[Suggestion] Bailing pilots and how to fix it.

How can I be hard on him? He chooses to bail. That's HIS prerogative. My prerogative is to choose how I interpret his retreat: Victory? Or, OMGNOKILLFERMYKDR!!!11BBQ!!IEARNEDIT!

Going back to silly notions of honor, let's study how actual "sky knights" conduct themselves.

In actual war, when a pilot ejects it is considered the height of dishonor to then kill him (in fact it's considered a war crime and prosecuted as murder). Why? Because, he's out of the fight. He's no longer a threat to you or your squadron. He's done. You get credited with a victory. Yet, OP wants to do just that, and worse he wants to force them to stay in the vehicle, and then has the gall to invoke "realism" and "honor." It's sickening and beyond the pale, but I digress.

So, how can I then--assuming I'm all about honor, which I'm not--justify introducing a mechanic that forces a player to stay in the aircraft until death? EVEN IF the player is bailing to pad their KDR?

I can't, and neither can the OP, and neither can you.

I tell you what we can do. We can track ESF kills, but no, OP wants his KDR just as much as the bailing pilot wants his, and he's willing to advocate downright draconian measures to get it.

Certain measures are appropriate. Many games have them. In EVE if you log off while flagged (flashing red) your ship stays in game for upwards of an hour to make sure everyone after you has a chance to get you. If you log off in space normally your ship is still present and attackable for 15 minutes, to prevent you from logging to avoid NPCs.

Here in PlanetSide 2 the redeploy count stops if you shoot or take damage. They got rid of the deconstruct because players deconstructing their vehicles when they got attacked denied attacking players any credit at all.

However, when a pilot bails from his ESF, the attacker still gets an ESF kill and still gets credited XP for it. All the OP wants is that DING on his killboard, and that's asinine.

And actually I think this segues into the bigger problem most of the pilots i hang with even run LA. Its because lock spam everywhere. No one is going to sit there and die in a futile situation so they go LA and bail soon as they locks lay on. Honestly ground locks should have a 650m ceiling so they aren't bothering aircraft that aren't bothering them forcing them to focus on the ground where they are, instead of trying to get cheap kills off dogfighting pilots.

Secondly there should be a flare that works only for A2A locks that comes standard on the ESF, that has a reloadable supply, cause an aircraft without flares makes no sense in any kind of world.

I think you will see alot less bailing at that point.

make it cost 50 certs instead of 500 (refund anyone who's bought it) and sell it as a solid 1 way transport for non-pilots.

I might even actually get it then.

NO actual pilot should ever use ejection seat. Hmm, preserve meaningless KDR (by killing MYSELF aftrer bailing) OR +25% HP?

TOUGH CHOICE

You know G2A have a max lock range of 300m right??

If thats true I'm wondering how I get locked at the altitudes I do most of the time. I usually don't get anywhere near the ground and am getting locked non stop. Will investigate this.

Edit: the NS Annihilator stats say 500m. Did they receive a nerf?

maybe it's 350-400.... but there is a definitive max lock range.

Bear in mind there's 2 altitudes, real altitude and "above ground" alt

Ya I know. They could give them some other mechanic. Maybe use that battlefield tactic where for some of the lock ons the user cant just fire and forget they have to hold LOS on the target until impact. I think that is a healthier solution than the current fire and forget easy mode method. That way if people want to be on the ground tracking air they need to be dedicated instead of seeing an esf shoooting and running back into the meat grinder without any form of commitment.

Checked over the weapon stats for all the launchers unless there was a nerf I'm missing they are all 500m.

Don't forget A2A locks or possibly good striker throwers will ping a lock before you get hit as far as I remember but that striker user deserves the hit if you're way up there.

Not talking about Air locks. Talking about purely Ground locks. Which come across the HUD as Lock G. Where I'm seeing lock attempts and launches at particularly high altitudes at times. Their lock range should be cut down to 250m. That way they can deter aircraft that are in a zone considered hostile to infantry.

Flying and on the ground I find the higher up aircraft tend to be able to dogfight pretty well, there have been a lot of cases where I could not get a lock or was too high to get threatened by ground locks either. It is consistently doable and the launchers don't have a massive range overall, grab a buddy and do some testing yourself, you can see the overall range of lock ons is not very big compared to where air can be (heck galaxies and libs love to lurk outside lock range)

I believe thats a good thing about the gals and libs being out of lock range. Think that its bad game design that the ground can handle everything and the air is kind of a niche optional game that isn't necessary.

If they want air to be a force multiplier and nothing more it'd be cool if friendly ground troops could deploy something to screw with enemy forces AA capabilities.

Take flares and you can get some fabulous rocket bombing runs I've found and laugh at the lock ons. Stealth, flares, and flying low is surprisingly effective!

I've never found ground lock ons overly dangerous and normally fly as engineer so I can back off and repair myself (and I am still trying to learn that Wrel roll/repair trick). And in use from the ground they are more a deterant to a good pilot at best and they keep bad pilots away.

Flak is and always has been the more effective deterant than lock ons because you don't know it is coming until the damage hits, can go the distance and generally reloads quicker than launchers too.

I'd take hearing the lockin beeping any day over suddenly taking a crappot of damage from a good skyguard or max who waits for me to be too close to avoid most of it any day.

Well, I meant that if one looks at the KDR argument from both sides (which the players represent) with a critical eye then it's a meaningless conclusion.

• One says you shouldn't be able to bail which results in a kill and higher KDR.
• One says you should be able to bail which keeps their deaths down also resulting in a higher KDR.

So to criticize either party for caring about KDR is entirely pointless and doesn't help analyse the suggestion.
In terms of realism, I think that's generally understood in how it applies to mimicking parts of real life in games but not aiming for a 1:1 realism. Some games do go as far as not killing, or repercussions for killing, unarmed AI/players. PS2 clearly isn't going to that extreme - killing and being killed is something to expect.

Good example, I think this is a much more constructive angle to look at it. I don't mean to speak for the OP but perhaps "honor" was more about how the developers deal with undesirable behaviour. Rules like in EVE are created because the act of denying people a kill is not in the spirit of their game and they do not want to leave the gates open for the subset of players to abuse.

Redeploying is a good example of where this needs tightening up in PS2. For example, you can't shoot enemies but you can still revive friendlies = you're still in combat. You can't get shot but you can sprint away from the enemy, behind friendlies and cover, for 10s and you're clear. Sounds like EVE had a far wider net (an hour! wow) that made sure people were properly out of combat.

And then we come to vehicles. A much missed feature from PS1 is the enter/exit animation which took time as you clamber out of the tank/aircraft and you were vulnerable to bullets. In PS2 you get a silly instant teleport in and out of vehicles. I totally get that devs were worried about the performance hit and the work for creating animations, but I don't think they should have left out the delay.

If they had kept that then players would just have to deal with it and bail a few seconds before their vehicle dies, not as some instant get out of jail free card. ESFs are just a particularly obvious offender, as others have pointed out. And the ejection seat would be one of the few exceptions because if it did not instantly eject you then it would be useless.


As I remember it, it was complaints over bailing that caused the developers to remove deconstruction and give kill credit when they hit the ground (instead of suicide). I didn't think it went far enough back then and still would like to see enter/exit delays.

But the change for vehicles giving kill credit was made shortly after directives because people complained that bailing - proving me right that it was still possible and they didn't go far enough - prevented directive progress (not quite K/D).

Ultimately the solution to that would have been score based directives, which many players loved, devs said was too hard so they added the kill credit. The day we get score, if ever, will be the day they remove the kill credit and we'll STILL have bailers. I don't think they would even need it at the moment if there were an enter/exit delay.

See last section / 3 paragraphs.

I genuinely thought that was how it functioned already. Does it not?

Bless this post. It is so hard for ESFs to dogfight over facilities and provide aerial support because of the massive strength of AA in this game against fighter aircraft - AA guns will make all ESFs scatter in the blink of an eye, and lock-ons especially mean that a player can hold his scope over an enemy ESF and bingo - a hit is nearly guaranteed, (once flares have been deployed for the ESF and provided that he is taking fire from elsewhere). It is unmistakably true that it is easy to dodge locked-on missiles, though most tactics involve slowing down and changing your course of flight - something you simply cannot afford to do when you have flak whistling through the air ready to smack you square in the face, or should I say cockpit.

Ultimately, it gives players another reason to choose the Liberator/Galaxy over the Valkyrie and the ESF. Because they have more hit-points, have better weapons, (the Liberator especially), and can withstand copious amounts of flak and rockets before having to flee. A rocket will usually take out a third to half of an ESF's health with one hit, and that's excluding the inevitability of flak damage that will ensue.

In this game, flying is more of a pleasant nuance rather than a necessity, (for aerial superiority), because the ground can counter it so well.

I think this gets us to the core of the matter - magically teleporting in and out of vehicles as described below:

Not only did it take time to clamber out, you were also vulnerable to bullets, so I've heard. I totally get that devs were worried about the performance hit and the work for creating animations, but I don't think they should have left out the delay.

If they had kept that then players would just have to deal with it and bail a few seconds before their vehicle dies, not as some instant get out of jail free card. ESFs are just a particularly obvious offender, as others have pointed out. And the ejection seat would be one of the few exceptions because if it did not instantly eject you then it would be useless.

The Striker used to require active track before they overhauled it into the G2A Coyote...

it.... SUCKED.

Pretty sure they were nerfed from 500m, but maybe I'm mistaken.

In any case, with the exception of the new Swarm launcher (which can be juked in other ways) the way to lose any lockon is to wait until it goes from locking, to fired, then nose down and AB at the ground. The missile will attempt to go on intercept path based on heading and speed, so will fly straight into the ground.

G2A's are pretty harmless.

If you're high up trying to dogfight that trick doesn't quite work as well, particularly if it could hit you before you could hit the ground, in those cases, I try to use an enemy Lib or Gal to take the hits for me. (otherwise, I mostly just fly low anyways)

Start @ 1:16 pulled this from shadow vids from last night.

And people think flying is easy. Notice you get anywhere near anything and everything on the ground focuses on you and nothing else.

I dont typically run locks. I still see 90% of my opponents bailing out.

And while i think the bailing is inherently cheesy without ejection seat, i dont really mind that so much because i kinda like shooting them after they bail.

What really bothers me is the drifter jets. I've got AB tanks and a ng and you feel the need to float around in the air and redeploy before i can kill you or you even hit the ground?

Redeploy should have a 1 min out of combat timer. At least then you have to actually escape legitimately and if you are not truly seeking to continue the fight you must suffer the wait to redeploy if the pilot who shot you down is unable to locate you and finish you.

If no ejection seat is equipped and the landing gear isnt down the game should send an "all exits are blocked" message and disallow egress from the vehicle.

Anyways LA is necessary because of the spam as I've shown everyone. But then again the lock on spam is necessary to pander to the casual player of this game. I've put alot of cash into this game but I pulled my subbed this month due to the fact of unbalance. Does DBG care? No.. Air is such a minority in the $$$ department they never will. Should all the player base start flying tomorrow we would get balance swiftly but it won't happen. I'll let them (low iq grounders) continue to fund the game.