AIRCRAFT: The small fight killers and large fight nonfactors. Let's fix it.

Premise: Aircraft have minimal contribution in large fights unless being used to complement an overwhelming force (at which point they are not necessary).

When I think of aviation assets, I think of aircraft whose primary mission is to support the ground troops. When I think of planetside 2 aircraft, I think of high skill-cap vehicles that don't contribute to the fight. They are an annoyance that nobody likes dying to. They appear overpowered, yet at the same time they are usually worthless and provide minimal contribution to a fight. So a liberator can camp a tower of 10 people. Who cares? Picking off the weak, the overextended, and noobs doesn't count as contribution (at least in my eyes).

Why are aircraft in their current state?
Ground threats outscale aircraft. It's a simple fact. Don't mistake me, I'm not here to complain about AA scaling vs aircraft because there is nothing realistic to alleviate this "problem," and AA don't need nerfs. I'm just bringing it to everyone's attention. It is the unintended yet necessary gameplay mechanic that make aircraft a balancing nightmare. In fact it's not really a problem at all, it's just reality.

Other contributing factors: Libs are large, slow-moving targets in the that attract AA like it's going out of style, even at long range. Ever been AP rounded out of the sky at the flight ceiling while moving at full speed? I have. It's pretty fun. Unfortunately for libs they can't just blaze around NOE like ESFs to mitigate lock-ons. Flying low in a lib equates to eating Vanguard AP rounds and dumbfires for lunch (that's a 2 shot kill for anyone wondering). Fly in the medium altitude range and you'll be eating lock-ons, unrendered flak, andmore tank rounds. Fly at the flight ceiling and you get harassed by aircraft all day while attempting to take out armor with innacurate long range shots. Chances are you're still taking damage from unrendered flak. There is no sweet spot for libs except camping a small fight. Brool story.

What are some ways to "fix" the air/ground relationship?
It's not realistic to nerf AA or really buff aircraft. Small changes could be made for liberators (for example a bit more resistance to ground fire). They could be made a bit more agile as well. Those are more of bandaid fixes because they don't really fix the root issues. In beta when flak was OP, libs were given more armor. That resulted in the small-fight ruining, large fight nonfactor lib we have today. It has enough armor to dominate the weak, but not enough to last when the enemy is out in numbers. Also libs lack the agility to be evasive against ground fire. More health is a bad option.

However, what if we move away from the ESF/Lib farming mentality to allow them to contribute with effective teamwork? It's a challenge, but it's possible. Some basic changes could nudge us in the right direction:

• Provide teamwork-oriented ground-guided munitions. (i.e lazing targets). Provide them for both Libs and ESFs.

• Give infantry proper spotting methods to mark targets for the squad and platoon. Allow players to designate squad and platoon spot colors so they stand out. Also mark the location of these targets on the minimap such that we can still know where unrendered targets are generally located. You can't kill what you can't see, and in large fights rendering comes down to the last second often times.

• Give players an "oh ****!" button (OSB for short) to mark their location. I always imagined smoke to serve this role rather than providing pretty colors. Unfortunately it doesn't render at range either. Have the OSB place an indicator on the HUDs of other squad/platoon members to allow for quick response to threats.

• Take a hard look at these fuel pod changes and what they mean for the game as a whole. With the current test server setup (+50kph cruise speed, +80% capacity, double the recharge rate), ESFs have essentially turned in to the one thing I always dreaded they would become: Another rock/paper/scissors addition to the game. The beauty behind ESFs is your ability to kill another ESFs is based almost entirely on skill. There are tools to assist less experienced players (A2A missiles), but they still won't kill a top end pilot unless outnumbered or caught in the open. It's a beautiful accident that will go away if these changes go live. It is the very thing many top pilots value and love about air combat. Designating aircraft as AV, AI, or AA can't really work as much as we would like it to. The reality is there are no front lines in the air. You can get shot down just outside your warpgate with a fight 2km away. Tanks have a general front to negotiate; aircraft do not. Pilots must retain the ability to defend themselves, and scaring away a 50kph faster attacker just so they can turn around make another attempt on you does not count as self-defense. No pilot will stand a chance against an equally skilled player using such a loadout. This is the "I win" loadout. It will successfully stop rocket podding, but it will further isolate the contributions air make to the meta game (the ground fight). And libs will be in an even more pathetic state than they are currently are with these guys buzzing around with seemingly infinite burners.

Regardless of the opinions of my suggested changes, I would like to end my post with a question I have failed to find an answer for: Where do air fit in, and how does the development direction support it?

I just want to say: Good post; well thought out and based in reality instead of the usual hyperbole.

To be honest, I think the root of the issue with air in PS2 is the same as with tanks: casualization. Because of that, aircrafts were made spammable, and spammable things can't be given meaningful objectives (which are few by nature). Had aircrafts been scarce, then having them run high risk, highly rewardable, rare missions would have been worth it.

Look at the RAF forces, they have maybe 300 real fighters ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_Kingdom_military_aircraft ), how long does it take for the same amount to spawn at any warpgate?

Very good post. There is no simple fix for these issues but we can try to come up with something

Something that might work would be to either add new infiltrator dart gun or update the existing one to highlight darted vehicles much like the thermal sight does but from long ranges as well. Squads / platoons could even have specific highlight colors to help with coordination. This would give the ground forces effective means to highlight high value targets and make it easier to concentrate fire.

As you stated the liberator has no real place in large fights because it is so easy to hit. Maybe it would be possible to simply scale down the liberator and improve handling a bit to allow quick passes and low altitude flying.

I don't really believe the rock/paper/scissors system is as shallow as you seem to think...

I believe one of the main balancing problems of ESF is that they are good against everything: they can kill infantry, they can kill armor, and they can kill other aircraft. Without a system of rock / paper /scissors to put them in check, they become impossible to balance.

We have had times in the past where ESF were definitely overpowered: they could farm infantry really easily with the rocket pods (earning them the derisive name lolpod which is used even now), they could kill tanks just as well (less than one second ttk by attacking their backside) and they could kill other aircraft. That was broken, it was extremely frustrating to die to an ESF because they were gods of the air, the most you could do is try to deter them with AA, while good pilots would hit and run and escape to repair only to come back later and pick off more infantry / tanks, and rinse and repeat.

To make things worse, A2A missiles are a crutch for lower skill pilots to try to kill other aircraft, in exchange for a significant loss of damage vs ground, and fuel tanks are mostly useless, which made the rocketpod + rotary setup (a.k.a. the one that is most effective against everything) the most optimal and common type of ESF.

To deal with this system you can only either nerf the ESF (which makes them subpar) or buff AA, which causes the same thing. Not really desirable, it's a nightmare trying to balance this.

By implementing the fuel pod changes, however, you have ESF that give up damage vs ground in exchange for better handling and AA capabilities, which keeps the lolpodders in check. Right now they can only be kept in check via nerfs to their effectivity. Since rocketpodders will be at a disadvantage against other aircraft builds, they can be made more effective again.

tl;dr: rock paper scissors is a balancing system that lets us make things effective while having counters to keep them in check, otherwise things are either overpowered or subpar at everything they do.

While what you are saying is true the problem arises in that air combat is different from ground fighting. In a tank proper positioning allows the AI vehicles to function despite AV threats. In the air that isn't true. The best thing I could compare it to would be removing afterburners from rocket pod users. Ground to air effects aside, think how worthless and obsolete these aircraft automatically become. Unless there is a wall of flak covering your every move, you are done. ESFs make themselves vulnerable every time they attack. Ground vehicles can better control their risk, and dying is generally a longer process It's a fine line, and I can't picture a rock/paper/scissors approach working for aircraft. It will turn in to Rock vs Rock vs Rock where we do circles around eachother in the air all day contributing nothing to the fight below.

Good post. Makes a really nice change to see a constructive and thoughtful approach to a difficult part of the game.

Apart from anything else, aircraft should be as accessible to newer players as ground vehicles are (and by that, I mean ease of use etc). As it stands though, that would make them massively OP and impossible to deal with.

Infantry combat in this game is easy enough to get into, but also rewards the highly skilled - it would be nice if that could work with aircraft too, although I've no idea how. I used to fly quite a bit in PS1 and really enjoyed it, but I don't remember it being as OP as it is now at times. I honestly don't even remember why that was the case, but I much preferred it!

In PS2 it seems that ESF's in particular are horrible to learn, yet offer real huge OP'ness in the hands of dedicated pilots. Now, those dedicated pilots probably love that situation, but it isn't fair and doesn't help the game in any way at all.

I didn't really get in to the new player aspect, but I will say I think the afterburner changes will have negative effects on players trying to learn to fly. Additionally if aircraft could have a more hands-off approach (by choice with a given loadout), they could possibly contribute more as relatively inexperienced player. This would be a natural side-effect of ground-guided munitions where the player on the ground is doing the hard work. The aircraft is just the gun. Hell give the kill to the person guiding for all I care. I'm sure it's a coding nightmare though, unfortunately.

I don't understand the reasoning behind this. Why must pilots be able to defend themselves in all situations while everyone else dosn't get to? After all, even though tanks and infantry have AA options, "scaring away a 150kph faster attacker just so they can turn around make another attempt on you does not count as self-defense."

If its because air is so lone wolf focused? I might be terrible at flying but flying with even totaly random others is fun. When im the only one around and with my inability to aim (its furstrating to try to aim with the built in mouse acceleration on aircraft) I just feel like theres a pro hovering behind me at all times laughing before she shreds me.

As for what aircraft should be, I really like the 3 different archetypes that you see with tactical games like Wargame Airland battle. There is even 3 frames in the game which match those. Idealy I would like to see air capability split into a bomb dropping/rockpoding fighter bomber, a special weapons fighter (like Anti-AA radar, AA marked on hud like engagement radar, and heavy anti-air weapons to kill libs) and speedy air superiority with the short range anti-fighter weapons with the speed and mobility but less defense. (I want the bomb dropping one personaly, I want someone with an air superiority setup to cover my fighter bomber and my lib - I don't like the fact every fighter I see is capable of almost everything nor do I want to take away flying backwards even if I don't really enjoy it).

It seems like most pilots don't want to see what they have now split up, even though the rest of the game is like this. How can that be resolved without just give air more and more all-in-one power?

Think of it like this:
A lightning is suddenly pounced upon by a Halberd harasser. The lightning is outclassed in every way and must perform immaculately just to stay alive. The harasser can drive circles around the lightning faster than the barrel can turn, do more damage even if shots are whiffed, and break off the engagement whenever it pleases. It's the lightning's fault for not being near an AP/AP MBT, an AP/Basilisk MBT or a double-Basilisk sunderer.

...That sounds OP

The reasoning behind this statement is because of the killing potential 1 ESF has in the hands of an experienced user is exponentially greater then nearly any vehicle in the game. Combining that with afterburner pods that gives a head and shoulders advantage over people risking a air to ground load out basically translates into a lone-man fighter shutting down entire air wings trying to support their platoons. This change will allow an afterburner running pilot to engage AA missiles or anti ground esfs at will with the ability to run away at any moment of their choosing and there is literally nothing those pilots running non-afterburner pods can do about it because they simply cannot keep within effective shooting range of their guns to kill the attacking afterburner ESF. A faster attacker will hurt teamwork in combined arms situations of the game.

Speed kills in all situations it basically makes esfs a pref-nerf zoe max with no downsides in an air to air role. It what makes harassers as powerful as you cant kill what you cant hit. Now currently running afterburner pods is very powerful in a air to air role however anyone can do it at any time and we all have the same gear. When this goes live your going to need 1000 certs in your afterburners to be even competitive with great pilots running a fully certed Afterburners where they will either choose a 50 kph speed boost or a greatly reduced recharge time on their afterburners.

Now admittedly armor does has a lot of rock paper scissors to it which is actually okay with the way armor works. Imagine a Prowler running around at harassers like speeds and all you get is a lil boost from whatever chassis you chose. That is a win load out as it is simply superior to your tank because of the speed. That's how normal pilots are going to feel when confronted with a fully certed aircraft running fuel pods. "Hey guys lets go play tag with Usain bolt and he gets 60 square kilometers to run around in." Its simply unfair how do you defend against something that has identical nose gun killing potential but 25% more speed then you? You can neither run from him or catch him.

So What Did All That Mean?

It means one man in an ESF can literally turn the tide of battle by himself and become a deciding factor in how a facility flips... He gives a blanket of protection to friendly aircraft while eliminating all threats imposed upon allied air and armor... No single harasser with a halberd/marauder or load out in a tank can do that and that is why ESF need viable options to engage other ESFs otherwise your really going to start hating air again. Oh that and it further increases the skill ceiling and required certs to be an effective pilot forgot to mention that lil tidbit.

So more or less every vehicle got a semi-hard counter, except the ESF, and for sake of balance you want that to continue?

Ground vehicles gotta choose either you are gonna farm infantry, tanks or aircrafts. When you have picked one, be sure to bring friends, or else a driver/pilot of equal skill, but in a different loadout is going to kill you, nothing you can do about it. Most tankers thinks that is balance, but for some reason the ESF pilots thinks its unbalance that they would have to actually choose.

As i gunner in a lib i dont see the afterburner ESF as an even bigger threat. Yes it might get a bit harder to kill a AB ESF, but its not like the ESF in the current game is a lot faster and more agile and will fly cicles around you.


About the whole "make air viable in large scale"
It cant be done, unless you nerf the dmg of aircrafts into oblivion. Tanks are around as useless as air in big fights, the main difference is that tankers has gotten use to sitting behind hills or ttrees and taking pop shots at enemy armour/infantry. Air could do the same, but most pilots opt for flying away and find a nice small fight they can lolpod/dalton.

Completely agreed with OP, fantastic post and someone clearly in touch enough not to be reacting based upon their own personal QQs, but actually looking at the game as a whole. Wish I could give more 'likes'.

IMO the most important thing necessary to create proper combined arms in this game is making the infantry much more dependent on sunderers than they are now. Currently, between the cheesy squad deploy mechanic, spawn beacons and infinite momentary medic revives a well-organized infantry force can operate surprisingly well without relying on sunderers, thus bypassing the vehicle game to a very large extent.

1. Squad deploy cooldown needs to be nerfed at least to 20 minutes and some limitations have to be made on how many squad mates can deploy simultaneously (i.e. a 2 minute cooldown kicking in for everyone whenever one person squad-deploys). Also, 2-5 minutes cooldown should kick in whenever there is a change of squad leader. And, obviously, it shouldn't work on dead squad leaders.

2. Spawn beacon timers should be nerfed somewhat and spawn beacons should be made much more visible. Preferably, the beam above them should go as high as vehicle render range, so that it renders for a high-flying plane. The beacon itself should be 3 times larger and should render as a vehicle, so that that same plane can take it down without dropping altitude.

3. Medic revives should have a cooldown. It should be impossible to keep a squad infinitely alive just by having medics in it.

What will this accomplish? There will be no alternatives to sunderers for infantry, which in most cases will have to park that said sunderer outside, where it is extremely vulnerable to vehicles, both air and ground. You say that liberators are ineffective from high altitude, but that is entirely untrue - the shredder hits quite hard from the border of vehicle render range and is relatively easy to use; it also cannot be dodged effectively by moving around, due to its ability to lead the target. Force the infantry to rely on sunderers 100% of the time and suddenly they are extemely vulnerable to high altitude liberators that they cannot even hurt with infantry-based AA. They will have to rely on friendly A2A planes and, to a lesser extent, skyguards - et voila, you've got combined arms going. Nerfing infantry ground AV weapons should help as well, by making tanks more important in battle and thus more important to take out from the air.

TL;DR Nerf infantry non-sunderer spawning (squad deploy and spawn beacons), nerf medic revives, make sundy even more important a spawning asset than it is now and combined arms component in PS2 will improve.

Libs can change the flow of large scale ground battles. Libs do have a sweet spot at around 200+ meters off the ground (more for vehicle bombing) but a faction needs to have air domination to allow a lib to consistently bomb.

Good post OP.

Personally I have a fully certed Reaver but haven't flow it properly for months since some GU completely wrecked the game's performance while flying, hitting frequent lag spikes.

Here is one idea how to modify the Liberator so it can safely be HP buffed.
Lower the gunner's cone of aim so that the gunner can only shoot small area beneath the Liberator. That way Liberator would only be able to bomb certain waypoints instead of being able to shoot all over the place like it can now. With this tweak Liberator pilot would have to position the Lib almost perfectly above the target. Pilot would be very dependent of friendly ground units spotting the enemy so he can know where to position the Liberator. In smaller fights this means that it would be almost impossible for Liberator to get kills unless he has dedicated spotter on the ground(but even then the time required for Lib position can be enough for enemy to reach cover.

Additionally it might be a good idea to remove Dalton's splash damage, and remove Zepher's ability to damage armor.

With Liberators destructive potential in check, now it would be safe to give it more HP or perhaps even Vanguard shield that would only protect lower half of the Lib.

Sure just remove the ability for ground fire to hurt the lib. No dmg from lock-on, skyguards, tank rounds, flak, you name it, as long as it is ground placed it should do no dmg to the lib and buff the lib armour against ESF weapons by 200%.

Something I've always thought that the LIB should get is a free look camera in 3rd person. Since they are so slow, I figure it wouldn't be game breaking for them to be able to look around them, and especially below them to get a good view of what your gunner is shooting at.