Originally posted by lazs2
gonzo... I find myself agreeing with you but... I don't see a solution... HT needs to make money and, as you say, there is a very steep learning curve... in order to get and keep new blood he has to have some way for the newbies and timid to "make a difference"...
I want HT to make money too. This "family" has been part of my life for almost twenty years, I certainly don't want it to go away.
But I think there are some things which could be tried which could have impact. Most have been discussed before. F'rinstance:
- Porking barracks only cuts the lift capacity in half (or to a quarter - whatever works). Killing barracks now raises the difficulty in capturing a base but doesn't completely stall out a front. There is also no more need to pork things from Here to Eternity, and porking itself isn't such a "help" to the team anymore.
- Porking ord reduces what is avialable instead of removing everything. Rockets and 100 pounders are always available. If you lose one ord bunker you lose 1000 pounders and above. Two bunkers and no more 500 pounders. So porking ord will slow down the ability to attack a base or CV or GV's, but won't neuter it. This also means heavy bombers won't get shut down so quick.
The above two points basically mean you need more planes to take a base if you've been porked. But you can still do it - a battle that you've invested half an hour in isn't instantly thrown out the window because of one idjit pork dweeb. And for the furballers ... more planes means more kills.- No range info until you're within 500 yards. Makes it harder to set up those mile-away HO shots. Makes it easier to sneak in on people. Doesn't make it any harder to find a fight. You're more or less forced to learn SA and some basic ACM. At the same time, this affects experienced people too - a dweeb has a better chance of dropping in behind you when you can't see his range until he's in close.
- Treat kills of planes still in contact with the ground as manouever kills. So, yeah, you may land 17 kills in a C205, but if they were all taxiing you get squat for perks. Vultching is still a blast, but there's less to be gained for the lone runway vultch dweebs who don't have the luxury of waiting for a plane to get off the ground.
These two points basically reduce the ease of HO kills and the rewards of suicide runway vultching. A HO shot will either come in close (where its a real crapshoot) or from way out which wastes a pile of ammo. Vultching planes on the runway now becomes much less rewarding in terms of perks.- Institute some kind of "suicide threshold" for bomber formations. For instance, if you lose 10 formations in a row, your next formation costs you perks. Once you land just one bomber which has hit an enemy target, your threshold is backed off to one death below where it starts costing perks again. Land another, it's two less. But basically all you need to do to get free formations again is just make one stinking successful bomber flight. Land the plane for once!
With the exception of the bomber formations, the rest of this stuff should be pretty easy to put in. I can't say for sure if it'd work, but it's worth a try.
