DICE and the community, lets talk about jets!

Battlefield 4 General Discussion
1

Hi guys, time to gather some formed opinions and information about the new jets in BF4. I’m gathering stuff in this post so i’ll be editing it at will.

ECM vs Flares: for those who expected ECM to half the reload time of flares in exchange of less reliability against fired AA missiles, that’s not the case from what I found. About the same reload time, similar functionality but ECM is less reliable. Thus, not so useful. Tested yesterday, and ECM does hide you from the air radar but it won’t show on your own.

Attack vs Stealth: the roles are supposed to be clearly defined. Stealth get more AA options, Attack get more CAS options. Attack jet seems fine from what I played, the main cannon is really strong against ground.. but it’s also really strong against aircraft. Meanwhile the stealth jets’ main cannon is very weak (even the 30mm) against everything, forcing you to use A2A missiles which are also (rightfully) weak. Also, the guided missile on the Stealth jet is quite effective against armor now, since you get 2 of them.

Attack jet TV: IDK whats going on, doesn’t seem to be steerable the first times you fire it. Screen has awful shaking, even in the test range. Many times it ends in a suicide (same with the chopper..). Definitely bugged

HUD issues: the text and indicators on the HUD seem to be too ‘thin’ and dim, making it hard to read and aim at times. The font size is too small on the CAS jets imo. Also, you still can’t pitch/yaw/roll while in freelook. This is extremely annoying and takes away a LOT of realism, ie, looking around while piloting. Instead you get “looking around while going in a straight line of death” which ends up being only useful for map surveillance.

Chase cam vs HUD: seems like the chase cam has the same or less FOV than cockpit view and its also ‘stuck’ to the airplane now. It gets REALLY dizzying and its not very useful at all now. I’ve had more success staying in the cockpit during dogfights now.

Air radar: permanent upgrade now, for both stealth and attack jets. IMO to further differentiate the 2 types of jets, the ground attack jet shouldn’t get air radar. As it is right now, the CAS jet has much better A2A capabilities (except maybe in dogfights against other jets but the difference isn’t that great). I’ve found dogfights to be pretty even between the two types of jets when it should definitely lean in favor of the stealth jet. Disappointed the air radar still shows aircraft permanently instead of at intervals.

Upgrades: prox. scan is a joke and shouldn’t even be there. Gyro stabilizer and stealth are the two best options so far, although stealth doesn’t seem to increase lock-on time significantly and taking a hit without gyro equipped can be a death sentence depending on your surroundings. Especially if its a no warning hit with active radar missiles, where you don’t get to try to prepare yourself for the hit

Stealth jets imbalance: the Su-50 is WAY more agile compared to the J20 and the F35. The F35 has pretty much nothing going for it except the smaller wingspan, the other two jets have a much better cockpit view plus better handling. Also, the F35 cockpit is HUGE compared to the other two’s

MAA and ground counters: the MAA is still strong against jets, no complaints. MANPADS are also quite effective given the longer CM reload time. Main threat still remains other jets, MAA and possibly attack boat with the big set of SAMs. However as it is, infantry don’t even have to worry about jets.

SAA: the new automatic SAA is a joke. Due to the lower damage from all weapons, jet dogfights sometimes end with 1 of the jets just fleeing back to base to let the SAA deal with the enemy. This wasn’t a problem in BF3, but it required teamwork, ie someone sitting in the SAA. Now that’s no longer required, plus it takes no skill whatsoever. In fact, when you are downed by the SAA you get “killed in action”. What a joke!

Airspace: most maps have an airspace too small for any kind of dogfights, safe zone or even lining up for a strafe run

All in all, im liking most of the changes and still getting used to them. Stealth jets probably need an A2A buff and re-balancing between different factions. Would be nice if the HUD is improved too.

Discussion with some fixes here: How to Balance/Fix Jets

2

I haven’t played yet and only watched some videos:

The attack jets seem to be quite agile this time around?

Agreed on proximity scan (still don’t understand why you’d “need” it) and heh, F-35 being once again the “worst” fighter jet? Who would’ve thought. :stuck_out_tongue:

Question: The Active Radar missile is fire and forget, seeks enemies without a lock?

3

The attack jets seem to be quite agile this time around?

Yeh, they have pretty much the same turn radius except the SU-50. The moment you get in the SU-50 you notice its turn radius must be like 60% of the others

Haven’t had a chance to try active radar, but I think it should stay the main cannon being the primary weapon against AIR targets. Also, killing armor with stealth jet is imposible and even infantry takes an entire cannon worth to kill!

4

I think you can change your opacity in the settings dude. Make everything easier to read.

5

I tried, didn’t change a thing. Also played with the colorblind settings to no avail. The problem is with the ‘thickness’ of the lines/fonts I think. And the dim coloring

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Not really sure why you think this, it depends on the way you fly. If you hit ECM after the missile is launched and fly into the missile, yes it will hit. I’ve found though that if you hit ECM and fly away from the missile (thus making it fly through the ECM cloud) it misses me (almost) every time. Personally, I feel that it’s more reliable

Stealth jets are virtually useless. Completely agree with this. The cannon on the stealth jet NEEDS a buff desperately. It takes a solid 5 second burst just to kill infantry.

Agree with this as well. I wish DICE hadn’t gone with the Ace Combat style 3rd person camera, but I don’t know if it’ll ever change. BF3 third person camera ftw.

Lol some of the attack jets can keep up with the F35. Nice job with the balance there DICE

7

I’ll give ECM another chance, must be cause of the 200~ latency that ECM isnt working effectively. Gonna try it on low ping servers later.

What do you think of the SAA changes btw? I added that to the first post.

Also, please get this thread flooded with posts from experienced pilots and players so we get some definitive feedback without interference from the usual forumfielders.

8

ok.point taken,but how does all this help me cap a flag while your dicking around in the air? maybe if the jets and heli’s are not to your liking,its time to actually start helping your team by helping to cap flags instead of you just stat wanking…what do you think hmmm?

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Please, don’t spam this topic with nonsense. Every vehicle plays a part in capturing flags and killing enemies. Jets kill other jets and choppers. Choppers kill armor. CAS jets kill armor. Armor helps take flags.

Also, while I don’t exclusively play air vehicles, I enjoy playing ALL vehicles and seeing ridiculous balance is never fun.

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Can we please keep this civil thank you.

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My BF3 experience made be a firm believer that one pilot should not be allowed to have a field day over the enemy starting base
The human controlled SAA of BF3 was borderline useless

Snipers are the Hipsters of Battlefield 4

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Another question, the fighter jets can take down choppers (without using the higher altitute ceiling) ehm… “easy enough”, or do they need more than 1 passes with the gun, since you said it’s not very strong?

Also, what’s the let’s say damage difference between the 20-25-30 mm cannon flavors of the fighter jet?

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You really can´t expect that your ECM works fine in a ~200 latency environment. Even latency as lower as 50 will be affecting you in a negative way.

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Well i didnt have the chance to play yet (EUR), but from the feedback I read so far. it seems like they had Probs with balancing the gun of stealth jets compared to the attack jet gun. I think its just a bug like it is now, also the turning power of the attack jets maybe will be reduced, due to the argument Dice was giving serveral times : Attack jets wont have the agility of stealth jets.

I think the attack jets cant use the afterburner. That should be the solution for making the stealthjets better in turning.

Speaking about the F-35 : I´m just getting bored of it. Played it in Bf2, Bf3 and now again in Bf4? … Just give us the F-22 like u said at gamescom and we´re all happy…(no more Vtool bugs/ balancing etc.)

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@GhostRider: I don’t have any hard data but the increase in damage is probably about 15 to 20% between each cannon. At least thats how it feels.

@Hawxxeye: I agree about the multirole jets being too strong against the ground in the right hands in BF3. But I disagree that the SAA was useless, in fact it was a BEAST and completely ruined maps where it was poorly placed (ie Noshar CQL)

16

Thanks for all the replies. :slight_smile:

I got the topic bookmarked, because it’s good for info.

Hopefully in 2 days I’ll join you in the skies. :slight_smile:

17

The jets seem like a step backwards. They feel flimsy and they are not balanced at all. Because of this, the stealth jets are mostly redundant. They aren’t a threat 99% of the time. The mortar in BF3 was more dangerous.

It’s like DICE didn’t get around to balancing/polishing this part of the game.

18

The ECM was already brought up by someone else.
Attack jets are anti armor, so of course its going to damage Stealth jets but the issue here is Stealth Jets are suppose to out maneuver and outrun Attack jets with ease, clearly not the case.
As for Ground attack jets getting Air RADAR, its hard to say, it would need to get replaced with something. FLIR for attacking ground or something or make Air radar a unlock for later use. Its ore complicated now.
Su-50 more agile, fact already proven. Worse than the F/A-18E vs the Su-35S (I don’t know why DICE put BM).

19

That’s putting it lightly.

Video: BF4 - Stealth Jets are Unbalanced

[youtube.com]

20

Get rid of them