Air lock on launchers are utterly useless, still. Pod spamming aircraft just sits there, waits for the 6 second lock while A2G farming and just needs to use a boost to outrun it or just roll and dodge them, reloading and returning for more pod spam. They just facepalm you at 20 feet and run away because they know there's no deterrent from allowing them to do it. It's really a high cheese way to play. Ground lock on is basically the same. The amount of damage on MBT's, especially Prowlers with twin cannons, 4 cannon top gun and a barrier is another "I'll just sit here, undeterred and keep firing while you flick your sling shot at me" is frustrating. There has to be a better, viable way to make that kind of gameplay offer a risk. There needs to be better counters and balance with launchers. The way it's been is all aircraft are flying tanks, even light aircraft which is the main complaint. They are fast and agile but supposed to be fragile as it's counter. The damage output of launchers and the lock on time negates that IMHO Lets include the fact that Hossin doesn't even allow you to get a clear lock to protect your base because of all the cover
Lock-on launchers in their correct state are joke - they require 3 hits to destroy ESF, while ESF can easily outrun or dodge them. Tryhard ESF pilots dodge them easily, then return to kill the launcher. Same story with tanks - god knows how many hits needed to kill a tank, shooting lockon in tank now is a suicide, because tank has plenty of time to find that unlucky guy and kill him. Right now lock-ons are useful only agains heavily damaged targets. Lock-ons right now need at least 2x damage buff.
Absolutely agree. Attempting to fire-attack any NSO anti-air... eg. Swarm, hummingbird or pixie often results in being easily outpaced and outmaneuvered. Laughably, if you're playing as NSO, you lack a hitscan option akin to an airburster MAX, so a single flare can spell your doom without a chance of retaliation. I've previously discussed the issue of air-to-ground (A2G) being overly dominant due to its capability for hovering and loitering to secure kills. Should the developers eliminate the ESF's ability to hover in combat, enforcing continuous forward motion to stay airborne, it would significantly cut down the time an aircraft can spend targeting ground units, yet retain its offensive power. This change would shift dogfighting dynamics to focus more on skillful maneuvering and evasion, moving away from the current strategy of hovering in place to unload ammunition.
Yall have clearly no idea, how insane your claims are. So I'll give you a quick rundown to how i see the whole dilemma, since i see a lot of people complaining about it. Counters to a2g: - Burster Max (you can even sit inside the spawn room and be invulnerable) - Your own ESF - it's actually not hard to learn the basics, which is usually enough to go out there, pull your own ESF and kill that pesky a2g nerd, since most of the a2g players are specced full a2g, with no means to counter regular noseguns. - Skyguard - does at least as much damage close range, as a burster, and a good skyguard player can sometimes hit me even out of render range (which is by the way broken, in its own way) - Literally any AP shell can one shot an ESF. Also a2g esfs are usually an easy target for AP, since they mostly just hover around, rocket pod spamming. Lockons are just a lazy and boring way to say no, I'm not gonna use any nanites to counter a guy, who used his own nanites in the first place to use a2g. Same goes for no, I'm not gonna invest time (probably just 2-3 hours) to learn to fly and kill the a2g player that way. Yes lockons are still an option but considering how easy and cost-free they are to use, it's very obvious to me, why they can't possibly be as powerful as you'd wish them to be. Now to your other claim about tanks: Tanks are in most cases not a threat against infantry (or bases, in case you built your base properly, or if there's not a tank colomn of 20 tanks running down your base, in which case you can't do anything). If there's a hesh tank farming infantry, there's still multiple easy ways to counter it: - Pull your own tank - in case there are no other tanks nearby, AP, HE, Viper (basically any other tank cannon, than hesh) will out-dps the hesh tank, assuming you hit your shots. - Spawn as Light Assault, sneak up on said hesh tank (which is usually too distracted farming infantry to even notice) and blow him up with C4 - If you have a buddy, pull a Lib with any ground based cannon (yes the default gun "Shredder" works perfectly) and watch the tank melt in seconds - Since we were speaking about ESFs, im gonna make the point here again, learn the basics, they only take a few hours. And at that point, theres a few anti-tank options here as well - Wyrms for long range, Hornets for close range. And i will also make the same point here for lockons: they are a cheap and easy option to damage ground targets, but you can't expect them to do crazy damage, since the tank player used nanites and you didn't have to (not even speaking about having to spend multiple thousands of certs upgrading the tank). As of now, the game is fairly balanced imo: if you wanna easily counter something, that cost nanites to pull, you need to invest your own nanites for that in some shape or form (C4, Air, Tanks). If you don't want to invest nanites, you still have an option to damage and eventually deter whatever threat you're facing, it just takes longer. I hope you were able to see my points here and reconsider some of your arguments. Also give a try to ESFs, it really doesn't take much time to learn the basics and it's a really fun and rewarding playstyle. Just make sure you have someone to teach you, it's a lot harder to learn by yourself. If you don't know any people who fly, there's literally a discord server dedicated to flying and has a channel, where you can ask people for help, as well as a load of guides and helpful videos for beginners and advanced players alike, here's the link: https://discord.com/invite/rCkAhME9 And as always, see yall planetside o7
Are you guys solo Infantry Players? Because by the sounds of your complaints, you are. This game is not balanced around solo players. It's balanced around squad and platoon play, and thus the power scaling of things are tuned as such. A solo player is not meant to be able to hand a FORCE MULTIPLIER like an ESF themselves. The very idea idea of a FORCE MULTIPLIER is to allow a small number of players to have a bigger impact for a price; with price in this case being nanites. Lock-ons don't need any changes. Why? They're essentially free (no cost to them other than lock-on time) In a Squad or Platoon play, there is likely multiple Heavy Assaults, and thus likely several lock-ons. 3 is enough to take out an ESF before they can even react with something like Fire Suppression. While its true an ESF can evade a lock-on, hitting them even a little is enough to deter them for atleast a short time. They'll likely go land and repair somewhere safe, in the meantime they won't be bothering you. Unless you're NC or NS, there are effective alternatives to lock-ons in the form of the Lancer for VS and the Striker for TR; these weapons may not have the kill potential of a lock-on, but instead they're easier to use at range, and are better a deterring enemy air.
