Originally Posted by Miir
The problem isn't the damage. It's the amount of AA people can have and how quickly they can get it. That is a common issue with a game that has 1000 players fighting at once.
If they balance it based on those times where there are 50 people with AA maxes or Skyguards. Then those other times when there are only 2 or 3 guys you'll find that your AA is completely worthless.
AA damage is fine. Pilots should not be able to solo.
If they want to do some side grades that increase armor or change the weapons to something heavier with a lower capacity sure do that. But don't nerf AA anymore or it'll just turn back into to Pilotside.
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Yup, the simple fact is that sometimes things simply don't work when they are scaled-up. That thought has been lurking in the back of my mind ever since I started playing in this beta.
Let's face it, a month or so after launch the battlefield will look very different to the way it did on launch day. Many many players will be using higher cert levels and unlocked "better" weapons. Where will the balance point be ? How will the new players feel when they are continually destroyed by tanks with AP turrets and 450-cert secondary weapons ?
We have resource costs and timers to limit vehicles, but because there are so many players around, there's a constant supply of virtually everything. I don't think I've ever been in a battle (no matter how long it lasted) where the other side couldn't spawn any vehicles or MAX's because they had been "used up".
As we have seen with tanks lately, having so many players in the game means that there are tank zergs. Simply because 25% of the playerbase likes driving tanks, we have 500 tanks roaming around at any given moment. An exaggeration, but the point is hopefully clear.
Skyguards need some trimming back. I love driving mine, and I'm fairly good at using it, since I started practicing in the days of heavy screen shake. it is a lethal weapon in competent hands. Damage per round and especially range could be decreased.
But if either vehicle can kill the other in one volley, they need to at least cost the same amount of resources and have the same timer. But Skyguards are not unique, it is just a turret variant for Lightning's. Should Lightning's (and all their potential variants) cost the same as an ESF ?
The trick is to keep a good balance in Skyguard vs aircraft. But even then, how do you compensate for 2 or 3 or 7 Skyguards firing at the same aircraft ? The moment you try to do that, you remove the weapon from the casual solo player's list. And PS2 is heavily aimed at exactly that market segment...
Games like BF3 can fine tune their vehicle damage output and overall performance, because the game itself controls how many vehicles are in play at any given moment. In PS2, every player in the game COULD simultaneously spawn a tank. So theoretically, the number of possible tanks in a single PS2 battle ranges from 0 to 2000.