Ground based AA is far too strong vs ESF

Giving up quoting people because quote length would get insane:
IMO:

-the game could benefit from lockons receiving an alternative; lookup "mini-walker"; the "heavy" alternative to the AA lockon I've proposed a while ago, and either linked in this thread or another AA thread;

-atm, burster maxes die to banshees; they can also be killed by a risk-taking reaver with the airhammer;
skyguards can be hunted with hornets, tankbursters, daltons, etc
AA is anti-air optimized, but air weaponry gets to be more generalized. This is unnecessary.

-ESF extra weapons: compare the number of tomcats you get, to the number of hornets. Shouldn't the ESF be more optimizeable as AA (leaving more A2G to the liberator? )

-ESF rebalancing ideas:
*ESF health -> buff to 105%. Fire suppresion lowered to 18% self-heal.
*mentioned in other threads also: G2A lockonoption: can launch immediately, keep locking on to keep guiding until lock complete Whilst "locking on": chase behavior instead of "lead". This makes the weapon effective at shorter ranges. Projectile velocity slightly increased.
Downside: 650-750 dmg instead of 1000. Maybe less range; with above changes that is also debatable. Heavy gets more missiles to compensate for reduced damage/missile.
*special missile warheads, debuffing turning, ..

*tomcats, coyotes: no suggestions here atm

* rocket pods: halved muzzle velocity; making them more "bomb" like; AI.

*hornet missiles: double velocity, lose laser guidance, nerf indirect damage (550-> 334; max dmg range 3m, like a fury)
cone of fire buffed to 0.35?
Ammo pool reduced; 30 to start with; gain from ammo increase also reduced.
Damage: 2000-> 1500; reduce reload speed to compensate. (3.2s base?)
This reduces the "alpha" potential, and will enforce more resupplies.

To consider: an AV nosegun for ESF's, a la tankbuster.

For AA to not have a range over 350m it would have to be able to kill Air within that, i.e. be a counter, not area denial.

Hue.

But you're not very effective out to 500 meters.

Om nom nom.

1 000 m/s is BS, not balanced.

I believe that if both AA and Air were changed we would agree completely with whatever happened.

Flying is fun - that's why I do it. That in itself is a reward. However, tanking is also fun. PS is the only game I don't tank in and is the only game I fly in. I've traditionally been a tank driver in games... but I really never liked the PS2 ground game at all. I might like it better now that I get reasonable FPS but until the PU I was getting FPS in the teens most of the time. Flying was very hard but trying to hit someone in a gun fight on the ground was useless. I play BF for gun play.

Why should two engineers be able to out repair a dedicated AV weapon? It's also the least wise path to take. For one, as soon as I see an Eng repairing a tank I have my new priority target. If I can take out the second person in a tank I will own that tank. The best choice is to fight back with any one of the many weapons that will over power me. C4 will out damage two Engineers too...

That situation may not be the best to find yourself in, but at least if you learn from it then next time you'll have a weapon to deal with it. Tanks should always have 1 eng and one HA at least IMO. If a HA gets out of a tank then I am probably just going to go away because the tank is going to be hard to kill and that HA just needs to get lucky and I'm dead.

Come fly with me. You'll get to experience AA hitting you from zones you can barely even see... often through mountains and BIO Labs and whatever else... I think you just haven't experienced how far AA can reach. Lockons may not be able to lockon beyond 5 or 600 meters but they can follow you a long long way beyond that.

Yes that is a nerf, but what I suggest for AA is that it remains as powerful as it is now but only work at closer ranges. Max of render distance for the ESF Pilot. If the ESF is not a threat to the immediate area where the AA is then the AA should not be a threat to the ESF.

I was however writing of ESF weapons being specialized. ESFs have a pretty limited range of engagement already. I can only engage Maxes and Turrets at about 200ish meters. Infantry I have to be right on top of to see most of the time. They simply don't render until suddenly there is a crowd of people in front of me. We're talking 50 meters pretty often. Yet I show to them at 700 meters or something. This also contributes to the problem of balance in ways that it is hard for the dedicated INF players to perceive.

I think the Hornets need a range buff but everything else should stay the same. Coyotees are actually pretty effective INF weapons... if you look at my stats you'll see a bunch of Coyotee kills almost 90% of those are actually infantry on the ground. I only use Coyotees when I'm running the Banshee and there might be enemy air around - or if I get ganked by a squad using them then I'll bring them out with the Needler sometimes - but I hate them. They shouldn't kill infantry. Oh they are pretty good against tanks too... they shouldn't be.

The banshee + coyotee setup is actually WAY more powerful than the banshee + rocketpod setup. I have only used rocketpods twice in 2014... both times because of lockon-apolooza fests.

I know people think we already have powerful weapons but they only appear to be powerful if you don't counter us with the counters you have. If you don't fight back yes I am going to kill you and do it fairly easily. If however you do the least thing to fight back you will almost always win the day by either killing me or sending me away. ESFs can deal with one lockon launch... if you damage an ESF with gun fire and shoot at it with a lockon it will be gone.

The broken vs broken issue makes it VERY hard to discuss. Especially when we are invested and even more so (if that is possible) when we have limited experience but want to express our views anyway - I'm speaking of the entire forum community here not you.

Could not agree more.

If SOE removed A2A lockons from the game the air game would be instantly improved by 100% or more. I think I would find ground lockons much less of an issue if I wasn't constantly being locked on by air as well.

Again I think remove air lockons altogether, and reduce the range of ground lockons and things would be good. I haven't used a striker since it has been changed, and I haven't even seen one used... because TR on Emerald doesn't believe in engaging enemy air at all so it seems. Twice this week I saw friendly AA going up to meet the swarm of ESFs around me. I can remember both times clearly because it almost never happens...

When I am fighting with a ground crew engaging tanks and sundys for them and they don't help me with AA I just leave them to their fate. But that is a different topic...

I have very limited experience in the Prowler. Used it a lot in Beta and really didn't like it. Likewise I have limited experience in the other tanks - I could not really tell you about their specific strengths and weaknesses between each other. I just haven't liked the ground game in PS so I haven't played it.
I've been wanting a game where I could fly CAS for real people fighting on the ground for as long as I can remember. Tanking in BF was always fun but the air was just stupid. Perhaps tanking in PS is better now but I really didn't like it back when I was starting in the game.

With all the gank squads flying Forumside is often more fun... I will fly in a massive air squad sometimes and go around the map clearing out all the air. It is fun, I do admit that, but it really isn't the game. IMO that needs to be dealt with. Again... another topic.

It's an epic game. Hopefully the resource revamp will prompt more engaging play. Right now we're just all killing each other for no particular reason... we locked the cont yay.... the cont opened up yay...

I think perhaps that amplifies the frustrating I and others feel about poor balance decisions and perceived unfairness (no matter what it is). The only thing to do is to kill each other and if it feels like the other person has an unfair advantage at doing the only thing that matters in the game then it is infuriating.

ie when someone Daltons me in the air I am not impressed by their skill in the least (OK sometimes I recognize that it was a good shot and I tell the person) most times it is just dumb luck and after I flew circles around a Lib with just my nose gun getting them on fire twice (they fire sup once) they get a lucky dalton on me and I just burn with anger against SOE for such a stupid game mechanic. I don't really blame the other player - they are doing what works in the game... it burns me but not because they are doing it, because SOE thinks it is OK.

Glad this has gotten positive. I am reading what you are writing and considering.

I get kills. I killed aircraft. Or deter it. I have fulfilled mein role in kombat.

Finally. Someone who actually understands deterrence and how it's supposed to work.

You'd think from all the misinformed people on the forums that nuclear deterrence works with countries throwing harmless little nukes at each other to try to get bad people to go away.

Deterrence only works if there is a known threat that is dangerous enough so the enemy never even goes through with that course of action in the first place.

Deterrence is not threatening the enemy halfway through their act to allow them time to hastily finish whatever they were doing and then run away.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deterrence?s=t

Deterrence is the act of deterring someone from doing an action. It is not offensive.

AA should deter air from attacking a location. As noted, if an ESF gets close to an AA and does not do so wisely it should be destroyed by that AA.

No reasonable pilot thinks anything different.

Deterrence is NOT being able to destroy aircraft which are not attacking you.

Understand what the pilots are saying and then disagree with them. So long as you make up things to disagree with you will never get anywhere in the discussion.

That would remain to be seen.

Why 2 rank6 engineers should be able to outlast a hornet ESF?
Because it's A) 2 people against one, B) the flying advantage shouldn't be coupled with a distinct damage advantage and C) the tanks should be somewhat hard to take out for people who have all those advantages stacked in their favour.

No I get enough AA on Miller.

Like I said at some point, I don't know how to do the AA change. Let's not discuss that.

450 meters is plenty for wire guided weapons. I'd almost argue it's too far, given how frustrating Ravens can be.
For how effective different loadouts are, I know and coyotes are ********. That's not what we were discussing however.
Banshee is also stupid

Yeah, I suppose I agree with that.

I know the feeling.

Prowler has been buffed in some vital areas since beta.
Notably the recoil is barely there, aim isn't as wobbly and the velocity is higher. The damage advantage also gets to play a bigger role than before.

I can also agree with this one.

I'm still hoping this game will tickle my fancy like :

Your mistake!
(I gotcha now!)[/quote]

Ummmm...

Okay, I'll bite.

In your head, how do you stop someone from doing an action (say flying an ESF in your vicinity) without any offensive threat towards that person.

Really. I'm actually sort of curious how that all makes sense to you. Somehow.

Go take an english course.

A deterrence prevents someone from coming to an area, and offensive action reaches into another area and attacks someone who is not coming into your area.

I don't see why two people should always win by default. If they fail to use the resources which will almost certainly let them win then they should loose IMO.

Does TR use AA on Miller? They seldom do (it seems to me) on Emerald.

Not when everything can kill you nearly instantly at 500+ meters.

The guys in my outfit like to use the Prowler a lot... but they still don't seem to live very long. I prefer the Harrasser - which I think is OP and should be changed - because it is fast and makes me laugh.

That's the only BF game I haven't owned. Everyone seems to have loved it but I didn't get it at the time.

[/quote]

So it would seem... lol

And in your view, what is my "area"?

AA is not just for self-defense... AA is meant to project a safety bubble for nearby friendly forces.



See, this is what AA ought to be. Covering entire cities possibly. And yes, that means that AA ought to deter air from a wide area, including over friendly infantry and tanks.

AA does this by being a lethal threat within that wide area, so aircraft cannot enter under high risk of extreme death. That is how a deterrence works.

AA that's only good for engaging enemy aircraft that are shooting at the AA are completely useless within the context of a combined arms framework.

AA is a deterrent, and is only lethal to inexperienced or careless pilots. I agree that they AA is too effective against new pilots, but it's definitely not too strong in-general.

The problem with the air-game lies in the fact that people pull flak maxes and skyguard the minute they see an ESF, and this leads to ESFs being left out of big battles. I have literally been the only one in the air and had numerous flak maxes, skyguards, AA turrets, and lock-on heavies targeting me. I'm not sure if that is because people on the ground hate air so much that they don't want it to be there at all, or because it people with no guts see it as easy points. Or maybe it's something else, but it is just ridiculous.

This could have to do with the fact that AI farming is so easy in an ESF. It probably wasn't a good idea adding AI noseguns and AI secondaries to ESFs, and this is coming from someone with hundreds of AH and Banshee kills. I'd gladly give up my AI weapons if I could be more effective in big battles.

You would do well not to assume you are smarter than the people you choose to strawman.

Your area is the immediate area around your AA unit where your Platoon is operating. I wasn't sure this would be a hard concept for you to understand.

Where exactly did I say otherwise....

Perhaps you should argue with someone who disagrees with you... this is what happens when people strawman other people...

It's amazing how people who play Forumside are completely unable to understand English and engage in honest discussions... again argue with someone who disagrees with you.


AA in Planetside 2 doesn't give a protective bubble it reaches in to other zones and attacks units which are not entering the zone where your platoon is operating. Instead of being a deterrence it is an attack weapon which can attack air units in areas beyond where they are any threat to the area you are supposedly deterring air from entering.

I'm not sure why I have to write this several times to you... but if you just argue against what you want me to be saying again I'll just ignore you.

I really don't understand why pilots are perplexed by this at all.

You are a single target over a large battle, so naturally if you don't make smart use of cover then everyone will be shooting at you.

Same applies to tanks. Bring an MBT to a big 48+ battle. If you're the only MBT around, you can bet that seconds after you peek out of cover, many enemies will be shooting at you. It's not because their weapons are OP or anything, it's just that there are a lot of them and only one of you. That's fairly normal in PS2's vehicle play.

The solution? Either stay far away from the center of battle and be ineffective from far away, or bring along buddies. If you fly over a large battle with 12 ESFs, survivability of all those ESFs in your squad will go way up because enemy AA fire will be dispersed (unless they're coordinating their fires, which is pretty rare in PS2). If there are 12 Skyguards, instead of 12 Skyguards shooting one ESF, you have one Skyguard shooting at one ESF. And there's really no excuse of one ESF dying to one Skyguard.

Aircraft should not be able to survive a "many versus one" situation with AA, no more than a tank should survive a bunch of AT shooting at it when it's out of cover. The same standard should apply to aircraft as it does other vehicles.

Oh please show me where I said I just hover over the battle, never making use of cover. Maybe this applies for libs, but any half-decent ESF pilot doesn't do that for more than a few seconds.

Please don't make arguments based on assumptions.

What if..

flak damage varied with range?

Skyguard flak:
deals 125 dmg explosion within 50m from skyguard.
Scales downto 25 @ 400m.

Currently deals 60 at all ranges; so the "break even" is at 277.5m
In theory, this is within "infantry renders" range for the ESF;
an ESF that decides to make a flyby against infantry within 100m from a skyguard is now taking considerably more risk; getting surprised at short range by a skyguard is lethal.
A short range attack run against the skyguard? Well, that should be exiting for the pilot
Dear mr Tankburster, say hello to my little friend

Conversely, this "I'm at risk from every source of AA within 1.5 km" nonsense is also finished.

Possibility: keep skyguard as is,
make the above work for the ranger; 100 dmg at short range, 25 at long range.
But, since the ranger is on cheaper vehicles, reduce the "long range", to 300m for example
A double ranger-sundy now presents a true "no survival" zone for any esf.

I want to play on your server...
Numerous flak maxes, skyguards, AA turrets and lock-on heavies, to take out one ESF?
Sounds like valhalla...

No, people don't "just" spawn AA.
One AA is basically nothing; because air is so much more mobile, and brings so much firepower.
See: maxes dying to banshee/short range airhammer; or the hornet missiles (I am completely unable to pull that one off with any reliability.. even in VR where maxes stand still..shhhh, don't tell anyone);
skyguards can be hunted by ESF or liberator;
heavies are.. infantry; hello banshee, PPA, LoLpods, .. zephyr etc. In addition, they give a warning, and, the rockets can be mislead into trees, mountains, ground etc.

Moreover, AA is quite boring often; what do you do, once the planes are gone?

Your ESF probably showed up at a big fight that had been recently "visited" by an air squad, or a few liberators, galaxy drop,..
No-one sent you the memo that now the zone was hot.. But, again, what where all those flak maxes, skyguards etc doing before you showed up? Nothing.. waiting, and looking around, scanning the horizon for pesky skyknights.
That alone means air has made a huge impact on that fight because that side now has all those players tied up in skyguards and AA duty.

"easy points": ahahaa..
Effective AA is dooming its' own cert income..
You'll scare the air away, and then you wait.. and wait.
More often however, you don't succeed at making kills, so all you get are "AA damage ribbons".. woopiedoopie..
so mediocre AA gets low points too.

The skyknights are the farmers.. the AA is completely unable to farm; as they don't dictate the engagement.
If, IF you somehow go against stubborn air and you have at least two skyguards, then you can make a pretty good cert income, yes. Make that 3 if there are multiple liberators. How often do enemy planes camikaze themselves against an AA position?
Is "AA too strong" the issue?
Here's the skyknight mentality in that case: "AA is the rock to my scissors.. but if I just keep throwing scissors it'll work"
Thanks to game balance, atm they are often even right...

Again, you fail to define "zone" or "area". How exactly big or small of a zone are you envisioning?

Because if there's a Liberator that's hovering 600-700m above my squad and pelting my squad MBTs with a Dalton, that Liberator ought to be in my "area" where I can deter it from even flying into that zone.

So bear with me here. Take a dot. Draw a circle around that dot in a 700m radius. Place that circle over a hex. What does that look like?

I'll spare you the intellectual effort and do it for you.



Technically that yellow dotted circle has a radius of 696m, but it's close enough. What this shows is that the "area" from which air can threaten my squad MBTs is actually quite wide... it not only includes the hex in which we're operating, but covers a good deal of the hexes adjacent to that as well.

And that's assuming that the MBT I'm protecting from the Liberator is right next to me. If friendly armor is 50-100m off, then we need to expand the AA bubble by another 100m in radius or more.

Additionally I need to be able to engage aircraft before they open fire on friendly forces. So add in another 100m radius. We're talking about a 900m radius circle, or almost 1km. I don't need more than that because at those ranges neither aircraft nor vehicles render for each other.

I hope you can understand now why you're wrong... your idea of the protective AA bubble is far too small. In order to protect friendly armor elements from long-range A2G fire, AA absolutely needs to be able to reach out and wreck aircraft... from what I suppose you would consider "another zone".

When pilots complain that they're getting hit by AA from the next hex over, they forget that their A2G weapons can also hit from the next hex over. This is why AA needs to be long-ranged... because the air units that it is meant to "deter" are also long-ranged.

Except of course AA doesn't actually deter aircraft at all... because I know from personal experience that plenty of enemy air still flies and prospers within my 700m radius AA bubble. If my AA was a working deterrence, enemy aircraft would be deathly afraid to fly near me and they'd stay in some AA-free area.

Ok, or is what I should have said instead of and. I'm not sure is you were actually mislead by my poor grammatical choice, or are just being obtuse.

Basically, any AA that isn't a Skyguard can switch their loadout after the threat is gone. I understand that an ESF is a threat, but when a tank column is at the door, and multiple people are focused on the one ESF in the sky instead of the armor threat that is farming them with much higher efficiency, something is wrong. And that is why I say they might be gutless.