Ground AA is boring and unrewarding

Except of course air might be fun to play in... by ground-based AA, as is the point of this thread, is neither fun nor rewarding.

And you call this a "delicate balance"? What you see as a balance I see as incredibly lopsided in favor of the air.

There are plenty of videos of air units blowing up a whole bunch of things and having fun doing it. Videos of Skyguards doing the same thing with the same levels of "OMG this is so AWESOME"?

No, those really don't exist. Because Skyguarding (and most AA duties apart from sweet MBT AP hits) is rather dull and unrewarding. You do it not because it is fun (I'd much rather be roaming around in an AP Lightning) or rewarding in certs (can do much better with any other Lightning cannon), but because it is necessary to protect friendly ground forces. I Skyguard so my buddies in Vanguards can go have their fun.

And yet the Skyguard can't even do that well, because according to some people here the only goal of a Skyguard is to prevent farming. Totally fine for a Liberator to swoop in and have its way with ground vehicles. So long as it only kills one at a time I guess it's okay.

Yes... tell that to the infantry that got ripped apart by nose cannon and rocketpods. Or to that Vanguard that got ripped apart by a Tank Buster in seconds.

There are other things on the ground besides Sunderers and other things in the air besides ESFs. As a Skyguard, my job should be to protect all of the things in the first group and kill all of the things in the second group.

From the perspective of aircraft they may be deterred from hovering over the same spot and completely laying waste to ground forces unopposed... but they are not deterred from doing strafing runs and blowing up infantry and tanks (and yes, even Sunderers). And that's why the Skyguard is a failed deterrent, because it should deter all aircraft from trying to get kills.

When pilots think to themselves, "Gee, although I'd like to run in and get three infantry kills before I escape, there's a very good chance that the Skyguard will kill me so I'd better not do it", then the Skyguard will be working. As it is now pilots just shrug, get their A2G kills, fly out, repair, and repeat.

You have the entirely wrong mindset about this. Ground AA is not a combat role, it is a support role that masquerades as form of combat.

You call the current system "not fun" but the system you are proposing is no more fun either. It's a stark demarcation between "what you can do" and "what you can't do" and that leaves no wriggle room for anything else. Units on the ground have their statistics balanced around quantity, especially when dealing with targets outside of their same normal scope (units in the Air), because you could always field so many units that there'd be no penetration of the kind of shield they could erect possible. The interplay dies and no one has the chance of having fun. (Which you and some people obviously don't. That's fine. There's a lot of people who do have fun, myself including, and they have alsio left some notes in thsi thread. There are also some people who are good at Ground AA as it currently exists, and have also left their notes. Not just in this thread but also in the many threads we have had.)

I'm replying outside of my comment block, I know.
Yes, you will. But, not by yourself. It is possible to be a good AA source all by yourself against a larger group of Air, for reasons of being good and not for reasons of them being bad, and I implore you to engage the enemy like that if you can do it. In general, however, you should have supporting AA that is supporting your own AA. Just because you try to protect something doesn't mean it has to be a brick wall in terms of protection.
If you're then going to ask why the Air gets to be stronger per unit, you misunderstood the memo about combat force multipliers.

Yes, let's think about it. The pilot won't try to approach because he knows he'll be killed. There would be nothing he could do because any avenue or approach will inevitably lead to the Skyguard blowing his Vehicle out of the sky. And the Skyguard operator will get no experience because he had nothing to do, or maybe just enough experience to prove to the Air that he was there and all the rest bugger off. This is the making of a completely boring intrplay situation between Ground and Air because the latter doesn't even have the expectation of approaching the former. Meanwhile, the Skyguard's allies can do whatever they want while the Skyguard conveniently obscures itself behind or within its ranks, not too far back to not offer assistance should it be needed, but also not so far back that it leaves itself open, and it completely locks out a portion of the game.

The concept of a support feature is that it provides an continuous system of upkeep that assists allies either in an indirect or a direct personal approach. The hallmarks of a support feature is that it is characterized by a series of small experience rewards for chunks of support provided. Some conditions allow it to be rewarded a larger chunk of experience outside of ribbons and such, but those are the exceptions.

Despite what the last line of my previous post may sound like, I don't ask people who don't like flying to get in the Air for AA duty. I don't ask someone who doesn't like AA duty to do AA duty. I commonly say "Everyone who like to fly is already in the Air."

Also, don't complain about AA when the thing you really seem to be complaining about is the Tank Buster. (Rocket pods as pretty generic these days. AI noseguns and hornets are where the real nightmare has moved, yet they're still only in a decent situation because they're not that simple to apply.)

Repairing air vehicles should take considerably longer than what it does now, that way AA will be more meaningful.

I can tell you why that is. The problem is that the current AA doesn't deal damage fast enough to kill the very nimble ESFs before they scurry back to safety. To upgrade the "deterrent" to killer counter-unit would basically mean to kill the ESF instantly.
Like a sniper kills people who don't keep their head down, and everybody knows how much FUN that is.

Now since that basically means that a single AA unit can dispatch of an ESF in mere seconds and move on to the next one you have to upgrade the ESFs or else even a swarm of them will be useless thanks to a single guy on G2A duty. Which means ESFs get the same damage upgrade the G2A guy got.
Congratulations - now the ESF can kill the Skyguard almost as fast as the Skyguard the ESF. While the skyguard will have the upper hand usualy he is doomed if snuck up on.
And everybody that is not an G2A unit is ******. Because the newly buffed ESFs will rip them apart without AA around, worse than ever.
Or the short version - buffing AA too much means taking the ESFs totally out of the game if they don't get a similar upgrade that still makes them usable. And taking them out of the game is not really an option.

Its this kind of trolling mentality that has pretty much ruined the game. Hopefully they make all g2a launchers into striker style coyote mechanic launchers.

I pulled my striker out after the patch and tried to hit high flying aircraft and i couldnt hit them at all. And thats the way it should be.

Invisible guys on the ground doing 40 percent damage without aiming is utterly ridiculous.

The only time you should be affecting air as ground units is when the air is hovering and attacking the ground.

Fortunately the devs seemed to have realized this with the striker and hopefully they will soon switch all g2a weapons to be like that.

Flak needs a huge nerf to range as well.

Ground to air removes any necessity for air. This is a combined arms game, you should have to have all 3 components, Air Vehicles and infantry. Currently all you need is infantry and vehicles. Air is a novelty that isnt at all necessary for victory and is in fact absent from all meaningful fights.

My skyguard seems to be more of a Liberator attractant than a deterrent.

I think AA should be much more lethal with closer ranges and linger range missiles should be less lethal easier to avoid and vehicle mounted only maybe infantry launched long range missiles but from a heavy AA missile emplacement and with nearby engineer radar emplacement data(lots of cool infantry gadgets).

To make it fair give infils laser designators with a visible laser and they can use that for air to lock onto. It would mean more firepower for air and less time finding targets.

Air is OP and was like that from the start.
Resource system is now total crap and as a result there are way too many vehicles.
Devs decided to do nothing about this. I guess it is more fun to watch the player base shrink.

There is way too much random death out of nowhere in this game: snipers, infiltrators shooting you in the back, LA suicide killing you then dying instantly. All the bases and the whole map is designed so that people can shoot each other in the back. Hossin is absolutely terrible in this regard. Even in huge fights where you would expect a continuous front against the enemy, people get a drop on you out of nowhere. (No, not much skill just some patience circling the entire position. Scout radars would largely prevent this, but now you have to sit on a vehicle to operate it. It sux.)
Anything that would help you avoiding random death is nerfed: scout radar useless now, NW5 no longer stops headshots, lock on launchers are broken (flying toward projected enemy position is silly).

I used to play a lot, nowadays I log on 1 per week. And then most of the time I leave in disgust, because there is no place that is not bombarded by air / tanks or covered by a half dozen snipers. Boring and frustrating.

I have some ideas:
- fix resource system so that it has some meaning and people cannot chain-pull anything
- reduce COF and COF bloom by a large margin on all main weapons, so people cannot stay alive at range by jumping around like a bunny
- restore scout radar so that it works even if vehicle no occupied or add a deployable radar
- give us some option against headshots
- remove thermal sight from all vehicles
- remove hover from all AC
- lock-on rocket should fly straight for a certain distance (50-200m) and THEN chase the enemy. Make this straight range adjustable. Give us an option for rockets that adjusts range and speed. More speed and less range or more range and less speed. Basically that would add skill to using lock-on.
- give us attachment to launchers: better lock-on speed, better sights, more range, more speed, flare effect reduced, IR smoke effect reduced, greater damage - 1 or 2 attachements per launcher
- battle-rifle should OHK snipers (HS only)
- no cloak for snipers while shooting, if infiltrator gets sniper rifle, then give him only a single use cloak that does not run out (if deactivated it is gone though)

I like the new thing that you get EXP for guarding points like A,B,C etc.... mby with a bigger range for the whole house or wherever the point is but with the same capture range ofc, so that not all gather in the same room waiting for the nades to fly in and that they have the possibility to shoot enemys before they reach the point instead of waiting until they are already at the door.

With such a change i already expected something similar for AA support, surprisingly there was nothing new. Could have been so easy to give people doing this some reward like a 5 min EXP bonus once they pull a skyguard etc. that gives you 25EXP(+0%boost) every 25 seconds as AA support and gets renewed every time you deal dmg to an aircraft. Skyguards/AA-MAX/AA-base-turrent more exp per sec than a HA.

EDIT: Thought about it; this could lead to EXP exploit for doing nothing. Mby only 1 min once you get in the AA role and that 1 min can be expanded to max 5mins with every bullet hitting an aircraft. But the 1 starting minute is only for skyguards and fresh spawned AA-MAX´s. Rearmed MAX/ HA / AA-base-turrents start at 0 min. Rockets will provide more time on hit than bullets.

Invisible AC coming out of nowhere with barely any sound and killing you is much more ridiculous. At least the pilot gets a lock-on warning, infantry frequently gets no warning at all.
AC is way too silent.

People do not give a damn about XP boost. People want kills. XP boost for anything will not do a thing.

Tell that all the guys out there who support as medic/engi and pull ammo/repair sundys. If a medic could only heal but everyone is at full health we would have the same problem like we have with pulling AA without air targets. And we all know that AA supporters have a hard time once a fight is over or no more enemys are flying around. The EXP for support over time will make them keep their role and give them the time to move on with it instead of changing the role.

Btw: since the guard exp for holding a point is here i see much, rly MUCH MUCH more people staying at the points instead of camping the enemys spawn. Watching 96+ people camping 1-12 to get lucky was always a pain for the eyes. Now we have cover at the points for platoon rushes there from drops. Thx SOE. Just expand the guard exp range (not the capture point range) so that we can cover the point from the complete house instead of only one room. (only if the point is in a 3 floor house)

AA duty is also a bore to me, yes it's useful at least to filter out the bad ESF pilots, while being annoying to the better ones, and useless unless you've got big AA numbers on the rest.
But considering "useful" and "satisfying" to meet on that ground is shaky...For every air vehicle you kill just how many got away? It's pretty frustrating, and doesn't happen when you're using infantry or tanks given the general fast TTK.

So basically i'm annoyed to fit a role which will mostly annoy pilots.

It wouldn't be as much if the G2A missiles an AA MAXes were generally more effective. Bursters suffer such a steep damage drop on the direct hit for a weapon you spend your time spamming hundreds of meters away with, and are just bad vs infantry and utterly useless against vehicles.
Not that i'd want bursters to be a good AI/ground AV weapon, but i already don't like spawning a MAX, and then when i've "deterred" all that air which is super-scared of me, i'm just left with the crappiest AI weapon. I'd accept it better if it were some sort of M20 Basilisk against the rest of targets, even if it didn't get any pure AA damage boost.

As for the missiles, on Indar or Esamir they're somewhat useful. On Amerish it depends, on Hossin with all the branches resetting the lock and those outposts with a convenient hill right behind the spawn room, not so much. Not sure how those could be modified though, but they're the reason why i ended up picking an AA MAX over sticking with HA for AA duty, which i'd have prefered, after i'd seen so many missiles diverted into a hill or tree.

As for boosting XP for AA, i'm not convinced that would be very effective. I'm mostly an engineer/medic player so i like supporting others, and indeed the XP from it is a good incentive. But when i'm done i still have a weapon i can kill any other standard infantry with. No way i'm going to be able to do that reliably with an AA MAX.

Some of you don't understand why AA should be deterrent and not lethal to someone that doesn't make a mistake/ get gangbanged by AA group.

Because AA is skilless. There is no skill to lock, no skill to use bursters and with the new walker you don't have to lead anymore.

You should remember that an ESF is a vehicule which cost 350 nanites. It's like asking that a HA should take down a lightning alone.
Can he ? yes if he is skilled and the lightning is bad.
Can a heavy take down an ESF? yes if ESF is bad and heavy doesn't need to be skilled

Grab a decimator and take pot shots at aircraft. Much more rewarding when you hit them and they die. It's damn hard to do but you will eventually hit one, when you do the feeling is awesome.

Skyguard costs the same, 350 and compared to the ESF its only made for one rare enemy type and has bad mobility. Still hard to get a kill with it, dmg yes. The potential of one guy in an ESF is 100 times bigger than in a skyguard who cant get a kill solo vs good pilots.
Mby change the 30% resi vs flak in the composite armor to rockets and lower the fire repair so it deals with fire and doesnt repair the ESF for 50%? Rly dont know, im just here to support independent AA-Supporter exp.

Day 107, still trying.
No, ofc its awesome^^ But what will you do vs lib´s that fly at max thermo range? =(

So by that logic, flying A2G is equally skilless due to the fact that all you have to do is hover over your target until it's dead.
Protip: Burster MAXs now cost 450 Nanites, which again, by your logic would make thrm more expensive and shouldn't suffer as much as they do againt Hornets and Banshees.

You can have ways to support "one guy AA", xp for damaging was a good step in this direction without having more lethality.

When i'm playing heavy i lock every aircraft i can see, and it give me sometimes kills or xp assists when the aircraft dies 30s after my rocket.

The armor is already pretty weak as ESF take +60% from flak. It means that with armor you only take +30% damage, so a reduction of flak damage of 19~ % only.

I'm not here to argue why a skyguard should cost 350 or anything , it 's still kind of skilless to hit aircraft with it and 2 skyguards is death for any ESF in 200m range.

Thing is , AA scales up excessively well.

Hitting a bursters max with hornets ? are you trolling or something?
If you can do that you are either at 20-30m of him OR he is not moving at all AND he didn't noticed you because the time you guide the hornets a bursters max 'ld kill you.

Banshee is OP and everyone knows that.

Your argument doesn't hold. AA MAX is 450, so it should kill a 350 ESF by your reasoning. Plus, saying that shooting down air targets is devoid of any skill is both wrong and true at the same time.

Locking on or using bursters on a galaxy in open air is pretty much skill-less. Locking on an ESF while doing your best so that the missile path won't land in a building/tree/hill requires a degree of skill. Shooting at an agile ESF with 325m/s bursters requires some degree of leading since they're rarely right next to you.

I may also question the level of skill it requires to dive-bomb a cluster of infantry with missiles, or picking them out with ppa, or banshee. It might even have cost them lots of nanites to spawn them especially if they had, for instance a grenadier+C4 loadout. Should we base balance around that?