Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

[imported_Demon6]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Ahem @ Sloi. It's looking like they overdid everything in this patch.

RedHeadedFreak has a good point though. It's quite likely that those in the air will see their K/D drop to something more in-line with the rest of the game's roles.

This is what I call balance :)

[spaceace]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Can't say I fly much, I suck...so I'm a bit biased. However, if this is the situation in the official release of the patch then I'm not disappointed.

DICE designed this game as a team-based combat game - that's plain for anyone to see. Part of the fun is you can play it your own way, but if you can rack up big scores by completely ignoring the primary aim of capping flags then it's obvious to them there's an imbalance in the game mechanics. I admit it's a big downer to the soon-to-be-deposed gods of the air, but it's a big relief to anyone who bought the game because they like the varied squad-based gameplay and found themselves getting bombed every 15 seconds. If they wanted a airborne shoot-em-up why bother putting flags in at all? I'm not saying people shouldn't play that way...each to his own, but if stats are showing that the game's optimized for that a (albeit unintentionally) then they're bound to do something about it.

Anyway, it'll solve a lot of the gameplay problems that currently dog the game. I'm assuming we'll see less indiscriminate bombing as less time in the air will mean less kills and those negative points when you bombed that Humvee at the frienly flag will count a lot more. I'm also sick of losing because flags were dropping like Paris Hilton's knickers and 3/4 of the team insist on spawning on the carrier looking for something to fly!

Jet and chopper envy should hopefully become a thing of the past, as people won't be looking enviously at all those gold stars and insane K ratios. Also the first person in the game won't be able to spend the whole game in the jet, they'll actually have to *gosh* share! Who knows, maybe they'll discover that spending time on the ground is actually fun and that there's more than just runways out there (Except Zatar which is duller than the Norfolk Broads...I get lost everytime I play there ).

The upshot is that hopefully playing the game the way it was designed will be more rewarding. I personally don't care how long you've spent practicing in a jet - attacking with something that the majority of the opposition can't do anything about is a cheap kill, no arguments. And why shouldn't a new player take you out with AA, or would we all prefer it if inexperienced players spent their first few games getting bombed every 15 seconds.

The game will change, but only because it wasn't as DICE intended it to be in the first place for whatever reasons. The chopper won't have the run of the map anymore, it'll have to pick it's moments to go deep into enemy territory knowing that it's a lot more vulnerable without it's ground troops to deal with some of the threats. And the jets won't be a constant menace anymore, they'll be an intermittent (yet still deadly) threat. Basically they'll become just another vehicle, which I'm sure was the intention in the first place.

I'm sure a lot of the planewhores (what exactly is one of those anyway?) will complain that tanks haven't been nerfed, but tanks are big and scary - they're supposed to be. However there was never anything (other than indifference) stopping you from reducing them to, at best, a nuisance that hits hard. You never had that option with jets...and as Brian Clough *almost* said, "If God had meant us to fight in the air he'd have put cappable flags up there"...or something like that :)

[IVfluids]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

I think you will find that the pilots that are really good, are the ones that can adapt to new things alot easier and will have a pretty small learning curve on this.

This is going to be another thing that widens up the gap between the truly good pilots and the ****ty ones. There was already a big gap to begin with, and this will drive that wedge further apart.

[spaceace]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Wow...didn't realise I wrote that much...didn't look that big in the little window at the bottom of the screen!

You might be right about that IVfluids, but as the lesser of two evils I'd rather have a handful of excellent jet pilots who I have a chance of hitting as opposed to loads of average pilots who can still score 100+ by virtue of being practically impossible to hit

[Nexar]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

i dun know, i still like flying jets, more of a challenge

my strategy i had planned pre patch actually works extremely effectively.

although dogfights are more retarded then a bucket of blindfolded chickens

[Kattspya]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

No...AA is deadly. So, instead of getting a 10:1 K/D, you'll get a more realistic 2:1. Also, this will give OTHER pilots a chance to fly now as jets will be re-spawning instead of being hogged.

10 K/D and less is what lousy pilots gets. A good pilot will get at least twice that. Great helicopter gunners can even get above 10K/D so you're talking out of your ass.

As for for the patched game I just played 32p dragon valley with some random gunner who got 27/3. So I think you're being overly optimistic/negative.

[viper1431]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

I don't think this is going to be as bad as what the pilots think. I mean, firstly there is always going to be a majority of people who want to run around fighting rather than sitting in an AA hoping for a plane to come past. Also remember that you are an easy target for a sniper when in an AA plus if more people start using it you are simply going to have more people sneaking up trying to get their knife badges.

There is also the matter of the AA being in silly spots that are obstructed around a large field of their view, half the time when you get a lock on you end up hitting a tree or building or bank ect. The planes will still be able to do things like dive when they hear someone trying to lock, get down low and their is oftena good chance of either the AA not having a good shot because he will hit something or losing the lock. Just depends on the map and the AA locations of course, just means you have to be more conscience of where to fly, ie wether you should stay low, or in areas such as hills or building where the AA won't get a good shot off.

I think it will make it more tactical in the jets, fly low and in hilly areas, pop up for the bombing run and back down to go off and reload ect.

[imported_Dimitrov]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Well, after reading 11 pages i decided to write few words.
Pilots please stop complaining. Planes are more vulnerable to AA vehicles - finally, well AA vehicles are vulnerable to everythoing else so where is the problem? At least i don't wanna see any more thing like planes killing AA vehiclles no matter that this AA had shot 4 missles to the plane with no effect. We had tanks and AT kit, TOWs, so we had planes and AA vehicles and stingers. 2:1 K/D ratio is good enough for the "lame" ground troopers, so must be enough for the "pro" pilots. You had no right to call yorselves "pro" and the rest "lame".I do not like to fly, i am a sniper - a good one, and not conxider myself for lame player. Like every pro sniper can be knifed by by other player, so why not every pro pilot to be shotdown by other AA player. Where is the problem guys???
Don't you see that the problem was before the patch with planes whoring the maps and most ppl preffer city/foot maps?
So may be 1.2 is not a salvation, but at least it is satisfaction for me!

[Oxy]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

The AA is better espescially when against helicopters. It is significantly better then it was before against jets as well. The AA is good but a good pilot can still get the better of it. In the few rounds I played tonight that actually had jets I was still able to obtain a massive amount of kills and stay airborn for the entire round without being shot down.

[imported_Calibre]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Haven't read the whole thing but has anyone else mentioned that to repair damaged air craft, you only get 2 health bars when you fly over the airfield no matter the speed - but you repair almost instantly to full health if you land?

[pYura]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

If planes and choppers are useless than WHO will STOP the tankWH0RES ?!?!! omg...

[[29ID]B|Pvt.Mickd]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

TOWs are effing deadly against tanks, like people say about the AA, people just dont use them and will continue not to use them. Obv pepole will think this is cool and sit in the AA for a few weeks but like someone suggested, they (me too) will get bored and use them only when necessary

[viper1431]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

OK i've finally had a chance to play the new patch. The new AA is being over exagerated in my opinion. Most missiles hit friendlies still so i got a loverly negative score. I had a perfect shot.lock on a chopper that was stationary above the helipad and 4 stingers flat out missed it. One went close, the others just veered away, i assume looking for friendlies.
I got 3 hits on a jet above the carrier using the turrets missiles and the jet survived (thats going by the actual hit indicator, the little cross that shows up when you hit something)

It feels like the lock on distance has been shortened as i saw alot of jets fly past but it would only try and lock if they were really close and don't dare fire if a frinedly is near him because it still violently veers off for the friendly.

I've noticed the carrier turrets being used more, but not really so much the stingers around the ground areas, and if you fly low in most cases the missiles from the stingers hit something placed nicely right in front of you.

[imported_The 13th Raptor]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

If planes and choppers are useless than WHO will STOP the tankWH0RES ?!?!! omg...

My eryx aimed at their threads.

[DogFish]

Re: Anyone been in the 1.2 air? Its thick... in fact

Im all for the ground AA being effective or to its its max as it might be.....But as far as air to air goes I hopes its not as easy as the previous video shows,I will adapt to that aswell but it looked a little pathetic.

The ground AA however I agree it will be manned heavily for a while until the pro,s start not making it as fun to sit in one or gets boring...It will make for better gameplay and these so-called baseraper pilots will have to work more along the frontlines as should be.

I think it will be more like 42 and the AA will be something to take notice of so Im pleased with that much,but we will just have to see until I make my final decision