The AH Ecosystem

[mars01]

Originally posted byscJazz
Try the CAP and SEA events. Pretty much the definition of the opening moments.

Been there do that.  Please see all other threads about Strat vs furball to understand that this is not about changing arenas.  Once your up to speed you may understand.  This about the loss of furballs in MA.

[dtango]

lazs - I agree in part with your statements about FesterMA.  However the solution seems to be isolation of species verses combination.  I'm stating my opinion that a combination is what we should be after vs. isolation.

Zanth - suit yourself if that's how you see it.  Can you explain how my characterization of the maps are one dimensional?  Obviously something about what I said struck a nerve with you and it became more noise than signal.  If you're implying I have any agenda with this thread - I hope it is clear what it is and that it is simply that I favor an approach more akin to an ecosystem where you have a complex food chain of predators/prey.  If this is a complaint then so be it.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[DrDea]

Lastly one of the things furballers tend to forget is that some of their favorite furballs started when 2 strat groups began a contest over a base. They jump on the bandwagon thinking furball and then get all grumpy when the base gets captured.

  Everyone can effect everyone elses game to a degree.If the buffs get in to hit a base someone didnt cover.The short attention span inclined that cant put together a simple plan to defend a base feel it is there right to not HAVE to defend a base.They just want to fly in the weeds.Rinse and repeat.Thats there perogitive.Everyone has a style of play.Pure furballing is fun,I do it myself,but as far as being a part of a "team" enviornment its a byproduct of the "me" generation.

[mars01]

Originally posted by: dTango

As to FesterMA, I think it's straightforward. The fields are packed so close together that it encourages a single style of play, primarily the quick low altitude turn fight at the detriment of the others. For instance those going after base captures are continually frustrated because the fields are so packed on the flanks that it's very difficult to generate air dominance to capture a field.

Ok so it's not the easy 2 to 5 guy mission everyones used to.  It takes a more overall coordinated attack to capture a base.  Thats a bad thing?  

Originally posted by: dTango

One other point worth making sort of related to the whole matter- in my opinion there is a much greater variety of game play styles than dividing the community up into furballers or strat players. That is too simplistic and leads to wrong conclusions in what makes maps work versus what doesn't.

Examples?  Either your hitting land targets or your fighting air targets.

Originally posted by: dTango

For instance I bet we would get a variety of opinions regarding what a furball is. An example I love furballs, big nasty furballs. But a big nasty furball to me is NOT a situation where it's a mindless chasing of targets where getting kills and surviving is based on pure luck and there is no incentive for people to try and live afte tough fights. In my opinion there is a much greater variety of game play styles (or species) than the typical two or three that we label.

I would think, except for the suicide porkers, that most people would agree a furball to be a large concentration of friendlies and enemy, engaged in knife fighting and winging, some BnZers at the top, all in close proximity,  in an attemp to get as many kills as possible and RTB.  I would think that the ones who have no intention of RTB with multiple scalps are newbs that will at some point get better and then have the ambition to RTB and get thier name in lights.  If they arent then they will most likely be fodder for the more expierienced furballer whom has the SA to survive.  In either case the suicide furballer just feeds the furball and does not really detract from it.

[mars01]

Originally posted by:dTango

lazs - I agree in part with your statements about FesterMA. However the solution seems to be isolation of species verses combination. I'm stating my opinion that a combination is what we should be after vs. isolation

I dont think you will ever get a combination of these two playing styles.  They have two different objectives that don't interrelate.  Yes you do have some overlap, i.e. when a pseudo furball starts because some group sets out to take a base.  But that is mostly out of coincidence rather than planning and is not really a furball, because once the base is captured the furball is dead.

On the other hand, I would love to see what you described.  A scenario where major attacks including many facets and roles of the game were intertwined in one battle.  i.e.  A ground attack supported by air cover while being repelled by ground units and air cover.  We rarely see large engagements like this and I dont think the current maps foster this kind of scenario very well.  But still furballing does not apply here.

[dtango]

mars01:

Ok so it's not the easy 2 to 5 guy mission everyones used to. It takes a more overall coordinated attack to capture a base. Thats a bad thing?

I don't think you're being realistic about this.  A 2-5 guy mission that ends up in a success capture of a field is atypical and only happens over an undefended base.  

Examples? Either your hitting land targets or your fighting air targets.

Example: one of a variety of different squad ops profiles we run is where the battlefront is on the map we'll take in heavy P-51's to bomb a field our country is fighting over to help the guys working the base capture, but then push on in the same sortie toward the adjacent enemy field to fight air-to-air with enemy reinforcements.  So we're hitting both ground and air targets.

I dont think you will ever get a combination of these two playing styles.

Obviously the thesis of my metaphor is in disagreement with this view .  I believe it's the contrary actually and here's why.  Firstly there are more than 2 playing styles.  2ndly maps like Mindy and Baltic and I would argue Trinity do have exactly the fights that you describe where it is a battlefield that is made up of a complex food chain of predators/prey.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[mars01]

Originally posted by: dTango

I don't think you're being realistic about this. A 2-5 guy mission that ends up in a success capture of a field is atypical and only happens over an undefended base.

Ok I agree, but what I am trying to say is that it does take a larger effort to capture closely packed bases.  You can't do this with only a few guys.  It means that strat guys have to come up with better tactics to succeed on Festers map.  As I also like to do both, furball and hit strat - I dig the additional challenge that the fester map creates for attacking the clustered bases.  I think this is a good thing and brings more balance to the field as well as breaks up the monotony of base capture.

Originally posted by: dTango

one of a variety of different squad ops profiles we run is where the battlefront is on the map we'll take in heavy P-51's to bomb a field our country is fighting over to help the guys working the base capture, but then push on in the same sortie toward the adjacent enemy field to fight air-to-air with enemy reinforcements. So we're hitting both ground and air targets.

So your combining both styles of play and calling it a differnt one.  It's still ground attack and AtoA.

Originally posted by: dTango

Obviously the thesis of my metaphor is in disagreement with this view . I believe it's the contrary actually and here's why. Firstly there are more than 2 playing styles. 2ndly maps like Mindy and Baltic and I would argue Trinity do have exactly the fights that you describe where it is a battlefield that is made up of a complex food chain of predators/prey.

Ok I agree to disagree 8).

Originally posted by: dTango

2ndly maps like Mindy and Baltic and I would argue Trinity do have exactly the fights that you describe where it is a battlefield that is made up of a complex food chain of predators/prey.

I wouldn't say exactly, the elements are there, and I have been in some great fights where this is the case, but they are almost as infrequent as furballs are now.

[SlapShot]

Man ... I thought maybe I clicked on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet.

Anyway ... I think that Tango brings forth new light on the continuing debate, but some people's gamplay are so diametrically opposed to the other's, I'm afraid that the two species will never really find a common ground to intermingle.

The 2-5 guy base taking missions runs rampant on AKDessert, not so much on Trinity and Big Isles and is pretty much extinct on FesterMA. FesterMA was designed to eliminate this viral species from the face of the planet.

Great discussion so far ... wonder who will pee in the pool first.

Oh ... I can still smell that fediddlein formaldehyde ... frogs in High School and Pigs in College ... UGH !!!

[dtango]

mars01 wrote:

So your combining both styles of play and calling it a differnt one. It's still ground attack and AtoA.

But is this being a strat warrier or a being a furballer ?  There's no preference given for one or the other in the particular example I've given.  If there is any preference it is to find a fight or to create one.

I haven't spent the time to think through and classify species etc. but am just trying to illustrate a point that under the surface there are more "species" than lumping people either as a strat warrier or a furballer.

Slapshot wrote:

Anyway ... I think that Tango brings forth new light on the continuing debate, but some people's gamplay are so diametrically opposed to the other's, I'm afraid that the two species will never really find a common ground to intermingle.

Interestingly enough the analogy in an ecosystem is that competition between species does exist as well.  It might be an interesting set of thoughts to ponder how this plays out in a stable ecosystem vs. and unstable one where a dominant species destroys the ecosystem and apply it to AH.

Hehe Slapshot - yeah everytime someone brings up in this thread formaldehyde for some reason I keep getting visions of Robert Duvall's quote from Apocalypse Now ..."I love the smell the napalm in the morning.  It's the smell of....victory!"

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[lazs2]

tango... my point was that festers map allows all kinds of gameplay... you are saying that it encourages furballs...  what you are really saying is that given a choice.... players will furball.

Take the pizza abortion... it doesn' encourage strat, late war, cherry picking and gangbanging... it forces thoses things... while at the same time giveing little or no opportunity to furball.    Any map where a furball starts there will be strat girls there in short order to help pork fields and end the fight..  they want the attetion.   In festers map there are just too many furballs going for them to ruin em all.

so... it's not so much ecosystem as it is environment... in some environments like festers... all types can exist... in others, like the pizza abortion the far fields make it so that the furball planes are at a huge disadvantage.

A person who flys only pee 51's or dee 9's would not understand.

lazs

[dtango]

lazs:

my point was that festers map allows all kinds of gameplay... you are saying that it encourages furballs... what you are really saying is that given a choice.... players will furball.

I understand your point but obviously differ in opinion about it as also evidenced by posts by others.   I've been here long enough to know that I'm not going to convert you from your religion !  I really didn't intend to debate about specific maps here.  Suffice it to say I think I've made my points throughout the thread already without further beating a dead horse.

so... it's not so much ecosystem as it is environment...

The environment is a part of the ecosystem and either helps to create complex food chains or hinders it.

A person who flys only pee 51's or dee 9's would not understand.

Come now, that statement is obviously meant to inflame passions.  Actually in a way your statement demonstrates your assumption of yet another playing style that doesn't fit in a category of a strat warrier or a furballer (both IMO inaccurate classifications) further strengthening the point of a variety of species and my argument that stable ecosystems are made up of complex food chains of these species vs. trying to separate them.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[lazs2]

no... my point remains that there are several styles of play and probly a dozen planes that depend on good maps.  festers is a good map.   The pizza abortion is not.

The game is full of concessions..  there is no penalty for taking the fastest and latest planes up.   if you do so then you allready start with a huge advantage.   If you spred the fields apart then you give these planes an even larger advantage.   close fields allow the early war and slow planes a place in the game.

lazs

[Furious]

Here's the problem.

The people that enjoy fighting (furballers) want to fight humans.

The people that enjoy "strating" want to avoid humans, or have such overwhelming odds that it amounts to the same thing.

[mars01]

Originally posted by: dtango
But is this being a strat warrior or a being a furballer ? There's no preference given for one or the other in the particular example I've given. If there is any preference it is to find a fight or to create one.

It's a strat warrior.  Just because you went on to another base to fight doesn't make it a new style.  Your preference was to up and drop bombs.  Ok so now you dropped your bombs  -  your going to the next field to suppress any defenders from attacking your strat target.  Still a strat game.  

I was incorrect in saying it was both, in that your are definitely not furballing.  Furballing would be the intent to get up join a hornets nest and exercise extreme AtoA combat skills.

I guess I am saying that what ever species you come up with, they will all boil down to strat or furball.

Species: Base Defense - result of Attacking Strat players.
Species: Carrier Defense - result of counter attack of carrier strat attack.

Species: Bombers = Strat.

Species: Extreme AtoA combat = furballers
Species: Carrier engagement without intent to capture a base = Furball.

Ground vehicles may be another species I'll give you that, but only when they are spawn camping or up under a furball.  Otherwise they are strat.

Any composites, as you example was, would still boil down, as yours does, to the above.

I haven't spent the time to think through and classify species etc. but am just trying to illustrate a point that under the surface there are more "species" than lumping people either as a strat warrior or a furballer.

But if there aren't then it doesn't illustrate your point.  I'm not trying to be a pain in the prettythang and I am open to seeing more types, I just don't.  I guess you would have to spend the time and think it through.

[HomeBoy]

I have this all figured out.  I can't believe no one has asked me about this by now but since I'm now explaining it all to you, no need to apologize.

What we need is to tweek the pizza map a little to make furballing a little more conducive.  We need to find us one of those Department of Transportation engineer type rocket scientists to do the job.  They are so good at understanding the traffic ecosystem and when and how to arrange traffic lights, etc.  I'm sure solving this would be trivial.

After that, if we implemented aircraft factories allowing us to knock out the Spits, Lancs, or whatever then we could more directly control this ecosystem stuff by controlling who flies what.

While we're at it, to better balance things out, HC should fix the flight models of the LW crates to correct the bias there.

Finally, the day and night transition could become a day/night boundary that slowly moves across the map so that those who like day could choose bases on the "day" side of the map while the nighters could fly on the other side.

See, I told you I had all this figured out.  If you have any other problems you need solving, just ask.  I'm sitting here ready to help.