New idea what do you ladies and gentlemen think.

[Mugzeee]

Originally posted by JB73

Unfortunately, the only way sometime to clear a "spawn camper" is to spawn multiple people in quick succession so that someone gets a turret around to kill or disable said camper. .

Couldn’t you take 2 or 3 of you Squad mates or buddies to kill the pesky spawn campers?

Originally posted by JB73

Another scenario includes a NOE base attack. In the current situation a base far behind lines can be attacked, and many miss it. The few that do go to defend try as they might sometimes get killed. If they are unable to take off again in an attempt to save the base, it is possible the base could be lost.

Interesting point.
Guess your other countrymen could go defend for you?

Originally posted by JB73

I don’t want to bring up the ugly topic of HO's, but this scenario I believe would only encourage poor tactics by the attackers. Take a few cannon planes HO every plane that tries to get up, and then soon no one will be able to defend. That is an unrealistic tactic, that I thing would adversely affect game play in a bad way.

Unrealistic? How so?
If you kill all the NME trying to get up at said base…wouldn’t they all be dead?
Oh…I see…you mean the “Game” aces high…the one where you can up 20 times hoping the Vulchers or campers will eventually Die or auger trying to vulch said players?

Originally posted by JB73

Another question about this is would the time limit between changing countries be changed? If I don’t want to be limited, and change to knights, but a bunch also change, I could be limited again. Unfortunately with the current time limit I would not be able to change again. If the limit is changed too short you could run into the problems we have had in the past with country hoppers.

Would require some crafty planning.

A lot of discussion about “Squad or Squad ops being effected. I think there are enough hired guns that would be the “Switchers”

[detch01]

HT - I think the idea will work but it's going to also put subtle pressure on game play. Players on the high-numbers side will tend to shy away from getting into big furballs and fly more conservatively to avoid having to wait.  At least on the short term "ganging" will likely be more prevalent and in that circumstance the feeling on the low-numbers sides about being ganged will just be more pointed.
  I like the idea of increasing the vulnerability of field resources on the high-numbers side, which I think has been said before in this thread, but I don't think it will work alone. What might also work, is if it's coupled with late war, normally not perked rides, needing small amounts of perks for the high-numbers side (la7, p51d, 109G10, ki-84, etc.). Link the perk changes directly to the numbers so that as a side's numbers increase, the late war rides start to cost something and if the numbers disparity continues to increase, have the costs of late war rides go up.
This will "fair up" the fight and give the low numbers sides the reward of extra perks. 2 birds with 1 stone.

Cheers,

[hitech]

So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.

Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.

The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh  the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.

I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.

I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.


And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.


HiTech

[Rolex]

Looks like a Rube Goldberg fix.

What is the current breakdown of players for each country?

If they are heavily unbalanced, why not post a thread asking for a couple of medium or large squads to switch for a month or two? That was how the Rook disadvantage was solved - some squads switched.

Numerical advantage does not equate to cooperation. It is the action of large squads and cooperative missions that force resets on small maps. The countries at a disadvantage naturally force a two-front war for the one with the numerical advantage.

There is usually one reasonably bright person on (among the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds online) who will hit the barracks, ordnance and radar of the larger force to take the wind out of their sails.

All in all, the game works pretty well as you designed it without adding a bureaucratic affirmative action plan.

I think simply asking for a few squads to switch will work, but I'm usually wrong about everything, according to my wife.

[Arlo]

BUT .....

I will add .....

A three sided arena was kinda sorta asking for it. Add another side. And switch to card suits, fer cryin' out loud.

Yes, you then have potential opponents that can be seperated easier by a third (and fourth). But that's a good thing.

P.S. "The race to reset" promotes countries ganging on the lesser side. If there was no "win", you'd see less of that.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by hitech
So far my thoughts on alternatives of perks or plane limitation , is that I realy doubt they would motivate people to change sides.

Right now it should be obvious that the perk multiply has almost no effect, implementing somthing similar as sugested might triple the effect but it would still have almost no effect. So what we would be left with, is more complaining, but the problem would still remain.

The other problem I see with limiting the top used planes, is that the numbers advantage would still greatly out wiegh  the plane type advantage. In fact the lesser used planes like the p47 start to realy shine when you have a numbers advantage.

I also do not buy into the argument that it would be limiting in any way, all it would be is the big sides choice to wait to fly or to change sides. Thats a choice to make, not a limit.

I have no doubt that the time limit with the right settings would balance the fight, regardless if people changed sides.


And a big thanks for keeping this discussion fairly civil so far.


HiTech

I think the rate of return on your incentive thus far are not so much an indictment of the incentive itself but a commentary on country fidelity. Just looking at the roster you quickly see all but a very small fraction of the players are in a squadron, those squadrons are in a country and have likely been in that same country for a very long time. There are examples of squadrons who switch countries en masse, but they usually restrict this movement to a camp to camp basis for logistical reasons.

What this would do in large part is penalize dedicated squadrons for their country fidelity and create a potential logisitcal nightmare for those who do rotate, most on a by-need basis, but on a regular schedule. While creating some dissatisfied customers and some antipathy, they will still be highly unlikely to move for ANY short-sighted reason such as a re-plane timer. The people most likely to move are the newbies, who have yet to find a squadron, therefore have lower country fidelity, but who also have the lowest impact on gameplay per capita. Your average newbie will be highly inconvenienced by a re-plane timer and this concern will likely outweight any other factor, unlike the high-fidelity veteran of a squadron. So, while increasing the numbers of the disadvantaged side, you are not actually increasing their effectiveness or quality by a similiar ratio. Not only that but the change will likely be very short-term.

On the other hand, by applying the perk modifier to the score formula something else will happen. Some dedicated squadrons on the advantaged side that enjoy flying for rank/score will re-think their country affiliation on a long-term basis. As well, your upper-echelon players who enjoy ranking highly will be far more likely to go to a country where it is easier to do so. So, in this way, not only do you increase the numbers of the disadvantaged team, but you increase the quality of those numbers by an even greater relative ratio, and you do it for the long-term.

Zazen

[Murdr]

1.  I appriciate that fact that HT is monitoring our game play concerns.

2.  I dont like the idea based on reasons of gameplay effects already outlined.  and ie. it seems a little too "heavy handed" or 'liberal'

3. I had given some thought to this general subject and I agree with some of the other posts that making changes to perk awards would go a long way.  

Originally posted by Murdr 08-06-2004
So right now the perk modifier changes the value of the cost column.   Make it apply to the ENY column too.  I think that would change the dynamics of things.  Out of the suggestions of using perks in some way, I like that one.

Mabey this approach is too conservative.  In the long run though, if a persons flying habits were flying La7 for the high # country, it would be very hard for them to accumulate perk points.  Add to that if a threshold existed based on the modifer to nuscence perk the big late war planes, and its harder yet.  

Keep in mind that you only need to convince a small segment that they should fly with the underdog because: but their net effect of reducing one countries roster and padding the others in essence doubles their effect. If its 150/150/190 (the high# country up by 40) and only 5 pilots from each switch to the high number country it becomes 145/145/200(the high# country up by 55).  The same pricipal works in the opposite direction.



5.  Numbers are never going to maintain balance.  Im in favor of whatever makes that imbalance more fluid, and cycle around between the countries in shorter time spans.  It only becomes a problem when it goes out of balance so far that the figurative 'numbers pendulem' gets stuck in one place.

[VOR]

It could work. Would be worth a try at least.

[Murdr]

lol, geez 6 post went up while i was typing and looking up past threads.

Following the 'Link the numbers to not only perks but score awards:'  It would be quite funny to see how people who are flying in the hord would react if their score was awarded 1/3rd of a kill based on the other 5 people that had also shot it.  

Scene from Battle of Britain 1969
"Thats three of you that got him"
"Three?"
"A third of a kill that is... A third"

[PuckHead]

With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.

CYA UP,
      PUCK

[Redd]

Originally posted by PuckHead
With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.

CYA UP,
      PUCK

I agree, human nature always reacts more favourably to an incentive than a penalty. They might "bow down" to the penalty , having no choice, but they won't like it.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by PuckHead
With the numbers well below what they were with AH1, penealizing ANYONE who paid thier $14.95 to PLAY the game would be a huge mistake.

CYA UP,
      PUCK

Not sure about that, I'd pay 50 bucks a month for AH and still think I was getting a bargain. Compared to what I spend on Cable TV with all the movie channels I never watch (because I'm flying) 15 bucks is chump change. I worked it out, I do the 6 month deal, I fly an average of 50 hours a month, that works out to 25 cents an hour. Compare that to the MAYBE 20 hours a month I spend watching the news, History Channel, Discovery Wings and the odd Dallas Stars game at $100/month, that's $5/hour. We won't even talk about the guys who fly 200-300+ hours a month. They're getting AH for 5 cents an hour. Not much else you can get for a nickle these days, and we didn't even have to buy the game, it was a free download.

Zazen

[Urchin]

I'm on a hotel connection right now with a time limit, so I'll try to keep it very short.  

I don't much like the idea, personally.  Forcing people to sit idle/log off or change sides isn't a very good choice.  Many people *won't* change sides.  They'll log off instead.  True, this would solve the "problem" of one side having a huge numbers advantage, but I think it is solving it the wrong way.

I actually think the "perk point adjustment" thing is a good idea for balancing the numbers, but it needs to be taken to a greater extreme than it is now.  For example, I think that if people were flying Tempests and 262's for much less than they can get now even with a large disparity in numbers, that would solve the problem as well.  

For one, even if one side had 200 people and another side had 80, if the side with 80 were in 262's that would basically even up disparity in numbers with an equal disparity in plane quality.

I don't even know if that makes sense, but I am not in favor of actually forcing people to sit idle in a game that they pay for.  They should be able to at least do whatever they want, even if they want to continue to fly for a side that has a tremendous numbers advantage.

[ghostdancer]

Well first off I would say HT do some statistical analysis. You guys have the server logs and can actually tell when a huge imbalance occurs or does not.

Sundays there is a huge imbalance. This is due to the fact that a large percentage of Rook Squads have their squad night sunday. Knights and Bishops definitely turn out lower numbers and in a few cases posted on the board some squads actually avoid sunday night.

Then again the Knights and Bishops who do come on have come up with some solid team work, strategy, and tactics and use the 262 to stop the Rooks on sunday night (past several weeks). Last sunday the Knights siezed 2 bases and then held the Rooks back only losing one base back to them after hours of effort.

On other nights I am not sure the imbalance is as huge and might actually be starting to balance out more to some extent .. or that is one possible perception. Then again there will always be a country with the most and one with the least.

But I would set up a logging program to see how many pilots fly for a set period, and how many hops and compare. Also see how many people are with signed up under each country.

The solution you are proposing has some interesting possibilities. But in absence of statistical data can't really tell for certain how extensive the problem is or is not.

[Mugzeee]

Originally posted by Urchin
I'm on a hotel connection right now with a time limit, so I'll try to keep it very short.  

I don't much like the idea, personally.  Forcing people to sit idle/log off or change sides isn't a very good choice.  Many people *won't* change sides.  They'll log off instead.  True, this would solve the "problem" of one side having a huge numbers advantage, but I think it is solving it the wrong way.

What if… Each zone had an allotted number of flight slots. If the slots were currently full…then you would have to launch from another base say 50 to 75 miles away or wait till some one else moved to a different zone.
This could work well to disperse the Hoards. Because you would have to wait…or chose another base of operations…The new base of operations being far enough from the original base that your fuel would be rather low by the time you made it to the zone you were originally trying to Hoard…err fly in.
 Could work to deter hoarding or gangbanging.
Aces High with its zone structure could maybe benefit from this setup.

BTW…this isn’t new. Nor is it my own idea.

But I loved it.