Why ESFs are Despised, and Always will be

Yeah their current range is still pretty OP......

I didn't even bother with learning ESFs because the air gameplay is terrible, if I want to dogfight I close Planetside 2 and open War Thunder.

ESF are why I stopped playing several months ago. Because, like the OP said if you get killed by anything else you feel like you can do something about it.
This game tries to be a jack of all trades but is master of none. It's all glitz and no substance, like Las Vegas, designed to take your money with what seems like fun but ends in frustration. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but it'll never be a great game so long as top SOE personnel have an unshakeable desire to see plenty of aircraft regardless of the consequences.
SOE, sometimes less is more!

Regarding the problem of being killed by ESFs without being able to do something.

I think it would be a great solution to add additional keybind to a very special command only used in a very special context.
Like when lolpodder hovers mere 20m above you, about to unload Hellfire on you, you, while having said ESF in your crosshair, press this new special keybind and your character plays a very unique animation of showing lolpodder his middle finger before vanishing in a missile barrage (usable only in this context for other occasions you have teabagging).

That way you feel that at least you did something.



half-serious

But its part of Planetside 2, and there's more to air than just dogfighting.

If you want to play just infantry, how about closing Planetside 2 and just playing Call of Duty? Given your logic.

Strange, according to the fancy stats on dasanfall several of my ESF weapons are ranked around A++ wich with a little research means top 5% and one with A* should be top 2.5%.

Apparently im also on some top 120 Skyguard list someone posted so that could mean I have no idea what Im talking about but personally I feel I at least have some idea of how to fly and what it takes to take others down with a Skyguard wich is why im bothering to whine in threads like this one.

I dont really care for stats apart from my own since they just show numbers, not the situations where you got those numbers. I know how I play so for me they make sense while looking at other peoples stats imo dont really say that much... buuuut a large part of Forumside do care about them so.. there they are.

I big part of the problem with ESFs are that they are pretty well rounded in use combined with insane mobility. They can be effective at everything right from the start on top of virtually always being able to escape death from ground units. The fact that there isn't really an effective AA counter sucks. Even the sky guard is extremely mediocre despite being a specialized weapon. It is just too inaccurate to be effective at anything other than making ESFs (and libs) leave to repair, only to come back infinite times. Hell it was more effective in beta when it was a difficult to use lazer beam that had to be used in third person. At least then a good player could actually punish aircraft in his SPECIALIZED ANTI AIR UNIT.

Also virtually every class in the game has very effective anti tank capability via C4, rockets, AT mines and mana turrets. Only 2 classes get anti air and one is hard countered by flares (ha missiles) and has extremely slow effective dps, the other is too inaccurate to really kill anything above a noob pilot (bursters).

Bingo!!!! Flying in this game is ********. I fly in War Thunder also with the same name here. Can't wait for IL 2 Stalingrad!!

Or if i want to fly i can just drive down to my local airport and rent a plane and go up in the real thing. So much better than flying with a mouse .

It really isn't - but you do need extended mags, dual Bursters and ammo storage for full effect. Also, crouch, plus know how to lead and burst fire.

And never underestimate how many ESFs can be killed by dumb fire HA rockets.

Because I like the infantry gameplay in PS2 much more than in any other FPS I played?

I got BF3 with the Humble Bundle some months ago, do you know how much I played before getting bored? 15 minutes.

The fun thing is, is that the ESFS are part helicopter and part jet. IDk any other game that has a vehicle like that. Although sadly SOE want more jets than helicopters because they nerfed Ab in hover mode.

I never used a skyguard but can count many occasions when skyguard sets me on fire and I'm roughly 800m away I try to mid-air repair but die cause the mid-air repair is very hard to do.

Yes, I know that, but I just don't like how it feels to fly them, the gameplay just feels off to me, it's something personal of course, some people will agree, some people will disagree.

BS for 2 reason.
1. AA turret can scare away god pilos. And kill only bad ones
2. If I have to enter turret to destroy vehicle somebody F*** up game design.

Another BS. You must to have 2 busters witch extended magazine (2 000 certs) to have chance destroying ESF. And yet one volley from lolpods (Just 1 000 certs) can kill you)

Dump fire rocket launcher will kill only dump pilot.

Die to liberator in before you empty you first magazine.

Fighting any AIR unit is Guard duty add best (Skyguard, Buster max). Its no fun.

Cmon flyboys, stop being useless on your 15 K/D aircrafts that need buffs and come join some infantry or tank play. Specially with small squads or soloing, you'll see that your K/D will rise and air will never kill you

Actually, the reason why Tanks don't get as much crap about it from Infantry is this:

Infantry has RLs, Tank Mines and C4 and AV Turrets. Still frustrating to do some of the fighting with some of them, but it is possible for the infantry to also one up the Tanks from time to time.

The frustration with air is that it is limited down for both Tanks and Infantry. Tanks vs Tanks, they can trade off. Tanks vs Infantry - They can trade off. Air vs Tanks - Tanks have to make sure their secondary weapon deals with them or in the Lightning's case, have the Skyguard. While tanks can also hit Air with their Main Cannon or the Lightning with whatever gun it has, it is limited to a certain angle. Infantry only have Lockons and the MAX burster for ESFs/Libs/Galaxies, their small arms for only the ESFs and that is only low flying.

When Air complains about non-rendering flak spamming MAX armors or ground lockons that force them to use flares or 'not fly anywhere near those areas' at the same time, it is the infantry that have to have a weapon like a lockon and hope they have time to scare off an ESF or Lib making a run, and needing more than one person to scare off a 1 or 2 man vehicle.

The argument of 'resource cost' being the justification of a person being able to 'do more' is also foolish, because again, if an ESF that costs 300-350 air resources should be considered more powerful than a MAX that costs 350 Infantry or a Tank that costs nearly the equivalent ground resources, or how many certs a person put into their ESF/Lib versus the lone infantry person paying only 1000 certs for one weapon, ignoring the fact they also paid for other things... This is where the stupidity just goes into a circle jerk, because people are using these lame things to say why things should be 'this way'.

The real problem here is, Air has certain advantages ground does not. Speed is one. Nothing on the ground right now will outrun or be as fast as air. Air will cover more ground and get to areas ground cannot get to easily. With that in mind, air is also going to be more 'exposed'. While ground can try and take cover, its cover is limited to what it will expose, and not everywhere is going to cover 'above' 100% of the time, yet air will always argue that ground has that advantage. This is only true IFF ground wants to also limit its operational ability, but most of the operations are not JUST near buildings or cover to prevent air from hitting them. This is the one thing Air tends to argue in a lot of their arguments where they think all fights are about Ground (Infantry and Vehicles) will just hunker down at only.

Ground itself has argued, time and time again, the things Air complains about, about how it requires to be at certain levels in order to achieve the magic 'no-fly zone' people make it out to be, but ignoring the fact that air has also relied on ground support as well as ground relying on air support.

The end result is some players who are not being realistic in understanding that air is not always without ground support. Ground support is also not without air support... But given not many people play cooperatively, they don't realize the need to actually coordinate or work together, so in Air's case, they expect everything to be their personal playground, ignoring the fact that Ground should have reasonable opportunities to make it difficult to fight without support from the ground or other air elements.

Ok, I haven't read the entire thread quite yet, but I'll throw some cents in here. I agree quite a bit with the OP. I've rarely felt highly frustrated when killed by air, but I often pilot in other games and I pilot a bit in PS2 as well (to be honest, I usually feel more frustrated when my air gets shut down). It is very inaccessible though... even for someone like me that's spent hundreds of hours flying in other games. One of the main reasons is certs. The starting "weapons" are a machine gun and extra afterburner tanks. The machine guns are difficult to use and are kind of weak against everything. I didn't have any armour or mobility upgrades. I was slower, less mobile or less accurate than upgraded ESFs that had upgraded. I didn't have flares for so lockon missiles killed me a lot and flares offers another chance. You can fly in over a base, get locked on and fly away unscathed. Not having flares means that you don't get the choice whether to be in a risky area or not. You just take the damage and with no mid air repairing that can be devastating. With no splash weapons I struggled to kill infantry and going up against better equipped and more skilled pilots wasn't much of an option either and the machine guns are rather weak against armour. Not to mention that without certing into acquisition timer you're gonna be waiting a long time after you die. Yeah, not the most friendly environment to hop into.

The other end of the spectrum is starting on the ground against air. The only things you get are the basic machine guns on vehicles and infantry firearms. They both do very little damage and hitting a dumbfire missile is really quite only luck or the pilot is bad. The max starts with one AA gun. That's about it. ESFs, to me, has felt like ******** because the nature of the unlocks in the game first shut me out from partaking in the flying and then denied me the ability to appropriately deal with. Back then I did get a bit frustrated about it, but mostly because they bring out all the frustrating things about the F2P model. That it's denying me access from a lot of content and also making that content extremely powerful. As soon as I got a lockon rocket launcher for my heavy I felt really quite fine with it. Sure, I can sigh and roll my eyes as an ESF brings me down, knowing that I'll have to distract myself from whatever my previous task and class was and bring out my HA (though that's often something I do play) and, like the OP said, the lockon missiles is a boring counter and, to be honest, flak is even more boring (and it means I'm useless in every way but scaring away air).

In the end, regardless of whether you just want to stay on the ground or fly around you need to spend a lot of certs to be able to deal with it and the AA is boring both for the pilot and the shooter.

Now, to be constructive, the first part that new players are shut out on several levels by the game is something that's rather easily fixed. Just changing the starting loadout for ESFs would fix that. Leaving the upgrades empty is understandable (even if I find the model a lot more frustrating than anything else in the game), but just giving starters the ESF lockon missiles would make A2A battles feel less futile. Giving them a splash main would be a nice incentive to shoot the ground instead. Either or both would make a big difference for starting players.

As for countering ESFs... I'm less sure, but I was playing Tribes: Ascend earlier today. I'm a lot more skilled in that game than I am in PS2 and there were a few shrikes, the air plane in T;A, and it killing me was never frustrating nor did it feel cheap but in particular I always got this little smirk when I noticed one was going after me, because I knew I could take it down and that taking one down is rewarding (nor do I think that the players I killed got very frustrated, apart from the fact that they now had to get new shrikes). There are a few reasons for this and some of them can be converted and learned from for PS2. One of the ones that can't is mobility. T;A is a very fast game and outmanoeuvring a shrike isn't impossible. That's not something that's going to be possible in PS2.
Another thing is that shrikes are very fragile and that that there are plenty of explosive weapons at hand. Every class has the option to have one (or more). They projectiles are faster than in PS2 (they need to be) and they all have constant speeds. I have been wondering about projectile speeds in PS2, but I'm assuming missiles accelerates (because they should, because the muzzle velocities are very slow and because they feel weird to aim with). I've had very satisfying ESF kills using phalanx AV turrets, tank cannons and rocket pods from other ESF. These are difficult shots to land, but mostly they're just inaccessible and difficult to learn for several reasons. I'm not well read on the technical sides of things regarding PS2, but there are a few things I can note. First is that there's usually not much of a visible trail on constant-speed projectiles (shells, in the case). Trails means that it's a lot easier to determine things like range and that's key for getting feedback on your shots. Shooting Viper shots from a lightning at an ESF is possible, but it's oftentimes very difficult to tell how much you missed by because it's very difficult to tell when exactly the shot has passed the target. Trails make this easier. If some weapons have non-constant speeds (like accelerating rockets) or falloff that isn't just gravity that should be fixed. Yet again I find it difficult to tell with PS2.
Other than that, more weapons that could offer rewarding ESF kills should be around. If I am to speak for myself, they should have a small magazine of say 4-6 shots. Somewhat slow fire rate (60-300 RPM (Think lightning default gun, M40 Fury or Saron HRB fire rate)). They need to be slow to be rewarding. A really high ROF just means leading. A low ROF means very accurate, well timed and predicting shots are required. A bit of feedback and adjustment is necessary though, so at lower fire rates and single shot situations the feedback would be insignificant. Projectiles should be fairly fast (not the snail pace rockets) and, in particular, they need to be constant and have a lot of feedback. The projectiles need to be very visible, both so that the shooter can judge how far off the shot is and so that the ESF can see them easily. Getting a shot off at long distances or at ESFs fighting eachother would be near impossible for a single shooter (I've tried rather often with the Saron HRB), but if the ESF is hovering or heading towards the infantry they can hit rather often and deal a fair, for everyone, bit of damage. This would mean that land targets could defend themselves and ESF could disengage and dodge. I'm thinking that maybe some ten hits would be needed to bring down an ESF. Something that's just barely possible for a single infantry to pull if the ESF is trying to kill them, but that'd mean dodging for a reload at least once and not missing a shot. It'd mean having to run into cover and try to get a couple of shots off at it as it swoops in for a barrage of rockets. It'd mean that it'd take several soldiers to bring it down quickly. Perhaps a respawn or two later you'd fend it off, having it run off smoking... just like when going up against tanks and all that without having to just mindlessly wait for the green little square for lockon as you just happen to aim in the general direction of the ESF. I'd find that... a difficult challenge, but not impossible. A task that might take me a few tries and a quite a bit of skills, just like when going up against a tank.

Having weapons like that being more accessible in the game would make taking on ESFs more rewarding and would, for me make everything seem more enjoyable and fair both when I'm flying and when dealing with ESF. I'd quite definitely get something like that on my sundererer and I already have the Saron on my magrider. If I could have it instead of a rocketlauncher on my heavy I'd go for it. If I could have that be my technician turret instead of the AV/AI turrets I'd get one. If there could be such turrets at certain bases that'd be quite great as well. That's what I'd like to see, at least.

I use the PPA because it doesn't require skill... If i want to Dogfight i pull a Galaxy and if i want to kill air i pull my Cheap 250certs Lockon.
I'm a player that really loves thinking and efficency. If i shot at a tank i make sure i shot it in the back. if i shot at Infantry i make sure that i shot them in the head. If i shot at Aircraft.... i either hit them or i don't .... boring.