AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

[vbl]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

So what about giving the Assault class a single Stinger to use? It would make for more mobile AA and would give the Assault class a useful purpose.

How does that help with assaulting a CP?

I'd rather see them add a rotary smoke-grenade launcher, or something, that would help with attacking flags.

[colony]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

Its really pretty simple. Jets are your main defense against other jets, THATS WHY THERE ARE FIGHTERS PEOPLE, TO FIGHT OTHER JETS!!
*GASP* who woulda thunk it?
When your pilots arent doing their job, you are going to get raped, its called air superiority. The ground AA is the second defense against jets, so it isnt meant to be an insta kill for noobs on the ground. Have a problem with that jet in the air? Yell at your teammates for sucking or get up there and take em out.

[Wreck0]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

The problem with relying on jets to fight jets is:

1. Most pilots seems to prefer bombing ground targets to rack up points.
2. It's the luck of the draw whether your side gets a good pilot, and there are usually only 2 planes for the level. So there's no averaging effect of have a whole team pool its skills. If one side's pilot dominates too much, the other side's pilots often just give up. That doesn't seem like the ideal battle situation for maximizing fun, and leaves the ground pounders, who form the vast majority, with little recourse other than scarce mobile AAs.

[colony]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

The problem with relying on jets to fight jets is:

1. Most pilots seems to prefer bombing ground targets to rack up points.

Then its the players faults, not the game.

[Wreck0]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

The game needs to be designed in such a way as to encourage satisfying play. If it doesn't, then the game has failed. In the case of point 1, getting points overrides fun. If the points system can't be changed or removed, than game balance has to be changed. It's one or the other.

[DrJambo]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

Then its the players faults, not the game.

Wrong. If the players are doing it, then it's because the game allows it and rewards the players for doing it (players naturally take the best option). If planes were designed to be the best counter to planes then it would reward players appropriately for taking that action. If rewards are better achieved following another path, i.e. baseraping, then it's the game's fault. After all, it's a human's natural instinct to choose the path which gives the maximum reward for the time spent.

From a design perspective it doesn't make sense to have the best counter to any one part of a game to be same part on the opposite side, especially when the part in question involves only a minute proportion of the total players playing.

[PHPT]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

You will find most jet pilots only strafe an AA site when they see its manned as in when a box shows up saying "kill me here" You can stand right next to the static AA and a plane won't know you are there. Jump in as the plane flies overhead or you know its not aiming in your direction. Nothing about running a mile.

I agree if the flares are fixed then no heli pilots would have a problem with current AA, its when they don't break lock or they go straight through the flares and hit the heli is what ****es us off.

If you take that long then you will never, ever get a lock. The range nerf was sort-of justified with the guaranteed instakill missiles, but now the missiles can be shaken again AND the range is still awful, so static AA is worthless against jets again, and still worse than a jeep for shooting down choppers.

I wouldn't say I want my "toy from 1.2" back since the range nerf made them irritating to use even then, I'd just like something actually usable, how's that?

[TheGhost]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

Says who? You? Are you from DICE? Did you program the AA?

I'm sorry, but until someone clarifies that your voice is representative for the design of BF2 then I fail to see why your logic should be deemed definitive...

AA that's supposed to wound and scare jets. Come on! If you expect some dogsbody infantry player to spend their time in static AA just scaring off jets in an fps then you must be out of your mind. Are jets just supposed to scare off armour?

AA is designed to kill air assets, just like a TOW is meant to kill ground vehicles. There's no alternative use, there's no "scaring" about it lol.

It's called common sense. If you could get over your crying for two minutes you might realize that. If static AA was meant to be the equal of jets, then hitting a jet with both missles would kill it instead of leaving it with a few bars of health. Mobile AA on the other hand has more than enough firepower to take out a jet in one pass. It's all about using the right tool for the job, and if you want to take a jet out in one pass the right tool is mobile AA (or getting in another jet, I mean obviously they are so easy to fly and wrack up points in I'm sure you won't have any problem taking out the other pilot right?).

Do I work for DICE, no I don't. However, I do think I have a pretty good idea as to what their intentions are. If they wanted static AA to be as powerful as mobile AA they would have made it that way a long time ago. They easily could have given the static sites four missles per salvo instead of two. My position is based on taking a realistic look at what tools have been given to us in the game, your's is based on "WAAAAAAHHHHH BIG BAD PILOT KILLED ME WAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!".

If you take that long then you will never, ever get a lock. The range nerf was sort-of justified with the guaranteed instakill missiles, but now the missiles can be shaken again AND the range is still awful, so static AA is worthless against jets again, and still worse than a jeep for shooting down choppers.

I wouldn't say I want my "toy from 1.2" back since the range nerf made them irritating to use even then, I'd just like something actually usable, how's that?

It's not the AA, it's you. What Capt.HKS suggested is exactly what you need to do. I do it on a daily basis and have no problem taking out helos, and no problem hitting jets either. People are spelling out for you exactly what you need to do to be effective in AA, and you refuse to listen. That's your problem and yours alone, it's not a reason to nerf the entire system just because you lack the skill to make use of the current one.

You guys won't be happy unless you get static AA that is the equivilent of a sniper rifle that kills with one hit to any part of the body (a heat seeking sniper rifle no less). All of the reasons that make insta kill sniper rifles a bad idea apply to insta kill AA.

[DrJambo]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

TheGhost, cut the "crying" nonsense, it only makes you look like a 14 year old. If you can't put your point across in an adult manner, then don't post at all.

What you said that was coherent would all be fine and well if there was mobile AA on all maps which have jets. Unfortunately this isn't the case and therefore the static AA is the only option available. Either this is simply bad map design, or it was the intention that static AA would be more than capable of performing the role of the mobile AA.

Listen, I'm not condoning static AA. It's no fun to use, there's little satisfaction killing with it, and it's a boring way to play an otherwise splendid fps; however, because of the way so many of the maps are designed, and because of the influence jets have on games, it's essential that static AA works! The fact it doesn't is why it's become a focal point of much debate.

I'd second removing static AA from the game completely if I thought DICE would replace it with some effective mobile AA.

[PHPT]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

What Capt.HKS suggested is exactly what you need to do. I do it on a daily basis and have no problem taking out helos, and no problem hitting jets either.

He spelled out what to do to NOT GET KILLED, not actually make a hit. Maybe against complete retards that accidentally mistook Alt-F4 for flares, you'll hit a jet, but if you hop in when it's halfway up swing, it'll dump flares, and be out of view long, long before the flares clear.

And I have no problem with choppers, thanks.

Good work ignoring my main point too on the "instakill sniper rifle" garbage, if anything I'd like to see AA with a fairly consistant hitrate that didn't do as much damage, something that's not completely hit or miss. If you want to compare it to sniper rifles, right now static AA is like a sniper rifle that does 2% damage if you don't get a headshot.

[TheGhost]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

What you said that was coherent would all be fine and well if there was mobile AA on all maps which have jets. Unfortunately this isn't the case and therefore the static AA is the only option available. Either this is simply bad map design, or it was the intention that static AA would be more than capable of performing the role of the mobile AA.

And amazingly, in my very first post in this thread I said that if you wanted to argue about something you should be arguing to get some mobile AA on the few maps that need it instead of looking to beef up static AA to something it was never intended to be.

Secondly, there is something else you need to realize about those maps that don't have mobile AA, they have an insane number of static AA sites. I should have mentioned this earlier, but the relationship between static AA and jets is very much like that between AT soldiers and tanks. One AT soldier can take out a tank, but it takes a good deal of work; it is much easier for several AT to work together and kill the tank. The maps without mobile AA have so much static AA that when used together they create a fairly large area of continuous coverage. When you team a few of these sites up, the static AA becomes a very effective jet killer, just like teaming up several AT soldier's against tanks. Personally I don't care which way they go. If they want to add some mobile AA to those maps, fine; although I think it would require taking out a few of the static AA sites on those maps for balance.

[colony]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

Wrong. If the players are doing it, then it's because the game allows it and rewards the players for doing it (players naturally take the best option). If planes were designed to be the best counter to planes then it would reward players appropriately for taking that action. If rewards are better achieved following another path, i.e. baseraping, then it's the game's fault. After all, it's a human's natural instinct to choose the path which gives the maximum reward for the time spent.

From a design perspective it doesn't make sense to have the best counter to any one part of a game to be same part on the opposite side, especially when the part in question involves only a minute proportion of the total players playing.

I just came from a game scoring 134 points by doing nothing but chasing down F35s and the occasional bombing runs. Jets are the most powerful war vehicles in the world...obviously they should have the killing potential that they do in the game. Many of these people sound like they want to hop into an AA emplacement, pop two shots, and no matter what, the missiles should hit no matter if the pilot drops flares or not. Thats not going to happen. Then I see those posting they want AA to see through the clouds and fog all the way across the map and be able to shoot down jets. Ground AA works if you have half a brain.

[« R²» HKS]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

Look guys I have no problem whatsoever taking out jets with static AA. If you can't that's not my problem, its yours. All you guys want is your insta no skill kill 1.2 AA back, 2 left clicks and get a kill. My method does work but its all in the timing of when you should enter and don't forget leave a static AA site. Those people that just sit in it all day then wonder why a jet keeps owning them should really take a different approach.

I shouldn't have said all bases on Oman have AA, late night forgive me I meant all but 1 base on Oman 64 player has static AA, with the uncaps having 2 each. Those static AA can cover the entire landmass of the map. I know because when they are all manned there is no escape for a heli especially seeings how flares don't work properly more often than not, and even on the slight chance that they worked that time once they have gone another static site can instantly own the heli.

Its obvious why the lock on range was dropped. Take Oman, before 1.2 you could get hit by 4-5 static AA sites all at once. On Sharqi you could get hit before you could takeoff the ground from the TV tower. As you left the MEC heli pad you could get hit by AA. Ghost town you still can get hit before you can take off. How is that balanced?

You are expecting as a lone ground grunt you should be able to kill planes "all" the time. If some of you guys actually did something else rather than running around with PKM's or spamming claymores and have a go at flying yourself, actually dedicate the time to learning how to fly it will make you so much better when you go back onto the ground and deal with aircraft, I guarantee it. When everyone was complaining pre 1.2 about helis and they couldn't kill them, people who had a clue would jump on a .50 cal and carve them up or use the AA sites with a degree of skill to get their kills.

If you want 2 left clicks = death is no better than somebody who goes out and buys an aimbot to cheat, because effectively that's what you are asking for a no skill way to get kills. Put some thought into, practice and you may find you can kill jets, but it takes skill and more than just 2 left clicks.

[colony]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

The maps without mobile AA have so much static AA that when used together they create a fairly large area of continuous coverage. When you team a few of these sites up, the static AA becomes a very effective jet killer, just like teaming up several AT soldier's against tanks. Personally I don't care which way they go. If they want to add some mobile AA to those maps, fine; although I think it would require taking out a few of the static AA sites on those maps for balance.

This is why maps like Gulf of Oman stress the cause to capture more bases so you have more AA sites as well

[TheGhost]

Re: AA (mobile and static) in 1.21 - comments

This is why maps like Gulf of Oman stress the cause to capture more bases so you have more AA sites as well

My word, that sounds like something that would require *gulp* teamwork. *shudder*