You can't balance helis without playing them

The experience of a novice heli pilot is much different than the experience of an ace heli pilot.

The anti-air experience is vastly different when going against a novice versus ace pilot.

Ignoring the obvious biases and bad faith arguments this problem isn't resolved by simply playing the other side.

@AngrySquid270There should be a way to become skilful enough that you could evade death in any vehicle for the whole match.

Now that involves not making risky plays you don't have an escape from. If a wildcat is patrolling near a flag but there are 15 enemies there that could be easily killed in a heli, you have to weigh the risk/reward. You could clear the point, but the wildcat may tear you up with it's AA gun and will lock you from a long distance if your flares aren't ready.

If you choose simply not to engage then you won't help the team or get the points for killing the players.

Right now many infantry players just seem to want there to be no good answer. Only risk for pilots. Risk of death at any moment and no way to evade it. That's what lis and the TOR tank, and Rao represent. 

They allow infantry to put the helicopter in a no win situation that emerges without warning. It is a constant risk, even when there's no reward on the table. 

Why does it make sense that I am at risk of being one shot by a tank at any moment during the match, no matter what I'm doing?

Why does it make sense that 3 lis missiles can come flying at me at any point during the match, even if I'm playing safely and avoiding any reward? 

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@SpudBug wrote:
@L3tH4l3rR0rI think one thing non-pilots need to understand is the difference between being in a vehicle that your team has 1 available for 32 or 64 people and being an infantry player.

You may be one of 10 people who wanted to use that vehicle.
You may not be able to use it again that match if you die.
You will have to wait almost 2 minutes to get it again if you die.
Learning how to be effective with the attack helicopters while staying alive is very difficult.

Now as an infantry player if you die, you join back in the game with your same loadout in 5 seconds. No problem. A heli pilot that dies without warning to a railgun tank that's sitting 800m away in the enemy spawn has to play a different way, or wait almost 2 minutes for the chance to play helicopter again.

Taking out the sole attack aircraft that a team gets should be difficult and it should be rewarding for the enemy team.

Right now it's rewarding, but it's not difficult. Theres so many "cheap deaths" that can come and give an undeserved advantage to a team by destroying the enemy helicopter.

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how is this for a tradeoff:  make helos basically ineffective in terms of splash damage against infantry and increase the number of vehicles (including air) and the vehicles can go aftre each other.  that way infantry isn't getting pounded constantly by air while they are trying to fight off infantry and ground vehicles.

can also reduce effectiveness of infantry against air as well since they won't be much of a threat to the infantry if the air has to actually hit a soldier with a rocket to kill him (like with Lis's missile)

@Psubondin that case why have any air power at all? why have tanks? remove everything, even guns, we just run around with fists entire game. If you have problems with air power you have the tools to deal with it, most players don't want to, they want to play whatever and just expect others to take the heli down.

Changing the entire game just to suit other players is unrealistic, better to have good maps with balance, Air power is apart of battlefield, if you do not like it you have other modes, other games as well. I love airpower can it be good at times yes, but it can also be very bad having 4 lis rockets spammed at you, but you can go against a crazy good player with LMG then what? nerf that into the ground too ?

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@L3tH4l3rR0r wrote:
@Psubondin that case why have any air power at all? why have tanks? remove everything, even guns, we just run around with fists entire game. If you have problems with air power you have the tools to deal with it, most players don't want to, they want to play whatever and just expect others to take the heli down.

Changing the entire game just to suit other players is unrealistic, better to have good maps with balance, Air power is apart of battlefield, if you do not like it you have other modes, other games as well. I love airpower can it be good at times yes, but it can also be very bad having 4 lis rockets spammed at you, but you can against a crazy good player with LMG then what? nerf that into the ground too ?

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if air can pound infantry then infantry needs to be able to shoot back effectively.  it can't be a one way street.  any time infantry shoots back helo pilots want whatever they are using nerfed.

if air can't be shot back at with a credible threat then they shouldn't be able to farm infantry