Yeah, the Lib is overpowered....

...and it took getting farmed all morning by TheScourgeOfTheServer (level 80-something) for me to realize why.

You can take your default one-armed Burster MAX and fend off an enemy fighter, or even two. Just hassle them. If enough people do this, you constitute an area-denial weapon unto yourselves.

Libs laugh at you. Then they kill you. Over and over and over, the instant you step outside. WHOOSH! BANG! SCREENSHAKE! EXPLOSIONS! No chance to react or even see what's going on. Instant chaotic death. Then you respawn. Sneak around, look carefully, watch the air.... same treatment again.

A single Liberator with the instagib area-effect tactical-nuke certs can hover over an outpost and make it impassable for enemy infantry. As soon as they show up? You lose. Even if you outnumber the attackers three to one, you're stuck in your r*tarded little outbuilding being farmed. A squad doesn't merely beat a platoon, it beats it *easily.* Defense is turned on its head in PS2, but never moreso than when there's a Lib hanging around.

Bases aren't much better. It was Lib-farm galore at one of the Biolabs last night. One Lib hanging off the air pad can kill you halfway to the main spawn, and again, you have no chance to react or even understand what's going on. Just your monitor turning orange and shaking, over and over and over and over. Work the angles, try to stay out of sight, creep up near the corner behind the MAX and the medic where they're braced to stop incoming infantry, take a knee FLASH BOOM BLARGH YOU'RE ALL DEAD. They can murder you en masse when you're not even in line of sight.

Outside in the field with a clear view, a zerg with Burster MAXes and a bit of friendly air can stand off half a dozen Libs. Inside, you're hosed. The buildings and junk in the courtyard channelize infantry traffic and become killing zones. In small units anywhere in any setting, you're hosed. Jump in a turret (provided you can find or live long enough to repair one, both of which are pretty long shots), you die instantly by the squadfull. The XP must be delightful.

This wouldn't be near as bad an issue as it is if base design were better. I'm not sure that nerfing the Lib's weapons is the answer, and that's not necessarily what I'm calling for. Just making an observation. Libs currently spell the death of small-unit tactics *and* any kind of effectual base defense. Moreso than the rest of the vehicle spam.

Need I mention that none of this is the slightest amount of fun for anyone except monomaniacal cert-grinding pilots....?

/shakes head

Play against "SistaGurl" on SolTech. does nothing but spam liberator daltons all day long every day. Sitting at the top of the leaderboard and is something like rank 60+.

Yesterday we pushed vanu back to their warpgate and we ***** her with AA maxes for about an hour. It was glorious retribution.

Hey... what do you mean cert grinding lib PILOTS? We get crumbs and never get a single kill towards our leaderboard stats .

Problem is every single base, outpost and tower is built to allow ESFs and Libs easy farming access. Huge open doors and windows or even entire walls missing allow a lib to even farm people indoors. PS1 did base design WAY better. Vehicles were used to get into and control a courtyard but after that it was 100% infantry, the way PS2 should be. Right now there are no real indoor bases except Biolabs and there are 0 underground bases. Every single base in PS2 is boring and completely uninspired. The thought of getting 3 more continents like the ones we have now makes me ill.

Aircrew, then.

My sympathies. But my talking points stand. Instagib AOE weapons + aerial platform + cr*ppy base design = not only no infantry combat, but no *game.*

i agree with fox, that problem is not liberators, its the base designs that allow such things to occur. they need to get more of those weird flappy things that suppose to act like cover and add them everywhere and make them way taller so tanks can't just shoot at spawn doors all day on a small hill thats conveniently next to the spawn. More bases need to be similar to the stronghold or skydock mesa.

The base designers for 90% of the bases needs to be slapped.

Hey, I'm a Lib pilot, not a major one but one none the less and what you have here is all more or less true.

But you know as a infantry all the times you aren't seeing? I just spawned that damn expensive beast and am on my way to do all that area denial and death dealing you speak of, only to get me and my gunner(s) killed because some hot shot ESF is in the area, let alone if they were smart enough to bring friends - which my gunners missed, damn it. Ahh, now I must enjoy the timer on vehicles once again. I should have brought some ESF friends of my own, nuts.

And then there are the tanks. Oh the joys of landing a tank shot on a Lib, BOOM, there goes most of their health, its the main reason I keep my Lib at full speed and my gunners better be on the ball, because now just about every Tom, Dick, and Harry Anti-Air can smoke that Lib in one shot.

That said though, you're still right, you're still getting spawn camped, which royally sucks.

Ok, here is the best ways IMHO to fix this: Base Design needs to give infantry a much better chance to get out of the spawn and defend. http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...pawn-design-based-on-existing-building.65475/

Also, improve the effective range to non-joke levels for the Anti Air Turrets in multiple possible ways on top of better Base Design that should make them more likely to be repaired and manned while under fire.

After that, pulling Anti-Air is the infantry's problem and fun too:

I don't mind in the least if Liberators have to work more in conjunction with others to be effective, because a challenge is fun. And it can all happen without nerfing anyone.

Just logged back in... landed in another outpost on Indar, and sure enough... this time it's NC Libs blowing the crap out of you as soon as you step out of your isolated spawn building. Plus Reaverspam, plus LA on the roof and HA on the ground in case the first two-three screen-jolting splosions fail to finish you off.

To h*ll with Airzergside. I quit. There's nothing for me to do.

we have one on Briggs does that, called Skyexile hes BR 98-100. far as I can tell he has enhanced skills.... but his fans say he isn't so....

I think Lib shots need to be like Rockets and any other weapon in the game they only do max dmg at like 200 meters away then decline drastically. To help them stay alive make them faster. but to counter the speed less HP. I think this would change their roll from super high flying WTFfacePWNERS to high risk high reward bombers.

Instagib? Is there a 'kills MAXes instantly' upgrade for the dalton now?

It can be disheartening.. You're hearing it more and more, while the pilots keep waving their hands in your face saying "everything's fine, there's no balance issues, go back into the game so I can farm you with my leet 100k+ xp per hour". You know, the same thing they've been saying since this game launched, back even before SOE nerfed rocket pod blast radius and boosted anti air ever so slightly. You do have to wonder just how "fine" things are.

I will say though, getting spawn camped is different than talking about liberators and air superiority. You can get spawn camped by purely infantry, and it equally sucks and there's nothing you can do about it aside from spawning elsewhere. So if you are getting spawn camped, spawn elsewhere, or pick better location next time before hot dropping into the actionl

In a game where you have to attack & defend, there needs a way to say "you've won". Being spawn camped means you've lost, move on, better luck next time. I know people hate being spawn camped, I do too. But even if they put in two different spawn rooms, if you are outnumbered you're still going to get spawn camped. Even if they put in 3 spawn rooms, you're still going to get spawn camped if you lose a base. If they give you 4 spawn rooms, ok maybe you could run out and roam about for 10 seconds, but you're still going to die because you've lost the base.

If you want to complain about liberators and air superiority, I'm there with you. But complaining about being spawn camped, I'm not quite there yet because I understand there needs a clear winner and loser in a fight over a base. Would you rather the game simply sent you to the warpgate automatically so you won't get spawn camped? But then people would complain about getting sent away from the action.

GOOD OL SCOURGE! Fckn love that guy...dont get to see him too much shooting at me, must never be on the same cont, place or something but when he does he does some crazy bat **** flying with that libby, lol love it. I did get him once, nailed him with my trusty devistator, dropped his ***** *** in one hit lol. Felt good from the last three kills he had just got on me lol.

Fyi there we always be good pilots.

As well there is always two sides to the OP, Ive been on both receiving ends....so not sure how anyone can whine about greifing when I have had enough times in a libby greifing the **** out of many people.

And the situation the OP describes is only possible when

1. There is no enemy air troops that kill the liberator in 10 seconds.
2. There are no ground anti air defence already in place that deny the liberator to get in to farm position over the spawn

So, at this point, it has nothing to do with the liberator being overpowered. But it has everything to do with the fact that no one defended their airspace and LET the liberator get in to position, LET him STAY there without getting ANY air oppsition and LET him get kills by forcibly pushing out of the farm camped spawn / sundie.

You see an enemy liberator giving you or your team grief? Hop in to an ESF and drive him off or kill him, easy to do either. Have too much enemy ESFs to do this? Well it's not the liberators fault, it's your teams fault.

The only reason anyone ever thinks liberators are a problem is because they don't want to actually do anything to effectively counter it even though it's so easy just by hopping in to an ESF.

It really is very simple. Open up the spawn. Put those invulnerable shields across big windows and skylights, get rid of the walls and put the invulnerable shields instead. Let spawncamped people see the entire area outside their spawn, not just through little tiny portholes. make it IMPOSSIBLE to camp a spawn without suffering massive losses. Also whilst you're there, put in aimable launchers to launch infantry into bases that have houses away from the main spawn i.e. tech plant / amp station. Or put the teleporters back in, but more of them, like, ten of them in the spawn, to different points in the base. Make it REAAAAAALLY hard to camp, make every second of a base capture a fight to the end.

Keep an eye on PSU in case they fix it (base design.)

That's not entirely true. People make it sound like it's easy to just hop into an ESF and shoot a liberator down. I went and bought guns for my ESF for this purpose, and just as I bought anti air rocket launcher and anti air MAX burster, I got blown to pieces. I think people saying "Just get into an ESF and blow it up or chase it away" need to clarify. A new pilot going up against an experienced liberator pilot with a good gunner is not going to kill the liberator. That lib is going to flip on the side and the gun is going to kill you silly.

This is the problem I have currently with pilots and those saying "just get into an ESF and kill it". People say these kind of stuff don't think about how they're just telling others to waste money and not accomplish much of anything when they have to face a good pilot & gunners. I've wasted enough money on anti air I've about had it. This is why I'm now a part of the anti liberator crowd because there's no reason for me to have to waste so much money buying these anti air guns and upgrades, only to find that they are ineffective. They are barely effective at being "deterrents", they are not effective at killing liberators. Anti air rocket launchers do not lock on far enough, and most of my shots go nowhere and never explode on impact. AA MAX can shoot down ESF and make a liberator either blow you up, or fly off to repair to full, then come back to blow you up. ESF isn't something that anybody can just hop into and hunt down liberators with. That's a majority misconception and a lie.

There are enough people complaining about it these days, and it's no secret the game has lost some players. I would wait until SOE comes back from vacation and see what they'll do in January. I do expect them to address this issue because Smed is not going to want to see this game not grow because some elite pilots are having too fun of a time ruining everybody else's fun.

Lib Pilots don't get to grind certs. Lib Gunners do.

Liberators are so easy to counter, I'm getting kind of sick of people complaining about them. When I see a Liberator that I don't like I pull a fighter and kill it, end of story.

If you keep marching out of a spawnroom into a hail of grenades you deserve every death you suffer. Yes, the base design sucks. No, that doesn't mean the Liberator is at fault for you being too stubborn to spawn somewhere it isn't pointing its gun.

Connery, right?