Alright, the CON's over..can we get some news?

[Morpheus]

Slapshot, just so you know...

None of what I said in my above post was directed toward you or driven from something you said.

Altho it seemed as such.

[Muckmaw1]

Originally posted by Karnak
As I understand it, when calibrating it doesn't matter how much you wander as long as the start and end points are the same, or very nearly the same.

The above is true.

Guys...come on. Bomb site calibration could not be easier. Even BGBMAW can do it and do it very well.

Here Look.

Go to F6..Open Map, Click on Target to set detonation Altitude.
Keep speed steady with doors open.
Press U
Hold crosshaors over same point for 10 to 15 secdonds while holding down calibration key.(Start and end at same point)
Press U

YOUR DONE!

Too many things in this game are dumbed down. Leave the bombsight alone. If you can dogfight you can bomb accurately. Dogfighting is much harder.

What we do not want is the return to the laser bombing noob that can shut down a med. field by himself.

[Muckmaw1]

I just don't understand.

Nobody want's a challenge.

It seems people just want to switch on, be immedietely at 10K bristling with sidewinder missles, point click, boom.

Why bother playing the game if there is no challenge?

You have a hard time with the bombsight so you just give up?

I've sucked at dogfigthing for 4 years but I'm still trying.

Because the satisfaction of winning when the battle is hard fought is so much sweeter.

Now they want a return to the Laser bombsight of old?

Where is the challenge of climbing to 40K, putting a crosshair on a target and pushing the button?

More importantly...where does the fun come in because I don't see it.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by SlapShot
Q & A ...


Hordes and Capture ... there is a possibility that towns will be moved farther from the airfields. The intention is to stop the "quick-lifter-short-run-to-kill-the-troops" from being so effective. The thought here is that in order to effect a capture, many planes need to be brought to knock down the "quick-lifter-short-run-to-kill-the-troops" types.

If the town is moved out farther (like around 6 to 12 miles), those who are going for the capture will have to send out interceptors to fight off the "quick-lifter-short-run-to-kill-the-troops" pilots. Imagine fighting instead of vulching ?!?!? OH THE HORROR !!!!

.

Wait a sec. hold the phone.

Bad idea. This only HELPS the hoarders. And makes the bases tougher to defend.
With all due respect Does HT ever even play the feild capture/defence aspect of the game?
If he did then he would see that typically what you have is one group vulching the feild and another group flatening the town.
Or more accurately you come in egg the town then head to the feild to suppress (vulch)
Once the VH is down "Quick lifter short run to kill the troops" pilots right now are the only hope to prevent capture. IF they can get up.
Your not gonna have "fighting instead of vulching" or anything even close to resembling it
 Your just gonna have more vulching while making it even more difficult to defend the feild and those that DO manage to get up to try to kill the troops are going to be stuck going low for an extended period of time with everyone swooping down on him with superior alt and E
Basically its gonna turn into extended vulching.

IS he at least planning on making GV spawn points to the town from the feild?
Or at least putting the VH halfway between the town and the feild? Which is probably where it should be anyway though I'd bein favor of two VH's per feild. one halfway between the town and feild and one at the feild
As it stands now in some cases its a shorter drive to the town for the enemy then it is for the field that owns it and now its being suggested to make it even farther away??
Again with all due respect to HT
Bad, Terrible idea IMO.

[Edbert]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
Wait a sec. hold the phone.

Bad idea. This only HELPS the hoarders. And makes the bases tougher to defend.

Take it easy there Dred, this was only discussed as an idea. The Q&A was more akin to me of a brainstorming session at times rather than a pure Q&A. When we were talking TOD it was clear that very little is decided upon at this stage, there are many ideas.

The discussion at one point was trying to figure out how to slow the horde mentality. HT even asked us if we thought the horde discussion was 'real', meaning do we think there is a horde mentality and why is there one. Thats right, HT doing the Q and us doing the A. They do not want to stop base capture but to make it possible without 25 players. The idea of moving the cities further away was only an idea, it WOULD make it easier to capture a base. Making base capture easier means 5-10 guys can do it instead of 30+. Note, speaking personally I think 10 guys can easily take a base now if they are smart and coordinate their attack/timing. There were dozens of ideas bandied about, nothing was DECIDED, at least no announcements along the lines of "that  is what we will do" were made (there were a few with TOD). Dale is clearly interested in the motivation factors of a player's gamesmanship. I think the tough nut he has to crack is that what motivates one player may demotivate 9positive or negative) another player. once TOD is out we may well have two arenas where more like-minded players will be able to mingle.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Muckmaw1
The above is true.

Guys...come on. Bomb site calibration could not be easier. Even BGBMAW can do it and do it very well.

Here Look.

Go to F6..Open Map, Click on Target to set detonation Altitude.
Keep speed steady with doors open.
Press U
Hold crosshaors over same point for 10 to 15 secdonds while holding down calibration key.(Start and end at same point)
Press U

YOUR DONE!
 

What about airspeed? or doesnt it matter how fast your going?

[Icer]

Originally posted by MoRphEuS
Slapshot, just so you know...

None of what I said in my above post was directed toward you or driven from something you said.

Altho it seemed as such.

Too late.. NO WINGS FOR YOU MORPH!!!!!!!

[DREDIOCK]

My apologies. First the wife wouldnt put out, then the dog kicked ME one of the cats thought my leg was a scratching post,the duck is looking at me kinda funny and now this.

I understand it was just a discussion. It just seemed that the outcome of such a move was so obvious that I was suprised it hadnt been mentioned before.

There is one idea in my post that untill now I hadnt thought of and think may be a pretty good idea.
And thats the thought of having 2 VH's per airfeild instead of the current 1.
1 about halfway between the town and feild and the other AT the feild as it currently is. Would make for interesting gameplay GV wise especially if the towns were moved farther away.
Plus it would make sence for a town to have some sort of ground force as a defence instead of just ack.
I like this idea. I like this idea ALOT

Originally posted by Edbert MOL
Take it easy there Dred, this was only discussed as an idea. The Q&A was more akin to me of a brainstorming session at times rather than a pure Q&A. When we were talking TOD it was clear that very little is decided upon at this stage, there are many ideas.

The discussion at one point was trying to figure out how to slow the horde mentality. HT even asked us if we thought the horde discussion was 'real', meaning do we think there is a horde mentality and why is there one. Thats right, HT doing the Q and us doing the A. They do not want to stop base capture but to make it possible without 25 players. The idea of moving the cities further away was only an idea, it WOULD make it easier to capture a base. Making base capture easier means 5-10 guys can do it instead of 30+. Note, speaking personally I think 10 guys can easily take a base now if they are smart and coordinate their attack/timing. There were dozens of ideas bandied about, nothing was DECIDED, at least no announcements along the lines of "that  is what we will do" were made (there were a few with TOD). Dale is clearly interested in the motivation factors of a player's gamesmanship. I think the tough nut he has to crack is that what motivates one player may demotivate 9positive or negative) another player. once TOD is out we may well have two arenas where more like-minded players will be able to mingle.

[SlapShot]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
My apologies. First the wife wouldnt put out, then the dog kicked ME one of the cats thought my leg was a scratching post,the duck is looking at me kinda funny and now this.

I understand it was just a discussion. It just seemed that the outcome of such a move was so obvious that I was suprised it hadnt been mentioned before.

There is one idea in my post that untill now I hadnt thought of and think may be a pretty good idea.
And thats the thought of having 2 VH's per airfeild instead of the current 1.
1 about halfway between the town and feild and the other AT the feild as it currently is. Would make for interesting gameplay GV wise especially if the towns were moved farther away.
Plus it would make sence for a town to have some sort of ground force as a defence instead of just ack.
I like this idea. I like this idea ALOT

That idea was also proposed during the same discussion and HT did seem to acknowledge the fact that a VH hanger would need to be either close to the town or have a VH in the town. Sorry I left that out ... so much discussed ... too much to remember.

Afterall, the VH would be destroyable and would only be another target that the attack force would need to neutralize ... and at the same time give the defenders some sort of interim defense mechanisim until the calvary shows up.

[Pyro]

I don't think it's as obvious as it appears Drediock.  One of the things we were talking about was the relationship between the difficulty of a task and the effect that has on requiring players to adopt a swarming behavior to be successful at accomplishing that task.

I think the conventional line of thought as you point out above is that if a task is easier, it just makes it better for the horde.  But if you think about it, that's not really the case.  In fact, it's the opposite.  The more people you require to accomplish a task, the bigger the groups that form.

Look at this hypothetical situation with two different settings at the extreme ends.  Two teams of 100 players with 20 fields want to capture all the fields.  Team A is a horde with all players flying in one big group.  Team B is the extreme opposite and all players are evenly distributed across all airfields, 5 players to each field.  If a base capture were made extremely difficult and required 50 people to achieve successs, obviously Team A would win as Team B would not be able to capture a field.  Now if capture were made extremely easy and it only took 2 people to achieve success, which team's strategy would work best?

[mora]

Originally posted by Muckmaw1
The above is true.

Guys...come on. Bomb site calibration could not be easier. Even BGBMAW can do it and do it very well.

Here Look.

Go to F6..Open Map, Click on Target to set detonation Altitude.
Keep speed steady with doors open.
Press U
Hold crosshaors over same point for 10 to 15 secdonds while holding down calibration key.(Start and end at same point)
Press U

YOUR DONE!

Too many things in this game are dumbed down. Leave the bombsight alone. If you can dogfight you can bomb accurately. Dogfighting is much harder.

What we do not want is the return to the laser bombing noob that can shut down a med. field by himself.

Yes I do it exactly like that, but the bombs always fall short.

[Muckmaw1]

Airspeed does not matter as long as it's the same when you calibrate as when you drop.

I keep it simple and drop at full throttle.

IMPORTANT: The open bomb doors create drag.

OPEN YOUR DOORS BEFORE YOU CALIBRATE.

Wait a minture or 2 for the aircraft to slow down due to increased drag.

If your airspeed is the same as it was when you calibrate, your bombs should hit the target.

[DoKGonZo]

Problem with the complexity of the bomb calibration is you invest so much time getting to target. If you can't get the thing working for you offline at 5K, why waste 30 min draggin a 17 to 20K online? I think it's great for scenarios and stuff like that, but for the MA I think it's becoming a barrier to proper usage. Just my opinion based on what I see and how many good players say they haven't been able to get the hang of the calibration. And I include myself here - I'm a total duhweeb trying to cal this thing.


I see what you're saying, Pyro, re: difficulty of base capture as it affects MA group tactics. But consider for a moment the difference between "difficulty" and "complexity." Making it "harder" usually means you need more ord to level the structures needed to allow capture - which is only really possible with lots of people. But "complexity" may mean that the pre-requisites have to happen in a certain order, or new pre-requisites are added. Meaning it's do-able by a small number of people, but they need to execute well to make it happen.

    -DoK

[Muckmaw1]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Problem with the complexity of the bomb calibration is you invest so much time getting to target. If you can't get the thing working for you offline at 5K, why waste 30 min draggin a 17 to 20K online? I think it's great for scenarios and stuff like that, but for the MA I think it's becoming a barrier to proper usage. Just my opinion based on what I see and how many good players say they haven't been able to get the hang of the calibration. And I include myself here - I'm a total duhweeb trying to cal this thing.

    -DoK

DoK-

I just don't get it. I log very little time anymore and never practice, yet I can log in and still calibrate and hit my target.

It's so much easier than dogfighting, I just don't understand why people cannot do it.

If you'd like to meet in the TA, I'd be happy to go over it with you until you get it.

jpizzo127@yahoo.com

[Westy]

"complexity of the bomb calibration "

 In comparison to the what existed before (basic point & click simplicity) the calibration feature could indeed appear to be complex and for some perhaps even difficult.
 However before the calibration feature was added the process of bombing was essentially a skilless, super simple task.  It was only a matter of climbing to 15 or 25K and with laser guided accuracy even a relative "noob" using a single Lancaster could neutralize multiple bases (knock out a bases troops, kill area radar and decimate fuel supplies, etc) in one flight.
 Something had to be done, IMO anyway as enjoyment by "the many"  (players who were enjoying themselves in aircombat online)  was constantly being negatively impacted by "the few"  (solo or small groups of "bomber" pilots)



 To the reader...

 IMO there should be some skillset to being a bombardier in AH (or any online game).  Heck being a bombardier in WWIIO is far more complicated and I hear not one whine there about it while I see lots of players using bombers in game there.  Regardless.
 Just as players who choose to fly fighters in aircombat need to learn SA, ACM and leading a bogy for a firing solution, so IMO should players who want to be a bombardier.  IMO there should be a learning curve that goes beyond simply determining what button to press to open bay doors, waiting till the X appears over the exact spot you want the bombs to impact and a final key press to drop the bomb(s).  

 Otherwise equalize the learning curve. How? Level the playing field by making bombing super simple once again and give all fighters the old AW "lcos" gunsight (and spins off!)  


( j/k on that last part.    )



I may be all wet and offtangent. But it's my opinion accumulated from years of arena gameplay too.