Why don't you like flying in video games?

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

God damn that mission...

I love flying in most games, but hate it in Battlefield and the like.

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

God damn that mission...

The aircraft in BF2 and 3 are pretty tame compared to other Battlefield games. Maybe people are just used to the controls from Halo where aircraft seem to control just like a tank that can hover up and down.

Is a jet going to wrack up the kills as someone on the ground? No. Are they going to have an easier time engaging heavy vehicles? Yes. You can pop tanks while staying out of the gunner's view. They're often dead in a single pass. Are they able to spot targets with ease? Yup. Same with helicopters. You need people on your side/squad actively marking targets or calling for support, though. While waiting for targets, spray unmanned vehicles. You're denying the other team resources and even if you're not destroying them, they're entering combat at a disadvantage.

Don't circle the map looking for other jets, and when you encounter them, a dog fight should last seconds. Most people simply hammer down the throttle which gives them wide turning radii. Use the air brake liberally, once you get behind them, your tighter turning radius will ensure you keep lock on your opponent. Spray them with machine gun fire, wait for them to dump flares in a panic, and then fire a missile. Return to hunting ground targets that your friends have graciously marked for you.

If you want to get good at BF3's helicopters, install Desert Combat. Those helicopters were crazy and had a steep learning curve, most people couldn't even get them off the ground. Learning how to pilot one of those is like teaching a Floridian how to drive a rear wheel drive car in a foot of snow. Get the basics down, and the BF2/3 choppers feel like an SUV with AWD and snow tires.

@ZeForgotten said:

@AndrewB said:

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

God damn that mission...

Now try it on a PC with Mouse & Keyboard only. "It's superior to a controller" no, it's not. Not in GTA games. It never has been and it never will be. Trust me on this

That's because it is a crappy port, when people say "It's superior to a controller" they are usually referring to FPS and is that case a controller will never be better than M/KB.

Sleeping Dogs is the same type of game and it is pretty good with M/KB.

It really depends. I struggled with flying in Battlefield games, until I decided to practice in BF2 Singleplayer a bunch to get the hang of it and find the right mouse sensitivity. I've ben a pretty good pilot ever since. Flying in GTA games is always completely fucked, and I can only manage it by using the numerical keys instead of the mouse. Saints Row on the other has nice simple controls for jets and helos.

So yeah, really depends on the game for me.

@Naberius_Shrike said:

In recent years it has come to my attention that there is a large segment of people who do not like flying in games. The most recent and widespread example I can point to is Battlefield 3. This has always baffled me as the flight controls in that game are extremely straightforward. I would understand the complaint if it was something like DCS: A10-C or Falcon BMS but Battlefield is about as simplified as it gets. Despite this, I have some friends that won't approach air vehicles at all. This is why I think the issue runs deeper than just the nature of the controls. Whether it's widespread phobia, motion sickness, or just unfamiliarity with movement in 3D space, there is something keeping a large number of people from taking to the skies. This can get frustrating at times, especially when your favorite games are Combat Flight Sims.

I'm interested to hear what the GB community thinks of this topic, especially from people who are uninterested in flight.

I enjoy it, but I don't think even BF3 has exactly "straight forward" controls. After 20 minutes of figuring it out, you can get up and down, but trying to be worthwhile in combat? Let alone avoiding death vs other (almost always highly skilled, and in BF3's case, so upgraded you don't stand a chance because they treat vehicle upgrades in some pretty stupid ways, IMO). Jets are even worse, because they aren't super useful in the ground game, and the aerial combat is, in my experience anyway, pretty hard to get into when literally all you have is the cannon and that requires you to be pretty decent at lining up shots, which isn't easy in BF3 jets.

I've had an easier time flying choppers/jets in ArmA 2, and the controls aren't swell for it even there.

Jets in particular are difficult to grasp for a lot of people because of the jets control: there isn't really a way to "turn" in BF3, and some games, not at all (I don't think I ever figured out how to in ArmA, but at the end of the day, a jet can really only correct/adjust in that capacity). Reasonably complex flight models are going to be difficult to get a handle on when you don't already have a handle on them. If you've been playing Battlefield for years and you're a designated pilot, you'll think it's easy as pie. But it's not a natural or intuitive thing for most to just pick up at ALL. So far, even with my continuing guidance, my buddy managed to take off into the ground a good few times and eventually just HALO and abandon us at the AO in ArmA 2's choppers. There's a reason real heli pilots need a decent bit of time training, especially for combat operations, even as simple as medivacs, because you need to be able to do more than sloppily and barely arrive on scene and spray rockets everywhere. Assuming again you have anything fucking unlocked. BF3 seems to make the choices it does specifically to keep unmotivated individuals from touching aircraft. Which is silly because there aren't enough pilots, in my experience

But no one wants to jump into an unloaded apache and use the pellet gun on the front until you some day manage to get decent enough with it to start getting points for it,a dn then eventually start working up the upgrades. It's not friendly at ALL to beginners, especially now, because everyone else is so much better equipped. Hard to use a minigun to take out a target with lock on missiles and about 40 times more experience and probably the advantage of a superior control set-up.

You seem to think no one ever tries to fly in these games, but they always do. Everyone always tries to fly the chopper every few months, fails at some point, or realizes "oh fuck, I have NOTHING, why should I bother with this useless thing?" after being promptly blown out of the sky by a fully operational weapons platform up against your training craft. Flying in games is always either like it is in Saints Row The Third or Just Cause 2, or it's really unfriendly to new players, and games that aren't flights simulators don't have tutorials at all. Or they have ArmA tutorials... *shudders*

I like flying in games. I'm not great at it in Battlefield, but I'm pretty competent in ArmA 2 and I certainly enjoy being "the transport dude." But if you can't understand what the wall is for new guys, you need to step back a bit and look at what the experience is actually like for most of them.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

I enjoy it, but I don't think even BF3 has exactly "straight forward" controls. After 20 minutes of figuring it out, you can get up and down, but trying to be worthwhile in combat? Let alone avoiding death vs other (almost always highly skilled, and in BF3's case, so upgraded you don't stand a chance because they treat vehicle upgrades in some pretty stupid ways, IMO). Jets are even worse, because they aren't super useful in the ground game, and the aerial combat is, in my experience anyway, pretty hard to get into when literally all you have is the cannon and that requires you to be pretty decent at lining up shots, which isn't easy in BF3 jets.

I've had an easier time flying choppers/jets in ArmA 2, and the controls aren't swell for it even there.

Jets in particular are difficult to grasp for a lot of people because of the jets control: there isn't really a way to "turn" in BF3, and some games, not at all (I don't think I ever figured out how to in ArmA, but at the end of the day, a jet can really only correct/adjust in that capacity). Reasonably complex flight models are going to be difficult to get a handle on when you don't already have a handle on them. If you've been playing Battlefield for years and you're a designated pilot, you'll think it's easy as pie. But it's not a natural or intuitive thing for most to just pick up at ALL. So far, even with my continuing guidance, my buddy managed to take off into the ground a good few times and eventually just HALO and abandon us at the AO in ArmA 2's choppers. There's a reason real heli pilots need a decent bit of time training, especially for combat operations, even as simple as medivacs, because you need to be able to do more than sloppily and barely arrive on scene and spray rockets everywhere. Assuming again you have anything fucking unlocked. BF3 seems to make the choices it does specifically to keep unmotivated individuals from touching aircraft. Which is silly because there aren't enough pilots, in my experience

But no one wants to jump into an unloaded apache and use the pellet gun on the front until you some day manage to get decent enough with it to start getting points for it,a dn then eventually start working up the upgrades. It's not friendly at ALL to beginners, especially now, because everyone else is so much better equipped. Hard to use a minigun to take out a target with lock on missiles and about 40 times more experience and probably the advantage of a superior control set-up.

You seem to think no one ever tries to fly in these games, but they always do. Everyone always tries to fly the chopper every few months, fails at some point, or realizes "oh fuck, I have NOTHING, why should I bother with this useless thing?" after being promptly blown out of the sky by a fully operational weapons platform up against your training craft. Flying in games is always either like it is in Saints Row The Third or Just Cause 2, or it's really unfriendly to new players, and games that aren't flights simulators don't have tutorials at all. Or they have ArmA tutorials... *shudders*

I like flying in games. I'm not great at it in Battlefield, but I'm pretty competent in ArmA 2 and I certainly enjoy being "the transport dude." But if you can't understand what the wall is for new guys, you need to step back a bit and look at what the experience is actually like for most of them.

Jets in BF3 are incredibly straightforward compared to something like DCS or Falcon BMS. I have no idea what you're talking about when you say jets can't "turn". You roll to one side, pull up and apply rudder. That is how you turn in a fixed-wing aircraft. It sounds to me like you lack a very basic understanding of how these vehicles work or are too used to games like Saints Row which automatically do everything for you unless you turn off flight-assist. There are dozens upon dozens of 10-minute Youtube videos that illustrate flight basics in BF3. As for air combat being hard when all you have is the cannon, the cannon is your number one asset. So many people write it off as something weak or useless but it is how you will get the majority of your kills. Sure, it takes a little bit of skill to shoot, but so does every single gun in that game.

As I've stated previously, Jets are extremely useful in the ground game if you're smart. You have ultimate free-reign over ground vehicles and can strafe infantry running in the open. Let's assume you have a full 64-player game going. On the ground you are threatened by 32 players that all have the capacity to kill you. In a jet, this number drops to 5 (2 jets, AAA, Attack Helicopter) and only 3 if you know how to overcome Helicopters. Because you are less threatened, that probably means you're dying less. Since you're dying less, you have the ability to eliminate more targets.

As for "the wall for new guys", how do you think people that are good in jets got to that point? Everyone is new, once. They all had to learn from their mistakes, they all had to get shot down and realize what they were doing wrong. You seem to be in the same camp as the GB crew that think multiplayer games are unapproachable after a certain length of time. That isn't how things work. The reality is they play for an hour or two and set unrealistic expectations of how good they well be. You don't have to be a basement-dweller playing nothing but one game for hours on end, but you can't expect to pick up a multiplayer game once every few months and be good at it. It seems pretty messed up to think that playing a multiplayer game once every weekend somehow constitutes "effort". If people did that, they would surely not share the view that these games are somehow made up of experts.

I know what it is like to start out in these games because I had to do it once. The part that doesn't click with me is I don't have these extreme problems that most people seem to have. Almost everything you've listed seems to stem from a lack of patience or an overabundance of self-doubt.

Flying in ARMA2 is amazing. I don't get it either!

@jayjonesjunior said:

@big_jon said:

@jayjonesjunior: In BF3 I got 110 kills in one match with a Little Bird, your theory may be a little off.

Little Bird is a Heli

True, still aerial though.

I love flying in video games. The planes in Battlefield 3 are absolutely shit though, way too casualized and boring to fly

@duder123: What games do you like flying in? I agree that BF3 jets are casualized but they're still fun to mess around in.

Do you mostly play sims?

@believer258 said:

This has always baffled me as the flight controls in that game are extremely straightforward.

Maybe the jets but across BC2 and BF3 I have done nothing but flip helicopters over. Maybe it's pretty straightforward to someone who has been doing it for a while but it's not that easy.

Even if I could, though, in every first person shooter I've ever played, I've had a preference for having my feet grounded. Sure, I've had fun in vehicle segments, but I prefer my own two feet any day of the week.

BC2 had some shitty auto right mechanism that kept you upright. BF3 helicopters didn't, but feel much more fluid, the MH-6 is almost impossible to crash I swear.

@big_jon said:

@jayjonesjunior: In BF3 I got 110 kills in one match with a Little Bird, your theory may be a little off.

OMG YOU'RE SO COOL

@Naberius_Shrike: I've been wanting to get into sims but I've been putting it off since I haven't gotten a joystick yet. I mostly fly in BF1943 nowadays, it's pretty casualized there too but nothing like BF3. Also you aren't such a target for land-to-air missiles and the slow flying actually makes sense becaus you are flying propeller planes.

I still think Battlefield 2 does helicopters the best, they're a pure joy to fly in that game. Especially the little bird. I haven't flied the planes much in that game, I feel like a joystick is almost a requirement to line up your targets when you're turning that fast etc.

@duder123: If you really like the WWII stuff you should pick up a cheap ($22.99) Logitech 3D Pro joystick and a copy of IL-2 1946. Easily one of the best flight sims out there and my 3D Pro has lasted me almost a decade with no problems.

@Naberius_Shrike: Thanks for the suggestion, I've heard a lot good stuff about that game.

@AlexW00d said:

@believer258 said:

This has always baffled me as the flight controls in that game are extremely straightforward.

Maybe the jets but across BC2 and BF3 I have done nothing but flip helicopters over. Maybe it's pretty straightforward to someone who has been doing it for a while but it's not that easy.

Even if I could, though, in every first person shooter I've ever played, I've had a preference for having my feet grounded. Sure, I've had fun in vehicle segments, but I prefer my own two feet any day of the week.

BC2 had some shitty auto right mechanism that kept you upright. BF3 helicopters didn't, but feel much more fluid, the MH-6 is almost impossible to crash I swear.

To be fair, in BF3 I've tried a grand total of twice, maybe. I've let my brother play on my profile so maybe I've got something unlocked somewhere, but I'm not much of a flying vehicle person. Hell, I even avoid riding tanks or jeeps if I can help it.

@believer258: Is there any particular reason for your aversion to vehicles? That's exactly the kind of thing I didn't understand in my original post.

All the BF games have terrible flight controls and that is what makes it so fun when you finally master them. Nothing like getting beat to the jet spawn and having the guy who took it immediately crash.

As for the Dodo in GTA 3. It was originally suppose to fly like a normal plane but then something happened while they were working on the game that made them change it. Some national tragedy or something. Rather then take it out completely they just made it difficult as hell to fly and again it felt like a real sense of accomplishment when you mastered the controls.

@Naberius_Shrike said:

@believer258: Is there any particular reason for your aversion to vehicles? That's exactly the kind of thing I didn't understand in my original post.

I never quite feel right at home in them. I feel most at home with a gun in my hands and a dead fellow or two around me. That's just where I have the most fun, running between buildings and cover spots and taking infantry out along the way.

I like flying in video games.

All the BF games have terrible flight controls and that is what makes it so fun when you finally master them. Nothing like getting beat to the jet spawn and having the guy who took it immediately crash.

As for the Dodo in GTA 3. It was originally suppose to fly like a normal plane but then something happened while they were working on the game that made them change it. Some national tragedy or something. Rather then take it out completely they just made it difficult as hell to fly and again it felt like a real sense of accomplishment when you mastered the controls.

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

The reason I never finished Vice City.

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

The reason I never finished Vice City.

@AlexW00d said:

@big_jon said:

@jayjonesjunior: In BF3 I got 110 kills in one match with a Little Bird, your theory may be a little off.

OMG YOU'RE SO COOL

Says the prick making the comment once again trying to troll, seriously, go fuck yourself, never reply to one of my comments again.

I love flying in video games, from what I played of Battlefield 3, I always wanted to get in a jet just because its awesome. In GTAIV online everybody would try to get in the helicopter, not because its easy to kill people in one (It's Not) but because its just cool being in one. Flying in Saints Row The Third was amazing, thats due to the awesomenesses of the veichle's available, I mean common you get to fly on a broomstick and an alien spaceship.

I like flying as long as it is not choppers. I am so bad at flying them I end up flipping them or running them straight into the ground. Other than that I love flying around a jet in games and going all Apocalypse Now on some people with missiles and machine guns. Though some games the flying mechanics are far to broken to be enjoyed.

@big_jon said:

@AlexW00d said:

@big_jon said:

@jayjonesjunior: In BF3 I got 110 kills in one match with a Little Bird, your theory may be a little off.

OMG YOU'RE SO COOL

Says the prick making the comment once again trying to troll, seriously, go fuck yourself, never reply to one of my comments again.

Stop using the forums as a place to show off how good you are at games then, it's pretty lame dude.

@AlexW00d: @big_jon:

Both of you are acting like children. Please stop or take your argument elsewhere.

@Naberius_Shrike: Fair shout.

@Naberius_Shrike said:

@AlexW00d: @big_jon:

Both of you are acting like children. Please stop or take your argument elsewhere.

But if you had to say which was the most childish what would you say?

Who said I don't like flying video games?

@bartok said:

All the BF games have terrible flight controls and that is what makes it so fun when you finally master them.

Might I ask what makes you say they're bad? This is such a bizarre statement to me as I've found flight controls in all Battlefield games pretty much as basic and intuitive as they could possibly get without just totally removing the physics model.

@ZeForgotten said:

@altairre said:

@ZeForgotten said:

I do like flying in video games. Except that fucking RC helicopter in Vice City you have to fly up the building that is under construction

The reason I never finished Vice City.

I hear that a lot, and it's a damn shame. It's a bit of a pain but once it's over with it's over with for good and the rest of the game is.. well it's as easy as all the other GTA games and it's clones.

I would get through that mission if I played it now but back then I was a lot less patient with videogames and rarely finished them so that mission was a showstopper.

@big_jon said:

@AlexW00d said:

@big_jon said:

@jayjonesjunior: In BF3 I got 110 kills in one match with a Little Bird, your theory may be a little off.

OMG YOU'RE SO COOL

Says the prick making the comment once again trying to troll, seriously, go fuck yourself, never reply to one of my comments again.

Stop using the forums as a place to show off how good you are at games then, it's pretty lame dude.