"early war vs ubberville...."

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by lasersailor184
I'd go early war over late war any time.  Except for rare occasions when I need to up a Corsair.

Except that in a 39-43 arena you'd have the first Corsair, just not the later ones.  Kinda like the 190s and 109s.  It would be A5s and G6s latest but you'd still have a 190.  If you add the Allison Mustang the uber Mustang driver's wouldn't know the dif

Dan/Slack

[Karnak]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
Two arenas would be tough to pull off given the way numbers are tailing off as it is. But ... if you did have an early war arena and if you could link the perks between then two, then you could do something like have a 2X perk multiplier in early war as incentive for people to fly there.

Then once you get 3/4 of the player base over there on a regular basis, you can merge the arenas and have RPS.

I'm kinda with you, until you talk about merging to two arenas.

That wouldn't fly.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Karnak
I'm kinda with you, until you talk about merging to two arenas.

That wouldn't fly.

The end result should be to re-merge once people realize that various extremeties won't drop off if they don't fly uberplanes. The risk is that two not very full arenas will present an impression that the game isn't very vibrant. So a 3-month "introduction to other planes" phase would bridge that.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
The end result should be to re-merge once people realize that various extremeties won't drop off if they don't fly uberplanes.

You're far more optimistic than I am.  I doubt they'd ever realize that, and those few that did (not to mention those that did from the get go) would whine endlessly about certain aircraft such as the Spitfire Mk IX.

[humble]

Originally posted by bozon
then why stop at 1945? go right to the ATF and F15E. Or even better: X-wing vs. Tie fighter.

A full plane set for a narrow timespan is better than sopwith pup vs F16 areana.

Bozon

You already have the 262/tempest/Ta-152/spitXIV. Your not really going to up the "ubberante" any further if you stick with planes that were operational during WW-2 (not combat operational). Add meteor and P-80 plus all the prototypes etc and you wont really change the balance of play all that much. P-47M is coming anyway (I'm guessing). To me whats the difference between facing an La-7/262/tempest or a F8/P-47M/seafury in my -1 hog or Ki-61. Now I avoid some of the early war stuff like the 109-E and A6M2 because I hate the Ballistics....again unless you go to a RPS your simply not going to see any play on the earlybirds beyond those that all ready fly em anyway.

[Halo]

Rolling plane set in WarBirds got tedious because of the ride limitations.  Many people simply would not play until their favorite ride was activated.  

And each period in the rotation had its own uber planes, so the issue of people preferring the most superior ride is always there somewhere.

Adding later planes that did not see action in WWII defeats the idea of a WWII plane set.  It would be intriguing to have an additional arena for the latest and last prop warplanes, but might not be worth the cost and effort to develop.

The ultimate spectrum of guns-only planes (no air to air missiles) would span WWI to Korea.  Would be great to have an Aces High WWI arena and Korean arena -- perhaps in AH VI or AH VII.

[humble]

The meteor P-80 Do-335 F7F P-47M Sea Fury were all operational during the war...they are not post war planes the last two were front line service planes...the meteor and P-80 flew operationally in combat uinits. The Do-335 saw some action I believe and the F7F was operational but not deployed I believe...none of em are experimental what if "1946" planes...all were in development in 1942-43 and production capable in 1944.

[HoHun]

Hi Xhammerx,

>I have never played WarBirds, and Air Warrior never did it, but it seems like a good idea. Especially given the robust plane set HiTech has created.

Actually, Air Warrior had an RPS in the end, but only in the little-used Axis-vs-Allies arena. It was slow to rotate, though, limited to ETO planes, and featured poorly chosen adversaries.

That highlights the danger of an RPS - you've got to get it right, or it will annoy the players :-) Given enough aircraft to choose from, that's not a real problem though.

Often, players complain about the earliest phase of the RPS because there are relatively few aircraft types to choose from. I'm not sure how serious this issue is.

With regard to free-for-all vs. RPS, it seems to me that by maintaining a FFA arena you shape player habits and encourage pilots to specialize on one particular type at the expense of tactical (or mental ;-) flexibility.

In an environment where the RPS is the norm, you will find only few specialists who refuse to fly anything except their favourite aircraft, though there are some. When their favourite is not available, specialists often pick a fighter with similar strengths, or sometimes limit their play to the days when their favourite is available. (Though for jet jockeys, I admit ;-)

With regard to the question what the majority of the players prefer, it's difficult to guess for us, but Hitechcreations could simply alternate between FFA and RPS a couple of times and then look at the player statistics :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[bozon]

Rolling plane set in WarBirds got tedious because of the ride limitations. Many people simply would not play until their favorite ride was activated.

That is exacly the problem. If they didn't have 1945 planes, they wouldn't have been disapointed not being able to fly them...

RPS is bad idea. having a static plane set of a long time as WWII is problematic too.
I'd love it if HTC would narrow the period that they represent in the game, and provide with a full plane set for that period.

Having two areanas is like having two games of two different periods. I like that -  if the player base is big enough to support this.

Bozon

[DoKGonZo]

I think a multi-year RPS is overkill and does have the inherent problem that has been mentioned : too few planes to choose from.

But an "early war/late war" set up is much more manageable. We have "late war" now. If "early war" included the F4U-1, P-51B, P47B, Fw190A-5, Me109F, Me109G2, Me110C, Seafire, Spit V, Hurri II, La-5, P-40E, FM2, F4F, C202/205, Zeke-5 ... that's 16 decent and competetive fighters to choose from. Given that only 3 or 4 planes see most of the use in the MA as it is now, this is more than plenty. About the only people who'd really be bummed is the P38 drivers as there's no early model of the Lightning.

Then if you yank the heavy bombers - leaving just the Ju-88 and Boston III - that drastically changes field capture. The MA becomes a very different game.

[HoHun]

Hi Gonzo,

>I think a multi-year RPS is overkill and does have the inherent problem that has been mentioned : too few planes to choose from.

Actually, that's only true for the earliest period of WW2, where you have Spitfire/Hurricane vs. Me 109E/Me 110/Ju 87/Ju 88 in most simulations.

Once the RPS gets rolling, you actually have more valid choices because aircraft that are obsolete in a 1945-based FFA can be quite competitive earlier.

In fact, a 1945 FFA is just an RPS frozen at one single month.

>If "early war" included the F4U-1, P-51B, P47B, Fw190A-5, Me109F, Me109G2, Me110C, Seafire, Spit V, Hurri II, La-5, P-40E, FM2, F4F, C202/205, Zeke-5 ... that's 16 decent and competetive fighters to choose from. Given that only 3 or 4 planes see most of the use in the MA as it is now, this is more than plenty. About the only people who'd really be bummed is the P38 drivers as there's no early model of the Lightning.

Well, the P-38J preceded the P-51B, so your plane set doesn't seem to be based on a deadline :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[DoKGonZo]

I know some of it is lopsided ... but I was going more for feel. The 51B has speed but weak guns, whereas the 38J would overpower a lot of the early-war planes. Also the 38 sees lots of use in late war, but the 51B sees next to none (save for ENY-fests). That's the same reason I left the F6F and Spit IX off the early war list - they get used plenty in late war.

I just don't know how to get around the whines that even trying something like this would cause, though. Early war planes can be plenty uber versus other early war planes - but I fear too many people will just balk at anything less than an La-7 or Millenium Falcon.

[humble]

Actually I think the ENY limiter is forcing more folks to explore the plane set. Alot more 110's, 205's, -1 hogs, la-5s and Ki-61's can be found roaming the MA. The issue here is new planes...all but 1 (P-38j) of the planes above are already in the set. Obviously the P-39 is long overdue...but what other early war planes are really going to get used...of course the 190-A5 drivers will swap out to the A4 or A3 but otherwise nothing will get used in MA...

[HoHun]

Hi Gonzo,

>I know some of it is lopsided ... but I was going more for feel.

A valid approach, too :-) A strictly chronological RPS is not the only possiblity, it would be quite possible to create a dynamic RPS in which the less-used planes come out earlier and the most-used ones are pushed back. Perk points could buy you newer planes - the current FFA actually isn't that really free either, now that I think about it.

>I just don't know how to get around the whines that even trying something like this would cause, though.

I think announcing it would cause more whines than actually trying it ;-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[humble]

BTW...

The F7F entered operational service with the marine corps in April 1944.

....The opinion of the Navy flight testers read, in part, "in addition to its potentialities as a night fighter, this airplane is the best medium-altitude day fighter, Army, Navy or foreign, yet evaluated." ....

I've always been amazed that the best all purpose strike plane developed in WW2 was never but into action. It would have easily dominated any other plane from any other nation in addition to being mission capable as both a ground attack or sea attack (carried a torp)

460mph top speed, 1200 mile range, 4500 ft/min climb and outturns an F6F with 4 x 20mm and 4 x .50....hehe