A tip to skyguard scrubs to avoid lib deaths

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by DaRealNattyIce, Jun 7, 2015.

  1. Demigan

    First off I've got to compliment you on the way you discuss. It's clear and despite some hostile language (sorry for that) you keep trying to get to the point and make things clearer.

    Allright. For you the Skyguard is fine. In turn I'll try to explain in unsubjective terms why I think the Skyguard is not fine.
    I personally have enough ways to get kills with it, but I don't think that the things I have to do fall under "normal" operation. Normal operation is stopping aircraft completely. Relocating them to another area with less AA or no AA is not stopping them and means they are not effective.
    Aircraft themselves have enough power to go toe-to-toe with Skyguards. In and off itself this isn't a problem, if G2A goes up to A2G they should be equal to eachother. But it's not equal, as ESF also have great power against infantry and aircraft at the same time while Skyguards lack power against anything but aircraft. Also, Skyguards only have a lot of power against ESF but Liberators, Galaxies and Valkyries have tons of health and great damage reduction as well as the speed to survive it (ESF have the speed as well but a smaller escape window). That's why I think it's not fine.

    The idea you present here is great and I love it. It's one of the few reasons I do a ton of Skyguarding (the other is because I dislike the air-mechanics so much despite loving it in any other game and love taking pilots down a notch).
    But compared to aircraft this is (or I find it) unfair. They might need a bigger startup-skill, but they get too much power for extra skill compared to other vehicles such as the Skyguard, mostly due to their omniversal combat abilities against all unit types.

    I think it can be done in such a way that COD players wont be using it. Straight up increasing damage, muzzle velocity and accuracy would be a horrid, horrid idea for the entire game. Which is why I'm advocating to nerf other aspects first to improve skill required and prevent the whole bad scaling effect that AA has, which according to me is caused by the skill-reduction methods they put it into all AA weapons in the form of flak and lock-ons. Increase skill, increase killing potential and make each AA weapon a specialist on different area's. Similar to all the infantry weapons having different specialties and situations where they are effectively in. Skyguards=ESF killer, so despite changes to better kill ESF they wouldn't necessarily be better at big aircraft. Get an MBT primary AA weapon with mechanics that make it tough to use against ESF but a great weapon against bigger aircraft, put some kind of mechanic in lock-ons to make them more skillful (having to aim closer more consistently and retaining LOS, but reducing the lock on time).

    The Skyguard should never get a straight increase. A change in mechanics, definitely, but not a straight up buff.
  2. HORNYBOSS

    When skyguard is so weak, why do you guys bother with it? When Air is better than ground why do you bother with ground? I know why: you tried air, you failed, and now you compensate for this by calling air OP and blaming good pilots(patient, skilled people) for killing you, mad scrubs.
  3. Demigan

    This makes it seem like any pilot that bails has their aircraft fall out of sight of flak and then ram the ground or as if flak can't track an ESF that's still in view and destroy it after a bail.

    Or we have different tastes in gaming? Which is why everyone has a different class as their preference? Most people enjoy the easy way that gives the most obvious advantages, such as the Heavy, others prefer different classes for different tastes in their combat style.
    Aircraft in this game have a way different playstyle than any other game, and I dislike it. I especially dislike how 2 mistakes in the code have become the leading combat maneuvers in almost all of the air-game: Hover fighting and reverse maneuver. I also dislike how most air weapons similar to ground weapons are simply improved versions that can be all the way up to twice as good as the said ground weapons.
    • Up x 2
  4. Ulas

    I fly a lot and I am telling what I see. That's what most ground troops who use these for transportation and even experienced pilots will bail once they know they cant get out of it. Suprisingly amount of these cases can be much higher tha what we expect it to be.
  5. Demigan

    It has a high skill floor, but once reached it instantly gives you a ton of power. The high skill floor is what turns people off of it as it takes time to master, and at best they have mastered the ESF which has a lower but still high skill floor.
    As I said in another reply just now: people have different tastes. Most people prefer the easy way and obivous way of getting power. Others prefer to find the most power and will do anything to attain it, including putting a lot of time in and learning the more intricate ways to use all types of weapons until one gives the most advantage.

    wrong, I'm saying:
    1:Liberator is better than tanks and works differently
    2:Liberator is not as easy to use as tanks, but that doesn't mean that tanks cannot attain similar or even higher skill levels. At which point they gain less power than the same skill a Liberator gives. That in and of itself isn't the problem, it's that this skill to power difference is out of proportion.

    Because they want to have easy to attain power rather than hard to attain power? And yes, it's harder to get into the air-game, but the rewards of reaching it are far higher than the risks in the end. But the biggest problem with getting into the air-game is not anything ground units can throw at it, it's the air-game itself. Starting up in the air-game now is tough, as you can hardly learn anything from fighting people using the reverse maneuver and hover fighting to beat you as you'll never get to learn how it can be better unless you get someone to teach you, after which you need several hours of training before you can fight them off now and then.

    No, I said that amount of users is no indication of skill floor:
    I'm trying to enact obvious game changes.

    They are. I have already explained how KPH, AKPH and VKPH can be skewed, I'll take time to explain how it can be skewed later. It has to do with the downtime between engagements and how, when and where vehicles are purchased and why.

    that's because I talk about the entire weapons abilities, several times.

    Checked the thread, all you mention is that they have similar KPH, which is an oversimplification of what's happening.

    We didn't go throug h this (well I did several times in the past). And I'll explain you the whole skewed thing when I have time.
  6. HORNYBOSS

    When did reverse maneuver and hover fighting became a bug? Now, i may call driving forward in a tank a bug too?
  7. Demigan

    You see them bailing, but I don't think you know for sure how the flak finishes them and in those situations the nosecanons of ESF have similar chances to finish them off.. The amount of people who use them as bail-transports is minimal anyway, and the amount of people who bail out of ESF when shot by flak is minimal as well, I see very few people ever bail.
  8. CipherNine

    Hahahaha funny how stats now became skewed.

    Or is "stats are skewed, I'll explain later" Forumside way of admitting you are wrong?

    In any case I think it is pretty clear by now that you Lib nerf-mongers are full of it.
  9. Demigan

    Read my previous posts, there I already mention that they can be skewed.

    And it has been clear that aircraft users have been full of it since day one. On day one we had Rocketpods that had bigger AOE's than the HE shells before the nerf, could kill tanks in one salvo with it and kill entire squads as well with one salvo (2-3 rockets max per kill unless they were really far from your aim, 4 or 5 rockets to kill a group of people). Nosecannons could already overpower Skyguards and were used to kill tanks and other infantry because they had too much power.
    Pilot reaction: "This is balanced and as it should be". That reaction never changed no matter what happened. People were finding out how OP Libs were, Liberators started dominating the skies because they were better at AA than anything else, and better at destroying anything else as well, being able to OHK tanks with their tankbuster etc. The Dalton was better at AI than almost any ground unit weapon and dealt more DPS to tanks too boot, not requiring a hit because it counted as a C4 explosion so the AOE could hit tanks as well, and to take it to the top they had enough ammo to last for 15 minutes of non-stop firing before having to go back. This was all OK according to the pilots. And when the Liberators got a buff out of nowhere taking all these properties even more over the top and increasing it's resistances against just about anything, this was still OK and balanced according to the pilots. ESF stopped being able to fly whenever a Liberator came into view, a single Lib could pose more threat than a group of Skyguards could, and actually kill a ton as well. No ESF around? Bomb and shoot the infantry and tanks below, if you look around the internet you'll find some video's of how a single Liberator destroys entire tank and infantry zergs, and it didn't matter if it was using the AI weapon (Zepher) or the AV weapon (Dalton) on either, as both dealt enough damage to wipe it all out.

    So no, I'm not full of it. Pilots have been full of it. I'll explain how stats can be skewed, but the fact that you haven't figured it out with the hints I already gave is dissapointing. I guess that no matter how right I'm going to be about it, you'll just put your fingers in your ears and go "lallalalalallala" then try to find a single sentence or word that you think you can attack and make something up as an argument. That's the usual BS I see around here.
  10. FBVanu


    Demigan, we are getting closer. Why not propose some ideas and see how flaming hot the reactions will get from pilots.

    If Air has too much power.. with a 'not so fine' counter in the Skyguard.. then I would say not to reduce the power of air, but increase the counter to air. However, I would like to keep the high skill ceiling in place. At least a few things in this wonderful game should require skill and effort. That would then also prevent the spamming of Skyguards, since most players still won't touch it.

    What if the Skyguard shells had a higher DPS in the first 250 meters? Say a DPS increase of 20%. That would stop some, or maybe even quite a few, Liberators from hovering behind you and instagibbing a Skyguard.. well, would it? And this DPS increase only affects air vehicles.. not ground vehicles or infantry

    It would allow a decent Skyguard driver to take out ESFs that are hovering too close and too low, (farming infantry), and take out said ESFs with about 8 shells less.. while NOT making it easier to aim or lead.

    In other words, the mechanics of the Skyguard remain the same, the high skill ceiling is in tact, only the DPS is increased, but again, only for those close encounters.. And it is in these close encounters that Liberators have an astounding advantage, at this time, and most ESF s are dead from close encounters with a Skyguard anyway. so nothing much changes there.

    let's continue the discussion from here?
  11. Ballto21

    all i see is a really good pilot. if i tried that id get destroyed (bail out yelling ALLAH AKBAR with C4 is the best AV)
  12. FBVanu


    Well , there it is. the video proof that air is very powerful against the one specific vehicle counter to air.. and somehow that doesn't make any sense. The engineers that built the counter to air, forgot that their counter is gonna have to fight against air...

    Top Armor for the Skyguard should not be an option.. it should be standard.. just like the tracks..
  13. Ballto21

    One specific AA unit?

    I want to see this guy to the same against a walker sundy

    Or a burster max cluster

    Or a cluster of lockon heavies (well with a ppa thats possible)

    People think the skyguard is the only form of AA in the game, but its not. It may be the least effective against ESFs, but if its not effective dont ***** for air nerfs grab a walker which is great against ESFs.

    The skyguard in my mind is anti galaxy, which it does very well.

    Anti air also scales exponentially with numbers. If there was any extra flak in that area, he wouldnt be able to do anything.

    Think of it like this, if i killed a few MAXs using Mercy arms with my NS7-PDW and made a video about it, would the PDW be op or would i just be doing well?

    If something is overpowered than any idiot with the item would be able to use it to max effect (heavy assault, chaingun,shotguns, all of which are OP in varying degrees, most of which arent gamebreaking). I want to see you make a video of you doing the exact same thing. Go on, ill wait.
  14. teks

    skyguard is a monster against ESFs. The best anti-ESF tool there is.
    Flop full stealth on, grab some racer 3, and go off-roading behind the lines. Take em down in droves.
    The OP posted good advice, but rather then follow it, everyone wants to sit still on the road and complain when they die.
  15. Antillie

    If a lib with a tank buster gets the jump on a skyguard at close range the best thing the skyguard can do is drive straight at the lib and try to get under it before the lib melts the skyguard. Odds are the belly gun will be less dangerous or the belly gunner won't be expecting it. Then turn left or right and zig zag to try and mess up the belly gunner's aim. This doesn't work so well against a shredder but its pretty effective against other lib belly guns. However the skyguard is very likely to die no matter what really if the lib is good. And always make sure you are shooting at the lib. Flack bursts can obscure their view of you and if other people are shooting at them the damage just might be enough to kill them.

    At range the best thing a skyguard can do is to keep moving and turning. This makes it hard for aircraft to line up for an attack run and also makes the skyguard harder for MBTs and Harassers to hit as well. Rival chassis is incredibly helpful. Racer chassis isn't that great IMO as going in a straight line doesn't help as much as sharp turns and you will quickly find yourself too far from the battle to be able to protect friendly ground forces. A stationary skyguard is a dead skyguard, never stop pretending you are drawing a picture of spaghetti on the ground with your tracks.
  16. teks

    Yes. I'll add:
    Don't let a lib get the jump on you. Get the jump on them. The lightning's low profile is great for ambushes against low-flying liberators. He won't get the tank buster lined up and the belly gunner will have a hard time making up for it.

    Racer 3 and rival 3 are both equally good. Rival is better for point defense, allowing the tank to strafe cover and dodge shots. Racer is better for flanking. It's fast enough to outrun most threats, make the flank faster, and better at climbing hills.
    I prefer racer with stealth and fire suppression because flanking gets kills, while point defense just makes a no-fly zone. Both are fun though.
  17. Antillie

    Good points. I am almost exclusively a point defense skyguard. I run rival, self repair, and fire suppression and get a surprising number of kills. Probably not as many as a good flanker though. Since I am always with friendly ground forces I blend in and look like just another random lightning. Its sort of stealth without needing to actually equip stealth.

    Out on the edges of a fight I can see stealth being far more useful as you pointed out.
  18. 0fly0

    I was responding to a guy, showing him that yes esf can snuck up on you in a tank, not argu about pilot skill or anything else here...
    Try to read next time instead of quote every post you see in this forum.
  19. Ballto21

    i was just trying to point out that i thought he was a really good pilot. sorry if it came across as an argument, i thought that it was your video and was trying to pay compliment.
  20. Demigan

    Most pilots don't even react. The few who do react only see the disadvantages I'm giving them (the possibility of being killed without a chance to escape should the user have good skill) and not the advantages (no more "lockdowns" with low amount of people)

    Personaly I would remove the omniversatility of the aircraft and make them much more focused. They would become either AV, or AI, or AA. You can choose intermediary options, but that should give similar amounts of power as an AV/AI MBT or AV/AA MBT etc would give. The best way to do this is to make primary and secondary weapons synergies to eachother.
    Here's an example:
    You get a brand-new AV nosecanon (preferably two, one close-range one long-range for better mixing and matching). It's relatively accurate, has a slow fire-rate and fires several shells (if possible, damage could be increased based on vehicle speed, higher vehicles speed higher damage). It's kind of a mini-tankbuster but can be used at extreme distances as well. But you won't be able to simply swoop down and kill vehicles with this, just like a Halberd won't be stomping vehicles easily unless it's coupled with other stuff, such as an AV canon. In comes your secondary weapon which you also chose as an AV weapon. Together the AV nosecanon and AV secondary can pack a punch, perhaps even destroy a single vehicle from the back or set it to burning from the side.
    I would also love for aircraft to get more specific roles. ESF would become fighter-bombers that rely on high-speed for survivability, especially with the new AA. Instead of the rocketpods and Hornets they sport now they get drop-bombs to kill their enemies. Scopes help you look down and can show you where the bomb will drop below you at that speed and altitude, or utilities can install evacutation seats for your bombs, so they drop straight down and don't get your momentum. The Valkyrie could get a modified version for close support combat. Install hornets and rocketpods on it instead of the passenger seats, give the gunner seat 360 degrees view and better weapons, and you've got a vehicle that needs to be close to it's targets to hit them, close enough to feel the danger of their weapons, while sporting enough armor to get some punishment (3 AP shots!) and being vulnerable to A2A fighters. etc.

    AA:
    Incredibly reduce all the skill-reduction stuff we have on AA now. Flak shouldn't explode on 5m distance of aircraft (not sure what it is currently, but that's half a sunderer distance), it should explode at 0,5m distance. This prevents the "automatic hits" for aircraft: Just because you flew near AA you got hit. This is also the whole reason for the bad scaling problem with AA, it doesn't take skill to hit (although it does take skill to hit consistently), so having a small group of Flak means an aircraft will get automatically hit X times, and with enough people that means he's simply dead. We do this for all flak weapons, not just the Skyguard.
    Once that problem is out of the way and ESF can fly 10m over a Skyguard without being hit due to the Skyguard not having the skill to track him, you can up their damage and accuracy. The huge spread needs to go, the ability for ESF to escape a Skyguard (or any flak for that matter) should be based on their evasion skills rather than solely their speed and afterburner.
    For a more fair and even playing field, the Skyguard should not be upgraded against Liberators, Valkyries and Galaxies. We introduce the MBT Primary AA for that. An example of how that could work is by giving it a Viper-style weapon. Several shots, no bullet drop, no flak, not too high a muzzle velocity and perhaps even decrease the turn-ratio of the tank turret. That way it become bad at tracking and killing ESF (that aren't hovering around!) but will pack a great punch against big aircraft. By limiting the muzzle velocity you can give even those aircraft a chance to try to evade, but seeing that these aircraft already have the power to annihilate them, let's not make it too low a muzzle velocity, especially as it also reduces any chance of hitting at range.
    MAX's could get a secondary type of Burster. It has no flak and serves a similar role as the MBT Primary AA: Killing big aircraft.

    Lock-ons. Rather than fire-and-forget after a lock-on procedure, the lock-ons are locked in 0,5 seconds. You can fire without a lock if you want, but for a missile to track you need to keep your weapon trained on the aircraft constantly. This gives Lock-Ons a LOS requirement, you can reduce the range of when you get a lock, so Heavies need to aim closer to the aircraft to gain and maintain a lock. Aircraft can use maneuvers to break the lock, at which point the missile will fly straight until a new lock is gained (which takes 0,5 seconds again).
    One of the more skillful things you could do with this missile is shoot it, then gain a lock so the missile is already partway there. But with a limited turning arc you should really aim that missile before it passes the aircraft or it'll never catch up.

    I had thought of a different method before as a less intensive change to AA: Being able to switch fire modes while firing. You get 3 fire modes. 1 is the normal mode we have now. 1 has a slower fire rate but less spread, 1 has a high fire rate but increased spread. The high-fire rate one needs to be very close but can cash out a ton of damage (great for surprising hovering aircraft and keeping low-flying aircraft away), normal is just as you use it now, slow fire rate is for the long range. This adds another complexity for Skyguards: Keeping their fire rate at the right setting for maximum damage. As an aircraft flies away you'll need to switch fire-modes to keep up your accuracy and keep hitting them.