Balance concerns against aircraft...

Aircraft are extremely survivable. They move fast, and pilots can make them fly so erratically that it's impossible to hit them consistently. You can tag them a few times with bursters or skyguard, but that damage is irrelevant since the aircraft will just leave the area, repair, and be back 30 seconds later in top shape. Surface to air guided missiles are made completely pointless by the laughable over-effectiveness of flares. There's no other defense I'm aware of which scales so absolutely: It doesn't matter if you've got 1 person or 20 trying to kill you, flares make you completely safe from ANY quantity of guided missiles whether they are in their tube or flying toward you. Even the much-maligned Vanguard shield has a maximum damage capacity and can be battered down by overwhelming odds. This would be less of a problem if it weren't for the fact that aircraft are also extremely deadly. They don't need to linger on target and risk ground fire when ESF rocket strafing runs kill vehicles and players on every pass and Liberators rack up kills with every shot.

Basically, the problem is this: the damage to survivability of aircraft is completely out of whack. If they are meant to be virtually impossible to kill, then they can't be given huge burst damage, and if they have huge burst damage then we need to have the chance to shoot the suckers down before they can deploy it. As it is hordes of fighters are one of the most BS things in the game because there is just simply no good way to get rid of them. It's not a learn-to-play issue because the things which are supposed to directly counter aircraft are not effective enough in this role to justify the effort. It takes more than equal numbers of anti-aircraft specialists to kill aircraft fast enough to stop them from stomping all over everything, which is a problem since the aircraft are not forced to specialize to the same level and freely attack all targets.

I think your name is appropriate.

I believe 100% of this problem can be fixed by reverting the Striker changes! Sign my petition nowww!

/buff Skyguard too

Alternatively, get lock-on rockets

I recommend trying out flying before posting threads like this. See how fast you die.

Most illogical.

Only bad or greedy pilots die to AA. A good ESF/lib pilot can stay in the air for hours, only dying if you decide to go on a bombrun over an enemy +48 zone.

Around 90% of all my deaths in the lib is from overextending into a heavy AA zones or trying to divebomb a sundy standing near a good handful of AA turrets/MAXs/skyguards.

Its even easier for good ESF pilots. Yes it takes dedication and a lot of experience to know when you can engage and when you cant, but when you learn that, you can fly without much fear - just avoid the enemy zerg(s).

There is sort of a fundamental problem with this, as the aircraft cannot hope to contribute to a large stalemate battle. They are useful before and after said stalemate and as such function as great suppression measures. Other than that, air is sort of playing its own game and not the Planetside 2 everyone else is playing. Air is still fun though... maybe if they were capable of playing the same game it might be less fun to be an air unit, who knows. I'm ranting now.

I think that is really due to one of the concepts of the game .. Unpredictable battle sizes ..

In small fights air is very good , in medium they are good, in large fights not so much ( not because they suddenly got weaker but because the enemy has more forces that can be brought to bear on them ) ..
Buff them to be good in large fights as well and that could leave them being OP in anything smaller

Item strength versus battle size is a tough balance call ..

I think your post is without content, purpose, or merit.

You did not read my post. SAM is not an effective air killer because flares are *way* too good at breaking them. The missile has to be locked, which takes time. Then the pilot will deploy flares which negates your missile, and makes them immune to lock on attempts until the flare effect ends. Then the next missile has to be locked again. All of this takes WAY more time than is necessary for an ESF pilot to buzz in, make a kill, and leave. (Let's not forget, also, that you need 2 hits, not just 1, to kill the fighter) Further, flares negate any quantity of SAMs which means a pilot equipped with flares doesn't care whether he's flying into an area with 1 SAM launcher or 50. It literally makes no difference. Infantry, ground vehicles, even max suits, have to be aware of how much opposition they are facing especially when that opposition is carrying weapons which are specifically designed against them.

^ That is my experience trying to kill them. If they're bad, they don't have flares, and a SAM actually works. You still don't KILL many of them but getting hit is enough to force them away to repair so it's an effective suppression. If they're greedy, they fly too slow and low looking for kills and get shredded by either sustained fire from bursters or the second round of SAMs. This thread is not aimed at them, it's aimed at the people who make high speed passes crisscrossing the field and killing stuff at will, functionally immune to all attempts to shoot them down.

I'll agree the lingering effect of lock-on immunity after a flare is a bit odd. I haven't had much experience with bursters so I can't argue on their behalf.

However, as infantry I don't expect myself to be able to single handedly shoot down an ESF. In my experience a lock-on is enough to deter many of them, what I do is lock-on, and wait, if they have flares they usually fire them and fly away. If they don't I assume they don't have flares and shoot my rocket at them, which usually works. And after having spent their flare whilst I saved a rocket, they're now vulnerable to any heavy (who has a lock-on launcher) within range.

Try flying buddy, it's not easy.

SAMs aren't air killers in this game, they're air deterrent. If your a pilot, and you get locked, than you best get out if you want to live.

As infantry, you only see one person firing a SAM. when you're a pilot, you see SAMs, flak, etc.

Bad pilots like me die instantly and kill nothing. Good pilots stay alive forever and farm people like me. It's a problem that may never be fixed.

It's cause the good ones usually have been flying the entire time since release or something

You try flying past a few skyguards and busters or a group of players with rockets then come back and post and im sure it will be nerf the ground forces and buff flying.

That's the problem. Lock on AA launchers aren't a deterrent anymore. After the Striker got "neutered" no good pilot worries too much about lock on launchers anymore:

1) Pop flares
2) Lolpod the "Peasants" to death.
3) Afterburn and ****.
4 )Wait for flares to reload.
5) Rinse and repeat.
6) Profit.

^This^
I've been trying really hard to get better at flying and squeeze myself into the air game, but it's SO full of super exceptional pilots that most of the time (If I'm not killed by lock on spam) I'm shot down by a nearly god-like enemy ESF before my ESF can even come off of CD. It's annoying ):

Currently the pilots that are out there are SO good that no new blood really gets in, unless they are super patient and really quick learners. Everyone else gets frustrated after being shot down by a BR 100 ace or their alt within seconds and goes back to infantry or armor combat.

I'm gonna stick with it, I've met quite a few fantastic and very good natured enemy ESF pilots who have given tips on what I did wrong or just how to get better, but the problem remains that flying is an exclusive club that many cannot get into, further increasing the divide.

-Q

Yeah there's no middle ground. You're either good and you farm bads, or you're bad and get farmed my goods.

If that pilot can lol pod someone to death in about 2 seconds without being nailed by AA, I commend them.

I agree that air is weaker in larger fights, but so is every other vehicle in this game besides the harasser, which can only be dealt with by large numbers of infantry firing at it with small arms. ESFs are hard to counter. G2A missiles are only good when the ESF is at a good distance away, and having to spend resources to deter, not kill, but deter one is rather bad game mechanics IMO, especially when it requires the same amount or more than what the pilot spent on his vehicle.

If this game is "Combined Arms" then a ESF shouldn't be so effective in large fights because it isn't their purpose, a lib is supposed to fill that role, a vehicle that requires a crew to be effective in those situations. In those fights a lone ESF should die just as easily as an uncloaked flash that is trying to drive up to an amp station when all the turrets are manned. It should be nearly impossible to escape. Being effective in smaller fights is so easy, any noob in a ESF can and does do extremely well, unless they hover and get decimated. They are too agile and do not seem to be affected much by inertia.

I think Liberators are at a good spot. The only issue I have is I wish more aiming was required by the secondary gunner, Like all lib guns should have a 1 round mag size, requiring gunners to be decent in order to be effective.