New ESF Weapons and Cert Lines - 01/10/2014

First off, simply having a guided bullet in an FPS game is not absurd, the same way as having tanks and infantry in the game is absurd. The idea that you said that as a finality really shows a lack of depth. This is the same stuff people love to jump on board the band wagon against, yet if A2A missiles were so over powered, why do the majority of ESF pilots use guns and after burners? You can't tell me that they all "want to play fair". VS sure did not have a problem constantly spawning army's of MAX's when the first ZoE went live. Nearly every NC top turret sported an enforcer when it was a 1hk, and nearly every TR uses the striker. So why do you think we do not see the majority of ESF pilots using A2A lock-on missiles?

I have to say, i finally d/l pts client and went to test the new ESF things... hated everyone of them, now u need the afterburner tanks to be able to dogfight(even us bad pilots), no more lolopod ESF/LIB/GAL kills since u need the tanks.

Guided missiles did still too much damage and are too easy mode = Remove em plz.

New nose gun is useless and nobody aint gonna use, not even the new pilots.

a2am changes is good, but i hope we get our certs backs from em cos of the big change.

No changes to AH? why? it should be almost like it was before the nerf, since it shoots explosive rounds.. more damage from close and more from range, atm it only tickles if u shoot with it even from 50m away, cant even 1 shot infantry most of the times from range cos of the spread.

ON the other hand ,just remove the ESF from game and u SOE have less things on ur mind, 5%(or less) of the player base is pilots so why bother to make ESF update for em over Hossin(80% of players play infantry).

Troll on ^^

2 nights ago was on trying stuff out. Forgot to post my thoughts here.

Fuel Pods, love them.

Guided Missiles - Seemed a little weak, but then I realized, they have a range thats 100m greater than most effective AA. So I'm ok with that.

Coyotes - Something was acting funny with them. And I believe they're exploitable.
- The weird issues I had with them was they weren't consistently working. At times they'd curve to their target, other times they'd just fly right by. - Also, if I were right on top of a target, they'd make 90*+ turns to hit their target, which doesn't seem right. Intended or not?

- The Exploitable issue I found was that Coyotes are essentially Semi-Auto. Doing some dogfighting I found on a pass a guy launched all his Coyotes all at once. Now realistically that doesn't happen, but even clicking real fast, while they launched faster, I couldn't replicate what he'd done. My guess is a clicking macro.

Finally, new nose-gun. Didn't seem to have enough punch for Libs/Gals. vs other ESFs it seemed a good tradeoff, and perhaps that's the intent. But to do anything serious to a Lib or Gal (which would be an A2A role) I found it extremely underwhelming.

I never said Tomcats are overpowered. I however am constantly saying they are detrimental to the game as a whole.

That being said, the reasons why not more people use Tomcats are multitude, but one of them certainly is NOT that they are weak against air. It's more that you can't farm ground targets with them, like you can with rocketpods, and that overall they are boring once you get past the "wow I actually killed something" wide-eyes phase on your learning curve.

Except once the missile is in the air, it's too late to hide, and you can't tell a tomcat carrying ESF from a distance. Do you even know what the word "proactive" means?

Are you trying to troll? If so, you are really bad at it...

Lemmie break it down for you since you seem to think inside a very small 2 dimensional box...

• Knowing if an ESF has Tomcats or not isn't required, but is nice to know.
  • You can tell if a Reaver or Mosquito is running Tomcats. Scythes are another story entirely.
    • The word of the day is: "Zoom"
• It is not too late to do something after the missile is in the air.
  • Read update notes.
    • Missile turn speed bug has been fixed.
    • Shooter must maintain lock to hit the target.
  • What this means to you:
    • You can evade the missile while the shooter is maintaining the lock.
    • You can break the lock by getting behind something.
    • You can break the lock by maneuvering out of their targeting reticle.

Once you have soaked up the above information, continue reading below :|

• Proactive evasion (very basic and generic theorycrafting )
  • Pre-Lock and Pre-Launch:
    • Close distance to point-blank range.
      • Limits opponent's capability to attain a lock and fire.
    • Locate and utilize basic cover to prevent reliable lock.
      • Like above, this limits the opponent's capability to attain a lock and fire.
      • Coincidentally, this will generally cause the opponent to close distance for you so they can use the gun, or scurry off to their warpgate in total fear.
    • Operate in a manner/location/area that prevents opponents from attaining a reliable lock or where you can evade the missile and/or break the lock with limited effort.
  • Post-Strike and/or Post-Evasion
    • To help you understand the combat flow just a tad... You have reacted to an attack already by evading, attempting to evade, turning to engage, or whatever it is that you did. Now you need to be proactive in not getting shot again. So look up a few lines and re-read "Pre-Lock and Pre-Launch" for what to do here.

I was commenting on your usage of the word pro-active,so it's your "very small 2 dimensional box", not mine. I'm not saying it's 100% impossible to evade a missile, I'm just saying that evading is not proactive.
Currently the only real pro-active measure is flying low (asking for a tank shell in your face).
The idea of spotting someone carrying tomcats using zoom and hiding in reaction to that is ridiculous. How many times could you have realistically done that?

As for "Missile turn speed bug has been fixed.", I reserve the right to call ********. Ever since missiles became "smart" (GU 4 or so) for no reason other than the devs wanting to pat each other on their backs, there has been numerous "fixes" of this or that but nothing really changed. It took them more than half a year to fix something as simple as flares.
I will be pleasantly surprised if missiles actually become evadable, but I'm not betting on it. The devs, at least some of them, obviously kee nurturing the idea that lockons need to be a magic scourge of the sky, instead of self-defense short range weapons. This update has certainly not made me believe otherwise.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evasion

Essentially, the act of evading can be proactive and it can be reactive. Depends on what is done and when. Dictionaries. They are such a wonderful thing, aren't they?

As for spotting someone with tomcats... Not nearly as ridiculous as you obviously think. I haven't counted how many times, but its a ton. I pick out my targets like that a lot of the time. Kill the guy with A2A first then the others fall into their place.

Pre-PU02 missiles were very evadable. As SOE has stated in multiple locations, the turning speed for the Tomcats being extremely high is a bug that was introduced when they made changes to G2A. They also stated that they are returning it to the previous levels. They haven't been fixing that since GU04 (March, right?). That wasn't broken like this in GU04.

Ok i must of misread the intent of the post. So if they are not overpowered how are they a detriment to the game?

What are the reasons? You fail to explain anything in this post, except that people like rocket pods because they like killing ground targets. Again, its funny how every ace pilot on the forums here and reddit strongly advocate going guns and after burners and not rocket pods or air to air missiles when fighting air.

Again you state that people gain kills from A2A missiles who otherwise would not. If this where true, why wouldn't the majority of pilots who plan to fight against air use them? I simply cannot believe that the vast majority finds killing another pilot boring regardless of how it was done. What your advocating here is that pilots in planetside are magically different then 99% of the rest of humanity, and all simultaneously decide to pick challenging weapons to use instead of easy weapons. This is complete BS considering all of those video's on how to fly, and nearly every forum post points at the best gun and best setup to use. The air hammer, the rotary. If what you say had any merit why are there not any posts advocating using default load outs without upgrades, or shooting down planes with rocket pods because "It's not boring"?

Yes. Picking the tomcat boy first is the usual option. I wouldn't count that as "proactive evasion", but that's just me.

It was the Striker "only" at first, and the flares, then other lockons, then again flares, etc. etc. I'm not really interested in the details of the history of planetside bugs, I'm just saying it's rich and shameful. And because of that I'm not overly trusting that suddenly everything is "fixed".

Just checked the test server update. Coyote missiles are now full-auto and possibly even better for close combat.

I'm also wondering if they are going to stay with the NS look for everyone's Coyotes (and Hornets), or give the VS version a different look, like with Tomcats/Photons. (To me it just doesn't look quite right seeing Coyotes and Hornets attached to a Scythe.)

also I didn't say they are not overpowered. Do you have some sort of reading/comprehending insufficiency? Why are you so fixed on "OP or not OP" as if there was nothing else?

You seem a bit confused in basic points of game playability.

PS2 is not a money winning endeavour. Winning in it is nice, but without a challenge it means nothing. Using tomcats, shooting down other aircraft will inevitably become without challenge, almost to a point of pity over the helpless enemies. A game without challenge is as boring as is game against impossible odds (for the new pilots). And these both are detrimental to the game, and that is why I'm voicing against their inclusion in the game.

An air force focused on wining (say in an outfit vs outfit all-out tournament, such as the "Indar lane" one) will inevitably have to use tomcats/coyotes, but certainly not on all of their ESFs because without A2G capability the air superiority would lose its point.

That being said, the tomcat is a weapon best suited to chasing down your opponent. That means it will work well for a somewhat experienced pilot attacking a new one, because the noob will usually sooner or later panic and try to run. It will however work far worse against an aspiring pilot or an actual ace, because those will always fearlessly face you and shoot you down unless you can show some nosegun skills. But how can you have any such, when all you do is point in the general direction of away running foes?
This is why I think tomcats are in particular detrimental to the declared goal of SOE of easing the way up for new players. None of this changes with tomcats requiring manual locking until impact, and none of this has anything to do with any weapon being or not being OP.

To answer why piloting videos/guides will not talk about equipping tomcats: their skill ceiling is pretty low and you can indeed achieve more with rocketpods or AB tanks, while having more fun. This will be even more so when AB tanks can be certed up.

I have not been able to get on PTS since this patch. I have re-installed, made a new character, deactivated antivirus, checked error logs, ran as admin, etc. I have tried everything I can think of and also submitted a ticket to support. This is a bummer because my outfit has scrims on PTS and I have already missed 3 of them because of this. PLEASE HELP!

And before anyone asks - yes, I did try turning the computer off an then on.... even that didn't fix it

Anyone know What this patch added today?

Yay I can't get on either game broke.

Perhaps the problems with comprehention lay in you not saying that the tomcats are Overpowered, and not saying they are NOT overpowered, and then saying that they provide no challenge because they are easy to use, and kill things with ease, which is the very definition of OVERPOWERED. At his point i'm curious if you really do not understand what words like balance, overpowered, and majority population mean.

If you want to contridict yourself constantly, atleast admit to what your doing, else it doesn't look like a joke, and it makes you look like a complete fool.

Most likely, since it is not a word. That would mean what? The ability to play a game? Are you suggesting using tomcat missiles make the game unplayable? Again, i really do not think you understand what you are saying.

This is your view of the game, not everyone else. According to this, their would be no cheaters in any FPS game ever. Winning a modern warfare map, or battlefield map is the same as taking over a base in planetside 2. Infact planetside 2 has more consequences attached to it, considering that the map litterly changes ownership over it.

Infact Planetside 2 has gone at great efforts to ban cheaters in planetside 2, even so much as the contraversial smedly comment threatening a cheating kid.

So what your basicly saying is that no one would cheat or use unfair advantages in an FPS. At this point i really must question your sanity. Anyone who is reading your quote is most likely questioning it as well.

People play multiplayer games against each other, to beat each other, else we would all be on the same team, fighting nothing or bots. Winning means something, or else we would sit in warp gate all day (perhaps you do). Cheating, all though childish, is a common response to ensuring a win. To suggest that the majority of players do not use the best, most over powered weapon, means you are either are wrong and don't want to admit it, or never played a multiplayer game against anyone in your life. In short your full of crap.

Funny, we have had the MLG "War Report" for atleast 12 episodes, and that was like 6 months ago last i checked. I do not recall any team using any lock-on missile ever. Infact, on the planes without A2G capability, specificed as A2A ESF's by their own teams/outfits, they carried after burner's and primary guns. In fact, any Pro Pilot will tell you that the A2A missiles are a waste, because nearly every enemy pilot has flares, and even if they do not, that they almost never will get the second missiles off on even most novice pilots, as a "turning fight" devolpes, which exclusivly (perhaps not with cayotes now) favors the Guns. I suggest searching the forums for pro pilot tips and youtube. I believe Wrel talked about how bad they suck.

So an expierenced pilot can kill an newbie with a missile and a gun, but a newbie cannot kill an expierenced pilot with a missile. It's also apparently bad because it can kill a non expierenced pilot who is running away (and doesn't have flares). Sounds like the gun is extreamly situational, and only seems to come in to play AFTER the fight has been decided (one guy is running).

Your right. And this is exactly why no ace uses it. They would much rather use a reliable nose gun, because they know they can kill with it, and there is no obvious counter like Flares.

You yourself said they where easy to use. So your saying it's better to have difficult to use weapons to help new players? Brilliant game design! Lets make piloting as hard as possible to get a kill so that the bar of entry is so high that no new players will bother to fly! Sounds like your scared of getting killed by a newb to me.

And yes, ease of use impacts game player. If something is to easy to use (Such as an aimbot sniper rifle) certainly effect the popularity, use and effects it has on gameplay. This is what your complaining about. It is to easy to use and kill with the A2A launcher. Seriously, look up game balance and the terms over powered and under powered...

Seriously? The guide video's don't talk about A2A missiles because they are "low skill"? Your just blatantly pulling stuff out your ***. There are many begainer guides talking about A2A missiles. They talk about the limitations of the missiles.

Your arguement is really poorly thought out, and constantly contradicts itself. It reeks of someone who has jumped on a bandwagon, yet doesn't honestly understand what the bandwagon is about.

My main beef with A2A missiles is the boring "wait half a second, click, hit... repeat" mechanic, and the fact that they're basically an "I win" button for any half-decent ESF pilot against Liberators. None of the upcoming changes affect the ESF v Lib dynamic of lock-ons at all because there's no way I can evade or outrun the missiles and an ESF can still reverse almost faster than I can chase it. Since roughly O:MFG my server has suddenly discovered A2A and it makes it even more difficult to fly Lib than it was before with the broken Striker. At least I could move faster than a Heavy with a Striker.

"easy to use" and "overpowered" are not synonyms
"low skill" I don't know what means in your head, but I'm pretty sure it's not synonym to "low skill ceiling". Or maybe it is, but it again does not mean something is overpowered.

Why there are cheaters? You said it yourself, they're childish. You should question their sanity, not mine. But maybe you are affected too? Newsflash: there's no such thing as map ownership in Planetside. It's all just virtual colors and virtual points in a computer game. It's the children and broken minds who succumb to the illusion so much they feel the need to cheat. Monopoly money will not make you rich.

You seem to indicate I'm contradicting the possibility that something is overpowered because it's easy to use. Well I'm not. I just don't want to pass that judgement as I don't think it's relevant. Tomcats are situational, more so than some other weapons, but they certainly are powerful enough.
You seem to argue that "No Aces use it" = "it's not overpowered" = "it's balanced" = "it's ok to stay in the game"
I'm saying "little challenge to the user, and usually impossible odds to the target" = "it's boring" = "it shouldn't exist in a FPS game"
I'm not talking about balance of power at all. So stop your fits and start arguing actual points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameplay#Playability
My argument is "poorly thought out" yet it's you who doesn't know basic terms? hmm...

Introducing new pilots is not an easy problem, but giving them a boring crutch-weapon is certainly not the solution. They need to learn to maneuver and aim precisely, tomcats cultivate the opposite.

Any chance I could get a refund for my Breaker rocket pods? The Hornets sound F-ing amazing!

So how is it that you believe something you brought up somehow becomes an example of proactive evasion? Please feel free to explain this one since I never said it was. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Here is a refresher on the conversation, you obviously need it.

Note: I never said anything about looking for or seeing if there was a tomcat carrying ESF in the area prior to this. You brought it up, not me.

FYI: That is reactive.

You are a very special cookie, aren't you?