Devs please try to fly on Connery when Don Alfrego runs his air squad

The way tomcats work cannot be intended. Just try to experience it. Whoever is still sitting there with a developer title needs to get on Connery and try to play the game when Don Alfrego gets a dozen or more players together and roams around the map spamming tomcats.

For those of you who never play air and are laughing, imagine there was a Heavy Assault rocket that locked onto infantry targets in a fraction of second, and would always hit you unless you were inside a building, but the maps had no buildings so no matter what you'd automatically get hit by that lock on. This is what the air game is like on Connery, lock on tomcats completely elminate an air game, it's just gone.

Kuddos to Don Alfrego for showing how overpowered these things are, but it's time to nerf it.

I challenge any developer to post them having fun or doing anything on Connery when Don Alfrego runs his air squad. Show me how that's supposed to be enjoyable gameplay....

An anti-Air aircraft that's really good at anti-Air?

That means they can't do much anti-Ground combat. So get some Skyguards and Bursters and--laugh painfully as they fly off to bluer pastures (skybox willing) because ground is only really permitted to deter Air.

Since I don't fly it's maybe a stupid question ... Don't flares work versus TC's ?

Not really against that many tomcats. They only give you a few seconds of protection.

A few seconds is all some good pilots need, if they actually have even numbers in the air, to take down Tomcat users.

[quote="FateJH, post: 3240304, member: 120930"That means they can't do much anti-Ground combat. So get some Skyguards and Bursters and--laugh painfully as they fly off to bluer pastures (skybox willing) because ground is only really permitted to deter Air.[/quote]

Your argument fails on multiple levels.

For starters taking AB tanks makes you just us "unable" to attack ground. Though the nose gun is fine for killing infantry anyway, while exposing you to dumbfires.

More importantly though it's not related to the issue. The problem with tomcats in their current incarnation is that they amount to an IWIN button. That's not engaging gameplay, it's just get a group together, all pull tomcats, smash all air with fire and forget missiles. It's even a passive and boring experience for A2Am users, I used to run with these all the time because I couldn't believe how rediculously OP they were and I will abuse stupid game mechanics if the devs create them. I've been playing this game since it launched though, they got extremely boring. It would be like if BF3 never fixed the M203 flachette rounds, it's just overpowered garbage.

The devs don't realize it I guess. So they need to experience it to really see. The devs need to get together and try to fly an ESF or liberator when Don Alfrego runs his air squad. Getting killed by organized air is part of multiplayer, and you need to deal with it. Getting ganged by an IWIN button used en masse is just poor design, and the devs need to experience it realize how broken it is. So RaderX or any other dev go experience it, tell me a dozen a player with lock ons is how you intended gameplay to be....

The problem is lack of serious Ground-to-Air. When I fly over a friendly platoon I see only maybe... 1 or 2 anti-air lightnings / max. the rest is focused on the ground. Annihilator lock-on time is laughable, it's so long that most efs run away before I can even do 1 shot. striker is being finally buffed (and I hope it'll work beetter against esfs) galaxy gun mounts are also a joke. you can't do serious bombing or AA with this coverage. Liberator - another joke, why you can shoot only running away from the esf... maybe give lock on to the front? Give lock-ons to sunderers and MBT
Without serious G2A the enemy air zerg can chase you whole way to the warpgate.

What argument was I making?

Well, when large numbers are shoved against anything, everything falls apart in common situations. (Actually, do they give you a few seconds protection from all attempted lock-ons like IR Smoke does for Ground Vehicles?) How would you suggest an improvement for Flares to actually make them more viable?

The duration of immunity against A2A missiles is increased to 18 seconds. Ground ones remain the same.

I'm up for nerfing lock ons, HOWEVER, it must ALSO come with a radical change to lower the skill floor and skill gaps (hopefully while maintaining the skill ceiling) significantly for the rest of the ESF air game.

Even in its current state, the better pilot 1v1 will win vs the person who can't hit with the nosegun / maneuver that relies on tomcats, but often this forces a trade in damage due to at least one lockon getting off, thus making non 1v1 situations so that the better pilot is severely limited on how many foes they can take out before attrition catches up to them.

If we truly lower the skill floor and skill gaps it necessarily means one of the things below or some combination of them:

1. ESF fighting becomes extremely volatile,
2. learning the complex maneuvering and aiming become super easy without reducing capability,
3. or that even nosegun ESF combat forces trades in damage and thus the attrition effects of lockons.

There are many other possibilities besides these three, and the question of providing a real use for tomcats remains.

Tomcats are fine as they are right now so if you're getting ganked by a platoon of them, you need to rethink the way you fly. Use flares and/or fly with friends. Coordinate with your outfit or faction to tackle the problem. Complaining here because you refuse to use the tools available to you to counteract a tactic is lame and boring. We're all tired of hearing about it.

If you really want to "lower the skill ceiling" or whatever to make flying easier for everyone, get rid of the ridiculous physics that allow for these helicopter duels so these fighters behave like fighters. Hover mode should be far more difficult to enter and exit in the air or mobility while in hover mode needs to be drastically decreased. And, of course, give the ESF AI weapons to the Valkyrie as they are currently and jettison the current Valkyrie AI weapons instead.

Also, the Devs don't really read this forum. If you want to complain do it on reddit along with the rest of the turbonerds where you will at least have a chance of being heard and parroted several dozen times.

I don't fly on Connery anymore, but tomcats are indeed deadly in numbers. You can use flares, but that's only going to delay the inevitable. If you have multiple people with the lock-on range increased shooting at you, the best chance you have is to either get away and force them to get close(duck behind a building or something), or ram them and hope for the best. Tomcats aren't like the noseguns, where a skilled pilot can take out 2-3 average pilots by dodging well. If you are outnumbered and trying to fight one person with your nosegun, the others can just sit back and continually pelt you with missiles.

There is really not much you can if you are outnumbered, but if not then you can use stealth to try and gank them while they are busy. Bad pilots are easy to gank. If they are actually experienced and difficult to gank, you can always fight fire with fire and pull your own. It's not a fun way to play, but my guess is that they hate being locked onto just as much as anyone else. But that means you'll be spending quite a few certs on a weapon you may never enjoy using.

You're right, it's not enjoyable gameplay. Tomcats were added to help new pilots who don't stand a chance in a nosegun battle. They kind of help in that regard, but at the same time, a new pilot flying solo with tomcats is going to get targeted pretty quickly by experienced pilots, even rammed over and over. And they will be subjected to hate tells as well. As a result, they don't really fix the problem, they just create new ones. They could have fixed the problem quite easily by adding some sort of an auto air squad feature that could be disabled in the option, coupled with some guidance prompts. Maybe some kind of incentive program for experienced pilots to run these squads. But they made lock-on weapons instead, and here we are

How about lowering the skill floor and skill gaps? Those are much more appreciable terms, seeing as most take "lowering the skill ceiling" correctly to mean reducing the amount of depth involved in some aspect of that game.

I would rather like it if they behaved like fighters, howerever, I also wouldn't mind it if one could toggle hovermode, which would hugely increase the entry and low skilled pilot's ability to aim and maneuver, thus massively reducing the gaps and lowering the floor, not to mention all of the cool new maneuvers we could make.

Isn't everything overpowered when used in superior numbers?

It's not so much about that, as it is the nature of the weapon and how annoying it is to fight against. People make the argument that an A2A weapon should have air superiority, but it's just not a very fun way to play the game for the people who really love the air game. I'm not trying speak for everyone though, this is just how I feel, and how many others do seem to feel about it.

What they often mean is that "the marginal effectiveness of this weapon is superior to that one" or "this weapons scales better with numbers than other weapons", since nearly everything obviously scales with numbers.
It also often happens that they're wrong or their perceptions are exaggerated.
In this case, I think it's exaggeration. Severe exaggeration.

One possible cause for real better scaling is the versatility effect, for weapons with niche uses will generally be less useful compared to a weapon with a greater versatility when scaled up. See, Lancer.

This applies to skill too, the group skill effect. Given a group of randomly skilled players, the group will get far more out of the lower skilled players using weapons with a low skill ceiling and or small skill gaps. This is the one more relevant to tomcats.

Mechanically, these usually translate to 1. good accuracy 2. a good effective range (more important for the versatility effect) and 3. a high volume of fire.

Tomcats have accuracy in spades, of course, to the point of nullifying the carefully nurtured hoverduel skills to an extent and forcing damage attrition for the player that comes out on top (still usually the hoverdueler nosegun user, as they tend to be of much greater skill and of a competent accuracy).

So, replace one IWIN button with another?

Increase the reload time of Tomcats to ~10 seconds. Then a properly timed flare will give you a ton of space, and it will also require the Tomcat user to practice on nosegun while they wait for the reload.

Use flares and learn how to aim a nosegun. Or, use Coyotes. Or any of the several other things you can do to counter lock-ons.

whenever i use ground to air lockon i wait a few seconds and watch that green box for them to deploy their panic flares before i shoot

Are you ignoring the context of the thread? No one is talking about a 1v1 situation.

Sounds to me the problem is not with tomcats, but with a guy who organizes an air zerg. There can only be one response: organize another zerg yourself or give up flying.