Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

so Higbly your aving fun in your airpod ?
did you ever try out any AA ?
this is ridiculus now, you can keep your game and enjoy empty ground in a near futur...

Who the hell wants to deter air? There's no reward for it because you hardly obtain any kills.
I still feel I'm missing 80% of my burster shots, and the Walker still feels next to useless, and so does the Skyguard.

It's ridiculous to have to rely on ESFs to take out all enemy aircraft.
There should be an infantry unit and vehicle unit that specialise in AA.
Just like there's an air unit that specialises in taking out infantry, and an air unit that specialises in taking out vehicles.
And just like there's an infantry unit that specialises in taking out vehicles, and a vehicle that specialises in taking out infantry.

Why does aircraft get special protection? Why make G2A a deterrent, rather than something useful?

If you're missing 80% of your burster shots, be patient. Learn to lead the target, don't aim AT the target.
Same with the Skyguard. I see 9/10 burster maxes and skyguards tracers going towards the enemy air units, and the tracers actually go as if they aim directly at the target, not bothering to lead it what so ever.
It's like watching a hollywood movie where a chaingunner of the side of a chopper is literally aiming BEHIND Sylvester Stallone when he's running, instead of simply panning the gun ahead of him and mowing him down.
Add some benny hill music and it's pure gold to witness.

That's why air is so powerful now, because it's easy to use and anti-air is hard to use. People get mad and ragequit and go to the forums to whine about op air, instead of bothering to LEARN how to be good at anti-air. Instead of taking things in their own hands, so to speak.

You can do very well with both bursters and skyguards (no joke), it just takes time to learn how much you need to lead.
It took me a full week in beta to learn it, of nonstop anti-air practice.

But you can learn it, and you can do well with it.
It's not as easy as aiming rocket pods in the general vicinity of a sunderer, though.
Perhaps this is the problem, that AA is too hard to learn, compared to rocket pods.
If they changed AA to have proximity detonation (like real Flak had), would it help?

Well, it would only really help if players bothered to try to lead the targets to even get their shots within 5 meters of the air unit in the first place..

I have put a considerable amount of certs into the AA Max on my 3 toons ( NC,VS,TR seperate servers ) and even made the mistake of investing a fair few certs into the lightning AA tank on my VS toon as well.

Even in Planetside 1 I used to specialise heavily as an AA unit, I had a bit of a knack of getting a very good percentage of flak on target with a combination of " leading " and also giving a good guess as to what the aircraft would do when under fire.....then put a good burst there for them to run into.

WIth a good bit of terrain to play hide and seek amongst and a steady supply of ammo, I can take out an undamaged ESF with no great drama, unless the pilot is really good......( and lets be honest here, the vast majority of pilots are absolutely atrocious in Planetside 2....but this is the only game I know that is so forgiving for being a rubbish pilot ) and unless the Liberator Pilot is on the ball, I can mess their day up badly as well.

I use a combination of non-obvious placement for my Max..ideally with some hard cover, a good open view of the likely approach the enemy air is going to come from or repair to,a being accurate ( big ammo box cert helps as well ) and run the MAX with dual bursters.

I do not make the slightest bit of difference at all to the enemy air attack

Every air attack has been in overwhelming numbers, literally fighting 15 to 1 against ESFs, I can down 2 or damage 5 and scare them off......and then I am slaughterd by the remaining 10.No matter where you place the max, or how you try to play tactically....you are absolutely spammed by rockets and gunfire.

Liberators. To have ( as of tonight ) 6 liberators hovering at high altitude, spamming the entire area around all possible spawns and have another 3 liberators doing circles and mopping up, is ridiculous.

I did get a great vantage point, and I was hitting my Lib target with every single shot....but I just could not produce enough damage in the few seconds before I was targetted to do more than hit it with 2 clips........at ground level, the shots could not even reach the stationary libs.

That is the final insult really. The libs can just hover at altitude, either out of range or not greatly worried about being blown out of the sky.

Higby your view of balance SUCKS

AIR is way overpowerd and need to be tuned down.
Hard counter to AIR needs to be GROUND.

remove Rocketpods or change them to empbombs or something.

What we need is tank damage from air significantly toned down. At the current rate if the Jeeps get into the game, all Air will have to do is shoot a single bullet and they will explode them.

We also need a proper skyguard on the battlefield before any adjustments are done. A full fledged driver & gunner setup please. I don't even want a damage buff. Ask any that played the original and used any vehicle on the battlefield.

Rule #1 Don't stop moving.
Rule #2 DON'T STOP MOVING!

Unless you are on the frozen lakes of Esamir, you won't be hitting anything while trying to drive, aim, shoot the enemy, and dodge fellow players.

Politicians used to stand for optimism, now they preach fear and promise to save you from the boogie man.
Before F2P, games were made to maximize fun. Now they are made to create frustration through imbalance. It's all about psychology; sure you have to want to play but often things are as they are to also make you want to pay.

there needs to be a limit of how many libs can be in the air at a time for each faction on a continent

an armor colum is not as game changing as 5 libs with zephyrs. i've been in a magrider with a group of vanu and broken both nc and tr armor colums, and vice versa against vs. but 5 libs with zephyrs? with 1-3 esf's around to batter away any esf you attempt to send at them?

the zephyr does as much damage as the tank main guns as far as i can tell. it should require a reload after one shot.

I do better with a lightning AP than I do with a skyguard. I've surprised many a hover****** with a well placed 1 hit kill AP round.

Im not sure there is so much focus on trying to make it painfull until you pay, but there is definitely a maximization on profits in mind.

The air to ground balance is about right now. In large engagements, combined arms are required, and although air can be completely locked out of an area with a few burster maxes, their manuverability allows for darting attacks.

If liberators are killing you, you need air support, or a group of AA. 3 burster maxes, for instance. Considering the liberator has the same number of people inside, this seems right.

I believe the current balance in AA and Air is almost on par with each other.

If your being strafed and bombarded by a squad or platoon of air then you have no air support or anti air cover.
It is your fault for not investing in the AA defense before move out with your squad or platoon.

I believe the AA Max is quite over powered I can gun down many air with my twin burster max alone so for people to say its underpowered are just not skilled enough to use the class. 3 AA Max's can clear the skies very easily as we have shown many times in the platoon's I play with.

Effective team work will work wonders when its executed properly.

I am a Mozzie pilot so I understand how Air operates and I consider my self quite a decent mozzie pilot.
This has also given me the distinctive advantage of understanding how to suppress an air convoy.

As to the Skygaurd I believe that it just needs a slight buff as it is currently worse the a single AA max, its only a small buff.

While I pilot a Mozzie the only reasons why I go down are because I was being stupid and hovering while I wasn't paying attention or I was strafing an area with multiple AA Max's.
A skilled pilot in any aircraft can evade most AA however a skilled AA can also take down Air effectively.

It all comes down to how you are tactically and strategically advancing. If you leave yourself open for Air attacks then prepare to be bombarded by air. Just because the enemy is exploiting your weakness at that moment should not be concern for a buff in G2A or AA. You should not have left yourself open to air in the first place. This is also the same for being overrun by a convoy of tanks or a mass of infantry.

Planetside 2 is not about a single players objectives but a teams objectives and if your not working as a team to cover your defenses then prepare for your enemy to exploit your weakness to break you.

As to libs and efs bombarding a spawn point I only have one simply solution for you to consider.
Spawn somewhere else and tactically advance on their offense to wipe them out.

Adapt to survive or forever be bombarded by air, armor and infantry.

Main problems with AA are that Skygaurds are still the worst way to spend certs for AA by far, and playing AA is about as rewarding as being a LIB backgunner.

Interesting....I actually logged in to check my stats on this tangent. Until recently the only thing I ever used my ESF for was personal transport between bases when the Zerg was capping empty Conts...

Only just since last 2X-XP event did I decide to try out any kind of Anti-Air. Even so, my "time with" this ESF is only 1/2 of my total time with my Sniper Rifle (basically the only class I play when I'm not medic/heavy). I've got 3x as many kills with the rifle, yet I would point out that my kills with the ESF against Air grants usually 2-3x the XP. 4X when I get "last hit" on a Galaxy or Sunndy. So in actuality, my total playtime this week with A2A weapons has been more rewarding than my entire month as an infiltrator and not just because I get a ton of bonus XP for constantly repairing my own ESF as an Engineer... I hear that resupplying & repairing MAXes also gives a lot?

I do see one possible issue though.... I don't have Dual Bursters and according to my stats, my accuracy with the single Burster is 1% better than my ESF's accuracy but I only have 1/7th the amount of kills with it.... which is then totally eclipsed by how awful the Phalanx AA turret appears to be: 20% accuracy, 1700 shots fired, and 1 kill. <--- lol base defense.

A2A gunning could probably use a slight nerf
while G2A needs to be rewarded for damage inflicted since it can't actually "Chase" hurt targets like A2A can.
And B2A (base turrets) obviously need a huge rethinking b/c no one uses them in large enough numbers.

I wish AA flak actually did the smoke puffs when they blow up, give a better idea of how centred our hits on an aircraft are. Hate to think i've finally gotten enough lead on him to hit only to realize i'm grazing half my shots. Also, can we make it so that the closer a plane is to an AA Turret on a base, the stronger the hits are. I'm tired of having Libs with anti-tank rounds coming straight for me and I unload until i'm overheated hitting dead centre every time since he's so close and coming for me only to die horribly and have him live.

Tell the truth. SOE is moving in the right direction. But it is not quite true.
The changes they make are quite natural. Read what is written both ways and you'll see that everything is correct. Individuality laugh complaints pilots. You do what you were thinking when fly in large numbers over the enemy? This is not a nerf aviation, buff is air-defense.
As for infantry rockets - why not add them to switch the fire ... "B" button for example. So infantryman can chose as he shoot.

PS. Skyuard even increase the clip size ... and it is anti-aircraft vehicle with questionable efficacy against everything.
Although the Gatling gun as I know shells zagruzhabtsya through a conveyor, so that shops be in theory it should not.
And it would not hurt to fix a rate of fire and recoil.

Oh and let turrets also have a wider view that they can turn to. I'm sick of scythes and mosquitos hovering UNDER my turret and aiming up, firing and destroying my turret and there is nothing I can do cause I literally cannot turn my turret low or high enough to get to them.


While you're at it, do this for vehicle turrets too. Its stupid that a tank can just get right in the face of a turret and the turret cannot aim low enough to shoot the tank... not like you'll kill it first cause the damage the turrets have sucks.

I just only seen this post, thought it was new or something until I saw the date and the update 1. Sadly to say that you all have failed to fully made a balance in ground and air. I also agree with Leal why can't the cannons and turrents face down, so we must watch tanks and other stuff blow us up from right below ? :| Think a little.

This should be a game of balance - 3 players in a Lib should require 3 players elsewhere to take down (generally).

So how can an ESF outshoot my AA MAX? I was a TR Burster MAX in PS1 and a Skyguard Gunner, so do know how to lead targets.
The issue is that the aircraft are the :

1. Fastest way to travel;
2. Most numerous vehicle;

... that you can barely pop out to take a look and suddenly you have a face full of splash damage. You will not get that much AA to counter them, ever. Plus the NC Reaver never seems to win ANY air-duels from what I see, so is a poor counter to ESF.

AA MAX is a total sacrifice - you are giving up ALL of your Anti-Infantry and Anti-Vehicle and Capping potential to specialise in being a destroyer of aircraft. Make it better please. Nobody is willing to take those sacrifices - they'd rather jump in an ESF and take on every target with no negatives.

I've fired Hawk missiles at a hovering Mosquito and it barely jinks and suddenly the shot just misses. Let us not even talk of the ridiculous nature of the flares/chaff.

Finally...

As a cloaker, my typical base-under-siege escape method, I will often be rocket-gibbed in the middle of nowhere by ESF and Libs despite being cloaked. - What gives?