Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

I agree with this. Rocket pods usually kill me when I am overwhelmed with other enemies or when I'm being highly risky in a tank.

This too. I sometimes lose my mid and try to kill infantry from up close while hovering, and wind up taking a few clips of gunfire for my trouble. Then I remember I'm not always a noob, and take up station at barely visible distance (300-500 meters or so?) and then snipe the infantry with the Saron default laser. A lot more effective, and INCREDIBLY effective at massed armor. Yeah it takes a few clips, but the tank has no recourse except to seek cover.

While I will agree that lockon missiles take the skill out of aiming, they do require some skill in use of positioning and not being screwed by snipers and other ground forces while trying to shoot the aircraft.

Perhaps a good change that would dissuade firing A2A missiles into furrballs would be if A2A missiles actually had a blast radius that did damage. That way they would get friendly fire concerns.

Otherwise, I don't really see a way to "remove" lockon missiles. Perhaps making the stealth feature more effective for aircraft so that the lockon takes many more seconds.

I would say this is fairly accurate:

There have been inofficial posts?

AA MAX was fine as is. Now they will be overbuffed. A couple good ones can already completely deny an airspace from a dozen planes. The problem is that their small size, unlike the skyguard, makes them impossible to find and kill. This patch will do nothing to fix the skyguard because the AA MAX is still the far superior choice.

There seems to be a couple of misconceptions on your part.

• As Higby stated, the primary counter vs. air is other air, so what are you doing on the ground?
• You are not prevented from flying on the ground, you would just be at risk to be shot LIKE ANY OTHER GROUND-BASED VEHICLE and you would have to focus on unguarded enemies.
• A2A combat may be a joke now but if it is, it needs to be addressed. Overshadowing that issue by simply declaring all ESFs as ground hovering everything-nukers is not the solution.
• My suggestion would not deny you from " getting hit by flak or lock-on and trying to quickly escape", it just brings the risk in line with the rewards. In fact, I've even addressed your playstyle explicitely, if you look at the picture.
• You have to realize that you are a bit pompous. If I am riding a Tank I can't drive into a bunch of Infantry and expect to come alive, either. If you dive into the no-fly zone your expectations should be the same, if they are not you need to adjust something in your head.

And last but not least:

• PLAYERS IN AA DESERVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF KILLS AND CERTIFICATION GAIN LIKE ANYONE ELSE ON THE BATTLEFIELD. AA SHOULD NOT BE A SECOND CLASS PLAYSTYLE THAT NOONE IS WILLING TO DO.

No you see, I do understand, it's why I got a Skyguard...
I wanted to be able to shoot planes out of the air when we have no air support of our own, like when we're trying to fight our way out of a Warpgate.

It is people like you who don't seem to realise that those of us who spend Certification Points or Station Cash on Ground AA like the Skyguard want a weapon that CAN ACTUALLY DAMAGE AIRCRAFT!

You see, even if you CAN get a hit with the Skyguard, despite a stealth nerf to projectile speed that requires MASSIVE leading of the target, YOU DON'T DO ANY DAMAGE!

Here is a video of a Skyguard unloading an entire clip POINT BLANK into a Mosquato:

Agreed, I have a Skyguard, i shouldn't have an easier time shooting aircraft down with Spear Phalanx Cannons then I do with my Anti-air lightning or base AA.

...Hoverbikes.

...MAKE IT HAPPEN HIGBY!

I'm sorry... but BUUUUULLLLLLLLL-SHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIT!

As you are clearly a Pilot who NEVER actually sets foot on the ground as long as he doesn't have to, let me enlighten you as to what it is like for us guys on the ground.

I am a support player, I try to be smart and do things that will help my Faction out, like recapturing a satellite point an enemy is using to spawn on a Major Facility or pulling out my S-AMS when the Zerg needs help making a push.

So, remembering how horrible it was during the Beta when Liberators came with Zephers yet people didn't have ANY AA options after a wipe, I bought a Skyguard to keep the Zerg safe from Enemy Air Superiority...

...Of course I didn't realise at the time that my Skyguard had been stealth nerfed at launch to the point that it is little use outside of providing a "war-like atmosphere" by sending up flares.

All under a pretense of a "deterrent"...
Deterrences requires there to be some way to follow up on a threat, not just sitting there to look pretty!

...Skyguard...

Like I said to Eric Smith in my last reply on this subject:
You're completely missing the point. I'm warning against the dangers of making ground based AA TOO effective. I never implied that was the current state of the game.

I think air is slightly overpowered as it stands now. An AA buff is definitely needed, but I think too large of a buff could easily make air underpowered, judging by how I saw these kinds of balances shifted back and forth during beta.

I think the infantry vs ground vehicle balance is decent right now, so I'm worried that an AV buff could be too much of a nerf for tanks.

Buff to AA launchers sounds good. I don't think a range increase on AV launchers is necessary though.

Sounds good as long as it isn't too much. I know skyguards need some love (not sure if they fire flak).

Also, I think AA turrets should get more of a buff in particular. I wasn't playing the last few weeks of beta, but it seems like their flak got a big nerf during that period. Right now they feel much much worse than burster maxes. Consider all of the following drawbacks to being in a turret:
-completely immoble
-fixed quantity (can't scale up as the number of attackers and defenders increases)
-one of the first targets of any attacking force
-once one is destroyed, an engineer has to be in a very vulnerable position to get it working again
-susceptible to hacking

I'm fine with those drawbacks if there was more value to being in a turret. Right now if I want to take on an AA role, I feel like the smartest thing is to grab a burster max, even if I'm right next to an AA turret. If you're going to be better off not manning the turrets, then why bother even having them.

Sounds good, all reports I've heard of this weapon have said it's an absolute waste to buy. Make it viable, and I'm sure it'll see more widespread use. I'd like to see more of a focus like this on the non-lockon weapons that take a little more skill to use.

Seems like a very slight nerf (not sure how big the total splash radius is on these things), which is probably perfect. Pilots will need a little better aim to be as effective with.

I like this, but given the amount of explosive spam I've seen in the game, it's sounding like a no-brainer to choose flak over nanoveave the vast majority of the time.

This one worries me a little bit. There's already a dumb fire launcher that's more powerful than the lockon version. MBTs already can be two shotted from the back. One shotting would definitely be too powerful. I guess is depends on what kind of massive damage you're talking about, and how slow these things are. The tank vs infantry balance is already complicated enough, given how easy tanks are to get (leading to large numbers of them on the battlefield), and the fact that all HA get rockets by default. Too much AV, and tanks are going to feel less like tanks and more like pinatas full of experience points.

One more thing - I think whenever you change certs or weapons in a way that isn't a straight up buff, you should give people that already have that cert or weapon an option to get a refund. If someone paid 1000 certs or $7 for an AA launcher that could be dumbfired against ground targets, they might not want it anymore with this change. I'm not currently in this boat, but given the number of tweaks that will undoubtedly be made over the lifetime of this game, it wouldn't surprise me if I was impacted like this at some point.

My outfit does this often, I even have a video on it. I don't think the video is at the Skydock though.

I predict due to the lock requirements I'll probably be using the default launcher to hit Air targets... will have to wait and see.

Sorry, I've been fighting this battle a lot both here and on Planetside Universe...

I can understand where you are coming from with this, but realise how frustrating it is not to be able to bring down Aircraft with Phalanx AA Turrets...

...Even though you have THREE firing on the same one.

Personally, I wouldn't mind giving the Liberator and especially the Galaxy a buff to their Flak Resistance if Flak AA needs bigger buffs to take down ESFs.
I wouldn't mind needing to land a full two Skyguard clips on a Lib to bring it down and if Galaxies aren't getting their Squad AMS soon, then I'd wouldn't mind seeing them gain some utility as an Air Transport able to push through Flak.

I completely agree with this. Rockets by themselves are not the major issue, the IRNV and Night vision modes allow pilots to pick out troops that would otherwise be obscured and nail them.

@ Whiteagle's video...

I occurred to me that the Skyguard's shots only seem to do damage when they burst. I've hit infantry at PB range and not killed them, but if I lead a moving aircraft, the shot bursts in proximity to that aircraft resulting a lot more damage.

I think the idea is to primarily change infantry killing from Rocket Spam to accurate MG fire.

Fine by me, I can rack the kill count on infantry with my Rotary... or Needler (and god help you when I get the Banshee) anyways.

Lancer or gtfreako.

This change was totally needless and unwarranted.

Perhaps you aren't as good or skilled as the other AA ground forces that I face routinely.

They are able to drive me off while I'm in my fighter aircraft and damage me severely in the process.

to be honest, the rocketpod nerf will have no effect on me as I use my rotory to kill infintry 90% of the time. a few quick bursts and that trooper is dead, were it took a handful of rockets to do the same. When fighting tanks, the rocket nerf will have no impact what so ever.

the thing that worries me is the AA buff, and not so much that the skygaurd will become useful (yay) but the fact that IMO, Max's are right were they need to be. We should keep the baseline for AA flack as current Max dual bursters, and make the turret / skygaurd better by around 50% (so one skyguard is 150% of a max, a turret can be 175% or so).

I will hold out my opinion until the patch goes live and I get to test it out again, but I fear a repet of what happend in beta.

Will this stop me from flying? No, I love flying and flew through the OP AA days (somehow), Will this make me mostly a Medic / Vangaurd driver? yep.

IMO the current balance is close to perfect, skygaurd / turrets needed a bit of a buff (projectile speed and maybe a tiny, tiny bit of damage) so no complainants about that, but if the max also gets this, say goodby to aircav. Don't forget the lock on missiles will be ever more present if the buffs they get make them really useful. I am happy they took dumb fire from them as now you have to make a choice on what launcher to bring.

I have a feelin you are right, as both a Pilot and AA user myself, I can attest to the current power of AA when used to support outfit ops.

This is a video of my outfit refitting to clear all air in up to 3 hexes out. with buffed AA, this becomes unstoppable. Get ready to have this kind of thing rain upon you wile a good portion of my outfit moves up on foot / in the air and takes everything away from you. I do very poorly in this video however, I need to make a new one since I can predict my leads a lot better now.

This is ill-conceived for 2 reasons. (This coming after the latest nerf that takes nearly a full clip to take down 1 or 2 infantry)

1) This will make it useless vs infantry, and you are buffing infantry's ability to lock on and bring down aircraft, from virtually any range. Who in their right mind is going to even fly over hotspots now when every harry and sally will be able to lock on when you are at ceiling in most areas? Where you getting rocket podded from the ceiling?

2) Using rocket pods amputates pilots from using AA missiles, thus makes it more or less a ground-assault based fighter by giving up advantages against air targets. This was considered a fair trade as if you went AA, you were useless vs ground targets. Now any ESF that has ground capability will only be laughed at.


As for the flak damage increase, I have no quarrel with that. But the rocket pod nerf in combination with making the G2A launcher and I win button is an obvious give-in to whiners.

Yes, they are WHINERS because any ground based teamwork will eliminate craft from the sky and leave high altitude fighting to skilled pilots.

So, say goodbye to good dogfights people due to the call of duty whinebag that just bought the i-win launcher for $4.95.

I understand and appreciated your desire to not over buff or nerf as your try to hit a happy med. That being said as of now, I have not personally killed an aircraft that was not on the ground repairing since beta. Trust me I have tried.

I think currently the mounted AA turrets are not viable anymore, I have never shot down anyone with them, I have hurt them.... but they just fly away, repair come back at a different angle and destroy me in one pass. If that is not the case then a Gunship bombs me to death from the highest point they can fly to of which I cant even hit them. (to me that is def more an air to air issue) The AA turrets need to be more viable or more need to be placed at bases if they are to be kept as is.

I just don't bother to get in them any more, as they are a deterrent to maybe one but not 2 air craft. The only thing they are useful for is repair points.


Ohh and as some of you keep repeating that a air is the counter to air, that is fine and dandy if you have been able to figure out how to fly. Try as I might the best I can do is travel from point a to b. That is it I will never be a flyer in this game as It makes no logical sense to me. I could design a very cool joystick for this mode of flying in which anyone could fly decently well but sorry no engineering degree there.

Perhaps the solution is to award ground AA forces a lot of points for DAMAGING enemy aircraft.

Since ground AA forces DO currently serve as a deterrent to enemy aircraft, then award the AA forces A LOT OF XPs for doing so.

Then leave the aircraft v. ground balance as it is.