I do not like flying ESF because of V-Thrust and Airbreak.

What is it then? What exactly is the problem with removing the awkwardness and retaining the use?

Again though nothing there says why it wouldn't be a good idea, the best you can seemingly come up with is "it wouldn't help aiming", which it wouldn't, but that is no reason not to therefore remove it as it would still improve accessability with no real loss.

I agree there are other factors too, but it is no arguement to suggest that because 3 things are difficult and 1 or 2 can be addressed, but 1 cannot that nothing should be done.

The 1 or 2 that can be addressed should BE addressed.

That's the old "when I were a lad we walked to school, in the snow everyday, and it was up hill both ways!" idea - it has no value in addressing accessibility.

Although what you're saying there supports exactly what I am arguing for, if the awkwardness wall was removed better pilots would still win (dispite this thread being full of ones scared they won't), it would just mean that the inital accessiblity into Air would be much better.

So as I have asked where is the downside exactly?

It is certainly possible...... probably, but it would require massive and total rebalancing and again anything A2G would have to be looked at in the context of A2A as it is the same Airframe. It is just hard to balance a single airframe for both A2A and A2G and get it right.

It is pretty related to this thread as it is definately one way of addressing Cest7 (the OPs) concerns (it just perhaps seems that making the RM less awkward is the only way, because of those absolutely terrorfied of it happening).
A pure A2A fighter can easily be made so that hover fighting of any sort is impossible so making A2A a completely different and much, much more dynamic thing.

SOEs biggest Air mistake was IMO rolling the Mozy and Reaver (and I suppose Wasp too) into the do it all ESF superfighter for PS2.

Wait, I'm kinda confused now, what is your suggestion?
Remove RM or make a toggle for thrusters?

My favoured option would be to add a new pure A2A fighter (in the spirit of the Wasp).

But if you wanted to change current ESF? You would like to remove RM completely?

How about A2G is reworked so it takes longer to get into amd out of hover mode, up the top speed. Then remove rendering of ground units, then give infantry the ability to call in airstrikes via smoke or CUD, this would then bring up an available bombing target for air to lock on to and fire missile or dumb fire bombs ect. The bomb hits the infantries rendered target making it the infantries kill, but that is txfered to the pilot leaving an assist.

Add in counters for avoiding bombs, could upgrade the Skyguards with the a ility to intercept airstrikes like the sniper bot on planetary annihilation.

This brings ESF into larger fights and makes the pilot feel like the are appart of the larger fights.

Deception can have a powerful effect and you have been deceived because you have no experience to know othervise. You think that reverse maneuver is the real boogeyman and if removed, changed or simplified it will somehow help achieve accessibility for newbies. You too are asking for deception.
I'll give you another example and aspect of ESF air game. If you think that reverse maneuver is difficult to achieve because of awkwardness and would like simplification or removal to achieve accessibility then reverse maneuver is a joke of a difficulty compared to vertical thrust strafing while maintaining aim on your target and calculating how much leading you need to compensate for different nose gun velocities. To overcome this difficulty you need to be able to control your ESF or more specifically have a total control of your esf.

With total control of your ESF you achieve ability of better aim and the two are closely related. Side effect would be reverse maneuver. If you take this side effect and let say you remove it, change it or if you simplify it and give it to the newbies then what do they gain, and how does it help their air game when they can not control the ESF let alone aim with it?

But it does have value in addressing accessibility so much so that I would like you to answer the question so that I as a past noob can relate to your or any noob understanding of the air game.

If removed then downside would be removal of a unique aspect of the air game which no other game offers and no benefits to accessibility of the air game what so ever. If simplified then you have deception and false belief of air game accessibility. Bottom line is dumbing down air game in order to achieve speculative benefits which we all know that it would not help newbies achieve better control or aim which is required of you to excel.

OFCOURSE you have to go on the most populated continent and get rekt.

If you're ignorant you wont learn anything, no matter what.
If you want to learn to fly go to least populated continent and find someone flying there OR just try A2G first INSTEAD A2A then when you'll feel comfortable with evading ground targets try A2A

I get it, and would have agreed with this original post 6 mnths ago, when I was just learning to fly in this game. But what you want, in effect, homogenizes all esf's like lightning tanks, no longer esf, just f. I eventually got out of my reaver/mossie/scythe and actually looked at the thrusters, and my hat's off to you if you know how many each esf has. And kind of a trick question because, like magrider, the scythe appears to also use gay alien tech between the rear extending part of the craft.

I honestly truly like the flight model for esf's, and to me, is the most fun activity in game, and think would be tragic to change to something like Ace Combat...boring, and I'd probably quit playing.

OK, reaver has 6, mossie 3 (might possibly be 5, but don't think so), scythe kinda messed up w/ gay-tech in the back but seems to function like 7 or 8, and placed differently. Even if I've missed a thruster, they all fly with different characteristics because of this, and each of the three airframes quite noticeably change the flavor each, so you can currently fly 9 different flavors of esf.

The sand-box battlefield, imho, is the best facet of this game. I suck, but truly appreciate it. And there are players that would kick my *** in a fair 1v1 every single time,,, any class, any vehicle. But, if you find yourself in fair fight, your tactics suck, and mine do, usually. And then to challenge someone with 100's of hours, or days, practicing one thing in game...usually doesn't work out for me, whether esf or HA, some of these people are scary good....and it's not always about who can shoot the most accurately or keyboard skills, but knowing every inch of a particular base and how to get there, where the hiding spots are for both you and enemy, how to effectively flank or get firing lanes on the same places that are used every battle, etc.

From what I've experienced, if anything, esf's and Libs are a little fast for the maps. I honestly would like to see 2-3 of the maps "stretched" a bit. Imho, you shouldn't be able to shoot an AV turret and hit the next base, just too close, for ground or air.

Another thing worth discussion is the flight ceiling. Currently ofc we have nearly 1km abv sea lvl, which sometimes only means 500m abv the ground like on Indar. On Hossin, to me it's like 2 flight ceilings, but one has branches. On large portions of the maps, any air vehicle can fly higher than a ground unit can engage, but at least w/dalton nerfs, air cannot engage ground from these altitudes either. That quite often leaves an air sandbox at, or near, the flight ceiling. Looking for those aircraft below you that are engaged with lower forces. I honestly do feel it's cheesy to fly away from fights or territory that matters to your faction, just to gank anyone, especially picking A2G setups w/both enemies fighting, essentially doing an enemies job. But I also realize some peeps just find that fun, and you can't feel too bad about getting wrecked in PS2, especially in a glass cannon.

Everyone I've talked to in PS2 just loves to shoot down any plane, so by flying you eventually make someone happy, how can that be bad..;p What if the flight ceiling were raised, or lowered, say 300m? Would a higher or lower ceiling in some areas help prevent some complaints? At first I thought if was lowered, would force at least recognition and response to AA from all aircraft, and give ground the option of engaging, as air does when close to ceiling most areas currently. But that then reduces the sandbox for those pilots that just want to air duel, or hang unmolested in their gal, or ganking tactics....think i'm still leaning toward lower flight ceiling to scale with the maps.

None of what you're saying here is wrong, but what you said before is that projectile speed only increases tactical depth if a net advantage can be gained. Which is also true, but said in a way that implied PS2's air play didn't involve that depth (which clearly isn't true; quite obviously someone who is better at leading shots in PS2 is going to be better at air fights, just as someone who is good at dodging can counteract that aiming skill.)

Again, mostly true right up until the point where you seem to claim that every player is precisely equal in evasion and aiming and trajectory skill when dogfighting in PS2. That's clearly not the case, which means that variation in each of those types of skills is what's creating the net advantages/disadvantages during air combat.

You seem to have a very difficult time understanding the difference between advantage, and necessity.

Cover is an advantage. You'd be a fool not to leverage it every chance you get.

Cover is not a necessity. People win fights in every game all the time from positions of poor or non-existent cover.

What?

That's exactly the point I was making: that the magnitude of each individual skill isn't significantly different between these games.

My point is that when combat is about fewer types of skills, nearly always that results in a shallower game because the magnitude of each individual skill tends not to vary much. (You can list a thousand ways to use cover cleverly in a tactical shooter, and nearly all of them will apply in an action shooter.)

Which goes back to the original talking point that PS2 air play is deeper because players are more able to turn around and engage their foe after being ambushed. The ambusher still maintains his/her initial advantage, but must use more types of skill (evasion skill) to finish out the fight. The ambushee is still disadvantaged, but can use more types of skill (aiming, trajectory) to fight back and potentially win. Because more types of skill are involved all around, the gameplay ends up being deeper.

You aren't understanding the concept.

A net advantage derived from superior decision making (tactics) is about being able to make a decision that puts you at an advantage by virtue of having a superior position. Meaning, you have something the enemy doesn't.
In chess, you can have an advantage by having more pieces, better pieces, or pieces in better places on the board. You get there based on superior decision making - Tactics and strategy.
This happens routinely in flight sims, where you can find yourself in a superior position by superior decision making.

This is not to be confused with a skill advantage in aiming, which is something you carry with you all the time rather than something which is imparted by virtue of the circumstances. You do have something the enemy doesn't with superior aim skill, but your advantage is not something derived from tactical decision making giving you that advantage.

Depth and skill are not synonyms.

Depth is a measure of the how much beyond the surface must be understood in order to master the game. The increased variables mean decision making is more complex and indepth. This is why games with depth are interesting for very long times - you can play them for years and still feel like you are learning more, encountering new scenerios, and improving your ability to respond to them.

Skill would be particular actions that require practice to master their execution. A target shooting game might require a lot of practice to hit the bullseye, but eventually you will get bored because there's no depth to it.

PS2's aircombat requires a lot of aim and twitch reaction skill, but that doesn't mean it has a lot of depth in terms of tactical decision making.

You seem to have a difficult time understanding that cover is not optional in a game like world war 2 online, just as it is not optional in real life.
You will never win a fight in a game like WW2OL without using cover, period.

You will never accomplish any objective in WW2OL without using cover. You can't "win a fight" without completing objectives.
Even if you were to measure victory by kill ratios (because attrition is a factor in that game), you would be doing more harm than good for you team if you kept running out to die repeatedly because you failed to use cover.

In real life you don't have the luxury of respawning either. The odds of success and survival without using cover as so astronomically low that it IS a necessity.

The fact that you still think it's optional only betrays that you know nothing about the dynamics involved in a realistic shooter, nor do you have any understanding of the military dynamics involved that makes these realistic shooters play the way they do.

And you clearly have no clue what you're talking.
You don't think cover is necessary in world war 2 online - Rank ignorance on your part.
You thought that flight sims only involved turning in circles without ever being able to reverse the situation - You don't even know what is involved in a realistic flight sim.

The fact is, you don't know anything about what is involved in these games, yet you're trying to claim that quake and PS2 require all the same skills as WW2OL. They don't.
Many skillsets are completely absent from PS2's air combat.
Energy management that you can use to gain an advantage, indepth plane vs plane tactical knowledge that you can leverage to gain an advantage, advanced air combat maneuvers as a chess match where you seek to set up a shot and gain advantage.

This goes back to your first fundamental failure of understanding flight sims: you think ambushing is the only real difference, and because ambushing can still happen in PS2 you don't understand why they are different. Well, it's obvious why you don't understand, because you don't have any real experience with a flight sim.

But I've already explained this to you, and even commented on videos that were posted to illustrate the concepts for you:
However, you still completely fail to understand that you can remove ambush and altitude differences completely from the equation and what you are left with in a flight sim is still a fight that is immensely more tactical than anything you'll ever seen in PS2. That kind of flight sim fight still requires a high degree of plane and tactical knowledge to make decisions that keep you alive while set you up for a kill shot, where multiple reversals of advantage can be witnessed in a single fight between two skilled individuals.

Those same scenerios in that WW2OL video, if fought in PS2, would involve two planes hoverdueling where only aim skill determines the victory. The reason they won't do anything other than roll around and shoot at each other in a hover duel is because PS2 gives them no significant way to gain a tactical advantage over each other.

Again claiming I don't know how to do the RM (and that somehow I'm a noob and fool that has no idea) has nothing to do with anything, it is meaningless to what is being discussed, it is simply a strawman and pure ad hominem nonsense, meaningless and worthless to the discussion



What I'm asking is what exactly is lost if the awkwardness wall is removed but the useage is retained?

As far as your "answers" so far you seem to agree completely with me that it is nothing!

Not really, it would be one option of a few certainly to improve accessiblity.

As I have said this thread is mostly about people panicing madly about the possiblity of the awkwardness wall being removed from the RM for their own rather opaque (but really rather see-though) reasons.

Yeah that is going after the same problem from the opposite end, more or less. It would be a lot of work though.

Moin

Still, more skills required doesn't necessarily mean a higher overallskill needed. You can have games where only 2-3 skills matter with a higher skill ceiling than a game where there are tons of skills that matter. More tactics also doesn't make a better game by default. There is a reason why games like CS are so popular and it certainly isn't that these games are easy-mode and have a low skill ceiling.

It's not only about aiming skills. It's also situational awareness and movement/dodging skills. It's challenging because it's very fast paced compared to a flightsim.

Even if we accepted that only position-related decisions are tactics (which isn't true), ambushing clearly has a very strong value in PS2. If two equally skilled players are in the air and one ambushes the other, that player will win due to their initial advantage. But more than just position-related decisions are tactics and your overall evasion pattern can either end up being very predictable or very difficult to hit depending on the decisions you make.

Skill is both decision-making and execution. (Otherwise you're saying becoming the #1 worldwide chess player takes no skill, because you only think execution (in chess' case: the physical act of moving pieces) is skill.)

Game depth is defined in good detail by Sirlin ("A multiplayer game is deep if it is still strategically interesting to play after expert players have studied and practiced it for years, decades, or centuries.") This definition carries the obvious implication that game depth is how much skill improvement is rewarded by a game. (Both Sirlin and I are professional game designers, to provide context for our use of this definition.)

So the two terms are very strongly related.

This conflicts with your earlier admittance that players do make kills without cover (which obviously implies cover isn't required.)

So now you're back to pretending that zero kills have been made in the history of WWIIO that didn't involve cover? Who exactly do you expect to believe that?

If it's possible to make a kill without having cover yourself, then quite obviously we can't say cover is "required". I'm not sure why you struggle with this simple concept.

You've already bullet-point listed all the factors involved in WWIIO. Literally 90-95% of those nuances also apply to PS2. Which means 90-95% of the depth associated with those activities is the same in PS2, but in the case of air

This puts you in an awkward position since if you want to back your claim that "I have no clue what I'm talking about" you would have to literally list hundreds more bullet points of nuances of skill that exist only in WWIIO, so that the overall ratio is far less than 90%.

But you don't seem interested in truthful discourse. You just want to disagree with me, despite the clear truth behind what I'm saying.

I'm sorry I can only discuss reality. I can't see the imaginary version of PS2 dogfighting that exists in your mind where "only aim skill" matters, so I can't discuss it with you. When you feel like discussing real things, let me know.

This is exactly why the awkwardness wall of the RM adds no depth at all to PS2.

Not gonna lie, if the RM was removed, I'd probably just stop flying. I love the amount of control and finesse that AB's give you when in hover mode. I don't find it awkward at all. Sure, it felt weird at first when I was learning the timing for the thruster switch from forward to down, but after that it's really easy.

It is, relatively, but that's the point, the intial awkwardness wall puts people off, where as removing that (but retaining the usage) actually removes nothing of any worth from the game, and just improves accessiblity. It would seem win:win to me.

I've asked again and again what purpose does the inital awkwardness wall achieve and still have got no cogent answer.

Forgive me if I don't feel like digging through 28-29 pages of comments. What do you mean by removing that but retaining the usage? Do you mean make it so that the reverse maneuver is easier to do? I was under the impression that you just wanted to remove it completely.

I'd just like some clarification here.