New arena format Part 2 - Use this thread, don't open duplicates

[Guppy35]

I was thinking about it a bit last night after I logged off having visited all three.

It struck me that for the first time in my AH flying I was up in an F4F Wildcat in the EW.

Now I'm pretty much a dedicated 38G driver, but in EW that seems a bit much.  There was a carrier off a badguy airbase so I joined in in a Wildcat and had fun,

Even more of a surprise was that I found myself in an SBD, another bird I'd never flown in AH.  Again it was the idea that I had some potential survivability in it, and there weren't going to be hordes of LAs and 16s jumping me.

I think that's one of the keys here too.  You have this large planeset, that contains so many planes that never or rarely get used in the old MA environment due to the lack of survivability against the late war stuff.  No one has any incentive to learn them and never finds out how fun they can be  to fly.

The EW and MW arenas give those birds more survivability and encourages the chance for folks to use them too.

And as I mentioned previously.  My trip to the LW arena last night showed exactly the same things as the old MA, hordes, missions up! and latewar big cannon fast movers.

So it's all here.  And as Pyro mentioned, they'll adjust the cap accordingly as things settle in so what's the problem?

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Overlag
what the hell is wrong with team work these days?

I don't recall saying there was anything wrong with it.  My point is, if that's the AH you want, it's still there.  If hording a base is your bit, you can still do it.

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Laurie
you hit the nail on the head buddy, this stinks now, i just fly around bored to death. sadly this is starting to cause a dvision between players and squads. high tech please get sumthing sorted to suit a majority please!,i live in england so the numbers in arenas suck. back to the tried and tested i say.

laurei--hulse2

So what's to stop the crowd at that particular time from all congregating in the LW arena that's just like the old MA?, theold tried and tested as you put it?  If the numbers are low at that time fo you anyway, no arena should keep you locked out.

So it would actually be better for the Euro crowd when the numbers are lower that they would be on a smaller map with less areas to get lost.  There should actually be more fights.

[Bruno]

Even more of a surprise was that I found myself in an SBD,

Well the SBD-5 is a bit of a stretch for 'early war'. I guess you could pretend it's an SBD-3 that had its .30cals in the tail removed and replaced with .50s and only run at mil power max.

However in the AvA arena (back when it was still the CT) they used to stick the SBD in for Allies on the BoB set-ups and with its forward .50s, rear .50s and dive speed in was problematic even for the 109E-4. In early PAC stuff (vesres A6M2s) it's dive speed and its rear firing .50s made even more a threat then the F4Fs.

In the Midway Scenario a while back we saw SBD bouncing whole flights of A6M2s and killing most of them. Since the EWA has a few mixed in mid-war AC it may not be a big deal but the SBD-5 entered service in mid '43. March '41 for the SBD-3

AH needs and an SBC and SBD-3...

[4510]

Originally posted by lazs2


There seems to have been at least half the community that was not thrilled with the old MA and is having fun with the new arenas...  you should be glad that now you can play with like minded virtual pilots... I know I am.

One thing for sure..... instead of 90% of my deaths coming from taking off or landing vultches in the old MA....   90% of my deaths now come from real fights in the EW....  Lots of people are enjoying that aspect... the slum factor in that regard is only in the late war arena now.

lazs
Public Relations Officer for the BK's

If we stay status quo with the limits on the Arenas lifted to 600 or so I have no beef at all.  

I am all for options and CHOICE...

I do not support the "my way is a better way of flying" school of thought.  Regardless if I dislike how someone flys.  

Also, I don't find the EW any different than say the LW... save the vultching aspect.  Seems to me the last time I saw you in the EW... I was in a low fight... out numbered... and you in an F4F and another Spit jumped me.
I fail to see the difference between that and the LW... except perhaps the type of airplane.  I can't say I saw a lot of 1v1... I saw two hordes crashing into each other with people piling on from an alt advantage.  That to me is hardly ACM and pilot skill.

[4510]

Originally posted by Guppy35
So what's to stop the crowd at that particular time from all congregating in the LW arena that's just like the old MA?, theold tried and tested as you put it?  If the numbers are low at that time fo you anyway, no arena should keep you locked out.

So it would actually be better for the Euro crowd when the numbers are lower that they would be on a smaller map with less areas to get lost.  There should actually be more fights.

Can you say an arena cap of 250?

Other than that.. nothing...and I just left the LW...which 2x the number of flyers in it than any other arena....

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by 4510
Can you say an arena cap of 250?

Other than that.. nothing...and I just left the LW...which 2x the number of flyers in it than any other arena....

Just stopped in to the arenas to see if any squadies were flying.  None of the arenas were full and EW was not far behind LW in numbers with MW coming in third.  But LW was not twice of EW by any means.

My response though was to a Euro flyer who wouldn't be seeing a locked out arena at his flying times anyway.

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by 4510

I am all for options and CHOICE...

You mean 3 arenas is not enough of a choice for you?


ack-ack

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by 4510
Can you say an arena cap of 250?

Other than that.. nothing...and I just left the LW...which 2x the number of flyers in it than any other arena....

Soup,

Why did you fly FR back in the AW days, in particular in the AOL days.  I remember seeing you in there all the time when there were 20-30 tops on a good day while the RR arena was full.

I rememeber my first squad splitting over the choice of RR v FR.  Some of us didn't want to leave the friendly and known confines of RR Euro for the FR arena.  That reminds me of this now.  Folks were comfortable in what they knew of the old MA cause that's all they knew, just like all we knew was the RR arenas.

I think if you went back through the NGs and posting back then, you'd see that the same de-evolution of the game was going on in the RR arenas as AW grew on AOL when it went free.  And the same discussion was going on about it too.  Land grab, hording, non-stop vulching etc had replaced what had been more of an air combat game.

I'm betting, that you left that part of the game for FR because you wanted something besides the status quo or worse as it had become.  A lot of us wanted something more then too and moved to FR, somewhat grudgingly, but finally figuring out that it was better despite our earlier misgivings about leaving what we were used to.

I believe that folks will find the same now as well despite the initial resistance.

[ozrocker]

Yo HT, or Pyro, How about adding a "GV only" arena?
                                                Oz

[Chalenge]

If you created a Spit only arena maybe the guys holding our ENY so high would disappear and my squad could have fun again. We are at this moment limited to a handful of planes. ENY wont cause people to change countries to even things out because they dont understand what ENY even is. Later today well be stuck with goons and m3s again and oh what fun that will be!

[Citabria]

Early War Arena is my favorite

[lazs2]

4500 you don't really make any sense to me...  you say that all you want is 1 v1?  And... that you liked the old MA?   that is silly.  there were no 1 v 1

You say that the EW isn't 1 v 1 (of course not) so you don't like it because it is a bunch of planes all fighting each other?  

you got jumped by my f4f and a spit and couldn't fight or get away (what were you in a jeep?)???  that is so much worse than the Old MA?  the old MA you were lucky if you didn't have 6 planes diving on you while you took off or landed.

most of the time I have seen there was room in the LW for more people.. why not just go there.

You have told us what you don't like..   lots of planes fighting each other...

How bout you tell us what you liked about the old MA?  and... why you can't still do it?

lazs
Public Relations Officer for the BK's

[Raider179]

Originally posted by lazs2


One thing for sure..... instead of 90% of my deaths coming from taking off or landing vultches in the old MA....   90% of my deaths now come from real fights in the EW....  Lots of people are enjoying that aspect... the slum factor in that regard is only in the late war arena now.

lazs
Public Relations Officer for the BK's

I am not buying into the EW is more popular than LW.  LW seems to be always full at peak hours and EW seems to always have room.  Wonder if your biased? Oh nevermind, just saw that 90% vulch rate comment. Jeez, either your a really horrible pilot or an even worse exaggerator/liar...

[Mugzeee]

Originally posted by Edbert
I see it like this...
The base capture methods have evolved steadilly over the last ten years. There have been numerous points where it became too easy and it was made a little harder via game design and mechanics. There was a time when 2 -3 guys could take a field in about 60 seconds! The last major things done in AH to make it harder was the limiting of porkage and the creation of cities with a maproom. This sorta had things at a good middle ground. Five players could still capture a field in under five minutes. Seen it done dozens of times, even participated in a few. But if defenders upped against the five attackers (and had any skills and/or determination) they could prevent the capture. So folks started attacking with 10 guys, then 20 then 30. Even a 30-man attack can be easilly thwarted but it takes a larger number of skilled and/or determined pile-its to stop them. Large numbers of skilled and determined pile-its has been becomming rare in any single location over the last year or two. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it doesn't happen as much as it used to.

So when one large group of guys who are willing to fight to take a base meets another large group who are willing to fight to defend it you have a...gasp...FIGHT on your hands. Sometimes they turned into large and long lived furballs in between the two bases that could last for hours, with some ebb and tide as the fight moved back and forth. Now, I'm sure many of the folks b1tching about this change would say that is not fun, and it is an ineffective way to take a base. I'm sure many of them would do one of two things:
1.) Take up a group of 12-21 fluffs from another base, come in at 15K or higher and go pulverise the FHs, thus killing the furball and all the fun so many of those guys were having.
2.) Look on the strategery map and find another base that had little or no bardar and go attack it instead, thus avoiding the fight.

What was wrong with the game is too complicated to boil down concisely into a sound bite for you but it had mainly to do with maps and squads that were too large for the existing strat mechanics to deal with. The game mechanics therefore were literally encouraging folks to avoid a fight. I see that as a big problem in any combat sim of any genre. I mean if you only want to blow stuff up, you can play offline, or pick up a boxed sim and do co-op missions with vox to your heart's content. So, in a nutshell...the MMOL combat sim was intended to allow you to FIGHT other human opponents. The evloution of AH-MA, and the influx of new players, and the huge populations in the MA were all consipiring to make these fights less and less common.

Also I should add...HTC has made it clear that they too recognized the game was in need of a fix, so this is not the opinion only of oldtimers and the BKs.

Well..im so glad you and HTC are in the same corner. But it is "OPINION" oriented. And from the post on both threads and the text in ALL of the new arenas, i see that your opinion is in the minority. You may or may not agree with this fact...but any reasonable person can see that the majority was enjoying the game the way it was.
So it is their opinion that it wasn’t broke. Lucky for you, you agree with the entity that controls change in this matter. Having said all that. I will say that I personally have never claimed that "Period" arenas was a problem...my complaint is player CAP preventing squads that conduct Ops 2 or 3 nights a week would be separated. Whether HTC thinks this is "Healthy" for me or not is of none effect. I will decide what is "Healthy" for my relationships...on and offline. So you see my dear eddy...AH has done so much more "Community wise" by pulling players together on a more personal basis than any other game out there. This was achieved by adding a recognized Squad Roster database...Adding a mission planner... Squad radio, VOX ect. So for many it IS..."Just a game" But for many more I think, it’s so much more than that. No worries though...this is going exactly where "I" said it would when my squad mate called me in a panic the first day this stupidity started. LW will be the dominant arena (Last night it was to capacity and opened the backup LW)... the plane set WILL be full for all intents and purposes (When LW1 and LW2 were combined LW1 & LW2 plane sets were combined)...and the players CAPS will be adjusted so Squads will be able to conduct ops "Together" the way it was intended. One a final thought. I fully understand the desire that folks like you have for a dreamland of "Fair fights". HT's decision of who he will cater to will decide who leaves and who stay's, I am certain that he knows this. So it’s simply a matter of which direction HT wants to see this game go. Massive crazyness…or orderly Dog fighting. One is fun for some...the other is fun for others. War is about numbers…has always been, and will always be... History tells us that. So until AH becomes a game of uncapturable bases, numbers will always Pick, BnZ, HitnRun and pound you to the dirt.
PS. follow the Threads on this issue, examine the trend of changes...and you will see which group of subscribers must be buttering the bread. This is my opinion. Fortunantly..its being backed up by the action's of HTC..not hot air. All in all im sure they will find the middle ground in there somewhere. If they dont...we all have options. Now to the part of all this that is most comical to me. HTC had to know the rift that this would cause. Yet they had the balls to do anyway. Im not sure if i should be Pissed...or amazed.
 Now that funny right there...I dont care who ya R