The current state of ESF dogfights

Because by forsaking rocketpods you are ****e in a2g.

But if the fuel tanks aren't actually A2A, doesn't that mean that a loadout of A2A gun + A2A missiles is supposed to perform much better than A2A gun + Fuel? It certainly sounds like one of those ESFs brought twice as much "A2A" to the fight.

From the descriptions I've read of using Fuel in combat (once you strip away the Sky God veneer), is that it works to counter the enemy's nosegun. Similar to how flares will counter their missiles. And that makes some sense to me. If you wanted to combat A2AM with Fuel, you would have to bring flares along as well. You've taken the two counters to both of the A2AM loadout's weapons. The problem I can see there is that you've eaten up all your slots, but the A2AM build can still add in fire suppression.

At that point you're stuck looking for some feature of Fuel which you can point to which aids the pilot. Running back to WG maybe?

For the reverse maneuver. The AB are used a lot in dogfights.

So, why shotguns do more damage than carbines? Why grenades can kill more people than pistols? Your assumption have no reason. A missile is a missile and have to do the missile job. That's the problem with the air players: they see themselves as special players. Well, I don't wanna die for a single grenade anymore, since it's "easy" to use.

And noseguns aren't hard to use, you just need some experience to know where to aim, compensating the latency, and find the better mouse sensibility for your gamestyle. The "exclusive" air players are super scared of lose their ego game for a more real and accessible flight gameplay in PS2.

the reason fuel pods should be more effective is because they are a "skilled" option

if skill doesn't dominate there is no point in playing, its not fun to run around just locking on to everyone with no way of getting better

So does leaving the slot empty. That doesn't make "Nothing" a viable A2A option.

Which is what I was alluding to in my follow up. The maneuverability that Fuel gives helps in hover fighting, but only really against noseguns. I'm not an ace by any means, but I believe the current default AB is still enough to pull off that first RM to get the fight started?

Speaking of this:

I don't know where you can see skill today. It is pure practice, just time of game. Today we have a single movement, one manoeuvre and basicly a dominant build. Learn this and done, use ESF until you feel comfortable with the controls and you can be competitive. There's no room for a strategy, no room for tactic: just face your enemy and who face better win.

Add real air fight possibilities, different of the bangbang game which we have, and we will see much more air unities being usefull, instead of the number of frustrated new air players. With more air unities, the ground farm will be reduced and more risky using an a2g build. With this, the attack/defence ground game don't will be hurted by the air, which will be a complement, as the armor, and the soldiers will really have a chance.

Extra fuel enhances whatever load out you use due to extra speed, dodging etc.

Conversely, two weapons cannot be fired at the same time so you should see no benefit at all unless the pilot is firing while the other weapon is reloading.

Currently, Coyote users regularly don't swap weapons as they already outperform nose guns, unless the opposing pilot has some serious top-tier accuracy. If they do swap it's either overkill or because the target is out of range.

This leads to experienced pilots taking Coyotes which is completely against their original design intent of helping newer players. See my post a couple down for more on that.

Your accusatory tone is not going to help.

Shotguns are a well understood concept. Slightly better at close range (though how slight is hotly debated), terrible at medium and long range. An effective range trade-off.

They also force you to give up any alternative primary to ensure you will be worse off at longer ranges, something that doesn't apply to Coyotes because you still have your nose-gun. Furthermore, aim is still a major factor and a miss with a shotgun will cost you more than a single carbine bullet. Again, unlike Coyotes.

Grenades and pistols have so many obvious differences it's not worth listing. However, on topic, grenades can be dodged more easily, you can only carry 1 unless you also use a cert slot, and they have a resource cost to lower spam (well that's the idea anyway, the Resource Revamp should help with that). In short, grenades are so powerful they have a bunch of restrictions on how much they can be used and can be dodged by aware enemies.

However, these are not the issues facing Air gameplay and the link to Coyote balance is very tenuous so let's get away from those...


Tomcats would be a good example. They have specifically been toned down to be fairly dodge-able to balance out their ease of use.

Or how about all lock-ons? Very easy to use so their hard counters, flares or smoke, are also.


Perhaps I didn't get it across clearly enough but I did indeed provide reasons why Coyote balance is off. I don't want this reply to be unwieldy, so I'll revise my points in my next post.

Coyotes are not balanced:

• Coyotes should stick to their design goal of helping newer players close the gap between themselves and experienced pilots
• They should not reduce viable weapon choices / loadouts
• They should encourage newer pilots to practice flying and aiming so that they can later progress on to a weapon that's harder to master

If you make a weapon that's just as good if not better than it's predecessor AND make it easier to use, why would anyone use the alternative?


Regarding the Air gameplay everyone agrees it's too hard for newer players. In fact, I would even say that regular pilots have historically been the most vocal in providing suggestions because it isn't fun flying around when almost no one else is. Ground pounders tend to talk about anti-air more, except for those that are actively trying to learn to fly.

Linear progression is the thing to avoid here. What you want is to boost newer players ability so they are more effective for very little effort. The more effort you put in, the less you get out of it. This closes the gap between the top and low ends without eliminating the need for practice or the achievement from it.

Ideally, you'd make every weapon easy to start with and hard to master but that balance is incredibly difficult to accomplish at the best of times, and is even harder in the air where there's such a vast gulf between the worst you can be and the best you can be.


Thus, the concept of balancing weapons for different capability brackets. Every weapon gets to be viable, just not at the same time to every individual. It goes like this:

Players start with weapon X because for very little effort it yields a significant reward. As players become more experienced they find that weapon X tops out at maximum effectiveness quite early on.

Instead of letting those players become bored with the game and leave, you create the hard-to-master weapon Y for them to practice with. Many of the things they've already learned about situational awareness or leading a target translate so this change is more gradual than if they'd started with weapon Y (it yields very little until you can cross this boundary). For a while, they may even switch back and forth until they feel comfortable relying solely on weapon Y.


Coyotes being slow but with a margin of error makes for good practice leading targets, unlike Tomcats, which was one of the major suggestions from the community on helping newer pilots without killing off the higher end gameplay.

All that we need to see is Coyotes have significantly less DPS than a nose gun given the accuracy of a mid-level pilot. This means all newer pilots will take Coyotes and be able to do way more damage than they used to, making it easier for them to start being useful in the Air.

[I hope people don't forget quite how bad things were and how much of an improvement this would be. I remember complaints about 2 or 3 v 1s where, despite the advantage, newer players said they could barely do any damage. This would fix those scenarios entirely. Or if AA helps out. Or if the more experienced, not necessarily top tier, pilot messes up. Or if they were injured from a fight that happened a while ago.

The more people that fly, the better that state of balance becomes.]

Once they reach a certain threshold they should move on to nose guns, otherwise, we relegate nose guns to a fall back weapon for when you run out of ammo. We shouldn't see experienced pilots doing as well with Coyotes as they would with a nose gun.

Maneuver all you want, because as soon as you run into someone running tomcats or coyotes you're maneuvering is a useless joke.

And the reason we want to fly around using WW2 weapons in a future sci-fi game is because that is what's most fun. Look up any of the modern flight sims out today as they lob missiles at each other. It's about as exciting as a spreadsheet. And that's just using today's technology, 100 years from now planes, if we even have them, won't even have pilots.

Pretty much this. The existence of coyotes isn't the problem, the problem is they do way too much damage. Same with tomcats, half your damage in one missile? Ridiculous.

But you're still stuck in a trap here.

Let's ignore the fact that new players don't have Coyotes, and likely aren't going to shell out $7 to maybe have a chance against the established pilots.

What you've built here is a system where newer pilots can compete because they have a weapon that doesn't require the pinpoint aim of the default nosegun. That's fine, but where's the transition point? The flying elite want everybody to move on to Fuel, but why would I do that when A2AM allow me to fight them already? You'd need to make Fuel a better combat ability than A2AM, but if you do that then the new pilots are back to being screwed.

Honestly, I'd just like to see Fuel removed. It's essentially a defensive option in a weapon slot. At the very least move it to the defense options so you're picking between Fuel/FS/Flares instead of Fuel/Coyotes/Tomcats.

see, people who think flying is just the reverse manuever don't actually fly, otherwise they would know different. I'm not going to bother explaining that there is many ways of flying because you're clearly stuck on your idea that hover is the only way to fly.

you can say "oh it's just reverse" as well I could say "it's just a circle jerk" if you were to remove hover mechanics, hover isn't the only way to fly, you would know this if you actually flew

OK
while i agree with the fact that coyotes need to be removed/big nerf and afterburners need to be re buffed....scythes are by far the worst esf in actual gameplay......the ONLY GOOD POINT of the scythe is 1v1 in hover fights....the end

eaiser to hit with flak,and everything else when they arent looking straight at you

reavers are extremely overpowered when there is more than one or when ganking

if your complaining about the saron......look at your afterburners/burst damage combo or a mossie that gets a free racer/dogfighting airframe

the rotaries need their ammo capacity DOUBLED AND tighter cone of fire..... they also should be less effective against armor..not harassers and should still be great at kiling infantry

4 bullets is plenty for an infantry kill and isnt exactly easy to do.....dont go comparing pilots that have 10 DAYS of fly time

the saron is fine as are the mustang and needler

and for the record YES I DO FLY VS QUITE OFTEN....but i do fly on nc and tr quite a bit and i find it MUCH eaiser to fly reaver/mossie in realistic fight on live server

They've watched too many of matti's videos where he's practicing with his outfit mates.

no.....reverse and afterburners(without tanks) should be put back to the way they were
i agree with the having to cert tanks

PUT IN THE TIME TO PRACTICE..... YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT GETTING DESTROYED AND YOU NEVER PUT IN THE TIME TO PRACTICE....most of those pilots that **** on you have more than 10 DAYS(THATS 240 HOURS) in an esf...and they were not using lockons or coyotes as a crutch any of that time

do you see people in any other game log in play for a few hours and crush the hardest difficulty or best players....chances are they will never get that good.....and by all rights the person that put in the time should be winning most of the time

you would be suprised how much better you get by going to test server with a friend and practicing for 2 hours does for you
yea it might take 8 hours to get really good...but i guarantee you will be many times better
run fire suppression and nanites .....line up facing each other....pass ....turn and fight.... go till one person catches on fire....then stop shooting and hit fire suppression, get ammo and re do

if you dont like doing this stuff then flying isnt for you

you obviously havent had much real experience.....scythe is terrible in every situation except 1v1 hover fights......only 1v1 hover fights

the speed does help quite a bit to a decent pilot....it provides a big enough gap to turn around without loosing half your health

nanites need to be re buffed.....

composite needs a slight buff ( SLIGHT ) NOT 50% FROM DALTON SHOT (THAT IS JUST STUPID)

stealth needs to be a 1 second increase in lock on time PER RANK

stealth should COMPLETELY nullify coyotes as you are giving up nanites or A SLIGHTLY BUFFED COMPOSITE (say 10% from rotaries, 20% from flak , and 10 % from lockons


and before some idiot posts it....i dont want to hear a reply about how op air is and you cant take it down with 1 YES ONE skyguard or burster

libs are anti tank.....if they know where the skyguard is and get the jump on it they should be killing it

NOBODY takes it upon themselves to pull aa most of the time

5 lock on launchers will clear out most air blobs real quick ( AND NO ...DONT USE NANOWEAVE OR MUNITIONS POUCH....FLAK ARMOR IS FOR FIGHTING EXPLOSIONS) AND DONT STAND OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIELD LIKE AN IDIOT

aa is probably a little too efficient at its role

turrets are too eaisly accessible and too hard to kill and too easy to repair
they should not be a few steps outside of a spawn shield