Flying changes: Feel vs Function, and overall test experience

Discussion in 'Test Server: Discussion' started by DashRendar, Mar 14, 2015.

  1. DashRendar

    Noticed about 50 feedback threads, so what's one more going to hurt? I've sufficiently tested the flight mechanic changes, and there is good and bad. First the good.

    The feel of flying I think has improved. That is to say the mental satisfaction of performing the act of flying and thinking to yourself, yes, this is how an aircraft should respond. From testing, it seems the aircraft have more inertial momentum, and this is something that I've hoped for for a long long time. I believe that this change is good. It feels more "real" if that's something that you value, and I also believe that it aids in aiming. One thing I've always had trouble with when flying is aiming. I can do all the tricks and evade all the fire, but if I can't hit anything, then I will die eventually. This has been a long standing frustration of mine when flying. With these changes, I don't know what it is, but I seem to be landing more shots on target and with less effort. Could just be test environment vs live environment, but can't say for sure. For some reason aiming is easier now.

    Now for the function aspect, and here we introduce the bad. Now as I explained in my previous paragraph that my maneuvering of aircraft used to be an 8 and my aiming a 3, now with these changes I feel more like my maneuvering is closer to a 4, because I can't do everything I want to on command, there is either a lag, a slowness to respond, or an aspect of randomness, all of which makes the flying experience unreliable. I, as many others along with me, have long since used mouse buttons to bind pitch up and pitch down in order to fly more easily without having to perform uncomfortable mouse desk slides all across the pad, though now it seems that this sort of movement is required.

    Bound keys seem like they have 25% the effectiveness of mouse scroll, where before it was 1:1, buttons were just easier to perform the broad stroke movements. What this means is that in order to track an enemy in a dogfight, you need to be moving your hand all around the desk constantly without end, in order to effectively track them. Now I actually found dogfights on test server quite fun, and I enjoyed them, but the idea here is that some functionality of aircraft has been taken away, we have lost some convenience and effectiveness. Roll functions are incredibly slow as well, and this is also a very important attribute to being effective in maneuvering or tracking a target. I actually found myself crashing into terrain a lot more while trying to execute advanced maneuvers like reversing close to the ground or weaving around terrain, because pitch and roll are much slower. Sometimes it seems to take a quarter second to respond, and in battle, that's all it takes to make the difference.

    Damage control is almost impossible as well for the same reasons. If you find yourself accidentally reversing into the ground or a piece of terrain, it's basically a guaranteed death screen because the slowness of pitch and roll mean no last second jukes can be made. When running from an attacker, you also can't perform a barrel roll to dodge fire. I've tried it, and the best I can do with a full mousepad slide is still less than 180 degrees. So I thought I'll do the alternate method for barrel roll evasion, which is hold the bound key for roll and alternate pitch up and pitch down keybinds, but with the slowness of pitch keybinds, we run into a problem here as well. Basically running from fire has to be done in a straight line and hope for the best.

    Finally I want to comment on the overall experience of testing these changes. We all signed into the test server to evaluate the changes to flight mechanics so that we can provide feedback to the developers. For some great unexplained reason, players of all three factions have chosen to try and stop this at any cost. Ground players are slugging around G2A lockons, pulling Walker sundies, Skyguards, base Flak turrets, even air players are loading up with A2A locks. It's like everyone was trying very hard to halt the testing process just so they could feel important and powerful. I was very disappointed in the community for this. If that's all you were going to do was be bitter and try to ruin it for everyone actually testing, why did you even bother to log on to the test server? I realize there is nothing that the devs could do about this, but still it was a very unpleasant experience for most of it. I tried to ask people why they were testing the effectiveness of AA and lock ons instead of flight mechanics like they were supposed to, but nobody could give a decent response. If there's a reasonable explanation for it, then I just want to hear it.
  2. CyanAUT

    I can almost completely confirm what you have found. The only thing I experienced a bit different is the running from fights, I had no problem going really low and in between trees etc. so only being able to fly "in a straight" line was not an issue for me.

    As for why so many people were using AA:
    I also spawned as a heavy with AA quite often over the weekend, the reason being that I often could not fly any longer than half a minute in my Reaver, since there were so many scythes swarming me as soon as I got out of the Warpgate. I think the TR had the same problem, for I did not see many Mosquitoes either.
    I was mostly flying on Koltyr, because I wanted to know how flying would feel on such a small continent.
  3. Kopp

    Personally I HATE the changes and reading your post made me very sad, because I can now see that maybe these changes are to help out the inexperienced fliers even if it hurts the few that have flown enough to master it. Well, I don't mean "mastered" but there's a clear difference in skill between a veteran player who doesn't fly often and one who does. Moving on...

    So it's established that the aircraft turn slower and are, as you said, more realistic.
    My favorite part of Planetside 2, I REPEAT, my FAVORITE PART (lol not trolling or mad, just want to emphasize) is the glide mechanics used in ESFs, Valkaries, Magriders, and jetpacks. I like to fight in style, and I do NOT want to get rid of all the cool maneuvers possible with ESFs. I'm STILL looking for another game that can give me the same thrill as an ESF dogfight.


    One thing I do want to suggest though, that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere, is that there's no in game recognition for out maneuvering other pilots. I know I'm not the only one who does it, I see it all the time near the warpgates: flying super close to objects and pulling stunts. Remember in Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon was flying in the asteroid field and all the Tie fighters died off just trying to chase it?

    [IMG][IMG]


    That's how I like to play, using my maneuvering skills and sense of surroundings to get rid of anyone chasing me. It'd be real nice if we got the kill point if they crash while in pursuit. To calculate, first you have to receive damage from them and then if they crash within a vicinity to you, you get the point. It's pretty fun and I'd love there to be an achievement attached to it as well.
    I was definitely not able to do any such maneuvering when on the test servers though.
  4. Cz4rMike


    I noticed that too. I also tried flying and was running into lock on ganksquads PTS... what the hell. But I guess nothing surprising because most of human population, as well as players base, are trash.

    It's the same when you dogfight on PTS and some lowlife comes in with Skyguard, starts shooting without reason and sends you hatetells after you C4 him repeatedly.


    Speaking of flying: I couldn't notice any changes in the "momentum" of aircraft, because my mind was too busy working through the lag / delay of maneuvering. For some reason it actually made me feel dizzy and I ragequited.
  5. Greattank

    I agree with you.
    I hate the changes to flying as they are on the PTS. A few days ago I tried dueling with a friend and it was horrible.. Flying felt a bit wierd and off from the start. Everything seemed to respond a bit slower and less precice. Aiming on the other hand was completely impossible. We both are quite experienced pilots and we both left after a few minutes of flying because it was no fun at all.
    I hope these changes will not make it to the live server. They should rather focus on manouvering, as you suggested.
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