The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

[vbl]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

Having given a little more thought to this, I have a few ideas that I'd like to hear some comments on. The goals here are to increase the winning chances of ground troops vs. enemy jets, but also increase the reliance that jet pilots have on friendly ground forces.

1) On maps with jets, add at least one more mobile AA vehicle for each side. It doesn't have to be the full tracked unit, but a smaller vehicle (like a Humvee) with AA capabilities would be stellar.

2) Allow mobile AA vehicles to jam the radar on enemy jets. This could be nullifying the radar's ability to highlight ground and air targets, but it could also cause false positives. Jet pilots would need help from ground units to take out these mobile radar jammers.

3) Create a piece of AA equipment that can be packed up and carried by a soldier, thus allowing infantry to create moveable versions of the IGLA and stinger sites (like an AA "mortar"). This would prevent jet pilots from being able to easily patrol the same, static locations for AA threats. Handheld stingers would achieve a similar goal, but (if DC taught us anything) that can also get well out of hand - and we don't want to make piloting totally impossible.

4) There has to be a large reduction in the probability that an AA rocket will hit friendly aircraft. This is non-negotiable.

What do we think?

[WarGimp]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

What do we think?

"We" think that it's not gonna happen. Good ideas, but there's no chance that EA is going to be adding any extra free content like Humvees mounted with stingers.

I still think my proposed fix is the magic bullet in this case. No extra content required... just code tweeks.

[vbl]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

"We" think that it's not gonna happen. Good ideas, but there's no chance that EA is going to be adding any extra free content like Humvees mounted with stingers.

I still think my proposed fix is the magic bullet in this case. No extra content required... just code tweeks.

I think it's optimistic to think that DICE will successfully fix the missiles. At this point, I see this conversation as a preliminary design session for a mod. :laugh:

[imported_Wasp]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

I would like to see the overall win/loss ratio for USMC on a map like Wake. I hazard a guess that it's 10:1 in favour of China. The problem with the planes in BF2 isn't just that you can't down them from the ground but that the balance between the planes is fubar. You can spend an entire round in an F35 chasing a J-10 and not come close to downing one. In fact it's superior manouvrability will most likely cause it to end up on your tail.

Similarly when I fly a MEC fighter I don't fear the US fighters at all. I just look out for them and outmanouver them whenever they get behind my plane. The MEC fighters don't have the ufo abilities of the J-10 but they have a longer lasting afterburner.

When it comes to ground defense against planes do not bring up BF1942 please. A good BF109 pilot would easily take out the flak and subsequently loop out any remaining hardware in that base. If a spitfire tried to take him out he would just climb out of reach..

Another lesson from BF1942 that wasn't learned was to have properly defended uncappable mains. On Oman all you have is a pi$$poor stinger battery that locks on the flame from the pipe rather than any enemy fighter. There should have been aircannons in main bases that would rip the enemy plane to shreds if they tried to rape.

The guy who made the mod with working stingers should be payed by DICE so they could use his tracking code. They seeme unable to make it work themselves.

[maranello]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

do what i do, fly an F-16 in Falcon 4.0 for around 3-4 hours, or if this is hard, play LOMAC. That's what i do, i play one of these at least 3-4 hours everyday then i play BF2 so i don't whine about planes. Oh btw i bet 99% of you will give up in the first 5 minutes if you ever want to give it a try:p Try making a wrong landing by 2 or 3 degrees with F-16, they are gonna pick up the pieces of your aircraft from miles away Or try getting even 2-3 miles close to a SAM site or a tunguska with an F-15 in LOMAC, you won't survive Once you face all this and millions of other things, you ll play BF2 just to have "fun". You guys are missing the point, that game (BF2), is meant to be fun, its not a serious game. You are looking for a serious game? You are complaining about the aircraft in BF2, play one of those games above. Because even though I completely 100% agree with all of you, as long as there is aircraft in BF2, the game will NEVER be equal no matter what DICE does. Because even though most of you don't realize, your suggestions are relating to realism, and planes + realism != BF2 engine, this is as simple as 2 x 2 = 4.

[maranello]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

oh and more thing and this has nothing to do what i said, please do not make multiple threads about this. This is maybe the 100th thread about planes in the past month. Keep things organized. If someone is flaming your topic, or they are not staying on topic, report the post, we ll fix it. This thread is going really good with very constructive arguments so please use this one. I will lock any other thread dealing with planes in BF2. Thanks.

Regards,

Maranello

[Sir. Shpox]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

Also the uselessness if the missles when ajoing to Air to air combat is noticed that it's almost impossible to hit a moving Aircraft with a missle however the missles with substantially almost always hit friendly aircraft/helicopters if they are close by.

[IVfluids]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

[I posted this in another thread, but it's already lost in the 75 mini-conversations going on]

I flew pretty heavily in BF 1942, and even more in DC. Now that I've logged a little time in BF2, here's my perspective - like it or not:

There are some pretty alarming advancements in the capabilities of the fighter jets in BF 2 that, in relation to the aircraft in 42/DC, put them far ahead of their respective counter-elements.

BF 1942:
BF 1942 fighters had guns and one bomb. The guns were the only choice for air engagements, and the single bomb was for ground targets. Strafing soft ground targets also worked if you could lead them properly. Rearming meant making a relatively slow flight back to the base.

Landbound countermeasures included mobile and static flak cannons that required a proximity hit to register damage, but the actual damage wasn't substantial enough to drop planes super fast. It did do well in making a point and driving aircraft away to repair.

All targets were sight spotted, or identified from teammates.

Desert Combat:
In DC, fighters didn't have bombs at all. They had air to air missiles and cannons. This made pilots less inclined to attack ground targets (though most of us could use the twin guns on the Mirage to wax everything short of an MBT), and more inclined to hunt helicopters and the real ground threat, bombers/attack aircraft.

DC jets had an easier time rearming since flight speeds became significantly faster than in 42.

Landbound countermeasures included static AA sites, be it flak or ZPU, but also mobile AA units in the Shilka and Vulcan. Infantry also had handheld stingers. Further, most fighter pilots hunted other aircraft, since the fighter equipment and armament were geared for that specific purpose.

Air targets could be picked up on the airborne radar, but only if you were above the target. Pilots could also sight spot, or receive spots from teammates.

Battlefield 2:
In BF 2 the fighter jets are far more well-equipped to kill everything. Each fighter has two bombs, increasing the sheer explosive power of a run, but also making it easier to get kills since the extra bomb means a bombing run can be looser than in 42, where you had to bullseye targets.

The BF2 fighter cannons are effective against everything short of a main battle tank, and put out an amazing amount of bullets and damage - making hitting infantry a proximity affair, ala the Blackhawk minigun.

BF 2 jets also have AA missiles to address helicopters and other air targets.

Rearming happens far more quickly in BF2 given the fighters' increased speed.

Landbound counters to BF2 fighters include static 2-shot stinger sites, and the occasional mobile AA vehicles that rely on the same stingers to take out jets. The stingers are difficult to use for all but the most well-versed anti-AA players, and often hit friendly targets. Ground AA also gets confused by the burning oil towers, where applicable, but the fighter jets' ground radar remains unaffected under the same circumstances. Jets can also use flares to break AA lock.

There are no handheld AA weapons.

Fighters jets include both air and ground radar, meaning that finding targets is as easy as making a broad overflight and noticing the little squares and diamonds. Often the ground radar targeting squares will show targets before the geometry resolves, making target recognition and attack approachs a lot easier (and safer) than in DC or 42.

Further, the ground radar picks up everything that isn't infantry. This includes tanks, APCs, Jeeps, mobile AA, AA sites, and probably even static TOW launchers (though I'm not sure about that last one). It's also important to note that there are no countermeasures to confuse ground radar, like flares or vehicles with reduced radar profiles.

It seems to me that BF2 fighters have evolved - and rightly so - but the other aspects of the game that typically balance fighters were hastily designed or totally immasculated.

A pretty good post, I was a BF42-BFV-DC fly jockey myself. I find that alot of the problem is the pilots themselves, they have no initiative to chase other jets down for a couple of reasons:

1) They don't understand how to use the jets AA abilities to it's best use.

2) You are rewarded more for bombing, it's easier to get a medal by bombing than it is to dogfight, so why bother dogfighting?

I still think the AT unlock should have been a personal AA missile in place of the AT missile, the DAO should have been the assault unlock. It would make players pick a real choice when it comes down to their kit, do you want to be an AA person or an AT person. With it being in the hands of a mobile person, you can actually defend a flag from bombing runs but be at a disadvantage against ground forces, somebody with an assault rifle could kick your ass if your only ground defense was the ****ty mp5 they give you.

The ground AA missiles should be on a competely seperate code, right now, they share the same code as the jets missiles. This is not a very good thing to do because a jet can do something the ground AA can't, it can be moved to be in the best position for firing, the stationary AA only gets to shoot at the target as it is presented to them on it's approach/exit. The stationary AA should also have a dumbfire mode that when engaged, does not give off heat for the jet bombing hud to see. The heat seeking part of the code should have 2 seconds taken off it's locked time and some tighter locking once fired also.

I've said all this before, and I am not saying it as a person from the ground either, I just fly enough that I don't feel threatened when I am up there. The only AA that works on the game right now is another jet, and unless your like me and some of the others, you're not going to get that kind of support the majority of the time on a server.

In DC, you could rip apart anything with any of the jets (I routinely took bradleys and bmps apart with the mig), it was just easier with the Mirage. But the fact that you had to worry about personal stingers, kept you from flying stupid.

Even if DICE does tighten down the tracking of the missiles, I think the smart pilots are still going to find a way to beat them. I already have an idea of how to beat them just because I understand the physics of the jets in this game pretty decently, we'll see if I am right or not after the patch is out.

[vbl]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

A pretty good post, I was a BF42-BFV-DC fly jockey myself. I find that alot of the problem is the pilots themselves, they have no initiative to chase other jets down for a couple of reasons:

1) They don't understand how to use the jets AA abilities to it's best use.

2) You are rewarded more for bombing, it's easier to get a medal by bombing than it is to dogfight, so why bother dogfighting?

I still think the AT unlock should have been a personal AA missile in place of the AT missile, the DAO should have been the assault unlock. It would make players pick a real choice when it comes down to their kit, do you want to be an AA person or an AT person. With it being in the hands of a mobile person, you can actually defend a flag from bombing runs but be at a disadvantage against ground forces, somebody with an assault rifle could kick your ass if your only ground defense was the ****ty mp5 they give you.

The ground AA missiles should be on a competely seperate code, right now, they share the same code as the jets missiles. This is not a very good thing to do because a jet can do something the ground AA can't, it can be moved to be in the best position for firing, the stationary AA only gets to shoot at the target as it is presented to them on it's approach/exit. The stationary AA should also have a dumbfire mode that when engaged, does not give off heat for the jet bombing hud to see. The heat seeking part of the code should have 2 seconds taken off it's locked time and some tighter locking once fired also.

I've said all this before, and I am not saying it as a person from the ground either, I just fly enough that I don't feel threatened when I am up there. The only AA that works on the game right now is another jet, and unless your like me and some of the others, you're not going to get that kind of support the majority of the time on a server.

In DC, you could rip apart anything with any of the jets (I routinely took bradleys and bmps apart with the mig), it was just easier with the Mirage. But the fact that you had to worry about personal stingers, kept you from flying stupid.

Even if DICE does tighten down the tracking of the missiles, I think the smart pilots are still going to find a way to beat them. I already have an idea of how to beat them just because I understand the physics of the jets in this game pretty decently, we'll see if I am right or not after the patch is out.

I really don't agree that the issue lies with the pilots - BF2's design for fighter jet balance instigates and, like you noted, REWARDS over-focus on ground targets. People are just doing what the game tells them to do.

Remove the fighter's bombs and ground radar, leave ground attack to the bombers, and watch the gameplay even out. Guaranteed.

[IVfluids]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

I really don't agree that the issue lies with the pilots - BF2's design for fighter jet balance instigates and, like you noted, REWARDS over-focus on ground targets. People are just doing what the game tells them to do.

Remove the fighter's bombs and ground radar, leave ground attack to the bombers, and watch the gameplay even out. Guaranteed.

I'm sure it would even out because they don't have a choice. But, it is something that the players should have been doing for themselves in the first place. Not that I play much anymore, but I rarely focus more on bombing more than chasing down other jets. The game doesn't tell them they have to just bomb, they can do both, and become quite proficient at it, they are just doing what rewards them the most, and for some people, getting first place is the reward.

I could bomb the **** out of things all day, but I make a decision that I'd rather chase the cat. They have the same choice, they just choose not to do it. So, to an extent your right, if you take someones choice away, it would force them to either do something they don't like, or stand on the runway waiting for their favorite plane like they do now and have in any previous BF series game.

[vbl]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

I'm sure it would even out because they don't have a choice. But, it is something that the players should have been doing for themselves in the first place. Not that I play much anymore, but I rarely focus more on bombing more than chasing down other jets. The game doesn't tell them they have to just bomb, they can do both, and become quite proficient at it, they are just doing what rewards them the most, and for some people, getting first place is the reward.

I could bomb the **** out of things all day, but I make a decision that I'd rather chase the cat. They have the same choice, they just choose not to do it. So, to an extent your right, if you take someones choice away, it would force them to either do something they don't like, or stand on the runway waiting for their favorite plane like they do now and have in any previous BF series game.

If the noobtube, spawn camping, and C4 chucking have taught us anything, it's that players will do whatever they're allowed to do - regardless of how boring, lame, or repetative it may be.

[Red Ghost]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

do what i do, fly an F-16 in Falcon 4.0 for around 3-4 hours, or if this is hard, play LOMAC. That's what i do, i play one of these at least 3-4 hours everyday then i play BF2 so i don't whine about planes. Oh btw i bet 99% of you will give up in the first 5 minutes if you ever want to give it a try:p Try making a wrong landing by 2 or 3 degrees with F-16, they are gonna pick up the pieces of your aircraft from miles away Or try getting even 2-3 miles close to a SAM site or a tunguska with an F-15 in LOMAC, you won't survive Once you face all this and millions of other things, you ll play BF2 just to have "fun". You guys are missing the point, that game (BF2), is meant to be fun, its not a serious game. You are looking for a serious game? You are complaining about the aircraft in BF2, play one of those games above. Because even though I completely 100% agree with all of you, as long as there is aircraft in BF2, the game will NEVER be equal no matter what DICE does. Because even though most of you don't realize, your suggestions are relating to realism, and planes + realism != BF2 engine, this is as simple as 2 x 2 = 4.

Worst logic ever. I complain about the power of the aircraft in BF2 therefore I should play a flight sim? I think the people who only fly laps around a map in a plane in BF2 should play the flight sims, seems thats what they would enjoy the most.

You can then understand the frustration of the ground users of BF2 then with your experiance from playing those games listed.

[Shooty McStabbyface]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

The AA is a bit underpowered but the main problem with airpower is this. Noobs in opposing jets. Straight up. If you have a good pilot on your side, airpower is not a problem. Not any more than it should be.

[Piddy]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

Further, the ground radar picks up everything that isn't infantry...

Yeah, what's with that!! It should pick up infantry too!

Just kidding. I would actually prefer that it only picked up what is spotted or what is under UAV.

[[FM]Master_Chief]

Re: The core causes behind BF 2's jet situation.

I do not think there has been an adequate enough job of updating the anti-air technology from BF42 through to BF2. I also think that the designers upped the killing potential of jets by too much. Taken singly, I don't think either of these would be something to complain as much as we do about - but add them both together and you get too lopsided of a situation. Think about it: If jets were kept the same as they are now, but there was a RELIABLE surface-to-air countermeasure against them, there would not be much complaining going on. The same if the ground-based AA was kept the same, but fighters were only given one bomb, or fighters' abililty to see ANY manned object from a distance via the HUD was taken away.

I don't think the current AA situation can be fixed in BF2. Maybe there's some code or something that cannot be worked around sufficiently to make Stingers a reliable weapon. I don't know. Hey, maybe it's just that the developers just don't want to spend the time fixing it. Either way, I think it's a lost cause on that front. However, I do think the situation could be salvaged (though in the process 90% of the regular jet pilots would be outraged). I believe that if you were to take away the jet's ability to see every manned vehicle or stationary position, and instead LIMIT this ability to only being able to detect armored vehicles (tanks, APCs, mobile AA), the situation could become more balanced. No longer would an enemy pilot be able to quickly look and see *exactly* which AA site you are using to try and shoot him down in; he would have to make a guess at it. If you wanted to move troops in a Humvee or Vodnik, you could do so without being immediately lit up as a fast-moving square and easy target for a bomber. In addition to this, I'd like to see the ability to change views and eliminate the cockpit from view to be done away with, for both jets and helicopters. Tanks and APCs can't arbitrarily turn off their cockpit views, so why should airborn units be able to? These two changes, to the radar and cockpit view, would substantially change the way jet (and helicopter to a certain extent) pilots go about their business. Great pilots would still be great - but they would have a less likely chance of being completely invincible in the air.

AA works perfectly in single player mode. Rockets never loose target unless pilot drops a flare. It's actually fun to use them. I don't understand why they can't code it the same way in MP.