Planetside 2 though is ultimately a game about numbers - it doesn't seem to matter how good you are if 100 players descend upon you. I've used lock ons and I've still been shot down plenty of times. They're definitely low skill and easy, but I don't see how they can possibly be overpowered if players who use them are still dying.

A lot of the best games I've played in the past are the ones that have a low skill floor but a high skill ceiling. That's definitely what makes Team Fortress the monsterly popular game it is - on one hand you can run around and shoot things and be decent at it - on the other you can also grow with the game and perform some truly amazing feats of skill.

So while the days of one-on-one sky jousting might be over, from your description, the air game is more like 6 planes vs 6 other planes - sounds more like the ground game, with over 100 players on each side.

If it's lone wolf combat you're looking for, perhaps you're looking for something like an instanced combat arena where it's you and a few select others fighting it out. But honestly this reminds me of the transition air combat made between WW1 (where it was entirely feasible to fly on your own and have 1v1 air combat) and WW2 (where it was suicidal to fly on your own).

And instanced combat doesn't really sound like something PS2 wants to be - after all, if you strip away the 100+ players and the massive map, all you have left is a Battlefield 4 clone that would sell nowhere near as well.

In conclusion, from what research I've done, I wouldn't worry about your skill being negated - it's still entirely relevant. You'll still outfly people like me, with the idea being that a new person like me would want to be a person like you. It's just that it's going to be tougher, and the skies a lot more crowded. Remember that your faction has the same air numbers as the other factions, it just means you won't be able to wade into a flight of 6 or 7 players and thrash all of them.

Afterburner tanks still have amazing mobility, I've tried them in VR. If I wasn't flying into the ground with them all the time, I can see a highly skilled players using that effectively.