Patch notes: The ability to aim a liberator nosegun while piloting the aircraft at the same time requires aiming skill, coordination, positioning, backed by tens of thousands of certs into the vehicle to make it viable, followed by a long search for gunners or other liberator pilots who also enjoy the playstyle and who are also online to fly with you during times air is not completely shut down by enemy A2A lockons or G2A sources of all types on every front, effectively grounding you for a time either due to lack of nanites or because the squad disbands waiting for better scenarios to pull them. Squads don't call for air during battles. Vehicle play is limited to "pull some sundies, a skyguard, and a few tanks" only to either get destroyed on the way to a base, or to become quickly irrelevant because we need to dismount and capture the objective or redeply elsewhere where we are more effective. Valkyries are used for small squads, and for dumping on sundies with C4 faeries and heavies with rocket launchers of all types. Galaxies are used for transport for larger squads. ESFs may be used for quick transport for terminal hacking or spawn beacons. Liberators? No need for this slow expensive air vehicle that nobody can fly or cert properly, that can't coordinate with a full platoon, that requires one or two squad members to redeply away from platoon waypoints and good fights to the warpgate, to sit in a gunner position waiting for targets that may never arrive. You also need a separate fireteam, a mic that happens to work for all 3 members sorting through at least 2 other voice channels happening at the same time. This is not combined arms but infantryside. Off-hours trying to use your vehicle means doing solo liberator, vulnerable to every half-competent ESF pilot, or at least standing some chance by hotswapping to hyenas and vektor - back when you could aim it. Might as well pull an ESF and filling any role a solo lib could more effectively without waiting ages to retreat, repair, re-engage targets that are long gone. Discovering that both the Tank Buster and Vektor could be aimed within a limited range from the cockpit was the reason I decided to build my own liberators (one for VS, one for TR), spend real cash for cosmetics on them, and obviously grind the tons of certs without even making all that much use of them because of the existing difficulties as listed above. Revert this nerf. Noseguns should no longer demolish tanks so 'easily' with the new 1.5x flank multiplier. If a lib needs to rely on its nosegun to take out its target, it's a solo who is vulnerable to everything, or it's softening the target - in a bombing dive - to orchestrate with the main gunner. If liberator nosegun power truly remains a problem, add a damage dropoff to the vektor so the liberator has to sit in vulnerable positions closer to the target. The tank buster already has large bullet spread and dropoff and is limited to ground armor already so really not sure why this also received this nerf. Restore the ability to aim the pilot guns. I do not understand what feedback was given and by whom regarding the difficulty in aiming and piloting the liberator. That's the whole point, allowing some more difficult gameplay with rewards for improving with it. I did the work to remap my entire PS2 keybinds to accommodate flying, ground armor, and infantry. This is a complex game. No need to dumb it down to cater to the lowest common denominators who will never appreciate the game anyways or stick around if their attention span rivals an ant to learn anything, and who have endless other games out there that are way simpler. It is also not that hard for a new player to simply position their liberator over a target, then leave it in hover or a slow forward slide, hold right click and aim the pilot gun, let go, and proceed to fly off. Again, if power for the game balance was a problem, tweak the damage dropoff a little, that much I can understand, but restore the ability to aim the tank buster and vektor.
From what im reading its only when you are using an optic. I dont use optics when doing A2A. If you are using optics when shooting at ground targets, well you should know that air vehicles aren't allowed to kill infantry players. Only tankers and kobalt equipped vehicles are allowed to farm infantry. As you were.
Just tested it in live, the two guns are now fully locked in place. So you must be one of those good lib pilots, and you're okay with this outright removal of playstyle? It's now either be an air taxi for your two other guns, if they are manned, or farm infantry with the Spur cause somehow that's okay and not OP in an way. The better and cheaper alternative is just go A2G ESF. As already mentioned, if it was a question of the vektor being OP, why not address that by tweaking its damage as opposed to fusing it. This is no longer the same game environment it was years ago for someone to just revert a change 'as it was intended' and expect it to be all okay. Someone please correct me, but these sudden and future planned changes overall feels like one developer suddenly took an interest in prowlers, and decided let's buff them and nerf anything that could counter them. That's the irony, I enjoy infantryside primarily, but have dumped endless certs and time to occasionally enjoy the other gameplay aspects offered as a refreshing change or break from using endless variations of the same infantry guns that have been auraxiumed enough times.
Dude the world ain't gonna end. This is simply reverting a pretty broad change that was questionable to begin with. Libs ran this way for years without issue. They still all have the afterburner. You'll be ok.
The vortek was overpowered in lib vs lib combat. I have more kills than anyone on connery with the vortek so i can attest to this fact. Liberators were intended to be used with gunners, not as solo A2A platforms which is what they became to some degree. I'm happy with this change. Don't think it should apply to the spur though. But i dont farm infantry so i don't really know.
I was backwards. I spent my first couple of years only flying, then switched to infantry after giving up on the vehicle game. Then left the game entirely after becoming aware of all the infantry frustrations. This just isn't the tactical combined arms game I wanted it to be. And that's OK, I'll just be elsewhere.
All vehicles require certs to maximize. A Battle Galaxy is more expensive to cert out than a Liberator because it has 4 guns instead of 3, and you have to utilize multiple roles in it: stealth, repair, ammo, jammer, etc. Flying a Liberator is easy, and I should know because I am arguably one of the better Lib pilots for the TR on Emerald. Having the ability to aim the nosegun was OP. You dive, bust the initial target, pull up with High-G and let the Dalton get the kill. Now, armor actually stands a chance, and that is how it should be. Also, ESFs stand a chance since you can no longer track them in flight as easily. If your squads do not call for air support, then they are doing it wrong. Mine do all of the time. Countless times my Lib crews have taken out enemy Sunderers that were converging on a base, or, are set up at the base and because of the deploy shields, LAs had trouble taking them out. I can fly it, cert it, and utilize it just fine. I can name around 20 other Lib pilots across all factions on my server that are also as equally competent. If you have Logistics Specialist and Ammo printer, you are golden (I do). Boots on the ground is what wins. Infantry are the ones that push into a point and capture it, or defend it. Air and Armor are support roles. Once you embrace that concept, you'll be fine.
Boots on the ground is what wins. Infantry are the ones that push into a point and capture it, or defend it. Air and Armor are support roles. Once you embrace that concept, you'll be fine. It shouldnt be this way. They put points down for vehicles to cap, but for some reason infantry can capture them too. What we need is points which only vehicles can capture. And we need points high in the sky that only air can capture. Then we need a max range on flak so that when we are 1 kilometer away they arent STILL hitting us, and also so that when we are up in the sky capping the point we dont become fish in a barrel. I suggest a point in the sky with an anomaly sized bubble around it that deflects flak. This would apply only to 3 or 4 point bases of course. 1 point bases should probly still be for infantry. Although you could change that up too.
thats right, nerf lib to death. First Dalton nerf cause esf was one shot.... wow you need to hit this little fast thing! And now Pilots cant aim anymore.... I feel like a Valkyr Pilot in there.... Change it i want my old nosegun back!
Dalton needed a nerf. There are still gunners who can ALWAYS hit you. Dunno if its hitbox hacks or aimbots or just skill, but dalton libs equipped with hyenas are just as deadly as dalton libs without hyenas used to be. Libs should be much more resistant to flak. They are supposed to be the counter to ground vehicle zergs for which there currently is NO counter. ESF escorts should be needed for successful liberators. The lib pounds the ground vehicles into rubble and the A2A esf escort protects the lib from other ESF. But that would be combined arms, and that isnt what this game is.
There was a joke back in the day, A liberator walks into a bar, there is no counter. The last thing libs need is to be more tanky. Actually I'd be fine with them having twice as much hp, as long as they lost 75% of their dmg.
"inability to maneuver the Liberator while aiming" You can't be serious. The aiming literally made the lib more versatile since you don't have to turn your whole chunk of an aircraft. Besides, afaik didn't the system before catered for both types of pilots who wanted to swivel aim and those who prefer to shoot it as it was originally intended?
As someone that flies Libs quite a bit, has everything unlocked and maxed, and wrecks armor / other aircraft with my crew, I will honestly say that being able to aim the Tankbuster or Vektor was OP. When you are diving on armor, a counter to not get destroyed was to move away at your flanks. That threw off the aim when the guns were fixed. When they made them aimable, you simply stayed on target and annihilated armor. They stood no chance. I learned how to fly a Lib when they were fixed position guns, so, I just reverted back to my old ways. Do I miss a few kills now? Yes, of course! But it is not a shooting gallery where I obliterate enemy armor at will, and I like it that way better. It makes it more of a challenge! Keep practicing, timing your dives, and you'll find that it is not such a big deal.
You mean that cheese mode where you fly around in a heavily armored air unit and sit back and lotto shot at esfs? All the while they unload clip after clip to bring you down? Not to mention if you used the platform as intended you would also have a tail gunner ripping the esf with a Walker or coyotes. No. That cheese needed to be gone. Much less so for aiming nose guns, while strong it wasn't exactly broken and required a degree of skill or multitasking.
Cockpit aiming on the vektor was a bit op, specially against big birds. It also allowed the pilot much greater ability to protect against esf while gunners were working, and was ok when Tomcats were op. Now that Tomcats aren't quite the threat, probly a good trade-off with vektor aiming, even though I miss it.
