[Suggestion] Increase AA skill floor and ceiling

So here is the problem, plain and simple. Using AA isn't engaging. Flak is simply point in the general direction, lead a little and shoot. As the flak weapons are all rapid fire guns with a large clip, it is easy to lead and damage aircraft. Lock on is simply looking to the general direction and wait for the lock and shoot. All other AA doesn't do all that much damage to AA as they are secondaries. The skill ceiling for flak and lock on is low and it doesn't feel all that powerful. The aircraft in the meantime are incredibly fast and agile in 3 dimensions, able to dictate when, where and how the fight will go. The aircraft can simply leave when the fight isn't favourable.

When you are in aircraft you hate seeing lock on and flak. Flak says that you are going to get damage no matter what and if there are multiple sources you are pretty much done for. Lower computer systems also have incredible trouble with flak, showing drops in FPS when hit. The lock on feels lame, as someone has to do barely anything to lock on and do a whole lot of damage if you don't use flares/high-tail it out of there.

Both sides don't like the current AA (with some exceptions of course). That means AA should be changed.

What I'm proposing is increasing both the skill floor and the skill ceiling. It should make it possible for AA to kill aircraft, but only if you are skilled enough. With increasing skill you'll have an easier time shooting planes out of the sky, even on your own. Aircraft are very well able to kill vehicles when skilled enough, and the reverse should be equally true. This is for people with a high level of skill in AA. Lower levels of skill will only be able to kill aircraft on their own when aircraft make big mistakes. However, aircraft who are adept at flying will be able to evade more damage.

How do we do this? First of all, flak weapons should be changed. Reducing the flak detonation area or eliminating the flak mechanic completely. Secondly, the weapons should be more like the viper, but an AA variant. This means a limited clip, accompanying fire rate and high velocity and high damage bullets. This will make leading more difficult and distance is a larger factor. Still, if a lot of bullets hit, you could down an aircraft before they can escape. The aircraft on the other hand will be able to do more to evade the barrage, possibly evading all damage altogether. This will give both the AA user and the aircraft a larger feeling of control. The aircraft can evade without just running away and the AA can simply up his or her game and shoot the aircraft out of the sky.
There are a lot more advantages to both sides. Aircraft are also able to get closer to fights without getting damaged slowly if a flak weapon is around. The danger of a lot of AA is reduced in range, giving aircraft more ease to skirt a battle. The AA can more easily do a lot of surprise damage, racking it up and possibly killing the aircraft. A lot of AA doesn't mean area denial, but is still is incredibly dangerous. A2G will be much more of a risk if you hover, as a lot more damage can be dealt before you try to escape.

Secondly the lock on. Although I don't have directly viable alternatives, my first idea would be target painters or laser guided after a distance. The laser guided would send a rocket flying. After a few meters of dump-fire trajectory it will be laser guided like ravens. When the rockets closes in on an aircraft it will home in like a coyote missile. Flares will counteract the coyote homing, but barely anyone uses flares anyway these days. The advantages for the rocket launcher are no warning for the aircraft and a skill based mechanic, but the distance and evading targets make this a much more difficult weapon to use. The AA user would also lose more rockets as a rocket is fired much easier than with lock ons and having more options to miss a target. As the warhead is primed for AA, it will not do much damage against ground vehicles or infantry (prevent guided RL spam against ground by reducing effectiveness tremendously).
Target painters would be more like the current lock on. Possibly have an alternative fire mode to the normal RL that allows you to fire a tracking bug. If you hit an aircraft, you can unload rockets that guide themselves towards the aircraft as long as the aircraft remains in range for a certain amount of time, but you first need to hit the aircraft with skill. The trade-off between skilful shot against the aircraft to even get a lock vs. the ability to fire rockets without reacquiring the lock for a certain amount of time (and no warning of a lock on until the rocket is away) is sharp. Skill is again a much more determining factor in the ability to fight or evade each other. Flares would be a great bane against this, as you would fire a lot of rockets without hitting.

Lastly, for the vehicle AA, it must be changed so it has also an effectiveness against either tanks or infantry. The Skyguard for example is only effective against aircraft and can only deal with tanks or infantry in a few situations. The aircraft in the meantime are effective against everything. The cost of using AA is weird, as you get a highly specific deterrent against a target that isn't around all the time, while losing nearly all effectiveness against ground targets. AV and AI have nearly always targets around and AV doesn't lose all that much effectiveness against infantry. Why would you want to get AA if you don't have constant targets and lose that much effectiveness against the rest? I would suggest to give each AA weapon moderate effectiveness against either tanks or infantry so they can still fulfil a role when air is absent.

Lets hope for a civil discussion about pros and cons.

I like it!

I said this before to Demigan in regards to AA adjustments and I'll repeat it - whatever you wish to augment the combined anti-air system with is fine and debatable, and does need to be debated before implemented; but, outright removal of flak is a complete non-starter in my book.

Additionally. Most positions begin from the perspective that AA has to be less effective functionally to be more effective practically. I believe this is a completely wrongheaded way to go about the problem statement. The entire reason anti-air was designed the way it currently operates, no matter how flexible you believe the system is for the amount of power you believe it gave up, is that aircraft are still infinitely more flexible once given that magic known as opportunity. They also steadfast refuse to tone down this flexibility in the name of enjoyment, an understandable, though annoying, position in all honesty. A counter system must be designed with the attempt at mitigating that specific strength in mind. If you told the person using Titan AP that he had to land multiple shots to down that ESF, each of increasing difficulty, there's a high chance he'd look at you cross.

keep the current flak how it is.

Add a Heavy Walker turret for lightnings that does 1.3x regular walker turret damage
Add a MBT turret with Heavy Coyote rockets

thatd be cooler.

If Flak is going then all splash damage from A2G weapons has to go too. If AA has to learn2aim then it's only fair pilots have to as well.

So basically if you gave the AA wielders something to react to that opportunity, say a way to find and track aircraft as they enter range, it would already be OK?

Anyway, if you told that person with the Titan AP that he had to land multiple hits, but got to fire 10 times more hits and with better mechanics behind it to actually hit (minitature flak/coyote range, larger shells, multiple shots allowing for easier leading of aircraft targets, better weapon elevation, no need to try to gauge shell drop for a target that is the toughest target to gauge distance from), he should be screaming his head off for joy. I know I would.
Just think about the most powerful abilities that ESF exhibit: Hovering about with some of the most powerful weapons available in the game. Now imagine if you had both the opportunity as well as the ability to easily engage these aircraft and destroy them if they didn't see you coming rather than having to prop up your vehicle for the elevation or have a shot miss because the aircraft accidentally hovered up/down/left/right and dodged unknowingly, that would change the air-meta to a much better fighter-bomber principle, where the high damage weapons are required because of the short window the aircraft has to fire them.

You can reduce the opportunity by adding a much higher risk to the already great rewards. If you risk getting your faced stomped in with an attack, the same risk every infantry and ground vehicle has, then you are required to make use of the opportunities you are offered. Also, since these weapons do not necessarily force aircraft to fly towards bases with low AA you balance things out better.
Add some versatility to the AA weapons, such as being able to engage infantry or offer special abilities for yourself and/or nearby allies, and you would see a more even spread of AA in both large and small fights. This would further encourage aircraft to stick to a fight, rather than say "oh there's some AA here, let's go to a base that doesn't have any AA at all and farm there". Current flak an lock-ons simply does not offer that.

Which brings me to this: I can't believe that you prefer a system that either makes it impossible for aircraft to properly fight or gives them absolutely no resistance whatsoever.

Yes. And flak doesn't let them do that. It forces them to change their style of engagement to one that the weapons are not perfectly suited, but that they can still make progress with.

I never said that I believed it was a good system. I might have neglected to restate so many times that I believe this is a rare plateau of a workable system. Air gets to remain powerful. Infantry gets to chase it away.

The conceit of Air has always been that it always wants to be able to exert lethal power against everything easily. The conceit of Infantry/Armor frequently becomes wanting easy ways to destroy Air.

My worry when people talk about "skilled" AA is that they don't seem to understand that, no matter what, you are still giving air the upper hand against ground based AA. When the target can move anywhere it wants, and you are stuck on the ground, "skill" is less of a factor as is the disparity in opportunity. Ergo, Air has ALL the opportunity to press the attack or escape, while current AA platforms have NONE.

I'll just react to both your posts. The reason why some things have to be toned down is that flak would become insanely powerful. I want to balance the power by increasing lethality but simultaneously increasing skill floor. With the added bonus of increasing skill ceiling, AA can excel in the right hands and is just good in the average hands. Range is now more of a factor, as lower skill is required at lower ranges and higher skill at longer ranges. Also, I'm a pro of just tempering flak, not removing it. It should require closer shots, but not necessarily a direct hit.

Also, the current flak does let ESF hover with those powerful weapons. The moment they get hit, they still have time to escape. One of the things my proposed system does is making hovering a much higher risk, as a lot more damage can be done before the ESF has time to react.
The current flak doesn't have to be removed, although I think most people would use the new system.

Lastly, the toning down of aircraft should happen, but this is a different discussion. This is making AA more fun for both sides while also giving it more power in several situations.

This wouldn't solve any problems, as it would mostly stay the same as it is, but only with a stronger non-flak skyguard.

You haven't really read the thread I wager. Read it again and then add to the discussion.

I have to say that I'm not 100% disagreeing with everything you say either, I just see a lot of things differently.
So far AA mostly forces aircraft to either locate and shoot the AA wielders (Bursters and lock ons, if I stumble on them I keep killing them) or it forces them to fly away as fast as they can. Sure you can do some damage against whatever if you surprise AA by not being where they are looking, but for most players this is an alien idea and even then doesn't give enough time to do multiple runs, making you only effective against infantry for the most part.
So yes it does change their style of engagement, but it does not offer any interplay between AA and aircraft. At least, the only interplay we do find is the aircraft stomping the face in of dedicated AA guns that sacrifice all power just to be able to deter them.

How is this the only workable system?
Isn't there some version of an AA canon similar to a Walker or Viper or anything inbetween that would work properly? I mean, those things work without flak and instantly prevent things like the bad scaling of AA to happen. There has to be a golden point somewhere in between Skyguard flak and Walkers that offers the damage required to kill aircraft without making it a point-and-click "you came too close you are now dead" game unless the AA users aiming skill exceeds the aircraft users dodging skill.

Yes, and both conceits (concepts you mean?) are wrong. No one should have an easy time destroying the others. It should be an interplay between loadout choice,unit choice and skill of both sides, simply grabbing the correct loadout should never, ever guarantee your victory.
This is one of those many cases where players do not know what's good for them. Just like a cheater tries to enhance his fun by reducing the amount of challenge he can get out of the game and eventually destroy his want to play the game (either he feels underpowered without his cheats, or he feels without a challenge with cheats), players think they want things easy. Look at all the people screaming their approval for 100% annihilation of all that is aircraft, even though the game would decline with the removal of aircraft. In fact an increase of players using aircraft, assuming we have a good G2A and A2A system, would heavily improve gameplay and replayability for thousands of players, as more options and more variety becomes available.

While this isvtrue, the fact remains that we can't just buff ground AA over air AA. It would become too strong.

An easy fix for this is simply reducing air AA capabilities. Reduce effectiveness of the tomcats and the nosecannons. These are wildly more powerful than ground AA. where a dedicated Skyguard has a great many seconds of 100% hits, a nosecannon can do it in much less than half that time. Tomcats have less reload time and have the advantage that less environment can obstuct the lock or missile, while also able to follow a target and better in taking or evading damage.

Ok, your not fooling me.

I can see right through the lines and you want AA to be harder to use & in some cases not effective, which means aircraft per usual will have free farming.

What if I told you that its the ground forces job to take out the AA so the Air can take out ground targets?


Thats how it should work anyways..... but in PS2 all we have is ineffective AA that merely shoo's the enemy aircraft away.... who then come back and farm some more targets and rinse & repeat.

Consider the way he phrases most of his proposal.
In effect, he wants ground AA to be just as effective as air AA.
Currently dedicated ground AA is wildly less effective than any air AA counterpart, it's so bad that except for the top ground AA weapons you could lump almost any two together and still have lower scores than the average air AA weapon. What does this change mean for the game?
Well, that it's harder to use, not as effective in large groups, but in general will improve the amount of kills ground AA will score so that is scores similarly to aircraft-based AA weapons.

So rather than picking up your "Pro-air" stamp and ramming it on him, you should see that this is a carefully constructed way to improve both ground AA and how aircraft can react to it, offering better and more fun gameplay even though aircraft will die more often to it.

Yes! Exactly the reason why this new system would be an improvement! Actual killer AA! An even spread of AA across any size fight so that aircraft cannot move to small battles with less opposition! No more area denial AA weapons so that aircraft will always be able to operate but have to accept the risks of being shot down just like infantry and tanks have to do everywhere!

But see how much of a *********** it is that because AA isn't good at killing, Aircraft can have free farming pretty much?

And then they ***** about the "airgame" being ruined.

Also, you know it wouldn't take much to buff G2A. All Flak should have 400 m/s velocity for instance.

Id like to see more skillful but more rewarding AA similar to walkers but a bit more powerful. Its a win win for everyone, Dedicated AA will be able to get kills and not just deture, pilots also wont be annoyed and denied whole hexs because of lock and flak spam.

A tear appeared in my eye. Although I don't agree with you on a lot of things, you're one of the very few people that don't seem to want just a straight out buff-it-till-aircrafts-are-useless on AA.
My heart goes out to you; you'll get a special invitation to Jawaland.

You probably can't see it because you're on PS4, but the walker already gives 0 chances to an ESF, providing the gunner is extremely good. That gun does insane amounts of damage and it's ridicoulous velocity makes it possible to hit at great distances.

It is hard to argue with someone who thinks in black and white.

Yes AA will be a bit harder, but have you actually used the Skyguard or lock on launcher? It is difficult to make these weapons easier to use, as they are the near epitome of easy! Should I have suggested a lock on for the Skyguard? After a few seconds of fire in the direcyion of the aircraft the bullets will guide themselves towards the aircraft! The lock on launcher? It is easier if it didn't have a lock on time! Just aim and fire!
I want more power in ground AA, making it an aircraft killer. Simultaneously I want to give it moderate effectiveness against either infantry or tanks, making it not practically useless when no aircraft are around.

The fact that you can't understand that by exchanging some 'easy' for a killer ground AA isn't surprising. I'm proposing something that will destroy any aircraft on short ranges and destroy aircraft that decide to hover, greatly decreasing the farming tactics. The risk is also much higher when normally attacking, as you'll get less DoT and more high sudden damage if hit.

Your 'buff' to the Skyguard with 400ms is a bad idea, as the Skyguard will still have a long TTK on a fast and agile aircraft. They will still escape in plenty scenarios.
You have such a one track mind. If I propose to remove the flak on a Skyguard, but make every shot a one hit kill, you would say it is less easy to use so a buff to aircraft. That is an idiot talking.

AA range on PS4 is broken. It can hit you 1000m out / outside render distance . I think if range is fixed then they should buff the damage a little . Doing that will make pilots work harder when they're farming ground targets. Afterall air superiority paired with a good infy line wins bases