Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

[Bungalow_Bill]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

I felt this post was worth responding to because I get the feeling this is really what most infantry newbies believe about 1.12 plane and AA balance, but I come from a backround both as a skilled pilot and a skilled ground pounder, so I've seen it from both perspectives.

Shooting down idiotic pilots on a team that failed to use the Essex and the Stingers. Wow.

These pilots have nothing to do with stingers and Essex cannons.

If you want to fly "with skill" go get Falcon 4.0 planewhore.

Falcon 4.0 isn't skill, and for people like me it isn't fun. Falcon 4.0 is memorizing a 900 page manual, no thanks. If I wanted to go that in depth, I'd just become a real-life pilot.

Prepatch flying gave the pilot almost mythical immortality, inablity to be shot down even by that which was designed to shoot them down (essex, stingers, enemy fighters)

That's odd, considering I have an estimated 3000 air-to-air kills between my various profiles. The only mythic pilot is me, sorry to break it to you. If you look at the collective statistics for pilots, most pilots don't even manage a 5:1 KDR, OoOOo mythic! A skilled Essex gun user, or missile user could hit planes, or at least chase them away. Because when a plane is evading, they aren't attacking. And really, what is a death anyways? Well, it slows killing. So you could say KDR is included in SPM in that case. Funny though, I averaged a small sampling of armor users, helicopter users, airplane pilots, medics and spec ops out of the top players. And while the airplane pilots had a slightly higher KDR, they were beat hands down by all of the above in SPM, KPM and all of the numbers that matter. Of course pilots have virtually no way to score teamwork points, capture flags, or do any of the other critical function that every single unit in the game aside from planes can use.

Planewhores in general whinged about how "awesome" dogfighting in pre-patch was, but I don't think plane whore got his 27 KDR by dogfighting.

27KDR? 60KDR on PlaneWhore, 100+ KDR on 23mm. In fact most of my deaths on the 23mm profile were due to a bad router that kept disconnecting me. Excluding teamkills, and disconnects, I'd say I was at more like a 500:1 KDR. But then again, as stated earlier, I'm not you average pilot, and as such basing planes balance based on my performance is idiotic at best.

Dogfights pre-patch : Player 1 gets behind player 2. Player 2 turns until player 1 gets bored. Player 1 and 2 start boming the enemy and base raping. Neither of them get shotdown unless they crash or get TKed. If both pilots good bombers, proceed to rack up 80+ scores.

Dogfights prepatch: Player 1 (newbie) gets behind Player 2 (pro), Player 1 gets a lock on Player 2 and tosses out a volley of poorly timed missiles against Player 1 while he is in a sharp turn toward Player 1. Player 2 then pulls a nice manuever and gets behind Player 1. Player 2 then proceeds to lock on Player 1, let him thrash for a moment so he loses some airspeed, Player 2 then opens up on Player 1 with some cannons, and then Player 1 makes a fatal mistake with a poorly excuted turn that reduces his airspeed and Player 2 finshes him off with a missile. That's how most of my dogfights went, and really, shocker that I was never shot down in a head-on dogfight. What does that tell you?

Dogfights Current: Player 1 gets in behind Player 2, who has gone in on a bombing run without support and with no real target. Player One fires a missile, flares drop, Player 2 manuevers hard, avoids the next missile, then gets 2 up the tailpipe because he made himself vulnerable to being attacked. Player 1 goes to baserape, and gets owned by the Stinger site or Essex if he pushes his luck.

Dogfights Current: Player 1 gets behind Player 2 at random he just sees him first. Player 1 gets a lock, but crap, Player 2 is in a J-10. Player 2 proceeds to out turn Player 1, get a lock and kill him with a poorly timed missile that would've never hit in 1.12. Or alternate scenario, Player 1 gets behind Player 2 locks on to him, and kills him with a missile.

Pre Patch Sams: Player 1 cannons\bombs Player 2 (in SAM) and probably never got hit by a missile even if they did it 2000 times.

Prepatch Sams: Player 1 vs. Player 2, Player 2 randomly fires his missiles in to the air, Player 1 executes evasive manuevers in time before the missiles reach him, Player 1 survives, but even though Player 2 failed to kill Player 1, he delayed his killing and chased him off and forced him to evade missiles. Even though Player 2 is an unskilled moron he still effected Player 1.

Or, Player 1 (and this is rare, but I have met a handful of people who MASTERED this) KNOWS how to use 1.12 SAM missiles properly. He knows when to fire, and bases his shots off of technique, and the trajectory of the plane. Player 1 fires some skilled missile shots off and either wounds, kills, or chases off Player 2.

Some won't believe me that this was possible, but I swear by it that it was. I personally couldn't recreate the same results with the success level that some people that I knew could, but I was still about 25% accurate with SAM missiles versus planes, and again, at the very least I forced them to run and spin around in circles like an idiot.

Post Patch Sams: Player 1 goes to cannon Player 2, but gets hit by a stinger, then gets blown away by the Mobile AA over to the left. Player 1 starts to be what he's supposed to be, which is a "fighter" taking out enemy planes and helos.

Player 2 points at Player 1, waits for flares (or not), clicks twice, Player 1 dies.

Like people complaing that Armour is harder to take out because you can't c4 throw anymore, planewhore is using the excuse that because it's easier to shoot down planes in AA, that they should re-nerf the SAMs and AA, so he can go base rape and get 50 kills per round again.

Silly rabbit, 50 kills is chump change for me. I still manage a minimum of 50 kills per round in a plane, but of course that's me. But I can also manage 30 kills a round with my PKM + flag captures + other benefits of being infantry, or manage 40-60 kills whoring an APC or tank.

Bottom line is I don't want AA to suck, I just want it to take skill. If a player uses a skill based AA and wipes the floor with me, I would not complain. I'll admit, 1.12 AA wasn't perfect, but it was much closer to perfection than 1.2 is, and the only people who will disagree with me on that point is newbies like MackTheKnife who can't handle a helicopter or airplane.

[DogFish]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

:laugh:

Amen Shark,

We had our days didnt we? Always kinda thought we were kinda even on the kills, kinda depended on who had the favorable plane in the map.IE: f-35 is no match on the j-10. Pre-Patch Rules

What you think about the patch, kinda sucks dont it? Any N00b that can grab a joystik now can almost shoot you down if they can slip in behind you without you noticing.
As for being shot down, you know me, I'll take the hit and die like a man rather than be a 'chumper = jumper' Lol
Where you been dude? Havent seen you for quite some time and have looked occasionally.Still in the RD? I tried it there a few times a lil while back but the frkn hackers ran me off, as well as the idiot tk'ers at the hanger waiting on the plane. Look me up sometime in game-monitor, I'm always in the same server which by the way is admined kinda nicely and people who are suspect are booted with quickness. Any TK'n for vehicles dealt with instantly.

Music

I think I pretty much had my way with you ,but if you say so....J/K:laugh:

I quit hanging on the RD when I banned a guy for TKIng me with the noobtube,because I beat him to the plane at the beginning of a round....then he comes to the forums pm'ing everyone starting shat and I wasnt going to lift the ban and they didnt like it...Some good people there but its an "everything goes" server and I dont like that.

Anyways No I dont like the new a2a missles totally......I do like them working a little better and with the new ground AA/sta (which I do like) it would be hard to get kills the old way(pre 1.2 mostly guns) but with the new STA missles it would be tough to down an ACE with guns alone,noobs however are just as easy if not easier now.

But there should be some extra countermeasures,less missles,harder to aquire a lock for ata combat as it is WAY to easy now some sort of balance so it takes at least some skill to down a vet pilot while dogfighting...There should still be some skill required other than just firing missles blindly....Now when Im killed which is still like 1-2 times every 4 rounds or so,its mostly from crashing mistakes, or hit with ghost/unaimed/redirected AA that sometimes is even friendly.Oh and the bailers are on the increase also,must have had 15-20 bailers last night alone.

Ive been playing mostly SF for the past few months,Ive been playing some VanillaBF2 the past month or so mainly just hopping around various 64 pubs...Feel free to add me to your list also,I always you have been a good fight/teamate.

[jakswan]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

Bottom line is I don't want AA to suck, I just want it to take skill. If a player uses a skill based AA and wipes the floor with me, I would not complain. I'll admit, 1.12 AA wasn't perfect, but it was much closer to perfection than 1.2 is, and the only people who will disagree with me on that point is newbies like MackTheKnife who can't handle a helicopter or airplane.

http://bf2s.com/player/jakswan/

It's not a 16 hour selective account either, never change teams mid game, never took an easy base rape option.

Just posting so you don't get last word :)

Took EA, was it four or five, patches to change AA, not going to happen, give it up.

[Alcorr]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

Umm, so why did you post your stats again?

Ok, so your jet kill death ratio is 9.43?

That doesn't mean AA should take zero skill....

[DrJambo]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

AA doesn't take zero skill. Some people are better with it than others and if that's the case it must be skilled defined.

A2A - well, maybe there is an issue with dogfighting...

Let's face it, it isn't going to change back so you'd better deal with it and adapt or move on to something new.

[jakswan]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

Umm, so why did you post your stats again?

Ok, so your jet kill death ratio is 9.43?

That doesn't mean AA should take zero skill....

For someone who has spent 87hrs on Karkland and 127hrs on some SF map out of 270hrs why are you posting in this thread. Oh you play chopper sometimes, let me tell you something A2A on choppers, I don't really bother, cannons mostly (flares faster on choppers), if I saw you as pilot in 1.12 you were going down. In 1.2 if you've got a plane up and people manning AA, think I'll be taking another pass at you?

I'll give you a real life example shall I, Wake Island, US has two southern bases right below our main. Crafty gits and popping in and out of AA like no one's business, and then hiding the other side of a slope.

I've already shot their main pilot down five times but he's still about. 'Enemy tank spotted' and I see our tank going in, right in we go and out again. Beep beep so I hit the deck pronto, BEEEEP, dam they must have got one off, flares. Phew, BEEEP, what the, look behind, DAM plane not ground AA, evasion no chance and down I go.

Pre Patch, plane, heck I played this guy before not a prayer would he have got me, not a friggin prayer. Thing was he knew it, so he didn't even try.

Keep dogfighting skillful my arse, there was six minutes of dogfighting in 1.12 and a mere mortal like me would clear the server of planes. A super duper pilot like PW heck the mention of his name would have pilots saying 'gg and good night'.

Then the screams from the ground troops would start, now I'm looking behind every five seconds, very afraid, one mistake, wrong place wrong time I'm dead. I've still got a high k/d you still need to dogfight, not everyone flys dead straight like someone posted in an idiot video.

1.12 I was getting bored now flying planes is a buzz, just some egos can't take it, they are after all 'The King of the Skies'.

[inf4my]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

I feel like I have A.D.D now after reading that post.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

The secret to 1.12 STA was observing the jets behaviour and taking mental notes, just where in the maneuvers a pilot was voulnerable. The problem was that the missiles were a bit too slow, so you had to time those shots. Depending on the range to target you also had to pick a correct angle. Angle was the most critical part against choppers. It was either "angle+fireandforget" or "aimed shot" where you used the STA as a RPG.

There are also a number of weaknesses a pilot has. And a number of distractions you could use. For example, a pilot attacking a bases AA, you just sit in the next one and shoot him while hes engaged to another one.

A drastic example of using distractions. Many pilots go for the Essex cannons, once youre behind him, let your missiles loose once hes after that turret. he will think the lock-on warning was from Essex and youll have an easy kill.

STA prepatch wasnt impossible to use. It just needed skills, experience, and maybe even a brain.

[inf4my]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

A drastic example of using distractions. Many pilots go for the Essex cannons, once youre behind him, let your missiles loose once hes after that turret. he will think the lock-on warning was from Essex and youll have an easy kill.

I used this tactic all the time in 1.12. But now every time I do it, my own essex TK's me.

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

I used this tactic all the time in 1.12. But now every time I do it, my own essex TK's me.

LOL.

Yeah, great video.

Shooting down idiotic pilots on a team that failed to use the Essex and the Stingers. Wow.

If you want to fly "with skill" go get Falcon 4.0 planewhore.

This wasnt an uber1337 dogfight video. This was a video to present you how the missiles work, how they leave zero chance to a pilot POST LAUNCH. You can do whatever you want pre-launch, but you cant do much POST-LAUNCH.

Prepatch flying gave the pilot almost mythical immortality, inablity to be shot down even by that which was designed to shoot them down (essex, stingers, enemy fighters), and made the planes have to use the Cannon, which IRL (yes, I know this is'nt IRL but meh) is pretty much a last resort or used to attack slow bombers\recon\patrol planes.

LOL. Ive been downed too many times by a great Essex cannonman. Ive also been downed by STAs. But more than that, as PW pointed out, Ive ALWAYS been scared off by STA, which ultimately is a win by ittself.

Planewhores in general whinged about how "awesome" dogfighting in pre-patch was, but I don't think plane whore got his 27 KDR by dogfighting.

This topic is about ATA, not ATS.

Dogfights pre-patch : Player 1 gets behind player 2. Player 2 turns until player 1 gets bored. Player 1 and 2 start boming the enemy and base raping. Neither of them get shotdown unless they crash or get TKed. If both pilots good bombers, proceed to rack up 80+ scores.

Wrong. Revision.

Player 1 gets behind Player 2. Scenario 1. Player 1 has MiG, player 2 has F-35B. Solution= throttle control. Bring down to 800 cruise speed and proceed bursting the AB. Youll get 2 times to use your cannons every full circle. Eventually Player 1 panicks and breaks off.

Scenario 2. Player 1 has a J-10, Player 2 has a F-35B. Player 2 is a dumbass. Circles are J-10s homeground. Player 2 must break loose and re-engage.

Scenario 3. Player 1 has a J-10, Player 2 has a F-18. Its a mix of 1 and 2. Depending on J-10s skills Player 2 can stay in the circle. Hell only get 1 cannon shot per circle but eventually has to break loose or risk becoming a target.

Dogfights Current: Player 1 gets in behind Player 2, who has gone in on a bombing run without support and with no real target. Player One fires a missile, flares drop, Player 2 manuevers hard, avoids the next missile, then gets 2 up the tailpipe because he made himself vulnerable to being attacked. Player 1 goes to baserape, and gets owned by the Stinger site or Essex if he pushes his luck.

Good one. But you cant outmaneuver a missile. Just a lock. Theres a difference.

Pre Patch Sams: Player 1 cannons\bombs Player 2 (in SAM) and probably never got hit by a missile even if they did it 2000 times.

Good that Player 2 was smart enough to sit in a STA site all day long, being a green lunchbox.

Post Patch Sams: Player 1 goes to cannon Player 2, but gets hit by a stinger, then gets blown away by the Mobile AA over to the left. Player 1 starts to be what he's supposed to be, which is a "fighter" taking out enemy planes and helos.

I like this one. But the STA on the left could have killed the jet pre-patch aswell. The jet keeps a steady course when attacking a STA site. Its all timing from here.

Like people complaing that Armour is harder to take out because you can't c4 throw anymore, planewhore is using the excuse that because it's easier to shoot down planes in AA, that they should re-nerf the SAMs and AA, so he can go base rape and get 50 kills per round again.

Hes doing that even now.

[inf4my]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

I love how people assume that just because we are not happy with the new physics, that somehow the game is too hard for us now.

I dominated in the air before 1.2, and I still dominate in the air. No amount of changes is going to stop good players from being good.

[tsh2005]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

HEY
PlaneWhore

Because everyone here is saying the vid isnt good or anything. Do you want to make another one? We can do moves/rolls/dives etc or whatever to show off the AA. I dont have fraps and dont know anyone that does or any vid programs

pm me if you want to because this topic is getting to big from a bunch of people who like point click kill system and just 40 topics on the same thing

[Chris_Redfield]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

HEY
PlaneWhore

Because everyone here is saying the vid isnt good or anything. Do you want to make another one? We can do moves/rolls/dives etc or whatever to show off the AA. I dont have fraps and dont know anyone that does or any vid programs

pm me if you want to because this topic is getting to big from a bunch of people who like point click kill system and just 40 topics on the same thing

If people wont see the obvious in this vid, they will never see it. Theres no point because people will always find holes there, especially those people who prefered to use the plane as a big woodchopper.

[tsh2005]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

If people wont see the obvious in this vid, they will never see it. Theres no point because people will always find holes there, especially those people who prefered to use the plane as a big woodchopper.

yea but most people are using it as a way to say that the AA is fine. So if another vid was made with all moves possible it would help stop this topic from going in circles and people using it as an excuse

[WarGimp]

Re: Highway to the Boredom Zone, a pilots perspective on the 1.2 patch

G 'n R put it best:

Sick of this life
Not that you'd care
I'm not the only one with
whom these feelings I share


Nobody understands, quite why we're here
We're searchin' for answers
That never appear


But maybe if I looked real hard I'd
I'd see your tryin' too
To understand this life,
That we're all goin' through
(Then when she said she was gonna like
wreck my car...I didn't know what to do)


Sometimes I feel like I'm beatin' a dead horse
An I don't know why you'd be bringin' me down
I'd like to think that our love's
worth a tad more
It may sound funny but you'd think by now
I'd be smilin'
I guess some things never change
Never change


I met an old cowboy
I saw the look in his eyes
Somethin' tells me he's been here before
'Cause experience makes you wise
I was only a small child
When the thought first came to me
That I'm a son of a gun and the gun of a son
That brought back the devil in me


Sometimes I feel like I'm beatin' a dead horse
An I don't know why you'd be bringin' me down
I'd like to think that our love's
worth a tad more
It may sound funny but you'd think by now
I'd be smilin'
I guess some things never change
Never change


I ain't quite what you'd call an old soul
Still wet behind the ears
I been around this track a couple o' times
But now the dust is startin' to clear
Oh yeah!!!


Sometimes I feel like I'm beatin' a dead horse
An I don't know why you'd be bringin' me down
I'd like to think that our love's
worth a tad more
It may sound funny but you'd think by now
I'd be smilin'
Ooh yeah, I'd be smilin'
No way I'd be smilin'
Ooh smilin'


Sick of this life
Not that you'd care
I'm not the only one
With whom these feelings I share

This thread needs ta die.
Nothing useful going on here.