"air the counter to air" was the correct balance for EVERYTHING

The famous quote was "air is the counter to air'. Getting owned by Zephyrs? "Get more air to shoot them down," it was said.

This was the right and wrong way to balance things.

The Zephyr and Rocket Pods were(still are, actually) overpowered, and people demanding that more than just air should be able to counter those overpowered weapons, since the users of them fervently defended their OP-ness. Now ground-to-air is so powerful due to some buffs, the addition of the annihilator, and sales which allowed a vast number of people to get them. Now even though Pods and Zephyr are still overpowered, they get shot down pretty easily.
It was right that you should need air to deal best with other aircraft, but it was also wrong to have some air-to-ground weapons be so strong. And all the other branches should work the same.

How things SHOULD be is that air should be the counter to air. Tanks should be the counter to tanks. Infantry should be the counter to infantry.
In such a sceneario, even if air-to-ground isn't strong, if you have air superiority than even though your weapons aren't overpowered against ground, their still somewhat effective due to not being challenged too greatly.
Even if tanks weren't overpowered against Infantry, if you have armor superiority, then not having to worry about battling tanks would make it easier to fight Infantry instead of both at the same time.
Even if Infantry wasn't overpowered against tanks and air, if you don't have have a bunch of infantry shooting you then it's easy to flank some vehicles and shoot the rear, use your small arms against ESFs, or simply stay in doors.

The best way to kill air SHOULD be a good dogfighter, but aircraft shouldn't be so overpowered against ground that it's a requirement that you have your own air to kill them. (Pods need their mag size cut in half, and Zephyr needs huge nerfs)
The best way to kill tanks SHOULD be another tank(with AP), and tanks shouldn't be quite so strong against Infantry. (I'm in favor of making HEAT 950 splash damage so they're shy of one-hit-killing with splash and infantry doesn't NEED flak armor, though other things would work too.)
The best way to deal with infantry should be more Infantry and MAX. Tanks should want infantry supporting them. Aircraft should need a front line of infantry there to distract the ground if they want to get anything done. Conversely, lock-on rockets are too strong against vehicles.

Right now Heavies dominate. They're the best against infantry, and the best against vehicles. They're not just the best infantry class against vehicles, them with lock-on launchers are the best AV period.

Air-to-ground needs nerfed, HEAT and some other strong infantry-farming-weapons(splash in general) that have little drawbacks need nerfed, and lock-on's need nerfed.

I think the idea was something like that:
G2A ---counters---> ESF ---counters---> Liberators ---counters---> G2A
But since 80% of the ESF are more focused on killing ground troops, the counter to Libs was missing -> ground got even more destroyed by the hardly challenged Libs

Instead of shifting the focus of ESF to A2A, they just buffed G2A

So, you mean to say SOE failed again since the last time they did the same in beta?

Let them undo it and do it again 4 more times so they can actually understand it, I know 2 is not enough for them.

I disagree. This is a combined arms game with a heavy emphasis on ground battles. Large epic ground battles are what this game is all about. Previously, air superiority would dictate who won the ground battle because essentially, gunships would win it FOR the ground troops. This is not fun for either fighting force. No one on the ground wants you to win the battle for them, and no one on the ground wants to be helplessly rocketpodded or zephered into dust. The balance is better now that ground forces have an effective means to defend themselves, while air power still has an effect, it is no longer the deciding factor.

... You realize what I said completely reinforces combined arms and nothing you could suggest would really reinforce it any better? :/

If you only bring Infantry, their air and tanks should be unmatched. Only tanks, then their air and infantry unmatched. Only Air, and their infantry and tanks are unmatched.

When you have one thing that counters two of them, or all of them, combined arms doesn't matter. Which is where we're at now, where all you really need is heavies, or last month when before all you needed was air.

It shouldn't be air>tanks>infantry>air, or air>ground, dedicated aa>air, or whatever other thing. They should be strong against their counterparts and not quite as strong against other things compared to what those other things are to their counterparts.

It only would have worked if all A2G was removed from ESF's and the Lib was made the only A2G aircraft .. As soon as ESF's got rocketpods it destroyed any balance of air countering air .. Lib's were killing ground and ESF's were killing ground .. Very few were actually going A2A and is one of the reason's we are in this place now.

I don´t agree with that at all. yes, heavy are powerful right now against vehicles and ... isn´t that their class role? However heavy lack smth that all air and ground vehicles have, mobility. Yes, they can move around but at a slow speed compared to vehicles. Mobility = 2 things, you can control range of engagement and you can use cover more effective. The balance is like this, heavy don´t 1shot things, while they can get one shoted quite easy by a good hit.
A combined arms in same numbers will always => a blob of heavy infantry

You do that and then tanks and vehicles will ridiculously dominate infantry.

Agreed and the numerous bugs with missiles mean you get shot with invisible buggy missiles by invisible players while having no lock warning sound or image!

Maybe this will be less broken when G2A bugs (which make them more effective...) are ironed out.

Well yeah .. Because Libs would still ignore them to target inf .. so basically it's a flawed system so ground needs to be able to counter air as well .. Since as we know, if most air is countering Ground it leaves hardly any to counter other Air

Something needs to change. Right now Air in general is so completely shut down by mass HA lock on spam that they cannot even get near any major fights.

"BUT I STILL GET A TON OF KILLS IN MY ESF! UR JUST BAD!"



Nadda. See this? This is me completely ignoring any helpful or meaningfulness effort and chasing down hapless infantry far far away from the main conflict. K/D means absolutely nothing. Right now Air cannot get close to where it counts and is only good for farming low BR's in some fringe base from off the drop pod.

Lock-on range is too great. Their utility is too easy to use. Lock-on weapons have such a hilarious over the top advantage on the default they they cannot even jokingly be called a side grade. Not to mention completely negates the entire point of A2A ESF, Sky Guards, and AA MAXs. A ton of counters to air that actually require a hint of skill to use. Instead we got the most numerous infantry class in the game able to FAF a rocket from 2 hexes away without sacrificing a damned thing.

not a buff it was a edit

QFT

The problem with air right now - you can not get close to any meaningfull fight since you will be destryed by invisible lock-ons. It is still possible to farm infantry, but air doesn't have it's part in big fights. Something should be done to lock-ons to solve the problem...

"A ton of counters to air that actually require a hint of skill to use."
^^THIS, THIS THIS!!!!

SOE caters to much to the less skilled, casual or non-pilot player because these COD driven players want easy kills without any effort and without the risk. That's where the money is at so SOE follows that crowd. This is why AIR is sucking so much.

Funny part is it only fuels the perception that air is OP and there is nothing we can do about it! Because infantry spawning far from the protective cover of friendly AA are getting throttled and farmed with ease. So they come and complain instead of using their AA options and we get slammed with nerfs that force us away from big fights to... da da dada

Farm more helpless infantry who will then complain.

Honestly with the rocketpod nerfs, IRNV nerfs, and the recent AA MAX incentive I felt Air was getting pretty balanced. There is still an incredible amount of lingering hatred from the first few weeks of podders ruining everything that run, rolled, or hovered. And it is screwing over everyone when we are so close to getting actual balance.

The problem is, the current ESF's are ground attack aircraft. If we had air superiority fighters and interceptors, then aircraft would be more balanced.

That there is the problem straight away, air is the counter to everything. If you get rid of the pods and Zephyer then I would agree with your post. But the simple fact is that air can kill infantry with ease, as such infantry should - in there own right - have a way to fight back.

Now you guys in the air just have to learn to live with the monster you created. If air didn't farm infantry so aggressively, then there wouldn't have been such an outcry to buff AA. Actions have consequences and the current situation is the consequence of all those who farmed with air while ignoring enemy air.

We are using our AA option's and have been for months .. I can't remember any thread asking for lock on's to be buffed .. All people wanted was for them to be fixed because they were bugged to hell

Love that signature btw.

Infantry DOES have AA though. Last time I checked MAXs are pulled from every infantry terminal in the game. It is potent. Portable. Resistant with flak to the point of outlasting a rocketpodder in a straight heads up. Infantry already has an infantry-scale answer for Air. Not to mention the numerous AA turrets around most major bases or the dozens of unmanned sunderer turrets that never even expend a single round. There is no excuse for getting farmed after the ESF nerfs unless you are so few in numbers that you should be vulnerable to an attack vehicle.

Then you should be complaining at SOE for putting them in the game rather than the player's who are using the tools the game has given us