I hesitated before posting this thread, but by dint of experience this problem everyday I decided to put it forward. I am addressing this comment particularly to the Vanu players of the Miller server. Some time ago, the MAX was in fashion especially with his new ability. We usually saw a lot of MAX players taking part to battles and a significant number of them played the role of anti air, So it was very hard for the enemy to approach zones of confilts by air or to just hover in the sky. For those who play on Miller, you know that the TR relies heavily on aircraft as their strike force and the sky is often black & red. The anti air is essential in order to counter them. However, I noticed recently that anti-air Max or even Skyguards are becoming increasingly rare in the ranks of the Vanu. Even in groups of 48 + players, it happens that there are none. So I came to wonder why the Vanu players sulk anti-air roles and what would be good to motivate people to adopt this kind of gameplay. They are many experienced players and squad leaders on Miller so this can not be a simple lack of strategy or common sense.That is why I am asking for your opinions, perhaps some people have the same feeling.
Being AA MAX before was pretty boring and unrewarding but at least you could shoot down aircraft. Its still boring and unrewarding, but now on top of that the bursters are a joke and taking out any aircraft is very difficult. Also the MAX costs 350 resources instead of 100 now. Skyguard isn't much better and when you take it you are skrewed against other tanks and Harassers. Striker was the best AA weapon before Burster nerf and now it is so with even wider margin. So thats why TR airspace is still pretty much a "no flight zone". Sure other factions have lockon AA rockets but they are much worse than Striker. So thats the reason you mostly only see TR aircraft.
If you buy me cider I will log on and do some skyguarding for you but it is pretty boring and not that rewarding against the experienced tr sky farmers on miller.
AA is scarce with all three factions on miller. Skyguards and bursters cost too much, and are too weak for units that give up so much just to fight air. 350 infantry resources to only fight air, and not be very good at it....nope. 400 mech resources for a skyguard to only fight air, and be terrible versus everything else, and get rocked by harrassers.....nope. Anyway, pull any AA unit, air will bugger off and come back when your bored of staring at blank skys
Thanks for your answers. Yes it seems that anti air roles are not very well rewarded, that is bad because it is essential. The AA turrets are probably the only common way to deal with aircrafts, when there are not enough friendly esf in the sky. But I find that even the players do not bother to use those turrets often. ps: I have no cider but some beers
This is a problem for vanu on Woodman as well. We seem to have fewer pilots or anti-air people. No idea why that should be though.
I tend to try and switch to my HA's anti-air set-up (with the Nemesis as the main AA weapon) whenever I see some enemy air or am preparing the defence. When it's only a few of them, like two or three ESFs or an ESF + Lib, and I have some buildings to hide in and a terminal to rearm from, I tend to keep them busy enough by myself so that they have to fly back for repairs after a few minutes; sometimes I even manage to kill them off. The problem is that very few people seem to bother doing similar quickly enough to clear out the skies, and just making the enemy air run away won't help much if there's a bunch of tanks and Harassers coming along with them.
Well duh, if you want to kill planes you pull a HA or even MBT. If I'm bored I roll an AP Prowler and just play AA, still easily make more certs than playing AA Max or Skyguard, working as intended SOE.
Every AA weapon is the game are simply boring and unrewarding to use, only thing i can stand is the walker but the limited downwards angle makes it useless. So if i was a dev i would get rid of the burster & skyguard proxy detonation and buff up the accuracy big time.
Yeah i stupidly bought the striker and have had a total of 17 kills with it since release. Worst.Purchase.Ever.
Yeah i stupidly bought the striker and have had a total of 17 kills with it since release. Worst.Purchase.Ever.
The thing is, people on the ground often don't notice friendly AA. Ask yourself, have you really felt threatened by air when in large battles recently? Being in the air a lot myself, the VS definitely has a good amount of AA. There has been a noticeable increase in lock-on launchers on the VS side recently as well. Of course, due to the Striker TR areas are outright no-fly zones all of the time and TR AA is stronger with it, but the VS definitely has its share. Large battles are still, for the most part, excluding air on all sides. AA being boring kind of also gives that fate over to pilots. Flak clears out the sky and then gets bored with nothing to do, pilots get bored since they can't go anywhere and participate in the battle. That being said, spawn more Skyguards! I want to crush them all!
Pretty much all the time when I'm fighting against TR, actually. Doesn't help that it's 3:2 odds against us in the most cases on Amerish, often going up to 2:1 or even 3:1 ...
I think after they ruined the Bursters I pulled my AA MAX 3 times, maybe 4. Skyguard costs to much initially and can become very quick worthless since you cannot change the loadout. The resource changes took a huge negative impact on AA especially.
