Referring to helicopters and jets, topic. I always seem to be locked into someones radar shortly after takeoff and can't figure out how to use my flares, and oppositely, when I have someone in my sights I can only use my guns. I am playing on 360.

Yes you do. And yes, it's stupid.

Yeeeeeah, it's pretty dumb.

Jets were pretty much no fun for me in the beginning, then I unlocked flares and heatseekers and now I can't wait to fly around.

@Aishan: What do you have to do to unlock them?

@Mars said:

@Aishan: What do you have to do to unlock them?

Kill people with your jet. : (

@Cloudenvy said:

@Mars said:

@Aishan: What do you have to do to unlock them?

Kill people with your jet. : (

Oh ... Then I have a feeling it will be a while before I unlock either.

The unlock system in this game fucking sucks, all it is doing is actively preventing you from having fun, before you have 'proven' that you are indeed 'worthy' of having fun, by going through shooter-purgatory wielding underpowered weapons that lack attachments, only so that you can unlock the 'proper' guns and start grinding out attachments to make them not suck ass...

@Myomoto said:

The unlock system in this game fucking sucks, all it is doing is actively preventing you from having fun, before you have 'proven' that you are indeed 'worthy' of having fun, by going through shooter-purgatory wielding underpowered weapons that lack attachments, only so that you can unlock the 'proper' guns and start grinding out attachments to make them not suck ass...

This post is patently incorrect.

You unlock new levels by helping your team and achieving objectives, not necessarily by shooting other players.

@Mars: Advice from a bad pilot: Play Rush. Preferably with a friend on the ground with a stinger. It's only 1 Jet per map. Let the friend annoy the enemy jet a bit and spot targets on the ground. The Fighter bomber gun can disable a tank in a single strafing run. I unlocked my flares this way. On conquest try to kill choppers.

At least they didn't lock away the medkit and ammo boxes this time. I say some things should be unlocked from the get-go (flares), while others should be earned (lock on missiles).

@bwmcmaste said:

@Myomoto said:

The unlock system in this game fucking sucks, all it is doing is actively preventing you from having fun, before you have 'proven' that you are indeed 'worthy' of having fun, by going through shooter-purgatory wielding underpowered weapons that lack attachments, only so that you can unlock the 'proper' guns and start grinding out attachments to make them not suck ass...

This post is patently incorrect.

You unlock new levels by helping your team and achieving objectives, not necessarily by shooting other players.

Yeah, even with < 5 kills I'm usually in the top handful of players or so players - so anywhere from 2000 to 5000 points - simply from running between capture points.

Game developers have become convinced that features need to be locked away to keep people playing longer. In addition, as gaming has become more prevalent, the skill level of your average players has dropped DRASTICALLY. So in order to make people feel good, DICE and Activision lock away certain guns and let people with all of the weapons/perks/attachments/unlocks crush the generally newer, inherently underpowered players and confuse it with skill.

#fuckyeahgames

@Myomoto said:

The unlock system in this game fucking sucks, all it is doing is actively preventing you from having fun, before you have 'proven' that you are indeed 'worthy' of having fun, by going through shooter-purgatory wielding underpowered weapons that lack attachments, only so that you can unlock the 'proper' guns and start grinding out attachments to make them not suck ass...

You're doing it wrong

I personally find the unlock system exiting. It's a great incentive for me to play better and stick with one class, weapon or vehicle long enough to actually get good. And it doesn't matter that much if I lose a match or two.

Even I have unlocked the flares and I can even remember killing anyone in a jet.

It really sucks that flares aren't unlocked from the start. What I had to do was go into conquest and sit on the spawn screen until a jet popped up and spawn into it, when you get shot down just stay dead until the jet respawns and grab it again, keep going until you luck out with enough points to unlock the flares. It's no fun, and you'll feel kinda shitty monopolizing a jet when you'll be very little help to your team, but it's kinda what you have to do.

Also, the trick of planting some mines then flying around in your jet/helicopter does seem to work.

Spot stuff from above and hope people kill what you spotted 30 times to get the flares. Once you have flares, it becomes a lot easier to approach ground targets.

Flares are essential, where-as heat seekers are rubbish unless you have beam scanning - the 2nd last unlock for the jets. You'd want rocket pods for anti-tank capabilities.

@White: Excellent points. I would like to add that attack helicopters are - with the right pilot - just as sinister as in BC2. The other day I was humming along in my tank, and some fucker in an Apache came down and laid a good ol' fashioned lickin' on my ass. Jets, however, have yet to prove themselves a sufficient threat to my superlative tank driving.

I suck at this game and I still love it. The unlocks do take a while, but you have to earn it.

Enjoy Yo self.

I wouldn't play this game constantly without the unlock system... sure there are a couple of times that it feels especially crippling, but when you start out a weapon or vehicle with crappy sights or recoil, it can actually make you learn to use the gun better in the long run. Jets are probably the hardest to get started on, first because you have to get used to the controls, and then even when you have the controls down, it can be really hard to kill anything with just the guns (especially on rush mode).

I basically just jumped in jets whenever they were available, flew around a bit, tried to shoot down some dudes, but the only way I was able to rack up enough points for the good upgrades was to learn how to strafe tanks with the A-10... doesn't take too many shots to disable a tank if you're dead on. Then once you have flares and missiles you'll have a better shot against enemy planes and helicopters.

Two kills worth of points to unlock flares. Not very difficult, most people who take off in jets will fly in a straight line. Just lead the shot and let them fly into your bullets. Even now with heat seakers, I use those to force an enemy into an evasive maneuver and into the burst of cannon fire I'm emptying in their direction. Boats also make good targets, as they'll often contain a squad. If you can pop one, you'll rack up points real fast.

If someone has spotted infantry and they're out in the open, strafe that red triangle. When you're in the air, constantly spot. When you hear someone locking onto you, hug the ground. Buildings and terrain will interfere with the lock on. Like driving a car, constantly check your surroundings. If you have an opponent on your six, kill your speed for tighter turns.

In a chopper, get a gunner/pilot you can communicate with. A good gunship is very much a co-op platform. My gunner will mark targets, call them out, let me know what he's going for. I in turn will keep the chopper focused on his target and will let him know when I need to break off, what direction I'll be heading in, and when my flares are up and when he should fire his. My friend will not bail the chopper leaving me gunner-less unless I call for us to bail. In one map, he went from having 0 chopper unlocks to having stealth unlocked.