Originally posted by BaldEagl
Hate might be a little strong but I'll try to explain from my viewpoint.
It's more about variety. For instance, go look at the orange map right now. I can't because I'm at work but I'll bet that
1. There is nowhere viable to become a lone defender at a port or CV base.
2. The CV's are currently useless in attaining the current capturable targets eliminating the use of 8" guns.
3. The CV's are not being attacked eliminateing the rest of the CV's usefulness.
4. There is no way to disrupt enemy supply lines by taking a zone base, only by striking factories. Once lost, there is no way to get your zone base back until it comes up on the line.
5. There are no enemy bombers, nor are any bases taken close enough to your 163 base to make 163's a viable option.
6. The vast majority of players are concentrated in 6 sectors eliminating the chance for 1 on 1's and killing frame rates for people with older machines (like me). In fact theres probably not a viable location to find a 1 on 2 or 1 on 3.
7. There are one or two milk-runners somewhere on the map unopposed as there is no need to oppose them, they can't "take" anything. This should make milk-running MORE prevelent in the future.
8. There may not be a viable option to use GV's at the moment (although there may be).
9. At least one front is facing insurmountable odds with no options to re-direct the attack.
These are just a few examples. I'm sure if I had time I could come up with more. This is clearly more restrictive than in the past. I agree that you don't lose everything and that some of what you lose you might get back as the line moves across the map but if you've lost your favorite part of play, then all you can do is hope that it's available when you are.
1:Single defenders only dissuade the milkrunners. In a well planned and executed attack, even a handful of defenders are gun fodder. Same as before.
2:Stang's Uber Spit/38/CV mission used a CV to land the troop carrying LVTs, with the fleet providing both shelling of the town and base, and the ack protecting heavy fighters getting in to the field, and also keeping the defenders occupied, who were trying to simultaneously sink the boats, kill the lvts, and defend their airfield. That mission would have been a miserable failure without the fleet. I've seen numerous other attacks use the CV for those same things, with similar results (we were defending, so of course we sank the boats and won the fight, but not without a prolonged brutal fight.)
3:Not true in any of my experiences. CVs are still valid targets, for the reasons listed above
4: I don't think the zone setup is in use on any other maps, and therefore haven't provided those same opportunities anyway.
5: I'm seeing 163s in the North, and seeing people land kills in them, so I have to disagree here as well. There was never a plethora of 163s until the 'war' was effectively lost in the past, so again, this isn't really a change.
6:Before the changes, the vast majority of players were at 1 or 2 bases anyway, with the rest either milkrunning, or hunting other milkrunners. Numbers at those bases may be higher, but the number of defenders is also higher at times, so that is mostly unchanged as well.
7:Milkrunning should never have been the primary tactic employed, but it was, as has been stated, the path of least resistance. I cannot consider the loss of the ability to perpetually avoid any and all opposition to be anything but an improvement. I cannot help but think that HT realized that milkrunning would become ineffective with these changes. I don't think he made a mistake or simply overlooked it.
8: GVs are as useful, as they have ever been, if not more. The combined forces attacks I have seen stand a better chance of being successful than they did before. Again, Stang's mission used this approach with good results, and I've seen several bases fall when attacked in this manner. Gets the tank guys and the plane guys working together. This is bad?
9: This is unchanged since AH1. The path of least resistance has always been popular with a certain player type. This has nothing to do with the recent change.
I could probably come up with some more counterpoints. The only thing that's changed is attacking the enemy where he isn't, and can't effectively defend, is the only thing missing. That's it. With the current setup, you need teamwork, you need effective strategies, and you have to be prepared to slug it out. If facing a numerically superior defense, you had better be prepared to get creative. That means more and better strategies, right? I'm still seeing a lot of folks trying to fight the war the way they always have, and it doesn't seem to be working (with the obvious exception of when one country has as many players as the other 2 combined, and even that doesn't seem to work as well as it used to).
Those are my observations at this point. I don't believe it's perfect yet (the lack of action by HTC regarding the extreme numerical imbalance frustrates me, but I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, so I'm trying to be patient). I think they're heading in the right direction, even if they haven't struck the perfect compromise yet.
I guess I should also state that the lonewolf approach is, or seems to be, dead as well. IMO, that's a good thing, because it means all this teamwork and strategy stuff is now true. You can't wipe out an attack single handed (the milkrunners can't just drop everything, run away, and find another undefended target), you can't pork a base in one run, you can't really do much of anything (obvious exception being bomber formations, who can still blow **** up and desolate a field, but need to be at alt to avoid getting turned into meat puree' by the typically much higher number of defenders). So, yeah, no milkrunning captures, and no lone wolfing. Teamwork, coordination, strategy... all the things lauded by the milkrunners, are now requisites, and not just misnomers for avoiding the bad guys.
