Flying is PS2

After playing the game for a while, I decided that is was time to get off the ground and into the skies. I had seen many dogfights as well as infantry-crushing air to ground fights, and decided that it would be right for me. I was wrong. As soon as I left the warp gate in my scythe, I couldn't last more than 2 minutes. No matter how big or small the fight, other pilots and ground-to-air weapons would tear my ESF to shreds. No matter what certs I put into it or how much I practiced, I couldn't beat any of the pros in fighters that seemed to be around every tree and mountaintop. For anybody who wants to fly, learning to do so is almost impossible.
It's hard to decide how to fix this, but I think the only way to do it is to created another sort of VR training or to change the existing one so that new players can participate in dogfights where they are all equals. This way, they don't have to be dominated by superior pilots for countless hours to get good at flying. This would massively improve the game experience, especially for players new to flying. To me, getting shot down faster that I can spawn ESF's has been the worst part of the game so far.

honestly having everyone being pros makes for a better learning experience. sure its frustrating, but if you were to do a VR dogfight with everyone equal, that wouldnt prepare you for the real deal. of course im one of those people who play games on the hardest setting because you learn things faster and it feels better when you win so

That's like saying you can learn from being killed by a sniper in a game with no kill cam nor tracers.

you can, you realize "hey maybe i shouldnt stand out in the open standing still like a moron lol"

but seriously, if you learn to do something super easily, than when the difficulty is turned up you have to relearn it. if you start hard, you learn it, and then it can only get easier. thats the way i see it anyway.

It's not an easy problem to fix without major balance changes, but I believe there is one thing that would help new pilots more than pretty much any other, and it doesn't involve any balance tweaks: Make enemy territory out of bounds for air after a certain distance. This would give the A2G pilots somewhere to run to where they could get away from enemy ESFs. Falling back on AA is unreliable, since there may not be enough, or the AA might just be incompetent. Some people say that you can't run from skyknights, but they are wrong. Using a racer airframe and fire suppression drastically helps with that. Of course, you'll die a lot before you learn how to do it, but at least you can get away if you need to.

That said, flying an ESF is baptism by fire. Despite the claims that AA doesn't kill, it does. It kills a lot of new pilots. 2 sources of flak, or a couple of people using lock-ons is usually enough to take any new pilot who stops to hover and take a shot, since they lack the necessary skills to get out of there alive. Over time, they will develop these skill. Eventually they die less and less to AA, and things like dumb-fire rockets and tanks will become biggest threat. Flak and lock-on rockets then become more of a deterrent, denying the airspace.

Fighting air isn't really something you should worry about for a while. If you lack the skills to successfully kill ground targets without dying, you definitely lack the skill to fight air. Obviously if you're being chased down and are going to die, then give it a shot, but I wouldn't make it your goal. Aside from probably valkyries, everything in the air is probably going to kill you, even galaxies. Taking pot shots from the distance is alright, just don't get tunnel vision and try to chase them down.

Joining an air outfit works wonders for staying alive as well. When better pilots than you have your back, it helps. I fly by myself usually, so when I do fly with other ESFs the difference in my survivability is noticeable. The caveat is that you will probably be crashing into your squadmates quite a bit, and they aren't going to like that.

Flying with people who are better than you is definately something I recommend to anyone wanting to start flying, there is really no way to balance new pilots vs veteran pilots without lowering the skill ceiling to the point of making skill irrelevant. It just takes a lot of hours of air combat, the only way to make it easier is to have buddies to fly with. There are some pilots who if you message them will give you 1v1 fights and practice, the air community is generally pretty good, if someone stomps you particularly hard, try sending them a tell or friending them. If they accept your friend request youll at the very least know whos up in the skies

Make sure you bind keys to pitch up and down.

Make sure you bind a key to analog throttle. Analog throttle kills the throttle and allows you to enter hovermode and to do the reverse maneuver.

Tweak your sensitivity. I'm currently running 1400 dpi and .343 flight sensitivity.

Go to the VR and practice doing the reverse maneuver. Just press your analog throttle button, then roll on your side and pitch down until your thrusters switch to the vertical position and then press afterburner to fly up and backwards. If you point your nose toward the ground you will gain forward speed so try to keep the plane horizontal or nose up to maintain hover mode.

Practice in vr until you can fly under the bridges without crashing. Until you can fly without thinking about which buttons you are pressing.

Then you have 2 options. 1. Go out and try to kill other ESF. 2. Find someone to go to PTS with and duel until you become proficient with hitting enemy ESF.

It is very difficult and at times frustrating to fly, i remember being very discouraged but always thinking that if others could do it then so could I. I was right of course and next to rangering in DaoC flying in PS2 is the most fun and challenging thing ive done in a video game.

Something like 60 days in ESF and i feel as though i still have plenty of room to improve. Thats the type of thing that keeps you playing imo!

I hate to tell you this, but there is no easy way to learn to fly in PS2. You will die over and over, MANY times. You will get better with time, maybe not enough to go head to head with top pilots, but enough to enjoy flying occasionally. It will be a painful process, it was designed to be, so make sure you have patience and good deal of sadomasochistic tendencies.

And that's what I told many times before. And why I hate current flight mechanic.

LEARN REVERSE MANEUVER OR GET REKT!

Hovering must be removed from dogfighting. The airframe should matter.

I compensate my lack of skills with zergs.

That's like saying recoil should be removed from guns because some people suck at controlling it.

Just learn the reverse maneuver. It's really not hard, and certainly not something worth butchering the air game over.

I feel your pain OP. After starting off learning to fly with the Gal, I thought "changing to ESFs can't be that bad", I was so so wrong. Anyways, after while I got pretty skillful flying an ESF in all aspects of it's use EXCEPT air vs air fights. Even today, I can't really fly an ESF in air vs air fights, nor can I flipping aim. Seriously, I have no idea how these guys do it. I digress.

I will say this though, if you get discouraged.
1) The only way to learn, is to basically get rekt over and over again. Sooner or later you WILL learn.
2) Don't be discouraged if you feel you are just "bad". It's important to remember, in almost any game, and no matter ground/air/or armor, that those "top players" tend to play MUCH more than the average person. It's important to realize that if you can only play 2 hours a day, and someone else plays 7 hours a day, they can, and will, be better than you, more quickly than you. Sure some are just generally talented, but more likely than not it's all about time investment. Just keep that in mind.
3) Remapping quite a few of your keybinds is a MUST if you are going to be a serious air vs air pilot, for everything else not so much. For example, I'm generally an Infantry player. That being said, the two thumb buttons on my mouse are for grenades and my knife. Everytime I would have to fly in an ESF I have to rebind them to pitch up/down. This got tiring to the point that I just gave up on doing it over and over. Sometimes you have to make the decision on if something is "worth it". Remember, alot of these guys who are mainly pilots, have their entire keybind set up for JUST flying. Obviously for those of us who do a myriad of other things, or just plain don't want to have to change everything all the time, this isn't going to be practical. So if you are going to be serious about flying for awhile, set up your keybinds for flying and nothing else.
4) Flying in a group, especially with experienced pilots will do you wonders, though any friendlies are great.
5) Don't ever expect AA to get someone off your tail. Even if the AA is competent, the fact is that an enemy ESF will still have plenty of time to blow you out of the sky before the AA might get him.
6) Pick the correct loadout for an ESF, and by all that is holy, ask an experienced pilot what to equip and when.
7) Don't underestimate Gals and Libs. Libs are obvious, we all know that experienced Lib crews can basically rule the air if they are good enough. Gals though, many people gung ho on my gal and then end up dead for it. Respect how much health and firepower they bring to the table. They may be slow, but they don't have to be fast if you engage it without the proper intelligence.
8) Once "gank squads" are up, get out of the air and do something else. Gank Squads are basically large amounts of aircraft in an specific area who go around jumping/ganging up on their opponents, often using lockons. While effective, it tends to ruin the "fun" of flying for anyone but themselves. Once you realize this is happening, don't feed them, just get out of the air and enjoy yourself with something else until you leave the area, or they leave/stop. Some may tell you "you'll never learn if you don't fight them", but you won't learn much anyways when you die in 15 seconds.
9) Maybe most importantly, take breaks. It gets stressful, and downright frustrating. Without taking break now and then, or trying other things here and there, you WILL burn out on the game. I've seen a bunch of players pretty much stop playing out of frustration/boredom of trying to learn and after trying new things, fully come back to the game.

Some stuff that might help you as a shortcut as avoiding learning by yourself

1- Know your aircraft

Fly in VR, go under stuff, do flips, rolls. Hover, know how it works, try using the afterburner while hovering and moving the aim down. Try your guns, know what they do, their speed and drop. Try using analog throttle in the keybinds. Know how different builds can help you with different situations.

2- Fights

2.1- Air to ground
Only stop for extremelly short periods of time or you'll be an easy target for rocket launchers and tanks. Lock-ons follow where you are going to be, not where you are so diving or going behind something can easily stop them. Locked on missiles can be seen on the minimap. Expand the minimap and zoom in/out as needed. Use the mousewheel, it helps a lot not only for air.

2.2- Air to air
Preffer stealth and staying behind ESF's, Above libs and under or just far from galaxies. If you want to survive longer instead of getting the kill go for defensive, scouting gameplay. Know where your allies/anti-air are so you can fight in a place where the leverage is yours. Try to avoid face-to-face dogfights, but if it happens know that 99% of the time people are hovering up so shoot above them according to distance and speed (reavers hover faster). Know when the enemy is firing and dodge accordingly, it's harder to hit an aircraft that is not moving in a straight upwards line.

3-Practice
You'll die. A lot. Nanites are infinite and KDR means nothing.

It takes at least two weeks training 8 hours a day to get a decent feel for flying in actual war zones - not just 1 on 1 dogfights.

And it probably takes around 3 months solid training to become good. The biggest obstacle is of course spawn rate for vehicle. So you have to minimize the time spent waiting for resources at vehicle spawn. After spawning, spend a couple minutes flying in safe areas and then 1 minute before you get enough resources for new ESF, go into hard fights

Do not compare soft to warm, god dammit. And if reverse maneuver is necessary thing to learn to dogfighting, bacause ALL dogfights revolve around it... I call this poor gameplay mechanic. Again, airframes should matter, not ability to be "one trick pony".

ps2 is pretty much about adapting to the battle. they are constantly changing it and whenever a new weapon, vehicle or gadget is added to the game, old tactics could be scraped, new loadouts would have to be made and war zones could be shifted exponentially.

First off, let's make something clear for the sake of better communication. Dogfighting and hoverdueling are two different things. When you say the reverse maneuver matters for dogfighting, I think you are actually talking about hoverdueling, or transitioning into a hoverduel.


As for the other part, learning something additional to the intended design isn't a bad thing. Strafe jumping in Q3A comes to mind, as does frame data in fighting games. The players who learn it love it because it makes the game deeper, while the ones who can't be bothered to learn it complain. I've heard similar arguments to the one you're making in different games spanning different genres.

And airframes do matter quite a bit. If they didn't, I'd use a racer airframe over a hover airframe. But racer is better for ganking and fast ground assault, while hover is better for hoverdueling. The dogfighting airframe is useless because the benefits to dogfighting it adds can be compensated in other way, and if a dogfight turns into a hoverduel you're left at a disadvantage.

I think what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that you don't like hoverdueling, and that the air game should be more focused on traditional dogfighting. I really see no reason for that. You can always just play Battlefield and fly the jets if that's what you're into. PS2 offers something very unique and rewarding. It would be a shame to throw that out because some people don't like it.

You are correct, but I don't want to go to the other games that gives me no benefits that gives me PlanetSide 2. "Hoverdueling" is not unique and revarding. It's poor, dull, stupid, boring and not fun. I've met only few people who actually dogfighted. 90% of A2A engagements that happened to me or other pilots I observed was hoverfighting with reverse maneuvering. When game has released and people didn't realize about existing of RM there were actual dogfights and some of them were hoverfights. It was far better. But now hoverfighting is obligatory and this is ridiculous.

Devs were about to nerf RM to the ground, removing vertical thrust from hover afterburning. But sky knights gone all crazy screaming in terror and it wasn't implemented. Too freaking bad!

Again, I don't want to go to the other games because I still hope that this game will get fixed at long last!

The air game would still be focused on hoverdueling if the reverse maneuver were removed. Think about it. If I am hovering and able to rotate in 360 degree to track someone, I have the advantage. All the reverse maneuver does in that situation is help me to not get rammed. AB in a hoverduel isn't so much used for doing reverse maneuvers as it is used for changing direction to throw off your opponent's aim. If the RM didn't exist, hoverduels might be over faster, but they would still exist.

Also, just to clarify, it's still possible to circle people and fly backwards just by using hover up/down alone. You don't need AB for that part. The only way to make the game pure dogfighting would be to remove hover, or do something to the players ability to fire while in hover that would make it a worse option.

And I'm pretty sure there are lots of people who aren't skyknights who like the reverse maneuver. You don't have to be in the top tier of players to appreciate something that adds a little more depth to the game.

That was not my experience at all. I had a handle on flying well enough to do successful ground attacks at well under 50 hours. It likely varies from person to person, but I think 2 weeks at 8 hours a day is definitely stretching it a bit.

We can't remove hover from ESFs, they are VTOL jets and we can't have runways on our continents. Yet, like any VTOL aircraft they should lose 75% of their maneuverability while hovering. That's simple. Still able to land, still able to shoot ground targets from distance, but can't be used for fighting other aircrafts.

And if you're going to say that ESFs are helicopters I'm going to punch you.