Issue with bots using AA

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

I assume everyone interested is aware of the changes made to the bots a while ago. So I won't go into details describing it. Following the changes different people had different opinions. Mostly positive of course. Yet from the beginning there has been one issue, the increased number of AA on every map due to bots using MANPADS.

Most CAS/TRANS players flew it because it was fun and quite often challenging. Because despite what most people who don't know what CAS is like say, it actually requires some level of piloting/gunning skills, communication skills and map knowledge and if a player masters all of that I don't see what's wrong with him getting a lot of kills/points. In the end we always say that kills don't matter in a team oriented game like PR. And with bots unloading full mags into you in seconds it's even harder. So adding even more AA capabilities to the bots seems fine at the beginning but really makes flying a different experience. Specifically it is frustrating and annoying as there is usually no way for pilots to avoid mobile AA launchers. On maps with no terrain features like hills or valleys there is no way to avoid being locked by an enemy MANPADS.

It's partly because of PR being PR and some weird things AA missiles can do but mostly it's because of what the bots can do. Of course a bot with an AA launcher is basically invincible when standing in a forest. Bots don't need time to lock on they just look at a plane and it's locked. Of course they sometimes wait before firing to give the pilot some time to react but in a lot of cases they just shoot instantly, that gives the pilot no time to strike a target before being locked which makes even strikes on friendly lases very challenging. That of course is a situation when a good pilot would pre-flare to avoid being locked, the issue is though that it doesn't work against bots. They basically don't care if you are doing that, they only care about the flares that you drop after the lock is established. Then if the pilot avoids all three missiles (I think that's the number of AA kits per team) there's around a minute before the bots rearm and fire again. And then even if someone kills all the AA bots, they just respawn almost right away.

Then of course there are all the other AA assets that are usually easier to deal with but combined with the 3 AA kits pose a bigger danger to both CAS and TRANS. And the asset respawn times are still the same. So on maps that previously had no AA and a respawn time on an asset close to 15-20 minutes flying is basically a waiting simulator. That's why more and more people stop playing that role. But on a lot of maps CAS is necessary to play a map because there isn't enough ground assets that can deal with enemy assets and infantry. And because more experienced players avoid playing CAS as it's not fun anymore almost only new players use it and accomplish nothing because they don't have the skills necessary.  This makes some maps very hard and not fun to play for everyone.

I'm writing this very long post to hopefully have a discussion about what the issue is and how it can be fixed. I feel like it's very important as a lot of maps that we used to play with 20-25 people on, we now struggle to finish in the time limit. Especially now that there is a lot of new players on the server.

So please if you don't have anything important to say just don't say anything as I am already bored of people that rarely play the game telling me to git gud.

[=EINF= cubiksrube]

i miss those days before the ballistic update, 

now we have airbase 5 km far from map, nevmesh ruined, binocular lazer dosent appear, guided bombs are not locking, have to switch to cannon to use cannon in jets, switching primary secondary with f

 

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

17 minutes ago, cubiksrube said:

i miss those days before the ballistic update, 

now we have airbase 5 km far from map, nevmesh ruined, binocular lazer dosent appear, guided bombs are not locking, have to switch to cannon to use cannon in jets, switching primary secondary with f

 

That's not really my point. I don't mean the changes in the game itself but the server side changes made to the bots.

[=VG= Batmeme]

i'm 100% with polish on this one the manpad are really pain to deal with even good cas players  are founding a hard time to play as cas it's annoying you getting locked by bots everywhere on the map is not fun i don't know how people who don't play as  cas most of the time telling us to pre-flare is going to help you not getting locked on it's like a 50/50 if you not getting locked just remove the manpad from the bots or have their number lowed down abit  just remember some maps the bots do get anti air vehicles or have some stationery anti air placements 
 

[=VG= Kavelenko]

What particular maps are you referring to? Flying CAS before the changes meant CAS whores would and did destroy most heavy asset targets before infantry could even get to the front-line, and people whinged about that. So now you want the exact opposite? Sure some CAS pilots do know their maps and how to use terrain and buildings to their advantage, are you saying newbies should be given a free hand to hover unopposed and just hammer away and ruin the team work?

If a server with 20-25 players cannot win a map, then its most likely due to bad team work, and disorganization. Making it easy for noob CAS pilots wont improve team work, we've already been there.

I cant think of a single map that is not winnable with 25 players who co-operate and communicate well.

[DankyTheFemboy]

i would like to add to this saying that on some maps this makes AA be in hilariously high numbers

pavlovsk has like atleast 5 quad guns, this is already enough for CAS and TRANS to deal with

one dutch map already has 5 quad guns against a single apache, which is absolutely nuts

karbala i think has also like 4-6 quads against a transport heli and a cas heli (granted the polish cas is absolutely nuts, but still, that many??? granted its an insurgent map but i think some of these should be made into mortars, maybe the ones in the suburbs)

not to mention TOW's also have the ability to shoot at helicopters which means that you can basically blow up out of nowhere just because it decided to fire at you

 

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

48 minutes ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

What particular maps are you referring to?

Pretty much every map with enemy having a a lot more assets than we do. Bijar std and lrg, Adak, Falcon alt, Hades alt, Black Gold lrg, and sometimes alt. 

52 minutes ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

CAS whores would and did destroy most heavy asset targets before infantry could even get to the front-line, and people whinged about that. So now you want the exact opposite?

It is the exact opposite, CAS can't kill most of the assets so infantry complains that CAS isn't doing their job. Asset squads complain that CAS doesn't kill enemy jets and helis because bots fly so low that you can't fight a mig without being in stinger range. Trans complains that cas isn't killing the stationary AA and infantry complains they are not getting supplies. Also CAS destroying all assets before the team even gets close to them is against the rules and shouldn't be treated as a "normal thing that will happen". And then on some maps this problem is fixed by making CAS deal with stationary AAs at the beginning, as it usually gives the ground forces cap 1 or 2 flags before cas is rady for tasking, or delayed spawns.

 

55 minutes ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

Sure some CAS pilots do know their maps and how to use terrain and buildings to their advantage, are you saying newbies should be given a free hand to hover unopposed and just hammer away and ruin the team work?

Well I agree, there are good pilots that use terrain and stuff I used to only fly like this, but actually it's safer to sit 500 m out and hover as because of PR missile physics moving doesn't really give you much advantage especially if you are close to the bot and if you are far away you have way more time too react. It's the low flying that is the most deadly right now, so CAS helis are almost stationary most of the game and have to kill assets behind the front line because they are being targeted by them. Also there is almost no teamwork in CAS involved for a long time now, SLs rarely spot or laze something and if they do it's usually inaccurate. But even if they did laze let's say a BMP 100 m from their position, what is the jet/heli pilot supposed to do? Helicopters with ATGMs, sure might be easy but a jet or hydra heli pilot has to fly closer and get locked by the AA to even see the target, and as I said earlier pop-up attack are not much better because pre-flaring doesn't work.

1 hour ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

Making it easy for noob CAS pilots wont improve team work, we've already been there.

Yes we have and noob pilots died no matter what. Even on maps like Kashan or Burning Sands that were easy. But what I am trying to say is that nowadays your skill doesn't matter. Above a certain level of skill all pilots suffer to the same thing. It's become more of a luck demanding game play than skill oriented.

1 hour ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

I cant think of a single map that is not winnable with 25 players who co-operate and communicate well.

Well this is probably true. The problem is that we are no longer dealing with a server full of good, communicative player base. Most of the time there is around 50 to 70% of noobs, no-mics, players that have no communication skills, and players that are just not good at the game. So it's rare to even get a squad full of those "good" players. And all the communicative players pick key roles like SLs, Tank, APC, Commander and so on.

 

 

[TEDF]

The problem with manpads and AA in general isn't lack of skill or whatever, but that the flares for aircraft currently are utterly broken and have been so for years.  When it comes to jets, the AA guy doesn't even need to lock on to the target to take it down, just a flare will do. When a jet itself gets locked and missile gets launched before the pilot manages to pop flares in that 1ms window, the jet will die 95% of the times, no matter how many flares gets popped afterwards or whatever ridiculous manouvers the pilot might pull off. With helicopters, it's not "that" bad, basically being equal to someone flipping a coin in the background after each launch, giving it 50/50 chance of being hit or miss.

(A little fun fact about bots not firing the rocket when they "lock" you - The locking sequence begins the moment the AA guy starts looking at the aircraft, even if the weapon deployment animation after switching weapons hasn't finished yet. That's where that "window of opportunity" to pop flares comes from, since the bot has just swithed to the launcher and can't launch the missile for another second or so because the animation hasn't finished yet.)

How does adding extra AA make the game more teamwork oriented when it comes to air assets, es specially CAS, when it is so broken already? No one ever lases anything, or if they do, it either happens once in every 10 rounds or the guy lasing can't do anything because he gets tapped the second he tries to look at anything. Lases for jets don't lock anymore, so the pilot has to manually guide the bomb towards the target. Some maps, like Thunder are utterly unplayable for CAS because you can't see anything because of the fog and if you go to low altitutes, you get instantly tapped my some random manpad in the forest. I don't think I've seen the F15 on BG large survive for longer than 5 minutes and that damn thing has like 15min respawn or something while having to compete with insane amount of AAVs and Quad guns in addition to the manpads? In what universe is that concidered fun?

The issue isn't about lack of teamwork or maps being unwinnable, but more of how god damn frustrating is to do anything with aircraft. It was already frustrating to die to some random shilka that one tap sniped you from 2km away, but now pilots have to dodge the utterly broken AA missiles from every random location on the map where the bots might wander to. Instead of making the game even less fun than it already has become, how about just enforcing the rules more forcefully to restrain people from bombing stuff that's nowhere near the frontlines if that's the reason manpads got added? We already have a rule for it, it's just almost never enforced.

[=VG= Kavelenko]

11 hours ago, =VG= The_Polish_Guy said:

Bijar std and lrg, Adak, Falcon alt, Hades alt, Black Gold lrg, and sometimes alt. 

Those maps are nothing special, three decent infantry squads can handle any of those maps, and thats the real issue, too many new pilots jump into CAS and immediately over fly areas they're not supposed to go, no wonder they get hammered. You don't NEED CAS to win them, decent infantry backed up by armor is what's needed more than CAS. I never rely on CAS, if we have good CAS pilots its a bonus but they cannot cap flags, boots on the ground is what wins maps. Pure and simple. Why use TRANS if the choppers are being flown by in-experienced pilots, you wouldn't do that in real life would you?

Lasing is not difficult at all, but its not helpful if newbies are lasing targets when CAS aircraft are no where near them, I've seen plenty of that.

[=VG= Melon Muncher]

Alright, first off there's been only two changes in about 4 months to anything on the server.

These changes came a week ago when I was told about the bots being too hard because of "changes", bots always getting too many kills and stuff even though nothing has changed. So, as a result the first change was that I dropped the bot difficulty 10 points, they are now the lowest they have been in my time at =VG=. The second change was because there is now too many manpads, again hasn't been changed since it was implemented, so I reduced the number of manpadsto be 1 manpad for every 5 AT.

I'm not against making these changes, I don't play much anymore and it doesn't bother me, but I personally see the issue being more related to skill level and communication.

[=VG= keed]

Take attack helo:

Stationary on 300 altitude, when lock sounds pop one pair of flares, search for the missile launch and kill the bot.

Try it on muttrah in the cobra or Adak in the missile CAS it works. (As long as shilka and quads are dead ofc) 

Flying low however, it resembles the coin flip Ted was talking about.

Planes is a different story - not much you can do.

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

9 hours ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

Those maps are nothing special, three decent infantry squads can handle any of those maps

Some of them sure, but even if you get 24 good people on the server, there is only so much they can do. There's no way they can kill all the armor on Adak or BG lrg without supplies. And for that you either need a logi that takes a long time to come because those are very big maps, or trans that is a target for any asset or AA.

Black Gold lrg is doable with no CAS that's true, we almost always do it like that because there is so much AA assets that CAS is the most vulnerable asset on that map and has the longest respawn time.

9 hours ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

too many new pilots jump into CAS and immediately over fly areas they're not supposed to go, no wonder they get hammered

That's exactly my point. It's been like this for years. No matter what you do noob pilots will always die but nowadays good pilots die a lot more too even flying behind the front lines.

9 hours ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

Why use TRANS if the choppers are being flown by in-experienced pilots, you wouldn't do that in real life would you?

Well sure I usually don't rely on trans anymore but that's because less good players want to be useful and fly it. I used to love just drop crates and transport people, now it's just annoying.

10 hours ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

Lasing is not difficult at all, but its not helpful if newbies are lasing targets when CAS aircraft are no where near them, I've seen plenty of that.

Well sure but my point is there is barely anyone lasing. The only people really doing that are the spotters in CAS squads.

42 minutes ago, =VG= keed said:

Flying low however, it resembles the coin flip Ted was talking about.

Planes is a different story - not much you can do.

Right so only the already most powerful CAS assets are the best ones to use out of all of them. But when people were complaining about CAS being too OP did they mean jets or light helis that most of the time get less kills that infantry? Or were they complaining about OP attack helis that hovered high above and killed everything.

Flying light helis with hydras is very annoying as literally everything can kill it easily and now there's even more things that can kill you easily. And of course flying jets is annoying too because if you don't die to the manpads then you have to RTB every minute.

So basically the role that people were enjoying because to be fair even if you didn't kill much flying was fun, it is now the lest fun role in the game.And tanks and apcs that have been just sitting on hills doing the same thing that CAS would do are in the same state as they were before, still very powerful.

[=VG= keed]

Personally I find it even easy in a CAS Huey on Muttrah. Sure I die, but that's to be expected.

I really don't want to play the muh realism card but in a way CAS was (and in certain hands) is unbelievably strong. Have you seen near peer air engagements? If the game does not offer the level of detail in how missiles lock on and make real life evasion tactics usable then I'll gladly take a frustrating RNG'ed moment over easy CAS kills.

I mean let's look at the deaths in CAS: Overextending, kill greed, lack of mapknowledge, lack of info on mobile AA assets, false intel, smashing into the ground are what I deem the reasons to why you and I die. If all those factors are minimized we can talk about reducing bot AA assets.

If you expose yourself too much you take the risk. And every PR coop CAS pro does that.

No disrespect, but show me a clip of a not fun death in CAS and we can analyze what went wrong. Otherwise this, like many other posts will go nowhere.

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

35 minutes ago, =VG= keed said:

I really don't want to play the muh realism card but in a way CAS was (and in certain hands) is unbelievably strong. Have you seen near peer air engagements?

Well sure but then irl you don't have to be within 500m to see an enemy, you can fire hydras more accurately, drop bombs from further away, lock onto enemy planes from miles away but it's PR we are talking about.

37 minutes ago, =VG= keed said:

If the game does not offer the level of detail in how missiles lock on and make real life evasion tactics usable then I'll gladly take a frustrating RNG'ed moment over easy CAS kills.

And I get it but the problem is that not everyone thinks like this. After all a lot of people play the game to relax and chill with friends. When every few minutes we are being annoyed it's hard to relax. 

39 minutes ago, =VG= keed said:

If you expose yourself too much you take the risk. And every PR coop CAS pro does that.

Of course but exposing too much is now flying within visual range of the enemy. For example on bijar the moment I see the city as a jet pilot I already know I need to get ready for a lock and only the apache is able to stay alive longer without flying far away from the objective.

58 minutes ago, =VG= keed said:

I mean let's look at the deaths in CAS: Overextending, kill greed, lack of mapknowledge, lack of info on mobile AA assets, false intel, smashing into the ground are what I deem the reasons to why you and I die. If all those factors are minimized we can talk about reducing bot AA assets.

Well as I said overextending is often just flying close to friendlies. Lack or incorrect info is something CAS can't change. And the other are purely skill based and have been for a long time. I would add at least one more factor - luck. There is never a perfect engagement route and even if you minimize all the other factors, luck is still very important. And it's become even more important when manpads were added.

[=VG= .Blizzard.]

PR sux. :3

[=VG= kovac]

Some time ago I had a conversation with alucardednoc (it is not a violation of his trust) about the IA of the bots, his opinion and in which I totally agree is, you can raise the bot as much level as you want, the problem is that that means that the bot can do things that you as a player cannot, example: it is at 100 (or less) walking and raises the rifle shoots and hits your head, the same example is for the use of AA and AT. It's hard for us players to stabilize and then shoot (if you're good, you'll hit the target for sure) but that doesn't happen to bots, I think if they had to do the same (I have no idea how, I'm not a programmer, I wish it was) the issue of shooting could be more even. In this you are right =VG= The_Polish_Guy.
I am trans and cas (when necessary) and yes, it has become more difficult to fly (although I must confess that I am excited by the challenge), now you have to take more alternative routes, low and fast flight, I see several players who are in TRANS flying at 30 or 50 meters high knowing that there is AA, QUAD, Shillka, the worst of all is that they do not teach a lesson and continue to do so!!!! Wasting the valuable ASSET, (is there a way to filter them? I don't know... Would it be an abuse?)
I agree with =VG= TEDF, in the sense that the issue of flares could be seen, for example the cas on the BG alt map, you run out of flares and the AA or Manpad hunts you the same... It hasn't happened to them that on that map? it's frustrating!!!!
There is another point that =VG=Kavelenko is right about, it is in the quality of LS and players that they have, less and less communicative between SQ, even worse, not even in their own SQ can they order or communicate. The LS are more and more lazy, they don't report if there is danger for CAS or TRANS or ARMOR, one gets surprised when you are meters away or when he already knocked you down!!!! That makes me very angry!!!
It's true what he says =VG= keed, also the ambition of some cas makes them end up dead, I've fallen into that attitude once, mea culpa!!!
In summary:
1- I think adjustments could be made to the flares, the initial fire stability of the bots as all the players have (it's already a damn advantage that they can shoot you through the vegetation, it's a nightmare on maps with a lot of foliage, " good morning Vietnam!")

- What can be done about LS's lack of communication?
- What can be done about the quality of CAS or TRANS pilots who deliberately waste ASSET? Yes, there are already rules to kick them or ban them, but there is another group that is in the middle, they fulfill their role but have a high mortality rate precisely because of these risky attitudes... (it has not happened to them that they are in the penultimate flag of muthra, the trans fulfilled his role until that moment and on the last flight to the fortress he goes directly and dies by the QUAD, known story, I also did that once...)
Hopefully something can be done about it, I know it must be difficult, I'm not a programmer, and this is true, any change won't be able to keep everyone happy...

[=VG= Kavelenko]

Today I was running a MECH INF squad on Pavlosck Bay STD, lasing targets for CAS while directing my squad, and it was successful. This idea that bombs dont lock on to lazed targets is incorrect. You need to get your timing right, and lase the target when CAS is on station. Not difficult at all. Communication with the CAS SL is also key because even telling them approx where the target is currently and which direction they are moving helps CAS set up for a decent run on the target. Its all about good comms, and there lies the problem.

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

1 hour ago, =VG= Kavelenko said:

This idea that bombs dont lock on to lazed targets is incorrect.

It is 100% correct. Only the two sitter aircraft now have an option to lock onto lased targets using bombs. One sitter aircraft such as the harrier have to drop bombs using the ballistic computer. That makes pop-up attacks more risky as they take more time.

[TEDF]

Nah, looks completely fine to me. Must be a communication issue. 

[=VG= keed]

From when were those screenshots?

[TEDF]

I believe those were matches on 11th.

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

I've been trying not to fly much in PR lately because it's not fun at all with all the AA. Also I am not used to recording replays so some days I just forgot. Still, I recorded a few things.

I recorded almost only on Karbala a couple of times but that's actually a good map to show how ridiculously hard it is to stay alive while playing CAS. It has a quad gun almost on every flag in a way that every one is over watched by another one, techies that can be very deadly to CAS, bots with AKs that can kill you easily if you fly low and now stingers. Technically the map also has an AAV, thankfully the bots don't use it. Also quads on this map are also very dangerous to infantry and light vehicles which makes it impossible to flank one of the hardest flags if CAS or APC didn't go to enemy main to kill the quad. (I will paste links to streamable so you can watch it as I'm not going to convert them to GIF)

 

https://streamable.com/5hryyp The first video shows me dying to a quad gun from 500 meters. I was surprised as I flew there often before and the quad didn't have that range. So first I checked the distance and it seems  to be almost exactly 500 meters. Then I checked the fog distance and it is 400 meters if I remember correctly. At last when my heli spawned I flew to the exact spot where I died after the quad was dead, and I couldn't see anything but fog. I couldn't even see any outlines of the building next to it. This means that if I want to be safe on mosque I need to kill a quad three flags further. Of course the quad keeps firing even when I fall back and I don't make it but I cut it just so it's not that long.

https://streamable.com/dobhdm On Karbala three stingers locked me. I was flying above village at this time so I guess I was in visual range nothing wrong with that this time. When I downloaded the tracker I didn't think there is gonna be anything special here but as you can see the bot that fires first reloads and fires very quickly. I measured the time. It's 10 seconds. A player would have to be standing on top of a crate to pull this of. Also the last missile hit my flares and almost killed me. You can imagine how annoying this is when it isn't two bots but five.

https://streamable.com/s1kgvg Another issue is missiles tracking after losing tone. As you can see I pop flares evade and the tone stops. I figure the missile went for the flares or the bot didn't fire. Sadly that wasn't the case and the missile hit me directly. This can of course be pushed to extreme. Once when flying with Th0m a few months ago a missile went for the flares and the did almost a 90 degree turn towards our heli. Th0m wasn't flaring anymore as the tone stopped and the missile seemed to be defeated.

I am of course fully aware that this is cherry picking. And this method can't by itself prove anything but since arguments and counterarguments made by me and others aren't enough to change anything, even though most of the people int his thread agree that there is an issue. But you wanted "proof" so there it is.

[TH0M]

5 hours ago, =VG= The_Polish_Guy said:

Once when flying with Th0m a few months ago a missile went for the flares and the did almost a 90 degree turn towards our heli. Th0m wasn't flaring anymore as the tone stopped and the missile seemed to be defeated.

i think it's from this one:
https://veterans-gaming.com/demofiles//tracker_2022_06_04_16_51_03_saaremaa_gpm_coop_64.PRdemo
in game time: 1:58:36 - 1:58-29

This is quiet a weird one indeed, on that occasion i didn't even get the missile lock warning, i think the missile locked onto another chopper 100m below and around 400+ m in front of the Cobra, it somehow missed the flare from that chopper & went straight through & up towards the Cobra afterwards, the tracker even shows the weird & extreme curving the missile took before taking out the Cobra.

i may be wrong but if the *.bf2demo file for that tracker is still available i may be able to check it (tho it's from 2 months+ ago so, not really hoping for much), I'm just curious about this specific instance.

On the whole AA balancing topic, while it's true good comms makes everything works better, the effect might just feels more punishing if you're using anything other than tank, tho it bothers me to some degree, it's not by much, but still..

 

[=VG= The_Polish_Guy]

30 minutes ago, TH0M said:

i may be wrong but if the *.bf2demo file for that tracker is still available

It is still available. Also this tracker file remembered me about a different situation with that. Looks pretty funny but was really frustrating. On this one there is no way anyone can blame me for "skill issue". I was on the ground resupplying and heard a tone like half a second before it hit me. I started flaring and tried to take off but it was too late. The missile had to be flying way above me and dive since otherwise it would have hit the hesco wall. https://streamable.com/l7f6d5

tracker_ramiel_AA.PRdemo The file if someone wants it.

Edit: 1330 meters btw

[TH0M]

2 hours ago, =VG= The_Polish_Guy said:

It is still available.

Yes the *.PRdemo is still there, but i wanna see it from within the game with the *.BF2demo file if it's available

 

2 hours ago, =VG= The_Polish_Guy said:

I started flaring and tried to take off but it was too late. The missile had to be flying way above me and dive since otherwise it would have hit the hesco wall

That's an absolute bonker, this one was coming at you with a vengeance hahaha the bot is a Man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer Fucking Will