It almost seems like air is hurting the game.

We were all new players once, and we didn't quit. Rocketpods used to be much stronger as well.

The game used to crash a lot more and ran like a nosebleed too.

Lolpods were a bad idea to start with. Libs are the hard, direct A2G platform. The ESF has too much versatility to have a direct hard A2G - even after the nerfs, lolpods can be leveraged like no other weapon.

Locusts are closer to what I'd like to see as a A2G secondary - along stuff like droppable AP bombs.

ESFs combine the strafing capability of an attack chopper with the flight mode of a fighter jet - a massive improvement in maneuverability over real-life equivalents. Tanks on the other hand lack simple turret stabilization.

This is because a floaty flight model is easy to do. Adding simple aerodynamics, adding stall, a "weightier" feeling, now that's hard. Which is why they didn't do it.

Same with turret stabilization - it's a side effect for the mag, but otherwise it's a non-trivial feature that requires effort to do.

What I'm saying is - ESFs are OP because SOE didn't have the time to do a proper aerodynamic flight model and decided to mush together an attack helicopter and a fighter jet into a single ultra-versatile vehicle. And add lolpods, 'cuz number one sold weapon.

Force Wars were so unique, no other game provided anything like it. Too bad SOE wasn't smart enough to copy that part of the game

I'm battle rank ~20. I just figured out how the resource system worked a day or two ago. 2 weeks ago I was kinda confused by the cert system and certing everything.
I don't have that much experience with fps's, but I pick them up pretty fast. I still get rekt when I'm flying and as armor.
However, I don't remember getting farmed as infantry too much. Especially not to the point of quitting. Mossies strafing you with hellfire pods are annoying, but most of the time it doesn't happen to me. Unless you're by yourself or with a large group of solely infanty in an open space, the esf's cannot reach you.
I think air is quite balanced and I am looking forward to developing my skills in that area.

I have been telling people air is a problem for newbies forever. It massacres new players and they have no way of countering it besides dropping 1000 certs on an anti air launcher or getting a skyguard. All of which require saving a ton of certs for just for that one thing that may not even actually help because, as mentioned before; most of the time an air vehicle will take a hit or two and then scurry off into the sunset to repair and come back. Now keep in mind with singular esfs this isn't that much of an issue, small arms can at least damage them, and it is possible to scramble a resistance by focusing small arms fire on the esf when it comes by for a run. But things really get messy when liberators or galaxies start farming small squads, they can decimate these people, destroy all of the turrets, camp the vehicle terminals and force the squads into the spawn room with little to no effort at all.

The fact of the matter is that without a few members with anti-air capabilities, there will never be any hope of that squad doing anything to the vehicles camping them. Best case scenario is to give up, head to a different base or pull aircraft of their own from a neighboring base and try engaging the threat directly. I would propose an increase to the default dumbfire rockets travel velocity and range, as it is right now it is basically impossible to hit a camping liberator or galaxy but with this change it would force the pilots to actually have to make the effort of dodging the enemies below and give those small squads a chance to not get camped. Or we could always, you know, not have liberators be able to take 7 direct rockets and scurry off to repair while having the capabilities to 1-2 shot infantry.

It is all about risk vs rewards. As it is right now, camping infantry for free certs as an air vehicle is low risk, high reward, while the infantry trying to just get out of the spawn to scramble a defense are in a high risk, low reward scenario.

Air is a problem for small to medium fights. In fact it pretty much makes those fights as infantry pointless and I no longer bother with them.

In large fights they are just another tool on the battlefield to contend with.

EVERYTHING can kill an ESF. Including a pistol (over time of course).

But in reference to your last paragraph SOE needs to give new players a tutorial for piloting. This game is relentless to new pilots and with more ESFs to counter ESFs the better. More things to shoot at for me

I do believe he's likely referring to competitive shooters in general, such as Battlefield type games.

In which case, there are many of that description.

But, I do believe Warframe calls itself an MMOFPS and it is pretty cool. I got burned out playing it, but it's a solid game, with great production values, quality gunplay/combat, and advancement/customization options.

Skyguard? Just revamp that to be a continual DPS AV weapon or an AI/suppressive weapon. Bursters could just be oddified AV weapon. G2A lockons would probably just be made into a different variation of G2G lock-on. Walker/Ranger would be close AI and suppressive AI respectively.

It could work, maybe.

I would prefer that to what we have now. Good, fun, fair infantry fights are almost always ruined by vehicles or someone getting ******** and blowing up the Sunderer. When you finally get to a base that can't be spammed by vehicles (aka Biolabs), they get spammed with MAX suits. It's like people are constantly looking for the cheesiest/easiest ways to get kills instead of actually getting better at the game.

I wish there were bases that had anti-MAX shields, so only infantry could get in.

If that's what you want to play, why are you even here? Uninstall PS2 and switch over to CoD Black Ops 2.

This is a combined arms game. There should always be some type of vehicle support. If you're running around with infantry only you're doing it wrong.

Exactly. If you are running in a 30 man group with tons of helpless targets all scattered around to "farm", then you have a really low likelihood of being that one or two the ESF decides to munch on during that pass. Heaven forbid there is a medic nearby, you now have a five second respawn timer...

The situation is not always a static 1 ESF vs 1 Noob. Lots of other fish in the barrel get shot at before others most of the time, even if you go over an area and kill ~100 BR 1-10s, you may have got 6 of them 7 times (the oblivious) and 20 of them 1-2 times. This conservation of K/D really doesn't exist at this level either yet... that's for them high BRs and LA pilots.

Also for another example of why a "noob" ain't gonna kill that pro'ish pilot unless they use a OHKO weapon: a large majority fly LA or bail when it's time for the plane to explode... (my tomcats would please like it if you stayed in your vehicle until it went boom, I would have them auraxiumed a long time ago if so...)

Fixed that for you.

I find both gunning and piloting a Liberator to be extremely easy and simple, honestly. Not at the top tier level, but enough to be effective and do what a Liberator does.

Except they're clearly not anymore. Not when I'm getting destroyed 50-200m away from a 48+ zerg on a daily basis, either from Liberator TB+Dalton/Shredder combo or from 600m+ Dalton spamming.

Hell... I even get killed by solo Liberators tankbusting me to death WHILE GETTING HIT BY FLAK. And then making it away safely to repair....

Mostly fighting against bots from what I can tell from the trailer and with a linear story arc it seems- unless I am mistaken. Looks interesting but does not really look like the same concept, though they do mention other modes of play. Interesting at least.

I keep seeing people saying this and yet I still still see ESF and Libs at large battles(48+). Now are they allowed to as easily blast away at the smaller fights, no clearly not, especially the ESF but they definitely do fly bys and cause a good bit of chaos, I'm sure it's no where near as profitable for them as it is at smaller fights and they are at far more risk but from what I've seen they still do their part.

So they do particpate in larger battles, maybe not to the degree they would like, but they do (at least some of them) and they are absolutely devastating in smaller battles.

Not sure what the answer is, I'm no pilot but I don't want to see air go away, I just want a more engaging way to fight them from the ground, without ruining the air game for those that enjoy it.

It's all relative. Your view point is on the ground on the receiving end of rocket pods. (I've been there and know what you're talking about) Well here's a view point from an ESF rocket podder... me

If you think we have an easy life of it, you're very much mistaken. I've have my ESF specially fitted out just for this task of Air to ground. - Scout radar, Stealth, Thermal on pods and default gun just for Air to Air. Reason? Here's an example...

Our team was trying to counter attack a zerg where our tanks and troops were funneled in a bottle neck in a gully. Steep cliffs either side. My team were being murdered from both sides of the gully where snipers, heavy assult, Engineers were raining hell on those below trying to push forward. There's was no way they could effectively counter them up there and no easy route up. The answer? Me. Low flying, stealthed and radar highlighting the enemy to both me and my team mates, I made many passes mopping them up.

I was extremely vulnerable on each attack run and every run, I had to run back and repair. I faced rocket pods, max's, ground fire, Skyguards, Vanguards that one shot me and of course the Ace pilots circling at max ceiling waiting to swoop down like hawks on pilots like me.

As I line up my shots, throttle back just prior and during the firing run, I'm a sitting duck! And in a zerg, I'm a very tempting target and many a time I've perished. Also, flying at high speed at very low altitudes twisting through valleys and gullies, I've also slammed into those to.

So yes, it's a pain being on the receiving end, but it's also a pain delivering it.

You cannot hope to always take out an ESF's all on your own - especially if you're a new player. You need to work as a team and use the right tools for the job.

The learning curve is steep. Hang in there!