Ok, first of all some ground rules (that nobody will follow, but hey I can say I tried):
1) If you think pre-1.2 AA was just fine, please stay out of this thread. If you can't add anything more productive than "OMGZ WTFZBBQZ i C4Nt pwNzr 4ll U n00Bz 4ll d4y 4nymor!!11!!1!!1", do us all a favor and just go away. I suggest a long walk off a short pier, if there aren't any short piers available at the very least do the human race a favor and get sterilized.
2) If you think every aspect of 1.2 AA is just fine, please stay out of this thread. If you can't add anything more productive than "OMGZ WTFZBBQZ i C4N pwNzr 4ll U n00Bz iN pL43ns 4ll d4y!!11!!1!!1", do us all a favor and just go away. I suggest a long walk off a short pier, if there aren't any short piers available at the very least do the human race a favor and get sterilized.
3) What we need is intelligent discussion from people who realize that their was a balance issue with pre-1.2 AA, but who can also see just how poor of a job was done trying to address that issue.
Alright, now that that's out of the way let's take a look at the various components of the AA issue pre and post patch.
Pre 1.2
Surface to air: In the pre 1.2 world there was really no surface to air missle (SAM) threat, although not necessarily for the reasons that most people think. The fixed position SAM sites were pathetic there is no doubt about that, but the mobile SAM's could actually present a real threat if they were used properly. The problem of course was that they were almost never used correctly.
Mobile SAM's could actually bring down aircraft, but they were vulnerable to other armor on the ground. As in so many other facets of this game, using the mobile SAM's effectively required teamwork, but like most FPS's BF2 suffers heavily from Rambo syndrome, and as a result you would have someone jump in a mobile SAM and roll out into the middle of battle all on their own and get promptly smoked by a main battle tank (MBT). This led to the mobile SAM vehicles hardly ever being used.
The way the mobile SAM's were supposed to be used was in armored convoys. Team up a mobile SAM's with a MBT and one or two APC's, with a mix of engineer and support players for crew and you had a very potent force. The MBT provides the brute force against enemy armor, with assistance from the APC's. The APC's provided additional fire power, and could also bring along a number of ground troops that could hop out at a moments notice and secure an area. The mobile SAM was protected from ground threats by the other armor, and could focus on protecting the entire convoy from air based threats. The problem is that all three of these vehicle types travel at different speeds, throw in the Rambo syndrome and you end up with everyone traveling off on their own and getting slaughtered. I'm not saying that the pre 1.2 mobile SAM's were perfect, they certainly needed a bit of tweaking, but they were no where near as weak as people believed.
Air to Air Combat: Air to air was just about perfectly balanced in pre 1.2 IMO. The air to air missles were effective within a narrow window of use, but the primary means of air to air combat was through the use of the planes cannons. This certainly isn't realistic in regards to real life modern air combat, but you can't apply realism to a game where you can't fly above 800 feet, you have no radar, you can't look around the cockpit and control the plane at the same time, and your view distance is limited to under 1000 meters. Even though there were times when we all complained about how ineffective the air to air missles were, looking back on it you can see that it was really a blessing in disguise. Having to rely on the cannons for air to air combat meant that dog fighting actually relied on skill, the out come was determined by who was a better pilot, as it should have been.
Post 1.2
Surface to Air: Both stationary and mobile SAM's have recieved a huge boost. So far I have yet to see anyone dodge a SAM that had lock without the use of flares. One on one showdown's between a SAM and a plane have become much more of an either/or outcome. Sometimes the plane wins, sometimes the SAM can win. At face value it seems to be fairly well balanced, however there are two things that bother me.
The very fact that people are out rolling around on their own in mobile SAM's going toe to toe with jets is a problem. Instead of sticking to their guns and thinking of ways to encourage teamplay, DICE caved to all the wannabe Rambo's. The problem is that in the hands of smart players who use the mobile SAM's in convoys the way they were supposed to be used, they will become next to invulnerable.
The other problem is that there is no skill involved at all. At the very least the angle of approach of the aircraft and the angle that the missle is fired at should play a role in the outcome. Right now, as long as you have lock you are almost guaranteed a hit unless flares are deployed. The only thing that keeps a jet alive is it's speed. Because the jet is traveling so fast, it has a chance to either out distance the lock on range or duck behind some cover before enough missles are fired to bring it down.
The end result is a fairly decent relationship between jets and SAM's, however that same end result could have been reached through much better methods that I will discuss below.
Air to Air Combat: Quite frankly air to air combat in 1.2 BF2 has become the biggest joke I have ever seen in any game, period. DICE should be absolutely ashamed that they let anything so pathetic go live. There are so many issues I hardly know where to begin.
This patch has if nothing else made it quite clear that surface to air missles and air to air missles need to be handled as two seperate weapons, no more of this lazy programming where they use the same code. Air to air combat has been reduced to nothing more than who sees who first. Once you get behind an enemy plane he is dead. Once you get a lock and fire a missle he will have to use his flares, if he hasn't already used them against a SAM. The flares take way too long to reload on the planes and once you have used them there is no chance to get them back before the plane on your six unloads the rest of his missles up your tailpipe.
Heck, a lot of times you don't even need to be on the other guy's six. Here's a few examples I have seen so far...
- I was approaching the enemy airfield at a 90 degree angle (crossing perpendicular to the runways) as an enemy jet was coming in for a reload. I got a lock as he was crossing in front of me, and I fired just as he was about to pass off my hud on the side. My missle went out about 10 feet in front of me and then made over a 90 degree turn to go kill the plane that was still flying perpendicular to my course but was now behind me.
- I saw another fighter approaching me head on, we both got lock just before flying by each other and fired our missles, as we passed we both pulled back as hard as we could and went full afterburners. I switched to the rear looking nose cam view to see what would happen. Our missles went straight out in front of our planes, spun a few circles in place and then completely reversed their direction of travel and came back and hit their targets, we both died. The contrails left by the missles looked like something a two year old would draw with an Etch-a-Sketch. Welcome to the twilight zone.
- I got behind an enemy fighter and let loose a couple missles while we were both in a hard turning circle just to see what would happen. My missles flew past the tail, past the fuselage, and as they started to fly past the cockpit I thought I had missed; but then they slowed down and slid back into a position flanking either side of his tail. They then began to slowly inch their way forwards again, and they began vibrating violently which created the appearance that they were "humping" the enemy plane. They crept back up toward the cockpit, then briefly pivoted so that they were flying sideways with their noses pointed at the heart of the plane for a second before diving in and destroying him. This would have been comical if it wasn't so _______ (sad/pathetic/retarded/other, fill in the blank with your choice).
How about the fact that the bombers are now just as deadly in air to air combat as the fighters. The whole point of having fighters and bombers is that the bombers are supposed to be the major air to ground threat, while the fighters work to keep the enemy bombers surpressed. Sure the bombers carry air to air missles, but not as many as the fighters, and they should not be as efficient at using them. On the flip side, the fighters can do some bombing, but not nearly as effectively as the dedicated bombers who carry more than double the payload. Now in 1.2 with the "Finger of God" missles, why should anyone take a fighter when they can just go up in a bomber and have the best of both worlds? They still carry a huge payload for carpet bombing ground forces, and if they encounter a fighter they are no longer at any disadvantage.
What should have been done/What should be done now
The Bandaid Fix: Based on DICE's previous track record I would expect any real fixes to the current system to be months off. There is however one easy fix that can alleviate the current stupidity that is air to air combat. Instead of planes having flares on a ridiculously long timer give them three or four sets of flares that are replenished at the airfield the same as ammunition. Maybe limit the number of flares that can be replenished to one per pass.
How things should have been balanced/Suggestions for the future:
- Fixed position SAM's: scrap these, they are are junk. Replace them with an effective weapon that still requires some degree of skill to use. My suggestion would be Anti Air Artillery (AAA). Remember what the skies over Baghdad looked like during the Gulf Wars with all the AAA tracers? Bring something like that to BF2.
- Give the AT kit one or two stingers. The biggest problem with the fixed SAM's is/was that everyone knew where they were and took them out constantly. By giving stingers to the foot soldiers you never know where the threat is coming from. Whether or not a soldier using a shoulder fired stinger should show up on the HUD would be an issue to resolve during play testing. The shoulder fired stingers would need to be more effective than the pre 1.2 missles, but no where near as deadly as the garbage we have now.
- Every map with planes should have at least one mobile AA vehicle per side. Again, these should have missles a bit more effective than the pre 1.2 versions, but not as deadly as they have now.
- Air to air missles should be brought back much closer to what they were pre 1.2, what they really needed was just a little bit better turning radius. Bombers should not be able to equal fighters in air to air.
- Surface to air and air to air missles need to have seperate code. I would make SAM's radar based, and air to air missles heat based. Planes could then carry appropriate counter measures for each. The single missle lock indicator would be replaced with a two color system, one color would indicate a heat seeker, the other a radar tracking ground missle. I would give them one or two sets of chaff for use against the ground based missles, and two or three sets of flares to use against the air based heat seekers. All counter measures would be replenished at your airfield the same as ammunition is now.
As it stands the 1.2 patch should be nothing short of a complete embarrassment to the developers, at least on the AA issue. They took the easiest way out that they could find, and it shows a glaring lack of original ideas. Try thinking outside the box instead of making such broad sweeping knee-jerk reactions that completely throw the game out of whack. Pre 1.2 air power certainly needed to be balanced, but it could have been done so much better.
1) If you think pre-1.2 AA was just fine, please stay out of this thread. If you can't add anything more productive than "OMGZ WTFZBBQZ i C4Nt pwNzr 4ll U n00Bz 4ll d4y 4nymor!!11!!1!!1", do us all a favor and just go away. I suggest a long walk off a short pier, if there aren't any short piers available at the very least do the human race a favor and get sterilized.
2) If you think every aspect of 1.2 AA is just fine, please stay out of this thread. If you can't add anything more productive than "OMGZ WTFZBBQZ i C4N pwNzr 4ll U n00Bz iN pL43ns 4ll d4y!!11!!1!!1", do us all a favor and just go away. I suggest a long walk off a short pier, if there aren't any short piers available at the very least do the human race a favor and get sterilized.
3) What we need is intelligent discussion from people who realize that their was a balance issue with pre-1.2 AA, but who can also see just how poor of a job was done trying to address that issue.
Alright, now that that's out of the way let's take a look at the various components of the AA issue pre and post patch.
Pre 1.2
Surface to air: In the pre 1.2 world there was really no surface to air missle (SAM) threat, although not necessarily for the reasons that most people think. The fixed position SAM sites were pathetic there is no doubt about that, but the mobile SAM's could actually present a real threat if they were used properly. The problem of course was that they were almost never used correctly.
Mobile SAM's could actually bring down aircraft, but they were vulnerable to other armor on the ground. As in so many other facets of this game, using the mobile SAM's effectively required teamwork, but like most FPS's BF2 suffers heavily from Rambo syndrome, and as a result you would have someone jump in a mobile SAM and roll out into the middle of battle all on their own and get promptly smoked by a main battle tank (MBT). This led to the mobile SAM vehicles hardly ever being used.
The way the mobile SAM's were supposed to be used was in armored convoys. Team up a mobile SAM's with a MBT and one or two APC's, with a mix of engineer and support players for crew and you had a very potent force. The MBT provides the brute force against enemy armor, with assistance from the APC's. The APC's provided additional fire power, and could also bring along a number of ground troops that could hop out at a moments notice and secure an area. The mobile SAM was protected from ground threats by the other armor, and could focus on protecting the entire convoy from air based threats. The problem is that all three of these vehicle types travel at different speeds, throw in the Rambo syndrome and you end up with everyone traveling off on their own and getting slaughtered. I'm not saying that the pre 1.2 mobile SAM's were perfect, they certainly needed a bit of tweaking, but they were no where near as weak as people believed.
Air to Air Combat: Air to air was just about perfectly balanced in pre 1.2 IMO. The air to air missles were effective within a narrow window of use, but the primary means of air to air combat was through the use of the planes cannons. This certainly isn't realistic in regards to real life modern air combat, but you can't apply realism to a game where you can't fly above 800 feet, you have no radar, you can't look around the cockpit and control the plane at the same time, and your view distance is limited to under 1000 meters. Even though there were times when we all complained about how ineffective the air to air missles were, looking back on it you can see that it was really a blessing in disguise. Having to rely on the cannons for air to air combat meant that dog fighting actually relied on skill, the out come was determined by who was a better pilot, as it should have been.
Post 1.2
Surface to Air: Both stationary and mobile SAM's have recieved a huge boost. So far I have yet to see anyone dodge a SAM that had lock without the use of flares. One on one showdown's between a SAM and a plane have become much more of an either/or outcome. Sometimes the plane wins, sometimes the SAM can win. At face value it seems to be fairly well balanced, however there are two things that bother me.
The very fact that people are out rolling around on their own in mobile SAM's going toe to toe with jets is a problem. Instead of sticking to their guns and thinking of ways to encourage teamplay, DICE caved to all the wannabe Rambo's. The problem is that in the hands of smart players who use the mobile SAM's in convoys the way they were supposed to be used, they will become next to invulnerable.
The other problem is that there is no skill involved at all. At the very least the angle of approach of the aircraft and the angle that the missle is fired at should play a role in the outcome. Right now, as long as you have lock you are almost guaranteed a hit unless flares are deployed. The only thing that keeps a jet alive is it's speed. Because the jet is traveling so fast, it has a chance to either out distance the lock on range or duck behind some cover before enough missles are fired to bring it down.
The end result is a fairly decent relationship between jets and SAM's, however that same end result could have been reached through much better methods that I will discuss below.
Air to Air Combat: Quite frankly air to air combat in 1.2 BF2 has become the biggest joke I have ever seen in any game, period. DICE should be absolutely ashamed that they let anything so pathetic go live. There are so many issues I hardly know where to begin.
This patch has if nothing else made it quite clear that surface to air missles and air to air missles need to be handled as two seperate weapons, no more of this lazy programming where they use the same code. Air to air combat has been reduced to nothing more than who sees who first. Once you get behind an enemy plane he is dead. Once you get a lock and fire a missle he will have to use his flares, if he hasn't already used them against a SAM. The flares take way too long to reload on the planes and once you have used them there is no chance to get them back before the plane on your six unloads the rest of his missles up your tailpipe.
Heck, a lot of times you don't even need to be on the other guy's six. Here's a few examples I have seen so far...
- I was approaching the enemy airfield at a 90 degree angle (crossing perpendicular to the runways) as an enemy jet was coming in for a reload. I got a lock as he was crossing in front of me, and I fired just as he was about to pass off my hud on the side. My missle went out about 10 feet in front of me and then made over a 90 degree turn to go kill the plane that was still flying perpendicular to my course but was now behind me.
- I saw another fighter approaching me head on, we both got lock just before flying by each other and fired our missles, as we passed we both pulled back as hard as we could and went full afterburners. I switched to the rear looking nose cam view to see what would happen. Our missles went straight out in front of our planes, spun a few circles in place and then completely reversed their direction of travel and came back and hit their targets, we both died. The contrails left by the missles looked like something a two year old would draw with an Etch-a-Sketch. Welcome to the twilight zone.
- I got behind an enemy fighter and let loose a couple missles while we were both in a hard turning circle just to see what would happen. My missles flew past the tail, past the fuselage, and as they started to fly past the cockpit I thought I had missed; but then they slowed down and slid back into a position flanking either side of his tail. They then began to slowly inch their way forwards again, and they began vibrating violently which created the appearance that they were "humping" the enemy plane. They crept back up toward the cockpit, then briefly pivoted so that they were flying sideways with their noses pointed at the heart of the plane for a second before diving in and destroying him. This would have been comical if it wasn't so _______ (sad/pathetic/retarded/other, fill in the blank with your choice).
How about the fact that the bombers are now just as deadly in air to air combat as the fighters. The whole point of having fighters and bombers is that the bombers are supposed to be the major air to ground threat, while the fighters work to keep the enemy bombers surpressed. Sure the bombers carry air to air missles, but not as many as the fighters, and they should not be as efficient at using them. On the flip side, the fighters can do some bombing, but not nearly as effectively as the dedicated bombers who carry more than double the payload. Now in 1.2 with the "Finger of God" missles, why should anyone take a fighter when they can just go up in a bomber and have the best of both worlds? They still carry a huge payload for carpet bombing ground forces, and if they encounter a fighter they are no longer at any disadvantage.
What should have been done/What should be done now
The Bandaid Fix: Based on DICE's previous track record I would expect any real fixes to the current system to be months off. There is however one easy fix that can alleviate the current stupidity that is air to air combat. Instead of planes having flares on a ridiculously long timer give them three or four sets of flares that are replenished at the airfield the same as ammunition. Maybe limit the number of flares that can be replenished to one per pass.
How things should have been balanced/Suggestions for the future:
- Fixed position SAM's: scrap these, they are are junk. Replace them with an effective weapon that still requires some degree of skill to use. My suggestion would be Anti Air Artillery (AAA). Remember what the skies over Baghdad looked like during the Gulf Wars with all the AAA tracers? Bring something like that to BF2.
- Give the AT kit one or two stingers. The biggest problem with the fixed SAM's is/was that everyone knew where they were and took them out constantly. By giving stingers to the foot soldiers you never know where the threat is coming from. Whether or not a soldier using a shoulder fired stinger should show up on the HUD would be an issue to resolve during play testing. The shoulder fired stingers would need to be more effective than the pre 1.2 missles, but no where near as deadly as the garbage we have now.
- Every map with planes should have at least one mobile AA vehicle per side. Again, these should have missles a bit more effective than the pre 1.2 versions, but not as deadly as they have now.
- Air to air missles should be brought back much closer to what they were pre 1.2, what they really needed was just a little bit better turning radius. Bombers should not be able to equal fighters in air to air.
- Surface to air and air to air missles need to have seperate code. I would make SAM's radar based, and air to air missles heat based. Planes could then carry appropriate counter measures for each. The single missle lock indicator would be replaced with a two color system, one color would indicate a heat seeker, the other a radar tracking ground missle. I would give them one or two sets of chaff for use against the ground based missles, and two or three sets of flares to use against the air based heat seekers. All counter measures would be replenished at your airfield the same as ammunition is now.
As it stands the 1.2 patch should be nothing short of a complete embarrassment to the developers, at least on the AA issue. They took the easiest way out that they could find, and it shows a glaring lack of original ideas. Try thinking outside the box instead of making such broad sweeping knee-jerk reactions that completely throw the game out of whack. Pre 1.2 air power certainly needed to be balanced, but it could have been done so much better.
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