can anyone explain the current lib hate to me?

Also an MBT can lose a fight to a liberator even if the lib is just hovering in front of the tank 10m off the ground, lol. If an ESF, the supposed counter to a lib, he'd be annihilated instantly.

Short answer is yes - although not necessarily a **strong** advantage (and strength is subjective anyways). Just like a 1-seat Skyguard is a couner to most aircraft, and just like a 1/2 AP MBT is a counter to a 2/2 HE AI MBT (MBT AI secondaries don't even damage armor). And I see almost no fully crewed Libs because the belly gunner will just switch the 3rd seat, or remain the 2nd for th belly flip trick.

I think you are making it too simplistic. You just see black and white: if an ESF has an "advantage", in your book it seems that said ESF will be a hard counter to the Lib and instantly destroy it. It shouldn't really work this way - depending on skill difference, one ESF should be able to prevent a Liberator from bombing for a good amount of time before taking too much damage and having to retreat, leaving the Liberator free to bomb again (disturbance - med-high skill difference in favor of the difference), force the Liberator to retreat by means of severely damaging it before taking too much damage itself (repulsion - med-low skill difference in favor of the Lib), or outright destroy it (elimination - no skill difference or skill difference in favor of the ESF).

You will notice that this skill system is unbalanced in favor of the ESF: but that's just the way it should be. If it's a counter, it should be easier to take on a Liberator with an ESF, just like it is easier to take on a tank with a Liberator, just like it is easier to take on an HE or HEAT tank with an AP tank. As you can see, everything in the game follows these rules, the Liberator is the only one that breaks it and just says "lol get skill l2p noob".

Fixed that for you

All the Lib fun that is going on now has inspired me to learn to max out my Skyguard and fly my ESF. Both of these things do nothing but make the game more fun for me because I have new things to do and a new villain to fight in the game.

Unless something is truly broken (Z.O.E.), players will adapt to the new situation. Libs are performing exactly as they should be for their resource + cert cost. This is an opportunity to do something different in the game, don't let it pass by, enjoy it!

I love how we're hearing a lot about the tactic in the liberator called "the belly up trick"

I don't have the time to type out ridiculously long arguments here and I'm sure most reading the thread wouldn't bother reading the whole post anyways. To summarize:

• To hit ESFs with the dalton without accounting for the gravity, speed, turning, etc the ESF needs to be VERY close to the liberator.
• If the ESF prefers to to dogfight the liberator from close range then when the liberator "bellies up" any mediocre pilot should realize he should FLANK around to the top of the liberator where the liberator has NO GUNS via after burner or whatever his quickest maneuver is. (Did I forget to mention the ESF is faster and more nimble than the liberator?????)
• If the liberator bellies up when the ESF is far away then turn back and find a new angle of approach. Yes you lack intelligence if you approach 2 high threat turrets head on.
• Every ESF that is dying close range to a dalton is a noob or made a mistake (or on rare occasion luck.) This is a skill/intelligence issue.

You won't get easy kills if you don't have the element of surprise. That is true in every element of this game!!

It is harder to get the element of surprise on a liberator because it can move on all axis' but the same can be said about an ESF and you see libs getting them jump on them too when the lib is slower and less maneuverable than the ESF!

Montages are an inaccurate representation of reality.

My friend Wycliffslim killed a high skill ESF with the Duster. Does that mean the Duster is a good weapon for killing ESF's?

No, because the video proving it didn't have enough dubstep, sound clips of people screaming, or sample text.

That's how it works with tanks. You roll with AI, you're going to be hard-countered by any non-HE MBT. Same with HEAT vs AP too and having/not having a secondary av gunner, for that matter. This also how things work when it's ESF/Libs vs Ground Vehicles. So, i guess it's only in the air where this type of system is undesired for some reason. I think this is also part of the reason why many pilots don't understand the frustration they cause when they take out vehicles, as the feeling of utter helplessness is never an issue if you're in the air thanks to multi-purpose loadouts that are highly effective.

So what you really mean is "kind of".
The ESF already has the advantage, assuming the pilot is above pleb level.
More to the point, if you're going to compare it with ground vehicles, use a lightning for the ESF equivalent.
As a side note, the MBTs have it different, in that unlike anything in the air their tools are actually a lot more specialized overall. However that's not what we're here to debate, is it?

Anyway, again you're talking about the "belly flip" as if it's something everyone can do and produce reliable results from it. This is not the case, so please do us all a favour and stop pretending that it is.

Me seeing things in black and white? I'll admit, that's a new one. Also, if you're going to compare anything, ever, you always assume equal skill levels. And with that said, a lib crew that's on the same skill level as an ESF that doesn't know how to maintain some distance while fighting the lib wouldn't be able to hit a stationary galaxy.

If you'd rather debate situations where there is a notable skill difference, you're wasting your time as in those situations balance gets thrown by the wayside.
A silly example could be someone taking a knife to a shotgun fight. If the guy with the knife is good enough he'll kill the shotgun user. Does that mean that this is a valid example of game balance? Hell no. So of course you'd assume they're about as good, and you'll find that the shotgun is better than the knife in CQC.

Easy != free win. And who said it should be easy anyway?

I dont think the tankbuster has been buffed recently

The belly thing is mainly a "risk" factor. But the risk is so high that no sane pilot will fight a Lib that can keep its belly pointed to it. And rendering problems also prevent you from seeing what weapon a Lib mounts until you're 50 meters from it.

Specialization is actually what air lacks. Because there is no specialization, we are stuck in these arguments arguing if, why and how what should be how effective against what, because there are no set rules, there are no freakin' vehicle descriptions telling players (especially new ones) what is supposed to do what, and there are no official statements about this issue and many others.

There needs to be a clearer "ruleset" for the air game just as there is for the rest of the game. There needs to be a weapon that is more effective against Libs (Currently, there is none, I would propose A2AMs as a dedicated anti-Lib weapon) and allows ESFs to reliably specialize at that role.

That's what I mean when I say you only see black and white. I wrote that in a case of med-to-low skill difference in favor of the Lib, the pilot should be able to chase it off until it gets too much damage from the tail gun to keep chasing it. The Lib is repelld but will eventually come back, how is that a free win?

And the fact that it's a counter sais that it should be (relatively!) easier than, say, dogfighting another ESF, if it's not, then what kind of counter is it? What do you define a counter as if not as something that has an easier time fighting off what it's supposed to counter? And that is also the reason you can't always assume equal skill levels. The Lib and the ESF are just too different for a direct comparison of that kind. As I said plenty of times, make a direct comparison for ESF VS ESF, for AP MBT VS AP MBT, for Heavy VS Heavy, but not for vehicles which are so different or are one a counter to the other. Oh, and knives are not counters to shotguns -.-

There is also another thing that really bugs me about this issue. When you see an enemy Liberator in the sky as infantry or ground vehicle driver, what do you do? Would you ever think "Oh yeah I would totally pull an ESF to try to at least stop it from bombing the ground". Nope. I have rarely seen air support come to fight off Liberators, there are simply too many risks in doing so and the reward is too nreliably delivered to take those risks. Instead, most people will just prefer to pull out their lockon launchers, burstermaxes, or Lancer VS-22s (for the VS), and engage the Liberator as infantry where there are zero risks - if you get killed, just respawn, and if infantry can keep that up for a minute or two the Lib will be forced to retreat. It is a much more reliable and effective - and far less risky - tactic to solve Liberator problems, and it doesn't even involve their counter. This is a problem.

See, here's the thing.
You say no sane pilot would go up against a lib that can keep the belly pointing at it, and that's one of the places you and I disagree. Remember, if the belly is pointing your way he's not working on closing the distance. Not only that, but with the previous assumption that all involved players are of even skill levels, if the dalton gunner is good enough to land a shot like that, the ESF pilot will by definition know how to be evasive, reducing the chance of getting hit.

As a side note, the A2A missiles can already be pretty damn devastating towards libs (**** you OptimusBanana, I'm still nonplussed ._.) They don't need any buffs.

Or are you going to argue balance from the perspective of good players beating not-as-good ones?

Above the skill level of "will crash mid-air", it is -always- favouring the ESF, a difference in player skill notwithstanding.
That aside, it's still a case of a 1-man ESF going up against 2-3 people. You should expect to have to work for your certs. If you really want to kill them, bring one or two friends in their own ESFs so you have the same amount of players on both sides. Then you should notice how much of an advantage the ESF really has.

... But it is easier to fight a Lib. And I will always assume equal skill level when debating balance. And so should you.
As for the comparison to ESF-ESF/MBT-MBT (or whatever) match-ups, it's different. MBTs generally fill the same roles, so does the different ESFs. But for the ESF-Lib comparison the base vehicles are too different to be compared to, say MBT-MBT.
The MBTs (at least in theory) should fill the same roles regardless of which empire you're on, but the Lib and the ESF are very different. So if you must compare with another pairing, you need to use two sufficiently different things, like MBT-Lighting, or HA-Infil.

Oh I'm not saying the balance in the game as a whole is perfect (far from it), but the isolated comparison of Liberator v. ESF is one of the least problematic areas of the game.
Just because I'm arguing against your ideas that the ESF needs buffs against the liberator does in no way mean I find both vehicles to be -perfect- balance wise. They're not. Not by a long shot.

If you need some framework, I'm a tanker (or at least I was before my current game hiatus). And when the lib patch hit I was one of the most outspoken people on this subforum about how the change was wrong from a game balance perspective.

But at the same time I also know from both personal experience and at times very long discussions with other players that if you isolate the Lib and the ESF, the ESF does not need buffing against the Lib. Nor does the Lib need any nerfing towards the ESF.

RL;DR:
I just don't agree with your conclusion in the ESF-Lib match-up. You may not like it, but that is invariably your problem.

No wait. We're doing it wrong. Sorry for trailing off until this point, but listen here.

I just said that ESF VS Lib is not well-balanced and is excessively reliant on a broken "mechanic" (belly flip etc), but I'm actually against direct buffs for the ESF (except maybe A2AMs, but that's another story and I think would be the least helpful).

The one thing I think is really needed is just preventing Liberators to fire their belly gun at all angles. As I said, it's too huge of a risk factor for any not-reckless fighter pilot, even if in practice the gunner may not be able to hit anything, and it nullifies the supposed advantage of the ESF of being able to maneuver around the Lib and attacking it from above (yes, it may have no guns there but once you start firing you will probably end up with the belly facicing you anyways after 2 seconds).

In Planetside 1, Liberators could only fire their belly gun (which was more like a bomb launcher) if they were no more than 15 degrees angled from the ground. Now, I think that this is a bit excessive, but I still think that at the very least, the belly gun should not work if the Liberator is rolled more than 70 degrees relative the ground. This is an ideal number, of course, and some testing would be required to determine how much the Lib should be allowed to roll before disabling the belly gun, but that is the idea.

And here's where we flat out disagree. I don't agree with you that the use of the belly gun is a problem, or that the mechanic is broken.
I'm in the camp that believes the ESF to always be favoured, sometimes only slightly, so changing the balance between the two to favour the ESF would make the game worse.

If I agreed that the Lib in general was the favoured vehicle in an aerial exchange, then I might have agreed with you. But I don't, and as such I just don't see why you'd have to make the fight go from being favouring the ESF to heavily favouring the ESF.

For PS1 (I didn't play), from what I've been told that game worked with a semblance of Rock Paper Scissors. Planetside 2 does not. And it's better for it.
Instead make things a lot more even, with -small- differences you can exploit through skill. If the players involved are of the same skill it should be REALLY hard to guess who'll come out on top. If one is better than the other, then you can make a safer (but not guaranteed) prediction.

You know, given how allegedly easy it is for a skilled ESF pilot to kill Libs you would think there would be a few (or any) YouTube montages to show off these ESF skills. Plenty of Dalton one-shotting ESF montages though. Funny that.

I personally think that a game as large as Planetside 2 absolutely requires strict game rules and roles. In a Counter Strike or Quake match you can have players being very similar in terms of roles and equipment since you have a maximum of 16 players (very rarely 32), but PS2 is all about hundreds of players fighting at the same time. Everything should work harmoniously, and treating the game the same way you would treat CSGO or generally a smaller-scale game (where there is indeed very little difference between roles and equipment) is, in my opinion, a big mistake; PS1 was much more "structured" than PS2 in terms of roles, counters etc... That's just how MMOs are, particularily a game like PS2 where players are all bunched together on the same map. More defined roles also make the game more interesting and fair. In a game like Planetside 2, being a pro is not a reason to dominate a battle; it should all be about a large number of people acting in a coordinated fashion (PS2 also lacks in this department, I can't believe we only have 10 voice commands and nothing like a proper mission system; the current one is just "go here and cap it", which sucks).

And how is nerfing the belly flip trick heavily favouring ESFs? People always seem to forget that Liberators also have a tailgun. Also, apparently if a Liberator jumps an ESF from above/snipes it from the flight ceiling and instagibs it with its Dalton (which is made easier by the Lib having no engine sound), it's fine, but if an ESF jumps a Liberator from above it's fair for the Liberator to be able to flip 180° to point its belly gun at it, despite the ESF being the counter. Strange logic.

Also, what ThreePi above me said. Until now I have only found one video of an ESF successfully taking on Liberators, and that was an ace, however, there are plenty of Dalton montages around.

First, tailguns suck. Currently, the only one really worth using is a Bulldog with Thermals.

Second, videos of killing Liberators would be long and boring. Dalton'ing ESF's is exciting, difficult and fun to watch.

Tailguns suck? They have been buffed in the Liberator update, they have a much wider firing arc than before, the Walker got a straight damage buff, the Hyena launcher is basically Coyotes, which are well-known for balance issues and being borderline OP, with 2 additional rounds per mag.

I mean seriously, what do you want tailguns to do? Instagib ESFs like the Dalton?

If you seriously think they suck, then you probably have residual hate from before the buffs, a bit like people still saying that rocket pods are OP because they have PTSD from Beta.

That's because killing liberators in common, and quiet boring to because the people that watch, normally can do it themselves. People have dalton montages because they are proud of the shots they did. Killing liberators with an ESF isn't too impressive because it's so common.

The Hyenas are slower firing, easier to dodge versions of the Coyotes. While the Walker is okay, it's still pretty easy to dodge and it's damage tapers off rapidly at range. Drake, is well, the drake. Walker is really only useful for a 3/3 Shredder/Walker Lib for A2A work, and even still, that only works against bad players. And even if they are bad enough to die from that, there's always the option of plinking from render, which always works, and the Liberator can basically do nothing about it.