flak op VS esf's

Don't try to turn this around. Ground is currently getting massacred/farmed air is not. If you slow down enough to get hit with a tank shell or dumb fire you earned that death. I you don't kill one AA flak before it kills you did something wrong (like weapon choice or angle of attack). If you don't fly with flares you earned that death as well.

The only excuse air has to die to ground AA is a group of people on the ground get organized and focus fire on you... or the tree moves, or that invisible strut under the bridge on Indar is back, you don't rebind the "E" key.

Ravens are pretty strong but TTK is still > 10 seconds.

Which is exactly how it is supposed to play out.

Except that an ESF is capable of engaging both air and ground targets with superb efficiency while the Skyguard, by comparison, is a sluggish platform only viable against aircraft.

Mmm... bawthurt. Give me more.

Clearly you do not understand, yet that is what makes a *combined arms game* - specific counters to specific threats with some general overlap here and there.

Here is my problem. AA shuts pilots completely out of a fight. The absolutely insane range of flak forces pilots to stay away from any fight that is larger than 12 vs. 12. We're completely shut out, unable to do anything. You would definitely see people farm with rocket pods if the distance of flak was shortened, It should be that aircraft a decent effect in all fights, but flak completely cuts out all aircraft. There is almost no way to balance this without upsetting one side.

Sure there is, don't balance the flak, it isn't the problem, period.

The problem lies in the vehicles they're used against.

Against ESF's, they're more than fairly effective, they're an effective deterrant, and you only need two or three dedicated AA players in an AA nest to keep most ennemy ESFs away from a large fight (unless there's an air zerg), but those same numbers do little to deter even one larger craft, like Libs, and galaxies. Personally I believe libs could do with being just a little bit more vulnerable to ESF noseguns, as could Galaxies, but not to AA; give the ESF a reason to be a fighter.

I don't even think ESF's should be more or less vulnerable to AA, I think they, being the real point of complaint, need revised mechanics, so that they play and feel like fighter craft.

Actually, the TomCats are supposedly going to get changed to less maneuvereable (so ESF's can dodge with skill) but higher damage precisely for taking down heavier craft.

Here lies another problem, the only way to take down gals is to have multiple AA gunners. However, these same guys can obliterate ESFs if they focus fire. Flak is balanced as a 1v1 (Max/Skyguard vs. one ESF) weapon, It is completely fair if you're fighting one burster max as an ESF, but scales awfully once there's two or more. And so, when there is a nest that was formed to take down a gal, they lose reason and start shooting at all the other aircraft in the area, completely denying any other aircraft.

If they AA team brought their friends and are cooperating together... why didn't the air team also bring their friends and cooperate?

The reason why a single aircraft gets shredded by multiple sources of AA... is the same reason why a lone infantryman will die if there are three other people shooting at him or why a single MBT will collapse under the fire of three other AP MBTs.

Nothing else in PS2 is meant to survive having multiple counters engaging that target within the effective range... except aircraft. Why do aircraft get this free pass that no other unit type gets?

It's the scaling of the thing. I don't mind getting crushed in a 3v1 MBT battle, but there is nothing you learn from getting destroyed by flak. You also used a very weird comparison, tanks are on equal grounds with other tanks and infantry are equal with infantry. The problem is that flak is designed so that one guy can push away aircraft and keep the aircraft from farming a small fight. This is a blessing and a curse, but because flak is not default, it is a huge problem for newer players. Small fights with newer players get farmed, and large fights shut out air. The only way that they could hope to balance AA, would be to make it default, but make it less effective. Even with that solution, it is still one guy sacrificing his role on the battlefield, it should count, but it shouldn't deny another player.

Basically, AA scales awfully. Flying is shut out of fights. Dying in an ESF happens, but it should be kind of like a lightning. Something that shouldn't stand straight up to it's counters, but play a different way, in order to take it out. It should not be something that can be completely shut out of a fight. It shouldn't be able to farm ground targets, Basically, nerf rocket pods ammo capacity, and nerf flak's range and scaling.

Fair point but 3v1 anything in the game is death and you don't learn anything. Also tanks are not on equal grounds but that's fine as they are not meant to be, you're meant to play them to the right situation which goes for everything in the game, inclduing esf's/

Also your point above this one would make libs and gals basically invincible.

usually that AA is safely behind enemy armor/walls/shields

Sometimes good AA is up with the column... your friendly ground still needs to go through their full force to get to it, at which point, what do they need your help for?

AA is already really lethal honestly. It is just not rewarded enough I think. Kills are hard because despite the relatively fast TTK's for player counts, but the air can get out of site just fast enough to live if AA isn't critical mass. Still complete area denial for lower player count. AA specific weapons, sans G2A launcher, so the Skyguard/Walker/Ranger... perhaps Bursters but they swap so easily that they're not as committed, should get passive XP for being near friendlies. "Sky Watch" or something.

XP is life.

I'd like to see it's effect in the game. I bet it'd be significant once well known.

+80XP/min ticks or something. It's as important as watching the point, so why not?

Tanks are not on equal grounds? you mean I can't take out a vanguard when I'm in a prowler? That I can't take out a prowler when in a magrider? The point I'm trying to make, is that ESFs don't have a right situation, they annoy gals, and are okay against liberators. But it is something that flak does better, so if you need to take out a lib, it's easier to just grab flak.

No clearly you dont understand that combined arms means you need to field all three units. Infantry Vehicles and Aircraft.

Currently you have a situation where people are too lazy to use all of the tools given to them so they whined and got skyguard buffed to ridiculous levels.

Now you don't NEED an airforce to win a battle.

There are no airforces at any of the major contested battles because of the over-effectiveness of G2A.

Mmm bawthurt lol thats about the most juvenile term ive ever heard.

I have a skyguard myself and lots of kills with it.

I also sit in turrets on occasion and completely shut down a kilometer of airspace while i eat a sandwich, so i know exactly how silly flak is in this game.

It requires absolutely no skill to kill things with flak.

I also dont get the idea of 'counters' in a pvp game. This isnt a rts.

An easy to use nearly completely skilless mode of play should not be a 'hard counter' to anything.

I'm certainly not in favor of allowing air to farm the ground either. I've never been a big advocate of a2g and have often suggested that thermals should be removed from vehicles so that it isnt so easy for them to farm infantry.

I still believe the imbalances and the hatreds were created in order to sell skyguards and lock-ons and really isnt healthy for the game.

It means you need to field them in accordance with threats present. No air - no need for AA. AA present - don't try tackling it with air, deploy a ground force to knock it out. They don't always need to be deployed in unison even though the term might suggest that.

To be fair, all you *need* is infantry in sufficient numbers. Vehicles are force multipliers.

Oh there are. The point is, that AA emplacements when left unmolested *will* bring down the hammer on air. I saw plenty *huge* fights with ESFs and Liberators raining down hell despite volumes of flak fire. A grinder for both sides. Glorious.

I can keep it up for as long as it helps you understand the bias in your reasoning.

AA turrets are a joke. A single Liberator will laugh at you and then promptly turn you and the turret into a smoldering pile of nanites.

It's a broad term, but accurate enough to describe Planetside's Infantry-Armour-Air triangle.

The trouble is Flak is expensive to pull, rarely kills and becomes useless after-the-fact. At least we get the damage XP ticks for air suppression so we're rewarded more "in the bank" than the simple intermitant absence of A2G that may or may not allow you to flip a hex. Flak will be in a better position if and when we gain the ability to swap out vehicle loadouts.

As it stands turrets can be put into the red by an ESF in a single pass. Rangers can be tanked. Skyguards can be cheesed and MAX bursters really can't tickle anything outside of 100m. Flak might be easy to an experienced FPS player who is familiar with bullet velocity mechanics, but the slow velocity does mean excessive leading that can be rendered moot by a quaint helix manouvre from your target. Put two or three ESF in the field and they can shut down a spawn room full of AA.

Lord Avatar you have no clue about bias. I rarely fly anymore. Even more rarely do i die to an airplane.

If you die to a lib in an AA turret it is because you are bad. Unless you tunnel in there is no way that a lib is going to sneak up on you enough to kill you before you can kill him.

And to be fair you have 3 hours of flying time. Which basically means that unless you have other toons that that listed in your sig, that you have absolutely no idea about the air game.

By looking at your killboard i see that you spend all of your time as infantry. you like to snipe people and chuck tank mines around.

Not surprised you would advocate for strong EZ mode flak.

A true PS2 player plays every aspect of the game before attempting to speak intelligently about it.

I have 18 hours, over 200 aircraft kills in a skyguard, and at least 40 days flying time against them. I'm pretty sure that makes me more qualified and unbiased than someone who has basically never flown.

Besides playing everything keeps the game from getting boring and should be encouraged.

Skyguard is boring.

I quess this is a lost cause anyways but here is my input.

AA and especially flak is just weird.
Right now at least for esf pilots flak is a nightmare ... it might not always kill you ... but even a single max/skyguard/aa turret denies you access to a whole hex and in case of experienced users even sometimes more.
It is no fun ... it's not even a fight ... esfs can't realy do a lot against a skyguard/max (if the max knows what he is doing) or aa turrets.

The current setup is just frustrating ...

At the end of the day you have esf pilots pissed that they feel helpless against aa and aa pissed that a lot of the times the target gets away.



I think we need to nerf current flaks damage into the ground ... AND give us access to a more specialised short range burst version that can reliable kill esf's and maybe even liberators BUT doesn't have the area denial abilities of current flak AND is not mounted on anything beefier than a harasser.

Reallly ......... So ESF / Libs and Galaxy can sit at range bombarding the hell out of ground units, who in response can only "tickle" them with a weapon that is by design the direct counter, unless said " Air " is within spitting distance ...............