Upcoming adjustments to Air vs Ground balance

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Higby, Dec 5, 2012.

  1. Leal

    Pretty much every lib and ESF has certed into the night vision optics, so yeah you may be invisible but night vision (or was it thermals?) will make you glow bright as day.


    There is no hiding from the Sky Gods.
    • Up x 1
  2. LameFox

    Thermal.

    Though often I'll see someone between bouts of cloak, and once you know he's there, you can find him because cloak doesn't literally make you invisible, only hard to see.
  3. Freddo

    To see cloaked infiltrators its Thermal however this attachment is not only available for Air it is also available for Armor as well.
    However Thermal has a shorter render distance than Infared and also cost 200 certs to unlock, maybe for Thermal they could increase the required certs to unlock it as it is quite a powerful attachment to your weapon. I can't remember the cost of Infared I think it was either 50 or 100 certs.

    When I am flying I am usually looking at my targets in these views as it makes it easier to see my targets also when I am doing a fly over a base or inbetween bases its the same and if your not cloaked for even a second I will see you and probably turn around and take you out (I am usually using the Infared vision which can not see cloaked infantry).
  4. OutlawDr

    Ultimately, this is whats wrong here.

    Here we can see its more of a design problem than a balance problem. If the devs insist on air being the best counter to air, it leaves no room for safeguards. If we get in a situation where air is overpowered (which we are in) then players only recourse is to get more air (which is what we currently see). Ground should be able to counter air equally as well and vice versa. This way, if something about air is overpowered (such as dalton libs) ground players can fallback on taking more of the ground-based air counters (such as the fictional skyguads that don't suck ... for example). Right now it just means taking more ESFs to take down those libs, or dual AA max (which just doesn't quite cut it for ground). What ground (ground vehicles especially) is lacking is there version of the liberator. Something that will punish the opponent harshly on relying to much on air. Pre-beta the skyguard was alway toted as that something. Of course the skyguard is shamefully weak. tldr version, buff the skyguard.
    • Up x 2
  5. Malevolent

    This is nothing more than an opinion, which I totally disagree with.

    It is OPINION that air should be the primary deterrent to air. Concentrated burster maxes work just fine, you should try them.
    • Up x 1
  6. OutlawDr

    Well obviously its an opinion. All design choices are in the end subjective...
    The problem is figuring out whos opinion is more right...This is not a hard science.

    But relying on air to best counter air is an obvious design flaw...IMHObbq...and its leading to what we see here.
    A horde of burster maxes to annoy one liberator works sometimes, but its not enough of a counter imoimo
  7. Stormlight666

    So yesterday I trialed the anti-air grounder launcher. After firing 20 rockets locked on, i managed to get 1 hit that did no real damage. So i used it for another twenty minutes at the ships that were flying around, took some fire from a Lib that had ZERO fear of it (which is appropriate since it did squat damage to it in it's hits). This weapon needs a serious upgrade - mostly in missile speed department.
    • Up x 1
  8. Imnuktam

    G2A launcher is pure garbage. You rarely land hits after aquiring lock on like you say and even if you do hit something it takes 3 to drop an esf so 97% of everything just > Flies away after you hit it and repairs to get exp while you run back to resupply to get more ammo and get 0 exp.

    Would and could be fun to use but as it is now I am honestly more afraid of peoples machine guns when I fly, than I am g2a. Am literally and honestly ashamed to admit I bought this x2 at launch thinking it would work so on I own it on 2 of my 3 toons and it just collects dust. If they ever do up the damage and dont patch note it I will never find out since I dont use it anymore and dont ever get hit by it as a pilot.


    ALSO

    What became of the lock on nerf to force you to have to lock on to fire a weapon, is that not going to happen because so many of the community were against it? I know I was, firing the g2a at soldiers is about the only way I ever got kills with the thing and its already pretty low damage against vehicles dumbfired.
  9. Arcanum

    The only one that's supposed to not be able to lock on is the Annihilator.
  10. tralalog

    damnit i saw this thread and thought this was a new patch
  11. MilitiaMan

    You can see cloakers with Thermal AND Night Vision. I normally pick up NV over Thermal because of distance and works just as well imo.
  12. EZPickens

    G2A launcher: 20 missiles fired, 2 hits, 0 kills, 0 assists.

    Pure, useless, garbage.

    Did not deter a fracking thing & complete waste of time.
    • Up x 1
  13. Yil

    So the 18 misses were not from ESF's/Libs moving out of the area when you locked on / fired?
    • Up x 1
  14. Smaisteri

    Only thing I dont like about is the Flak Armor buff. That increase is massive! Does the Flak Armor damage reduction affect direct hits? I need to know this, I dont want to play as a MAX anymore if I cant one hit kill people with the Falcon -launcher. If it affects Falcon direct hits too, it will be obsolete.
  15. EZPickens

    ESF diving in, lock on, fire, ESF changes altitude up or down, missile misses. I had no hits vs incoming aircraft.
    ESF do simple turn n burn, missile misses.
    Did not shoot much at libs, but the few I did, popped flares, no hits. One hovering lib, very close range, missile did not hit (have no idea why, but no hit register)

    The only hits I got were from letting an ESF make its run, and fire at it going away. Low angular difference, and if the ESF did not burn away or pop flare, were the hits I got.

    Firing 20 locked on missiles with 2 hits is not deterring aircraft.

    Oh and BTW I got rocket spammed, Zephered, etc for my efforts.

    None of the aircraft made any real changes to what they were doing, other than pop flares or maneuver more. They still kept on the attack.
  16. rGlory

    Just wait! They will reduce rocket pod splash damage for couple more meters and increase G2A rockets lock range for some more and that will fix the game!
  17. Frosty The Pyro

    increasing cert cost is NOT a balancing mechanic.
  18. Aege

    My suggestion is to hire a retired fighter pilot to advise on the way things work in the real world.

    I would really like to know if there's a single military pilot playing this game and hear what their thoughts are on the air power and AA defenses.
  19. EZPickens

    Ok update from tonight. In one fight, defending at Gravel Pass I believe, I got off 8 good G2A shots in a row. 4 hits! no kills, no assists. The hits were on Scythes making slow dives on the outpost & hover spamming rockets at us so there was no real challenge to the missiles to track or chase. All misses were on passing shots, or when the ESF was accelerating away.

    I still think this is garbage level performance for AA, but at least it fits the bill for the garbage level design that G2A is only supposed to deter low, slow, and stupid pilots.

    And no, I did not see my efforts, or any of the other infantry take out or "deter" the air. Right now air can, with low risk, have high reward for going low and slow killing everything on the ground.

    Higby if you care, if you are listening: make the lock on range shorter, make the missiles fly faster, give them better turning radius, make them take 2/3 of an ESF health. Keep dumb fire in.
    Infantry would need bursters or a skyguard for "long range" AA

    If air gets within spitting distance of the ground it should be in for a serious hurt from a shoulder launcher.

    Unless you like the hover spam, then your game has met your design goals.

    (It really is like you guys learned nothing from PS1. What did you do, sit down at a table take a look at 9+ years worth of air, infantry, vehicle balance experience, and say it is irrelevant? Because it sure feels like you are trying to figure this all out from scratch.)
  20. Gavyne

    I've been giving this some thought, and I just want to give my opinion about this real quick. Before I start I'll just say that I love Planetside 2, and I do think there's a place for air & vehicles in this game. As someone who plays infantry 90% of my time, I'm obviously a bit frustrated by the massive air & vehicle spam lately. But a balance should be reached so there's a place for everybody in this game, regardless of your play style.

    So on to the subject of air v ground balance, I think it's a bit of a contradiction to call anti air "deterrence". In a game like this where you either kill or be killed, there's very little room for in between. It's very hard to deter anything if I'm blown up. It's very hard to deter an ESF when my anti lock rocket launcher does not home in properly and explode on target. It's very hard to deter aircrafts when my AC30 Walker just does not do enough to kill an aircraft, and after firing that I'm toast since everybody knows I'm there.

    That's the problem I have with the idea that anti air weapons should only deter air, but not kill air. That may work on paper strategy, but it does not work in real time inside the game. When I fire anti air weapons at an aircraft, I either blow it up, or it blows me up. It's one or the other. There's very little in between. Yes an aircraft could fly away, if you want to call that deterrence, but it'll come back with 100% health and still blow me up. In my opinion true deterrence is having weapons lethal enough to destroy air. It's then, only then, that the pilots will actually get deterred and think about flying elsewhere.

    So I hope the dev team rethink their strategy on the whole air vs ground balance. There's no reason to tell ground that our weapons have to suck because we shouldn't be able to counter air, when air already gets the speed, height, and tactical advantage over ground. I've paid for all the anti air weapons in the game, I got my AC30 Walker early on shortly after launch, long before the update that boosted it slightly as noted in the post by Higby. I really would like what I paid for to work right. When I think about anti air, I think about the anti air I've used in other games like in BF3 where it shoots fast and long. The anti air weapons in this game shoots too slow, have too much recoil and drop, too little ammo per round, and even those that are supposed to lock-on like anti air rocket launcher do not home in to targets properly.

    Please make anti air what they are supposed to be, anti air. The balance has to be shifted so both air and ground can take each other out depending on strategy, tactics, and surprise factor. Ground has to stop being the fodder for high KDR & exp farmers. I'm not asking ground to get the advantage over air, or vice versa. I'm not asking air or tanks to be taken out of the game. I'm simply asking there to be proper counters and let anti air be true anti air. If I have to give up fun and exp by playing anti air, I want to be effective.

    That's all thanks for reading.