Why were A2A missiles nerfed?

My typical A2A usage (unchanged since the lock on cone nerf):

1. Approach, lock on but do not fire for a few seconds (to draw out flares). If I'm almost on top of them, locked, and they haven't flared, fire for the alpha strike at near-zero range.
2. Begin dogfigting with Hailstorm. This results in many kills, since pilots for some reason do not bail out as much when being nosecannoned as they do when a second missile lock is being acquired.
3. If the opponent disengages and runs for safety, send a second A2A missile as a parting gift. This most often results in a destroyed aircraft but no kill, or a critical assist as they terrain-suicide.

Relying on the A2A missiles was and continues to be a good way to (help) deny the enemy air power, but a poor way of generating kills. The nose cannon is where confirmed kills lie.

If I wasn't concerned, would I be whining about them?

If your team is capped on all continents, get in a platoon and fix it. Infantry can do that just fine. Alternately, go outside for a half hour and come back. Your team will have made progress, somewhere, somehow.

Guys, I use A2A missiles and I'm actually LOVING this nerf. I still use A2A pods and they work just fine, I just have to be behind my target to use them. If I wasn't behind them I wouldn't hit them anyway, even before the nerf. And best of all, it rewards skill instead of "faction with most A2A pods wins". I don't seem to be killing any less ESFs with my A2A pods, I'm just actually having to point more directly towards my targets.

I saw the starcraft post and responded to it.

I cannot hear you coming from 500 meters away. But A2G rockets are inaccurate from that distance, and damage falloff makes them relatively useless. As a turret camper I will simply get out and repair amidst your rockets, and get back in once my shields go down. You'll run out of ammo before I run out of glue gun. The finishing pass involves getting close enough, at which point I can begin to shoot you. If my turret is going to die, I get out and get in another one. You're down 2 clips of rockets + hailstorm/rotary, and I got repair points.

Tried that AND more like three platoons (not sure if the other two were full). I'm not going to lie, the end result was...shameful.
The only thing that could help would be just one massive zerg like always. I'm sure you know how it goes.

You...are...hilarious!

Oh dear me, aren't you cute. If you didn't notice I'm sure I mentioned I don't really have TIME to grind resources...What could that possibly mean? Could it be that I don't play all day long?

So...you're not good? Are you sure the pilots you talk to are "good" ones?

Okay, so let's pretend NoobyJoe loads up the game for the first time and wants to go A2A. I'd tell him to just buy the A2G rockets instead of lock-ons. He'll ask me, "why?" I'll inform him that it takes 3-5 secs to lock onto another ESF, and you have to have him in your crosshairs the entire time. Also, the lock-on range is pretty small (roughly 300m). I'll tell him that for all that effort, instead of launching a single lock-on missile that will likely be flared away, he might as well have fired 14 rounds of explosives into his butt, and put in a few rotary rounds to boot. I'll go on to laud the benefits of the A2G missiles by explaining how they will tear apart infantry, bore into tanks' rear armor, be fairly effective against AA turrets, slice through liberators, and decapitate galaxies in a much much more effective manner. He'll likely ask "So what are A2A missiles good for?" I'd tell him "they are there to have something to spend 750 certs on - you know, in case you have too much"

In short, the current A2A rockets require the same amount of skill as dumbfire weapons (only they are much less effective)

Someone else who actually uses A2A missiles. I suggest trying out the Soron, the loss of dps more then compensates for the fact you can keep the target at optimal gun and missile range, and clip for clip they are near equal with the Sauron doing much more damage at a distance. With the medium/long ranges this setup puts you in your target is less likely to find you and take proper evasive action.

Let's break this down.

"A2A missiles require no skill to use" You mean, against other air? Firstly, it's easy to get out of someone's lock on angle and I don't really fly in this game (I CAN fly though, I did a lot in other games, which were frankly, harder to fly) However, A2A is JUST that, AIR to AIR, not AIR TO AIR TO ARMOUR TO INFANTRY. In which, hovering outside of a tanks trajectory and unloading a salvo destroying them in a couple of seconds (Less time than a single A2A takes to lock on in fact) takes no skill. Hovering above spawn points and unloading a salvo on infantry takes no skill to use.

"are completely broken in terms of rendering" No, they aren't. If they can see you, you can see them. If you had been talking about G2A then yes, you might have a point, and G2A is ridiculous. A2A however, is vastly harder to keep a lock on than G2A, Far less than G2A, and no issues with rendering like G2A.

"are effectively impossible to dodge" Yeah if you fly in a straight line I would imagine it is. You do have flares you know, and you can use the terrain to your advantage. Hard to dodge? Maybe, impossible? No. But let's look at this statement again. A2G pods are impossible to dodge. Infantry can't outrun them (Unless the pilots really bad, but there's a reason why a lot of bad pilots bought A2G in the first place) Tanks can get destroyed far quicker from a pilot who stays out of the turrets trajectory line than they can move away from them, so yes, Rocket pods are "effectively impossible to dodge"

"and encourage no development of air tactics in pilots that use them" Yeah, because sending out a few AA ESF's who were dedicated at that specific role, AA (Which, so you know, stands for ANTI air) is for sure no development of air tactics, but all those ESF's hovering above spawn points podding them sure took a lot of thought process. I mean, they had to set a way point and everything!

Most skilled pilots that I talk to agree that they're a complete crutch. By "skilled pilots" you mean your friends who get destroyed by A2A. Or are you trying to say that only bad pilots use A2A while good ones pod spawn. Of course, I'd expect you to reply with something a long the lines of, "I never rocket pod spawns, I go out my way to help the team, I play all 3 factions, I do all the good stuff etc etc" and you're that one pilot for every hundred we all see doing the stuff most hate, who doesn't actually do that stuff. Like 99 out of 100 pilots on the FORUM will state, while 99 out of 100 IN GAME are completely the opposite.

"and frankly the game would not be that much worse off without them" For who? "everyone"? No. You. You don't speak for everyone. It wouldn't be better for those who do use them, it wouldn't be better for the million infantry having a blast until a flyboy shows up and starts podding them, then told to go play in a biodome if they don't want to see that, then have the flyboy come whine on the forum because...infantry is, you guessed it, in a biodome.

The rest of your post? It's the same contradictory dribble. I couldn't care less about Air. I don't play it much, if I do, I don't A2A with it, I do have issues with G2X lock ons, but that's due to the shear amount of them, and in fact, my only issue with the game except for cheaters, but your whole post reaks of hypocrisy. So, I can agree with one thing you said, "Alternately, fit your ESF with the hailstorm/rotary and actually have to aim to kill your targets." Yes, let's do that, remove A2A missiles AND at the same time, remove rocket pods, otherwise, you'd just be a hypocrite and all you're whining about is the fact that some A2A guy came and ruined your infantry farming fun.

It doesn't matter if one flies or one doesn't. A2A missiles are a choice. They effect EVERY BODY in the game, by either killing the pod spammers, which ultimately effect ground.

^ Why are you vomiting rainbows?

Also: My eyes!

A2A is useless anyway if you can track and shoot with the anti air gun. By the time you establish lock twice and fire, you could've shot down the enemy 4 times with the gun.

You're acting like everyone flys A2A by getting on someone's *** and letting loose with the rotary. A2A + Needler lets you snipe targets, which is very different. Well it used to, with G2A being what it is A2A is completely pointless, but that really has nothing to do with the A2A.

That's not how it works. Depending on the situation here's what most of "us" do. The general rule is not to shoot until you're sure what the pilot's about to do. If he for example uses flares and does 180, switch to main gun and shoot him to smithereens. If he just does 180 (probably just used flares), shoot your locked on missile, switch to main and shoot him to smithereens. If he tries to escape, just shoot him and fly away. If he starts all this fancy maneuvering, shoot the missile (preferably after he uses flares) and finish with your main.

A2AM is not your main weapon, obviously.

The nerf was needed but maybe a bit severe. Too bad I can't get SC refunds.

Have you tried?

I have, it's fine. But I have the Auraxium medal with the things..

The problem is lack of targets, and the fact that now you can't follow the fleeing ESF to finish them off like we used to do.

Okay, in all srsns:

Yes, it's true. The act of finding a single tank and hitting it a few times in the rear armor is pretty damn easy. However, it's not that simple. Getting to a place where I can find a tank means that I have to avoid being noticed by or dodge AA, avoiding ESFs or destroying them, etc, etc. A2A missiles only require a player to sit in the middle of nowhere, point, and shoot. Poof. +1 scythe kill. A2A exists IMO, but you gotta aim the main cannon for it to work.

By this bit I meant that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to see where the rockets are coming from. If I knew exactly where the A2A ESF was, chances are by the time he reloaded and fired twice (once of which would be negated by flares) I'd have turned around and pooped on him. But I can't find him, so I have to fly ~5m above the ground through trees to disrupt his locks as I flee over friendly AA.



I figured that someone would point this out and I have a counter-argument in waiting. Yes, it's true that I can dodge rockets by hiding behind terrain. This works great for G2A rockets as long as I can come back and rocket his sorry ***. However, the nifty thing about A2A rockets is that there's lots of them, and the firer can just see me hiding behind cover for 30 seconds, saunter on over, and hit me with a clip of rotary/hailstorm. I'm dead. They are possible to dodge if the enemy was in fire + forget mode, but if they're in chase mode dodging them will inflict more damage on me in the long run.

This entire section is just this.

No, I mean some of the better pilots on my server that I talk to after a good dogfight or something. I'm not going to reply by saying that I don't rocket pod spawns because I do. Why? Because it gives me certs. If I was a BR 100 and had all the certs in the world, I would not need to worry about this and would not waste my time rocket podding spawns. I'd probably go looking for enemy ESFs because they're fun to engage. Good pilots, when it comes to A2A, use the nosegun pretty much exclusively, with A2G rocket pods if the enemy gets in close. The 99/100 thing, those pilots are dumb and I get lots of kills on them because they hover in midair and make for easy A2G rocket pod hits with nosegun finishing. They die pretty fast, it's fun.

No, they'd force players who wanted to use anti-air into other roles. Skyguard, burster, phalanx, nosegun, perhaps even G2A rockets if those things get fixed one day. I play infantry too. Biodome fights are one of the most fun things in the game. It's always challenging but not impossible to tank mine a sunderer, and I can run around and shoot enemy infantry while I'm at it. Any flyboy whining that all the infantry is in a biodome is a complete moron and should be punished.

Infantry farming works at small bases where a sunderer has a consistent 5 enemies, and then one of them goes burster max and my fun is over. In the larger installations there's always AA around and I have to work around it. Which is fun. Removing A2G rocket pods would effectively render ESFs completely useless for anything but killing other ESFs. This would be stupid.

Okay, now that I've vomited rainbows-I just wanna say that you sound awful mad at pod spammers. Good. They're annoying as hell. I get killed by them too. However, about 1/5 infantry I kill inevitably respawn with some form of AA, most commonly annihilators. And then my reign of terror is, for the most part, over. So are pod spammers very effective? Yeah, if your team has no AA. I recorded a video of myself flying over crown for about 7 minutes, picking up like 55-ish infantry kills and a few lightnings in the process. Why? They had literally no anti-air. One person in a burster would've completely wrecked that. I'd like to once more reiterate the fact that what I was doing contributed nothing to my team. I recognize this. I did it because it's a damn good way to get certs, and certs help me contribute to my team in the future. A2A rockets arguably contribute to the team, but I feel like the way in which they do it needs to be fixed.

It's glorious!
No more (well... much less anyway) extremely bad pilots in the air just staying at range spewing their herpderp aimbot weapons - must suck for them that they now must roughly aim at the target - had some really awesome dogfights the past couple of days!
If you're a half decent pilot you don't need a weapon to do the aiming for you anyway.

Dogfighter /salute! Let's gang up on those rocket podders and libs - clear the skies for our rotary/vortek/hailstorm battles once again!

If we are discussing efficiency and effectiveness, A2A are MOST effective for killing other air, when used properly. The a2a should be used to supplement your vortex rotary. You should be unloading rotary shots when possible and then popping rockets off when you are reloading. Sure, a pilot will find more overall utility with using the rocket pods because they can kill ANYTHING if aimed correctly. However, nothing beats easy mode lock on even after the "nerf" You can still snipe other a2a from soooooo far away with the A2AM.

SOE if anything nerf a2aM some more and make their range muuuuuch less but make their damage increase if you do ANYTHING at all.

OP, welcome to what we call "aiming".

This conversation reminds me: I need to test the mouse-look thing again.