Liberators. - Page 3

Kirotan · 2013-01-20, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by WarbirdTD

Isn't that exactly what should happen? They brought one type of force, and paid for that failure. And here's something else that bothers me: your idea of "fixing" things that aren't really "broken".

This.

There's an agenda here, because I'm not seeing much of the other side of the story.. the side where anyone who has flown into an area with 3 AA MAXes is lucky to get out of the combat arena with their lib still alive, having maybe had the time to get 2 shots off at a target. Where's that side of the argument?

That's because only about 10-15% of the players are proficient pilots. If you post a thread claiming that air is balanced, it will get drowned out by the majority that thinks "Liberators should explode when you climb into them."

I sincerely hope that they avoid nerfing anything else (with the possible exception of the oneshotting dual-hacksaws) before they implement the tunnels in the bases.

First they came for the Liberators, but I did nothing because I did not fly a Liberator.

Then they came for the ESF's, but I did nothing because I did not fly an ESF.

Then they came for the MAX's, but I did nothing because I did not use a MAX.

Then they came for my assault rifle, but then there was no one left to speak for me.

NewSith · 2013-01-20, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by Kirotan

A combined arms force should beat a one dimensional ground assault force most of the time, and rightfully so.

So that means that you should be able to destroy Liberators with Tanks And infantry as a group, am I correct? Because I don't see that happening very often.

I'm a Shredder Liberator fanboy, don't forget that before you start jumping into conclsuions.

Kirotan · 2013-01-20, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

So that means that you should be able to destroy Liberators with Tanks And infantry as a group, am I correct? Because I don't see that happening very often.

I'm a Shredder Liberator fanboy, don't forget that before you start jumping into conclsuions.

Read what you quoted by me again. "One dimensional ground assault force." Liberators are not ground units. I stand by my point.

NewSith · 2013-01-20, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by Kirotan

Read what you quoted by me again. "One dimensional ground assault force." Liberators are not ground units. I stand by my point.

So that basically means that Air Units should always dominate over Ground Units? In other words - The only true counter to Air should be other Air?

StumpyTheOzzie · 2013-01-20, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by Assist

What is their role in your opinion?
For me they're supposed to be a bomber. They're supposed to be tactical in the same sense that a Sunderer is. They should have SOME sort of limitations(I guess with tunnels they won't be able to go in those).
On Waterson the Liberators are used now as AA and AvG. Watching a 2 person Liberator roll 4 ESF's using the Dalton is just ridiculous. 4 shots, 800 resources destroyed in not even 20 seconds.

If someone could also explain to me the logic in allowing a bomber to have a cannon that rotates paired with a vehicle that can attain the same manuverability of an ESF I'd love that as well. The gravity on the projectile is a joke, I can hop in one and figure it out in one shot. It's no different then the MBT gravity except for the fact that it's an MBT that travels 200 kph and has a turret/cannon that is 100x more maneuverable and has twice the durability. Oh, and it has a third gun that almost every Libwhore uses a Bulldog on now because the AA weapons in this game are HORRIBLE. When it's easier to shoot a projectile(and it's WAY too easy) and hit an air vehicle rather than using a ***FLAK*** cannon then you have a serious issue in your balancing.

Matt Higby, if you read this forum, please explain to me who considers Liberators balanced now and where exactly this skill ceiling you talk about comes into play on them? Please, take your balancing feedback from people who play the game on a daily basis rather than just the twitterverse.

Make the damn cannon on the gun fixed and solve the problem already. That's all it takes to fix Liberators without hurting the ESF's even more.

As a medium-heavy libwhore, I can't agree more with this post on face value. Too manoeuvrable, too tough, weapons too strong, AI still too strong, AV +15% too strong and AA kinda ridiculous vs noob ESF pilots.

Having said all that, against an organised squad a lib is pretty useless. Against a zergy squad, a lib is super ragequit, cry-inducing OP. So you have to stop and think: "Am I complaining because I'm a whiny bitch, or am I complaining because I honestly can't do anything about it?" Can I inspire/cajole or browbeat the nearest 5 zerglings to grab AA maxes or ESFs and take out the problem? If no, then shut up.

Originally Posted by Kirotan

Those are some terrible ESF pilots, you're exaggerating, or it happened once and the Lib was very lucky or aimbotting.

How many times have you seen a lib actually do this?

Every night, minimum 10 times each for me and my pilot. We make a game of it to see who can dalton the most ESFs. A secondary game we play is to make the enemy ESFs ram us by flying fast, then slowing down gradually then stopping when they're "close enough" - all the while being drilled by their machine guns. ESFs ramming us hurts less than a clip of ESF machine gun ammo (which is silly IMO) Kamikaze ESFs should HURT!

Originally Posted by MyOdessa

Best idea yet!

I have 0 respect for anyone in Liberator. They might as well get aimbot.

When Liberator can park in-front of AA turret, blast it and suffer no damage, then only idiot Higby can think it is balanced.

I have 0 respect for whiny bitches who won't try their hardest to kill libs. It can be done pretty easily with very little organisation or certs.

But I agree with your last line. All turrets in general are paper fragile. That's just dumb. AV turrets are equally useless vs Tanks.

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

On Jeager, I don't have any problems with Liberators. I can fly in my ESF and make them bug out fairly easily and I am not very often killed by them.

If I were to make any suggestions to this thread, perhaps it is a feasible change to make the Liberator unable to roll or dive [note: I do not want to disable yaw or pitch controls, that would be extremely silly]. This way, it could not use its "bombing" gun to combat ESF unless they were below the craft in one way or another.

You are not a dumbass newb ESF pilot then and it's people like you that my pilot and I fear. Congratulations, there aren't many of you! I tend to agree that liberators pimped out with Full spec High-G airframes are probably too manoeuvrable in the air but I'm not quite on board with your no-roll or dive idea.

Originally Posted by Kirotan

That's because only about 10-15% of the players are proficient pilots. If you post a thread claiming that air is balanced, it will get drowned out by the majority that thinks "Liberators should explode when you climb into them."

First they came for the Liberators, but I did nothing because I did not fly a Liberator.

Then they came for the ESF's, but I did nothing because I did not fly an ESF.

Then they came for the MAX's, but I did nothing because I did not use a MAX.

Then they came for my assault rifle, but then there was no one left to speak for me.

I love this post. I've been trying to say that for ages but sometimes I feel like I'm on everyone's ignore list. It is very easy to counter liberators but nobody has the balls to do it. Grab 2 mates and fly ESFs. You will win. 1 on 1 the liberator will be driven off unless you are a newb pilot. 2 on 1 will result in a dead liberator about 75% of the time.

Me and my pilot have had to spend many certs and hours practising to become a good team. If 2 people decided to form up as an anti-lib ESF team and spend the same numbers of certs and hours as we did, they would completely dominate and ruin the game for me. So far though, there's only about 3 people on the whole server that give us trouble, and I haven't seen Skyexile for a long time.

Liberators are designed to destroy anything on the ground in the open. It's not my fault that base designs are rubbish and that people don't want to counter me. I'm just loving my job. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

BlaxicanX · 2013-01-20, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by WarbirdTD

Isn't that exactly what should happen? They brought one type of force, and paid for that failure. And here's something else that bothers me: your idea of "fixing" things that aren't really "broken".

There's an agenda here, because I'm not seeing much of the other side of the story.. the side where anyone who has flown into an area with 3 AA MAXes is lucky to get out of the combat arena with their lib still alive, having maybe had the time to get 2 shots off at a target. Where's that side of the argument?

I sincerely hope that they avoid nerfing anything else (with the possible exception of the oneshotting dual-hacksaws) before they implement the tunnels in the bases.

Originally Posted by Kirotan

And just because people say something needs to be fixed doesn't mean it needs to be fixed.

People complain about it because it interrupts their preferred style of play. They don't want to change strategies or make sacrifices because they don't care about what anyone else wants. This game is trying to strike a delicate balance for multiple roles; infantry, vehicles, air, etc.

Sometimes pilots don't get to fly, tank operators don't get to drive, and infantry doesn't get to fight because of multiple circumstances in the game due to a shared sacrifice we all have to make to co-exist in an MMOFPS.

You see a lot of whining about airspam because the majority of players are not pilots. They don't care about flying and they don't care about its role in the game. It's "Me me me I want to footzerg across Indar and Air ruins that!"

A combined arms force should beat a one dimensional ground assault force most of the time, and rightfully so.

When you're defending a base, you don't have the luxury of a massive air force/tank armor/infantry combo. If you did, you wouldn't be defending a base, you'd be out in the open battlefield.

Once you get to the point where you're defending a base, MAX's and AA turrets are all you have- thus the problem. No one says that Liberators are overpowered when they're in a massive zerg-caravan of Sunderers, tanks and Libs. People say Libs are overpowered when they're in a base trying to defend it, and lib bombs are literally killing you through the walls of the building.

Kirotan · 2013-01-20, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

So that basically means that Air Units should always dominate over Ground Units?

Air units will always dominate ground units that have no AA. Even if you took away hovering. Air can come in from 360 angles to attack slower, less mobile forces that are impeded by terrain. Then, they can get away before they can take enough damage to get shot down.

Ground units with AA have a much better chance, but they are still disadvantaged by the very simple fact that their lack of mobility means they lose initiative and first strike capability.

How do you propose to give ground AA an advantage over a more mobile, flying opponent without being broken?

Lock ons? I'll just fly low and break it with terrain.

More flak? I'll just be patient and look for holes, or swoop in when you're firing at another aircraft.

Saturate the area with so much AA? I can farm my little running chunks of xp somewhere else.

In other words - The only true counter to Air should be other Air?

Air is the true counter to itself because it negates its own advantages that it has over everything else. I have no problem with Air being the counter to itself because:

- Everyone gets Aerospace resources.

- Everyone can pull any air vehicle.

- Anyone can learn to fly. Even if you can't fly, you can pull an ESF every 15 minutes, and practice for 2 minutes before you crash and kill yourself.

If you have a solution that negates the speed and mobility advantage of Air that you can give to ground AA that won't break the game, please feel free to share it. (Because seriously, this whole thread has offered nothing constructive on Libs, it's just "I hate libs.")

Personally you can give it a 10% speed boost, reduce armor by 30-40%, and make it a heavy fighter platform that can't afford to hover if 2 or more AA is present, and that's fine with me...but people will still complain about it when it kills them.

BlaxicanX · 2013-01-20, 04:02 PM

Originally Posted by Kirotan

How do you propose to give ground AA an advantage over a more mobile, flying opponent without being broken?

Make them invulnerable to damage, and require the destruction or hacking of a generator-type node that's inside the base in order to disable them.

Boom. I'm such a genius.

Babyfark McGeez · 2013-01-20, 04:11 PM

Originally Posted by BlaxicanX

When you're defending a base, you don't have the luxury of a massive air force/tank armor/infantry combo. If you did, you wouldn't be defending a base, you'd be out in the open battlefield.

Once you get to the point where you're defending a base, MAX's and AA turrets are all you have- thus the problem. No one says that Liberators are overpowered when they're in a massive zerg-caravan of Sunderers, tanks and Libs. People say Libs are overpowered when they're in a base trying to defend it, and lib bombs are literally killing you through the walls of the building.

This is something i encountered as problem too. Generally i think liberators are fine, except for that situation (defenders not having access to vehicles/air support). The main problem here is imo the spam by quickly fired high-speed "bombs".

The solution could be to make libs slightly less manouverable and to reduce the "bomb" spam by reducing projectile speed and the firing rate (i would have no problem if the damage output or splash range would be increased instead - more like a real "bomber"). Maybe also reduce maximum ammo capacity, because i see liberators spam-bombing spots for quite some time without having to restock.

NewSith · 2013-01-20, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by Kirotan

Air units will always dominate ground units that have no AA. Even if you took away hovering. Air can come in from 360 angles to attack slower, less mobile forces that are impeded by terrain. Then, they can get away before they can take enough damage to get shot down.

Ground units with AA have a much better chance, but they are still disadvantaged by the very simple fact that their lack of mobility means they lose initiative and first strike capability.

How do you propose to give ground AA an advantage over a more mobile, flying opponent without being broken?

Lock ons? I'll just fly low and break it with terrain.

More flak? I'll just be patient and look for holes, or swoop in when you're firing at another aircraft.

Saturate the area with so much AA? I can farm my little running chunks of xp somewhere else.

Okay, let's go somewhere paticullary wierd.

How does RL balance things? What stops supersonic aircarft from winning wars (wars!)? What stops helicopters from winning wars? What stops the infamous Specter from being a replacement to all tanks, troops and battleships?

This is a wargame afterall...

Kirotan · 2013-01-20, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

Okay, let's go somewhere paticullary wierd.

How does RL balance things? What stops supersonic aircarft from winning wars (wars!)? What stops helicopters from winning wars? What stops the infamous Specter from being a replacement to all tanks, troops and battleships?

This is a wargame afterall...

AA stops Air from winning wars.

Artillery and missile strikes stops everything else from winning wars.

"Ok men, we're going to move out to...*BOOM!* (Half the platoon killed by artillery).

Just imagine the U.S. Military cloned twice, and all 3 are pitted against each other. They have unlimited resources. I don't think anyone but artillery and drone operators wants to play that game. =P

But back to Liberators: How do you think they should be balanced?

WarbirdTD · 2013-01-20, 07:21 PM

Whoa wait a minute... Now we're saying that Liberators are balanced when the fight is out in the open, but not during base fights? Let me ask this: Do you think Liberators are overpowered in relation to Bio Labs? Assuming the answer is no, the conclusion we can reach is that Liberators are not actually the problem.

The problem most likely lies in the design of the Tech Plants and Amp Stations, since their spawn rooms are isolated and easily camped. Luckily for us, the devs have already acknowledged this and are expecting to fix it on the 30th. Wait until that change goes through, and I think we'll see a lot less liberator spam. I really do think the lack of tunnels at major bases between spawn points and objective points is the root cause of a lot of vehicle balance demands. They don't need to change flight characteristics of a vehicle when they don't need to be changed in all circumstances. That would truly be a mistake.

LoliLoveFart · 2013-01-20, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by WarbirdTD

I really do think the lack of tunnels at major bases between spawn points and objective points is the root cause of a lot of vehicle balance demands.

Knowing how things have gone the blast radius from lib guns will go through the ground into the tunnels.

BlaxicanX · 2013-01-20, 09:18 PM

Originally Posted by WarbirdTD

Whoa wait a minute... Now we're saying that Liberators are balanced when the fight is out in the open, but not during base fights?

No, that's not what's being said now.

It's what's been said all long.

Yes, the problem isn't with Liberators specifically, it's with vehicles in general being far too effective at suppressing the defenders of the base. Vehicles should play a maximum role out in the open, and be relegated to merely a support role when assaulting a base, while infantry does the bulk of the heavy-lifting. What we actually have is infantry playing a support role basically all the time while vehicles are the stars of the show, making or breaking any engagement at any time, sans Biolabs (though, even then, get enough sunderers parked next to teleporters or man-cannons and it basically becomes just a matter of time until biolab defenders are overwhelmed).

50% of that problem comes from poor level design- like you said, none of the bases in the game are easily defensible except for Biolabs, and a lack of canopies, overarching roofs and shields means that all bases are basically deathtraps, and defending one means being a fish in a barrel that libs and lightnings can farm at their leisure.

But that's only 50% of the problem. The other 50% of the problem is that, like it or not, defenders of a base will almost always be 90% comprised of infantry, and with the current state of the metagame, there simply is no reliable way for infantry to kill aircraft and vehicles. AA turrets suck, and have the durability of wet toilet paper, lock-on missile launchers suck, and Max's are decent at fighting vehicles, but they're a finite resource, and rely too much on squishy engineers to stay alive and armed. Thus you run into the problem of base defenders being completely overwhelmed and forced to, essentially, cower inside their base until they lose it, or rally at the warpgate and try to push somewhere else.

So, there's three ways to fix this:

1. Buff vehicle direct-hit damage and nerf their splash damage, which would force them to be better at killing other vehicles than at killing infantry.

2. Buff base defenses so that they're actually useful. <- My personal favorite; AA turrets shouldn't have health, they should be invincible and capable of being disabled via hacking or the destruction of a generator. No buffs to their damage necessary.

3. Buff rocket launchers so that they do more damage to vehicles. The least interesting option, and the hardest to balance imo.

AThreatToYou · 2013-01-20, 09:40 PM

3. Buff rocket launchers so that they do more damage to vehicles. The least interesting option, and the hardest to balance imo.

I read your whole post, I kind of understand it all, maybe, but that's not important. What is important is for me to outline for you that the bulk of the issue with Infantry vs. Tanks is not that HA rockets or even MAX AV weapons do too little damage, it is that both of the projectiles travel far, far too slow. What really should happen before any more damage is given to these weapons is that their projectile speed be drastically increased.

For evidence, I cite the many times that a tank has just saw my rocket flying right at them and either strafed or mashed the W/S keys. And for aircraft? Even a hovering lib, and especially a hovering ESF, you're throwing luck right at your target... hoping they are complete noobs.

Infantry just need to be able to deliver their damage in the same window of opportunity that a vehicle can. I believe this factor should be normalized instead of made even more extreme from situation A to situation B [tank far, tank close, tank noob, tank pro, shooter pro, shooter noob, tank faction, density of tanks, density of shooters, area, tank already damaged y/n, more, at least 220 possible situations]. Normalizing this factor can be done by making it more likely for an infantry-based unit to deal damage in the first place.