G2A lock-ons a joke now

So, can they possibly do anymore to make it harder for an ESF to even leave the Warpgate? Apparently they can, by making G2A Lock-Ons Insta lock you at close range. But hey, just go behind some cover and avoid the lock? that would be all good if they didn't follow you no matter where you go.
Pre Optimization Patch 2 you could ***** about lock-ons, but you were still able to deal with them. Now its a complete joke because of insta lock. To make things worse, "Flares" don't even do what they are suppose to do. I thought they were to apparently make you unlock able for the next 5 seconds after you use them? The fact that mechanic doesn't work means you just get insta locked straight after you have used your flares.
It doesn't help that Briggs is a complete AA nest compared to other servers, and i may only be writing this because i'm consistently being taken out by G2A and A2A since the patch, but i find it absolutely absurd how much they have nerfed ESF's because of this.

this is what happens when companies listen to whinning little ******* that are a minority in the game. The game was fine after beta (released) all they had to do was buff the skyguard and give ALL AA some kind of exp per hit system instead of kills because many people said how they couldn't get kills because aircraft would just evade and hug the ground.

Shed your crocodile tears, airchavs. They only please us infantry peasants.

But, let's look on the bright side. If they're nerfing A2G ESF capabilities as a whole, that could mean they're creating a new A2G focused vehicle in the future. I doubt it though.

this game absolutely caters to the extreme casual and i think flying just has no place in a game like this that caters to such an audience.

(and i think SOE agrees with me)

Check the roadmap, the ESF overhaul is gonna add a bunch of crazy/possibly OP weapons to the ESF.

First they came for our pods, and we did nothing... Now they have come for our Rotaries...

But yeah, nerf everything into the ground then add new OP stuff, then everyone buys it, then after 6 months nerf that into the ground. aka. The Pump Action Shotgun Directive.

Briggs... That's the 5th EU server that's Mislabeled right?

...If it flies, it dies!

Dude, check your facts, flares work as they always did. If, for some reason, they don't for you, then go into the [bugs] section and report it.

They only lock more quickly when you are close, to compensate for the fact that flying closer to the ground, in most instances, provides more obstructions at a faster pace to break the line of sight for tracking launchers.

They still take forever and a day to lock on at longer distances, with the lockable distance actually decreasing from 400m to 300m. And the shortest possible lock is still 1 second at closest range. Short, but at that range, in a crowded facility, ESF are zooming out of sight in that time or less. Unless they are hovering, trying to farm.

What all this amounts to is that if you're going to get within distance of infantry, to either nosegun them or lolpod them at more reliable kill distances, you'd best be prepared for a retaliation. If you're engaging other aircraft a reasonable distance away from bases or the ground, then lock-ons haven't changed at all.

Flares not working is also a bug. It shouldn't be treated as a functioning game mechanic in need of tweaking, but a bug in need of fixing. As of yet I haven't had any problems flaring off incoming rockets post U2, but prior, on occasion it would. Ongoing bugs are frustrating, I'll agree with the OP that much.

Don't be a skill-less lolpodder at 50m off the ground? I mean if you don't then there is almost no change. Hell a decimator doesn'teven 1 shot an ESF anymore, so if anything your skill-less lolpodding lost a counter and gained another.

deci and phoenix do 1 shot ESF, maybe not with armor

My lockons have over 5000 shots fired and I'm only BR35... if anything at all, A2G misses more often than A2A. It just does

Flares are another story, but if you know who you fired at, you have a window to fire at them. I tend to check pilots when I can, they may already have a lockon or they don't listen for the beep and flare early, saving myself a rocket

all those little things add up

TBH the best AA is and always will be Air, so I try to aim for Libs then AB ESFs... I've taken pods to the face without flak, it's silly

Does nobody here read patchnotes?

Air has honestly become completely worthless at this point in time.

While i couldn't agree with you more, things dont always go as SOE intend. bugs bugs bugs bugs.....

isnt the lock on range currently at 450m? it was nerfed from 500

briggs is air unfriendly now?

i made an alt to see what my stats could look like if i spent less time jerking off in the warpgate. i was literally flying without flares for half of the kills on this: https://players.planetside2.com/#!/5428153169708790529

Being in a scythe for 1 hour, and 30 mins without flares, doesn't exactly give you the best indication.

Almost all of the constant fly boys on briggs can share the same opinion as me.

AA was bad enough before, now its worse. Considering they want ESF's to be able to act as support for ground battles, they are not doing a good job at letting them get in there in the first place.

I know alot of you may not agree with me because you are from another server, and its probably not as bad as what im saying, but hell, its bad on briggs.

Yeah they do, but they never worked properly in the first place. There was never a 5 second delay before you would be locked again even tho there is supposed to be.

my main character is on briggs, hundreds of hours flying

AA can get tough around large fights but it's not worth pretending it is worse than servers that have double our population

No one is pretending, im explaining how the new changes after performance patch 2. This isn't about your hundreds of hours flying, its about the last few days of patch.

yes, flying got harder

no, briggs is not a hard server to fly on

Flying is still plenty powerful. G2As still get uselessly flared away. A good Liberator still laughs at all ground forces (and all but the most concentrated air forces.) A good ESF still makes a huge impact, murdering tanks and infantry.

The only thing that's made a noticeable difference is how many G2A launchers are being used. But if this many G2A launchers had been used pre-patch it would've been the same story of my dying to them just a little bit more often. How surprised should we be that when more AA is fielded, more aircraft get shot down?

G2A still rarely kills me in spite of its frequency. It's still just a good couple of skyguards (or one sneaky, skilled one) or other aircraft that pose the biggest threat to me.