AA is Completely Broken at its Core

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BetaGuru, Dec 31, 2013.

  1. ViXeN

    Here is what should be done. A lot of players don't like using AA because you don't get anything for it due to the fact that most ESFs and Libs just fly away before you can finish killing them. So give AA users experience for each it on aircraft. Most people don't want to spend an hour fighting off a swarm of aircraft only to get a couple kills and not much experience.
  2. Kid Gloves

    Actually it's a lot better than it used to be.

    I'll address each core argument in turn:
    * AA role when aircraft are no longer around
    * Being AA when aircraft are around, and not being able to kill anything
    * Being aircraft when AA are around

    So:

    AA ROLE WHEN AIRCRAFT ARE NO LONGER AROUND

    Ground-based AA comes in the following flavours:

    * Walker and Ranger turrets mounted on MBTs, Sunderers and Harassers
    * Burster MAXes
    * HA lock-ons
    * Skyguards

    Ranger used to not exist and Walker was truly terrible. Now it's not nearly as bad, and as a vehicle mount on all but the harasser it's sitting right next to another gun on the same vehicle that doesn't have to be AA. So when there are no aircraft around the vehicle itself is still capable of engaging other targets.

    Burster MAXes can swap out their weapons at any infantry terminal. I've started playing MAX a bit more often and I do this all the time. As soon as the air threat is no longer a threat I'll swap to AV, AI or a mix of the two. I'll make sure I know where my closest terminal is, though, in case I need to swap back to AA duty.


    HA can not only swap out, but even the dedicated AA-only launcher can be fired dumbfire. I've used mine on multiple occasions to successfully engage ground vehicles and other hard targets.

    And finally the Skyguard. The Skyguard got some very much needed buffs to its capability outside of anti-air. It can now engage and kill infantry and it can engage and provide supporting fire on enemy ground vehicles. I think it takes ~3 clips from the skyguard to take an enemy sunderer from full health to dead - which is not as effective as an AP cannon but it's not miles off what the C-75 can do and it's perfectly adequate. Case in point: I was on base perimeter patrol with my skyguard yesterday and I destroyed more sunderers than ESFs. Probably because the only ESFs that showed up quickly left because there was a skyguard in the area.

    BEING AA WHEN AIRCRAFT ARE AROUND

    AA is a deterrent. This is why aircraft award xp for partial damage. Watch closely: when an aircraft takes enough damage you get awarded xp, even though the aircraft is still alive. This was put in precisely so AA people could actually earn xp - because without it you got absolutely nothing for going AA.

    I've farmed air for that xp. It's great because if you kill them they're less likely to come back for another bite. If they run away, they repair and then come back in... and get driven away again. And I get more xp.

    BEING AIR WHEN AA IS AROUND

    AA is something you just cope with. It's there, it is known about and you deal with it.

    Massive battles can have a lot of AA, or failing that can have sufficient 'spare' enemies that someone will swap to AA when you show up. So you keep this in mind. You look at the flow of the battle, you decide where your efforts are best spent and you work out where you don't want to be.

    As for lock-ons: I've never had an issue with them flying against them, and I have not popped a single flare. Not one. Ever. The only time you need flares is if you're an ESF going up against an AA lock-on nest. And in honesty, the best way to deal with an AA lock-on nest is with ground troops.

    TL;DR
    If you'd posted this 6 months ago I'd have completely agreed with you. But not anymore because there's been a lot of stuff done to improve both AA and air gameplay. Is it perfect? No, and it never will be. But I regularly play AA and air and I enjoy both.
  3. Keiichi25

    You guys realize... AA does get XP when they do a certain amount of damage to Air.

    On the flipside... Air always complained about how powerful AA is... And this is only true when there is a lot of it up and pilots not knowing how to deal with it make it easy for AA to tear them up.

    Out of the good pilots who do know how to deal with it, they make it out like it is a complete No-Fly zone, almost giving up trying to do anything in regards to dealing with it.

    While I am of the stance that AA should be a threat to Air, at the same time, I have to begudgingly have to say that no one AA source should be able to easily kill an ESF by itself. With that said, the weakness of AA is that there isn't much they can do ground wise to fight beyond infantry and even then it is sort of iffy at times.

    The difficulty in fielding AA is the fact that for Lightnings, once you pick it, you are stuck on that being your only means of doing anything until you lose your lighting or get bored enough to burn resources for another. For MBTs, sacrificing the firepower you can use elsewhere for a weak AA support or hoping you have a gunner smart enough to focus on the Air attacking your tank.

    In another thread, there is a wank fest about Lockons and in all honesty, while I use Lockons and defend them, there has to be a middle ground on the effectiveness, because again, you want not only to be 'effective' down below, but also in the air. Some of the 'suggestions' in adding skill to the weapons to replace lockons are still bereft of reasonable how to make it a weapon that is used properly for AA purposes that won't be abused for ground purposes against infantry.

    And another thing to note - The Skyguard and Burster is useable on infantry. The Skyguard is somewhat usable against Light Armor, Sunderers and MBTs, despite what some people like to argue. They are not as 'great' as using the C75 Viper, or the C100 Python HEAT or AP, but they are the closest to the M20 Basilisk that can nag and be annoying to tanks and will keep the Nano-repair from working on said vehicles because they do damage to a vehicle versus just 'plinking'.

    Again, they aren't the 'best' front line option, but as a rear line defense weapon, the Skyguard is better than nothing.
  4. Kunavi

    Too drunk to present my arguments in any way they would make sense(Hey that's actually happening even when I'm sober, WTF?) but TLDW(rite) : Problem's the players, not the tools. I might elaborate later- Errr attempt to.
  5. Kid Gloves


    Thankfully no longer true, and hasn't been for a few months.

    Skyguard is in a great place at the moment. It wrecks sunderers and harassers, it can provide good supporting fire on enemy tanks and hard targets and while out of the box it is unlikely to kill ESFs (it'll just scare the crap out of them), it certainly can with a bit of cert love. It is also not horrible for killing infantry - certainly much better at it than an AP cannon.

    Skyguard is my go-to for my lightning. I get far more ground target kills with it than air target kills. I attack Vanguards with it with an expectation of victory. I certainly attack Sunderers and Harassers because it's a really good gun for attacking them.

    As soon as you put two Skyguards in an area working in tandem, the story changes dramatically. No longer are skyguards driving enemy aircraft away...

    I've participated in a skyguard operation where we had five skyguards positioned in nests deep in NC territory near their air towers and covering their warpgate. We completely shut down all NC air on Indar for a sizeable chunk of an alert. Maybe one aircraft in twenty got past us.
  6. Trebb

    It's also a problem of scale.

    If you have a swarm of aircraft, there's not enough AA in the world to keep them at bay. They have too many escape options unless you counter with another air zerg.

    If you have one lib versus a small squad, the lib will almost always win. AA just makes him run out of range and auto-repair. Pull an airguard to counter him? lol he can tankbuster & dalton you down in 3 seconds flat, literally. Even with max fire suppression and evasive maneuvers. So yes Libs are OP against small skirmishes. Waaay too durable, and extremely frustrating and unrewarding to the ground crew. They never actually get a kill, at best just scare it away unless it's a bad Lib crew.

    But now up the scale, and when you have 5-6 sources of AA it can suddenly be useless to fly.


    tl;dr : NOONE likes to be farmed. People are still angry to this day from the LOLpod / Lib OP farming days to ever forgive air and let it get buffed :p
    • Up x 1
  7. LonelyTerran

    I can never forgive aircraft for the "Dark days".
    Gotta break out the AA battalion as soon they show their slimey hides.:D
    • Up x 1
  8. BetaGuru

    To address a few points and straw men and so forth:

    "dood lern2fly"

    This goes along with the people saying that because I'm not a pilot I guess I have no say in this? First of all, it's unfortunate that you think I somehow need your permission or some kind of club membership, but I assure you that is not the case. Also, I kept much of the perspective of my post attune to what I do have a great deal of experience in: being shot at by ESFs. In fact, if you're a dedicated ESF pilot yourself, I probably have more experience than you do when it comes to fighting them from the ground.

    I'm willing to bet that deaths by ESFs represents a significant minority in my total overall deaths. Chances are I die to regular-old gunfire more than anything else. But dying to MAXes, or other infantry, or even tanks and yes even liberators is not nearly as frustrating. ESFs stand out significantly for me in terms of frustration, and because of that I tend to try and cert AA to give a little back.

    The point of my thread is that the AA is lame, ineffective, and frustrating to use.

    "But I have fun with AA!"

    Congratulations. If you pack enough people in a room, you'll find somebody who likes everything. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. I'm happy you're happy. I'm not, and this is my thread. Telling me you're happy with it doesn't magically change my mind or really address any of my concerns. I guess it adds to the noise, though. So, bravo?

    "Combined.... wait for it... arrrrrrrrms"

    Okay. Yes? I'm the... guy trying to combine... the arms? By using AA when so few others do? And... I'm saying it's not good. I mean, the idea of combined arms is that some people carry guns to shoot the mans with them, and some people carry guns to shoot the tanks, and some carry guns to shoot the planes. I'm saying that the guns that shoot the planes are poo poo and aren't doing anyone any favors, and that I don't think it's the guns' fault.

    I mean, is that not coming across? I'm mystified by these responses.

    "so wut you wanna be rambo you can't be rambo only rambo was rambo"

    Rambo also only ever killed one dude in First Blood if memory serves. And it was accidental. Or something.

    Anyway, I'm alright with AA being kinda lousy against non AA targets. I'm saying that because it is lousy, it's rare, and that because it's rare, ESFs have too easy a time farming targets that are all but helpless against them. I'm saying that both situations are broken, because they are not adding to fun for all involved. At least, that's my opinion, which if you're keeping score is equal in value to yours.

    "the counter to ESFs is other ESFs so sayeth higby lol his hair twitter instagram"

    That's a flawed concept. First of all, it puts ESFs on some kind of 'better' plane (har) than everyone else. Imagine how much rage would be levied at tanks if the troop counters to them were weak and the better counter was simply other tanks? It'd suck. Tanks are okay right now because there are multiple counters to them that are effective, and they are constrained by terrain.

    Libs should terrorize ground targets. ESFs should terrorize libs. AA should terrorize ESFs. That's the rock paper scissors I'd like to see. That doesn't mean that it should be a slam dunk in every case; it isn't, after all, in other parts of the game. Even as a weak little sniper I sometimes beat a heavy who's startled me with just my little pistol. But that's not every time, because thats how the game is balanced.

    ESF/AA right now doesn't feel balanced. It feels broken. Hence the thread.
  9. FateJH

    It was actually like that for a while if I recall. Pilots complained about AA being too good even then.
  10. Klondik3

    Skyguard is quite good at AA duty.

    I guess the reason why you think it is bad is either because:
    a)You are trying to shoot down aircraft that are way too far
    b)You are trying to shoot down aircraft that haven't slowed down to attack ground target
    c)You have bad aim

    1 Skyguard is good enough to badly damage ESF trying to rocket pod friendlies.
    2 Skyguards will reliably finish that ESF.

    Ground AA isn't supposed to kill every aircraft that passes by. It is only supposed to kill aircraft trying to attack ground targets and thus slowing down and putting themselves in vulnerable position.
    • Up x 2
  11. Goretzu


    Yup, it's basically because in PS1 you had:

    1 x A2A fighter
    &
    1 x A2G fighter


    In PS2 they (inexplicably) rolled both into one A2A&A2G fighter (that can do both exceptionally well with the same loadout).

    Until they correct that mistake air is always going to a never ending problem in PS2.
    • Up x 1
  12. Goretzu


    Except in the case of the ESFs "combined arms" means "can do everything with one loadout and do it well".

    Which is the exact opposite of what "combined arms" usually means. :confused:
    • Up x 3
  13. Axehilt


    I had to double-check to make sure this was some extremely old thread necromancy. Mostly because my Skyguard score/min is pretty competitive (losing only to rocket pods and prowler AP) And with lower score/min weapons (G2A lockons) you literally do get XP for each hit.

    So everything you're describing here is basically in the game already. My stats:
    • Rocket Pods: avg 729 score/min
    • Skyguard: 455
    • Rotary Noseguns: 424
    • Tank mainguns: 340 (apart from the prowler AP which is an outlier at 667)
    • LMGs: 255 (Orion is an outlier at 424)
    So AA is very strongly rewarded right now in terms of XP. And that 455 is achieved with a much higher portion of downtime compared with the other weapon types.
  14. TheFamilyGhost

    I had no idea they could cap. Or hold territory...etc ad infinitum.

    Sir, you're looking for excuses.
  15. Hicksimus

    Last night I was around 50000 points per hour defending a tower from greasy TR sky plebs.
    Their plan was to pound the tower into submission with Gals and ESFs and Libs while Infantry did the capping. Instead......myself....as a burster max.....pounded their air units until they gave up. Occasionally there was an AA turret helping but tanks were on a hill by the tower so it was never up very long.

    I didn't find it fun.....I found it satisfying. I game because I enjoy gaming and satisfaction is enjoyable(cue benny benassi). Fun is an overused term in gaming so drop your "not fun" rant. Fun is racing shopping carts, fun is giant PPA blue balls, fun is using a lightpost to stop my winter beater instead of the brakes. PS2 doesn't have much fun in it(most aspects are frustrating ex. vehicle handling), but that doesn't mean PS2 is not enjoyable.
  16. Goretzu

    If you've never taken and defended a territory with just an ESF then that says a lot more about you than it does about them. ;)

    Excuses are not needed, it is perfectly possible for a decent pilot.
  17. TheFamilyGhost

    My point is that you would rather have that pilot handicapped than figure out how to beat him.
  18. Axehilt


    Well apart from Scissors hating Rock, I have a ton of fun as air.

    By design it would be terrible for G2A to consistently do more than zone air out. (Excepting, of course, the fact that you can brutally murder air if you set up just 3 Skyguards and tear down all but the most massive of air zergs.)

    The key balance issue is the lack of tradeoffs in aircraft. With an ESF you can pair up the best A2A (rotary) with the best A2G (rocketpods) and each of those weapons is actually also solid at killing across its specialization (I use my rotary to tear up infantry, and rocket pods to tear up air.) With a Liberator you're an air tank capable of shredding air and ground targets alike with really any of your weapons (except the Bulldog.)

    The solution is to introduce tradeoffs:
    • To achieve current levels of anti-ground effectiveness (rocketpods, lib bombs) you should feel very weak against other air vehicles.
    • To achieve current levels of air-vs-air effectiveness (nosegun, A2A lockon) you should feel very weak against ground targets.
      • Liberators shouldn't be capable of their current level of A2A effectiveness.
      • This means that only ESFs (which are more easily zoned out with flak) are the only aircraft which can be A2A.
    Basically when things have balanced tradeoffs, a varied mix of vehicles will appear and everything will have a counter. So the G2A aircraft punishes heavy ground, which counters with A2A ESF, which is countered by flak zones, which are countered by heavy ground. The overall relationships are a bit more complex than that, but everything has at least one thing it fears and some things it kills.
  19. Klondik3

    True. Giving rocket pods to rotary ESF is almost like giving Skyguard secondary to HEAT Lightnings.
    • Up x 3
  20. BetaGuru


    The problem with making assumptions about me you can have no way of knowing is that it leads you into a problem whereby if you're wrong it utterly undercuts your position.

    I mean as long as we're making baseless assumptions about me, why not try the other side of the coin? What if I'm highly skilled with terrific aim? Does that change your position?

    If yes, then maybe you need to rethink your response. If no, why bring it up in the first place?

    I disagree that Skyguards will "reliably finish that ESF". On what do you base this? It can't be the ESF's high maneuverability and speed with which it can use to rapidly escape a bad situation.