AA guns to op

The problem right now is, infantry players only see black & white. "Planes are bad and op" is the common perception.

And this perception appears to be the strongest in players who did even fly or did not fly more then 5 hours.

And it seems they are the loudest majority in the forums.

They only have planes as one enemy.

They dont see that there are different planes AND different pilots.

They dont see that currently even if you have all upgrades for free, all non rocket planes are literally useless in most cases. 

They dont seperate CQ&Breakthru.

They dont seperate Pacific and Vanilla.

They flame about bombers but dont see that a fighter plane, which should have the sole purpose can not hunt a bomber because you die in 4-5 hits. 

They dont see that the current AA range allows to interfere in 3/4 of the map. 

They think that rocket range is more or equal to the AA range, which it is in fact NOT the case. Rockets dust off / disappear in the great nothing at the same range. 

They dont acknowledge that the changes DICE did with making the AA and FF stronger made the problem far worse then it was before!

Why? Because Dice gave em a little satisfaction in killing a plane easier now. 

What should have DICE done instead? 

Reduced AA damage on range. But make it more damage the closer you are to the AA. (AA needs to be deadly)

Reduced the rocket damage to infantry close to zero. 

Increase the rocket drop. 

Increase bullet drop. 

Increase the MG damage to infantry. (a plane needs more bullets to kill infantry than infantry to kill infantry, why?) 

Keep the 91 dmg from FF. (one infatry player should not be able to take out a tank or a plane solo) 

Just like spychodelics said, it is a more complex issue than one might think.

Depending on the map, the AA user, the pilot and the mode, the result can be really different.

As things currently stand, on one hand the AA user can be a real pain for planes that are way too far from the base the AA is made to defend.

On the other hand an ace pilot will destroy the sAA and sometimes even mAA in 1vs1 fights with frustrating ease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKIep88j1Tc

I agree that the sAA/mAA should do less damage the further away the target is while being super deadly up close in order to be able to fulfill its defensive role. At the same time it should be less possible for a pilot to snipe AA from huge ranges with rocket or slingshoted bombs.

Really like the suggestion of increasing MG damage against infantry, with the trade-off being rockets doing minimal damage. Fighters could still attack the ground but it'd be more challenging using guns rather than rockets. Plus it's more satisfying imo.

Making AA damage dependant on range is not a good idea unless you apply the same  range dependant damage reductions on rockets and bombs.

Otherwise the pilots will always find a way to stay out of critical AA range but still go 40:0.

In my opinion the only solution is to remove bombs from planes completely and make rockets effective only against tanks. Also remove stationary AA and infantry AA launchers.

Reduce infantry vs. plane battle to almost zero, because this is the thing which cannot be balanced.

After this it will not ne so hard anymore to balance AA tanks vs. planes and planes vs. planes.

Or remove planes from the game completely, I am sure a majority of the players wouldn't mind. 

No edit option in these lousy "forums"?

I wanted to add that Bad Company 2 didn't have planes an was still very popular.