Air Vehicles.

[RazY70]

Rock paper scissors. If you think that something in BF3 is OP, your team is doing something wrong.

Lets just ban everything.

That's a lame answer. Rock paper scissors means there's an equal chance for you to pick a counter to each of the other player's choices. But that is not the case here. Every asset in the game can be dealt with by other means except for the jet. There is simply no way to counter it. It can stay up almost untouched as long as there's no equally skilled jet pilot around.

No need to get your overboard with your reaction. No one suggested anything needs to be banned. It's just the basic state of things at the moment. If DICE could find a way to better balance things everyone would benefit (although flyboys would probably get a little bit more frustrated).

[Sarantini]

I agree with Razy, Jets are a part of BF but there is something wrong with a unit that can only be countered by the same unit. The MAA is only for denying space since the jet decides where to strike.
You can blame DICE's lazy attempt at balance but jets are hard to do right. as said earlier the inexperienced pilot gets chewed up by any maa driver or stingers but its a mere annoyance for better ones. There are just so many more things you can do with jets than with any other vehicle and do you want to punish players who put time into perfecting the perfect cruise speed and such..

[CorranHorn]

LOLOOLOLOLOLOL

Balancing woes in one of the best FPS's i've ever played. You wanna talk balance issues, go see HOTS crap man.

This game was trying to reward people for putting in time into the game. Trying to be good at something. So people who liked flying spent time, learnt the craft and got good at it.

Now in my opinion the "have nots" are crying foul.

Im fraking jealous that i can't fly a jet like Loa or Chopper gun like Flu.... uhh nevermind....

[Necromancer]

i find it contradictory to first vote that its fair, and then post that jets are OP.

i have no quarrel with choppers after they got nerfed, but jets are OP.

[Jokerle]

First of all: Forget pub games experiences where air rape can happen far too easy.
How often you see CallID or LoA (in jets) get on top of the score board in GC? How often go they something like 40 - 2 in K/D?
Things you would see easily in any pub games?

One reason is the powerful MAA. Have a good gunner and he will protect easily half of the map. Only with efforts it can be taken down (from the air). If one wants to balance airforces between armies, MAA driver become just as important as good jet pilots (or even more). If anything, the US MAA is OP.
I think that even two bad-pilots could stand a decent chance against two good pilots if their tactic is simply to protect the MAA (need to be a good MAA gunner though). Not saying it will be fun, but it will work most of the time.

Of course, if you dont have a good MAA driver and no one that can fly jets at a half-decent level, things will get out of hand quickly.
But similar things can happen if many of the good infantry player dont show up, or there are no experienced tank drivers. It is just more likely to happen in the airforce, because there are less players.

[mrBLUE9]

I agree with Jokerle, I think most of the things that we are criticizing here about the air partake to pub play. Here on GC there's a lot of effort in making both sides balanced and in having the famous 'air-parity', so most of the time Jets and Helis are fighting each other anyway. The real question is if the air guys are having fun with the way things are, and what can we do to improve it, not only for them but for everybody. I say that because the number of air guys has been slightly diminishing as each campaign comes and goes.

On another note it's 5am here and I'm laughing my ass off for saying 'air rooster' instead of 'roster', I should go to sleep.

[RazY70]

Just to clarify, my reply did refer to pub settings instead of the GC ones. Was kind of late and I must have missed that part in the text

[TheYonderGod]

In GC they're fine, because most of the time each side is balanced well enough for them to mostly be fighting each other + no 3d spotting makes it harder for them to engage ground targets.

In pubs, in conquest jets are extremely annoying. If pilots are balanced (which is rare) they're not too op but still annoying. If they're not balanced whoever has a good pilot will just dominate the entire round.
There is nothing else in the game that can allow 1 person make that much of an impact on the game. This is the reason they are OP imo. They are one of the biggest reasons I don't like playing air maps.

Now in Rush, there is no possible way any sane person could think that the jets aren't extremly OP. They can kill tanks in less than 2 seconds if it's a good pilot, or 1 strafe run if it's just an average pilot. I've seen a jet kill an amtrak plus 2 tanks and an lav (On Kharg) in 1 run. It doesn't matter if the whole team is using stingers, they can take out all the armor before they even go down.

[LoA]

Rock paper scissors. If you think that something in BF3 is OP, your team is doing something wrong.

Lets just ban everything.

That's a lame answer. Rock paper scissors means there's an equal chance for you to pick a counter to each of the other player's choices. But that is not the case here. Every asset in the game can be dealt with by other means except for the jet. There is simply no way to counter it. It can stay up almost untouched as long as there's no equally skilled jet pilot around.

No need to get your overboard with your reaction. No one suggested anything needs to be banned. It's just the basic state of things at the moment. If DICE could find a way to better balance things everyone would benefit (although flyboys would probably get a little bit more frustrated).

I would really like to see all of you saying that jets are OP to fly while Cloon or fields is in the AA. That's just one counter. Then there's stingers, tanks, RPGs, chopper...

And it really feels like we're talking about jets in public games atm, because jets in GC doesn't give nearly as much help to the ground as they're supposed to do. People seem to forget that it's a JET, it's supposed to rain down havoc when the enemy air has been successfully destroyed, and that doesn't happen often in GC. You got a maximum of 30 seconds until another jet/chopper/AA is up, and then it's back to circle around your base, trying to find a good moment to intitiate on the enemy jets, while at the same time dodging the infinite range MAA that's standing on the other side of the map bringing you down to 70% before the dogfight has even begun.

[Necromancer]

from my experience a skilled MAA can't stop a rampaging pilot. and i think theres a consensus that Fields is a skilled MAA driver.

the only reason you don't see pilots at the top of the scoreboard or notice their presence on the ground is because there's another equally good pilot on the other side that is able to contain them in the air.(im not the only one)
and when it doesn't happen, then you not only clearly see their presence, theres little you can do about it.

that wouldn't be a problem if we had equally good pilots on both sides. but not only its practically impossible to have equality in life, there is also a severe shortage of top notch pilots.
we/they have real life too. what happens when one of the super pilots can't make it? the whole army is to be crushed for 6 hours because one man had to attend to his real life?
pilots are more important then Generals...

[Jokerle]

from my experience a skilled MAA can't stop a rampaging pilot. and i think theres a consensus that Fields is a skilled MAA driver.

The usual case is that they do. Many times during a round all enemy jets are down (either side) and you still dont see the 'winning' jets raping everything.
Give the MAA a rep monkey with stinger and it will become even more powerful (please dont do that ).

[Necromancer]

Many times during a round all enemy jets are down (either side) and you still dont see the 'winning' jets raping everything.

As a member of the armored division i see them more then i would like to.

[AdmiralGiggles]

i have no quarrel with choppers after they got nerfed, but jets are OP.

this, but so far it looks like that in BF4 things will improve.

[Bock]

The problem with air is that as soon as one side starts to consistently win the air battle, they get time to strafe ground targets and the other side gets zero time to punish ground. It snowballs from there. The side winning the air battle then also gets armor superiority, and from there the other team has no chance to win the ground battle. Yes, having superiority in one division should turn the tide of a battle. If one side has better infantry, they should have the upper hand in the ground battle. But air and armor can kill infantry as a counter. Similarly with armor, superior armor will help you kill more people and cap more flags. But infantry and air can kill armor. Barring stupid piloting, infantry and armor can not kill air the way DICE has designed BF3. All stingers and laser-guided things can do is make air kill you from farther away. In regards to air vs ground balance, I much preferred BFBC2's lack of jets. It just adds another powerful layer which is difficult and complicated to balance. Yes, highly skilled AA drivers and helicopter crews can kill jets, but generally speaking, the best counter for a skilled jet pilot, is another skilled jet pilot.

Under this assumption, for fun gameplay for everyone, the most important divisions to balance are the opposing air forces (and particularly jet pilots). The search for this air balance has put a lot pressure and restrictions on air players and leads to more scrutiny being applied to air as well as quicker and harsher enforcement of rules regarding air vehicles as soon as something questionable happens. I would answer that air vehicles add to the gameplay and make things interesting, but in the context of GC, the atmosphere that has been created as a result of trying to manufacture balance has resulted in my getting sick of hearing all issues air-related. Trying to manufacture balance has led to other things that I and others perceive as problems, but that's something for another discussion.

[Digz]

our opions aside. there is an interview video out there
in which they let the Devs of BF and CoD, play and say who's their Fav.
most of them said themselves in BF3 the Vehicles can be played OP if you got a crew that knows
whats Teamwork, and you know what you're doing.
nobody's said the word ban, so no need for crying about others crying right now.