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[General Article] PlanetSide 2: Review in Progress - Part 3: Air
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
Our review-in-progress for SOE's newly released MMOFPS, PlanetSide 2, continues today with part three. In this latest installment, we focus on the game's air vehicle experience.
PlanetSide 2 takes the possibilities imagined for air combat in other big war shooters like Battlefield to a whole other level. Forget a chopper or two and a pair of jets, in PlanetSide 2, players can have their own air vehicles. There are a decent variety to choose from, each with extremely important roles on the battlefield.
Read more of Michael Bitton's PlanetSide 2: Review in Progress - Part 3: Air.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
So What Now?
"What do you think of the air vehicle experience in PlanetSide 2? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!"
As soon as you learn to fly decently it's easy as hell to "farm ground" as ESF pilot with rocket pods, it's "the farm" for XP and certs currently in the game and needs some serious balance. There are AA options for ground like the dedicated Skyguard lightning tank, but it fails miserably to even scratch the paintjob of air planes.
Also the AA missiles are bad, they are homing, but they can be effortlessly avoided with flares or simply good piloting.
Currently the only viable AA option from ground is the dual burster MAX which can drive away air units or even kill them if the pilots are bad and wont thrust away in time.
There's a big AA-buff patch coming next week so we'll see how things turn out, I agree that air is hard to balance and buffs to AA might turn the game upside down but the current OPness of ESF's is just too much considering the fun-factor in the game.
It would be nice to see units like the Skyguard, which has NO ROLE AT ALL currently in the game to get to decent level, it's not fun when ESF pilots get 100 certs per hour who can attack land and air and be good in both, vs. a dedicated AA-Skyguard who simply cannot make any XP or certs at all, ever.
Anyway, lets hope for a reasonable balance for both and lets hope everyone in the game can make XP and certs in their chosen roles sometime soon
You and me too mate. Can't fly for diddly!.. I'm like a dumb fire missle.. as soon as I get hit bad I just aim and dive for the opposing crowd of troops
. I love bombing from a Liberator (Underside rear gun) but often get booted from the gunseat as soon as I board a random ship.. No one wants me .. 
Eli
Same as me! Flying? Hell no! Im like a Suicide Missile!!! XD
I have heard of the balance patch as mentioned above, but it's not going to go down well as people have paid real cash for these advanced ground-farmers, if suddenly they are the ones being farmed, it's a huge waste of money.
PS1 was the same, rocket farming was easy-mode and now with the entire game being base-choke-points with zero strategic fighting over things like towers and bridges, it's the rocket-spammers paradise.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Flight controls in all battle games are terrible unless you use a proper joystick like this:
http://brain.pan.e-merchant.com/4/0/02110004/g_02110004.jpg
Have something like that at the side for when you need it and you'll love aircraft combat.
i am absolutely horrible at flying, in pretty much any game. coudn't fly worth shit in Warhawk, BF3, or any other game i've played, so i'm really not surprised i can't fly worth jack in PS2.
however, i have notice that it's incredibly easier to fly while in 3rd person mode.....it's just impossible to shot at anything......still.....I CAN FLY AND NOT SUICIDE
Though the controls are far from intuitive I have, through some practice, actually managed to stay in the air for several consecutive minutes and even scored some cert points. Progress in baby steps, I guess, but PS2 sure is good fun.
.............
When in doubt, troll.
All that can be changed using an external program if needed. Bit of a pain in the ass to set up at first but once it's done, it's done.
Personally I have never had an easier time flying as I have with the ESF, i find the controls fantastic, and very very quickly became capable of flying well. This review can hardly state that the controls are difficult because one reviewer found it hard to click with it.
Praising the worst part, the utter rape of a liberator and calling out the fantastic controls of the ESF boggles the mind.
Wait what the flynig controls are as simple as they can get and work really well..
I really cant see why people are having an issue with them..
The minimum draw distance in high load situations and the fact that what you can't see, can't damage, makes flying even for average pilots a lot harder than other games, like BF3 for example.
Great write up. It covers what I'd have to say but more. You are taking your time before writing up the official review which is good.
Best aerial moment so far:
Watching someone air lift a magrider with a Galaxy.
On multiple occasion taking out mosquitos with the Liberator's 150mm AT cannon because my pilot was awsome.
Plowing through infantry on the ground or ESF for kills as a Galaxy pilot because my gunners weren't conscious.
Watching constant hit and run scrambles by scythes to clear an enemy convoy.
Three things make PS aerial combat awesome.
Couple things about the air combat. While I've always enjoyed either flying and or gunning in flying vehicles I'm having a hard time getting my controls configured to where the response times and feel are good enough to be competitive. I also think my controller is a bit dated and needs more buttons to accomodate all the functions I want to be able to do. Things like spotting out other fighters and(or) ground targets. Buttons for boosting and stuff too.
Anyone have great controller suggestions?
From a ground unit to air standpoint I find air units very difficult to take down. I'll hit a ship with 2 locked on rockets and the thing still doesn't go down. If they have flares it's even harder still. I've tried unloading with double AA guns on the MAX as New Conglomerite and not made much of a dent either. The AA turrets seem to do good enough damage but most vehicles are out before you can take them down. MOST, not all.
The ESF's i think are a bit unbalanced from a field of vision standpoint as the scythes have wider view without any blindspots like the other two ships have. Specifically the blindspots of the pilot canopy frame. Where as the reaver and misquito have them the scythe has none. It's a default advantage which i think might have been overlooked.
So all in all I have found air vehicles pretty damn powerful and hard to take out without coordinating with multiple players.