Popular GON/3FL servers are play areas for expert flyboys

[jumboeggbob]

Now that many of the flyboys have had a good chance to become excellent BF3 flyers with all the gear, they are close to invincible and regularly totally dominate the popular GON and 3FL servers. They now even have the expertise to fly everywhere only a few metres from the ground (even the jets are doing it) making it impossible to lock on. The only real counter is to have equally good pilots on your side, which doesn't always happen, and anyway in between their little squabbles in the air they still find time to cause total mayhem on the ground.

The argument that it is air support is nonsense, it is air dominance (and dominance of overall gameplay) by a select few. Good on 'em, they have become expert at their game, but their fun is coming at the expense of the other 40 - 60 players on the ground. The benefiting team don't complain, but of course they are missing out on more challenging gameplay, and also the server often quickly dies in the ar$e because all the demoralised losers drop out.

In a nut shell, the servers have become play areas for a select few, spoiling it for the rest of us on ground. So what can be done about it? Nerf the air vehicles? Improve the counter measures? We might be waiting for a while before that happens, but I reckon it is inevitable, but from the GON/3FL servers point of view the simplest solution would be to have more ground vehicle only servers.

[spynoob]

just wait till the next map, all out tanking.

and the flyboys with the exception of cheroca and triksta have nothing on my mobile aa skill

[jumboeggbob]

lol, yeh I know those names well. I do pretty well in the mobile AA myself, like picking off flies except for the really good ones. I get bored with it after 5-10 minutes though, have to get out there amongst it all. Lately the jets seem to have acquired a new skill (I don't fly and have no idea what it is), they seem to be able to totally or nearly destroy you in the mobile aa or tank from way off, when they are no more than a couple of pixels on full zoom in the aa.

[llllTrooperllll]

Really, your upset because other people are better at one part of the game than you? Who says they have to play the game any other way than how they want to? Battlefield gives people a chance to drive tanks, jeeps etc, helicopters and so on. As well as infantry combat. If a player chooses to be expertly skilled in one area then good on them. I sure as hell can't fly a plane/chopper for ****, but i don't go complaining about those that can.

[jumboeggbob]

Really, your upset because other people are better at one part of the game than you? Who says they have to play the game any other way than how they want to? Battlefield gives people a chance to drive tanks, jeeps etc, helicopters and so on. As well as infantry combat. If a player chooses to be expertly skilled in one area then good on them. I sure as hell can't fly a plane/chopper for ****, but i don't go complaining about those that can.

I'm having a whinge because one or 2 players can totally dominate the whole game. No other part of the game can do that. There's only 2 jets and one attack heli, and in expert hands there is nothing that can touch them. On the odd occasion the other side has equally good pilots and they tend to keep each other in check, but normally not. Sure I can often get a hit on them with a stinger or aa rocket, but it takes a bit of effort and then all they have to do is quickly run and hide somewhere way out of reach, and ridiculously get a full repair while still flying. Tanks and infantry are vulnerable to everything when healing - air is only vulnerable to air when they go way out of reach. Maybe having to land back at base to get a full repair would even things up a little.

Its particularly worse when say you're having great fun playing a small game, maybe 10-15 each side both fairly well balanced in skill, then a top pilot joins the server and decimates the competition round after round in a heli, and captures every flag in quick succession cos they can travel so quickly - but a lot of it is not because of their skill, its because they have a full team on board doing nothing but repairing and helping capture flags quickly. Maybe if a heli had to actually land to capture a flag, maybe that would even it up a bit.
But my biggest gripe is getting a full repair in the air. Maybe if heli and jets could only get say 50% repair while still flying (fixed with gaffa tape and bits of string sort of thing), and not have fully functional fire power and defense when 50% damaged. After all they just had there side blown off with a stinger. This would force them to go back to base for full repairs and I think make it a lot fairer.

[SaNE]

air is only vulnerable to air when they go way out of reach.

Bull, I know for a fact that on nearly all the maps the base and mobile AA can shoot you if you're anywhere close to the combat area.

Also why are you debating and suggesting things to fix the game here of all places, DICE don't take suggestions from their own website and suggestion/feedback websites.

The only thing GoN can do if put a plugin to kill people who kill someone in a jet, which going from servers with such plugins enabled, it doesn't get much traffic and people still use them just don't kill you totally.

[figuresofstick]

Really it's just part of the game. If it wasn't air vehicles that were the problem, it'd be the tanks, or something else.

Sure it's really annoying to be killed over and over again by someone in an attack heli, but that's just when you adjust your tactics and use the cover that's in the game to protect yourself from them.

[jumboeggbob]

Just a topic for discussion sane.
The mobile AA and base AA are peas shooters, and inaccurate above certain distance, really effective only on heli if they are silly enough to stay still for too long. Jets move too fast to do serious damage to. The air easily stay out of range and view of the base aa, and obliterate the mobile aa once they have spotted it. The aa rockets can be good, but requires a lot of team work.....getting them to deploy flares etc.
figuresofstick dice have gone to a lot of trouble nerfing many of the weapons to try and even things up, giving no one weapon a large advantage - heli and jets are just another weapon in the game. Also infantry have very limited grenade, rpg, stingers etc, to make it a little bit realistic. So why do jets and heli have an unlimited supply of extremely effective ammo? Now if the air ran out of ammo and had to resupply just like everyone else, then that would even things up quite a bit. Unlike the air, tanks are not an overwhelming force and they fit in just a bout right I reckon.
Don't get me wrong, I think the air is an awesome part of the game, just way overpowered and too dominating in expert hands. I think a few little tweaks (basically back to base for ammo and major repairs), would make all the difference in the world.

[llllTrooperllll]

Just a topic for discussion sane.
The mobile AA and base AA are peas shooters, and inaccurate above certain distance, really effective only on heli if they are silly enough to stay still for too long. Jets move too fast to do serious damage to. The air easily stay out of range and view of the base aa, and obliterate the mobile aa once they have spotted it. The aa rockets can be good, but requires a lot of team work.....getting them to deploy flares etc.
figuresofstick dice have gone to a lot of trouble nerfing many of the weapons to try and even things up, giving no one weapon a large advantage - heli and jets are just another weapon in the game. Also infantry have very limited grenade, rpg, stingers etc, to make it a little bit realistic. So why do jets and heli have an unlimited supply of extremely effective ammo? Now if the air ran out of ammo and had to resupply just like everyone else, then that would even things up quite a bit. Unlike the air, tanks are not an overwhelming force and they fit in just a bout right I reckon.
Don't get me wrong, I think the air is an awesome part of the game, just way overpowered and too dominating in expert hands. I think a few little tweaks (basically back to base for ammo and major repairs), would make all the difference in the world.

Sorry, man, i don't agree, the AA's and MAA's are very accurate, a jet/chopper can be taken down in one pass with the cannon. It takes skill. As does flying a plane. A friend of mine is an awesome flier, im **** at it, so i play infantry he takes the skies, this game requires everyone to play a part. Better deal with it. Any weapon/vehicle is OP in the correct hands!! the last thing we need is people complaining that things need to be nerfed because they are being taken out by them.

Like someone else has said, change your tactics. Everything is counter-able. Or do you just run around by your self and not communicate with your team? have you asked for someone to set up a SOFLAM and then you could bust out the JAV? Maybe you could try to take jets out in a MAA whilst on the move then it would be harder for them to shoot you.

[llllTrooperllll]

Really it's just part of the game. If it wasn't air vehicles that were the problem, it'd be the tanks, or something else.

Sure it's really annoying to be killed over and over again by someone in an attack heli, but that's just when you adjust your tactics and use the cover that's in the game to protect yourself from them.

+1

[llllTrooperllll]

Also, your playing normal mode aren't you? come over to hardcore and it will be better, no vehicle health regen!

[Long John]

I feel like the maps are well balanced, with apart from Caspian boarder once all the foliage has been blown away make it easier to spot ground targets.

[jumboeggbob]

Also, your playing normal mode aren't you? come over to hardcore and it will be better, no vehicle health regen!

Yeh you're right there. I do prefer hardcore, but the servers are often not up, or are near empty. I do try various tactics and working as a team.
Look I partly agree with a lot you have all said above, just not some of the finer details, but I won't go on.
You know I think I have figured out my biggest problem in the last few days after looking into it a lot further: it is my broadband speed. The 1500 kbs download on all accounts seemed to be more than enough and that's why I stuck with it. I didn't really think much about my upload speed which is only 256kbs. But of course that is probably my biggest problem when it comes to registering a hit.

[figuresofstick]

As I mentioned in your other thread and as such I wont go into full details here, however I highly doubt that is the cause. BF3 already has some issues with hit registering. And BF3 is only using about 1/4 of your total available upload speed. Check to make sure nothing is uploading/downloading in the background. check your pings and make sure they are respectable. if they are then bandwidth is not your issue of which I can say with 100% certainty.

[llllTrooperllll]

Also, your playing normal mode aren't you? come over to hardcore and it will be better, no vehicle health regen!

Yeh you're right there. I do prefer hardcore, but the servers are often not up, or are near empty. I do try various tactics and working as a team.

There are plenty of servers available and most are generally full i find. But if your looking for some from GON or 3FL then we are **** out of luck, they wont put any decent hardcore servers up!!! Are you listening Admins!!!!