BRING BACK THERMALS!

But this is not an argument about any single weapon, it's about balance between the domains, particularly air vs ground.
And yes that balance can be hugely influenced by one weapon, especially when it's one that can be mounted on almost anything.

If you couldnt kill without thermals, you didnt deserve the kill in the first place.

Still not an argument. All it shows is that the ranger is right for its domain (even though its absolutely not, no single deterrent thats so specialized and incapable of being used against something else is right). Does that mean everything else needs to be crap? Lets do that! All ESF get nerfs to their AI and AV capabilities because the Liberator is well capable of that, "well capable" meaning "OP as hell" were it not for the twisted air-game, and lets nerf the Galaxy troop capabilities because the Valkyrie is already a cheap transport that can do that. Lets nerf Harasser AV, AI and AA abilities because something else in their domain is well capable of doing that.

No? Dont do all those nerfs? Then why leave an entire catagory, with the exception of one weapon which is passable, in the terrible sorry state its in? Either everything gets the same treatment with only one passable weapon and the rest being crap, or everything becomes useful or at least passable for its fomain.

Combined Arms, exactly, if you're going to play Planetside 2 then expect that there's going to be enemy Air units and you deal with that by either bringing Anti-Air yourself or being around others who have Anti-Air, AA is all over the map and is available all of the time.

Regardless of the equipment on the air unit and the skill of the player, Air is able to be shot down regularly. That, combined with the fact that not everyone can fly as well as different skill levels of players is probably why the skies are not constatly overloaded and full of the same air units for an extended period of time. At some point they either have to leave and come back later or get shot down.

They have given the Engineer the opportunity to take down air with the Archer (I've zoned out and shot down ESF's, Libs, Galaxies and Valk's with the Archer). Light Assault has been given the Rocklet Launcher (which could be given more damage if they need it), Heavy Assault have Lock-Ons and one-shot kill rockets. This makes it so all infantry except for the Infiltrator and Medics have solid Anti-Air and Medics can still shoot at ESF's with their rifles.

If an infantry squad co-ordinate their fire with even just their assault rifles and no specific Ant--Air they can all shoot down an ESF or at the very least zone it out (I've shot down multiple ESF's with just my assault rifle playing solo). Also, when infantry are capping a base much of the time they don't even need to be outside exposed to enemy air in order to defend it, having many structures for cover.

If you're playing solo Lone Wolf style then expect to run in to enemy Air, if you're not solo and with any number of people there's a multitide of ways to shoot down Air. Has anyone forgot about Phalanx-AA? They can zone out air units from the next base over and past that sometimes.

I have been playing Planetside 2 (off and on) since the game was released under SOE and I've been dealing with ALL air units perfectly fine for all of these many years. In fact, I have not noticed a single time when enemy air was using thermals on me because I'm usually prepared to encounter enemy air at some point. What I do notice are the Vanguards who one-shot me from the sky if I hover for 1 second, so what I'm saying is there's always someone around with the weapons and the skill at some point that's able to take Air down.

Agreed, but regularly is not the same as frequently. For every kill I get there is more than one that gets away.

Also agreed but on the other hand I rarely join a fight where there is no air at all.

I use lock ons a lot and I think they are pretty effective but what's the one shot kill thing? (genuine question)

How would you tell? (another genuine question). Some people unhappy with the nerf said in other posts that no one had asked for it and I assumed that was because no one would have known it was being used.

+1 bring back thermals, I've been playing since 2013 with thermals and I still can't get used to this now...

not to mention that we play a game with high or futurist technology but are unable to see heat sources through googles.

While we are at it, this is the only game I've played as a "tank" for so many hours (you know, the sacred healer dps tank trilogy?) while my tank actually can't tank. We use sundy and ANTS to drive in front of tanks, beacause they tank better.....

I really wish DB would STOP just changing stuff that doesn't make the gaming experience better.

Lastly, over the past 6 months, one change after the other is really increasing my feeling of "**** this, maybe it's time to quit". But I keep coming back, because there is no game like this one, never has been. But slowly, over time, I am getting closer to that line, and maybe one day I'll be posting one of those threads everyone laughs at and no one cares about where I say goodbye with a wall of text showing everything that DB did wrong.

I'm im fine with thermals if AA was AA and not DA ... deters air.. Skyguards cause mild eye irritation with flack

Ever try killing air with a basalisk? How bout a fury? AA IS AA, most people simply don't know how to use it over aiming in a general direction with a lockon and waiting for the missile to hit. Simply put: Git gud.

You mean bad pilots? Im talking about doiong significant damage to the ab using hornet guy after he just whacked a dude in 3.5 seconds.. that guy. try shooting him down before he goes back over the hill to auto-repair. Get i dunno another perspective? You liked thermal its gone adapt?

It seems you believe you're making a meaningful metaphor, but you aren't. It's total nonsense.

Wrong. Just because a weapon isn't able to instakill something doesn't make it "crap".
Skyguards are not crap, Bursters are not crap, HA G2AMs are not crap. Stop making **** up.

Air can help dominate a base, yes, but that's its purpose in a combined arms game. Same for ground vehicles. But no vehicles can actually grab a base, you infantry is needed for that. So there should be a cooperation between these domains.

Now with A2I and G2I nerfs like thermal, infantry is more and more safe from vehicles which shifts vehicle play out of any significance, making Planetside yet another run-of-the mill FPS. When that happens, most players will be gone.

Make Thermals Great Again!

Adapt? You misunderstand.
I simply wanted a refund, I had thermals on a ton of AI stuff because it was AI, I would've made the same arguments if they nerfed zoom optics because they aimed too far. I'd actually welcome an AI buff because thermals removed some of it from the running, because I can aim all day, I can't be better stated then what's in the game. It's like, I could run iron sights on my gun, but my gun can still be terrible.

But what about you? AA has been like this and even rangers got buffed, why don't you adapt? I have consistently good results with my AA ops, it's not hard when you know what does what well and what flys in what way. It seems to me that the players that don't fly, refuse to fly or don't know how flying works, can't seem to get good with aiming at aircraft that move in specific ways. I wonder why.

How isn't it a meaningful metafor?
G2A domain: One weapon is passable (as passable as a deterrent weapon can be in PS2), the rest isn't. You claim that this is good enough.
So my metafor is to take A2G and make only one thing passable, while the rest isn't. Sure that metafor misses the fact that it's about a single domain (air vs the domains of infantry and ground vehicles) but that only makes the current situation worse.

But allright, why don't you try to come up with a 'meaningful' metafor?

Aaand there you are, you are a moron!
Did I say that I wanted insta-kill G2A weapons? Nope, you make that up. You are trying to invent arguments for me so that I'm suddenly wrong. But I never said that, and if you ever read any of my ample suggestions on the topic you would have noticed a lot of "make sure there aren't OHK weapons with the new batch of G2A" sentences. Ofcourse you don't want to have a reasonable discussion, so you make things up to try and prove yourself by disproving me. However you don't come with anything concrete.

The Skyguard is crap. I should know I auraxed it. The bursters are crap. HA G2AM's are crap. I'm not making this up. Just look at the HA G2AM's, these specialized missiles kill more ground vehicles than aircraft, and that counts for every single one that can be utilized against other targets. And it's not as if people have any fear for G2A missiles while driving a tank due to the lowered damage and such. Skyguard and bursters are crap. Sure they deter, but they can't really kill, unless ofcourse you pull more, at which point you still only share kills, and this is a good time to point out that aircraft aren't used a lot due to the horrendous A2A system in place meaning few targets to shoot at to begin with. Then when you've deterred your target, or killed them (which still isn't a guarantee even with 3 Skyguards or bursters) you don't know when your enemy will return. And with the exception of the Heavy all the G2A units then become useless and highly valued targets for all ground forces because their lack of ability to defend itself.

Compare that to an AV weapon, or an AI weapon. There's always another tank around to shoot, and in the cases there isn't (say you are the attacker and cleared enemy vehicles) then AV weapons can almost all be utilized to OHK infantry. They have options, they are always useful. G2A weapons? First they don't guarantee a kill even if your skill is 50 times that of the opponent, in fact the entire battle happens on the aircraft side: The pilot needs to make big, big mistakes to die to G2A. Second they are almost completely useless against alternative targets like infantry or tanks, making them almost impossible to enjoy using once aircraft buggers off. Also meaning that pre-emptively pulling G2A weapons rarely if ever happens, while pre-emptively pulling AI or AV weapons will 100% always pay off.

So... Because cooperation is needed, only A2A is allowed to be truly effective in the AA domain? And you are faulting me for bad metafors? You, who tries to put words in my mouth that I want OHK G2A weapons? What the actual fornication?

That what you are describing isn't combined arms either, at least not what you want in combined arms. "Aircraft/ground vehicles dominate the base, then you need one infantryguy to come along and capture it, that's combined arms, really!" *tries deadpan stare in the hopes people believe him*.

You poor idiotic sap. Yes I'm pissed off, you noticed? It's not just you, but hell why bother trying to be nice against people like you? Planetside wouldn't become a run-of-the-mill FPS. In fact if you had ever paid attention you would notice that vehicles and aircraft completely dominate infantry whenever they move out the carefully constructed bases designed to protect infantry from attacks from mostly ground because they can't really defend themselves. Nerfing thermals doesn't change that much, at least if you use your standard infantry-awareness and do this thing called "use your eyeballs rather than an optic that looks for you, bozo".
If anything this would be a great opportunity to start leveling the playingfield between infantry, vehicles and aircraft. Then we can start using vehicles as they should: Force multipliers. Nothing more, nothing less. Then when that playingfield is equalized we don't need the ridiculous walls that segregate infantry and the rest, we could let vehicles and infantry go right at eachother in the middle of a base, no holds barred. One big dirty match where the winner is the group that uses it's wits and force-multipliers the best.

But ofcourse before all of that can happen, we need to have the air and vehicle dominance dialed down. This can be done by balancing the G2A weapons to be actual killers rather than deterrents, for instance by using Viper-like auto-cannons as G2A and increasing the elevation range of HE and HEAT canons so they can function as skillful G2A weapons while not having the power to OHK ESF (which means the Vanguard HEAT needs a slight damage nerf against ESF), at the same time these weapons would be better prepared to deal with Liberators and Galaxies than other G2A weapons. Then the lethality of infantry need to be buffed by introducing utility-AV weapons other than C4, such as long-range LAW weapons for Heavies (where 'long' means 300m at the maximum) and shorter range weapons for each class. If enough of these are available there's no need for C4 to be as powerful as it is considering it's currently just about the only answer infantry has vs tanks. If made strong enough we can remedy some problems tanks have, which is CQC combat vs infantry, by introducing some co-ax guns and secondary abilities designed to screw infantry over. Now we've got a nice game going where infantry and tanks can screw each other over while it costs infantry resources to be truly effective against thim, which is fair in the sense that resources destroy resources while the tanks retain the ability to nuke infantry indefinitely without further costs as long as they survive.
But why am I telling you that? It's not as if the next time you try to speak to me you invent something else I said, like that for the AV-utilities I want to introduce UT's Redeemer missile to PS2 so you can wipe-out entire vehicle divisions in one blast, instead of assuming that the AV-utilities I have in mind would be pretty balanced around the amount of infantry vs tanks available rather than an idea to let infantry 1v1 every single tank they come across. (I put that "rather than" in bold so you wouldn't misinterpret it "accidentally" and still claim that I want infantry to 1v1 every single tank they come across, I don't want that. If infantry does 1v1 it, it should cost him at least as much resources as the tank and a ton of skill to pull it off).

Lol I have possibly been nerfed harder than pilots. I main a max the hated skillsuit or noobs. AI mines check AP mines check rockets check planes check ect. How they changed thermals was brutal and the cert invested hurt but did you honestly not more than make up for the certs used? You got thermal for an advantage at the time but it was changed. It may be a bad analogy but a few years back I bough a video card for 400$ at the time it was the best I could afford. Now its in a box somewhere. I was an excellent buy at the time and like thermal it had its time in the sun.

You know, I got an Idea.

Assuming the air/ground situation is the same on every server (I'm from Cobalt) I'd like somebody to post a video showcasing an ESF participating in a real battle (48 or higher) and making an impact.
48 + on cobalt means there will be a skyguard or a burster - or at least 2 guys with a lockon.

Alternatively I would be absolutely fine with DBG fixing their ******** rendering system. Because when I'm flying toward a fight they start rendering at under 100m. And at the speeds my ESF is going that is not even close to enough time to aquire a target and kill it without an optic aiding me.

People who play infantry only should NOT be crying about how thermals worked before, it's free to play infantry, it costs nanites to play vehicles, vehicles should have a killer edge on infantry. Not only does this make logical sense, it's actually a lot more fun for the infantry to have an overwhelming threat to deal with. Some of the best times I've had in this game have been outfoxing talented tankers using cover, distraction and evasion. Most infantry can carry enough explosives to take out any tank.

That said, the most successful cert farm my brother and I enjoy when we play is a MBT with AP that doesn't use thermals, just good zoom and good aim, HEAT and HE have already been nerfed into the ground enough that the thermal nerf was just an extra nail in the coffin and there really are no secondary weapons that are good against both infantry and armor which benefit from thermal.

However, the thermal nerf has completely obliterated the air game which was extremely challenging already. If you play only infantry you might feel like air vehicles are oppressive, but from the perspective of an air vehicle I'll tell you that most aircraft are not getting to you. There's a MILLION counters to air in this game, and a lot of times you can't do anything about them. You have dozens of AA Maxes, Skyguards, MBT Armor Piercing rounds, lockons, dumbfires, rocklets, primary weapons, sidearms, AA turrets, MAV turrets, other ESFs, other Liberators, Battle Gals and stupid teammates who don't know how to fly.

With the thermal nerf it is no longer possible to identify ground threats in an ESF, not even MAXes, which is extraordinarily unfair given their power. There's no point to playing liberators since your gunner will be unable to locate infantry and it's about a thousand times easier for a 2 man group to take out armor in a MBT.

I've been playing this game for years, in vehicles and infantry. I've never felt like ESFs were overpowered and never had a problem taking them down with a dumbfire or lockons, and I'm not very good at this game. I can't imagine what degree of suck you must possess that you can't cope with some fragile *** aircraft being able to see you on the ground when you're ******* is standing in the open.

All I have to say is Demigan clearly is a newphag. Try playing real PS2 back in 2014 when Air was an actual threat. This guy pisses himself when a zephyr fire at him and pops like a little hand grenade.

Air has been nerfed patch after patch since the beginning because of crybabies that say they can't fight back despite the game having a variety of G2A answers as well as A2A.(that are very effective if you don't suck at it) These are the scum that sit in 80% pop hexes when the next base over needs reinforcements, aka the bots.

This game should stop trying to cater to these children, they have been since the beginning and it has not worked. The kids go play CoD, this isn't CoD and the closer it gets, the less inclined I am to spend money on it. I canceled my sub after the construction, because it was for kids and terribly implemented.

Anyone who thinks Air is OP or vehicles in general need to look at the facts. Vehicles account for a small percentage of total deaths. Small arms kills more than anything by a huge margin.

Nerfing thermals is nothing more than a slap in the face to vets, and a pat on the *** for the newscrub. I guess DBG thinks this game is really going to take off now that thermals and night vision are joke upgrades. /s

Lol unfair? Clearly you have never flown an ESF, it's one of the harder thing in the game to get decent at. Secondly, this is a PvP game, as long as it isn't an exploit it's fair game so leave your moral high ground at home.

I'm sorry, but all you A2G ****ters are simply wrong. For several reasons. I'm not going to wall-'o-text this time (I have before), but it comes down simply to one thing : This is a combined arms game where anything can kill anything, presuming the right loadout EXCEPT infantry / vehicles killing air. Why the **** should you be so special?

1v1, on equal skill, A2G can kill infantry, Skyguards (which cost the same as an ESF) and MAX's (which cost more) while being able to escape if it starts looking like they'll lose. Infantry, skyguards and MAX's can "deter" (lmfao!) air, only by having greater numbers than the air, and only by doing nothing but G2A which is boring as **** - especially when the air drops over the hill and you're not sure if he's left or if he's just repairing to come straight back. And on the rare occasions when enough G2A is actually pulled to make a difference, the A2G just ***** off to **** on some other small fight until the G2A dudes get bored and then they can come back again with almost zero risk and almost zero counters.

And don't give me that ******** about "air is the counter to air". In PS2, everything can counter everything. Except for air. Besides... A2A is a high skill, high time-investment activity. Those who invest the time and acquire the skill and then, on top of it, give up the ez-mode-K/D-padding A2G in order to actually FLY as A2A will, justifiably, spend their time where they're most likely to find other air to shoot at... i.e. large fights. Which means that A2G ****ters are usually almost completely free of A2A risk by farming small fights where it's unlikely enough people will be able to get together in the first place to drive them off.

Quit whining, you're bloody pathetic.

Thermals were really bad, up to BR30 I had no counter to air, and even than stealth planes always gank me from behind
floating few meters like a knife infiltrator I don't even know what hit me until i see the report. So thermal + stealth = bad.
I did not knew how they found me between buildings or under bridges but with this patch i found out