How are more casual players supposed to compete with experienced ESF pilots?

This is typically the response of players who are bad.

They can not ever hope to be as good as the so called "sky knight's" so they make up funny names for them and they defend coyotes and lock-ons, even though we all know how skilless they are.

And they do it because it makes them feel bad that they cant beat the good pilots. In their minds they are heroes and they are elite gamers. In reality they are not because they use these weapons. But they want to be good at it. They really do. But no matter how they try they cannot get good.

So like the fox who tried in vain to get the ripe and tasty grapes and failed, they are sour about the whole thing. They refuse to accept that they are weak, and they mask the weakness. They excuse their behavior by saying that its all about the TEAM and that your fun doesnt matter as long as they got the job done.

We all know how much less fun the air game is because of them.

If you want to get good all you need do is duel on pts.

Every hour of dueling there is equal to perhaps a day of flight time on a regular server. Most of the time when you are flying on a regular server you are just looking for a fight. Then if you are new, you will likely die very fast and barely get a chance to shoot back or practice your aim.

On pts almost the entire time is spent shooting your nosegun and practicing your aim.

If you figure a noob lasts about 10 secs in a dogfight with a good pilot, that equates to 6 fights worth of aiming experience every minute. After an hour it will be as though you had just experienced 360 dogfights!

I took one guy there who i had a talk with about why we shouldn't use locks on each other. He was in a scythe and i flew a reaver so id be easy to hit. When we started he couldnt even hit me. I just practiced dodging while he shot at me. After 3 hours i could barely hit HIM.

I think i had 3 days flight time before i ever won a dogfight. It takes time, but if you fly every chance you get you will get good. And remember there is always someone out there with less flight time than you.

They should make it so ESFs are actual VTOL aircraft and not glorified alien helicopters. The hover frame should turn them from a plane into a helicopter. So if you wanna play the role of CAS gunship you take the hover frame and your ESF now handles more like a helicopter where you can hover in place and the like. Meanwhile the dogfighting frame will allow you to turn faster so you can make sharper turns, but even then you'd never get to the point where ESFs are now where you can turn on a dime. You'd require forward momentum to remain in the air like an actual plane. The racer frame would make you more like a high speed interceptor that relies on boom and zoom tactics.

This would allow all types of pilots to get all types of air gameplay. From those who enjoy flying helicopters to those who enjoy planes, everyone can fly the way they want just by picking the right type of air frame.

The skies are owned by the higher skilled player and who has more numbers. Or in an area if someone has mass and on point AA.

If you are can't rely on your skill to stay alive, stick to areas where there is an ally Air zerg. Or fly in a Gank Squad (2+ Squaded allies who hunt for solo targets and overwhelm them; many use lock-ons; run in larger groups if your skill is lower).

Also, try not to get too far from your Warpgate, keep your eyes and ears out for enemy ESFs, and if you see a solo enemy ESF that is not stock color or an enemy Gank Squad hunting, get out of there and if you can then also send a /re to others who can avoid it or try to take it on if they have the skill/numbers.

They aren't, agree with that or disagree with it, that's the harsh reality.

The simple answer is that you aren't. The only way to match the experienced players is to be as good as them in terms of skill. This will either take a lot of practice or you will be naturally talented at it.

Either way, all games are like this. You ever tried playing in a server of experienced Counter-strike players? Or playing Unreal Tournament with good players? New players stand zero chance. They don't even get a kill.

That's life. You have to work to get better.

So go play a flight simulator.

Real dogfighting is what?

Being 5 miles out and shooting a lock-on that instantly anihilates the enemy plane. That sounds like a rousing good time.

The flying in this game is awesome and fun.

And you can weave through canyons and trees with a bogey on your six trying to lock you. If you enjoy having enemies killing you without any skill. If its ok that they can have 100% accuracy from a distance at which they would be hard-pressed to land a single shot with their rotary.

Why dont you go play a game that has that style of air combat. A lot of people love the flight mechanics in this game.

In your world it would all be about who sees who first wins. How is that fun or dynamic?

Here's a question for you. If someone relies on lock-ons and can reliably and routinely kill the samurai honor duel sky knights, then how aren't they as good as the sky knights? Taking that even further, what if they ENJOY using lock-ons? It's fun for them. Not only are they getting equal or better results than the vaunted sky knights but they're having fun doing it. No matter how you look at it they're a good player, a credit to their team, and having fun playing the game. The only reason sky knights like you treat lock-ons as if they're a plague infested rat is because they beat you and instead of taking flares and defending yourself you feel as if the enemy using anything you don't use is absolutely unacceptable.

There's a reason the samurai in japan lost to rifles, y'know.

Actually what you will probably find is if you start using lock ons you will become accustomed to using lock ons. You will essentially cap out and fail to get any better because the game is helping compensate for your lack of aim and lead and you are not learning how to improve. When you switch to nose guns you will still be getting crapped on.

It will be hard to start with the nose gun but I am pretty sure you will actually improve your game more than relying on lock ons.

Best way to learn to swim, jump in the deep end and kick as hard as you can, then repeat

The flying in PS2 is so awesome and fun that 90% of players don't even do it! Amazing!

PS2 is an arcade game and should be treated as such. Y'know what else is an arcade game that has lock-on missiles? Ace combat. I can promise you with 100% guarantee that if flying in PS2 was more like ace combat and less like spastic flailing, everyone except you sky knights would be significantly happier and you'd see a hell of a lot more players enjoying the air game.

All you have to do is fly and soon you wont be new to it.

This game has a lot of attrition.

I have been flying for a long time in this game.

All of the people who were aces when i started flying are gone now.

Mostly they quit because of lock-ons and coyotes, but the point is if you stick with it, someday you will be one of the veterans. Or the game will die due to poor design choices and EZ mode noob weapons that frustrate the majority of the pilots who care at all about competition.

Not only will locks not make you better, they arent at all fun to use. There is no sense of getting better.

When you master the nosegun, well i have somewhere around forty days flight time and i still havent mastered it, but as you get better with it its a great feeling.

The planes in this game become like an extension of your body. You think and they move. When you have flown A LOT its like playing your favorite song on the guitar. You dont think about which strings youre fretting or what strumming pattern you are using.

You will be flying through and around obstacles almost as an observer and at times saying omg I cant believe i just flew through all those obstacles and didnt die.

Such a wonderful thing. Tainted by disgusting lock-ons and coyotes. Still fun, but nearly as frustrating as fun nowadays due to these weapons.

Just remember, anything worth having is worth working for.

Easy come, easy go.

Is college bad too then, because most people dont do it?

Is being a professional athlete bad because most people cant do it?

PS2 is an arcade game. Lol no point arguing with someone who has such a tenuous link with reality so i will abstain.

Sky knights. lol.

How about just accepting the flight mechanics as they are. Why not go play a flight simulator if you want?

You dont make any sense. You dont fly in this game, so you know nothing about it, yet you claim to know everything.

Why dont you just strap on some lock-ons and go kill people. Are you afraid the "sky knights" will still kill you because they can do the magical reverse maneuver?

I played ACE and it wasnt good lol. If its so great why dont you go play it. You can shoot giant bumble bees all day.

You don't not while the crutch bug that is reverse maneuver exists

Seriously... the second they implement a real, physics-based flight model in PS2 I'd love to take to the skies. I mean in War Thunder I have tons of fun and I'm not even that good... but there's just something majestic about sling-shotting through the sky. Even when I'm getting torn to pieces (which happens often) it's fun.

The PS2 flight model on the other hand is closer to a Light Assault with a turbo-charged jetpack than any aircraft of reasonable mass and momentum. It's like driving any ground vehicle except you have the extra up/down dimension.

You can spam 'lol' all you want, it just shows how mad you are. College costs a boatload of money that people can't afford, they don't go because they CAN'T go. Same with being a professional athlete, they don't do it because they CAN'T do it.

However planetside 2 is a game, and players should be able to jump in and enjoy any part of it. That's not to say they should be a master, as others have pointed out a new player wont have an easy time against a vet in infantry combat or tank combat. But they should be able to have a fighting chance and, beyond that, they should have fun. The air game in PS2 simply isn't fun for most people. To use your same argument in a different setting most people don't farm spawn points with HE tanks, but that should be allowed and encouraged regardless. It's not fun, and just because you're the 1% who has fun doing it doesn't mean it's good.

Also, your endless crying about lock-ons and honorable competition is seriously tempting me to dump certs into lock-ons just to make people like you rage. The only thing stopping me is that it's not worth the cost. Seriously, this mentality that sky knights have is positively toxic and is part of the reason that nobody likes pilots in this game.

I'm not joking man, reading your posts has me shaking my head so hard I could generate hurricane force winds.

I'm with you, if PS2 had actual flying and not this hover dancing ******** I'd spend more time in the sky than anything else. I absolutely love flying and love dogfighting. In PS2 you don't do either.

Go out in numbers with hornets/tomcats and watch them come on the forums crying about all the scrubs ruining "their" air game.

Experience is what make the difference like in... everything in life?
If you don't have time to invest in something you can't really ask to be able to compete with those who spent hundreds of hours practicing.

It's not like, me fat nerd guy, I'm gonna run the marathon at the Olympic games and complain because I can't keep up with that ethiopian guy that's been running since he was born.

You don't have the time? Sorry but the only answer you are gonna get to "how can I compete" is "you can't".

My only idea would be: team up, make sure you never fight 1 on 1.

Ram kills are easy and lockons + air gank squads

I've been playing for ages and have never really bothered with flying. I can get a mossie from point A to point B without hitting the ground but that's about it. I only use it for transportation.

Now I'm considering learning to do some actual fighting and shooting. What should I put on my mossie? It is basically stock right now.