BF2S Forums Omfg. (aa)

Attack choppers... Now require a lot of brains lol.

Lol. No la. No sonic boom so impossible.

to all you plane/ heli whiners who had it so easy bombing us ground troops before, i can only say; its payback time.
LOL

Well, I got in some good playing time last night with the new patch. My inclinations turned out to be true, this definitely seperates the men from the boys. I was still able to hold a 15-25:1 K/D ratio on Wake, a little harder on Oman and easier on Daqing. The new AA definitely requires a pilot to change their style of flying.

Previously, I would fly on a knife's edge as far as AA (from air and ground) is concerned, knowing exactly how long I had before I needed to drop flares or take evasive manuevers, but now it's a bit different. You have to be overly careful to avoid fire. There is no such thing as evasive manuevers anymore, once a heat-seeker has a solid lock and is chasing you, you are gonna lose it with flares or it will hit you. Evasive maneuvers now consist of preventing anything from getting a lock on you in the first place, which requires being VERY aware of the status of AA around you.

For me, this meant constantly checking my six for enemy planes, and engaging them whenever I saw them. It also meant constantly strafing AA emplacements to keep them down. It's no longer good enough to just make a quick pass over a static AA and take out the gunner, now you have to completely destroy the AA, which really isn't any harder, just requires an extra half-second of MG fire.

Now the game with AA is avoiding a lock, rather than breaking it. This means more time concentrating on killing AA instead of killing everything else. Turns out to be around the same amount of killing going on, just killing different things. It also means that bombing runs with consist of a quick pass, drop the bombs, kill 5 people and go back to killing AA.

What I don't like about the change is that it noobified everything. Killing enemy jets and helis in a plane is completel noob-work now. I don't even have to bother with a second pass on choppers anymore. Hell, you come in at a chopper form above, and flares or not, they die. It also means shooting less air-to-air missiles, because only some MG fire and 1 missile is enough to consistantly take down enemy planes. It's not even a challenge "dog fighting", if you can even call it that, anymore. All you do is get missile lock and they're dead. Ground AA is a complete noob-fest too... just aim at the target for half a second and release missiles. Seriously, a monkey could man AA. Before, using ground AA was able knowing when and in what circumstances to use it. Mainly, you had to wait till flares were dropped, and catch them either coming at you or going away from you, but never from the side. Now, the AA missiles are so maneuverable, you can shoot at them from any angle, and so long as you get a solid lock and it's chasing them, it's gonna hit them. I don't like any aspect of the game being so damn noobish, which is why Im glad they "fixed" the GL, but the AA is just stupid now. Anyways, I think what they did was overkill, but you won't see me complaining. I'm still holding down a solid (20+ K/D) ratio, and I still get people whining about "plane whores" after their precious AA doesn't take me down.

Last night, on no fewer than 5 occasions, someone complained that "jets were still too good" and "AA still sucks". Just goes to show you that no matter how much they noobify the game, skill > all.

So bring it on you newly born AA whores, I'll be glad to leave you sitting dead on an AA gun, 10 times over.

Nah, i'm kinda' gettin' used to it now, avergage of 30 - 0.

raz is back.

Ya, all these stupid ground pounders coming in here gloating about "bringing flyboys to their knees" will be back to crying again in a few days.

I've definitely got a new shit talking phrase I've been rattling off since the patch... "Oh I'm so sorry ground pounders, did your precious AA not save you that time?" If only I could make a macro to spam it in global chat.

That's what I think about your new AA.

Yeah, all these pilots coming in here complaining was a huge overreaction. The new AA is really no big deal, it just takes a little thinking when you fly. However, for all the ground pounders who have been crying their eyes out for months about planes being too good, they were really hoping to bring the pilots to their knees with this change to AA. Sadly, the only thing they will be bringing to their knees are heli pilots, and only until those heli pilots learn to adapt.

So, to all the ground pounders who think you "have it made", enjoy your few days of the good pilots getting used to the new AA, because things will return to normal before long.

now, on the topic at hand.

I will happily admit I am a classic grunt. I'll do most of my fighting on foot, and I'll rarely use APC's or Tanks, mostly if one happens to be around and no one else wants it. Maybe that is because I play medic most of the time.

Most of us will probably agree that AA was basically useless up to now. Jets didn't have to worry about it much, even if they locked on, they were likely to hit a friendly plane, if they hit anything at all.
AA needed to be fixed. even polarbearz and slay agree on that.

Obviously, they don't agree with the way AA was fixed. they say it is overpowered.
Still , both have also said that after just a couple of hours of adapting tactics, they are nearly back to their pre-1.2 K/D ratios in jets, with maybe one or two deaths more for a full map.

So I guess it can't be that bad, can it ?

The patch is only out one f******* day. one day. Why don't we step back, take a deep breath and wait how this is going to affect gameplay on a larger scale. There will always be individuals who don't like some part of a patch. You can't make everybody happy.

I believe on a larger scale, the overall changes will benefit the game and the MAJORITY of the community.

Pilots are going to develop tactics to work around the stronger AA sites or fight those first before engaging something else. It is hard to compare this game with real air combat, but as far as I know, that is exactly what every air force needs to do in a real conflict first, too. Taking out enemy AA installations before everything else.

I have my own little theory why EA did what they did with the AA. It has something to do with teamplay on public servers, or rather lack thereof. I believe EA intended the game to require all units on the battlefield to work together, infantry, armor, air assets.
As it is now, that is a rarity on public servers. Even with VoIP enabled, everyone will do their own thing. This will be especially true for jet pilots / attack choppers. I am sorry to say that, but the majority of the flyboys only care about racking up points by doing bombing runs on enemy carriers or unloading heaps of bombs on enemy infantry. I am sure there are exceptions to that ( polarbearz and slay, I am looking at you ), but from personal experience those will be very, very rare indeed.
Let's face it, effective air support needs to be carefully organized and requires a level of communication and teamplay that just doesn't happen on your standard issue public server.

Let me explain what I mean.
Example: I am medic and part of a squad attacking an enemy SP, protected by a tank/APC, a crate, some infantry. If my squad leaves their cover, we are toast. At this point, we'd love to have some air support to take out the armor at the SP. So we tell our SL, "dude, get the commander to get us some air support". If the SL is lucky, the commander will have a headset and actually listen to him. But even if that is the case ( commander having a headset and speaking your language ), in 90% of all cases, the answer will be "sorry, all the flyboys are lone wolfes, cannot contact them".
Seriously, I have been playing this game since the Demo came out in June of last year, and only once did a commander actually communicate with me/my squad through VoIP.
Communication between air support and ground troops is basically non-existent on public servers. Teamplay usually only happens on infantry-level, not between different types of units.

I cannot remember how many times I have typed in the team chat s.th. like "god damn it, can our pilots please engage the enemy fighters so we won't get pounded into the ground that bad.."

So, considering the lack of teamplay on public servers, I think it is a good thing the guys on the ground now have the means to fight the enemy jets themselves if necessary. And btw, those improved AA installations are the same for both teams, so there is no disadvantage here.

And maybe, just maybe, this will enforce a little more teamplay on the servers. You know, pilots actually joining a squad and asking for ground support against AA, in exchange for air support against enemy armor. That would be nice. And btw, Stingers/IGLA's are stationary targets and as such a sniper's dream. I don't think AA whoring shall become much of a problem.

BF2 has so much tactical potential, much more than any other shooter I have played in a long time ( if ever ). But it also requires an insane amount of teamplay to be played to its full tactical extent.

Torin wrote:

I don't think the new AA is overpowered, just oversimplified. It really takes no brains, no skill, no hand-eye coordination, nothing to kill something with the new AA except an unaware or unskilled pilot on the receiving end.

Let's take the TOW for example. Against ground vehicles, the TOW is a MACHINE. You can 1-shot an MBT with a well-placed TOW, but placing that TOW in the right place and firing at the right time takes skill and coordination. Compare that to AA, and you see the problem. With AA, all you have to do is point, wait for a half second and click to fire. Once that is done, you hop off the AA and go about your business. It takes no skill, no coordination, no awareness of your surroundings, you just hop on and pop off a few missiles and down goes a jet or heli.

I don't mind effective AA, I just think it's bad for the game in general to noobify anything to this extent. They did the same to mines and claymores... any noob can just drop them everywhere now and kill people. It takes no thinking, no strategic positioning, no worry about teamkills, nothing.

I'm against the game being noobified, not against balance. The new AA is fine in terms of balance, I just think it should take some skill, coordination or both to be able to bring a jet down that easily. Take the Stingers in Desert Combat for example.... a skilled stinger user can 1-shot multiple jets in a row with well placed Stingers, but it takes skill and coordination. AA in BF2 is just noob crap now, anyone can do it.

Agreed.

More thinking for pilots, no thinking for AA users. Yeah, that's balance alright.

Well I played for a few hours last night and I wish I could have 1.12 back!!!

They destroyed the noob toob, not with the timer, but by reducing its splash damage and adding a weird delay after you shoot the thing. Every time you shoot it it feels like you have super high ping becuase the thing launches a split second after you press fire, totally messed up, and the smoke graphic ocassionally looks like a giant X. I am glad you cant use it super close range now but why did they have to mess up its medium and long range capabilities? There are now VERY FEW situations where the grenade launcher is useful.

The PKM is now the best gun in the game. If you used to play assault then now you will play support becuase of the PKM, the resupply points, and the unlimmitted grenades which are better than the GL.

The prone delay is very annoying and keeps getting me killed. No more going prone for a quick shot then getting back up to run away. I can get used to this though.

Aircraft, ya, basically what everyone said on the last 20 pages. There used to be a wide range of skill levels in the air and alot to learn about flying. Now there will be a very small range of skill levels and little to learn about flying. I am not a fan.

Claymores are easy kills now too. Just drop one on the main enemy routes and nothing but an enemy body can set one off so its a guaranteed kill. They cant clear it with explosives and your team cant trip it so they basically have to jump on it or let the route be closed. Kinda retarted if you ask me.

1.2 = BAD