Reverse Thust Spamming?? HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... but sereosly, its a maneuver that good pilots know, and what makes the flight mechanics awesome for this game. Like they say, if you cant beat them, join them, so find a ytube vid and learn how to do it. How'd you think the pro pilots learnt?
Eerrrrr. Did you not notice the Vortek being balanced out with the other 2 esfs nose guns. Or did you not see that the reaver has the biggest hitbox, and that you can hear it from a mile away. Or that its has the slowest cruise speed. When it comes to dogfighting, it eventually all comes down to skill. 80-80% skill, and 10% ish percent esf. So stop complaining, and find a video on manouvers, practice over and over again, just keep going. How'd you think ACE pilots have come to be so good. Not by whining in the forums and expecting to get better by trying to get everything good nerfed...
Stop operate words like "not even supposed to be a thing in-game". Not even jumping in quake "supposed to be a thing in-game", but it become good feature. Possible to result lot of similar examples and arguments in this regard. Hope i use right words.
Clearly you have absolutely no knowledge of the air game what so ever... People like iMusic, Llama, Yami, Stigma, AlphaBravoCharlie and Myself are just some of the dedicated air-to-air ESF pilots who use external AB tanks as a preference to the other wing mounts (All different factions). The main benefit of reverse thrust is to be effective in the air to air side of gameplay to combat enemy air; this includes all the people that "LOL pod" the ground all day, those who sit in the sky with a liberator and other A2A pilots through performing reverse flying - (be that dogfighting or through positioning). It is something in the game that requires SKILL and practice to master which is the way it should be. Experienced pilots should have a way to combat other experienced pilots in a way which is challenging, skill-based and overall fun. Sure, you might say that this is "unfair" or "not balanced" towards newer unskilled players; but the fact is that any player who wants to learn this way of flying can do so with ease through the huge amount of youtube guides and forum posts. I wasn't a beta player when the game was released and when I finally got the game there were some very skilled pilots out there who killed me countless times... but from actually playing the game I gained the skills and knowledge to be able to compete with those talented players. If you remove this then players who love flying will simply quit or take to rocket podding away at the ground as the only fun way to fly in an air-to-air style will be gone. The air game will be dead. End of.
I'm literally dumbfounded by the change to ESFs. What rationale could the devs have that could possibly make this seem like a good idea?
Oh i was practicing and i can flight quite decently, just come to waterson, where most good/best reaver pilots swapped for tr or vanu, or just don't login anymore.
The reverse maneuver is the only tool that allows a player to turn a losing fight in to a winning one, skillfully. It requires players to risk significant incoming damage to transition in to, and they must utilize their after burners properly. It is as far away from an I-WIN button as anything in this game. I'm sorry new players and bad players can't figure it out, but without it dog-fighting will suck hard. It adds too much depth to be taken away. If it leaves, I leave too. Good riddance. Don't dumb down your game any more.
How many "top tier" pilots do you think there are that work for SOE? If I had to take a wild guess, I would say 0. How many "mid grade" pilots do you think there are on the dev team? Maybe 2-3? And you're a decent reaver pilot yourself. Think about your perspective on ESF balance, dogfighting, and A2G compared to that of any player just a little worse than you are. Now multiply that perspective 50 times and you can see the developer's perspectives on dogfighting. Who are they consulting about these changes? I know it isn't me. I know it isn't Spadar, You, Datablue, Virtw, Babacua, etc... Maybe they should reach out to top tier ESF pilots and lib pilots for feedback instead of listening to the whining masses. We know more than they do. They see the way things are. We know WHY things are the way they are. For example, did any high end pilots in this game actually think the stock nose guns would be the "standard air superiority weapon?" That description alone shows how clueless they are with respect to air gameplay. I knew in under 5 minutes on the test server this wasn't the case and even did the number crunching to back it up. In the end, noobs will still get farmed in the air. Air sense takes time to learn. So does aircraft control, and so does aim. And they will complain about the 1/4 reverse maneuver because they still can't perform it.
To be honest I think SOE still blames us for players losing interest early on in the game. Hell Naterian asked them on twitter to speak with any of the top pilots on proposed air changes. I still don't think they ever took him up on the offer.
I am not a air guy. I mostly spend 99.9% of my time on the ground. With that said though, I do like to sit back sometimes and watch the dog fights rage on above and I have seen some amazing pilots in action. I couldn't even fathom how they do what they do with some of these maneuvers they pull off. I have spent time watching pilots in my outfit do the reverse maneuvers in fights and I have to agree with the flyboys. Why nerf something that adds some skill and depth to the air game? I am going to end by saying I hope they do not make changes to this.
ESF dogfighting IS a skill based encounter. That will never change. What I AM saying is twofold: First, veteran pilots (like myself and QRY) will get to learn some new tricks to keep up with the new way of dogfighting - hopefully something that doesn't involve people turning slowly whilst hovering. Second, those with lower FPS (like myself) will have a better chance against someone with ok FPS....which will encourage people to continue playing. Instead of ragequitting after the 100th death to QRY. (this time it wasn't me) I seem to be mentioning QRY alot. My bad. Anyway, (AoD a terrible outfit? Nah. They just don't see the big picture as well as some outfits, and run open squads to promote recruitment.) No. War is not about numbers. To quote Narnia: Wise General: "Numbers do not win a battle." Peter: "No, but I bet they help." Do I agree? Meh. Sort of. Ender is the man here. Orson Scott Card has it right. Leaders win fights. Are you losing to the enemy zerg swarm? Hire a new platoon leader or get another platoon with a better one. MLG dogfighters beat you senseless? Bring friends as dogfood while you cheeseball the vets with Lock ons. Thats beating the enemy at their own game. (Did I just say this was a game? ) This game NEEDS low skill -> high power weapons to help noobs acclimate and want to stick around. Skill will always win, especially in dogfights, no matter the weapons used. A2AM are one way to give noobs that power. Cheap G2A launchers are another. If we don't have these weapons, then we will start to lose our player base, as we already have. And then the servers will be shut down. And then we will be sitting here waiting for PS3 on the PS5. This change will promote those aspects of the game. And, hopefully, give some variety to dogfighting. I mean, who doesn't like learning a new skill? It's Exciting!
No, they really are a terrible outfit. BWC, NNG, CML, DA. Those are good outfits. Ones that command respect. This isn't a war. It's a video game. And low skill high power weapons probably killed this game faster on release than the myriad of bugs SOE still hasn't fixed (Read: the podocaust, the old HE cannons, pre-nerf zephyr libs)
If it works for the NC you can bet that the other factions are complaining about it, and the Dev's are no different. If we had more NC players in the ranks of dev's then perhaps they could argue against it and we could perhaps keep one of the effective points to being NC, as it stands they are just little by little removing any benefit the NC faction gets. It is this factor that has me on the point of abandoning the NC Character i have been playing since the Beta stage despite the investment in hours and $$$ as i can see that the only things that will be allowed for the NC are the ****** short range shotguns, and then only if they don't work well or they will be nerfed. A short play with the VS has shown me how many benifits this faction has and the constant baseless complaining they do about the NC. Not to mention the fact that the other factions do not have big bright yellow stripes on their backs that point out their position and ruin any cammo they have chosen.
Do you know why folks continue to buy and learn to play CoD and BF, despite their inherent lack of depth? Simply because of the noob tube, the ultimate low skill high power weapon. The one that started it. Sure, skilled players can easily outdo a noobtube, because its a NOOB weapon. Its not very useful in MLG matches, because of the single shot, high accuracy nature of the weapon. But it lets noobs have a chance against l33ts. Thats all it takes to keep them hooked. So lay off on your *my skill should dominate everything.* attitude. Really. it shouldn't. ESFs are general purpose aircraft. They are not General purpose DEATH AND MAYHEM. Thats why they were nerfed in the beginning. No offense to you guys, because yall are mostly great pilots. If you cant learn and adapt....sigh.
The kneejerk reactions remind me of how many of the LA players responded when C4 got changed on the PTR (a change that wasn't even supposed to get to the PTR, let alone live). Oh right, a bunch of pilots fly as LA. Makes sense. Changing the thrust value to, apparently, 25% of its previous value seems like a pretty harsh change. Likely one factor involved working with a bunch of other numbers and thus not as large of a change as it looks. Hopefully more people will test it on the PTR and give solid feedback and not just 'it's a nerf and I hate it on principle.' Would probably require several pilots flying around at the same time, though. Either way, it's the PTR - things can change if sufficient reasons are provided. I'm all for making it easier for new players to ease into the game, but lowering the skillcap just stops people from taking the game too seriously and really getting into it.
I tested it on PTS. It blows. You just sort of lazily float around while your AB fuel drains. You might as well use that fuel with its full thrust value in forward flight to ***** out to some friendly AA instead of bothering to try and turn on a tail.
This change does literally the exact opposite of that by making any and all dogfighting about ho has the most X. This actually will be terrible for new players as there will be little way to overcome an equally skilled vet who has invested in the cert lines. Dogfighting airframes will now be obscenely useful since all dogfighting will be regulated to turn fights. If you can't win the turn fight then your new AB cert line will be able to outrun them. Vets will have access to both, noobs will have acess to neither. And unlike now they can't preform above their certs through skill.
