[VIDEO] ESF reverse maneuver changes on the Test Server (Video comparing PTS and Live)

The problem with the reverse maneuver is that the reaver pulls it off much better and easier than the mossy or the scythe.
Despite reaver pilots trying to downplay their "flying brick" as the worst ESF they have always had it easier in this department and coupled with their previously overpowered guns reaver pilots dominate reverse dogfighting. Always have.

Well for all of you who accept this change as your 'glorious' new flight mechanic, I hope you have fun flying in circles all day. And non-pilots, why are you even here? This does not affect anyone but pilots.

I don't have a problem with it in the scythe. I also die significantly more to mossies than I do to reavers, but then again the only outfit that gets multiple reavers coordinated in the same area on Mattherson is QRY.

The utility thing is a drop pod, so when the pro pilots that do nothing but roam around looking for noobs to farm come after you, burn for the nearest base and drop out.

Good night reaver, if it's only about the fact who can do the smaller circle.

I mostly fly a Galaxy so this change would technically make my life even easier since it is going to be easier to ram ESFs. Nevertheless, I think it's a very stupid, unnecessary change.

The reverse maneuver is not just a single maneuver. The term encompasses a whole load of things to do with vertical thrusters, not just a one-trick-pony kind of thing. Of course, that's difficult to understand for people who have not had a lot of experience flying yet.

I'm wondering what people expect though? Why would anyone want to dumb down the game in any way? When I look at BF3 videos of dogfights it makes me sick with how utterly boring the constant circle is. Planetside 2's mechanics actually make aerial fighting diverse and exciting. You have to decide when to fly forward to find cover and when to try to enter hover-mode to maneuver. You have to decide when to dodge enemy bullets in hover mode, how your afterburner fuel is strategically used for that and when to keep yourself more stable to aim and take shots. Diminishing that mechanic of strategically using afterburners to dodge shots and get into a shooting position does nothing to make the game fun. All it does it also diminish all the fun of fighting in the air. Sure, it might make it easier to pick up flying initially but for what price? Long-term motivation of practicing and becoming better and better at handling an ESF will disappear. It's as if Infantry bullets would automatically hit a target if you're shooting in the general direction. It would make the game much much easier but also hilariously boring. No improvement or sense of achievement required.

Anyway, I'm ranting again. In short, it's a silly change, especially in its magnitude. The only way I could maybe come to terms with it is if afterburner certs gave back the lift. Deciding between more maneuverability or more Dakka might potentially even be a good thing. If that doesn't happen though, aerial fighting will unfortunately become quite boring and take away long-term motivation.

I just realized this is probably to put it more in the range for the console kiddies rather than balancing between the ESF's.

However if they're going to change the thrust mechanics, they need to overhaul the flight mechanics entirely. Add in stalling, make landing harder for the other two ESF's. Make it so that you can't just nose down and slowly descend in the Reaver and Mossy. Do a full overhaul of the system. Give us a much higher flight ceiling of 1500m or maybe even 2km (relative to the base of the continent model, not to the ground).

Pilots are the biggest prima donnas

Make hovering a ground based effect, meaning it won't work past 20m above the ground. Turn the hover chassis into a low velocity chassis (reduce stalling speed). Give us air brakes.

Anyway, I don't think it got anything to do with the PS4, current flight mechanics are just silly.

PS: if anything, it currently caters to the arcade/console crowd.

Hehe, i guess you wasen't here for the Magrider nerf drama, the Prowler HE drama, the Scatmax drama, the ZOE max drama, etc.. Just take a look at the daily whine threads about infantry weapon balance. Surely it's not the pilots who are primadonnas

You are right that pilots aint primadonnas, ESF pilots are.

With the amount of QQ about AA, daltons+vehicle crews get from ESF i would say that ESF pilots are the biggest primadonnas in PS2.
The ESF is the most effective single player unit in the game: its the fastest, have access to good AA, AI and AV in the same loudout(al right, its not OP like it used to be, but a good ESF can still kill a MBT any day of the week if the tank doesnt have AA cover). And still ESF pilots whine and think they should get buffed, while their counter should get nerfed.

And my favorite:
Thinking that "pilot" or "air" is synonym for ESF.

If this will get more people flying and create larger air battles, then I am all for it. I'm just about for anything that will make the skies more entertaining.

If the dev's think this will help, then lets try it out. If afterwards, the number of pilots doesn't go up, then revert the change.

With the amount of QQ about shotguns, NC and ZOE MAX + hate on snipers headshotting infanty i would say that infanty players are the biggest primadonnas in PS2.
Infantry is the most effictive thing in the game, it's free, can spawn in every base, has acces to good AA (lock ons, hi Striker), AI (MANA AV TURRET) and AI (guns duh) (alright it's not OP, but a good LA player can still instagib a MBT any day of the week if the tank doesnt have the space to work with or the situational awareness. And STILL infantry whines about vehicles spawncamping and farming infantry, while they have free AV and AA to pull at any time.

And my favorite:
Thinking that FF should be removed because people can't watch where they're shooting.

Now go cry in the corner about how that 'noob' player killed you with a shotgun in CQC.

You do know that you need 3 classes(heavy, engi and then LA) and be a specific fraction (TR hallo) to do what you just whined about? While the ESF's need just one guy and one loadout.

Do you read forums threads that aint ESF related? Ppl aint complaining about getting OHK by snipers, ppl are actually complaining about the opposite, the whole "nanoweave-makes-you-immune-to-headshots" thing.

This wont create large air battles or make newbs last longer at all in the sky. The simple fact is, terrible pilots are terrible.

As I've said in other threads, I can shoot down new pilots with a banshee, despite their "mad circle driving skills." No one is going to be flying in circles doing "Realistic dogfights" like you parrots are claiming, the fact is, one guy will still hover, obliterating the newbie as he tries to drive in tight loops around his opponent, still wondering why the hell hes being hit. This change wont make air "more accessible" to new players, it is designed SOLELY to reduce the skill cieling of a2a and make lockons like the ones they will be releasing soon, more competitive among players who still cant aim.

After all, they wont sell swarmer missiles to the newb pilots like crazy unless those pilots hear how easy they are to get kills with.

This entire thing screams bad news for the game as a whole. The people who want fixed wing aircraft battles in planetside, honestly need to go play something else, because fixed wing is obviously not what we have. None of the aircraft in this game have a wing surface area large enough to support lift on them. Its not like making everything fly straight only (which real planes dont btw, but then again people arguing for this change dont know what a rudder is etc)

If you think its "realism" to simply nullify the thrust provided by the engines of the craft in one flight mode then you understand so little about flying in any setting , game or not, that it makes me laugh, and wonder why you are bothering to post in a thread about an activity you are never going to be very good at in this game.

I'll tell you again, I started out hating the hovery ness of aircraft in planetside, but I have come to LOVE this games flight mechanics, because I learned what I could really do if I practiced and bothered putting in the time. You people who are too lazy to learn are the real issue here, not vertical thrust.

This kind of mentality deserves a separate post.

The reality is, people do not play planetside because it is an amazingly realistic flight sim. If planetside were a realistic flight sim, let me tell you, the new players would still be just as ineffective and the whine against fighters would be even stronger.

People arguing for realism dont understand that for example, an A-10 Thunderbolt can blow a tank up with its rotary nosegun in seconds, while still carrying a whole pack of missiles and rockets and a2a missiles. A formation of them flying over your precious infantry battle would leave the entirety of your side as a smoking crater, not some heroic singular individual tryign to use a shoulder mounted lockon (lol) to down one of the best close air support craft ever devised.

If this were realism I could drop a laser guided bomb on your base from a mile away and youd be obliterated without ever knowing where it came from or who was painting the target. If this were realism I wouldnt need to be within 100 meters to finally unload on you with my nosegun or rocketpods (cause you render only inside a tiny space) and come out of the dive well in time to lock an a2am on your incoming "backup" and have them down before they ever got in range of the fight, since in real life sims, a single a2am is a kill and your little infantry body wont protect you against even a single rocket hit, let alone a whole pack of 16.

If this were realism, all tanks in this game would automatically lead a target and fire based on the thing that I, as the tank commander, selected as a target, and they could hit it while moving, over rough terrain, at high speed, even if it was a single infantry man. IF this were realism, youd be losing limbs every time some sniper caught you with a 50 caliber round and no amount of "dance in circles" or "crouch spam" could save you from the reality of bullets moving faster than you could react, from every single gun in the game.

This game is not realistic, because quite frankly, its designed to be a game, not a simulator. Frankly if it were going for realistic sci fi there would probably be no ground troops at all and just a lot of ships fighting over who controlled the planet, since one ship in orbit with a big gun is > your ground army in choosing who owns the surface.

Dont argue for realism where realism was never intended

Why do I get the feeling only LOLpodders are whining about this change, look like they want to be effective against ground target AND defeat people getting the jump on them ?
I'm sure were we to look at all your aces stat, most of the pilot whining would be loaded with rocket kills.

Also if I remember correctly, pilots successfuly so far nerfed every counter against the Rocketpod/rotary/reversethrust playstyle.
And what are you guys whining about missiles, it's the same as a tank using HEAT versus a tank using AT. You want to farm infantry, you ll be at a disadvantage against someone looking to fight tanks.

Also the game is about team play, got someone on your tail, ask for help.

As for the real (non farmers, kiddies, self proclaimed aces) pilots, I've not heard so far a whining about this change. The only thing I hearing is "Current flight mechanics sucks so let's go with the change but also give us more realistic flight mechanic"

I have a 1.05 kill/vehicle-destroyed ratio in my Mossy. I have over 3.7k kills in said Mossy, and only about 3-400 are from hellfires. The people who truly hate this change are the ones who enjoy the dog fighting, not the ground farming. So yeah, you are wrong.

Is that why flak and rockets were buffed, ESF health nerfed, and rocketpods were nerfed only a couple of months after release? Is that why those changes made ESFs lose almost all of their effectiveness in large battles since then?

If someone gets on your tail, you generally won't live even with the reverse maneuver unless you are the better pilot. That applies to scythes, reavers, and mosquitoes.

The only people I see happy about this change are the ones who weren't good at air combat in this game to begin with.

I'm a lolpodder and I'm happy about this change. In fact, I'm pretty sure your statement is the complete opposite of reality. The people complaining are the No True Scotsman pilots who spend their entire days flying backwards in search of that one perfect kill.

Wrong team but just as eager to defend their advantage. We've all seen this before.

QRY, and correct me if I'm wrong, seem to be crying pretty hard (name irony?). If anyone is all about using noseguns to shoot down other air dudes, it's them.

Post in the Vehicle Discussion forum instead Seb. You're wasting your time here. There's too many ******** infantry players. I'm mean it's still bad, but at least people who are interested in vehicles read there. This is like a ******* mental institute.

Don't forget that in any 'realistic' sci-fi setting we'd almost certainly have auto-aiming guns. They already exist, and theres little reason (outside of legislation) for them not to enter mass deployment in the future.

So yeah - if you promote realism - remember you're promoting aimbotting. And how much fun would that be?