I know a lot of people waited with high expectations for the Valkyrie to arrive, and most seem dissapointed once it did. What would it take to make this the vehicle you hoped for, while not making it OP at the same time? Personally I'd like to see hard-mounted, high rate of fire door guns.
All other air are more durable and higher firepower than it. It carries few people compared to gal and it's way less durable. ESF are way faster than it, so it can't escape them. It's unique in how it handles/flies which is fun but that's not enough. I think giving it a shield, like infantry have, which absorbs some damage and regenerates after not taking damage, would be interesting. I also think it just needs better weapons. It should be able to at least harass one ESF away from it without dying.
Close up the passenger compartment, remove the weapons (as in, no offensive weaponry from vehicle or passengers). Let it cloak.
Remove all AI guns from ESF's and let the Valk turret equip them while giving the current valk turret guns to the pilot. A 1/6 Valk won't be much of a threat but a 2/6 Valk will be a fairly large one. Then give the Valk a shield against small arms fire like everyone else suggested so it can survive strafing runs but can't loiter if it's focused and things like ESF guns and Flak still kill it fast. Not only did I just fix Valk's since their defining role becomes CAS but I also fixed ESF's since their defining role becomes dog(hover) fighting with a minor amount of AI/Anti-armor.
How to fix Valkyrie: #1) Give Valkyrie permanent hover mode like the Galaxy. #2) Remove squad spawn from Galaxy. Valkyrie is now fixed, it now has a purpose for being in the game.
Situation of the Valkyrie is not easy to explain, but briefly: 1) It's supposed to be an alternative to the Galaxy but: - It cost more (if you want to carry the same amount of players you need 2 Valkyries!) - it's smaller but it is only slightly faster than a Gal. - Squad Logistic System is not included. - It's considerably less resistent, and it's vulnerable to small firearms. The last one is probably the biggest problem because it forces players to go for specific loadouts to have more survivbility. And at the same time forces the pilot to go for mobility and fast speed meaning passengers have no chances to fight from their position. Try to sit on a Valkyrie rumble seat, there is no way you can hit anything from there, unless you fire lock on rockets. 2) It's a transport vehicle, but logistic is not a need in Planetside 2. The main reason is players have plenty of options for redeployment... so why spend nanites and risk to die tragically when you can just press Cancel, count to 10 and pop out from another spawn room or another Sunderer? This leads many players to think that the only way to give Valkyrie a meaning is to turn it into a gunship, but personally I disagree. 3) Nose guns are not just poor, they are well... not balanced and undeperforming. I do not think the Valkyrie needs to have a huge firepower to fulfill its role but the stock gun seems to be better than all the other options. And the other weapons just do not seem to be good at what they are supposed to do. It all looks like devs were so afraid to create an OP vehicle that they made extremely weak. This leads to the conclusion that in order to make the Valkyrie interesting devs should: - Increase its resistance to such a level that 12 men would more or less feel equivalent to pull 1 Galaxy or 2 Valkyries. - Nerf redeployside. - Buff the nose gun or keep it as it is but then add 2 more (one per each side).
Increase damage on nose guns, and put a 30% increase on its health pool and I may quit calling it a cert pinnate.
Have the option to swap armament or maybe some carrying capacity with a "Wraith Cloak" ability. That would be freaking awesome.
Phantasm should be an entirely seperate vehicle with this. Should have long term/permenant cloak but move slowly (and die from any air collision while cloaked)
1) Fix redeployside, base hopping via redeploy is either on a timer based on distance, or costs nanites, scaling with distance. Redeploying still works across the map for fights that are severely lopsided against your faction, but the option is removed once numbers get higher than 45%. 2) Default max rank stealth or default squad logistics. Pick one. 3) Make a tweaking balancing pass at all weapons, right now wyvern > every other option. The wyvern doesn't need a nerf, other weapons need buffs. 4) Stabilize turret and let it swivel 360, this will mitigate the issues of the gunner trying to land shots while the valkyrie is doing its intricate sky dance. I have no idea why they limited the turret's rotation, if anyone has any clue on that I would very much like to hear it. 5) (Potentially problematic) Let the pilot fire the turret, forward only, when there is no gunner.
I just figured it could be a utility module for the Val (so it wouldn't require as much work as creating a whole new vehicle)
Give it a higher speed than an AB ESF by a small amount (20-30 KPH) but remove safe "airdrop" functionality.
