talent gap

[jaxxo]

Seems to me to be a huge gap in the skill level between pilots. Either u kill them or at least have them owned within the first 2 merges or you know your in the chit. I cant remember the last time i had a great fight with an even skilled pilot. That is to say one on one with similair alt.. speed ..etc.I generally have no problem against most of the players i run into given these conditions...but when i get a superior skilled guy on me its over pretty quick.  Im too proud  myself to admit someone is better than me and ask for help so im gonna be stuck at this level it seems. That sounds bad but confidence is huge in this game and gettin spanked in the da by certain individuals does not do wonders for my confidence ..... at any rate I find myself doing dumb things like fighting hopeless causes as my alter ego "captain save a base" to get some adrenalin goin. Anyway i officially am taking a step forward and asking for help from anyone who wants to teach advanced acm's. I am your humble servant.

[AKFokerFoder+]

Well Sir, I am the man!

You can give me training lessions in the TA or DA anytime you want to.

Just be gentle with me, I really suck

[gofaster]

Buy rudder pedals and learn to use them.  Map your elevator trim to your joystick hat.

Ok, I'm done.  That'll be $200 please.

[JB73]

Originally posted by jaxxo
....at any rate I find myself doing dumb things like fighting hopeless causes as my alter ego "captain save a base" to get some adrenalin goin...

yup thats me

[Shane]

not to sound hoity-toity or anything, but sometimes people just have levels they're incapable of going beyond.

i'm not saying that you're incapable of getting any better, tho' but you have been around quite a while now - there aren't any "big secret squirrel" moves or anything. it's just a matter of doing better what you're doing now.

or simply put... there's probably not any more acm you can learn, but perhaps you can learn to use what you already know more effectively.

there are so many little things that (have to) come together, from something as simple as view setup and joystick settings, to something more complicated and hard to quantify as "SA" and ensuing decision making in a chaotic environment.

here are things you can do:

views: i have almost 100% coverage in both "level" and "up" views (i also use instant view mode) for a total of 17 views. are you comfortable with the way you have your views and head positions set up?

plane performance: it never hurts to ask someone you know is either better than you, or of comparable skill, to the DA for some 1 v 1, or even 1 v 2 or 3 practice using a varity of set ups from mismatched planes to mismatched alts, etc etc.

use /.join in the MA and ride along with some people you know are very good at what they do and try and see and understand why they choose to do what they do in engagements.

just keep at it, being as aggressive as possible, nothing can compete with actual experience even tho' you get your arse handed to you over and over.  eventually it'll just all come together... or not.

[Octavius]

If someone is spanking and only spanking in the dueling arena or anywhere for that matter, they aren't doing the spankee any favors.  It's a wasted effort to endlessly spank (read that how you like ).

As to the talent gap of which you speak, I  think you're right.  And as it has been discussed several times in the past; the blame rests on the vets.  

Only a few tight-nit long time players frequent the arenas.  Many oldtimers have 3rd degree burnout scars and have trouble recovering.  New players are developing tactics and adapting to what the arena offers.  

Just what the arena offers is another huge can of worms... the actual object of the main arena...

As with many other areas these days, entropy takes over.  Things flow downward, taking the path of least resistance.  The new form their own squads and share and embrace whatever they've discovered, whatever they've found to be fun in this game.  Dive bombing formations, suiciders, runners, blah blah blah - this probably encompasses EVERY aspect of gameplay, since "bad" is entirely relative to the diverse playerbase; just as EVERY aspect of gameplay is "good" for the same reason.  

Things I enjoyed back in the day:
-Nights of 30 players per country,
-busy evenings broke 100 on the roster,
-'s and discussions of fights ensued on channel 1,
-fear of one particular pilot or squadron annihilating entire sector,  
-base capture was 'cool' , and sneak captures consisted of 1 deacker and a goon.  
-Only one or two well-known tuckfards started verbal wars on the open channel for fun.  The community squashed them instead of fueling their attention deficit.

The system becomes unbalanced and equilibrium shifts.  The l33t furballers are merely a reaction to a silent and creeping toolshed underground.  It becomes polarized and friction develops between the poles. animosity and laziness to train players, and NOT in the literal sense of the word.  That best comes from experience.  But for squads and fellow vets to actually take them under their wing so they can observe "the right way" to go about things; be it in a dogfight, etiquette (or lack of.. FDBs), or open channel behavior.   I agree there are dedicated individuals who take it upon themselves to adopting and taking the naive under their wing, and I thank them for their efforts (AH Trainers and other individuals), but it is not common practice.  

I have no statistics, but I think its safe to say the majority of MA players online at any arbitrary time are "new."  (I still consider some of the AW refugees as new. )  At any given moment when I'm online, I can look at the roster and can only find maybe 5 names, excluding squadmates, that I know or have flown with.  

[edit]:  Must've been drunk when typing this... sentences made no sense.[/edit]

[gofaster]

Ok, serious now, here's my advice.

Avoid the Spitfire IX if you've been online for a month or more.  Its a crutch. Same with the LA-7.  Yes, you'll learn things like views and basic game commands and how things work and that's great if you're brand spanking new, but for learning to fly combat, it becomes a crutch.  The Spit IX is a very forgiving aircraft and if you don't pay for your mistakes you'll never know that you're making them.

If you want to learn air combat through the school of hard knocks, fly the 109s or the Yak.  You'll learn how to manage your speed, manage your ammo, and gunnery (because convergence won't matter and you have a small ammo load).  The 109 will teach you how to manage your energy and the Yak will teach you how to maneuver in close to your target.  If you can kill with either of those planes, you can kill with just about any plane.  Except the P-38.

The P-38 requires a bit more thought.  It takes some skill in working trim tabs to break out of compression, flaps to help with lift in a turnfight, and WEP to manage airspeed.  The 109 will help you recognize the signs of compression, and the skills you learn with the 109 will be applicable with the P-38 as well.

Ok, that's all I have for now.  Its a start.

[JB73]

what i dont get is some (and just some not all) of the much better vet sticks make the p38 out to sound like a "God mode" plane.

i know there are those out there that do not think is is the best, and it is odd trying to figure these p38 lovers out.

with no offense intended, i hate the p38. it is smurfy, bad views, and just generally distasteful. i am not a super smart man, but i did do well in school, and learned alot. until i came to AH, i had never studied WWII, only what i had ran across in every day life.

i had never heard of the p38 in my life at 29 years old.

i have yet to find in any of the 20 books i have bought a mention of the p38 being so superior to many planes. in fact i have read about it's major inferiorities in some cases.

what is the facination of the p38? (rehtorical question please don't answer i have heard it here on the BBS for 3 years, and i still dont believe 1 stich of it)

[dedalos]

It looks different

[Schatzi]

Jaxxo, im nowhere near your level, but heres what got me the skills i have in as short a time as 4 months:

I had the luck to be part of a very good and fun squad from day one. We not only fly together in MA, but we also kill each other in DA. If its one versus one, even fight, uneven planeset, a game we play or just one huge furball FFA. That way we each learn from the other, see different flying styles and find ways to how to counter them.

I remeber one hight vividly. one squadmate got me again and again with a looping maneuver (throttle and flaps at its finest) in spit five. Took me two hours, but in the end i found a way to survive. learned a lot that night.

Its not a matter of going to the DA or TA with someone and be told: this is what you have to do. its more of a 'silent learning', you get better bit by bit, without noticing. just after a few weeks you look back and say: hey, i improved my skills, whoda have thought.

Most important thing to me is: Have fun doing what you do, everything else isnt worth it.

[john9001]

i fly the P38 because it is hard, if i get a kill with it  i feel i earned it.

44MAG

[RedTop]

I have no talent. Therfore I submit , there is NO gap.

Mr. President, we cannot afford , to allow , a Talent Gap !!!!!!!!!!

[RedDg]

lol at "Capt. save-a-base"

seems like something Mars would say:D

[NoBaddy]

Oct...

Well said. I was burned out long before I came here. I really have no desire to be one of the "best". I could probably be much better than I am....but, frankly, I don't care. I'm good enough to have fun and after all...that really is the point. Heck, fill one hand with skill at AH and the other with dog poop...in the end, the dog poop is the only real thing.

As for a 'skill gap', you betcherass there is a skill gap. If I can run a 2 or 3 to 1 K/D in the MA, there has to be one.

Jaxxo...

If you are serious about improving your skill...take Shane's suggestions and put them to use. I do know a fellow that was probably one of the best that ever played AW did many of those same things to get to the top.

[wetrat]

Talent gaps are a fact of life. They exist everywhere and in everything. I'm a good guitar player.. I can play anything Hendrix did. Can I write anything nearly as good? Not a chance. I thinke everyone plateaus after a while.. how high that plateau is depends completely on natural ability. Once you get to a certain level (you may be there now.. if not, duel good sticks as often as you can), everything you learn comes from experience.

There is no way to teach someone how to fight in a 1vs3... there are too many variables. Most "ACM" (I use that term loosely, since rolling scissors seem to be "advanced" to most when they fall under BCM) can be learned through mimicking. If you bounce some guy expecting an easy kill, and consequently get slaughtered, watch your film. There's probably something to be learned. If you want someone to "teach" you ACM, my advice to you is to buy the book "Fighter Combat" by Robert Shaw. When I got the book, just about everything in it was things I was already doing, but it helped me understand what I was doing a bit better, and helped me figure out how to do it better.