Official word on air gameplay?

By that logic Warpgates should not have painfields on them either.

I think you are saying you prefer the "sandbox" game, where people can go where they want and play how they want. I am cool with that.

the possibility to invite friends to a personal trainingroom where we can hang out or test some tactics and stuff.... thats what we need.
the nerf should be the last option

I know this and agree with you.

Prices could use a sizable reduction though, i'd be willing to bet the drink in my hand, that it would double or triple sales, the flipside is that more players would be spending money(more paying customers = more potential sales). Heck if i saw cosmetics at 10 - 20 SC i'd be making frequent purchases. Gotta milk the cow for all you can though, right?

Want to learn how to fly? It's easy:

Step 1: Watch some youtube videos. There are tons of good ones out there. About half of the pilots who are any good started with those.

Step 2: Practice in the warpgate or in VR. Learn how to do the reverse maneuver and how to control your aircraft. Learn how to do tight flips and turns. Practice using your vertical thrust, both up and down. Get used to flying in both third and first person. If you can, find a buddy and practice dogfighting in the safety of the invuln shield. Better yet, see if you can find an experienced pilot to show you some tricks.

Step 3: Don't fly alone. Seriously. If you're new to flying, you're just asking to get stomped on by going out by yourself. Either squad up with some other ESF's, or just find one flying out of the warpgate and follow it around. At the very least, you have someone who can soak up some damage before running away. Oh yeah, don't be afraid to run. If you're caught in a bad situation and you can find a way to either escape, or reengage from a position of equal footing, do that. Don't just let yourself be shot to death uselessly.

There's no reason to dumb down the air game. It takes a little bit of practice, and if you're new, maybe you might have to actually try talking to someone. Just do it. You'll improve your air game far faster than you will by complaining on the forums.

This "It's easy" is followed by a wall of text and doesn't come with the disclaimer that it is just plain going to take you 100 hours in an ESF just to start feeling comfortable in a dogfight.

It took me far less than 100 hours. By the time I hit 100 hours, I was already pretty well established as one of the better pilots on my server. It didn't take a lot of time to get good, it took a little bit of knowing how to learn.

And for the record, 200 hours in my reaver and I still get absolutely wrecked by pilots who are better than me. It happens to everyone.

I agree but that's why sales.

I never buy anything that's not 50% off.

Holiday category sales really facilitates that. The 99SC sales are nice too.

Cheaper ESFs is a great idea IMO - it's not like we can't chain pull them with nanites the way they are now, may as well make it easier for the newbies to get comfy in the pilot's seat.

And just because this is a flying thread... check my shiny new sig

I think they mean they want the air game to be less 30 foot vertical object with a 5 degree incline, and more like a 30 foot horizontal object with about a 45 degree rise.

Look - no one gives dog crap about crappy air-game quality or it being hard for noobs. If you can't handle it - dont get up in the air. If you want to fly - go play another game. If you think devs care - go play another game. PS2 is for those who can do what devs designed it to do and no one else. Everyone else is just peasant meant for farming and thus will be farmed.

it happens in every game with aircraft

GUISE, GUISE! Ive got it! Replace the flak rounds the Skyguard fires with Decimator rockets. WIN WIN FOR EVERYONE!


At least one of you will take me seriously.

I want a "dogfight" game, not a hover game.
I want mouseyaw, not mouseroll. (with different sensitivity horizontal & vertical ). Bonus points for using mouseposition instead of mousemovement. (in 'mouseposition' you move the mouse up, and the aircraft keeps looping. The further up, the tighter the loop).

IMO: in a dogfight scenario, the A2A lockon missiles can stay.
As soon as hover goes out the window, you're getting locks off in the following situations:
-enemy closing. -> Ok, he can lock-on too, or nosegun back. If you start locking on too late, you get zero damage off. If the enemy flares, you get zero damage. If the enemy dodges, you get zero damage.
-enemy at long range-> In this case, as long as you can point the nose, enemy movement doesn't matter. However, at long range, that gives the enemy plenty of time to flare, to duck for cover/try to dodge, or, as long as there aren't three of you, to turn tail and run.
-on the enemies 6'o clock. Congratulations, you are winning the dogfight. At short range, nosegun> A2A lockon because of aiming, manoevring and losing the lock etc. A2A lockon becomes a "finisher" weapon.

Coyotes however, at point blank range can pull 180°s to hit. Current coyotes are a big no-no for a dogfight environment.
I would suggest becoming a mid-range weapon: the pilot can fire whenever, the current coyote 'lockon' range is reduced significantly, but the coyotes are guided towards the enemy plane as long as the pilot is 'locking on' the enemy plane, to a range 67% that of tomcats. Damage per coyote buffed by 25-50%. Consider reducing reload time to 3s. Or don't buff coyote damage, and lower to 2s, whatever.
In return, you only get 2 per magazine, and the cert cost is reduced significantly. (250 certs to unlock)
-> This is a "noob-friendly" weapon:
at short range, you fire when the enemy is inside the 'lockon' box, and you'll get of some damage.
out to medium range, you can likewise do guided plinks-plink, but you have to keep nosing the enemy, even after launch. That said, even if you fail, the coyote has a small 'autohit' range, so it could still work.
Because there are only 2 missiles/magazine, killing with a nosegun goes significantly faster.
You get a large "reservoir" so you can miss plenty of shots (loosing lock, enemy flares,..) and still have ammo.

Using flares will affect coyotes, both guided and "dumb" ones closing in.

As a bonus, in a dogfight environment, flares become a pretty good idea.
Don't complain about being shot down by lock-ons if you were to stubborn to run flares.

Reduce the cert cost line of flares to that of fire suppresion.
Tadaaa.

I love ESFs, they are like a helicopter from BF3, except much more fun to fly. I think the issue most people have with them at first is the weird controls. But once you get used to it, those controls help you do all kind of crazy maneuvers.

I hope SOE doesn't change things much about the flight mechanics. I would love it though, if they would make ESFs more useful in big battles, and less useful for farming infantry and ganking. have some ideas about how they could do that, but I won't bother getting into them here.

I think simply increasing the ESF top speed on all ESFs to 350 KPH or more would help a lot.

ESFs just move so slow that once engaged, you cannot pull out. The physics in the game is rather poor, making dives and climbs or the basic use of Conservation of Energy useless.

The Airgame is hard in PS2 not because it's unique; but because it's archaic. It feels very primitive, with way-out've date controls and fighters that cannot disengage unless another friendly happens to be there to draw fire.

In a 1v1 scenario, it's just that hard to disengage. there is no speed to do.

If we simply raised the average top speed of all ESFs by another 100 KPH, things my change because Noobies may then have enough speed to break away from a fight. To stay engaged, sure keep the stupid circle jerk / group masturbation RMs and Hover duels. That way, when it comes to disengaging; it's finally possible.

I used to be an avid flight sim / space sim fighter pilot. I love that arena of combat. I don't think PS2 will ever enlighten me like Freespace 2 did back in the day but I do still see an option in increasing the top of end of ESF speed helping the noobs at least GET AWAY.

They should learn the hard way if they don't run. But once they learn to run, let them run. That's the first rule of success in battle. Know when to retreate, live to fight again. That's how they get better.

Right now the only way to Run is simply redeploying...

And of course I support the whole flying in groups thing. Pretty much any activity in PS2 when new should be with groups. Always.

Air game?
I thought this was combined arms?

SoE should

1.) Enable friendly fire in the VR Training Room when you move beyond the vehicle dummies outside the shooting range. Find a way to get rid of the warning beeps as well o.o

2.) Remove the idiotic 'upgrades' on the AB pods and return them to their former welfare glory.

3.) Reduce the lock-on reticule size of the AA missiles down to the size of a default nose-gun, and reduce missile velocity and lock-range. Nerfnerfnerfnerfnerfnerfnnnn.... nerf coyote damage and homing radius as well.

SoE shouldn't make air combat like the rest of vehicle combat, which is little more than I SHOT YOU FIRST SIR I HAVE WON GIVE ALL THE CERTS TO ME NOW THANK YOU

I dont think the esfs can go any faster and not mess up the whole game.
Right now if you have max racer and afterburn you'll pretty much cross half the continent in like 3 seconds (I did not measure this, it's just an estimate)
If they flew any faster I think rendering and loading and all that would be an issue.


I also dont see why the logic on why making the esf faster will give noobs a chance to run.. wouldnt the other esf be able to chase you anyway?

btw in a 1v1 scenario there is definitely a huge chance of running, as long as you have max AB equipped.

hover duels is actually the old meta.... I hardly see hover duels anymore, its more ganking and strafing. at least thats my experience, i no longer see ESFs hovering except when shooting at the ground.

The skill curve and depth for ESF vs. ESF is really neat. It provides the knowledgeable and skilled player with such an extreme advantage, that they will very rarely lose against a lower skilled opponent of equal numerical strength. But it really has no place in an MMOFPS that relies on combined arms for counters.

The ability for an Ace or 2+ players in a Gank Squad to lock down enemy Air in a non-zerg region, warps the combined arms aspect of the game (especially on lower pop regions or times). Allowing a few players to impact the game vastly disproportionate to their numbers, out of sync with ecosystem of every other unit in the game.

ESFs are neat and ESF vs. ESF combat with all its skill and depth is neat. But it doesn't fit well with the rest of the game.

The max AB comment is why I suggest this. The max AB works because if you're opponent has an offensive secondary equipped, you do get away. You get away because you can hold your max speed longer and thus getting the distance. The problem right now is that ESFs are so slow that you're still within weapon's range when trying to disengage on even ground. And this why most of the nice pro's suggest using the AB kits; to break that bubble.

The opposing ESF can chase, but if you're locked into combat an you target attempts to disengage, you may already be behind the lead and will have no choice but to reset the engagement. Just like if you don't have max AB but the noob you just tried to gank does.

True air combat is sometimes compared to complicated sex. You have to know when to make your advance and how to dance prior to actually getting into the thick of it. The high speed of air combat is why this is so.
ESFs are not really all that high speed so they really feel like infantry play in a way; 3 dimensional infantry. There for, it's not very fluid.

I do agree though that most hover combat is gone; but at least from what I've seen? Its only because people are traveling in packs now. "Gank Squads" don't need to hover duel when only one of their's is pulling fire and the rest just need to close in and kill shot the aggressor. In that situation, it's best to keep moving.

I also think the AA game is pretty much forcing this as well. Duelist are easy pickin's.