Air Vehicles.

[expandas]

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.

The BF3 devs actually played their own game?

[Tea-Assault]

I find flying fun in pub servers, but in GC there is this sort of "disable enemy jet" then "go repair yourself" thing that constantly repeats itself. Because Auto repair is off, once you get ballsy enough to kill/disable a jet you most probably got a mouthful from the AA or from another jet. When it doesn't kill you, This either disables you or gets you down to such a low percentage that a stray frag round from a USAS would probably make you crash and burn. You then have to land and repair your jet, but by the time you've done that their jets are back up - so in the end you have little to no time to engage ground targets and support your team, and I love being a team player. This can get frustrating sometimes and I have massive rages when I get shot down multiple times in a row at the beginning of battledays when I've been away from battlefield for the whole week and am out of practice.
Can you solve this?
No.
I'm just bitter and need to go pubbing. Anyone free tomorrow should definitely join me and my friends pubbing.

[elchino7]

Too many different things to talk about, make it short.

-GC settings: i agree almost 100% with what @Jokerle said.
Problem is, no all the maps have an MAA.

-DICE problems with balance: LAV vs Tunguska, F18 vs SU, times of respawn, number of vehicles, perks...

-Pub: we all know how this is (Normal). Theres no way to counter a good pilot unless another good pilot. At most a good MAA may annoy the hell out of a jet but since theres is health regen and 3d spotting in play...
I dont get why they had to add the "semi tracking system" to the rocket pods or even add splash damage to them. Most of the problems would solve if ultra mesh qualitiy tracking dorito system was nerf.

[Róka]

STOP TALKING ABOUT PUB-PLAY PLEASE
Please, read all of this post before you consider making another reply. All of it!
What LoA says here is basically all there is when it comes to the air forces in GC.
I don't care how infantry see it's OP because of the ONE time an air force takes down the other and just happens to catch you in a strafe run on the ground. Here is the light of the matter:

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.

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.

Jokerle is completely right here. Saying you're encountering jets more than you like to as a part of the armour division, however, is the same as an army saying, "Well, I sure wish we'd be capturing more territories in this campaign. Better nerf something because the enemies are actually doing something right."
And on a side note: The US side is ALWAYS favored when it comes to the air force.

-DICE problems with balance: LAV vs Tunguska, F18 vs SU, times of respawn, number of vehicles, perks...

[Tea-Assault]

After doing as Roka says and reading the whole thread, all I can say is that so far for this campaign, the whole air balance thing seems to be working. Jokerle and I have our little skirmishes, where Loa and callID have theirs, then we keep each other busy whilst the infantry and armour can go about their business. I haven't yet in this campaign seen one map where the air has consistently been the deciding factor (or at least one which I would like to mention).

[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.

The BF3 devs actually played their own game?

you need subtitles?

[Bock]

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.

The BF3 devs actually played their own game?

you need subtitles?

Yes, please.

[Necromancer]

I haven't yet in this campaign seen one map where the air has consistently been the deciding factor (or at least one which I would like to mention).

then i guess you just don't want to mention the rape on caspian last battle day...

[expandas]

I haven't yet in this campaign seen one map where the air has consistently been the deciding factor (or at least one which I would like to mention).

then i guess you just don't want to mention the rape on caspian last battle day...

Special circumstance. One of the ace pilots DCed in the middle of the round and his team's MAA driver was a... TA.

[Jokerle]

then i guess you just don't want to mention the rape on caspian last battle day...

Special circumstance. One of the ace pilots DCed in the middle of the round and his team's MAA driver was a... TA.

I think caspian was discussed in the AAR and the various reasons for their air dominance as well.
It didnt came out of nowhere (well, except the DC).

[Sao]

I've only encountered serious air to ground rapage on one map. Last campaign as RU on Caspian when we had our entire air force have problems. I got killed at least 6 times by helo/jet. But it didn't bother me. Our airforce was having a major problem with numbers. And that's the only time I suffered from air attacks.

However I think the argument when you are attacking that your air force is underpowered is silly. If you know your air force cannot make a certain battle days. Do not attack an air based map!

[Necromancer]

it just shows how one guy can turn the entire battlefield up side down.
during the Oman attack, our LAV driver - Fisherman disconnected in the middle of the fight, LAV got blown (it took sometime for the game to kick him out so it was just sitting there getting pounded) and we even lost Delta. but we were able to counter it and get it back with infantry.

i don't mind it when the airforce is balanced. except its getting seriously unbalanced in a moments notice (or sometimes without it), screws up everything and nothing to do about it.

unless GC suddenly gets flooded with tons of equally skilled pilots, jet "f* ups" will continue to turn rounds into one sided slaughter every now and then.

[ICallIDTheft]

It's not me disconnecting that completely ruined that round, with us not having an MAA driver it was already going to be very difficult. The MAA on Caspian is the most crucial vehicle for the air. The problem was that when I was disconnected I couldn't manage things and couldn't guide our replacement MAA driver to be effective enough.

There simply aren't enough experienced air force people around, by experienced I don't necessarily mean highly skilled. Half of that is because of various issues here at GC that made some air people leave or not want to fly and half is simply because some got tired of battlefield or left for personal reasons.

Yes, air force is a smaller division than the rest and we have about equal impact on play than other divisions, so inturn less people have more power. But we also get to fly less as there will always be infantry, but not all maps have air power. If air vehicles didn't have any power, they would lose their value. If we fight to get 20 seconds of freedom for the majority of the round and then are as effective as 5 infantrymen there wouldn't be a point.

We contribute to the outcome of the campaign the same as any other division, definitely not more and maybe even less. KI managed to hold on quite long even though they were being demolished on air maps, sure things were highly different back then, the effect of air vehicles was massively higher, Hitcorp had really bad leadership issues as most of the their officer core wasn't present. Even though it's not entirely accurate to draw comparisons to that campaign, since those were different times, I'd still say that smart play in picking their maps was a deciding factor in letting KI hold on for long enough to turn it around.

Sure air vehicles are very powerful, I don't disagree. It takes a lot of effort to squeeze that power out of them though, the skill ceiling is higher. Personally I like that, I prefer my games to reward those who have become good at them. Air vehicles are all essentially glass cannons, they have good firepower and high mobility, but almost no armor. Without their speed they are essentially sitting ducks ready to be nailed out of the sky as is often case with the scout helicopter.

The mobility advantage has always been the hardest to master in any game, as when you do not know what you are doing and don't use it you get defeated easily and when you use it completely right you can avoid more damage than anything else can take. High mobility is usually most easily countered by either it itself or by good predictive play. So countering air vehicles is as hard as it is to fly them. The MAA main gun, tank main shell, tow launcher, rpg, stinger missile all have a key part of high mobility - speed. While they don't have the other key part, high maneuverability coupling them together with either good predictive aiming or good predictive positioning you can take on air vehicles with any of them.

It takes fundamentally the same crucial skill that you need in air vehicles to counter them, the ability to predict various things. To be good at that you need a lot of game time. Obviously the ability of prediction and quick reactions help with anything they are the most important to mastering something with high mobility. If you can't catch something you can't kill it, which is why it's rather obvious that the best counter to something with speed and maneuverability is something with the same.

The solution to the game being unbalanced when the opponents are unbalanced isn't to make someone good have no impact so even if he defeats someone else he won't be able to make a difference. That devalues effort and makes the game feel pointless. What we need to do is insure that we have good players around so one or two of them who will always be there won't change the tides of battle. That means we shouldn't look down on anyone trying to improve or anyone already there. It's insane what LoA has to put up with simply because he knows what he is doing.

This may seem contradictory to the idea of GC for everyone to be welcome, but it really doesn't have to be. We should strive to reach the right balance between being open to everyone and valuing abilities and improvement. When Starfisher was general we were essentially at that point, but now as he is busy with other things we need someone else to make up for it. But perhaps it's right that we currently just don't have the people to do all that.

The problem that one air force just stomps occasionally stems from somewhere else than the power of the air vehicles. It is a direct result of issues that some people, who could work to solve them are choosing to ignore.

[KILLERCANKILL]

nothing is OP in BF3, if its in the game its meant to be played with. If jets are annoying you then its up to you to come up with a strategy to counter them. Till now in my time in GC jets havent been a issue at all. If you expect to show up and want everything easy then you are playing the wrong game.

[FisherMan9999]

Actually,BF3 is easy enough right now.I think the jets can be OP but not always.If one of the teams have pilots from cG (Catalyst Gaming) and the other team have only pub heroes,the team with cG members is going to destroy the other one.I think they should buff the artillery,tanks and AA.Last but not least,they should add restriction of ammunition.I mean you have limited rounds and you need to resupply and refuel like in WG:ALB.