BRING BACK THERMALS!

The melting snowflakes are the pilots from what i see on the forums. Thermals are gone deal with it. Maxes are more punished and nerfed than Air will ever be and you don't see them pouting in the forums every day, its sad time to move on. Yes it was knee-jerk nerf but you still only have to face deterrents or other planes. Nothing short of a lucky tank shot kills you you can run away from everything and with stealth and flares you are temporarily immune to most aa you will encounter in fights the ill spoken of lockons. As long as AA is impotent then there is no real need for thermal.

Nails have never been hit harder on the head.

And why the **** not? Max's garbage repair should be made something actually ******* useful, thing is everyone hates maxes, no one from infantryside wants to see a max buff, the fact that maxes are far easier to kill should be a dead giveaway that something is wrong in the max world.

Plus people who have submitted reports for refund or change have gotten the exact same response to post on the forums, you think it's just complaining, it's a sign to the devs the playerbase in this sector that is unhappy. They damn well should be posting on the forums about this, people still think it's an issue, you can mark yourself off as "no it's not an issue" but telling people it's not an issue because deal with it, isn't gonna do you any good. Try to actually make an argument besides "maxes got nerfed harder, air is being air so therefor op".

Well its one thing to voice concerns and opinions but its kinda like beating a dead horse at this points is all. They want all non infantry things nerfed. Call me paranoid but vehicles and maxes do one thing.. cancel out hackers. Before all the nerfs and battleye my brother and I used to look for the teleporting hacker dudes and instagib them with scats .. because a that time maxes were not tinfoil cert pinatas. The hate tells from the hackers were truly a reward in themselves.. skillsuit insult from a hacker.. the irony.

Maybe I'm just not really passionate about the game anymore and just take the nerfs and roll with them. I see banshee esfs farming all the time just like before. And my lockons dont work on the smart pilots so that hasnt changed. Only thing that has changed is now I can position myself a hill and use cover to get planes with lockons from unusual positions until a cloaker get me lol. Before the nerf I would not last 20 seconds in the open like that. So there is that perspective to consider as well.

Part of the problem again is the role of an esf. If it was to solo farm dudes then thermal should have stayed. If its just local fire support relying on ground units to call out targets for fire support thermal is not needed as you are not a hunter/killer just killer. Like I said thermal nerf prolly was not the best way to do things but it was probably the cheapest on their end. And now that saving money is their biggest concern, a cheap "fix" we got. Tho its not much of a fix if you ask me.

i used probly 1000+ cents or db cash on IRs on my fighter alone was just the most useful sight and i used it mostly for hit and runs and finding the hidden inf who would kill my faction i asked for refund cos the new sight is **** its just useless in total for esf with my playstyle they told me basically to go **** myself and complain on the forum, if they would just have sent be a ******* pity decal or camo **** i would have been happy, the nerf train has no breaks and its gonna hit somone else next

I am sick and tired of people who, for whatever reason, claim there's no counters to ESFs with Thermals.

1. Your MAINHAND weapon is a counter to ESFs, try firing it at them instead of standing there looking stupid. Hell your secondary weapon is useful too.
2. Try using COVER, there's a usually a TON of it around the bases everyone's fighting over, there's even more at the bases you GROW YOURSELF.
3. 2 Classes now have AA rocket weapons that are highly effective against ESFs. Several effective AA weapons don't require locks, and many dumbfire or guided rockets only require 1 hit. Popping ESFs with a Decimator or Phoenix is an old hobby of mine.
4. Too many ESFs around? PULL A GOD DAMN MAX OR SKYGUARD instead of standing there like a moron with your finger up your nose.
5. In addition to the Myriad off AA turrets on every tower and base everywhere, Tank main guns are also pretty damned effective at taking down ESFs in one or two shots.
6. Honestly, if you've ever had a problem with ESFs in this game it's because you're grossly outnumbered or you're just bad.
7. There was 0 reason to nerf thermals and that nerf hasn't affected anyone like it's affected anti-ground ESF pilots.

Also, from the air you don't get the benefit of people calling targets like you do on the ground, in tanks and on foot. So on the ground where it looks like everyone's lit up from being spotted, from the air you don't see any of that, and you have to get really damn close before people render anyway. If you want to spot all the people on the ground that means pointing your nose AT THE GROUND which means you have about 5 seconds before you crash INTO THE GROUND.

They could compensate for the loss of thermal by making radar darts and motion detectors light up targets on the ground for ESF and Lib pilots using their "threat" optics but somehow I don't think they will. Hell you can't even see MAXes from the air anymore which is ******** given how much of a threat they are to everything else.

Anyone who has basic infantry knowledge should know their primary weapons (assault rifles) have the capacity to shoot down air, not to mention that infantry have the option to use the Rocklet Launcher, the Archer, lock on rockets, dumbfire rockets, AA maxes.

Instead of looking up in the air and doing nothing maybe realize that your primary rifles have the ability to zone out and even shoot down ESF's (trust me I fly all the time, infantry who shoot at me with their rifles can instantly put huge pressure on me while I'm usually getting locked on to by Heavys at the same time). If infantry clump up or don't organize to shoot back at an ESF then it's really their own fault, get organized, communicate, space yourselves out and realize that you can look up and pull the trigger.

So your targets must organize and group up to kill you and you just get to kill them in groups.. guess that makes sense from the pilots point of view. People are not a dumb as you think its far safer to flee into a building from an esf then attempt to shoot it down with rifle fire. That barely worked in ww1. Machine-gun on a stick lol. But whatever maybe they will give in and return it to normal and do something far worse to balance it.... it is planetside after all.

You would be surprised how lethal infantry is to ESFs. Go to a VR and dps one down, then get a buddy and do the same.

If you're just hanging around hovering, you deserve to get shot down. I've you're moving a decent amount and the infantry can still hit you, they deserve to put damage on you.... most people can barely land a quarter of a mag on a moving ESF... if they're lucky. If you're getting shot down by small arms, and it isn't just a lucky "straw that broke the camel" situation, UR DOIN IT RONG!!1!!1!!1!

If people don't know how to lead an ESF and assume flak is bad, kinda what I'm pointing out.

People simply assume if they can't kill it, it's unkillable, can't hit it, it's unhittable, to the people that actually try to kill and hit them, they are the most dangerous people of all.

they didn't just change them they got rid of them and replaced them with something else.
i really dont have a problem with it, ESF farming at small fights is not as bad and it gives you a chance to fight back.
but they did get rid of thermals so i dont see whats wrong with giving the certs back. really turns me off from spending any real money on something if they could just get rid of it at any time.

Unless the aircraft is doing some screwy cork-screw vertical thrust nonsense, I can generally land hits easily enough in my Skyguard. At least, at ranges where I think the Skyguard should be effective (i.e. not talking 1,000m, next hex over kinda thing). And flak IS bad - even with decent hit ratio's most ESF's can still pull off a strafing run, tank the flak, get a few lolpod kills and get away. Sure, the ESF's gonna have to land and repair every run, but the fact remains that even as a deterrent (which is a ******** system to start with), flak generally isn't cutting the mustard.

But if you're in a situation where 80% of the people can't hit or kill whatever it is then it might as well BE unhittable or unkillable. As I've said time and again, you need to balance the game around the players. As a whole. You can't just pick a small subset and balance around them without freezing out everybody else. That's one of the reasons I'm so opposed to the new implants as they current are, for example.

I have no clue what you're doing with a skyguard, so I'm not going to ask what you are doing wrong or right, I'm simply going to state I'm still getting consistently good results with it. Granted, you don't kill the guy often, but flak generally interrupts everything the pilot is doing and making a B-line towards cover, a single rocket in his state of being shot at by flak cuts down the TTK from 4 seconds with a skyguard to a 2 second, which is rather effective mind you. And yea, it doesn't feel good being a flak gunner, it doesn't feel good being ment for just this, personally I'd like skyguard damage upped to 250 and made it so that it is like a kobalt against infantry, giving the skyguard something else to do while suppressing air.

However the devs seem against versatility of the vehicle no matter how limited it actually is. Take the AI ESF for example, if you only had noseguns, you would only be effective against infantry, but they nerfed that anyhow. Furies? Too versatile, nerf AI. Look at the MBT, in concept art it actually did have a secondary turret on the side of the main gun, for AI, so that your shells weren't your main way of killing infantry. Too versatile. The nerfs to AI were made to counter a small subset of players who were good at AI and then further nerfed to prevent that from ever happening again.
Think about goodgood and anti, two dudes who flew around in a battlegal shelling infantry. Granted, it was hard to counter, the guys could aim, but then masamune came in, not good enough? nerf bulldogs as a whole then, then release AV weapons to point at what they want them to fight.

Personally, flak is actually pretty fair IMO. You have low skill players enter these turrets, they can't aim well, still can hit air, but the air moves well, so they have to learn to lead, if they learn to lead, they learn air doesn't like things hitting them.

Skyguard on the other hand is just not versatile. I mean it has the heavy machine gun aspect in it's projectiles to damage vehicles slightly, but thats it. If anything, I'd like it to be more of a machine gun, that can also shoot infantry, there aren't many good AI weapons anymore on vehicles. And what's left I have no trust in putting certs into because the devs have proven to me that they will nerf even the smallest things to prevent AI. My progress is pretty much just stunted because I have no where to put these certs now.

Yes shooting ESF with main weapons works. It helps the esf locate you faster.

Pretty much. If there's a pesky HA in the mountains, I'll often let the first missile land a hit so he pops up on the map from Awareness, then it's a free kill. AA is pathetic in this game unless spammed. No realistic options for skilled players outside of a Vanguard, and mind-numbing gameplay when using actual AA platforms. Fail.

I'm glad they nerf the thermal

i played today after some months of break.

i owned a guy in fair esf encounter: he jump out in light assault, throw me enough autolock rocket to put me from 50% to 10% life the time i look for him without thermal, i empty my full mag on him, maybe 1/4 touched him but he stay alive cause stupid useless canon on grunt, i realise then i am 20 meter upon the ground and wont have the time to go up and will crash in an emergency landing cause of my life, i slow down enough to jump just before the crash and take 90% fall damage, he finish me with 1 bullet..

so: light assault flyer exploit (yes this is a pure exploit!)+nerf canon on grunt+kill thermal on grunt+autolock rocket for light assault.
where is the fairplay and the balance in this?! and what's next for killing esf fun as you do regularly since begining of PS2?

remove another 50% of afterburner like you did 1 year ago?, reduce grunt poping to 50 meter instead of actual 300m (=100 meter in fact when you are lucky) when they saw you at 1000m?, give 1shot esf weapon to grunt, since mbt and lib have it already?,reduce more of freelook angle like you did for the scythe instead of increasing the reaver/mossy one?, reduce more canon bullet speed as you did for the scythe instead of increasing reaver/mossy one?, nerf to death and put to 0 aoe of all esf rocket and anti-personnel weapon since the actual aoe is at 0.1 meter, difference wont be noticeable?
i am pretty sure you found those ideas brilliant and they are on paper for next shi-tty updates.

begin to repair 2 years eternal bugs like sound staying loud when passing under structure in esf or autoreturn of your scythe if you dont wait 2sc on ground before exiting..
after that, just admit that a plane will always be 100000 more powerfull and resistant than a f-u-cking pedestrian!
There is f-u-cking flake in this game! they dont want plane they stay behind walls and put a ******* single maxAA or skyguard if they move!
another point is light assault have nothing to do in a plane or give them a descent penalty for their "never kill me exploit" instead of offering them so much advantages. why not puting a timer for exiting from esf in light assault when in sky?
love now how when you chase another esf middle/close range at full speed he just exit in light assault and vanish cause you cant follow him falling in the pixel porridge on your screen without thermal.


give us back pleasure and fairplay for true flyer and give us a f-u-cking air continent to have fun without all those ****** pro-ground rules if you dont want esf killing them!

seriously play your game, you killed air fun fu-cking you all devs!!!

So you need Thermals to do your duty as an ESF and fend of Libs bombing the Area, interesting...