can anyone explain the current lib hate to me?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Hartkernharald, May 5, 2014.

  1. Qaz

    This is actually what happens. When there's just a single skyguard, that's the unit that's guaranteed to die--no matter how skilled the driver is (assuming there isn't some form of unreachable cover close-by).
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  2. Flag

    ... I'm sorry, what?

    The mediocre liberator crews/pilots can't swat people out of the sky bar some absurd moments of luck.
    Mediocre pilots aren't able to do seat-swap either, and their ability to align the craft for a potential gunner is also limited.

    If they aren't held back by this, they're not mediocre pilots anymore.
    Just like how an ESF that knows some basic tricks of evasive movement is on the way to shed the brand of mediocrity.
    • Up x 1
  3. TheBlazing


    All seat-swapping takes is pressing one key... if you're talking about seat-swapping in the case of 1/3 Liberators, let's just let them be, those are extremely rare cases anyways. Aligning the belly to an ESF isn't that hard either, since every Liberator I see (both from the ground and from the air) seems to do that when engaged by an ESF.

    The problem is that just a Liberator pointing its belly at a fighter is enough to force it to disengage; add the fact that, unlike Libs, ESFs need to point their nose at the target to do any damage, and no sane ESF pilot would keep engaging a Liberator pointing its belly at it. Even if the Lib's gunner is not good, pilots still won't risk him being one of the good ones, or getting a lucky shot, because it is instant death - no one would ever risk getting instagibbed, have you ever seen an ESF taking the risk of lolpodding a Skyguard? It's the same thing. This is the problem, some may say that ESF pilots should stop being scared of Liberators, but how can you not be scared of something that may instagib you?

    And even then, good crews have a way too easy time defending from ESFs - that's why I say ESFs are, de facto, not a counter to Liberators. Even if a vehicle is manned by the best crew in the multiverse, it should still have a hard time against its counter, except of course if said counter is manned by complete morons.
  4. Flag

    To be fair, if you're going to assume the Lib crew is good enough to work in a coordinated fashion, and have the gunner understand the game engine to the extend where they can work around the shell drop and velocity, you can also assume the ESF pilot should at least be aware of some basic moves and know a few "not to do's" such as not flying in a straight line.
    Assume skill on one side, also assume skill on the other, or it's not a fair comparison.

    If the ESF pilot don't know this, or refuses to that's their loss.
    More to the point, I don't believe you want true hard counters in this game. Sure, if you're the ESF you may want to be a hard counter to the Lib, but then something would have to HARD counter you to the point where you'd be guaranteed dead (or close to) if there's -just one- of them around with a desire to fight you.
    With the current implementation of the ESF and the Lib, if the people involved are about as good, the ESF is favoured. And you can treat the 1-shot risk with a dalton as the chance of equalizing the fight for the Lib. The stakes are raised, adrenaline pumping, followed by potential rage, depending on who's involved.

    At the end of the day, the ESF -is- a counter to the Lib. But not a hard one, as that makes for terrible gameplay.
    • Up x 1
  5. Gundem



    100%

    Hard counters suck. They frustrate every party involved. If an ESF could decimate a Liberator, regardless of how good the Lib crew was or bad the ESF pilot was, imagine how the Lib crew would feel. You think it would be fun to be destroyed by a noob, just because he chose another vehicle? Think the ESF pilot would have fun, if killing a Liberator only required pointing and clicking? What happens when there are 4 ESF's then? Do they just demolish every single Liberator on the server because of their mere presence?

    And even if the Liberator was buffed 3x it's current state towards ground, how do you think the filthy ground peasants ground troops would feel? A single Liberator flies overhead, and obliterates an entire tank zerg. Two Liberators camp over a base, destroy anything that moves. The ground peasants forces feel frustrated because the Liberator dominates them with so little skill, and the Liberator pilot/gunners feel bored because they destroy the ground peasants forces so effortlessly.

    Face it, your argument is invalid. Time and time again, countless ESF pilots have proven that even the best Liberator pilots in the game like Dreadnaut are nothing but childs play.

    Plus, the "Stats" back us up as well.

    The top source of death for a Liberator(Not including Suicide at a whopping 30%, which goes to show the difficulty to fly one of these beasts) is a tie between the three standard nose guns, followed closely by the Rotaries. These make up a good 50% of Liberator deaths total. Combine Suicide, and you have about 75% of Liberator deaths right there.

    What about Flak/Lock-ons? Just look up to the sky on the next 48+ fight your at. Air can't even come near because there is so much AA. Thus, the air is deterred.
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  6. Gundem

    Skyguard is a semi-hard counter that like all counters in PS2, scale to hard counters with increased usage.

    It only takes 3 Skyguards to lock down several Hex's. 3 People, to deny entire squads of aircraft.

    If they overwhelm you with like, 16 fully manned Liberators, would a person be able to get mad about that? An entire platoon, outnumbered you to death. Hell, I'd be impressed if you could organize enough to get all 16 of those Liberators to keep from crashing into each other.
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  7. Stormsinger

    When this large of a percentage of the overall playerbase is whining about something, I cringe at the thought of whatever liberator nerf is approaching. Judging by what was done to harassers, ZOE, Vulcans, and to a lesser degree the Vanguard shield... it won't be pretty.

    I may be one of the many advocating balance adjustment (Not necessarily nerfs, but rather a clearer, or more direct counter accessible to the player base as a whole) ... but a nerf is not what is needed here. A clear counter to air needs to be defined. If this is ESF's, steps need to be taken to make this clear. Above average and elite pilots screaming "Learn to play!" to a player base that cannot seem to deal with them is a sign that the developers need to take steps to correct the situation.

    If Skyguards are intended to be a hard counter to air, there either needs to be an offensive, defensive, or versatility adjustment. (Coaxial AI would be a good step - having a single purpose, high cost ground vehicle whose intended targets can relocate at will, and with great ease, means pulling one of these can be a waste, or is useful for only moments before needing to be abandoned.)

    If ESF's are intended to be a hard counter for air, adjusting one of the noseguns to have an advantage against these may be a good step. A2A noseguns, for example, could be given greater armor penetration. There would be no change in performance vs any target, save for armored aircraft. Liberators (And potentially galaxies) would fall more quickly, while leaving rotary dogfights untouched.

    Liberators are vulnerable from above - another potential solution would be to simply allow ESF's to reach a higher altitude then Libs. +50-150 meters seems like a good height advantage - another airframe could be created specifically for this purpose. A2A dogfights could occur more frequently without G2A lock on interference as well.
  8. Qaz

    I'm mostly looking at this from the perspective of a tank driver, and it plainly sucks if a comp or stealth lib can instagib me even if i travel with a skyguard as escort. or a double walker sundy. From that perspective, the idea of making skyguards more lethal vs libs at close ranges while not changing mid-long range performance seems appealing. Then again, i'm not a pilot.

    P.S. Why is the assumption always 3/3 libs, btw.? They still seem to be mostly 2/3
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  9. Gundem


    I totally understand that, coming from also a stealth AP Magrider driver. But as we've discussed, many times a Liberator is just as screwed by a single ESF as the MBT is to the Liberator. It's just the bads that say an ESF can't kill a Liberator.

    Also, I don't know why that is. I love to run a 3/3 Shredder Bulldog Liberator, and especially since the update, I definitely see my killing potential go down when I lack a tailgun.
    Either way, it's always best to assume the best of a situation. Calling Flashes OP because a single basilisk shot plinked you while you were on fire is a dumb way to balance. When comparing a skilled 2/2 MBT against an equally skilled 2/2 Flash, the outcome is pretty obvious. The reason, coming from the resource cost.
  10. Flashtirade

    Is this really what happens? I've not had too much trouble with Libs as a Skyguard driver unless they jump me and get shots in or I get overwhelmed by multiple threats, air or ground. Mind you, I've not been pulling vehicles as much lately because I've been focusing on improving my infantry classes, but I've never been in a guaranteed win-lose situation versus a single Lib unless one of us has the element of surprise, skilled or unskilled.
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  11. TheBlazing


    You do realize that an ESF is not a hard counter because the Liberator still has the tail gun the nosegun to defend itself, right? I never said I wanted a hard counter, hard counters suck, that's a thing I agree on. Just like an ESF can barely escape a Skyguard or Aspis turret with some fancy manuvering, a Liberator can force an ESF to disengage with the tailgun. That is balanced and not a hard counter.

    The problem comes when you also factor the belly/Dalton, which screws this up completely.

    And let's be honest, a 2/3 Liberator does not require that much teamwork. If the pilot and the gunner are skilled, they don't need to make an ad-hoc squad or go over Skype to fight effectively. Even the Dalton instagib broken trick does not require it - the pilot can just decide to trust his gunner and flip its belly at the ESF, and if the fighter does not disengage immediately, chances are he'll do it after a few near-misses. Or get instagibbed. Or get engaged by another ESF or ground AA units and die.

    Also, because the ESF is a counter - not a hard one, but still a counter - it should not require the same amount of skill as the Lib to drive away one (not necassarily destroy it). You can't treat Liberator VS ESF the same way you treat ESF VS ESF, in the latter case, yes, skill should be equal for an equal fight as the two vehicles are the same. But the ESF is a counter while the Liberator is the one being countered, so it should not take the same amount of skill as the crew to force one to retreat, especially because it's not even the same type of skill. The ESF pilot needs all-around skill and good situational awareness, since he has to control his fighter's movement and weaponry at the same time. On the Lib meanwhile, the pilot just think about flying and the gunner thinks about gunnig, which only takes aiming skill and no flying skill whatsoever - a "skilled" Lib gunner may be 10 times worse than the ESF pilot at flying.

    So you can't really scream "skeeeelz". Do Skyguards require much skill to scare off ESFs? Nope; they're not a no-skill weapon but still, they don't require as much skill as the ESF pilot needs to be effective. ESF VS Liberator should work in the same way.

    TL;DR / How I think it should be

    Assuming that the Liberator has no ESF escort of his own.
    Ideally, an ESF pilot that has less skill than a Liberator crew but is still not a moron, should be able to force the Liberator to at least stop his bombing action to defend itself - and not by instagibbing or scaring off the fighter in 3 seconds with the belly flip trick, but by putting up an actual fight with the tailgun. Then, if the pilot has slightly lower skill, he should drive it away. If the pilot has equal or superior skill, the Liberator should be toast and learn to take an ESF of his own as escort.

    To be honest, I think that the current tailgun-ESF system is perfectly fine. But the belly flip/Dalton instagib trick ruins it and majorly messes up balance. Thus, simply preventing the belly gun to fire if the Liberator is flipping around like crazy or overangled in relation to the ground plane, will fix all of these problems.
  12. Dreadnaut

    This is now the WORST post I have ever seen on the SOE Forums because it is so full of bad information and hate due to a lack of skill.

    Go to any of the posts where good ESF pilots talk about how easily they kill Liberators BY THEMSELVES, let alone bringing a single decent ESF buddy.

    Go to any of the posts where experienced Lib crews says they get wrecked by great pilots, because they know what they are talking about.

    Blame the devs for nerfing the Dalton so that most experienced crews are pulling the Shredder and now making life harder for ESF's.

    Ever used an Air Hammer against a Liberator? No, you haven't. That's obvious by the absolutely atrocious idea you mentioned above about making ESF nose guns do more damage to Liberators.


    Just WOW....I'm in awe of the absurdity of your post.
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  13. IamnotAmazing

    I'm not sure where people get this whole "lib flips over" thing from. You're completely flying wrong if he's flipping over, stay far away, make him chase you and just keep reverse thrusting.

    You do, all the time, you just don't notice it, I highly doubt that on any server they have only libs that can do a2a and not a single new lib crew
    Only really good pilots can take out the super elite crews, yeah, but there's maybe two crews I'm scared of on waterson, and neither of them have killed me in a while. The average and majority of lib crews don't know how to do a2a, that's a simple fact.

    Maybe they all need to l2p :p? I'm seriously doubting that no one on your server can kill a lib, again
    I'm not sure where people get this whole "lib flips over" thing from. You're completely flying wrong if he's flipping over, stay far away, make him chase you and just keep reverse thrusting.


    Only thing that needs changing is limiting to one repair gun working on a lib at a time, this whole landing and outrepping cheese is really silly
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  14. Dreadnaut

    The problem people have, is they can't see guys like me have been BEGGING for balance, and our ideas fall on deaf ears.

    So, the answers to those all important questions are answered here...

    Is the Liberator overpowered? Yes. To be absolutely fair, yes, it is overpowered.
    Is the Liberator underpowered? Yes. To be absolutely fair, yes, it is underpowered.

    Now, why is a 1500+ hour Liberator pilot saying the Liberator is overpowered and underpowered in the same sentence? It's because I understand every single detail about the Liberator and what it takes to fly one and kill one.

    Liberators absolutely RUIN small fights, and that pisses off people on the ground. I get it, I do. Stop spawning where you're getting farmed on move on. This just can't be changed. Just like a Vanguard farming a spawn, it's no different, just move to another base, pull armor and come kill it, or aircraft.

    Liberators get absolutely trashed in large fights with how well AA stacks against them. 3 guys with G2A lockons will make a Lib run. 3 AA turrets will hammer a Lib REALLY hard. Add in Skyguards, Sunderers, Bursters, and you've got some silly AA defense that isn't penetrable by a Liberator.

    Why do people think all these counters suck? Because they don't know how to use them. Ever notice how 1 guy always fires on the Liberator when he's 700m away and the Lib turns around? Yeah that's just dumb. Wait till he gets to 180-200m and let him have it. Work together, bait him in close, then hammer him with AA. The biggest issue is people refuse to work together to kill Libs, yet a fully crewed Libs working VERY hard to kill everything else.

    So, you want these issues fixed? Do this:

    • Decrease the amount of ammo a Liberator Belly Gun can carry by HALF (Yes, do it, they carry WAYYYYYY to much)
    • Decrease the Cone of Fire on Flak (AA Turrets, Bursters, Skyguards) by 15-20%
    • Increase Damage on Flak by 15% from 0-100m, damage dropoff to 150m to where it is now up to 1100m
    • Add gravity to Flak so you can't easily hit aircraft at 1000m horizontal to your position.
    • Set resists on Base Turrets so that 42 rounds inside of 50m from a Tank Buster kills the turret in 1 clip
    • Decrease Composite Armor Resists against Tank Rounds, it's too good right now
    • Make the Dalton round easily visible so it isn't so hard to see
    • Make Shredder Tracer Rounds easier to see

    In closing, if you're for game balance, you're going to agree with me. Halving belly gun ammo is necessary considering how stupid easy it is to re-arm in this game for aircraft. I'm all for balance, and I lean toward the side where skill should trump easy to use things like lockons in this game.

    Thanks for reading.
    • Up x 5
  15. Flag

    It's not a hard counter, but it is a strong one.
    More to the point, if the Lib is in a position to engage an ESF with the tail gun, either you're looking at a 3/3 Lib, a 2/3 one that is currently sacrificing the use of the belly gun, or it's one of the ace players.
    If it's one of the first two, I don't see how you'd expect to beat it "easily" without bringing friends, and here's why:
    - They got more people
    - The vehicle rewards use of multiple people (as it should)
    - The vehicle costs more than a single ESF
    So if you're having issues dealing with a 2/3 or 3/3 lib, bring friends. If you don't have anyone available, that's your loss.

    If you want to step up above the level of painfully average, good coordination is required. For some this is a natural fit, for others it takes a lot of time for them to get used to how the other person will do things.
    And to repeat myself, the dalton 1-shot wonder comes down to luck for most people. If they're good enough to shoot accurately -they aren't mediocre players-.
    That's the point here, the way you're going about things you're assuming the Lib crew is made up of good players. If you're going to assume this, then you have to assume the ESF is about as good, or you're having a case of better players killing worse players where balance is thrown out of the window.
    And if the ESF is skilled, it will know enough of the basics to not be the easy target you make it out to be.

    The ESF is a counter. But does that mean that a single ESF is a proper counter to a fully crewed Lib? Yes, but that doesn't mean it should be easy.

    As a side note, I'm going to call you "misguided" if you think piloting a lib is -easy- if you're under attack by good players.

    I'm not going to take the bait. If you want to bring up the Skyguard, I'm done with you.

    Again, does that mean a -single- ESF should have a strong advantage (at any skill level) versus a fully crewed lib?
  16. Vostogon


    Lets change a few words here.

    100%

    Hard counters suck. They frustrate every party involved. If a Liberator could decimate an MBT, regardless of how good the MBT crew was or bad the Liberator pilot was, imagine how the MBT crew would feel. You think it would be fun to be destroyed by a noob, just because he chose another vehicle? Think the Liberator crew would have fun, if killing an MBT only required pointing and clicking? What happens when there are 4 Liberators then? Do they just demolish every single MBT on the server because of their mere presence?

    So, what you're saying is.

    MBT's need massive buffs against Liberators. Fair enough.

    As to the rest?

    The ESF is the only counter the Liberator has, everything else is supposed to be a "deterrent". Fine. Then ESF's should take as much skill and hard work to kill Liberators as Liberators require to kill ground vehicles one on one. I.e. Little to none.

    A Liberators only real hope when jumped by an ESF should be "run to friendlies" just like when an MBT gets jumped by a Liberator or an ESF with rocket pods.
  17. Gundem


    First, the ESF pretty much is to the Liberator as the Liberator is to the MBT.

    Second, I've posted my idea for changing that before. Increase the max firing angle, reduce turret rotating speed, add damage drop off starting at 400 meters so you can't peg targets 600+ meters away.
  18. Vostogon


    No, it is not.

    A single ESF taking on a 2/3 Liberator is playing with fire. Has to constantly be on the watch for Dalton shots/Shredder fire and needs to be ready to bug out at a moments notice if anything else gets involved.

    A Liberator taking on an MBT can quite easily kill said MBT with a TTK of 2 seconds or less then bug out for another pass. You want to give ESF's a ttk of less than two seconds on Liberators when attacking from the right angle? That'd be intresting, in a way, i guess.
  19. Nepau

    Here is my take on the Lib hate:

    1. In small fights a Single Liberator is a Massive threat compaired to 1 of any other vehicle in the game. Add to the fact that on Average you need to make as many if not more peope (Ie 2 -5 people) to go Anti air to get rid of a Liberator, causes it to be a large factor in winning or losing a small fight

    2. Liberators seem to have no direct weaknesses, bar other Aircraft or Mass forces. A Tank is weak verse Air, as well as good flanking. Infantry can be taking out by other infantry, Air, Armor, Maxes etc. A Liberator needs a focused attack to defeat, and with how many angles work in bases, tend to mean that you have to expose yourself to an easy death from a Liberator so you can try to stop them from getting away.

    3. "Just pull Skyguards". This has been done to death but it is still true. A Skyguard is weak verse EVERYTHING but Aircraft. It is a Direct counter, yet a Liberator can shrug off 1 to 2 Skyguards, kill one and get away safe. A Liberator sacrifices NOTHING to be able to be effective against ground targets, while the Skyguard sacrifices a lot to be a deterrent to air.

    4. Yes If your a new Lib Pilot, your going to die, that's true on anything, However when you look at it's power with a Skilled crew, it Jumps Massively compared to any other vehicle in the game.

    Basically the Issues that people have is that the Liberator is Too strong of a force multiplier for it's cost/ usage. If they were more limited in the amount of usage they get (IE you can't have a fresh one every 5 minutes) then it might be a better factor, but until then, your going to have the issue of people on average finding they need to put a Large amount of force to deal with 2/3 people compared to almost anything else in the game.
  20. Popejustice

    I purchased a skyguard because i was tired of libs. Now I pull a vehicle that is really only good for one thing that doesn't really earn me jack for xp because I can't actually kill half the things in the air aka libs. Why? Because they can hover and endure my shots for a full clip then just afterburn away and either A.) return and fly through my hail of skyguard rounds pounding them the whole time just to tankbust me or B.) leave me in the middle of nowhere with a vehicle that can't perform well in it's intended role and cannot perform at all in any other role. In respond to the two man thing I wish SOE would give us a two man AA platform, because I'm tired of "well it takes two people who knows what their doing" to backup the claim that it's ok to have a vehicle that can perform well in every role even those that it should fundamentally not do well at. I would gladly pull that 2 man AA tank every time if it meant that people would take me seriously when I say I'm tired of the liberator and it needs tuning to perform in the role it was intended for. It's an all purpose death machine at the moment.