[Suggestion] Strove: Pokes Holes in the PPA

1. I'm not sure of the whole conversation but I think you said that you had better kph and more playtime than him. He countered with the kph is a circumstantial stat and so is playtime. They both can't be used to judge what you said they could judge.
Obviously I recognize that you have more experience but I really really try not to judge a post by the poster.

As much as I love stats, its really really hard to interpret them correctly if at all. Using the esf loadout example. Somebody with 30 straight hours just flying around high pop areas getting no kills techinically has more experience than a br 100 pilot even if that high experience pilot has 100+ hours. Flying around and doing dodging lock ons/flak is the only thing they do.

2. That is a big problem. Items are balanced. Players change. Metas change, and the game moves on. While the best way to judge a loadout in a game like planetside 2 is through experience, experience is still way to personal and subjective to be of any use.

3. When did I/he ever say you need ab to dodge flak except for running? There are just way too many reasons to have burned through a significant amount of fuel before that lock on starts to lock.

5. I'm not knowledgeable at all on the Kruger effect, but the way it looks to me is that since you are the one bringing up the fact that you have more experience, you are the one overestimating your ability and not looking for moment of enlightenment in lesser experience people.

1. Eh, I would never bring up playtime first unless it was unusually low. Like under 3 hours. Also I'm not really sure what you're calling circumstantial, I feel like I've explained it reasonably well that rate stats (like KPH) show the effectiveness of a player and playtime only indicates how reliable the data is (in the short run you can have an unusually good or bad streak ("noise"), but in the long run this noise is reduced to basically be a non-factor.)

So if someone had a badass KPH but 3 hours flight time, we could be suspicious of their actual skill but we wouldn't know for sure if they were that great (confidence in the stats would be rather low). But if someone had mediocre KPH over 10+ hours, we have fair confidence that that's where they're averaging and as their playtime increases that confidence grows. (In cases of extreme playtime, to be fair we would start cutting off some of the earlier playtime because a player could legitimately have grown past their early stumblings.)

I'm not sure by what metric of success -- whether it's recorded as a stat or not -- you could use to imply a player with 30 hours and no kills has more flight knowledge than an expert player with might higher rate stats and more flight time. The latter player just seems blatantly more knowledgeable -- he has the time to prove his stats aren't just statistical noise, and he's proven to be extremely effective in the role.

2. First off, items are not necessarily balanced. If we ever got stats based on loadout specifics, we would see that certain choices aren't as effective as others. This part isn't fine.

Second, items' effectiveness varies by role. While Autorepair may be flat out the best choice for A2A play, it's mediocre for A2G play. This part is fine.

3. He's been pretty consistent in stating he feels you can't evade ground attackers enough without fuel tanks. I've pointed out that it's not required, even if it has some small benefits. Like I said, probably 95% of my ESF pulls were nosegun+rocketpods, where I didn't have fuel tanks, and I always evaded ground attackers just fine (very rarely dying to a single flak user, and very rarely getting hit by lockons -- mostly avoiding both.)

5. I've definitely considered what's been said, and lined it up with my own experience, and thought about it logically, and it just doesn't check out. I'm always open to new ideas.

Really tired and looking to take a break from the forums.
Anyways for number 2, I mean that item stats are changed around to make them more balanced, therefore affective gameplay.

About number 3. If you own a lock on, you'll know just how many of the rocketpod esf's do not in fact get out.

1. I was going to let this whole "skill" stats thing pass, but then you actually said that your were 4x better than me based on stats...
I obviously am not MattiAce or any pro pilot, but you yourself brought up the fact that you were much better according to stats that you got off my one shown account. The simple fact is that well, by just bringing up experience instead of actual facts, your just bluffing and trying to give legitimacy to an argument, and arguments should be based on fact interpretation, not who is arguing what. A pro pilot could argue exactly what I am, and you'll find that MattiAce does run AB on his AI loadouts.

2. Stealth is great coupled with AB, as it takes longer to lock, and it does more than just counter one thing. Its especially good with Banshee as it allows you to quickly dip in and out with less reaction time for Lockons/Flak.

3. The problem is, with no AB tanks, you can't afford to AB to close the distance on your target quickly, as you'll have to use it all just getting away. This means you'll have to run full stealth to get close and still have to think about dodging flak. 3D movement isn't just doing maneuvers in hover mode, its hiding to dodge lock-ons and flak, as well as flying low. Your ability to do this is severely effected without AB tanks, as your forced to either come in with AB or leave with it.


5. I was going to let this whole "skill" stats thing pass, but then you actually said that your were 4x better than me based on stats...
I obviously am not MattiAce or any pro pilot, but you yourself brought up the fact that you were much better according to stats that you got off my one shown account. The simple fact is that well, by just bringing up experience instead of actual facts, your just bluffing and trying to give legitimacy to an argument, and arguments should be based on fact interpretation, not who is arguing what. A pro pilot could argue exactly what I am, and you'll find that MattiAce does run AB on his AI loadouts.

1. What do you think stats are exactly? Do you think they're somehow not factual? These are real things that actually happened, and the game automatically recorded them and we have an objective measure of performance as a result. What about that is unclear to you?

Coyotes on an AI loadout are a serviceable alternative to fuel tanks, for fights where you want to take the safer route of fighting off enemy air rather than simply running when it shows up. Either way, we can probably make the safe assumption that Matti understands flare and lockon timing enough that he could evade seriously flak/lockon threats without fuel tanks, which was the original point.

2. Lockons just aren't much of a threat. They can be broken easily with basic afterburner, no stealth, and cover.

The things shooting the lock-on rockets are super fragile. The things shooting the flak are less fragile, so there is more reason to want to tank those things better so you can eliminate them, then go repair up and farm without active flak.

3. Yes, you can't just spam afterburners everywhere if you don't have fueltanks. It won't matter because you'll come in at an odd angle behind cover and pop up right on top of them and obliterate some infantry before needing to escape.

And why would you think I'm not dodging and flying low just because I lack fuel tanks? Not having fuel tanks doesn't affect that at all.

We can't have a reasonable discussion on game balance by bringing up bad players.

If you use knives-only for a session you'll know just how many LMG-wielding heavies don't manage to kill you successful. And yet clearly that scenario says way more about the skill of the heavies dying to the knife than it does of the actual balance of knives vs. LMGs.

Basically lock-ons only kill (a) players who've made a mistake, or (b) players who are at a disadvantage because of other factors (basically something above and beyond just a face full of flak and any number of infantry attempting to lock-on from the base itself -- has to be like after you flare, kill a few more, and take cover that there was some guy deployed way over on some unexpected side who hits you with a lock-on...assuming the flak did enough damage for that to even be lethal.)

Unfortunately, most people aren't as good as you. Take it as a compliment.

Yes because using afterburners and trying to use skill to have a fun experience is a mistake in this game. It's truly sad and just makes for really boring gameplay when the "learning" weapon is the most effective choice, there's no way to get better so there's no point in even playing, it's not even enjoyable to use lockons.

You can't argue that Coyotes are useless against ESFs because the top 3% of pilots can actually beat you with a dedicated A2A loadout and then in the same post mention that AI Noseguns alone are fine for killing enemy ESFs. That makes no sense at all.

1. Again, mattiace running AB has no bearing on whether Coyotes are situationally useful for times when you want to AI nosegun without losing most of your A2A capabilities. Those scenarios exist, and a AI+Coyote loadout is appropriate for them. He's not here suggesting coyotes aren't useful -- only you are.

2. Well it really works both ways. It's not hard, without stealth or fuel tanks, to completely evade all lock-ons manually. Then on top of that with flares you get a huge extra window of protection which lets you aggressively kill the players who've now announced their presence to you (so it's particularly useful when using AI nosegun).

3. That doesn't really matter. This part of the conversation was about whether you can avoid lock-ons without fuel tanks. If you come in from behind cover, you're obviously close enough to cover that you have enough afterburners to escape behind it without getting hit.

"newer ESF pilots" Not all.

1. I'm just saying that my argument can be made by a good player. Like I said, Coyotes lack a lot of range, leaving you vulnerable to long range sniping by ESF noseguns.

2. Only if there is cover immediately next to you ( which is in about 2 bases) and this is even if you were far enough away not to be hit immediately.

3.Yes is does matter, as it is more time for enemies to realize that there is air in the area.

I'm not really seeing where using skill was a mistake for the ESF. You use skill (in this case afterburn into cover or flare) and escape the lock-on. By avoiding the mistake, you avoid the damage. While there isn't a ton of skill involved in that particular manuever, it's layered in with a lot of other deep aspects to ESF play that keeps it fun and interesting for a long time.

Hopefully you're not implying G2A lockons are the best choice for countering air. They're basically the worst choice.

... Then why the heck are you running flares if the worst tool deployed against you is lockons?

Maybe he's running flares against A2A lockons?

Well if we're discussing the actual balance, we can't just cut off things at some arbitrary skill level and say those fights don't count. If there is a skill level (and it's really not that high) where you can evade basically every lock-on with basic afterburners and flares, then how can we ignore that fact in a conversation about A2G ESFs?

Flares are too niched to be run for A2A. Fire Sprsn is a much better all around for just extra health.

Yes and after I flair them I"m at a complete disadvantage, that fixes nothing for the whole "no point in playing it's not fun" argument
There's something skillful in using just a nosegun because you have to aim it, you have no assistance
also how the hell did a ppa thread turn into a thread about lockons

Because it's damage I don't need to take? What kind of question is this!?

Look let's say you're in an infantry vs. infantry fight. There's a rock. It's only enough cover to protect your legs. Just because leg shots are the least dangerous damage you can take, are you seriously going to stand in the open field? Why would you play that way?

Calling lock-ons the least dangerous thing to me is said in part because I have flares most of the time.

That's not a good example. Of course I would take less damage if there were not other options, but there is the more versatile Fire Sprsn in your arsenal.

I'm making the strong argument of flares being a strong alternative (perhaps the automatic alternative) to fire suppression for A2G ESFs.

For A2A ESFs, I'm fairly certain Fire Suppression is just the automatic choice. Flares have fairly weak utility there, unless you really can't force the fight to happen away from the enemy's A2G lock-ons