only ended due to a piloting error on my part. I don't disdain infanty, but I'm also not just gonna let them waltz into a TR base like they already own the place.
okay let me propose a hypothetical to you. You stand with your AA max out side of a building, a mosi shows up and has the drop on you he lets lose a volley of high explosive rockets at you. You then take a large amount of damage but not enough to kill you because being a smart guy you took cover before too much damage was done. Then when the mosi is in retreat you light his *** up with AA and almost kill him and he runs smoking. Now he has to get to a safe place which could be a long ways off before his burning mosi bows up. Another hypothetical, you see the mosi flying by you light him up and he trys to escape and in the process bumps a radio tower that didn't render (which does happen). He blow up instantly and you have a good laugh. Another hypothetical, you are a max and a light assault comes up behind you and unloads on you, you then turn and run, why lets just say for arguments sake. When you turn and run you bump into a tree. Did you explode in a ball of hilarious flames. no. In reality you would have looked at that light assault like he was stupid and killed him. Any other vehicle other than air can take cover easily or avoid fire without having to dodge the environment as well. Air we have to avoid damage from the enemy while almost always exposed and also trying to avoid hitting any thing in the environment. This takes allot of practice and time. I know I have spent hours and hours just flying in vr or in the warpgate to get to the level I am now but 1 double burster max can still take me 1 on 1 nine times out of ten.
So from your post I gather your biggest issue with air is the attitude of those that almost exclusively just fly, and the level of entitlement that comes as a result? I think it is an important differentiation as it is too easy to group everyone into the "you fly therefore you are an ***" category, and it would seem because of the actions of a select few, a whole subsection of the game gets a bad rep. This forum is a strange place indeed but, perhaps just like the above example, I believe there is a large number of great people on here who add value to discussions and can bring ideas to the table that SOE should really listen to. Unfortunately a lot of the good stuff is drowned out by the dulcet tones of those who end up giving the forum a bad reputation.
Oh, absolutely. A few rotten apples, etc.. though I do project that onto anything and everything in the air when I'm on the ground. I probably should have made that clearer, thanks for the opportunity for clarification.
That is a common one for sure. But, assuming the pilot was competent and with luck on their side, they would land, repair, perhaps re-arm, and be back for round 2. This I would regard as a reasonably fair tussle (1v1). Is it wrong that I laughed just at the thought of this one? Only kidding man. That situation would suck, for sure, and leads me into the next one. I think I'd be wondering why on earth he didn't C4 me when he had the chance. With regard to the tree bumping, I get what you are saying. The collision damage in this game is ridiculous and needs some serious attention - the slightest knock is enough sometimes to cause an explosion. It is especially worse for air as it does seem to love dragging the plane into the structure like a tractor beam before the inevitable explosion. Air has a distinct advantage though in that small arms fire is going to do very little damage, and none if you are a heavily armoured Lib or Gal. On the flip side, air can damage everything with every aggressive loadout (obviously ABs don't count here), so ground has more reason to play the cautious game. Obviously in heavily populated areas air is going to have a torrid time if the area is prepared to counter with infantry or vehicular based AA. The environment avoidance thing is a fair point as I've stated above. I don't think anyone can question the skill of some of the pilots in the game. Would you say this ratio is still valid with the current state of the burster MAX?
SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS. Nerf rockets and AA, now hear me out. Buff small arms fire against ESF and let small arms do some damage against Libs and Gals. Add in a anti armor/ anti equipment sniper rifle that does serious damage to all vehicles but has a seriously slow muzzle velocity and high bullet drop.
Was the other players tirade only because you used a MAX? Maybe they were just having a bad day and would have mouthed off regardless of the type of AA unit.
My hatred for air stems from when the game first launched and air was hilariously OP on top of AA being ridiculously unavailable. The hatred was made even worse by all the pilots who claimed that air was supposed to be the only viable counter to air. It is no fun getting farmed by players who you have no practical means to fight back against, and was the reason why I quit the game within a week of launch up until lattice came out. It took a hell of a long time for the frustration of getting killed by air to go away, and some of that hatred for air still lingers. I also generally avoid posting in anything related to AA vs Air balance because of that bias.
Reason I hate AA is that whenever I go after an enemy plane, I always end up getting locked on or hit by flak. Worst feeling ever. Air game currently is mostly "meet enemy, retreat to friendly AA" for a lot of people.
I hate air because whenever I try to use a mossie to get somewhere quickly, I always get picked off by some mlgpro pilot who just wont leave me alone. Also from the early days where air ruled the game. Shooting dowb pilots always puts a smile on my face, though I am trying to get better at flying myself.
Bursters and skyguards are fine. You can generally get away unless your approach was very silly or they are focussing fire. Lockons are skill-less rubbish but are getting a balance soon. It just seems some air chavs feel they have some entitlement to take on dedicated AA units and come out on top; don't be silly, you run and find somewhere else to play, or make quick passes on other soft target in the area, or get reinforcements to all take on said AA. I play both, there's no rivalry between them. In fact while shooting ground targets just the other day in my scythe I noticed a skyguard had the flak bug, so I yelled as much and left him alone (with a wee wing wiggle while taking a lot of his flak).
