[Suggestion] Automated AA turrets - always on stand by

I think you had the core of the problem by the balls: AA is boring, not fun and doesn't reward as well as any other thing you can do in the slightest.
Also, AA doesn't scale well, making groups quickly OP (although the same can be said for Liberators for instance).

So rather than creating AI controlled flak, which would become a nightmare near AMP stations even with the 50% fire rate they had in PS1 (or so I'm told), I would go for making AA fun.
You don't expect infantry not to bring AV to a fight, you have to anticipate for it. Tanks usually have enough AI in their canons so they rarely have to anticipate for that, and you have to expect that people carry some AA with them to combat aircraft. (yeah there's a flaw in that not all classes can carry AV in one form of another, I would suggest giving them AV hampering devices, such as shutting down HUD, scopes, slowing them down, draining energy etc, but that's a different discussion).

So AA should be necessary, useful and most of all fun. This might be accomplished by giving it a secondary role against infantry so it has something to do while there's no air around, or give it utilities to help out teammates, such as a repair-device so they can keep a single ally repaired while waiting for new threats or giving it smoke canisters to fire into tank columns, disabling enemy equipment etc.

To make AA fun against aircraft, as well as for aircraft, I would make it both skillful and lethal. Reduce the range at which flak explodes so you need to shoot closer to the aircraft, then tighten up the COF and either increase the ROF or increase the damage. This would allow aircraft to fly close to AA without getting hit on the virtue of their dodging skills, but if they meet a skilled AA player the AA can kill them before they escape. This solves (in part) the bad scaling of AA. Because right now AA can simply hit nearby aircraft by virtue of "I aimed nearby them".
I would also suggest a big-aircraft killer, the AA MBT primary canon. A Viper style canon for instance, that is capable of firing several shells with no bullet drop but also no flak-capabilities. With a limited speed these shells would be perfect for dealing massive damage against Liberators and Galaxies, while still giving them an option to try and evade. ESF would be tough customers for the AA MBT to kill, unless they open themselves up and start hovering around. That would mean that a mixture of Flak and AA MBT's would be the perfect method of stopping aircraft, but there would not be a guarantee.
Lock-Ons are another matter, I would rather do away with the whole "aim for something, fire a rocket that you forget" business. Here's a better way to do it: Instead of fire-and-forget missiles, you fire your missile instantly and try to keep your laser trained at an aircraft. You need to aim real close (or even on the chassis, but that might be too hard) for the missile to keep tracking it. This means that any aircraft capable of breaking LOS will be able to escape. It also makes switching targets possible while the missile is in-flight, or firing a missile by anticipating an aircraft to appear over a ridge. Other options should be available as well I think, such as a big Flak rocket that you fire and hope to hit.

Just like with AV, I think that any and all infantry and tanks should have some form of AA with them. This doesn't have to be damaging AA, but can simply be to disable someone's HUD and scopes, draining all their energy/putting abilities on cooldown, reducing speed and/or maneuverability for a short time etc. This gives them a way to carry undedicated AA to defend themselves and have actual defensive measures that don't mean any aircraft nearby a group of infantry is simply crushed by a dozen mini-AA sources, only severely discouraged after having half his plane's systems go offline... If the infantry hits ofcourse.

I would like the following personally
you have hybrid turrets, that can be manned, remote controlled, or AI controlled
Someone mentioned RC controls from within the spawn room, this idea I liked, as it has the trade-off that you can't just hop out and repair the gun.
a manned you have what you have right now

AI controlled mode: lets say there's a hackable/destroyable "air defence computer" with all guns online and working, range and rof are limited, if say a few guns go offline (100% destroyed), the other guns get a very small buff, because some allotted computer resources got freed up, if you're down to a single gun, it has the rof as if manned.

If hacked: the guns will then proceed to attack your air, unless someone is actively manning them (and possibly remote controlling them, I feel that there should be a chance based re-hack for a random functional gun)

if the computer got destroyed: obviously they're no longer automated

How unoriginal. I'm going to reply with something unoriginal as well: yes, I will leave. And so will other people with a similar mindset. Players have already left. They are already leaving. Soon there will be no more servers to merge. Is that what you want?

So one of these things is true:
1) people don't want to play a "combined arms" game at all.
2) "combined arms" is realized poorly.

It needs fixing in either case.

Creating a small, infantry-only continent is an easy and lazy solution to bypass the problem. "Don't like our infantry-vehilcle balance (or lack thereof)? Go play on infantry-only continent". Obviously, fixing AA to make it enjoyable to use is a better solution.

It's good enough to make it enjoyable. There are only two things that really stand out: AI MAXes and HA shield, and both have been begging for nerfs since game's release.

I checked your characters, and you have been dedicated AA on at least one. Ignoring the account where you used the turret during raids, at best you got 1 vehicle kill every 6 minutes (this means other AA sources you used got a lower amount of vehicle kills which includes flashes and the like!), and that was an an AA turret, which you admitted on using by jumping in and out. This means you maximize your kill-potential by not being in it when there's obviously no air around and better targets present themselves for an AV turret.

So yeah, you are dedicated, but it also shows the exact problem: it's not very fun to do. There are always exceptions, there are people who enjoy repairing tanks all day long, but most people prefer to be doing the shooting in this game rather than repairing. Looking into the sky with a weapon that doesn't really reward increase in skill and that mostly just pushes their intended target away to another area rather than destroy them, that's not rewarding for the player, and it's not that fun for the pilots either actually...

What we need is that aircraft are almost as accessible as tanks. Any noob can take a tank and drive it. To be effective you need to know more and there are times that you can be curbstomped, but you can still use them without having your face crushed the moment you meet a pro-tanker.
The opposite is true for aircraft, where the skill-ceiling allows aircraft players to become so good that newer players can only compete by spending hours on practicing unintuitive flight physics, and the fact that no other flight maneuvers are that useful in the game. The air-game needs a revamp as well so that the air can be filled with just as many aircraft as there are tanks, and AA needs to be toned down with the skill-reducing stuff of Flak an Lock-Ons so that aircraft can actually operate in heavy AA area, while at the same time a solo AA unit has the option to blow aircraft up.


It's why I'm against anything as simple as "tighten COF" or "Increase ROF". They might offer solutions, but in the current AA physics a weapon is either UP (aircraft can always escape) or OP (aircraft can't escape when they get at X range), there is no real middle-ground. By introducing more skill required to kill aircraft, but rewarding that with actually killing them, you can get a more interesting play for both the AA user as well as the pilots. If aircraft also have a wider range of flight maneuvers that work in dogfighting the entire air-game becomes more engaging and allows for lower-skilled players to compete. A game where only the pro-players win is not fun for the majority, and will see a reduction in players, a new group is now the lowest players, and a lot of them will leave as well etc, leaving only the top of the top to play in an almost empty field. That's not what Planetside 2 is about! It's about masses of infantry, tanks and aircraft to fall upon eachother with reckless abandon, trying to jockey for position. There should simply be just as much animo to pick aircraft as well as tanks, with equal fear in either for pro-players who can beat you, but it shouldn't be a sure thing that the pro-players will win. In Tank battles it's not a sure-thing either.

I'm one of the top players with a Skyguard for instance, so I'm good at that game. I'll tell you: they are not good enough for their role. That's because we've got flak, and if they allow you to kill aircraft without them having the option of escaping it's OP. But if the aircraft is able to escape it's suddenly UP because it can't do it's job properly.

While I disagree with the initial idea, your response is uncalled for and untrue.

This is a combined arms game. If you want to play infantry, you should be able to use infantry against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any class.
If you want to play tanks, you should be able to use tanks against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any tank.
If you want to play aircraft, you should be able to use aircraft against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any aircraft.

It's unfair and completely ridiculous that you can take infantry to effectively attack other infantry and tanks, or take tanks to effectively attack other infantry and tanks, but when attacking aircraft you are only a deterrent. Aircraft in the meanwhile need to specialize a lot less, and can attack infantry, tanks and aircraft simultaneously without being a deterrent.

And hey, we should balance the game on everyone's opinions, good, bad, average. That way the game will be fun for the most people, and the game is about fun for the most people. You can add things for pro players to pull off, and you can add things for average or bad players to pull off, so everyone can have fun. Basing it on only one type of player makes it only fun for that type of player, and what type of player do you guys usually use? The smallest player base of pro players? Yeah that's a good one. You should only listen to pro-players if the game is completely focused on skillful combat. DOTA for instance is all about who's the best in coming up with tactics etc, where different hero's have different strengths to balance around and it's a brutal show of who's got the most skill and knowledge about using them in an semi-equal (the same amount of players with almost the same options) setting.
Planetside 2 is almost as a rule about imbalance, there is no match-making and a small group of completely new players can get crushed by a major pro-player outfit simply by spawning at the wrong base. There's always a side with more infantry, tanks, planes and heavy equipment running around.
So what do we balance out? We try to create both fun and balanced gameplay, with an emphasis on fun because balancing weapons where one team almost always has more weapons is tough. So you see what scenario's evolve from the gameplay and base your balance and changes on that. Is a weapon overperforming? Nerf it. Is a weapon or ability never taken or underperforming? Buff it! (looking at you, dozens of abilities that are never taken at all).

So to come back to my point:
If people are forced to play a single unit type (aircraft) to combat the exact same unit type, and given no real alternative, that's an unfun game-play element. You should be able to effectively attack and kill any unit type with any other unit type, period. especially when the entire air gameplay is mostly a bunch of broken flight-physics that reward one-trick-ponies rather than a large variety of maneuvers and flight possibilities.

remove flak, make it all bullets. There you go, a skilled mechanic for AA. As long as flak exist, you can't boost it's damage/rof/velocity/cof without completely overpowering it.

Removing flak and making it all bullets would still leave you with the horrible COF and would essentially mean that a Skyguard becomes a Walker with a larger COF and slightly better damage at range... if it wasn't for the COF making you miss shots.

Also, even with the current DPS in CQC you can't kill ESF before they escape (assuming the ESF starts at a standstill right above the Skyguard and tries to escape). So leaving it's damage as it is now would mean you horribly, horribly underpower the weapon.

But at least you got one thing half-right: we can't boost it's damage and ROF without overpowering it, the velocity and COF are another matter. But flak in it's current form is either UP or OP, and the developers chose UP by allowing aircraft to escape. Not to mention that the current form of flak has the big problem that it scales badly in larger groups, allowing it to gain too much power as it overcomes the initial reason the power was lowered.

It's not just flak, it's all AA. Flak+Walkers+basilisks+lock ons. It all scales together way to well, but that's because air can be seen by everybody.

Oh look Demigan is yet destroying another discussion with his walls of text no one understands or wants to read (dont worry he doesnt make sense anyway). What a surprise.
Cant you start doing like boxing or something to let go of your bad feelings instead of flooding this forum?

Thank you,
-The Players

To the point:

You mean, thats an unfun gameplay element TO YOU. YES ITS ONLY TO YOU. For me it is a fun gameplay element (and also to many others, see the replies you get). I also dont hear from other players about that (i hear frequently about maxes and stuff but AA? nope thats fine for the most).

Do people really think AA would be more fun if it would be stronger? What a logical fallacy. The more effective AA will be the more unfun it will be, because there wouldnt be any Air left to shoot at (there is already barely any noticeable but gank squads).

The way you talk like youre speaking for the majority of the playbase (while you dont) or an somehow undeniable truth is really annoying and makes me sometimes think you are just a (the T word that is not allowed on this forum).

Automatic turrets are something I have mixed feelings about though. I would like to see something that makes the engineer more useful in base defenses, and something that adds more tactical thought on attacking a base. On the other hand it would be a very hard job to balace that, because the scale of fights are so different that you can only make it OP in very small fights and meaningless in big fights.

I find Demigan's posts well thought and interesting to read. In his "walls of text" he often opens a new perspective on the problem, and I don't see any indication of "bad feelings" in there. If they irritate you it means only that you're not interested in an intelligent, civil discussion.

I think that YOU (the guy on this forum who probably hates air the most) find his posts to air combat well thought out and interesting is more an argument for me than for him .

I am interested in intelligent discussions. But he is not providing that. I dont know if you did read his previous threads where I really tried to discuss with him. Only to see him ingnoring every fact I brought and instead copy pasted his earlier posts and just rephrased it a little. It is a bit like discussing with a hardcore creationist. They make so less sense that its hard for you to find arguments against it because you cant even understand how that person came to these conclusions to begin with.

That can be indeed irritating.

Slander and labeling. While people who can think only in one dimension (you know who I'm talking about) would like to put on me on the pedestal as "Iridar, the guy who hates air and hence not one his word can be trusted", this is not what I am. So I once half-jokingly said "lol would be nice if bugged Bursters go live". What a horrible person I am.

So I had one moment of weakness. You really gonna judge me by that and not by other 5500 posts where I learn new things and share them with other people for the betterment of the world?

Me and Demigan - we both agree that problem exists and action needs to be taken. So far he said two things: problem exists, and flak balancing changes aren't gonna solve it. None of it yells "I hate air, I don't care about air, I just want them to suffer".

People often complain about things, I didn't say they had the right solutions. Buffing AA right out would be a bad thing, sure, but it would be a logical fallacy to say that just because they offer the wrong solution that their initial idea (buffing it in some way) is wrong in itself.

Oh and the reason I use "walls of text" is because I tend to give details rather than "no that's not true" I see mostly thrown around.

Hypocrite, the way 99% of the players on here, you included, do the same. Only I try to back it up with data, scenario's and experience from as many angles as possible. Also there's enough people who point out the same things, their solutions might differ from mine but it's the same thing.

No on AI controlled anything.

All vehicles should be able to change load outs at special terminals. Major quality of life improvement.

Skyguard needs to be some type of HMG instead of flak so it can shoot at all targets.

I think you want to overwhelm every other forum member to a point where he just give up to advocate his viewpoint anymore.
All the things you say could be shortend and made more understandable without losing any content. Example?

"This is a combined arms game. If you want to play infantry, you should be able to use infantry against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any class."

Ok I got your point.

"If you want to play tanks, you should be able to use tanks against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any tank."

Ok I really got it now!

"If you want to play aircraft, you should be able to use aircraft against infantry, tanks and aircraft, preferably any aircraft."

YEAH I F****** GOT IT ALREADY

See what I mean? Reading your posts makes me literally mad.

Another example of nonsense:

This is literally INSANE

You want to completely change the airgame and screw everyone who has spend days, weeks, month or even years to master the current aircraft and maneuvers and tactics? There will NEVER be as many aircraft as there are tanks. Drinving tank is forward, backward ,left, right. A vehicle that adds up and down to this is always more difficult to maneuver. This alone causes most people to stay away from air. So you want Aircraft operate in heavy AA but a single AA can destroy an aircraft? Wat? How do you even... think this could work in any way? By making it only usable for high skilled players? Hell I dont like lock ons but I like the balance of easy to use but not very effective (still enough to make air go away so does what it should do) And Iridar calls this well thought? What has this forum become

Then tell me why are you so annoying and arrogant while the other 99% arent. I read and write in this forum since years and every couple month some guy like you come up ( we already had that so often, i remember the popular Stew360, and at the moment we also have this luminiciouscow, G.O.A.T and lately this Ballto21 guy) and they always make several threads and join every discussion about it trying to shove their phenomenal new game concept of balance and happiness and fun down every other players throats.

Of course, I have never seen ANY of those guys providing something constructive or long lasting to the game. They all leave (fortunately) after they realise that their vision maybe is not what every other person on this planet secretly wants, including the game devs.

And your data, scenarios and experience boils down mostly to "it is so, because it is so" but in a more eloquent way.

Examples?

"It's unfair and completely ridiculous"
"it's not very fun to do."
"What we need is that aircraft are almost as accessible as tanks."

I can answer your posts in detail later if you want and we can have another discussion. It maybe will not lead to anything because your opinion will not change but whatever. I feel the need to intervene when I see people trying to change the game in a bad way.
In all my years of gaming I have never played a game so long and so full-time as Planetside 2. And I surely didnt do this because the game is so bad and unfun like you want to make it look like. I think the game is currently in the best state it ever was since release. I never had so much fun playing it. And I want to keep this for the future. When I have to discuss with people like you to do this, then bring it on!

No. I already said in other posts that I appreciate your presence in this forum and I enjoy 99% of your content, may it be video or text.You are one of the people who make this forum a better place. So I oncehalf-jokingly said Iridar is biased against air
I didnt even think of that statement of you (I already had fogotten it). You are right in one point though, your word cant be trusted. Like mine cant. Or the words of any other person on this forum. No ones words should be just "trusted" because of any reason. I dont know yours (or anyone elses) reasons or thoughts why he or she posts here. Instead I compare it to my own experiences in game, statistics that I know and what I hear from talking to other players and outfits. And If I find a lot of inconsistencies in a major and imporant balance thread like this one, I try to advocate my own view. Sure it is possible that I am wrong. But in the end, I care of the fun I have in this game, not the fun others may have or have not in this game.

I am also a bit biased because of another thread Demigan made and he tried to label thermal vision as an easymode cheat-like system. Attempts like this are toxic to the game in my opinion.

And to make it complete: You agreed that the problem exists for you. Yet you want to change it for everyone.
I am just here to remind you of this.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Just had it boiled inside me, don't take it personally.

Not really major balance. Were spitifre turrets a major balance change? A gamechanger? It's simply a small feature that sometimes needs to be accounted for, that's all.

And you are most welcome. Surely the more view points the better - only after going through hell and back an idea gains it's true shape. I just ask you to not bash each other with personal insults, and share own experiences and thoughts instead

But it is =\ It's more or less fair due to tanks being auto spotted on the minimap simply with their presence, while thermals require the tank to specifically look through the scope at an infantry player to see him. But there are Vehicle Stealth options for tanks to mitigate this. There is no similar anti-thermal and anti-radar suit slot for infantry.

Got another idea. As I said in unrelated thread:

But what if it was like that? What if there was an early warning system? Something like an Automated Searchlight, that would scan the airspace in certain radius, and if it would spot an ESF below certain altitude, it would issue a base-wide warning in voice: "Enemy air forces detected!", and project a beam of faction-colored light at the aircraft. And that's all it does.



These Automated Searchlights can be deployed by engineers or pre-placed on most bases, similar to Phalanx turrets.

Aircraft can easily destroy them, as the pillar of projected light gives away Searchlight's position, but it would give time for ground forces time to react by pulling AA or at least hiding.

Alternatively, aircraft can risk it and try to get some kills, but it would be increasingly dangerous, because Searchlights keep giving away aircraft's position.

Vehicle Stealth makes it harder for Searchlight to track the aircraft, but it doesn't stop it from warning everyone.
There would need to be some fine tuning in Searchlight's logic, so it doesn't keep reacting to just passing by aircrafts.

Automated Searchlights don't completely solve all of the issues with AA, but it mitigates one of the most annoying things about A2G ESFs - death without warning. An attack that's too late to react once it's come.

This is basically the same as what I'm looking for in AA turrets with AI. The main point of AI-controlled AA turret is to warn about the threat and show the direction. Similar to Spitfire turret:

That's what AI controlled AA turrets should be like, and it would be easier to just add Spitfire logic to Phalanx flak turrets instead of creating some brand new mechanics of searchlights and deployable turrets.

Dont worry, the days where I took something from the internet personally are long gone. And I know this boiling inside, im sure you already figured that out

I am sorry, I think I abused your thread to fight another battle and I didnt mean particularly this one, more balace threads in general.
My opinion above even supports your idea to a certain extent. I just pointed out it would be difficult to implement.
Giving turrets and base structure more meaning as well as giving AA more diversity is fully supported by me.

I know, i know. You see, I sometimes am a bit.. snappy
Sometimes you have to play hardball, because others will do the same (and some just deserve it)

We should discuss this in another thread. But I really prefer your idea over a thermal scope nerf (well Demigan said thermal scope "change" but we all know what happens when SOE changes something... im looking at you PPA. well maybe DBG will do it better)

Having an option for infantry to disappear from thermal would support diversity and tactical gameplay. Im always in for this. Just (almost) never for a "make this weaker because it does what it is supposed to do".

It makes me think when something that does fulfill its intented role is so outstanding in this game that players demand a nerf for it.