Author Topic: Three things that could really improve the AH experience  (Read 6558 times)

Offline Wanker

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #60 on: January 03, 2004, 10:48:27 AM »
You know, somehow I knew this would sink into a mud-slinging contest between sims and various immature name-calling between us, but I still went ahead and posted this thread in the knowledge that there are some out here who are capable of having an adult conversation and debate.

I don't know why Toad and Shane had to throw in personal insults regarding ego and lack of skill, etc. What can comments like that possibly add to the discussion? Answer: nothing.

My intention was to provoke discussion about how AH, already the best flight sim on the market, could be made better. I didn't claim that I had all the answers, but I certainly do have strong opinions.

I'm well aware that extremism either way is probably not the best idea, because it will result in one side leaving the sim, which is never a good thing. Personally, I believe the flight sim market is so small, that there must always be a balancing act to keep both camps happy.

What would the harm be in coding the extra engine management systems into the game so that those of us who, how did Toad put it, "Need to have our ego's stroked", can experience a slightly more immersive take off experience? As far as I know, it would still be possible to leave the auto-take off availble for those whose ego's need no stroking. After all, it's just code.

I now hold accounts in AH, WB and WW2OL, so I've been spending some time in both WB and WW2OL to see how the flight experience differs from AH.

Last night, I spent two hours during prime time flying in WB, and I noticed that there is radar when you're in the tower, but there is no radar when in the cockpit. You know how the 85 guys in the arena handled that? They used the radio buffer to communicate the location of cons for each other. Yes, imagine that. Instead of spending their time talking smack on the open radio buffer, they were using the country channel to inform each other of cons. What a refreshing change that was!

Look, I still think that AH is the current king of flight sims, but I believe there is room for improvement. I don't see anything wrong with borrowing the good ideas found in other games and utilizing them for AH. That's all I'm saying.

If you don't agree, fine. State your reasons why. But can we please discuss this like adults and leave the personal insults out of it?

P.S. Nice post, Kweassa.

Offline Shane

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #61 on: January 03, 2004, 10:59:33 AM »
i didn't single any one person out. i made a blanket statement.  i don't think AH would be enhanced by adding annoyances in the name of "realism." and that's exactly what this type of thing would be for the very reasons already stated.

this is a combat sim, not a flight sim. there are plenty of box sims out there to give you all the realism satisfaction you could ever want.  what does adding these errata do for the human interaction?  nothing.
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Offline lazs2

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #62 on: January 03, 2004, 11:02:12 AM »
If HTC felt like spending the time on it then I would say OK but... make it optional.

Otherwise... I am afraid that it is just another feature designed to give the timid with a lot of time an advantage... and.... to slow down the gameplay.

If you had to do all that you would probly have to take off 5 fields back to avoid the vultch..   the fights would of course, be spred out and furballs would be even more rare.     It would take away the fun and add chores.

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Offline nopoop

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #63 on: January 03, 2004, 12:13:19 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by banana
Last night, I spent two hours during prime time flying in WB


banana I'd be interested what you think of the FM's, the gunnery.

Flying over there I felt like I was flying in a historical arena without any pilots. That and aircraft have a fuel burn that would make the EPA proud.

Less mush than two years ago and all the planes "feel" the same, homoginised. The ability to manual trim is changed in a way that's not 'right'.

Personal preferance, their terrain sucks.

If I had the gunnery here, that I had flying over there even after a 2 year absence I'd be a GOD.

That and they sure have their share of channel 100 whiners.

I looked, I flew, I cleaned my hard drive.

Good post KW.
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Offline dracon

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #64 on: January 03, 2004, 12:28:51 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Shane
i don't think AH would be enhanced by adding annoyances in the name of "realism." and that's exactly what this type of thing would be for the very reasons already stated.

this is a combat sim, not a flight sim. there are plenty of box sims out there to give you all the realism satisfaction you could ever want.  what does adding these errata do for the human interaction?  nothing.


WRONG!  Your "Easy Mode" would still be available.

WRONG!  This is a Flight Sim that we do combat in.  Who are You to define the parameters of this game?  I'm sure you won't like the fact that I just defined it either!  And your so-called "errata" does a lot for human interaction.  It certainly doesn't hurt anything or anyone.  Please, I know your ego is huge but....don't preceive to tell us what to want and what to ask for.

Dude, again if all you want is to stand nose-to-nose and toes-to-toes in all out in your face combat 24/7  then......Quake really is a good choice.  Actually, Halo is better because they have stuff you can fly in! No strat, no "errata" just pure combat!! http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/screenshots.asp

For me it's all about FUN.  The more realistic it is, the more fun I have.  Doesn't mean I wanna remove the Easy Mode.  It definitely should be there for those that want it!  Heck, lets put in Auto-Landing.  A guy shouldn't lose his kills just cuz he screws up a little thing like landing, now should he?

I would like, MORE sneak and LESS radar.

banana Good points and nice post.

All

Dracon
« Last Edit: January 03, 2004, 12:32:59 PM by dracon »

Offline Westy

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #65 on: January 03, 2004, 12:50:32 PM »
So why bother with all the other "annoyances?"  Trivial chores such as throttle, flaps, stalls, compression, torque, blackout/redouts or spins??  All of those, along with landing and/or taking off, most certainly don't ADD to combat at all.

 And FWIW there are far more ARCADEs in boxes than there are sims.

 For the longest time my opinion was  AH was "THE" WWII aircombat sim featuring the most reasonable fascimile of WWII fighters available.  Anything less was Air Warrior and Fighter Ace.

 But IMO AH never had an online atmosphere conducive to WWII era aircombat - beyond your "BFM" and ACM. With the icons and radar it was more akin to "Spitfires over Iraq: 1991".  I'd always hoped HTC would progress AH and add features to promote a WWII environment and also model more "nuances" which players could choose to master. Or not.  Things that would permit players to feel more like a real pilot flying actual aircraft battling it out in a hostile a sky reminiscent of WWII.

 IMO  AH is now the one that's been left behind by other games/sims such as WWIIO, IL2 and Target-Rabaul.  And it's saddened me, and others I can see, that AH has fallen into the vacant slot left by AW.  A joust-a-bout, fantasy melee arcade rife with pork'n'auger land-grab dorks.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2004, 12:55:19 PM by Westy »

Offline beet1e

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #66 on: January 03, 2004, 12:56:59 PM »
Nopoop - you criticise WB as though AH were the holy grail of flight sims. It is not. Certainly, it beats WB 2.77, but the gunnery is not real. Those 800 yard shots are BS, and smack of a dumbing down of the skill element to accommodate the noobs/dweebs. In my view, one of the reasons we see such dweebery in this game (HO, spray & pray, 4 plane subset (P51/La7/Spit ix/N1K)) is because the skill element has been dumbed down and therefore folks don't need to learn much ACM or gunnery or early war plane types. Don't denounce the characteristics of one game, only to replace it with how you think things "should" be modelled based on nothing more than your own utopian vision of a how a flight sim should look.

Offline beet1e

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #67 on: January 03, 2004, 12:59:50 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Westy
So why bother with all the other "annoyances?"  Trivial chores such as throttle, flaps, stalls, compression, torque, blackout/redouts or spins??  All of those, along with landing and/or taking off, most certainly don't ADD to combat at all.

 And FWIW there are far more ARCADEs in boxes than there are sims.

 For the longest time my opinion was  AH was "THE" WWII aircombat sim featuring the most reasonable fascimile of WWII fighters available.  Anything less was Air Warrior and Fighter Ace.

 But IMO AH never had an online atmosphere conducive to WWII era aircombat - beyond your "BFM" and ACM. With the icons and radar it was more akin to "Spitfires over Iraq: 1991".  I'd always hoped HTC would progress AH and add features to promote a WWII environment and also model more "nuances" which players could choose to master. Or not.  Things that would permit players to feel more like a real pilot flying actual aircraft battling it out in a hostile a sky reminiscent of WWII.

 IMO  AH is now the one that's been left behind by other games/sims such as WWIIO, IL2 and Target-Rabaul.  And it's saddened me, and others I can see, that AH has fallen into the vacant slot left by AW.  A joust-a-bout, fantasy melee arcade rife with pork'n'auger land-grab dorks.
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Offline simshell

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #68 on: January 03, 2004, 01:38:51 PM »
i think what your looking for is a combat flight simulator 3 online with 500+


sorry to burst your bubble but most aces high players dont like having to check everthing before takeoff


when aces high 2 goes online you well hear huge whines about the tail wheel and take off:rofl


i love realism heck i play flight simulator 2002
but when im in aces high im looking for my next target and not my ENG lights all the time
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Offline Toad

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Wannker,
« Reply #69 on: January 03, 2004, 01:51:23 PM »
The "ego stroked" comment was in direct response to this:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by dracon

Auto-Takeoff is for...Toads UGH! Go play Quake.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't in response to anything you said, nor was it directed at you. Review my posts up to that point; I think they are very civil.

However, this comment invited a similar reply, IMO. Someone slings mud, yeah, I'll return the mud. It's called "mirroring".

Beet, crabbing a swept-wing airplane down to the deck in high/gusty crosswinds can get exciting real fast if you land in a crab (ie: you don't get it all out). That's where the "rapid rising of the upwind wing" comment comes from. Emphasis on the "rapid rising".

Most light trainers are straight wing and therefore it's not as critical. However, should you land a trainer in this situation and bounce it, particularly if you're "on speed" for the touchdown, that can add excitement to your life and a stain to your shorts very quickly. That's probably why the wing low method got more emphasis. There's a greater margin of error, IMO.

BTW, there's reams of stuff written on the merits of wing-low vs crab. I just figured I'd get good at both and use the one that seemed appropriate for the situation. I really have no preconceived preference at this point. In fact, I generally don't decide until about the time I turn final (in light aircraft). Swept wing transports is wing low, for a lot of reasons.  BTW, it was one of my best in that 1011 example. But the Captain pointed out when you kick out the crab in the flare in a big airplane the folks sitting in the very back move through a large arc in short order. ;)
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Offline Westy

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #70 on: January 03, 2004, 01:56:45 PM »
"sorry to burst your bubble but most aces high players dont like having to check everthing before takeoff...but when im in aces high im looking for my next target and not my ENG lights all the time"


Well one big PLUS for HTC is they've added an automatic option for the "chores" and "irritations" that they have modelled. So why would anyone want any other features to be any different?
« Last Edit: January 03, 2004, 03:50:31 PM by Westy »

Offline NoBaddy

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #71 on: January 03, 2004, 02:16:28 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by dracon
WRONG!  This is a Flight Sim that we do combat in.  
 


To quote you "WRONG!". The basis of this game is an AIR COMBAT SIM and NOT a flight sim. Don't believe me? Ask the creator :).
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Offline Wanker

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #72 on: January 03, 2004, 02:52:33 PM »
Quote
but when im in aces high im looking for my next target and not my ENG lights all the time


Agreed, the main focus when fighting should be(and is) all about keeping your eyes on the enemy. But, don't you think it would add to the pucker factor and make combat more challenging to be aware in the back of your mind that you know you can't run around on WEP for too long, lest you damage your engine?

I mean, is this game supposed to be a simulation of World War II aircraft, or space ships? If it's going to be a simulation of WWII air combat, then don't you think that some of the challenges those pilots had to deal with should be replicated to a greater degree?

 

Quote
banana I'd be interested what you think of the FM's, the gunnery.


Well, it was an early war IJN vs. USN rps, so all I flew all night was the A6M2 and A6M3, and yes, the FM's were very similar, although the A6M2 seemed lighter and slightly more manueverable than the Hamp. I did feel a little of the "mush", but to me it felt like the early AH FM before it was "fixed" to what we have now in AH. I can't say it moved me one way or the other. It was just different.

The gunnery colors were odd, with red colored cannons and white machine gun tracers. Just about every sim does that better. I'm surprised to find that you found the gunnery so easy, nopoop, as I found it much harder to hit targets with it. And I found the lethality to be similar to AH, at least when I got hit. It didn't take much to bring down a Zeke.

The WB terrain is definately not much to look at, being very dark. I did like the coloring in the sky, however. I thought the sky color was better looking in WB than AH or WW2OL.

There were 86 people on when I was flying last night, and everyone was fighting in the same general area, so I was able to get into a couple of huge furballs. It was a lot of fun. I bet even Lazs would've enjoyed himself last night. :)

There was one guy online who twice accused the same guy of warp rolling, but other than that,  there was much less smack than what you see on the AH open channel.

Overall, I think WB is probably the weakest sim out there between AH, WB and WW2OL. But it certainly wasn't a bad experience I had last night, and I think I'm going to keep my account open there and see what happens.

Quote
Nopoop - you criticise WB as though AH were the holy grail of flight sims. It is not. Certainly, it beats WB 2.77, but the gunnery is not real. Those 800 yard shots are BS, and smack of a dumbing down of the skill element to accommodate the noobs/dweebs. In my view, one of the reasons we see such dweebery in this game (HO, spray & pray, 4 plane subset (P51/La7/Spit ix/N1K)) is because the skill element has been dumbed down and therefore folks don't need to learn much ACM or gunnery or early war plane types. Don't denounce the characteristics of one game, only to replace it with how you think things "should" be modelled based on nothing more than your own utopian vision of a how a flight sim should look.



Quote
So why bother with all the other "annoyances?" Trivial chores such as throttle, flaps, stalls, compression, torque, blackout/redouts or spins?? All of those, along with landing and/or taking off, most certainly don't ADD to combat at all.

And FWIW there are far more ARCADEs in boxes than there are sims.

For the longest time my opinion was AH was "THE" WWII aircombat sim featuring the most reasonable fascimile of WWII fighters available. Anything less was Air Warrior and Fighter Ace.

But IMO AH never had an online atmosphere conducive to WWII era aircombat - beyond your "BFM" and ACM. With the icons and radar it was more akin to "Spitfires over Iraq: 1991". I'd always hoped HTC would progress AH and add features to promote a WWII environment and also model more "nuances" which players could choose to master. Or not. Things that would permit players to feel more like a real pilot flying actual aircraft battling it out in a hostile a sky reminiscent of WWII.

IMO AH is now the one that's been left behind by other games/sims such as WWIIO, IL2 and Target-Rabaul. And it's saddened me, and others I can see, that AH has fallen into the vacant slot left by AW. A joust-a-bout, fantasy melee arcade rife with pork'n'auger land-grab dorks.



I agree with a lot of what Beetle and Westy said in their above posts. Although I'm not ready to say that AH has fallen behind WW2OL or Target Rabaul yet, and I don't think IL2 is a fair comparison, I do think that AH has become the new "Air Warrior".  It caters to the "yank & bank" crowd, whereas games like Target Rabaul are definately more geared to the "realism nazi's", the ex-WB crowd.

No disrespect intended to any of the AW guys, because every AW guy(and gal-Hi Flossy!) I ever met in person have been friendly and fun to be with. But I think it's a fact that the Warbirds crowd was into more realism than was the AW crowd.

I'm really looking forward to see where HiTech's vision takes him in AH2-TOD.  On the other hand, I'm just as excited to see what the Targetware folks end up with whenever they can get around to releasing Target Rabaul. It might not have as pretty eye candy as AH2, but if the gameplay, features and FM are of a more realistic nature than AH, then we may be witness to yet another mass exodus that we saw when AH went live.

Competition is good, though. We all need to remember that.

Offline nopoop

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #73 on: January 03, 2004, 05:36:07 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by beet1e
Those 800 yard shots are BS, and smack of a dumbing down of the skill element to accommodate the noobs/dweebs.


Beet I've been over here close to two years. Until a week ago I NEVER heard a complaint as far as gunnery come from you.

I suspect you had a good one going and somebody took you out and your STILL pissed off about it.

Maybe had a few in the bag and that zoom to safety didn't....quite....get....you ...high...enough ??

Being that the gunnery here doesn't change bi-weekly I must conclude you made an error in judgement.

Me thinks that is the case, and I have no doubt that it will be an added mantra to your disertations of the games shortcomings.

Much easier than taking responsibility for your inflight decisions..

As far as being the holy grail ??

No. But I know from playing IL-2 online, WWIIOnline and a revisit to WB where it shouldn't go..

But that's just my opinion, not a holy grail. Everything is a personal opinion. That depends on the window to fly, what is "fun" for each individual, and a games ability to provide enjoyment over a broad spectrum choices of playing style rather than cater to a small group of like minded players ( as in WB/IL-2 )

I leave targetware out of the equation until there's more than six people on line..

Come to think of it, if the criteria is to provide "fun" to a broad spectrum of flying preferences AH IS the holy grail.

We just worry the fine points. So we debate, worry, noodle and discuss the options.

Discussion in some ways is just as enjoyable as playing the game.

But then again, I enjoy typing.

banana I think I had too many hours at WB. There gunnery there is second nature. Double what I can do here. Even after a two year layoff.
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Offline beet1e

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Three things that could really improve the AH experience
« Reply #74 on: January 03, 2004, 06:05:02 PM »
Nopoop. You were around when WB went from 2.5 to 2.6. Admittedly, 2.6 was a disaster. But the change in gunnery was a step forward. ie. those 800 yard S&P shots became a thing of the past, and you had to get to 100-300 yards.

Sure, I have been picked off more than once with a AH 600+ yard S&P shot, and it's BS. But just because that happened, don't try to sweep what I said under the carpet. Time to accept that certain aspects of *this* game are designed to help the noobs, and to allow the Game-the-Game "experten" to go on living in Cloud-Cuckoo Land.