Last try: An overview of my (unbiased as much as possible) views on AA FLAK balance

Nope. Their inefficiency is not a problem. Pilots being able to juke them isn't the problem. Lock ons basically give good pilots a 5 second window to complete their job. Stay longer, and take the next missile. Flares stop locks for 5 seconds.

you, sir, have failed to read the entire post.

I am actually calling for a skyguard powerup.

I only want the option to eliminate enemy AA be made available as a tactical move.

Currently as it stands,
Burster MAX units have only one viable coutner - overwhelming infantry. However, if infantry can get into the base and actually kill the MAX suits, the base has probably already fallen. This effectively negates nearly all possibility of CAS playing a role in the cap.
Skyguards are way too weak to be an effective, viable alternative to the Burster. It can't hide, and doesn't hit as hard in practice.

So as I said in the OP:

These changes don't harm the Burster MAX unit's point defence ability. It will still rip aircraft apart at short to medium range, but no longer effortlessly deny almost all enemy air in the region.

These changes instead shift the role of "heavy, region-wide anti-aircraft" to the Skyguard. With increased projectile velocity, increased mag size and (surely) more popularity, this isn't exactly a nerf to AA.

This won't "let the lolpodders go unchecked". This isn't the flyboy's field day. Instead, it opens up the possibility of counter-play against AA units. It adds a little bit to the possibility of metagame in this.. persistent combat environment.

You should mention the Grounder, it's one of the more effective forms of AA, on par with an AA MAX

AA FLak is to effective when there is more then 1 turrent/max/skygaurd.

Na, not for me at least. I basically never really die to it unless the target I have in sight is too important for my death to matter.

No. AA Flak is doing its job.
It just needs a counter. Hence designating heavy AA duty to a vehicle that can be destroyed by an organised force as a tactical move.

If an "organized force [using] a tactical move" can't destroy AA MAXes, which are much weaker than Vehicles even if the Vehicle had no defensive loadouts, I question why this force would be better suited to fighting a Vehicle.
I've been killed as an AA MAX before because one LA drop podded onto the same landing pad as me and used only his agility to counter my dakka and my Engineer's support. If that's not the quintessence of the the MAX's counterable nature, I don't know what is.

A dug in AA MAX nest in a defended base will fall victim to that organised 12/12 galaxy drop.
How does that become a serious counter though? You'll just get revived, no worries, no spawn timer. A lightning cant be destroyed as easily, but can't hide as well as a MAX unit, giving armour a chance at actually taking it out. Also, it has a spawn timer and is in general a larger, more obvious threat.

Interesting perspective. I agree with the Skyguard comments as they don't feel very effective and seem easy to kill. The AA burster is ok. I think the problem is from the Air perspective. Mostly when I run burster, the pilots don't coordinate. Most run away are a few shot at them (good deterrence value) other plow straight in, unload rockets and easily escape a single max. In groups the burster wiill eliminate single airframe fairly quickly. The key point is single. If air would coordinate rather than act as individuals, they could easily wipe out the group, but typically they don't. The only problem might be the inability of air to spot maxes. This is especially true when they engage at range, then again, these pilots don't tend to lose.

I would use the same argument as I used in PS1, if AA, and AA maxes in particular, are so great, why is there any air at all?

Do u read what others write ?

5 seconds is an eternity. Makes G2A missiles useless. WHICH IS THE PROBLEM.

Lock ons should be much shorter.

Or maybe you are just lobbying for flyers ?

This only happens because of the way that people play the game. A Burster MAX is the easiest thing in the game to kill. It takes one Infnatryman, not overwhelming numbers of them.

The Burster in PS2 is a complete pussycat compared to the original Planetside version. The difference is that in PS1 people worked together and a single Burster without support was a minor inconvenience that was soon put down.

People play Planetside 2 very differently. There is an awful lot more lone wolfing in this game, particularly so by people that fly. It's the same with Tanks. People want to jump in them and drive off to the nearest hotspot and get some kills. Then they wonder why they get decimated by AV and ESF's.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Lots of people want to play this game as if it were Battlefield Auraxis rather than a Planetside game.

kid, get out of my thread.
you clearly don't understand the meaning of "skill-based weaponry".

sorry you don't get to instagib planes with your click as fast as you can launcher.
sorry that you can't wait 5 seconds.
oop.

everybody disagrees with you, and you should be sorry.
you disgust me: "maybe you are just lobbying for flyers"
lol. f*ck off with your bullsh1t.

Not going to reply to you from here on, no matter what you say.

I know precisely what you mean.
However, I have played my fair share of organised ops vs organised ops with barely any lone wolf presence (outfits on Briggs regularly agree to head to a deserted continent to juke it out there. same issues apply.)

The thing about burster MAX units is not that they are hard to counter. It's just that being able to get infantry up there to the cluster of 6 or so bursters and killing these said burster MAX units together with their engineer buddies, as well as keeping the MAX units dead, will require prolonged, serious infantry presence. Which more or less means that the base has already been overrun by friendly forces.

Effectiveness of burster squad and how to kill them:

But don't forget that if this were a well defended base instead of a random AA nest, your friendly outfit medic will spawn and rez these downed AA maxes, and the attackers are back to square one - there simply isn't a way to effectively neutralise anti-aircraft.

Lightning tanks, however, have a spawn timer and cant be raised from the dead. They also have a much harder time hiding.

MAXes have timers.

Regarding your other points about AA, it's true that MAXes can maintain better positions of cover due to our ability to hide around rocks and trees and get into the small shacks like the rest of Infantry, but the only way to reliably do AA MAX work is to be in a position where there is a lot of sky visibility, and not many places that combine the benefits of both accessibility and cover exist. The most entrenched places that permit that are the top of Amp stations and the top floor of vehicle towers. MAXes retreat to the tops of Spawn Buildings after having been forced out of all other good spots. On the solid ground, we're just as open to tank spam as the next Infantryman.

Most good AA entrenchment just means "out in the open" or "behind friendly lines" with "a potential escape route." If people were better with dumbfire rockets - holy hell, Phoenixes - any attempt at utilizing AA at tower bases could crumble like a paper cup. The "larger, more obvious" thing isn't something I can talk about in defense of. We're fairly small, but theoretically should be higher on the rendering queue thus that we can be seen by Air much better; I don't know if I can say anything else in defense of our scale being diminuitive comparatively-speaking.

If only more Combat Medics knew or actually came when I called about "AA MAX down" then maybe my MAX would be OP. As it is, my bigger concern in long engagements where Air is very ambitious, and that is often, is surviving long enough that I outlast my spawn cooldown, or until other people realize "crud, the MAX is down; guess I should roll AA and help."

Not when a medic revives them. Read properly please! Saves a lot of effort!

Yes. However you are free to move around. You dont need a 360 view of the sky - you only need to see enough to shoot at what's currently the threat. E.g. behind a base building, covered from tanks. On top of a tower facility on the airpads, covered from tanks. etc etc.

But that's the worst case scenario. Few if any AA maxes ever put themselves in such compromising positions. I'm saying that AA MAX units have the ability to deeply entrench themselves while still being a persistent threat to enemy air within a large, very large radius.

See above. You only need to see what you're shooting at. Hiding from tanks is all that matters, since liberators don't really have any staying power at all if there's serious anti-aircraft.

the middle of the airpads are safe, except from phoenixes. Idk, that'd be NC's specialty at countering this.

Nono, i was saying that skyguards are larger and more obvious. Can't hide as easily, that is for sure. Regional AA needs to be able to be taken out. Taking out MAX AA at this point in time is not worth the effort simply because being able to take out MAX AA while keeping them down (remember: medics) basically means you have control of the base. Lightnings cant get rezzed.

Yeah, you need to play more in seriously organised platoons. No waiting for people to realise AA needs help, because you will call it out. Medics also can be called to rez you, just say squad and number.

Yeap.

Sure, but people are starting to learn and things are coming together more in terms of tactics. A group of six well organised anything is difficult to counter.

A group of 6 ESF's working togther is pretty darn powerful and difficult to deal with I can assure you. On Miller we have WASP on NC and [DWG] on VS that fly in organised groups. They pretty much go where they want and do what they want, when they want. Nothing is safe from them outdoors. They dictate their battles and they help to move the map for their respective Empires. It's really great to see.

I honestly don't think that we're playing this game the way that it's meant to be played just yet. But I do believe that the signs are there as more and more people learn the game and get smarter about how it works.

I do play with platoons, but I try to avoid engaging in meaningful chatter on squad or platoon channel until I respawn. I consider anything but an "I'm dead" blurb at the time of death exploitative. I'm dead, after-all.

I don't have an issue with them being hard to counter, more of an issue with them being impossible/impractical to counter until the base is captured. This isn't that difficult, but it basically eliminates "take out their region-wide anti-aircraft!" as a viable tactical option.
I just want to improve metagame depth.

Currently, MAX units can get rezzed anytime for free, so a prolonged infantry presence is required to hold down the dead MAX units. This basically only happens when the base is overrun by friendlies. Basically, the game's already over.

Shifting the responsibility to the skyguard 2.0 would make such endeavours possible, but the skyguard would probably be entrenched or otherwise well defended anyway. Equally difficult, but still a practical target to destroy.

Nothing to say other than that you've basically nerfed yourself. Can't argue that your unit is disadvantaged and difficult to play if you impose artificial restrictions on your abilities. Oops.

True gem right there...


I can see how squad focused on destroying enemy AA maxes can do constant hotdrops behind enemy lines and deal with the AA that way. However, if the burster MAXes aren't randoms but part of an organized outfit then they will simply get revived after the incursion has been dealt with.
Argument stands IMHO, denying enemy AA is close to impossible.

About the only gun that can kill a good pilot doing nape of the earth runs is an MBT main gun. As he said, burster maxes need open sky. If you're flying into a covered zone as an ESF pilot, you need to go somewhere else.

I have never had a lone ESF kill my burster max in single combat since I've gotten good with it. You can hear the ESFs from 300m away, and each of them has a different sound, so you can distinguish if its enemy or friendly just from the sound. The stereo on headphones lets me know which way it is, so all I have to do is point in the right direction and scan up and down. I always make sure to press Q as soon as I see it so I can track it on my radar if I lose sight. It takes 1.5 clips to kill an ESF. I've never met an ESF pilot with good enough aim to kill me in 1 run -- so usually they finish their run and as they are jetting away they are done.

So it's very low probability that you can a burster with an ESF.

The appropriate counter to a burster max is an AV MANA turret, MBT spam, etc...

edit: a platform that is taller than the terrain around it, like The Crown, has no counters ... its essentially a ground only fight.

It's fairly hard to die to, true, but it's nearly impossible to miss with and does a good chunk of damage to boot.