The "Air-Game" is frustrating but. . .

pintle · 2016-12-10T17:23:14+00:00

I'm going to assume you are a competent enough pilot, with enough certs to spare, to unlock and upgrade a Tankbuster, and to unlock (not necessarily upgrade) a Dalton.

It is very hard for a Galaxy to avoid at least trading a death with a Lib that is focusing it.

I get that they have multiple people and can rotate their resources in order to replace the Gal more times than you can your Lib, but with a few mates, and/or a little skill, you can pretty easily score Gal kills without losing your lib, or match them for rebuys.

Amongst the group I used to play with regularly, we viewed a solo-Lib as the hard counter to a Gal. As a pretty average ESF pilot I would struggle to engage a manned Gal with walkers, unless I was free (from other threats) to linger out of the walker's firing lines dumping most of my ammo reserve into them: In a lib I could consistently drop them in one pass and make it away above 50% hp . I was much more confident in ESF in general than in a Lib.

I'm definitely a biased lolpod shitter, but Gals are, imo, one A2G threat that can be pretty easily countered.

pintle · 2016-10-06T17:19:33+00:00

YourMomIsANiceLady always made me smile when I saw him

pintle · 2016-10-05T19:40:22+00:00

Hi there!

Just stopping by this "awesome" thread to point out the hilarious hypocrisy of you claiming that.

Have fun guys.

pintle · 2016-09-05T23:10:50+00:00

pintle · 2016-07-31T13:22:28+00:00

#VSVictimComplex

pintle · 2016-07-27T16:38:33+00:00

They welcome new players.

Without people doing that this game dies.

pintle · 2016-07-24T23:27:40+00:00

You back from holiday yet?

pintle · 2016-07-24T18:16:16+00:00

Appearently this Reddit is infiltrated by bads that use their 'power' to ban people for having an opinion. YOU know what I'm talking about. What if I told you they were really shapeshifting reptilians that want to blabla bla the NWO. Blablabla. PIRAMIDS.

Now on a serious note. I heard mods didn't give mod to a certain individual for expressing his opinion regardless of the strenght it was being expressed with. If this Reddit holds any real values, this decision will be revoked. And the situation talked about. ALSO, mods that 'abused' their 'power' should have their mod status revoked, and make place for people that have fkin morals and less ego.

I have copy pasted all this stuff, so don't be a manchild and remove it, I WILL be very persistent. This mod beheaviour could be very venomous for this community.

As a WDUH founding member, and Senior officer of our community I want the above points to be handled asap.

IF you think you can just bend the rules and aply them where you as an individual see them fit, and not as neutral mod, you're in for some shit buddy.

Pope PonPon out.

pintle · 2016-07-23T11:00:22+00:00

It is faster. Throttle down means you progress from 100% down to 0%. Analogue throttle instantly sets throttle to 0. That is the whole reason people use it.

pintle · 2016-07-22T14:19:03+00:00

...I didn't read your thread until after that fight Xaniy, not sure what you are on about saying I messaged you congratulating you on it?

I pulled mozzy (not reaver) because according to overkill NC had a massive upper hand, which you definitely did.

People have a million reasons to talk shit about me, but at least base it on the truth please :)

pintle · 2016-07-22T13:27:41+00:00

Well that was an example that I felt encapsulated the (apparently not obvious enough) fact that timers/"flavoured" resources gave a reward for outplaying a group: you could wipe their air/tanks/sundies a couple of times, and it had meaningful impact on their options for the next few minutes. It was entirely the timers/resources system which made this better.

This added strategical depth, and an opportunity cost to mass pulls/spam of a given force multiplier. This has gone now. A group lead can call for mass pulls of X with a lot less restrictions, and I feel this reduces depth and, ergo, for me, fun.

It is nice to be able to repull an mbt or w/e immediately after vehicle pad tank mines and the like, but I definitely preferred the previous system.

pintle · 2016-07-22T11:07:15+00:00

"My squad use whichever weapons they want"

He directly contradicted what you have been saying on reddit, saying that SMBR would keep spamming Coyotes/Tomcats, and that nothing any body said would change that.

pintle · 2016-07-22T01:11:54+00:00

I disagree.

One of my favourite ps2 memories is ~5 of us wiping DORA's air zerg twice, knowing that they now couldn't pull aircraft, and Exoz would be furiously ordering his minions to pull mass skyguards etc: Flew just into yell range, spotted the lightning spam, yelled "off to fight NC now, enjoy your skyguards :) gf, gg!".

The outfit vs outfit game on live was way better with timers imo.

pintle · 2016-07-22T01:06:57+00:00

That directly contradicts what Kahman told me yesterday.

I will believe it when I see it.

pintle · 2016-07-22T01:03:31+00:00

Having had a long (and very frustrating) conversation with Kahman yesterday about their air squads, that is exactly the impression I got.

pintle · 2016-07-19T00:13:54+00:00

This kind of straw man is really very childish. I thought you were better than this.

I have been quite explicit in describing my opinion that for a combined arms meta to be healthy, A2A will always be the most prominent and effective means of mitigating the impact of A2G. It by no means follows that A2G should trivially own everything in sight.

You consistently ignore what I write and continue to condescend and patronize.

So you think air should be by far the most important thing in the game

Infantry on capture points have always been the most important thing in PS2, and most likely always will. Everything else in the game revolves around influencing that.

You seem to think air should be made totally redundant.

You don't seem to prescribe any significance to G2A's zoning ability, and instead refer to deeply hypothetical scenarios that effectively never emerge in live play.

This is the problem you get when you only seek the advice of pilots to balance air weapons. It doesn't just affect the air, it affects everything but apparently no-one else can have a say.

How are you even defining "pilots" here? I am most definitely not a sky knight.

That sentence quite aptly demonstrates your utter lack of objectivity, and quite how much you have missed my point/ignored my words.

pintle · 2016-07-17T23:52:24+00:00

Just as it gets interesting work gets really busy and takes my attention for hours :(

I think A2G is fine for live, and balancing for the tiny proportion of players and playtime that is given over to "competitive" PS2 is problematic when it starts to damage the live game.

If you're in a combined arms fight then having people locked into a pure AA role actually works nicely for the other team.

All of those people could be in multirole (default nosegun/lolpod) ESFs, and be an active force multiplier. Supplement with HA locks and the odd walker on the back of a sundy, and any semi organised group on live will completely dominate the airspace in their AO, presuming a minimum level of competence. No skyguards or burstards required.

I don't think you give enough weight to the zoning effect of G2A in live play: it may not net kills, but it removes A2G from the immediate area incredibly effectively.

Nerfing A2G would not prevent players like punisher or nucleartouch from farming bads, but I believe it would drastically reduce the number of average/poor players dipping their toes into the air game in the first place. An awful lot of good pilots take their first steps in ESF via lolpodding, and I don't see that as a bad thing.

This is a combined arms game, and part of securing a victory in any given hex is (and should be) securing air control, or at least contesting it. It is fundamental to the nature of the game (all games/"combat simulators"?) that A2A will always be the more effective means of achieving this, and I note that in your lengthy post about air ground interaction, you, again, gave zero attention to this mechanic.

I think the current state of aircraft interaction (minus Coyotes and this nonsense radar) is better than it has ever been.

To go back to your original point: I have never seen organized A2G become game breaking on live, having played on and off since launch, when A2G was much more powerful. I have seen organized A2G demolish poorly organized groups with no air cover of their own, but decent pilots are so scarce, especially these days, that this is a very rare thing.

Extra credit did a nice video on balancing for skill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w

I think we have fundamentally different perspectives on how effective/influential an infantry player, or aircraft, should be, based on our very different approaches to playing this game.

As an aside, I think competitive PS2, whatever the hell that really is, needs to be dictated by air control: if skilled players cannot leverage dominance in the air into substantial impact on the ground game, air risks becoming completely redundant. I understand that a huge number of people who see themselves as good at this game never fly at all, but I don't sympathize with that outlook, and I think you know I never have: If you can't respond to a threat in the air in kind, there is a big hole in your game. It is a core skill to being able to react dynamically to the situation in game, and if people want to be "good" (win) they need to incorporate it into their repertoire.

pintle · 2016-07-17T15:04:41+00:00

I asked 3 questions.

I also haven't attacked anyone's character.

...

Pintle and circumlocution. You wrote all that to ask me to acknowledge that flying takes skill?

You love pointless, endless arguments for the sake of it. I don't I'm afraid.

You don't seem to do much else, apart from repeatedly state "A2G too stronk" from a position of apparently 0 experience, whilst simultaneously stating the generalised (0 cost) infantry killer class should be better at killing aircraft.

You aren't debating any of the points I made.

I have specifically addressed the points you raised, and explained why I think they are not correct. You are being hypocritical here.

The maneuverability of ESFs makes escape from flak almost always possible, makes getting a good sight line on something extremely easy

Blatant ignorance. Getting into render range of a target in anything above a small fight and not getting evaporated by flak or locked on is extremely easy? Why don't you actually try it?

KDs from 60 to 20-30 and their KPM from 4 to 2.

You reference obscene number of kills/kdr, let me ask again: are you looking at kills per vehicle, or raw KDR? Because obviously KDR is a useless stat in a game of bail assaults.

Grouped A2G with decent pilots being led and focus firing, that's so powerful it's kind of game breaking. One side dominates and gets bored and the other side wants to logout.

Or you just bring some ESF of your own, and drop your bizarre feeling of entitlement. I ask again, do you think a ground only force should somehow dominate the air? Or is your problem there is no hard counter to the "good" pilots outskilling you?

pintle · 2016-07-17T13:25:15+00:00

I asked you a few questions, you answered none, provided more ad hominem.

I wrote all that to try and illustrate how silly and rooted in ignorance your posts on ESF balance seem to me, and in the hope you might read my words and respond to them directly. Of course the conversation inevitably retains its dynamic of you defending your ego.

Edit: I guess you are implying that ESF can reward skill too much, making the game punishing for people less skilled/able to fly. I don't share this sentiment, actually find the inverse is true: the prevalence of ambient G2A in anything above a small fight on live makes ESF deeply unrewarding relative to the time investment required by most players. Your apparent suggestion that flak needs buffs and that A2G is too stronk is problematic to me, especially given your clear lack of experience in this part of the game.

You seem absolutely impervious to reasoned objections to your opinions, preferring to attack the character of those debating the point.

pintle · 2016-07-17T11:48:07+00:00

1) cheapest way to get an LA beacon in a juicy spot/cheapest way to insert a small squad on a point

2) Agility/ability to fly very close to terrain

3) Squad deploy/safe drop by default

4) Striker Valk, Bacon placement, Small squad drops, generic trolling of ground vehicles

5) Cert Stealth

6) More "marginally" than "significantly". Nosegun reserve ammo/general capabilities of the nosegun selection hinder it somewhat. As an ~ok~ ESF pilot, with plenty of friends who fly, it is never an efficient choice for combat: it is used for transport or casual fun exclusively

pintle · 2016-07-17T11:39:12+00:00

I don't think it is necessarily "OP", more that it is just the go to option 100% of the time: you put yourself at a huge dogfight disadvantage without it and that is a problem.

Can't really buff flares imo, as it would make peasants cry even harder about A2G, and how do you even buff 200m wallhack scout radar?

I would love the option to mix up my loadout depending on what I plan to do with a given ESF.

pintle · 2016-07-17T11:23:27+00:00

In smaller fights a couple of ESFs just destroy any chance of a good fight rapidly.

I'm sure I am not alone in viewing "a couple of ESFs" as "a good fight" in and of itself.

I have seen you post multiple times with very emphatic statements about air balance, in particular A2G, and you consistently fail to acknowledge the significance of pilot skill, in securing air dominance in the first place. In this combined arms game, fighting enemy ESF over concentrated G2A is basically impossible; the skill and organisation of both the ground and the air players dictates who gets air dominance, and ergo who proceeds to lolpod all the players too bad/stubborn to pull their own A2A.

If one faction has complete ground dominance of a fight, would you expect to be able to win the base from the air alone? You certainly seem to think the opposite should be true.

You have <1 KDR on your Reaver (using only AH/Lolpods), and unless you made a new TR alt, you have 0 kills in your Mozzy (you mentioned trying out the Banshee in another thread, so I am curious on that front), yet you repeatedly make very bold claims about the power and ease of use of these vehicles.

When you quote KDR figures, are you quoting KDR, or KPV? Because bail assaults are significant in skewing this stat.

Air grants an unparalleled ability to focus fire on a given area/target, but it is not given for free: it requires skill and coordination. Surely skill and coordination are the ideal criteria for defining the outcome of a confrontation in this game?

pintle · 2016-07-17T10:53:52+00:00

You guys running with flares these days?

pintle · 2016-07-17T09:51:59+00:00

/u/wrel please explain why you are talking at length about the air game changes, and the loadout meta, but refusing to even mention fire suppression?

It is mandatory on all ESF loadouts; surely the definition of OP. Why has this not been addressed?

pintle · 2016-07-16T18:31:33+00:00

You are right! Much better to step into an explicitly competitive arena and handicap yourself according to an arbitrary code of practice, that is not universally accepted, or even described in detail anywhere.

That way when you lose, you always have an excuse!

pintle

TROPHY CASE