Does HTC understand that the ENY thing has totally failed?

[SlapShot]

If the player dynamic is that the two bigger sides attack the weaker (a reversal of the past trend) ...

This has always been true ... since the first day I started in AH and that was almost 3 yrs ago ... this is not a new trend, nor was is fostered by the ENY Limiter.

The lowest numbered team (usually has the least amount of bases) gets consistently wacked by the other 2 trying to race for the reset. Only when the reset is close, do the other 2 then try and steal bases from each other, which then creates small intense fights between the two.

One problem is that while you win perks and the "war" by scoring a reset, you win basically nothing for a successful defense (save for whatever perks you could gather fighting at 1:3 odds). And the perks won for a reset are the same if you do it with 1:1 odds as with 3:1 odds - so why not do it the easy way with 3:1 odds?

Sorry, but I beg to differ  ... "The rewards for winning via horde is the same as winning with skill". When fighting the "horde" I could, in one hour, tally more fighter perks than the "horde" could tally in 5-10 resets.

This is the part that I don't get ... what is the real driving force behind 25 measley perks in each category ? ... I just don't get it.

What I do believe, is the "real" reward is that one could say ... "We won the war !!!" and trash talk 'till the cows come home ... this is even stranger.

[Midnight]

Perks are lame, perks have no real use, perks are give-aways to the low number country, perks are not awarded to the high number country, winning perks on a reset is just collecting more useless perks.

The whole idea that HTC says overwhelming numbers are OK to capture a field are contridicted by the ENY limiter. What's the sense of having overwhelming numbers if you are fighting with low performance equipment? The other side of that is why does HTC feel that the overwhelming numbers to capture a field is a good thing?

If all countries were exactly equal in numbers, it would be near impossible to capture a field being defended by the same number of players that were attacking it. So that only ENCOURAGES the milk run by HTC saying if you want to capture a field, you need to go attack the one that no one is defending.

If you think about it, if there were 10 attackers and 10 defenders, the attackers would never be able to capture the field. The reasons are many, but some obvious ones are that the defenders don't have to fly back to anywhere if they are shot down, at least one of the attackers has to fly/drive the troops in (one less fighter on the attacking side), at least 2 or 3 attackers need to destroy the town (putting them in vunerable position for being shot down) and then of course the attackers will eventually run out of ammo, even if they are able to supress the defense.

[DoKGonZo]

What I see is the ganging up starting the moment a map is reset, and also happening regardless of number of bases held.

You guys will deny it, but I study the maps and know what I see.

[Midnight]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
What I see is the ganging up starting the moment a map is reset, and also happening regardless of number of bases held.

You guys will deny it, but I study the maps and know what I see.

I don't think anyone could deny that Dok. Every time I have seen a reset, it is a mad dash by those logging in to see how fast they can pork the nearest filed and make a capture before too many others log in to defend.

The ganging also occurs when a country is nearing a reset. Both countries gang up to crush the other because for some lame reason the mob is so excited to see a new terrain loaded because cod forbid they have to fly on the same map for more than 1 day.

I remember when perks were first introduced. They were supposed to encourage the middle country (not the one winning the war and not the one loosing) to attack the winning country to PREVENT them from getting the perk points. Well, as we have discovered, perk points are useless to the country as a whole and no one cares who gets awarded 70 perks, just reset the map.

[Pongo]

That was part of it, but they were primarily intended to encourage the big country to finish the map off. Lots of times countries where getting the enemy down two 2 or fewer fields and then just sitting on them. People would change countrys to bring goons in and reset thier own countries to end the misery

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Pongo
That was part of it, but they were primarily intended to encourage the big country to finish the map off. Lots of times countries where getting the enemy down two 2 or fewer fields and then just sitting on them. People would change countrys to bring goons in and reset thier own countries to end the misery

Yeah ... I vaguely recall that from AH1 days.

I guess there's two ways to look at the problem:

1) Find ways to entice/coax/force people to move around to even the odds. ENY was a step in this direction.

2) Modify the game system so that defending against superior odds is worthwhile - which in turn would mitigate the value of Hording. Ramping the perks for kills isn't enough as it us if you're outnumbered because you're vultched or swarmed so much.

[Overlag]

theres two way it can go near reset

1: both sides pick on the weak one to get it over and done with....

2: the side that wont "win" the reset (2nd place) starts to pick on the leader, then the country which is nearly dead, gets a prolonged death....which kinda sucks, its better when 1 happens really...it gets it over and done with.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
If the player dynamic is that the two bigger sides attack the weaker (a reversal of the past trend), then the biggest side has numeric superiority on all its fronts.

[/B]

I'm not sure that this was a problem that ENY was even designed to address.  In the very least, a more equitable distribution of players among the three teams alleviates some of the pain of two sides ganging the smallest; in a nearly evenly-divided arena you'd face close to 2:1 odds.  As it now stands, the smallest team numerically faces far, far worse odds, and they often only sport half as many players as the single largest team alone.

Awarding perks for resets drives some of the hordelike arena imbalance.  Overwhelming numbers roll over fields and destroy strat while protecting those involved.  Taking bases no longer serves as a means to initiate air combat between opposing sides but instead becomes the end.  The new means to that end becomes overwhelming, unstoppable numbers rapidly rolling over bases.  Air combat serves as a hindrance to that end rather than its logical offspring.

The ENY limiter cannot fix that aspect of gameplay, though it can stall and frustrate it a bit.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
What I see is the ganging up starting the moment a map is reset, and also happening regardless of number of bases held.

This has happened for years and years in AH.  No question about it.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Midnight The whole idea that HTC says overwhelming numbers are OK to capture a field are contridicted by the ENY limiter. What's the sense of having overwhelming numbers if you are fighting with low performance equipment? The other side of that is why does HTC feel that the overwhelming numbers to capture a field is a good thing?

I don't think you're understanding the difference between local air superiority through a numbers imbalance and a general arena imbalance.

You can have equal numbers between every team and still enjoy an overwhelming numbers advantage for a brief time in a certain sector.  If two opposing countries tie each other up fighting over a couple of bases, the third country can mount a major offensive with little opposition.  Thus it enjoys overwhelming local air superiority without a massive overall advantage in numbers.  There's nothing wrong with that, and the ENY limiter would not affect anybody in that case.

A general arena numbers imbalance would allow that third country to exhibit simultaneous and overwhelming local air superiority anywhere on the map at any time against any foe in any situation.  It would never face less than amazingly favorable odds.  The ENY limiter means to either dissuade players from creating such population disparities or to penalize players on the team with such an overwhelming advantage so that the elimination of powerful planes blunts their advantages.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[DoKGonZo]

Just to be clear ... my intent isn't to make the odds "even" all the time. That's dull. That's not "war."

But there comes a point where the odds advantage or disadvantage one side is enjoying/enduring is excessive. Making the game either too easy to win or pointless to even bother competing in.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Just to be clear ... my intent isn't to make the odds "even" all the time. That's dull. That's not "war."

[/b]

Balancing the arena -- i.e. finding some vestige of reasonably close numbers -- doesn't necessarily create even numbers in any one area.  So the odds, at least locally, won't always be even.  This provides more interesting and varied gameplay since strategy actually means something.

And of course I'm speaking of balance on average, so variation between countries could still exist in a meaningful way that makes for some interesting situations.

Any thoughts on how we might eliminate two bigger countries ganging on the smallest?  How about penalizing the country with the 2nd most bases with a loss of perk points for not winning the reset?  That might work, but it also might just drive the two countries with the most numbers (and, usually, bases) to roll over the smaller country even faster than before in a mad race to beat out the other.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[rod64]

I like being outnumbered, it is like war for real. The russians v. germans in ww2, chinese v. japanese ww2 etc.

For me, I love base defence, it my favourite thing. Nothing better than having tracers off and shooting down 5 or 10 nmy without them knowing why their wings are falling off.

Basically, more nmy = more things to shoot at. And, it is like a takeout shop, they come to me MUHAHAHAHA.

I ask myself all the time "why dont people chk that all base guns are disabled?"

[Zanth]

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying
We can trace the current Knights numbers imbalance to the period after the first revision to the ENY limiter.

Immediately after HTC introduced the ENY limiter into the game, the numbers remained fairly balanced but whining reached a fevered pitch.  Subsequently, HiTech adjusted the ENY penalty such that it requires almost a 2:1 numbers advantage between the country with the largest numbers and the country with the smallest numbers before penalization begins.  Prior to that, the limiter started kicking in at around 1.5:1, but it applied penalities more gradually.  Now the system penalizes later, but the level of punishment increases at a far faster rate once the numbers imbalance reaches the minimum threshold.  In addition, HTC increased the minimum number of players before the limiter kicks into effect.

Clearly the revision to the ENY limiter resulted in current imbalances rather than the failure of the ENY limiter itself.  If anything, the limiter does not penalize early enough or harshly enough to dissuade arena behavior from falling back into the pre-ENY limiter days.   Maybe it's time to firm up the ENY limiter thresholds again?

-- Todd/Leviathn

ditto

[DoKGonZo]

Just about every suggestion I've seen to help the MA situation seems to have one thing in commor: it attacks the problem locally instead of globally. That is, ENY and Perks are based on the total number of planes in the MA - but the problems really occur over one or two fields, or against one front.

So how about this for an abstraction ... if you've ever played a board wargame you're familiar with the concept of "zones of control." That is, if you're adjacent to an enemy unit you move slower or your supply can be interdicted or so on. Now, what if in AH we assume there's a land war raging around the airbases (I guess in the 4th dimension cuz we can't see it ... but anyway ...). Then we could say that a base that's "next to" an enemy base is a "forward base" and one that isn't is a "rearward base." Being "next to" a base is easy enough to tell usually - can you fly from this base to an enemy base without overflying another friendly base first?

OK ... so then lets make our rules:

- 4-engine bombers are only available at rearward bases.

- Rearward bases have unlimited launch capacity.

- Barracks at rearward bases can NOT be destroyed.

- CV's are considered rearward bases.

Now the weird part ...

- Forward fields have a base launch capacity sufficient for 12 planes of 5 ENY. (Lets express this as 12 x (45-5) or 480 ... assuming 45 is the worst ENY of a plane we'll ever care about).

- Just like with CV's, players can "take command" of a forward base and reset it's ENY to create more launch capacity. (So lets say you wanted to attack a base, you could go to the base you want to launch from and set the ENY higher to provide more launch capacity of lesser planes - or keep it low to launch fewer uber planes.)

- Fighter ordinance at forward fields is only available in the "attack mode" and lowers the ENY of the selected plane by 2 points. So if you're doing a base attack you can't lanch as many Jabo's at full ENY as the defender can launch to repel you. A P51 has an ENY of 6, a Jabo P51 has an ENY of 4 then - you can launch 11 "attack" P51's, or 12 in "fighter" mode.

- The forward base lift capacity for a team is also modified by the overall odds. So rather than say the country status ENY is now "10" you'd say the forward base capacity for a country is now "420".


How would this affect things? For the nominal case of like 12 guys attacking a base defended by 6 guys - only difference is no heavy bombers within a stone's throw lumbering in at 50 feet.

For the Horde case, it gets interesting. A side defending a base can raise their ENY bar to create more launch capacity. Say you raised it to 15 to allow Ki-84's. They could launch up to 16 Ki's then, or more if they mix in A-5's, La-5's, etc. ... but they're assured of more than 16 good defender type planes.

Lets say the Hording side has big numbers - so their lift is down to 420. That gives them 10 P51 Jabos at a fwd base. Even if thyey use 2 fwd bases, 20 semi-uber planes won't beat 16 Ki-84's and La-5's on defense. So the Horde will need to RAISE THEIR OWN ENY(!) at the forward bases in order to have enough numbers to press home the attack.

Heavy bombers with escort/jabo fighters will come more from rearward bases - where there are no restrictions.

If a team wants to get whacky on offense, though, they could do weird stuff - like crank the ENY of a fwd base to 30 and launch 32 P40E's or something in a raid.

Could be interesting - and then no one yells at HT anymore for "not letting them fly their P51" ... they can yell at their team mate. And a team which manages their fwd bases well will succeed over a team which just wants to fly the best planes all the time. Because ... numbers usually win ... so lets work with it.