[Video] Proton PPA - Farmrider

Lol you are just hilarious. Countering ESF's is a lot easier than a magrider. It's only
hard when you are out populated because, guess what, your AA get's killed by tanks.

Oh, now I see where your ignorance comes from, 280 kills in your ESF after 36 hours.
Funny, if I did that bad in a vehicle I wouldn't pretend to know about how it compares to
other vehicles or playstyles. I guess you just got a bit hurt over seeing what a magrider
actually can do.

Asides from my kills with the PPA BTW. Keep in mind, the drivers also got a lot of kills,
not only me

I don't know where he finds these fights on Cobalt. It's as if not a single outfit exists on the server. I'm sure you can make this sort of footage on any server though as long as you know how to exploit a zerg and have friends from the other faction who know the vehicle being used inside out.

The weird part is the facination with the K/D ratios while denying all other statistics. Basically "I don't care about stats but look at these stats i got with this weapon and not my prefered weapon platform".

Non of these type of videos are also informative or opinion pieces that are grounded. There is hardly anything to argue in his video because he does not ever present a solution to the problem. It's just whine about one weapon system while comparing it to completely different weapon system on completely different platform.

Is it OP?
What needs to be done if it is in your opinion?.
Does the other weapon and in this case ESF rocket pods need to be buffed instead?
How much buffing do the rocket pods need?
Should they get nerfed regarding damage to vehicles to become inline with the ground based AI options?
Should hornets get buffed to fill in the AT role more effectively in that case?

He never answers to anything of this kind. All he does is whine about the weapon that isn't rocket pods and thus "easy mode" and rolls his Matti is being targeted shtick.

I can assure you Matti4ce is priority target for the Jesters when spot him and we go out of the way to take his vehicles out ASAP. But we go about the same lenght for any other farmer on the server. So being in another farmers tank and the result will be pretty much the same regarding being called out. The guy he's gunning to is Pucwyczes on Alt. To assume that we are oblivous on NC or wouldn't target a farmers farmrider as priority or go for the lesser threat just because "youtube fame" is rediculuos statement no matter how you cut it. If there is a really well placed enemy Sunderer by a nameless br1 then that sunder is worth a dozen Matti's and we will concentrate all the efforts on it first. He's giving himself too much credit.

That is BS, total BS.
To counter Mag you can use:
-MTB
-Lightning
-LA with C4
-Lib
-ESF
-HA with rockets
-Engi with Mines and AV turret
-MAX with AV weapons

To counter ESFs you can use:
-ESF
-Skyguard
-AA MAX
-HA with AA rockets

And only ESF is 100% deadly to another ESF, from everything even you can easily run away if you were focused enough on what is happening o battlefield

Except for the fact that you can actually fight almost everything that counters your tank, with your tank.
You can't fight a semi decent AA with an ESF, unless and I say it again, you are favoured cause of pop.

PPA Balance

The PPA is a very good AI tool. And I do also agree that the NC and TR AI should get a buff. The PPA is pretty useless in many situations - provides no deterrent to air or other vehicles but it is really good against infantry - it does what it says on the tin.

The main reason that it is so good is largely because of fairly basic infantry tactics of flooding the battlefield with herp derping troops. So often you see a large cluster of outfits running from base to base as the preferred tactic of advancing from one base to another. Very little armour is pulled at these times. They don't even try to pull sunderers for transport - only as forward spawns - the transport role of any vehicle other than a galaxy is none existent. The PPA Splash and high fire rate mean that in these situations the PPA performs really well. I believe that pretty much liberators, ESFs, an AI equipped prowler or a PPA are all as good in these situations. Most vehicles have to run in these situations.

Having some option to counter the 'ant hill mob' foot zerg is imo a very necessary loadout in my opinion. To prevent this kind of fairly lame zerg tactic. It's a major deterrant to foot zergs - in the same way a skyguard is a deterrant to enemy aircraft. In my opinion this is a vital element to the game.

How different this is to PS1 where outside of bases armour ruled and troops not using transport were considered daft. This situation reversed at bases where vehicles would be dominated by troops. This was a nice balance and created a good flow to the game.


Due to the recent nerf which means that any vehicle other than a harasser, esf or flash takes no damage from the PPA, however, mean that any vehicle is a major threat to a PPA Magrider or harasser. In essence the tank becomes a 1/2 tank against vehicles.

I do not believe it is OP at all. We very rarely equip the PPA since it is very situational. Most of my kills in it were from a while ago - same as the saron kills actually - I don't think we've equipped a Saron for about a year now. If a situation arises, e.g. Indar Comm array where no one ever pulls a vehicle up there and it is always a horrible fight against rocket firing HAs and maxes, then it is a good option. (OMG something that is good in a situation - wheres that nerf bat!!!)
It is actually also only really really good in a situation where you can get above the enemy troops so that you can fully use the splash damage. Picking off troops from a skyline above you is very hit and miss because of the weird spammy rate of fire but once you get elevation on your target and are shooting into the floor, the splash damage is very good (same as the lasher - get above the enemy and you have an advantage)

But once that fight is over, head to quartz ridge and it is basically fairly useless and quite weak. Without AV weaponary (we normally run FPC / PPA) then you are liable to be taken out by the first AV equipped vehicles that comes along. A PPA mag that wants to live for a reasonable amount of time needs to basically mix in behind the AV front line and if they need to run when they are exposed to AV vehicles(I don't consider any 1/2 tank an AV vehicle). In a very similar way to skyguards.

The base layouts now mean that a PPA Magrider is not so good at bases as most bases have been re-designed to be off limits to vehicles.. You are at great danger around buildings (.. *sly wink* except the tanks equipped with radar....waiting for the penny to drop for all of the other tank crews not running prox radar)

We live longer in an AV Tank simply because of the fact that a PPA Mag is very weak - they have a lot of counters. An AV tank wont be as good at getting kills but it will live longer in most situations. High density of foot troops = PPA Territory. Sniping troops off hills and any situation that there is danger of nme aircraft or nme armour then the PPA is then really relegated to a support role behind the AV and foot troops. It's good at that support role like the lasher.

Most of our PPA kills came from Amp Station defences for which the PPA excelled - but with the new base layouts a magrider is best used outside the Amp Station at killing turrets and sunderers.

I answered all your questions before I had ever heard of you, but since it is a bit complicated,
even though these nerfs have been done many times in the past, here it goes.

Reduse the radious of the splash damage and the damage within this AOE.

Now I was just repeating myself but ok, only for you.

You can't fight a semi decent pilot in his aircraft in your non-Skyguard tank (and if you are a Skyguard, you can barely fight back against many of the other targets on the list), unless you are favoured heavily cause of pop (and even then, you can still get taken out very close to huge friendly zergs by a single aircraft). You also cannot fight back against well-placed Tank Mines either.

Another aspect I found entertaining was you predicting this video will get you flamed. Do you even remember why you got "flamed" (as you would call it) for some of the other tanking videos? It wasn't for what you were doing in the videos per se, it was that you claimed that your videos were proof of tanking being easy-mode, and every kill a person would get in a tank would be easy-mode. People didn't just go into your videos/threads and flamed you for farming infantry (or w/e else you were doing), they simply responded to your baseless claims and your so-called "evidence", although even calling it evidence is an insult in itself. Although I'm sure, according to you, we all just flamed you for farming infantry, and that's the end of that story

Thank you. We can start the discussion from here.

By how much should we reduce the spash and damage?
How will this relate to other viable AI options like Kobalt and Basilisk?
How much in performance should it compare to the C85 Trollified and the Marauder?

This is something SOE have done quite well in the past so as far
as I'm concered, they don't need my help with it. I think they are
just acting a bit too late. Marauder was IMO nerfed correctly, I know
most players in this thread disagree but that's my opinion.

I don't know about the Kobalt, I've barely used it and the basilisk is a
completely different weapon so I don't think it belongs in a AI weapon
discussion.

Also, keep in mind. I am not pretending to be an expert about the Proton PPA.
I have used it less then 5 hours. But if it is that effective on a vehicle as manouverable
as the Magrider, well at least now you have my opinion.

With ESF you can destroy another ESF.

To deal with Skyguard, you only need to fly low and hit bastard in *** with lolpods, one clip and he is dead.

AA MAX is bit a problem here, he is small target and can be practically immortal if there are medics around, but damage from one is laughable.(Bit of dystans and you are fine)

Finally HA with AA, damage from one rockiet is almost equal repairs you got from maxed fire suppression.
If there is more... well VS and NC used to fly durning Striker Monkey Era. Even Flares where helpess.

But who i talking to... you are one of the mightiest sky-knight Auraxium ever saw,
You should know all those little tricks what even someone like me without 1000 kills on any of Esf weapons can use to survive and fight back.

It's their call to make decisions regarding balance but it doesn't stop us discussing what "feels" like a right balance solution. Otherwise the vague calls for nerfs just come off sounding half baked. If you want to state that something isn't right you need to be specific about why and how it will effect other aspects of the game.

Kills aren't everything either. Some stuff needs to be balanced towards bigger operational play rather than simple ability to kill stuff.

I do find Magrider very powerful against infantry and the hardest vehicle to deal with after the harasser balance pass both in Vanguard and as Infantry but consider it fairly balanced and the other two tanks lacking in secondaries AI performance.

The problem with your arguments is that anyone can say this or argue that even without
even grasping the situation. How many times have you seen players telling ESF's are OP
only to them having less then 500 kills with them? Happens all the time.

Yes I am also inexperienced with the PPA and this is exactly why I didn't speak out
about them in the first place. I still belive my almost 800 kills in less then 5 hours
says at least something.

Why didn't you say this stuff in your video?

This whole thread would've been a lot more useful and constructive.

Do I need to fly an ESF to know which vehicle that's the easiest to deal with from the target side of the munitions exchange? No.
Not once did I claim to be a sky knight, nor did I claim anything one way or another based on the view from the vehicles.
What I stated was which vehicle that's the easiest to counter if you're coming after you.

Who's ignorant here Matti?
You know air, fair enough. I've never argued against that.
However, when you bring up topics where others are -much- more qualified at than you, where you don't even seem to make an effort in making a video of a certain quality (because it's not "serious" - really?), don't act all hurt when people confront you. Which we will when you're keeping up your charade.

You and me both. While I have been told from people with first hand experience that Cobalt is different than Miller, there's still the weird question on how he finds these situations with such amounts of braindead opposition.

At the end of the day, all of his vids seems to be him trying to get more views, and that's the full extent of it. If he's trying to use them as a part of a debate on something... they're not good for anything beyond a minor footnote.

And to say that his PPA vid did any sort of comparison is laughable at best, an atrocity to proper discourse at worst. He uses words like "zepher" and "rocket pods", but any reasoning for comparison of any kind is non-existent.

"Is it OP?"
No. If anything it's what an AI weapon should be. Let's not forget some of the properties of the PPA:
- No damage to combat vehicles + sunderers (A major drawback, but acceptable)
- Slow projectiles and ....
- Reliant on splash damage which limits it's use compared to the Kobalt.

So what would I do? To the PPA, nothing.
To the game, a whole heap of things, the most notable one being removing a lot of small bases, making the open field favour the tanks as they damn well should be.
That's a nice start.

For the ESF, I'd do the following:
- Specialize every single weapon to perform one task and one task only.
I've been asked "why", and the answer is simple: It's a 1-man craft, and as such should have to specialize before it's allowed to be good at any given task. That means making the rocket pods "worthless" against armoured vehicles, and giving the responsibilities of that to the Hornet.
Then change the nose guns to reflect the same ideas, where if you want to do AA, you should want to have, say, the rotary. But if you want to attack non-air, you'd have to actively reduce, almost remove your ability to deal with air with that weapon slot.
The reason for why I'm of this opinion is that the ESF is unique in that it gets 2 weapons for 1 player. So while the individual weapons won't be very versatile, you can then combine your preferred load-out to suit your needs.
Something ground vehicles already have to do (see the PPA -> AI, or Saron HRB -> AV, especially now that the Saron was nerfed).
I don't really mind specialization on my MBT, but the lack of the same degree of the same for Air is tethering on the edge of unfair.

No he does not.
Like an earlier post here from me, replying to him directly. I can only assume he couldn't answer, or for some reason or another feels he's above having to defend his standpoint.

And he wonders why he gets flame?

When his presence is known, he's also a target when on Miller. Not because of YT fame, but because Matti is Matti.

Well, let me just answer a few things.

Yes, I know very little about the PPA. Still I can do what you see in the video.
That's the whole point, that it's so easy.
Shouldn't that say enough?

So, specialization again. I guess if AP and HEAT did little to no damage vs air
and in a G2A lock on rocket could be used for nothing else, shure.

Same with AA, it's far more versitile then it get credit for and I always kill infantry with my
AA MAX. Skyguards are not that bad against anything actually.

And if you think I act hurt you obviously missinterpeted something =)
Again you keep trashtalking my video coming up withh "ESF solutions"
based on what? Nothing, you don't even fly. You obviously want nothing but
your own vehicle to be as good as possible and you "rock, paper, scissor"
version of ESF's would only be another way of making air more boring.
There already are specialization weapons for both ESF's and tanks.
There are allround loadouts as well.

And yes, it is very clear that I get targeted on both Miller and Cobalt.

It's funny how every thread from Matti turns into a discussion on ESFs, no matter what the original topic was.

Anything can be "easy" if the opposition is barely above the level of your average sheep.

You know the answer to this one: Gun Angles.
In -every- engagement between an MBT and an aircraft the MBT isn't able to fire back with the main guns, assuming the aircraft pilot isn't arrogantly brave. Yes a tank cannon can do incredible damage to air -if- air is arrogant/ignorant enough to give the tank the required line of fire.

Yet both of them are magnitudes more specialized than what they're supposed to be shooting at.
The main reason because the ESF should be hit the hardest by this design idea is exactly because it -can- use multiple weapons for the same vehicle seat, something that would mitigate the drawbacks it would otherwise have. Yes it still leaves the ESF open to the situation where it can't necessarily have something for every engagement. But I don't see that as a problem the EST should be exempt from.

The ESF "solution" wasn't aimed at you, but rather at another person who asked me a question.
Even if the thread was started by you doesn't mean that every post within it was aimed your way.

More to the point, if you think I want an AV/AV MBT to be an anti-everything vehicle you couldn't be more wrong.
And if anything, it looks like you're reading things between the lines that aren't there to begin with.
What I want is for the same design rules to be applied to all parts of the game, something the ESF in particular enjoys a notable exception from.

I'd gladly debate the finer points, with other people.
I don't mind pilots, but I do mind you.

Nice attitude there, keep up the trashtalking if it makes you feel better.
Not sure why you are so upset but at this point I don't care.
You start sounding like all those pilots from other servers that called me bad for about a year.
You know, those pilots that quickly got quiet once I played against them.

I really don't know why you have all this condecending attitude over the players in my video.
I see nothing about you that makes you any better and even if you are, this is just sad.

You should read your own posts, then apply some introspection.
Better yet, just don't post another tank video without making a proper effort. Stick to you air, leave the tanks to others.

It's not really a problem. A better argument wins or both sides can't come at any conclusion. Either way the arguments need to be based on points rather than the people behind them. You can't brush off an argument because somebody does not fit your criteria of "worthy" to give opinion.

When does a pilot become good enough to give opinion and does this meen that a pilot with more kills than you for example obviously understands that aspect of the game better than you. What if his opinion is complete opposite to yours on how aircraft should function?