Arena format change

[Tumor]

....just sayin.

[stickpig]

So far it dosent seem to bad.  Guys actually have to fight for the most part. Not much running away either as the planes in each areana are on a some what level playing field.

 Dont like having to pay perks for a spit 8 in mid war though

Didnt see much hordeing either.

Wish the 2 late war areanas where just one though.

Found fights were more evenly balenced and Cherry picking, Hordeing were cut down.

Didnt like having to search for squadmates.

Have to give it a few more days to make an opinion, but so far its not that bad

[2Slow]

Originally posted by USRanger
Here's a little experiment.  Keep these crappy mini-arenas, but put the MA back in.  Let's see how many players will still use them.  I think they'll be as devoid of life as the AvA.  MA! MA! MA!

This may be interesting. However, I can't help but notice the large attendance in the AVA arena (NOT).

I bet this does not go over very well.

I would rather suffer through a single MA restricted to Early/Mid/Late on a rotating basis or better yet, random basis.

Here is what I see happening.  My squad night, 2 of us get into arena 1, it is full now, so the others get arena 3, and a few can only get into arena 2.

Squad falls apart ****Pooof**** subscriptions get canceled.

[hubsonfire]

You guys already know the answer to "what would happen if you put it back like it was", which is why you're asking that. The answer is that all of the guys like you who are threatening to quit and screaming about how it's going to destroy gameplay would rejoin and reform your hordes, and you'd run your missions, and milkrun, and vulch, but mostly just waste bandwidth running IRC with airplanes. It's funny; you guys all know exactly how HT should run his company once he makes a change (which, I might add, seems pretty successful, especially considering he's run it without your advice for the last 7 or 8 years now?), yet you guys weren't exactly falling over yourselves trying to solve the issues of gameplay and balance before the change.

Your glorious golden age of 100 person squads and lopsided 10 to 1 fights represents the death of this game, not HT's decision to try to appeal to his other few thousand customers.

And Falcnwing, you'll notice the first snide remark comes from one of your horde mongers, directed at us, so you and 999 can get stuffed playing checkers with 200 of your closest friends for all I care- as long as you guys all quit, this change represents a tremendous leap for HTC.

Hell, to help offset the tremendous financial loss that the departure of your squad represents, I will open an account, as I'm sure will a few more folks who have already quit because gameplay sucked, but didn't bother threatening repeatedly in an attempt to revive a dreadfully dull style of gameplay.

Good day, sirs. Hope you enjoy checkers.

[JB88]

^

i thought he left.

[thndregg]

Went to the early arena, and I did have a lot of fun. I also logged on a while later and flew mid-war in some of my favorite rides. I about fell asleep with the lack of people there, but I did enjoy some of my favorite rides.
     I'm waiting for it all to settle out, especially after some of the nostalgia of the once little-used early birds wears off. Then I may have a basis for an opinion.
     I am extremely concerned about how this is affecting the larger squads. While we may want to conduct squad-nights as we usually do, any arena is going to be packed to the cap so that no other squaddies can get in. I feel sorry for those that have or will experience this on thier squad nights.  If this system is to continue, I hope that (along with the other kinks in the works) the number cap can be adjusted to accomidate somehow. If I find that I consistantly cannot log in to fly with my friends, some of which I've known for two years so far, then the motivation to play this game is greatly diminished.

I admit I have only skimmed the majority of these replies, so apologies to all if I repeated a lot of concerns.

[Spatula]

What happens to those that fly the 'off hours' where there aint that many in th main arean to start with, and its hard enough to find good scraps without resorting to Furball Town?

Seriously numbers when i fly would easily be 5-6 time less than at peak times, now with 3 arenas that may well dilute what little competition there is by 3.

I understand the rationale behind it, but i fear it will dilute the numbers to a nearly unplayable state during the off-hours when i, and my type, fly.

What about only switching on the other two arenas after the numbers meet a threshold or, during certain (eg US prime-time) hours.

We dont all play during US prime-time hours.

[Lusche]

Ok, this is gonna be a longer one, and of course a a bit  redundant...

I canīt tell whats wrong or right for the game, or HTC. Iīm not all customers,I am not one tof that vocal guys telling all others how to play & have fun. I am just me and can only say what I like, and what I donīt. Im not a furballer, nor a strat girl. Like many (most?) players, Iīm a mix of both. I used to fool around in early-midwar planes in FT, then switching to "win-teh-war mode". I picked when I could, I was huntin bombers to protect bases, and I was getting kicked my bellybutton in my Tempest during dogfights with Hurri2Cīs, and half of my time you could find me in tanks.

The biggest appeal to me, and the main reason to sign on, was the freedom, versatility and the huge numbers in the old MA. I could decide flying a C205, then a Tempest, then a A6m2 or Il2. All according to mood and situation.
Because of this, I have to say: I have trouble with the new setup.

I donīt have real problems with gameplay within the arenas themself. Sure, there are minor problems, for example what planes belong to wich arena, and what planes to perk how much, but these are the usual problems you really have to track over a few days / weeks to find out the best setting. I would never complain about such things on the first day. I am a bit irritated by the fact that the communication problem is not solved before launching the new setup. But as I am not in a squad, I probably donīt suffer as much as other people, but I can understand their whines. Of course, Iīm sure that problem will be adressed, hopefully very soon.

But I have a real big problem with splitting up the old MA the way it is done now:
Like many non-US players, I used to fly a lot of my sorties at times when only few players where on, between 90-140 people. Now we have 4 different arenas, maybe 3 if you donīt count the "double" Late Arena. Now the few people will either spread out between those 3 Arenas, or, more likely, most of them will settle down in one arena, with some occasional milk runs in other arenas. Either way donīt suits me much.
While I really do like fighting in early planes (Most fun I ever had was probably during the recent server moves, when Backup MA was early planes only), I donīt like being "forced"  to do it. If I want to repel a big GV raid, I canīt up my trusty IL2. I have to switch to another arena to fly it. Chances are, that this wonīt help much. And if people would aggravate in Late Arena, I would still miss the opportunity to drive La7 pilots crazy with a A6m2. To find a decend ground battle, I might to hop arenas too. Tonight I did not find any...
Once there was the word: "Fly what you like, and when you like. Donīt worry about what the other guy is flying". This may hold true during late US times, when there are enough people online in all arenas, but I canīt stay online all night to 5 AM The freedom and versatility I loved to have in a single arena seems to be gone for me.
Maybe Iīm just out of luck not being neither US player (suffering from low numbers) nor  a furballing purist...

While I would like to see all planes being enabled in one of the Late Arenas, I am aware that this would be most probably crippling to the whole concept. The  Early & Mid Arena might then die slowly after a few weeks, just like the old CT / now AvA Arena.


And I would just like to comment on two sentences I heard more than once tonight:

"Now people will learn to get some skill"
I really donīt believe in it. You canīt force people to "learn" or to get skills. People who only Hoed or vulched in La7 will do the same with HurriC or 110Cs in early war arena. And the "hording"  wonīt stop, but right now you canīt counter real big hordes with a real superior plane in Early 6 Mid Arenas. The playground is more even, wich may give the vets maybe an even bigger advantage, for a noob now canīt fly a superior plane vs a vet in a "lowly" early ride whoīs looking for a real challenge.

"HTC will lose half of itīs players "
And I donīt believe that too. Some will leave, perhaps a bit more than usual after major changes. But Iīm sure more than one furball-oriented player, who left out of boredom/frustration will come back. And after all, there is currently no real alternative on the market. Some might be sorry about that...


Sorry for boring you to death...

[Gryffin]

WTG HTC! I had an absolute blast in the early war arena tonight. Lots of great furballs! I have a few possible suggestions though:

1. Perk the Hurri IIC in the early war arena. It is the new CHog!

2. The map in the early war arena shouldn't be the one with the bases so far apart. I always thought the bases on lake uterus were too far apart in the old main, but with the slow early war planes it is a lot worse.

3. Give us a way to squelch the country channel. Or limit the minimum age for all players!

But I give this experiment a big thumbs up!

[Grits]

Originally posted by REP0MAN
I never got to vote. That would be a Dictatorship, right?

This is not a democracy, HT has the one and only vote.

[rshubert]

I don't hate it.  Except for one thing.  I am a member of a VERY large squad, of people I like to interact with (wink,wink).  The effect of this will be to break us up into smaller groups.  That, I hate.  I enjoy being a BoP, and enjoy taking over the arena on Monday nights when we all get together.

IMHO, breaking us (and the other large squads) up is exactly what HTC is trying to do.  They have had BIG problems with lag, etc. in the last few months--we have all seen it.  A server can only get so big, and so powerful.  Splitting it up is probably a response more to technical issues than to gameplay issues.  Yes, they could put up a server with a 500 player limit, but then there would be 500 players there, and 50 players in the others.  They want to "balance" the numbers, so that nobody can complain that "their" arena is not getting enough attention from the player base.

Let's all sit back, take a deep breath, and see what the effects of this change are.  Right now, I am enjoying the early war arena--simply because it is something different.

all,

[Amigo]

The coolest thing about AH up to now, and the reason I got so deeply into it, was the simple joy of entering a supermax arena of ~600 pilots all duking it out for territory.  With that many flying around, I really had the sense of tension even when flying in "safe" territory, I was never actually safe.

Better yet, strong alliances of like-minded squads formed up to run nightly missions.  These were the absolute highlight of gameplay in AH for me... 15-30 pilots going on base rampages, or HUGE bomber formations with fighter escorts that brought the movies right to my computer screen.

I'll make a prediction.  The whole community will be fragmented, split up into 4 shards for a while.  Until eventually, people begin to miss the old days of fighting that put the "massive" in MMO, and they will ....  have your thinking caps on? ....  yes, agree to migrate to one of the servers.  My magic 8 ball says the end result will be 600 players on one of the 4 new servers, with oh, 10-35 on the other 4 each.

The loss will be choice of aircraft of course.  If the community migrates to late war, for example, there goes the option of trying a little doggin in a P40b.  Or Zero.  Whatever else.  In the end, the result will be a much less robust experience.

But I hear the cries from the P40 lovers too!  I'm one of them, I've been fascinated with the plane since childhood.  Maybe it was the tiger-tooth paint jobs that started that.  But let's be honest, fighting LA-7's and Spit14's in a P40 is about as fun as going to the dentist.   So I FULLY understand the desire to segrate the planes by time period, and I love the thought.

Here's an idea.  Think about this:

One grand server again.  The maps rotate as always.  Simultaneous with the map rotations, come aircraft period rotations.  One set, it's early war planes only.  One side wins, the map changes and the planes change to middle-war planes only.  Another win, another map change and now it's on to Late War planes.  On and on.  1 server, 1 journey through time in WWII.

This way, everybody is on the same server (this is SO important for alliance/squads/general mayhem), yet all the aircraft are balanced for the time period and nobody is at a serious advantage for flying their favorite ride even if that plane is completely unviable in the old setup.

Cake and eat it too.

69Amigo

[50cals]

This is a sad sad day to see this kind of change without any notice or consideration to US the "customer".

Here's a little experiment. Keep these crappy mini-arenas, but put the MA back in. Let's see how many players will still use them. I think they'll be as devoid of life as the AvA. MA! MA! MA!

WOW why didnt you think of that HT?????????????????????  

How about you leave the MA alone as it was, because thats what "US" loyal customers have been paying you for, for ALL these years.  

Keep these new arena's up and LET the customer  decide which one they want to use. !!!

50cals    

[Widewing]

I played for about 2 hours tonight. I visited the Late war 2 arena and bounced around from base to base simply watching who was flying what. I was able to get into the early war arena and flew a 110C for a while. Rather than fly with the mobs, I remained at the forward bases and defended.

A view observations...

The guys who enjoy furabbling seemed to gravitate to the early war and mid war arenas. I think that the bomber guys were generally spread out fairly evenly, with bomber formations active in all arenas.

The limited maximum arena numbers certainly prevented many players from flying where the preferred to fly, except in the mid war arena which was well below maximum. This will need adjusting. I can see no reason not to increase the arena max to at least 500 and let people play where they are most comfortable.

Hurricane IIC and Spitfire Mk.V seemed to be the most common fighters in the early war arena. The Jabo of choice was the P-38G, with the Bf 110C and Hurricane IIC also being used for attack missions. Few 190A-5s were seen. I didn't see more than one or two Spit Mk.IXs.

So far, I like the new set-up, but the low number cap on arena capacity needs adjusting. I like the idea that I can fly an older fighter and know that my enemy isn't much better equipped than I am. I like the idea that I can choose where I want to fly and change my mind and go fight in a different environment.

I'm certain that people will adjust to the new format, but the arena limits probably should be increased so that everyone gets to fly where they wish.

My regards,

Widewing

[FALCONWING]

WOW!! Hubs made another snide remark!!!:rolleyes:


What were the odds!!!:lol

Hubs im sorry you and your washed out buds have to make this game into an arcade.  It has truly been a joy to have you guys not in the arena whining like the girls you are...if this change has brought you back then im doubly against it...honestly would never know where you idiots are except you cant stay off ch 200 or the BBS...

when hitech pawned lazs and mars with his "stages of gameplay" post i thought i would piss my pants...

if you think upping planes and turnfiting is realistic at all then you are nuts...fitertown is nothiing but a melee of death..and it helps pad some guys scores.

now lets suppose i could actually persuade 97 BoPs to unsubscribe...that would be ~100 x $15 x 12 months = $18,000/year..how many subscriptions were you going to add?  

but dont sweat it sweetheart..instead look forward to 50 BoPs logging in at 5pm (tying up slots because we want to make sure we get on) and waiting for squad night and then rolling any arena we want...see that doesnt sound too fun for us either but i guess your too moronic to understand the ramifications of this new improved gameplay...big squads should adore this...they can dominate anywhere they want...thing is we actually like each other and the comradery is what is important...that is hwat we feelis threatened here...the new arenas actually work to our advantage you big silly:lol