Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

[sithdemon]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

I'm unknownsoldiers buddy, the AA whore umungst other things. Here are some tips and tricks that I gave out in another thread.

"Again this is true most of the time because there are next to no decent AAers, and before 1.2 AA basicly didn't exist, for planes atleast. Pilots have got years of various flying games under their belt, AA is a little different, and takes some getting used to. And please don't belive that jets ALWAYS win, jets occasionaly miss with bombs and guns, especially against mobile. stingers are screwed because every player knows where every stinger site is on every map.

Boots- My tips are as follows. for mobile AA, A) go engie, since your going to be drawing all kinds of heat, your going to be banged up, so go engie, the only other kit worth going is support for the ammo, but a supply drop or a ammo bags are easy to find, so engie is best. B) try to be behind a freindly armour column, like I said before, these days I'm more worried about AT, tank jihad jeeps and APCs. C) there are various spots on the maps that are great "camping spots" for AA, once your set up try to get a supply crate for your self, so you might want to be a squad leader. once our nestled in, keep scanning the skies, and watch for spots, if you have to move a bit to get a lock or a good shot with the cannon you should be okay to do that, just beaware of whats around you once you move. Some spots have shelters, or various debris or structures that will block bombs, so what you want to do is drive out from that spot, and when the plane/chopper comes at you, you can jsut drive forward into the protected area, with out having to take your eyes off the sky. D) get used to driving with out looking at the ground, keep your eyes up, drop it down if you hit a tree or are getting attacked, but generally move in straight lines so you don't have to look down, unless it's to kill infantry/jeeps. E) use your flak cannon to get away from APCs/tanks, and if friendly armour is already working on it, help them out, being hit by flak makes targeting in armour or anything alot harder, since AA has no smoke use the flak as it's substitute. F) while the camp spots are great, don't stay in the same one all round, like a smart sniper, move from spot to spot. or mess with the planes mind, and hop out of the mobile AA and put it in cover so the plane dosen't see the AA at all. after a couple passes, it'll probably assume you've moved on or are dead, and it'll probably go over the area again with out worrying about you. G) don't be afraid if a plane or chopper or plane is comming right at you. it's hard, but if they are comming right at you, you need to move side to side relative to their path. and keep the flak going all the time to screw up their aim, perhaps fire some missles dumb fire to make em sweat, but save a couple for if you survive and them drop em once they've past. F) Bombers, and choppers, attack and transport, are your easy air kills. fighters are hard to take down, but it's do able and if you don't destroy them you should be able to damage them a decent amount, which helps your team by forcing them to go repair, and your own planes to finish them off a little easier.

for Stingers, don't just sit in the stinger, since you can't win most head on fights, and you'll probably get shot by armour or infantry before you do. stay around it, and since the range has been reduced you need to jump in and get those missles off quick as it flies off, which means you need to jack up your sensitivity so you can whip it around in time to get a shot or two off in time.

For both. A) range has been reduced, but as long as you get the missle off in time the plane/chopper can leave range as long as that missle is locked and going it'll track for a good long time. B) try to be on voip with your planes, there's nothing better then a enemy plane tailing your planes, and yours flies to you, and you take out the enemy plane, allowing your own plane to go repair. especially now with 1.3 now that you basicly can't hit friendly with lock on weapons, this has never been easier. C) again jack up sensitivity this helps with the swing around if you've survived being bombed, and the plane/chopper is flying away.

D) practice practice, AAers are behind on it, thats why they get owned so easily by planes."

my ratio is a little under 3/1, but even on rough rounds it stays up around 1/1. some of that is infantry or transport choppers. however many attack choppers and bombers have been shot down. Fighters are tough, but again do able, especially if you know that they are comming into your area. It's a bit of a thankless job, but it can make all the difference for your team, I personally love it because there aren't that many AA whore still, though I see more and more, not hitting friendlies as much with 1.3 has helpt that alot. Plus theres nothing like taking out a j-10 in mobile or in a stinger (rare but it happens), knowing your working from a disadvantage and overcomming it.

[N2K]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

I just never stay in the same area if i miss..

[cemmyz]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

I couldn't agree more. I'd also like to point out that your post was the most 'detailed' on here--except you seem a little more concerned with insulting me than countering my arguments.



If you're on a map like Taraba Quarry (which is the one you're complaining about I assume), where tanks are a problem, you deal with them by driving behind friendly tanks... you're supposed to be covering them from the planes after all. If it's really that hard then how come my friend has a 3:1 ratio?



Sometimes, yes--but like I said, only if the planes/AA on the other team are total n00bs. A half-decent fighter pilot/mobile AA driver can keep me occupied and thus distracted from bombing other people even if he can't shoot me down. But differences in skill like that always make a big difference--a highly experienced squad leader on the ground can make just as much if not more of a contribution towards pwning the other team simply by knowing what bases to attack. And besides, even when I have the occasional 40:0 round it doesn't automatically mean my team wins.



Ya you're right. But again, a good tank driver can do plenty--the difference is that he does it by capturing flags instead of killing mass amounts of people. A plane is SUPPOSED to get large numbers of kills because you don't get any team points when you fly one. Both them and attack choppers are designed just to clear out enemies so guys in tanks and APCs can capture bases.

Listen dude, I know how frustrating it can get when you get bombed like 3 times in a row and it feels like you can't get anywhere without some prick like me dropping a thousand pounds of ordnance in your face... but believe me there are ways of countering that problem if you just spend a little less time flaming on forums and a little more time working at it.

Apologies for getting heated earlier however you have to admit that your post was rather insulting to my intelligence! And I hope you will accept that my post only became 'detailed' AFTER I had attempted simpler posts previously in an attempt to make my point without becoming like that.

Actually the main map I have issues on is Smokescreen as I tend to go infantry (sniper - obvious or engineer - to mine the bridge / melee attack tanks) rather then in vehicles in Taraba and thus tend not to present a target to jets. Smokescreen however being a larger flatter map in comparison means that it takes an eternity to walk/run anywhere and hence the need to use vehicles and to present a target to the air.
It also has become nigh on impossible to C4 the assets in smokescreen as the approach routes are on the flight routes and if I walk then am picked up by the scan way in advance and then killed - hence the need to use fast strike vehicles, become a target etc you get my point.
Again the 2 problems which you have not fully addressed are that there are 4 aircraft (inc helis and jets) and at times there are 4 pwn pilots around which I do not need to tell you means 4 times the already large problem with 4 times the variables.

Appreciate jets cannot get 'team' points but likewise you need to accept that at the same time their power is huge. Perhaps by making jets take 10 seconds longer then present to respawn then at least it is 10 seconds breathing space for poor bastards like me to get out of the bomb site!
At present by the time it takes to respawn the jet has had enough time to go home and re-arm and then be on its way to the target just in time for me to spawn!

SithDemon - Appreciate the tips, personally I tend to prefer fixed AA sites in the manner that you have suggested wherby I only jump on it when I have the advantage rather then sit in it and get targeted. Using fixed AA I tend to get more kills then mobile or at the very least harass the planes long enough to foxtrot oscar out of the killing ground. I don't nescesarily want to kill the aircraft just get them to stop dropping bombs on me! Helicopters are easy to kill using the .50cal, but jets as we all know are a different case completly.

[Lavadisk]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

No. EF maps have plenty of mobile AA. Anyone being beaten to death by airpower can simply hop in one and kill the jets.

true. there are a lot of static aa and mobile aa. and. if you dont stick with the bunch your no going to get bombed very much.

[UnknownSoldier]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

Apologies for getting heated earlier however you have to admit that your post was rather insulting to my intelligence!

Ya you're right. I was being a ****, and I apologize.

Again the 2 problems which you have not fully addressed are that there are 4 aircraft (inc helis and jets) and at times there are 4 pwn pilots around which I do not need to tell you means 4 times the already large problem with 4 times the variables.

If the teams are actually that unbalanced, then ya, it'll be a nightmare... but like I said the same is true on the ground. If you have 3 really good players driving all the armor on a map like Karkand it can be just as much of a nightmare.

As for Smoke Screen, truthfully I find the AA to be overpowered on this map--not vs. the jets, just vs. the choppers, since they can camp on that hill and be in a perfect position to rape any chopper leaving the enemy base. In fact I spent a fair bit of time playing on a 24/7 Smoke Screen server a while back, and I found that this is exactly what happened at least 50% of the time--someone gets an AA piece and starts spawncamping the airfield from the hill (literally, shooting the choppers while they're sitting on the pad). Even when they weren't pricks and let the choppers take off, they'd be all over them as soon as they leave the airfield.

The planes might seem a little overpowered on that map just because it's pretty small (for planes) so it doesn't take them long to rearm... but if you have the AA (and this is where having that good squad leader who knows what bases to attack comes in) and a decent fighter pilot or two on your own side it shouldn't be too bad. Though truthfully I think Smoke Screen just isn't that great a map (which really sux since it's the only one with the Eurocopter). If you wanna make a specops run, then try taking a dunebuggy and going around the west end of the map.. that usually worked for me without too much trouble.

Anyway sorry again for being a prick earlier... and listen to Sithy... he knows his smack.

[[HT]137[CSi]]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

bah bah says the blacksheep.

I am an airwhore, I am an armor whore, I am a chopper whore, I am an infantry whore. I am an all around whore!

I own. Thats what I do, base camping is not honerable, im not going to say I havent done it, but its not something I "DO" I strafe, I make runs, I travel in packs of armor for team points as well as kills.

I will die to help my team out.

Air Power is HARDLY a problem in euro forces because you can take half of those mouse jockeys out with a tank. And the chopper pilots are too busy circle jerking themselves to worry about ground troops. I have yet to score more than 60 points in a game of EU and I have no idea how anyone can pull off a 100 point game unless they agreed to an infantry only match.

[iddqd]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

No. EF maps have plenty of mobile AA. Anyone being beaten to death by airpower can simply hop in one and kill the jets.

It is retarded, actually... on the Great Wall map, there's apparently such a thing as a mobile AA whore. Seriously, there's like 6 mobile AA spawns with no actual aircraft or helicopters. People whore them just like they whore tanks/APCs. Didn't stop us from winning though... 2 AT missles, and the mobile AA is a smoldering ruin.

[[HT]137[CSi]]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

the 16 player version of great wall has paratroopers the aa is used to kill those paratroopers.

[Fakky]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

Anyone else think that these whores are responsible for making EF barely playable at the best of times?

Yes, the constant bombs dropping on your head make for some miserable EF games. And it's probably the number one reason why I don't play EF that much anymore.

Taraba Quarry / Operation Smokescreen can be enjoyable if the air powers don't pound you into dust every 2 minutes. Good tank battles. Play as engineer or anti-tank. All other classes are pretty much useless, unfortunately. Another big disappointment.

It seems that there are so many things that teams can do to totally lock down the other team on these maps, more so than the regular BF maps. For Taraba, if you have good bombers on your team, the other team is toast. For Smoke Screen, if you get one or more AA's on the wind farm hill, the other team is toast. A few dedicated engineers will shut down the other team in a hurry on Great Wall.

Great Wall was the best of the three at first, but it has lost a lot of luster in a short amount of time. Fighting on the walls is tedious. Driving around in armor is usually very difficult because of all of the AT mines. Running around the ground on foot is best, but this too gets monotonous. 90% of the ground fighting takes place on the 2 flags inside the wall.

I hope that Dice learned a lot of lessons from EF so AF won't suffer from the same problems.

[cemmyz]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

Ya you're right. I was being a ****, and I apologize.



If the teams are actually that unbalanced, then ya, it'll be a nightmare... but like I said the same is true on the ground. If you have 3 really good players driving all the armor on a map like Karkand it can be just as much of a nightmare.

As for Smoke Screen, truthfully I find the AA to be overpowered on this map--not vs. the jets, just vs. the choppers, since they can camp on that hill and be in a perfect position to rape any chopper leaving the enemy base. In fact I spent a fair bit of time playing on a 24/7 Smoke Screen server a while back, and I found that this is exactly what happened at least 50% of the time--someone gets an AA piece and starts spawncamping the airfield from the hill (literally, shooting the choppers while they're sitting on the pad). Even when they weren't pricks and let the choppers take off, they'd be all over them as soon as they leave the airfield.

The planes might seem a little overpowered on that map just because it's pretty small (for planes) so it doesn't take them long to rearm... but if you have the AA (and this is where having that good squad leader who knows what bases to attack comes in) and a decent fighter pilot or two on your own side it shouldn't be too bad. Though truthfully I think Smoke Screen just isn't that great a map (which really sux since it's the only one with the Eurocopter). If you wanna make a specops run, then try taking a dunebuggy and going around the west end of the map.. that usually worked for me without too much trouble.

Anyway sorry again for being a prick earlier... and listen to Sithy... he knows his smack.

I can see that we are starting to reach an agreement here now that we are getting beyond the initial reactions. You will agree that most people on here read the 1st line, make up their mind and then ignore the actual issues being raised.

I see your point that there are experts in every field such as sith in AA whom make mere mortals such as me look crap However they may only make up less then 5 / 64 people playing at any one time in a public server. I would say most times I play I have fun as the game is fairly balanced but say 3/10 times it will be the situation we have discussed in which more time is spent spawning then playing! When this happens the server tends to empty pretty fast.
Also agreed that this situation can be brought about by 3/4 tank whores however it is far more plausable to break out from a tank encirclement under the cover of others or in a fast strike vehicle as tanks are naturally slow no matter who is in the driving seat compared to jets which nothing can out run and so can be in the gunsights / killing ground for longer. As a result whilst it is technically possible for tank ownage on the same scale, and indeed it does happen, it is still less likely to occour then jet / heli ownage. Hence why adding just a few more seconds to aircraft respawn or make it marginly harder to re-arm (not much but maybe trim the margin allowed for rearming to mean that it takes a few more seconds to line up for a reload), may make a significant difference - if you are still a muppet to stay in the same place that is getting bombed then you deserve it but at the same time it gives at least a fighting chance for those who want to escape.
Indeed one server I play on restricts jets from initially spawning for the first minute of the round which allows each side a chance to disperse rather then get owned before they have even left the main spawn. In most cases these rounds tend to be the best balanced.

On the SF tip, when playing in balanced circumstances I usually approach in the manner you have suggested and am nearly always successful (usually too much which attracts the usual lamers crying rape when they have a dose of reality! )

Taraba Quarry / Operation Smokescreen can be enjoyable if the air powers don't pound you into dust every 2 minutes. Good tank battles. Play as engineer or anti-tank. All other classes are pretty much useless, unfortunately. Another big disappointment.



.

Try going as a sniper, have noticed a lot of them cropping up as they can hide in the various bushs and hills and take a pop at the engineers, AT guys and Tank .50cal gunners as well as other snipers obviously. The main advantage of being a sniper is that you will often be hiding in places which will not usually warrent the attention of the jets. Of course this is only helpfull if you are not wanting to always play in the armour which is a whole different kind of fun

Personally as I have not had a real chance to play great wall online yet I have not really had the chance to play as assault which I have found to be a brilliant class in more dismounted maps

[Jonesey1141]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

...I have found it nigh on impossible to play as there are ... too many aircraft!! ...
Anyone else think that these whores are responsible for making EF barely playable at the best of times?

Absolutely. This is not only the reason for EF's failure, but a major problem with the base game. Dice has recognized this as a problem and removed all aircraft missles (Air to Air and Air to Ground) from AF and reduced the bombloads. I doubt that will be enough; the overriding advantage of aircraft is in the information war - they can tell when a passive sensor is looking at them yet no one can see their active sensors.

[*FMJ*Bird]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

130,000 copies sold. 5 populated servers TOPS at any given moment. Crap content. No weapons that carry over to vanilla. Lack of thought and balance to the junk maps. Out of the 50 people I know that have bf2 i think maybe 5 or 6 got it. Of those maybe 2 played it more than 3 times. Its crap and should be part of the free content in 1.4 patch along with aerial fury.

[UnknownSoldier]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

...whilst it is technically possible for tank ownage on the same scale, and indeed it does happen, it is still less likely to occour then jet / heli ownage.

Ya, I'll give you that. In fact, truthfully, I agree with you that planes are still a little overpowered, I just reacted the way I did because there's so much rampant griefing about them, even after they beefed up the AAMs in 1.2, and a lot of the griefing seems like its just from people who are new to the game and just had one of those bad rounds we've been talking about (although I'm not accusing you of being one of those people and shouldn't have assumed you were). Personally I think the best solution would just be to make the missiles *slightly* more likely to hit, as I think they backed off a little bit too much in 1.21 or 1.22, whichever one it was. Although even this isn't as simple as it sounds, because with the missiles the way they are currently, the different fighters are seriously unbalanced (the J10 being practically invincible while the F35 is a deathtrap--which BTW is another thing to remember when you're in AA: The only hope an F35 has of escaping your missiles is its flare, which seems to only work about 50% of the time, depending on the angle you're firing from), so I don't know how exactly another tweak of this kind would affect things.

BTW, I actually kinda liked 1.2, when AAMs were practically guaranteed to hit--it forced pilots like me who play this game WAY too much to really up their game (the only way to survive was to fly REALLY low and not let AA even get a shot at you, which I love doing, but normally there's no point as it just makes it harder to bomb accurately, and it's obviously easier to crash or even get blown up by your own bombs) and it simultaneously got rid of all the pilots that were only interested in flying as long as planes were practically invincible (which also meant a huge drop in TKing and other plane-spawning drama). That being said, I also realized that they had to back off on the AAMs for precisely that reason--because it made it impossible for newer pilots to learn the ropes, which is why I say they should only make it a *little* bit harder. Like I said in an earlier post, it already takes a lot of practice to be able to bomb reliably without TKing (I got autobanned for excessive TKing from one or two servers when I first started, just because of one bad drop in an F-15 or SU-30) or crashing every two seconds, which is why if they made it too easy to get shot down then too many people would just get frustrated and give it up--and then we'd have empty servers of a different sort.

Indeed one server I play on restricts jets from initially spawning for the first minute of the round which allows each side a chance to disperse rather then get owned before they have even left the main spawn. In most cases these rounds tend to be the best balanced.

This is a good idea. They actually did that on the EF maps BTW... although maybe the delay wasn't quite long enough. But it could definitely stand to be implemented on other maps (Daqing Oilfields comes to mind). Hopefully they'll do it on AF as well.

At any rate, I don't think any of this is gonna end up mattering because I doubt we'll see any significant tweaking in the future... I think EA/Dice are going to be more concerned with BF2142 once 1.3 is all sorted out, so I don't expect there to be a 1.4 (just maybe a 1.31 & 1.32)... thus we'll have to hope for some mod teams to pick up the slack...

[RedWolf43]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

cemmyz,

I hate to say it but he's right. There are counters for every single asset in the game. Tanks... AT, C4, etc. Planes/Helo's... Mobile AAA, static AAA, other aircraft. As was said, the only points plane/helo whores get are the kills, they get 0 team points unless they happen to get lucky and get the "defended flag" points, which does not happen reliably. If you are getting owned by planes, work on your flying skills so maybe you can go take that plane down. If you can't do that, work on those AAA skills. It is not impossible, trust me. There is not a single pilot out there that can't be shot down, even the best of the best get shot down eventually.

One of the most important things is cover/concealment! People tend to forget this! If you know it's a map that usually has plane whores, get in that AAA and move into an area that is only attackable from one side or has some type of cover. I can't count the number of times that I have sat on the opposite side of a hill from the enemy airport, just waiting for them to pass over. They have to turn around and come back for you, meaning more chance of you getting shots at them. Also, do not sit still! It's mobile AAA for a reason.

[sithdemon]

Re: Air whores.. The reason for the empty servers?

here's another tip. well something else I realized. Being behind a freindly armour column gives your in mobile AA, another advantage. when a plane sees the armour column, it should almost immediatley go to bomb it, meaning that it'll angle down, release it's bombs and pull up. with that happening, you should hopefully be able to take advantage of this act, and be able to get your missles off no problem, never mind the fact that you should be able to predicit it's flight path, and rough it up with the guns as well.

Should the plane play smart, and go over the armour column and sees you, and takes you first, well your in a pickle, but it's basicly your job to draw it's attention, at that point, play more to live, then to kill the plane, this is to give your own armour the chance to move up and take territory.